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diff --git a/49948.txt b/49948.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..60cfc18 --- /dev/null +++ b/49948.txt @@ -0,0 +1,51744 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Catholic World, Vol. 16, October +1872-March 1873 by Various + + + +This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +http://www.gutenberg.org/license. If you are not located in the United +States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located +before using this ebook. + + + +Title: The Catholic World, Vol. 16, October 1872-March 1873 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: September 12, 2015 [Ebook #49948] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CATHOLIC WORLD, VOL. 16, OCTOBER 1872-MARCH 1873*** + + + + + + The Catholic World + + A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science + + Vol. XVI. + + October 1872 to March 1873 + + The Catholic Publication House. + + New York + + 1873 + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +Contents. +The Catholic World. Vol. XVI., No. 91.--October, 1872. + Bismarck And The Jesuits. + Choice In No Choice. + Fleurange. + Review of Vaughan's Life Of S. Thomas. + The Progressionists. + Gavazzi Versus The See Of S. Peter. + Number Thirteen. An Episode Of The Commune. + On A Picture Of S. Mary Bearing Doves To Sacrifice. + Centres Of Thought In The Past. First Article. The Monasteries. + Versailles. + Father Isaac Jogues, S.J. + Dona Ramona. + The Distaff. + A Martyr's Journey. + Odd Stories: III. Peter The Powerful. + New Publications. +The Catholic World. Vol. XVI., No. 92.--November, 1872. + Centres Of Thought In The Past. Second Article. The Universities. + Fleurange. + The Poor Ploughman. + A Dark Chapter In English History. + The Progressionists. + The Virgin. + The Homeless Poor Of New York City. + The House That Jack Built. + Where Are You Going? + Number Thirteen. An Episode Of The Commune. Concluded. + Use And Abuse Of The Novel. + Review Of Vaughan's Life Of S. Thomas: Concluded. + To S. Mary Magdalen. + God's Acre. + Personal Recollections Of The Late President Juarez Of Mexico. + New Publications. +The Catholic World. Vol. XVI., No. 93.--December, 1872. + The Spirit Of Protestantism. + Fleurange. + Sayings Of John Climacus. + Dante's Purgatorio. Canto Fifth. + Sanskrit And The Vedas. + The House That Jack Built. + S. Peter's Roman Pontificate. + Sayings. + The Progressionists. + Christian Art Of The Catacombs. + Beating The Air. + A Retrospect. + The Russian Clergy. + The Cross Through Love, And Love Through The Cross. + Odd Stories. IV. The White Shah. + Signs Of The Times. + New Publications. +The Catholic World. Vol. XVI., No. 94.--January, 1873. + A Son Of The Crusaders. + At The Shrine. + A Christmas Recognition. + Fleurange. + Sayings. + Prince Von Bismarck And The Interview Of The Three Emperors. + A Christmas Memory. + The House That Jack Built. + A Retrospect. + The Cross Through Love, And Love Through The Cross. + Europe's Angels. + The Nativity Of Christe. + The Progressionists. + {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~} + A Legend Of Saint Ottilia. + The Year Of Our Lord 1872. + New Publications. +The Catholic World. Vol. XVI., No. 95.--February, 1873. + Who Made Our Laws? + Dante's Purgatorio. Canto Sixth. + The Church The Champion Of Marriage. + Fleurange. + Cologne. + John. + The International Congress Of Prehistoric Anthropology And Archaeology. + The See Of Peter. + Atlantic Drift--Gathered In The Steerage. + A Daughter Of S. Dominic. + The Progressionists. + F. James Marquette, S.J. + Prayer Of Custance, The Persecuted Queen Of Alla Of Northumberland. + Acoma. + New Publications. +The Catholic World. Vol. XVI., No. 96.--March, 1873. + The Relation Of The Rights Of Conscience To The Authority Of The State + Under The Laws Of Our Republic. + The Widow Of Nain. + Fleurange. + American Catholics And Partisan Newspapers. + Brussels. + Sayings Of S. John Climacus. + Marriage In The Nineteenth Century. + A Pearl Ashore. + The Benefits Of Italian Unity. + Sonnet. + Recollections Of Pere Hermann. + A Daughter Of S. Dominic. + The International Congress Of Prehistoric Anthropology And Archaeology. + Atlantic Drift--Gathered In The Steerage. + Martyrs And Confessors In Christ. + The Roman Empire And The Mission Of The Barbarians. + New Publications. +Footnotes + + + + + + + [Cover Page] + + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +Acoma, 703 + +Atlantic Drift--Gathered in the Steerage, 648, 837 + +American Catholics and Partisan Newspapers, 756 + +Beating the Air, 783 + +Benefits of Italian Unity, The, 792 + +Bismarck and the Jesuits, 1 + +Bismarck and the Three Emperors, 474 + +Bolanden's The Progressionists, 40, 192, 358, 541, 674 + +Brussels, 766 + +Centres of Thought in the Past: The Monasteries, 79; + The Same: The Universities, 145 + +Christian Art of the Catacombs, 372 + +Christmas Memory, A, 502 + +Christmas Recognition, A, 448 + +Church the Champion of Marriage, The, 585 + +Climacus, S. John, Sayings of, 318, 775 + +Cologne, 615 + +Craven's Fleurange, 18, 158, 303, 459, 600, 737 + +Cross through Love, and Love through the Cross, 412, 523 + +Crusaders, A Son of the, 433 + +Cyprian, S., Martyrs and Confessors in Christ, 844 + +Dark Chapter in English History, A, 176 + +Daughter of S. Dominic, A, 658, 813 + +Deschamp's Bismarck and the Emperors, 474 + +Distaff, The, 133 + +Dona Ramona, 122 + +English History, A Dark Chapter in, 176 + +Episode of the Commune, An, 61, 227 + +Europe's Angels, 533 + +Father Isaac Jogues, S.J., 105 + +Father James Marquette, S.J., 688 + +Fleurange, 18, 158, 303, 459, 600, 737 + +Gavazzi _versus_ the See of S. Peter, 55 + +God's Acre, 264 + +Hermann, Pere, 808 + +Homeless Poor of New York City, The, 206 + +House that Jack Built, The, 212, 336, 507 + +International Congress of Prehistoric Anthropology and Archaeology, 639, + 829 + +Italian Unity, The Benefits of, 792 + +Jogues, Father Isaac, S.J., 105 + +John, 622 + +Juarez, Personal Recollections of, 280 + +Legends of Saint Ottilia, 557 + +Marquette, Father James, S.J., 688 + +Marriage in the XIXth Century, 776 + +Marriage, the Church the Champion of, 585 + +Martyr's Journey, A, 137 + +Martyrs and Confessors in Christ, 844 + +Monasteries, The, 79 + +Mission of the Barbarians, The, 845 + +Nativity of Christe, The, 540 + +New York City, The Homeless Poor of, 206 + +Novel, Use and Abuse of the, 240 + +Number Thirteen, 61, 227 + +Odd Stories, 138, 420 + +Ottilia, Saint, A Legend of, 557 + +Partisan Newspapers, American Catholics and, 756 + +Pearl Ashore, 788 + +Pere Hermann, 808 + +Personal Recollections of Pres. Juarez, 280 + +Peter the Powerful, 138 + +Prince von Bismarck and the Three Emperors, 474 + +Progressionists, The, 40, 192, 358, 541, 674 + +Protestantism, The Spirit of, 289 + +Relation of the Rights of Conscience to the Authority of the State under + the Laws of our Republic, 721 + +Retrospect, A, 395, 516 + +Review of Vaughan's Life of S. Thomas, 31, 254 + +Roman Empire and the Mission of the Barbarians, 845 + +Russian Clergy, The, 403 + +S. Peter's Roman Pontificate, 345 + +Sanskrit and the Vedas, 322 + +Sayings, 357, 473 + +Sayings of S. John Climacus, 318, 775 + +See of S. Peter, Gavazzi _versus_ the, 55 + +Signs of the Times, 422 + +Son of the Crusaders, A, 433 + +Spirit of Protestantism, The, 289 + +Universities, The, 145 + +Use and Abuse of the Novel, The, 240 + +Vaughan's Life of S. Thomas, Review of, 31, 254 + +Versailles, 92 + +Where are You Going? 221 + +White Shah, The, 420 + +Who Made our Laws? 578 + +Year of Our Lord 1872, The, 558 + + + + +Poetry. + + +Anselm's The Poor Ploughman, 175 + +At the Shrine, 447 + +Chaucer's Prayer of Custance, 702 + +Choice in no Choice, 17 + +Dante's Purgatorio, 319, 581 + +On a Picture of S. Mary bearing Doves to Sacrifice, 77 + +Poor Ploughman, The, 175 + +Purgatorio, Dante's, 319, 581 + +Prayer of Custance, 702 + +S. Mary Bearing Doves to Sacrifice, 77 + +See of Peter, The, 647 + +Sonnet from Zappi, 807 + +To S. Mary Magdalen, 265 + +{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON WITH DASIA AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, 556 + +Virgin, The, 205 + +Widow of Nain, The, 735 + +Zappi, Sonnet from, 807 + + + + +New Publications. + + +Adams' Young America Abroad, 859 + +Agnew's Geraldine, 573 + +All Hallow Eve, etc., 428 + +Ambition's Contest, 144 + +Arundell's Tradition, 430 + +Athenaeum, The, 859 + +Beloved Disciple, The, 143 + +Bibliographia Catholica Americana, 713 + +Bolanden's New God, 573 + +Book of the Holy Rosary, The, 140 + +Brownson's Life of Gallitzin, 712 + +Burke's Ireland's Case Stated, 857 + +Caswall's Hymns and Poems, 858 + +Catholic Class Book, 288 + +Catholic Family Almanac, 429 + +Catholic Worship, 571 + +College Journal, 576 + +Commentary of the Fathers on S. Peter, 286 + +Conversion of the Teutonic Race, 567 + The Same, Sequel, 567 + +Coppee's Elements of Logic, 285 + +Craven's Fleurange, 570 + +Cusack's Life of F. Mathew, 572 + +Daily Steps to Heaven, 572 + +De Mille's Treasury of the Seas, 859 + +De Vere's Legends of S. Patrick, 570 + +Ellis' Two Ysondes, 719 + +England and Rome, 286 + +English in Ireland, The, 716 + +Finotti's Bibliographia Catholica Americana, 713 + +Fleurange, 570 + +Formby's The Book of the Holy Rosary, 140 + +Froude's English in Ireland, 716 + +Gardening by Myself, 144 + +God and Man, 430 + +Gratry's Henry Perreyve, 141 + +Great Problem, The, 575 + +Guillemin's Wonders of the Moon, 574 + +Hart's Manual of American Literature, 431, 860 + +Heart of Myrrha Lake, The, 569 + +Henry Perreyve, 141 + +History of the Sacred Passion, 427 + +History of the Blessed Virgin Mary, The, 573 + +Holland's Marble Prophecy, 431 + +Holley's Niagara, 432 + +Holmes' The Poet at the Breakfast-Table, 858 + +Hope's Teutonic Race, 567 + The Same, Sequel, 567 + +Huebner's Life of Sixtus V., 567 + +Hymnary, with Tunes, 431 + +Hymns and Poems, 858 + +Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac, 429 + +Index Circular, 860 + +Ireland's Case Stated, 857 + +Issues of American Politics, The, 431 + +Jenna's Elevations Poetiques et Religieuses, 717 + +Keel and Saddle, 857 + +Kroeger's The Minnesinger of Germany, 575 + +Lacordaire's God and Man, 430 + +Lasar's Hymnary, 431 + +Lectures on the Connection of Science and Religion, 573 + +Legends of S. Patrick, 570 + +Leifchild's The Great Problem, 575 + +Liberalisme, Le, 714 + +Life and Times of Sixtus V., 567 + +Life of Demetrius Augustin Gallitzin, 712 + +Life of S. Augustine, 714 + +Liza, 573 + +Macdonald's Hidden Life, 432 + +Macdonald's The Vicar's Daughter, 143 + +Manual of American Literature, 431, 860 + +Memoirs of Mme. Desbordes-Valmore, 715 + +Minnesinger of Germany, The, 575 + +Moriarty's Life of S. Augustine, 714 + +Morris' Troubles of Our Catholic Forefathers, 287 + +My Clerical Friends, 567 + +New God, The, 573 + +Oakeley's Catholic Worship, 571 + +Orsini's History of the B. Virgin Mary, 573 + +Paquet's Le Liberalisme, 714 + +Palma's History of the Passion, 427 + +Parsons' Biographical Dictionary, 572 + +Parsons' Shadow of the Obelisk, 572 + +Peters' Catholic Class Book, 288 + +Polytechnic, The, 859 + +Photographic Views, 714 + +Poet at the Breakfast-Table, The, 858 + +Pocket Prayer Book, 286 + +Potter's The Spoken Word, 142 + +Rawes' The Beloved Disciple, 143 + +Revere's Keel and Saddle, 857 + +Roundabout Rambles, 432 + +Sainte-Beuve's Memoirs of Mme. Desbordes-Valmore, 715 + +Shadow of the Obelisk, The, 572 + +Skinner's Issues of American Politics, 431 + +Spoken Word, The, 142 + +Stockton's Roundabout Rambles, 432 + +Tradition, 430 + +Treasure of the Seas, The, 859 + +Troubles of Our Catholic Forefathers, 287 + +Truth, The, 571 + +Turgeneiff's Liza, 573 + +Two Ysondes, and other Verses, 719 + +Unawares, 143 + +Vicar's Daughter, The, 143 + +Warner's Gardening by Myself, 144 + +Waterworth's Commentary of the Fathers on S. Peter, 286 + +Waterworth's England and Rome, 286 + +Weninger's Photographic Views, 714 + +Wiseman's Lectures on Science and Religion, 573 + +Wiseman's Works, 714 + +Young America Abroad, 859 + + + + + +THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XVI., NO. 91.--OCTOBER, 1872. + + + + +Bismarck And The Jesuits. + + + "1. The Order of the Company of Jesus, orders akin to it, and + congregations of a similar character, are excluded from the German + territory. The establishment of residences for these orders is + prohibited. The establishments actually in existence must be + suppressed within a period to be determined by the Federal + Council, but which shall not exceed six months. + + "2. The members of the Company of Jesus, of orders akin to it, and + of congregations of a similar character, may be expelled from the + Federal territory if they are foreigners. If natives, residence + within fixed limits may be forbidden them, or imposed upon them. + + "The measures necessary for the execution of this law, and for the + certainty of this execution, shall be adopted by the Federal + Council." + + +Such is the amendment on the original motion for the recent legislation +with regard to the Jesuits which was proposed to the Reichstag by Dr. +Friedberg. The original motion was identical in aim and almost in +substance. The amendment is more exact and well-defined, leaving not the +slightest loophole for possible evasion or escape. It was framed and +pressed on by the kindly spirit and generous hand of Prince Clovis of +Hohenlohe, the brother of the cardinal whose rejection by the Pope as +ambassador from Germany to his court gave such high umbrage to the +exquisitely sensitive Prince Bismarck. + +Such is the law: plain, clear, and well-defined. There is no mistaking it: +it is "goodly writ." Paraphrased, it runs thus: + +There is a body of men--and women even; for though we attach ourselves to +the chief point at issue, the phrase, "Those congregations of a similar +character," may cover a very extensive ground, and seems ingeniously +framed for abuse--in Germany, possessed of certain property, colleges, +churches, seminaries, schools; possessed of certain rights as free +citizens of a free land: liberty of action and of thought. Most of them +are natives of the soil; many of them members of the highest families in +the empire. They have been doing their work all these years without let or +hindrance, or rumor of such. The state found no fault with them, or at +least never expressed it. Consequently, they went on without changing one +iota of their principles or mode of action, teaching in the universities, +colleges, and schools: preaching in the churches; gathering together +communities; giving themselves free voice in a free press, that all might +hear and tell openly what they were doing, and what they purposed doing. +Without a moment's warning, without a trial or even a mockery of a trial, +the state swoops down on them, seizes their property, breaks up their +communities, turns them out of their homes adrift upon the world, +proclaims them outlaws, banishes them the empire, save such as were born +in it--one of whom happens to be a cousin to the emperor himself; and these +latter they proscribe to fixed limits under the surveillance of the +police. + +And such is law! The law of the new German Empire: the first great step in +its reconstruction! + +Short of death, the state could not do more utterly to destroy a body of +men. Condensed into a word, these measures are--demolition. As death alone +can make their penalty supreme, the crimes of these outlaws ought to be +proportionately great. What, then, are these crimes that in a moment +produced such a sentence? + +Here we must confess to as great an inability to answer the question as +Prince Bismarck or his followers found themselves; for the very simple +fact that there are no crimes to answer for. This may account in part for +the extra severity of the sentence. Only make the penalty big enough, and +the popular mind needs to hear nothing of the crime. Prince Bismarck knows +the value of the old adage, "Give a dog a bad name, and hang him." + +When the Communists seized upon Paris, we all knew what to expect: scant +justice and speedy sentence; none of your careful balancing of right and +wrong. They took what they could and gave no reason. This model German +government, this new power which we all tremble at, though it promises to +regenerate us, follows _la Commune_ pretty closely in this its first essay +of power. + +In the even balance of the law, it is useless to _talk_ of conspiracies, +parties, plots, and this, that, and the other. Show us those conspiracies; +point them out in black and white; let the law lay its inexorable finger +upon them, and say, such and such actions have been committed by such and +such persons; here are the proofs of guilt--and we are satisfied. Though +the condemned may have been our dearest friends, we have only to +acknowledge the justice of the sentence, to deplore that we have been +deceived in them, and to range ourselves as honest men and true citizens +on the side of the law. But in the present case, we have not had one +single fact produced nor attempted to be produced; not a crime in the +varied category of crimes has been laid at the door of the accused. We +have had instead from such men as Bismarck and his tools vague +generalities of "conspiracy," "enemies at home as well as abroad," +intermingled with fears for the safety of the new empire--"the new +creation"--padded in with bluster and empty bombast, "full of sound and +fury, signifying nothing." + +And in the face of this advanced nineteenth century, this era of facts, +figures, and freedom, on the strength of evidence that would not suffice +to condemn the veriest scoundrel that ever stood face to face with justice +in the dock, a body of intellectual gentlemen, beloved in the country from +which they are banished, are proclaimed outlaws, enemies of their own +nation, faithless to their country and their emperor, unfit to live in the +land that is proud of them, and driven without scrip or staff into the +world. + +Let us bear it in mind, before quitting this point, that the feeling of +their countrymen as well as of the whole Catholic world is with them. We +all know how a government, and particularly a strong government, can +influence the public voice and manipulate votes. Well, petitions rolled in +for the suppression of the Jesuits; but, strange to say, roll in as they +might, a still vaster number came to retain them; and on the strength of +the former, the measure was put before parliament and passed. This fact of +the popular voice proclaiming itself boldly in favor of the Order is very +significant when we take into account the forces arrayed against each +other, though, in truth, the battle was all on the side of the government. +On the one hand we have the Prince-Chancellor working the engine of the +state--his own creation--with every nerve that is in him, joining himself in +the debates with speeches of the bitterest and most inflammatory +character; on the other, we have a body of 708 men! Such was their number +in Germany according to the statistics of last year; the total number +throughout the world being 8,809. + +To this, then, the contest reduces itself apparently. These are the +ostensible foes. The new and powerful German government, in the first +flush of an unprecedented success, headed by the "terrible Chancellor," +pitted might and main against 708 individuals, staking its very life on +the contest. What evenly matched foes! For the Jesuits are the sole object +of this attack, mind. Listen to Minister Delbrueck in his speech on the +third reading of the bill: "It is my duty, in the name of the confederate +government, to repudiate anew that view of the question which identifies +the Society of Jesus with the Catholic Church.... In such an allegation +they can discover nothing more than an arbitrary perversion of notorious +facts: a falsification which is the more to be deplored, as it might serve +to deprive the measure in circles outside of this assembly of its true +character, and impress on it another which it does not possess." + +This minister was the mouthpiece of Bismarck--"the hands indeed are Esau's, +but the voice is that of Jacob." Was there ever such a picture of injured +innocence and righteous indignation? + +Seven hundred and eight men who spend their lives, as all the world may +see, in teaching, preaching, studying, visiting the sick, performing their +daily household duties, are such terrible plotters, dangerous political +leaders, that they cause the great Chancellor actually to tremble in his +shoes. It is a strange fact that he did not find this conspiracy out +sooner. Bismarck and the Jesuits are old neighbors, not to say friends. +They have lived very happily together up to yesterday. They accompanied +him to his wars, and took the place that is always theirs in the battle +front, among the wounded and the dying, when no succor was nigh, in the +endeavor to give rest and peace to the last moments of those whom Bismarck +summoned from their quiet homesteads to die for him under the empty name +of glory and patriotism. Some of them were rewarded by the Emperor with +the Iron Cross--the proudest decoration which he can bestow on a man; as +some others of them on the other side brought their science to bear on the +dismal walls of the beleaguered city, spreading out light far and near to +discover the crouching foe, and they were rewarded with death. Why, then, +after living in harmony so long together, does the Chancellor turn round +in a moment and make such a sweeping attack upon them, only _them_? The +body, numerically, is absolutely too insignificant for all this uproar. +Why, we could pack them all into some of our hotels, and they would +scarcely make an appreciable difference in the number of visitors. Had +there existed a conspiracy on their part against the empire, as is +alleged, is it possible that with Bismarck's unlimited power and +resources, aided by those wonderful spies of his, who so infested France +that his generals knew the country better than the French themselves +did--is it possible that he who esteems so highly the value of the opinion +of "circles outside the empire," could not produce _one_ sorry fact to +bring forward against them? Their most determined opponents must confess +that he has utterly failed to do so; and failing to do so, he has +exercised, and the majority of the German Parliament has sanctioned, a +barefaced abuse of power, such as we thought had died out with the good +old days of Henry VIII. and Queen Bess, or lived only with the Sultan of +Turkey or the barbarous monarchs of the East. May it not recoil on their +own heads! + +The quarrel is scarcely confined to these limits, then, terrible as the +power of the Jesuits may be. We do not intend to insult the intelligence +of our readers by going into a needless defence, for the millionth time, +of the Jesuit Order. Their defence is written on the world with the blood +of their martyred children. Their defence rests on the fact of their very +existence under such persistent and terrible persecutions as their mother, +the church, only has surpassed. It rests in the record of every land upon +which the sun has shone. And as for the time-worn themes, ever welcome and +ever new, of secresy, unscrupulous agents, blood, poison, daggers, and all +the mysterious paraphernalia which the Jesuit of the popular imagination +still bears about with him under that famous black gown, which the +intellect of the age, in the persons of the London _Times'_ correspondents +and those of the _Saturday Review_, are never weary of harping on, we +leave them to the enlightened vision of these gentlemen, and their rivals +in this respect--the concocters of the villains of fifth-rate novels. But +they object: Well, we are ready to admire your Jesuits. They live among us +and we know them, and really, on the whole, they are not half such bad +fellows; in fact, we may go so far as to say they are very peaceable, +intelligent, respectable gentlemen. When we wish to hear a good sermon we +always go to listen to them. They are very fine writers, and very clever +men. They have done much, or tried to do much, for America, Africa, Japan, +and every out-of-the-way place; they have done something in Europe, even. +But after all you must acknowledge that they are very dangerous fellows. +Why, your own Pope, Sixtus V., could scarcely be prevailed upon to permit +the foundation of the Order at the beginning; and another of your Popes, +Clement XIV., actually condemned them. Come, now; what do you say to that? + +Must we soberly sit down to answer this absurdity once more? Our readers +will pardon us for merely glancing at it, and passing on to the more +immediate subject of our article. + +First of all, granting, which we by no means intend to do, that all that +they allege is true, that it was with the greatest difficulty they even +crept into existence, and that a Pope found it necessary to suppress them; +there stands out in the face of such opposition the telling fact of their +existence in the broad light of these open days, when no sham can pass +muster, when the keen, eminently honest eye of these folk pick out the +false in a twinkling, expose it, hoot it down, away with it, and there is +an end. Such a fact opposed to such never-failing opposition is a very +stubborn thing, and bears with it something very like reality and truth. +As for the difficulty of their beginning, that is the history of all +orders in the church, so careful is she of new-fangled notions. In fact, +if our recollection serves us, that, we believe, is the history of the +church herself. So much for the alleged opposition of Sixtus V. And now +for the quelcher: the suppression by Clement XIV. + +Here we give in: our opponents are right. Clement XIV. actually did issue +a _brief_ suppressing the Jesuits. Of course it is perfectly unnecessary +to inform these theological and mediaeval scholars that a brief is a very +different thing from a bull; that a brief is in no wise binding on the +successor of the Pontiff who issues it; that a brief has no more to do +with infallibility than these gentlemen themselves have. And now we would +beg them to listen a moment to the very few Jesuitical words in which we +explain this whole thing away. + +Clement XIV. issued this brief in exactly the same way that King John +signed the Magna Charta; Charles I. the death-warrant of Strafford; or +George IV. the act for Catholic emancipation. We believe none of our +readers would blame King Charles for the death of Strafford, or thank King +John for Magna Charta, or George IV. for Catholic emancipation; as little +do we, can we, or any one who has read the history of the time, blame +Clement XIV. for the brief which suppressed the Jesuits. The timid old +monk--he was consecrated Pope at what the Bourbons considered the very safe +age of sixty-four--was strong enough to resist this wicked demand of their +suppression to the utmost. We must bear in mind that the demand was made +by no body in the church; but only by the ambassadors of France, Spain, +and Naples. "I know what you want," he said, "you want to create a heresy +and destroy the church." Another time he writes, "I can neither censure +nor abolish an institute which has been commended by nineteen of my +predecessors." In the meantime, we have a disinterested witness, happily +enough from Prussia, a man whom we have no doubt even Prince Bismarck has +some respect for. It is no less a person than Frederick the Great, who +writes to _Voltaire_: + + + "That good Franciscan of the Vatican leaves me my dear Jesuits, + who are persecuted everywhere else. _I will preserve the precious + seed, so as to be able one day to apply it to such as may desire + again to cultivate this rare plant._" + + +At last, notwithstanding his entreaties and prayers, they wrung the brief +from the heart of the tottering old man. They gained their point while he +lost his peace of mind, and was ever after murmuring, _Compulsus feci, +compulsus feci_. We should be more correct in saying that they only half- +gained it; for they were wild with rage at its being only a brief. What +they wanted was a bull: destruction, not suspension. And such is the +history of the famous suppression of the Jesuits. + +To make the story complete, we may as well add that, as soon as the brief +became known, Switzerland, knowing that it was the production of the +Bourbon faction and not of the Pope, refused to submit to it and deprive +the Jesuits of their colleges. Catherine of Russia interceded in their +favor, and gave the poor Pope a crumb of comfort in the few days that were +left him. Well did he say, "This suppression will be the death of me." +While Frederick the Great--but he shall speak for himself, and we commend +his utterance to Prince Bismarck. He writes to his agent at Rome: + + + "Abbe Columbini, you will inform all who desire to know the fact, + but without ostentation and affectation, and you will moreover + seek an opportunity of signifying soon to the Pope and his chief + minister, that, with regard to the Jesuits, _I am determined to + retain them in my states_. In the treaty of Breslau, I guaranteed + the _status quo_ of the Catholic religion, and I have never found + better priests in every respect. You will further add that, as I + belong to the class of heretics, the Pope cannot relieve me from + the obligation of keeping my word, nor from the duty of a king and + an honest man." + + +These words would be weakened by comment. We pass with relief from this +worn-out subject, and wish our adversaries joy of their mare's nest. Men +who have won the praise of their bitterest foes need small defence from +their friends. We leave them in the hands of such men as Voltaire, Lord +Macaulay, Sir James Stephens, Bancroft, Prescott, Parkman, and a host of +other eminent men of all nations and all creeds save our own. When those +who carp at the Jesuits have studied and refuted these writers to their +own satisfaction, they may be in a fair way to meet us. + +Now we are met with the further objection: if the Jesuits are such an +excellent body as we make them; as Protestant historians and infidel +writers make them; as Catherine of Russia, as Frederick the Great, the +founder of the Prussian empire, and in this respect the proto-Bismarck, +make them--why should Prince Bismarck pick such a deadly quarrel with them? + +Have we possibly been mistaken in him all this time? Have we had another +Luther lurking beneath the person of the burly Chancellor? Has his aim +been all along not merely to create a German empire, but a German religion +and a German popedom? Has his zeal been inspired by religion? In his +speech the other day he protested against the pretensions of the Pope "as +a Protestant and an evangelical Christian." We congratulate the +evangelical Christians, whoever they may be, on their new apostle. For +ourselves, we could not help laughing, and thinking that the height of +solemn farce had at length been reached. The words reminded us of one +Oliver Cromwell, who, in common with a well-known kinsman of his, had a +knack of "citing Scripture for his purpose." + +No; we confess it, notwithstanding this solemn affirmation from his own +mouth, and before the German parliament too--(we think the printer must +have omitted the "laughter" at the end)--we cannot bring ourselves to look +upon the Chancellor as a "vessel of election," though he may be a "vessel +of wrath." We consider that his worst enemy could scarcely say a harder +thing of him than that he was a religious man. His is "Ercles' vein: a +tyrant's vein." The Emperor "is more condoling." Now he presents the +picture of a religious man _par excellence_. Why, his nostrils discerned a +sanctified odor rising up from those reeking fields of France; and he +could pray--how well!--after he had won the victory. But his Chancellor is a +man of another complexion. He found a rich humor in it all. We have not +forgotten that grim joke of his yet about the starving and doomed city. Is +he not the prince of jesters? No, however bad may be our opinion of him, +we will not accuse him of religiousness. + +Where, then, lies the difficulty between them? The answer to this +necessitates a review of the whole present question of Bismarck with the +Papacy; and we must beg our readers' indulgence in carrying them over such +beaten ground in order to get at the root of it all, fix it in our minds, +and keep it there, so that no specious reasoning may blind us to the +reality of it, to the true point at issue. + +We recollect the position of the Papacy prior to the Franco-German war. +The Pope was supported in his dominions by the arm of France--we say France +advisedly; not by Napoleon. The war came and smote this right arm. Victor +Emanuel stepped in; took possession: coolly told the Pope he would _allow_ +him to live in the Vatican. The world shrieked with delight at seeing a +powerless old man reft of the little that was left him. The world was +astonished at the generosity of Victor Emanuel in _allowing_ the Pope a +fraction of what happened to be his own property. The world looked for the +regeneration of Italy, and it has had it. The _New York Herald_ furnished +us with the increase of crime since Victor Emanuel's possession: if we +recollect rightly, it is about fourfold. So the Pope rested, as he still +rests, a virtual, in plain truth an actual, prisoner in the Vatican, +without a helping hand stretched forth to him. Came his jubilee, and with +it kindly and solemn gratulations from a quarter least expected--the new +emperor. Our eyes began to turn wistfully to the new power, and people +whispered, Who knows? perhaps our Holy Father has at last found a +defender. Here was Bismarck's opportunity of winning the hearts of the +Catholic world, of binding us to him with the strongest chain that can +link man to man. Time wore on, and the gloss wore off. Home questions +arose, the Chancellor began to feel his way, to insinuate little measures +such as the secularization of schools, which the Catholics, strange to +say, found reason to object to. Prince Bismarck grew a little impatient; +he was anxious to conciliate the Catholics as far as he possibly could; +but really "his patience was nearly exhausted." Our golden hopes began to +grow dim. We have heard this sort of thing before; we hear it every day, +from some whose opinions we respect; and we know what it means. It is the +old cry, "We have piped to you and you will not dance; we have played to +you, and you do not sing." You are irreconcilable; there is no meeting you +on debatable ground. And that is just the point. Our religion has no +debatable ground, for it is founded on faith, and not on what goes by the +name of free investigation. So that whether it be Bismarck or nearer +friends of ours who would force or woo us in turn from our position, we +must meet them in matters that touch our faith with the inevitable "Non +possumus." + +Prince Bismarck began to grow weary of us; and he soon showed signs of his +peculiar form of weariness. He scarcely agrees with "what can't be cured +must be endured"; his motto is rather, "What can't be cured must be +killed." The secularization of schools was carried in the face of the +protest of the Prussian Catholic bishops, assembled at Fulda. The +solemnization of the sacrament of marriage is handed over to the civil +jurisdiction, the same as any other contract. Still not a whisper against +the Jesuits, though, as we have already quoted, his quarrel is purely and +entirely with them. We pass on to the crowning act in his list of +grievances: the embassy to the Court of the Vatican. + +What a noble thing it looked in the all powerful Chancellor to despatch an +ambassador from the high and mighty German empire, the mightiest in the +world, to the old man pent up in the Vatican! What a condescension to +acknowledge that such a person existed! + +Of course the Pope would receive such marks of favor with tears of +gratitude and open arms. What! is it possible? He actually rejects the +ambassador, and sends him back on Bismarck's hands. Well, well! wonders +will never cease. + +Now there never was such a tempest in a tea-pot as the explosion this +carefully laid train created. The very fact of sending an ambassador at +all to a monarch acknowledges the perfect right of that monarch to receive +or reject him as he pleases; and to common sense there is an end of the +question. The Pope did not choose to receive this ambassador; he had every +right to exercise his freedom of action; he exercised his right, but +Prince Bismarck's sensibilities were hurt. It was not so much the fact of +rejection as the Pope's want of politeness that afflicted him. In his +speech before the Reichstag he declared that such a thing was without a +parallel in the history of diplomacy. What martinets these Germans are for +punctilio! We remember Mr. Disraeli actually refusing to accept as +sufficient reason for the late war the "breach of etiquette at a German +watering-place." Now, with all due respect, Prince Bismarck knew, as those +he addressed knew, as all the world knows, that this statement was +anything but correct. Ambassadors have been rejected before now, and +probably will be again. In fact, had certain individuals of this class to +and from ourselves been rejected at the outset, it would have saved +national difficulties, or at least wounded feelings and displays of +school-boy recriminations scarcely creditable to such high and mighty folk +as gentlemen of the diplomatic body. But there is more in the question +than this. The Cardinal-Prince Hohenlohe is a prince of the church. He is +in addition attached to the Pope's household. He gave himself freely and +voluntarily to the service of the church. He is not a mere ordinary member +of the Catholic body. He stands in relation to the Pope as Von Moltke, the +Dane, stands in relation to the Emperor William; as those who were once +fellow-citizens of ours stand in relation to the Khedive, whose service +they have entered; as Carl Schurz and millions of our fellow-citizens +stand in relation to the government of the United States. When the +Italians entered Rome, Cardinal Hohenlohe left it; and the next the Pope +heard of him was that his own servant had been appointed ambassador to his +court from Berlin! Just as though tomorrow we received intimation that a +new ambassador had been appointed to us from England, and that ambassador +was no less a person than--Minister Schenck. We can imagine the _New York +Herald's_ comments on such a proceeding. And yet Prince Bismarck is sore +aggrieved at a breach of political etiquette. + +We think we need trouble our readers with no further reasons for Cardinal +Hohenlohe's rejection. What share the cardinal had in the whole proceeding +we do not know. Probably Prince Bismarck would eventually have found +himself sadly disappointed in his ambassador had he been accepted. S. +Thomas of Canterbury made an excellent chancellor till the king, against +his wishes, compelled him to enter new service. But it is very clear that +if Bismarck, as we do not believe, ever contemplated the possibility of +the cardinal's acceptance at Rome, what he wanted was a tool, one who, to +use his own very remarkable words, "would have had rare opportunities of +conveying _our own version of events and things_ to his [the Pope's] ear. +This was our sole object in the nomination rejected, I am sorry to say, by +Pio Nono." + +We have no doubt of it: it was his sole object; and the acceptance or +rejection of his ambassador was one to him; for Prince Bismarck is +generally provided with two strings to his bow. Had the cardinal been +accepted, he believed he had a churchman devoted to his interests, another +Richelieu; his rejection suited him still better; for he could now declare +open war, and throw the onus of it on his adversaries. Through the whole +proceeding we detect the fine hand of the man who forced on the Danish, +Austrian, and French wars. Prince Bismarck must not be surprised if, in +the face of such speaking examples, we come at last to have a faint +conception of his strategy. His policy always is, and always has been, to +egg his adversary on; to goad him into striking first, taking care all the +while that he himself is well prepared. They strike, and he crushes +them--all in self-defence. He is exonerated in the eyes of the world. He +can tell the others they provoked him to the contest; he can say to them, +"Your blood be on your own heads." + +And so this carefully prepared train exploded. It looked such a noble, +generous, friendly action to send an ambassador to the Pontiff's court in +the present position of the Pontiff, that, when the ambassador was calmly +rejected, the world could not believe its ears; and Prince Bismarck +entertains a very high respect for those ears notwithstanding their +length. What could we say but that it was too much? There was no +conciliating these Romanists and Ultramontanes, do what you would. It was +clear that the Pope was altogether out of place in these days; and his +obstinacy only served to keep very respectable bodies of men from agreeing +and living neighborly together, and so on _ad nauseam_. Thus Bismarck +could afford to froth and fume about insult, unprecedented actions, +etiquette, and so on; urge upon the German nation that they had been +insulted in the person of their august emperor, who seems as touchy on +points of etiquette as a French dancing-master; and ring the changes up +and down till he closed with the loud-sounding twang, "Neither the emperor +nor myself are going to Canossa!" + +Could anything be more theatrically effective? Could anything be more +transparently shallow? + +Well, in the face of this awful outrage and unprecedented provocation, +what does the wrathful Chancellor do? March on Rome; declare war against +the Catholics; utterly exterminate them; smite them hip and thigh? Nothing +of the kind. He not only lets the Pope alone from whom he received the +outrage, _but he actually looks about for another ambassador, __"__in the +event of unlooked-for eventualities.__"_ He entertains the greatest +possible respect for Catholics. Indeed, he seems to be aware that the +small fraction of 14,000,000 of them go to swell his empire; the most +Catholic of whom, by the way, bore the brunt of the battle in France. He +accepts his rebuff more in sorrow than in wrath. He lets the whole +question slip; he has no quarrel with the 14,000,000; but there are 708 of +them whom he pounces upon as the policeman on the small boy; and nobody +can quarrel with him for letting the steam of his wrath off on this small +body, which is at the bottom of every mischief that turns up. + +Is not this excellent fooling? He says to the Catholics: I will not touch +you; you and I are very excellent friends; I will not touch your +mother--the church; I will content myself with murdering her eldest son, +who is the cause of all the trouble between us. + +Now, we may fairly ask the question: Is the quarrel confined to these +limits? Why does Bismarck turn aside from the church, from the Pope who so +angered him, from the bishops who protested against his laws and refused +to submit to them, from the Centre in the Reichstag who so boldly, calmly, +and logically oppose him?--why does he turn from all these legitimate foes, +and fall on the small body of 708 men who compose the Jesuit Order in +Prussia? + +The answer is not difficult. The Jesuits as a body represent the intellect +of the church. They represent indeed more, much more, than this; for +intellect, great as it is, is not the highest thing in the eye of God or +of his church; but our present point deals with their intellectual power. +The _Pall Mall Gazette_ said the other day, writing on this question: + + + "One of the most remarkable traits of the Society of Jesus has + always been its literary productiveness. Wherever its members + went, no sooner had they founded a home, a college, a mission, + than they began to write books. [We beg to call the attention of + those who would fain make the church the mother of ignorance, to + testimony of this kind from such a source.] The result has been a + vast literature, not theological alone, though chiefly that, but + embracing almost every branch of knowledge." + + +The Jesuits in Germany, as in all countries where they have freedom, +possessed the best schools and colleges. They made themselves heard and +felt in the press. "In Italy, Germany, Holland, and Belgium," says the +journal above quoted, "the most trustworthy critics are of opinion that +there are no better written newspapers than those under Jesuit control." +It says further, and nobody will accuse the _Pall Mall Gazette_ of being a +Jesuit organ: + + + "Why indeed is their Order so dangerous, if it be not on account + of the ardent, disinterested conviction of its members, their + indomitable courage and energy, their spirit of self sacrifice, to + say nothing of their intelligence and their learning? The effect + of all this can but be heightened by persecution. On the other + side [Austria, if we recollect rightly], the danger which the + existence of the Order in the country really offers is much less + than it is supposed to be. In Germany, it does not really exist." + + +These extracts from various numbers of one of the leading rationalistic +organs in England, which it were easy to supplement by many others of the +same import, notably from the _Saturday Review_ and the _Spectator_, we +merely present here to such of our non-Catholic readers as might receive +our own testimony of whatever value with a certain suspicion. They embody +very sound reasons for Bismarck's unprovoked and unlawful attack. We +purpose going a little deeper into the question. + +The Jesuits now, as always, small as their number is, were the leading +Catholic teachers in Germany among high and low. Their access to the +chairs of the universities made them to a great extent the moulders of +thought, the teachers of the teachers, the great intellectual bulwark +against the spread of rationalism and every form of false doctrine which +strives to creep in to the hearth of the commonwealth and endanger its +existence. As they were the strenuous upholders of Bismarck in all that +was right; as their influence against the maxims of the International, +though not so immediate and showy as his, was infinitely deeper and more +lasting, so when he would intrench upon rights that are inalienable to +every man of whatever complexion and creed, they turned and boldly faced +the Chancellor himself. Were the character which their opponents would fix +upon them true, they had their opportunity of showing it--of going with him +at least at the outset. He would not have disdained the assistance of such +able lieutenants. But instead, the wily Jesuits, the men of the world, the +plotters, the schemers, the Order that is untrue to everything and +everybody save itself, throws itself with undiminished ardor, with a +devotion worthy of the fatalist, with all their heart and soul, into a +losing cause; into a cause which they have ever supported; which has been +losing these eighteen hundred and seventy-two years, but which has never +lost. + +These considerations bring us to the root of the question. + +This marvellous German empire, this more than a nine days' wonder, has +been convulsed into life; and sudden convulsions are liable to as sudden +relapses. Bismarck's heart is in it; he is the corner-stone; it is built +upon him; and he of all men knows on what a rocking foundation it is +built. Listen to his mouthpiece once more, Minister Delbrueck, in his +speech on the third reading of the bill against the Jesuits: + + + "We live under a very new system of government, called into + existence by mighty political convulsions: and I hold that we + should commit a great error in abandoning ourselves to the + delusion that everything is accomplished and perfected because the + Imperial German constitution has been published in the official + organ of the empire. For a long time to come we shall have to keep + carefully in mind that the constitution--the new creation--has + enemies not only abroad but at home; and if the representatives of + the empire arrive at the conviction that among these internal + enemies an organ is to be reckoned which, while furnished with + great intellectual and material means, and endowed with a rare + organization, steadily pursues a fixed inimical aim, it has a + perfect right to meet and frustrate the anticipated attack." + + +We have shown how nobly they met and frustrated the anticipated attack--a +rather summary mode, we submit, of dealing with those who _may_ be +enemies, for it has grown into only an "anticipated attack" now. Worse and +worse for the wielders of law. It may be as well to note also that the +Chancellor lets nothing slip. He allows the "great intellectual means" to +go; but the "great material means" is a far more important thing. He +sticks to that. There must be something of the Israelite nature in him. He +out-Shylocks Shylock. As in France, so here; he is not content with the +"pound of flesh," he will have in addition the "monies." After all, what +is there to surprise us in this? The great Chancellor, who coldly wrung +such griping terms from bleeding France, could scarcely be expected to +leave to the church the great material possessions, that is to say, the +schools, seminaries, and churches, which belonged to her children. + +But to resume: The first sentence of this quotation strikes the key-note +of the whole movement. And, we avow it, Prince Bismarck is right. This +empire has enemies at home as well as abroad, and the Jesuits are in the +van. All Catholics are its enemies; and we make bold to say that all free +men, and particularly all Americans, are its enemies. For it is not a +German but a Bismarck empire; a Bismarck creation, that started into life +men scarce knew how; a momentary thing for mutual defence, but never to be +made, as he has made it, as powerful an instrument of tyranny as ever was +forged to bind and grind a free-born people in fetters of iron for ever +down. Never, in the vexed history of nations, has power, and such awful +power, fallen into the hands of any one man at such an opportune moment +for good; and never, at the very outset, has it been so basely and so +openly abused. The state of Europe, at this moment, is deplorable; +revolution in Spain, revolution in Italy, revolution in France. The +government, the supreme control of the whole continent, shifting from hand +to hand; yesterday it was Napoleon, to-day 'tis Bismarck: Europe cannot +stand these successive shocks, from empire to anarchy, from anarchy to +empire, without warning and without ceasing. Under all smoulders the +burning lava, breaking out from time to time in fitful eruptions--here the +Carbonari, there _la Commune_, in other places as trades-unions--which +threatens to overwhelm and engulf the whole in one red ruin. It is simply +the evil effect of evil spirits working upon dissatisfied and ill-governed +bodies of men. While over all, in the dim treacherous background, looms +the vast giant power of Russia, that seems to slumber, but is only biding +the event, and shows itself in dangerous signs from time to time. Europe +yearns for something fixed, permanent, and strong. Napoleon held +it--failed; and the reins fell into the hands of Bismarck. He commences his +reign by declaring war against the only element that can humanize these +conflicting masses, and cause this wild chaos of passion to adhere, +coalesce, and become one again as its Creator made it: religion. Religion +alone can make them bow to law; for religion alone can teach them that +there is a law that is above, and gives a reason for that law which _they_ +themselves make for themselves. And what has Bismarck done with this power +that was given him? + +To begin with, he has banished religion from the schools, where it has +flourished to the mutual satisfaction of Catholics and Protestants ever +since its establishment. He has profaned the sacrament of marriage and +handed it over to the civil courts. We will omit the expulsion of the +Jesuits now. His empire is the most autocratic and aristocratic in Europe. +Almost as a consequence, it is the most military. To make assurance doubly +sure, he is making it more military still; not a nation of peaceful men, +but a nation of warriors. Instead of allowing the weary nation a rest +after a strife where centuries were condensed into a few months, and +fabulous armies shattered in days, the military laws are made more +stringent than ever. The Prussian system of service is to prevail +throughout the empire, notwithstanding Bavaria's remonstrance. Von +Moltke's declarations in his late speech are very clear and concise. +Summed up, they mean discipline, discipline, discipline; and this is +Bismarck's word also. To produce this perfection of discipline, the power +of the state must be supreme in every point. Nothing must escape it; +nothing must evade it. The state must be religion, the state must be God, +and Herr von Bismarck is the state. This sounds like exaggerated language; +but Bismarck shall speak for himself: + + + "I may tell the preceding speaker [Herr Windhorst] that, as far as + Prussia is concerned, the Prussian cabinet are determined to take + measures which shall henceforth render it impossible for Prussians + who are priests of the Roman Catholic Church to assert with + impunity that they will be guided by canon law rather than + Prussian law." + + +This referred immediately to the case of the Bishop of Ermeland and +others, for excommunicating disobedient priests. + +The Bishop of Ermeland was ordered to withdraw his excommunication, +because it might affect those who came under it in their civil capacity, +under pain of suspension by the government. The answer of the Bishop, +Monsignor Krementz, was admirable in every way, and we regret that our +limited space compels us to exclude it. It is enough to say that the +bishop shows, beyond the possibility of doubt, that he is actually within +the law, by a special provision of the Prussian Constitution, which +declares in Article XII. "that the enjoyment of civil and political rights +is independent of religious professions," while he declares at the same +time that in such matters he is not bound by the civil law. Those opposed +to him in faith must support him in this. Recent decisions in the English +courts on behalf of the Established Church support him. And we need hardly +waste the time of our readers by entering into such a question. If a +government acknowledges a church at all, it must allow that church to work +in its own way so long as it does not intrench upon the civic rights of +the subject. The men in question, who were condemned, received their +orders and powers of teaching, preaching, and saying Mass from the church, +to which they made the most solemn oaths of entire obedience in matters of +doctrine. If afterwards they grew discontented, they possessed the civil +right to leave it. But as honest men, how could they remain in it, +receiving emolument from it, using its property, and all the while +persisting in preaching doctrines contrary to it, and endeavoring to +destroy it? Those who defend the decision of the German government must +allow that when, as not unfrequently happens, a Protestant clergyman +becomes a convert to our faith, he may still abide in the Protestant +church, preaching the Catholic faith to his congregation. + +Our battle, then, and in this we are all Jesuits, is with the Bismarck +empire, with the supreme power of the state. These ideas of Prince +Bismarck are not new; they are as old as old Rome. The Roman was taught +from his infancy that he belonged body and soul to the state; and no doubt +Rome owed much of her vast power and boundless acquisitions to the steady +inculcation of this materialistic doctrine from childhood upwards. "The +divinity of the emperor" is not far removed from the divinity of the +Chancellor. It is a very simple doctrine, and no doubt very convenient for +those whom it benefits. But unfortunately for it and its defenders, One +came into this world to tell us that we were "to render unto Caesar the +things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." This is +the Catholic golden rule of politics, as we believe it to be of all +orthodox Protestants. Prince Bismarck will excuse our obeying Jesus Christ +in preference to him. + +And here is the reason for the expulsion of the Jesuits: They are the +ablest exponents of these doctrines, not necessarily the most earnest--all +Catholics are alike in that; but their education has made them as a body +the ablest, and therefore they are driven out from the schools, colleges, +universities, and churches; from the land utterly. And by whom are they +replaced? + +By the tools of Bismarck, by men who are ready to preach his doctrines +"for a consideration." We had a sample of them the other day at the +opening of one of the universities in Alsace. The correspondent of the +London _Daily News_, among others, described them to us: how they fought +like wild beasts to get something to eat, and attacked it with their +fingers; how, at the end of the day, they, the German professors, reclined +in the gutters, or reeled drunk through the public streets. + +And now, to complete our glance at this very large subject, a word on the +ambassador to Rome that is to be. While Bismarck is still determined to +send one there, he leaves us no room to doubt of his intentions in the +significant words--"unlooked-for eventualities." That is to say, he looks +to the speedy prospect of the present Pontiff's death, and intends to +affect the election of his successor. While refraining from remarking on +the outspoken indelicacy of this, we do not at all doubt his intention, as +little as we doubt concerning the prospect of its success. It is perfectly +true that when the church had some influence over the state--and how that +influence was exercised, let the spread of education, the abolition of +serfdom, the persistent defense of liberty, and prevention of so many wars +speak--the three great Catholic powers, France, Spain, and Germany, had a +veto on the election of the Sovereign Pontiff, which they duly exercised +in the persons of their respective representatives. These representatives +were heard and felt in the councils of the church, and the measures they +brought forward taken into due consideration. But we were under the +impression that the relations between church and state had been altered to +some purpose in our days. Lot has parted from Abram. The state said to the +church: Our compact is at an end; you have nothing more to do with us; you +may fulminate your thunderbolts as you please, and let them flash abroad +through the world. We laugh. Their day is passed. Papistical pyrotechnics +may frighten women and children, but we are too old for that. We know the +secret of it all; that at bottom the thunderbolt is only a squib, and must +fall flat. The church accepted the situation. The state had proclaimed the +separation final and eternal. It could scarcely be surprised at the church +taking it at its word. It could scarcely be surprised to find the doors of +the Vatican Council closed against it. It can scarcely be surprised to +know that the veto no longer has force--no longer exists in fact; least of +all could it be expected to have force in the hands of a Protestant and +heretical power, even when held in the safe keeping of the pious Emperor +William and the "Christian and Evangelical" Prince Bismarck. + +One effect, and we think a very important one, has grown out of all this +which we surmise Prince Bismarck scarcely counted upon. We believe the +mass of thinking men, whatever their sympathies might have been prior to +and during the late war in France, once they beheld the great German +empire an accomplished fact, wished it a hearty Godspeed; for it held in +its hands the intellectual, the moral, and that very important thing in +these days, the physical force sufficient to regenerate Europe. We looked +to it with anxiety to see whither it would tend; we looked to it with +hope. Our anxieties have been realized, our hopes dashed to the ground. + +Prince Bismarck has alienated all Catholics and all lovers of freedom. And +our eyes turn once more, all the chivalry in our natures turns, to the +rising form of his late prostrate foe. We are amazed at the intense +vitality of the French nation. Bismarck but "scotched the snake, not +killed it; 'twill close and be itself." All our hearts run out to it in +the noble, the marvellous efforts it is making for self-regeneration. And +if France, as we now believe, will, and at no very distant date, regain +the throne from which she has been hurled, the hand that hurled her thence +will, by a strange fatality, have the greatest share in reinstating her. +"The moral columns of the new German empire have begun to tremble as +though shaken by an earthquake," says the _Lutheran Ecclesiastical +Gazette_, after deploring, as we have done, all the recent measures that +have passed. + +As for the manner in which the Catholic Church will come out of this +trial, we will let the Protestant press itself speak. We have already +heard it in a half-hearted way in England and among ourselves. The _Kreuz- +zeitung_, the organ of the orthodox Protestants, speaks more plainly: + + + "An eminent Catholic, a member of parliament, said lately that the + outlook of the Roman Church in Germany was never more favorable + than it is to-day. It seems that this judgment is not without + foundation. The defections produced by the old Catholics are + without signification: we have to state a fact of altogether + another importance. Formerly, the greater part of the German + bishops, the greater part of the lower clergy, and almost all the + laics, were adversaries of the new dogma [we give those words of + the _Kreuz-zeitung_, with our own reservations as to faith in + them], but now that the council has spoken, we only find thirty- + two apostate priests; that is an immeasurable victory won by the + Roman Church.... Though the Roman Church thus appears day by day + more and more in the ascendant, the Evangelical Church sees itself + with deliberate purpose pushed down the inclined plane, or, what + is still worse, the government does not seem to be aware of its + existence. We have been able to remark this recently in the + discussion on the paragraph relating to the clergy in the + Reichstag; and lately again on the occasion of the law on the + inspection of schools. In the debates, at least those which + concern the manifestations of the government, the question has + been altogether with reference to the Roman Church. There has been + no mention made, or scarcely any, of the Evangelical Church. The + impression produced on every impartial observer must be this: the + Roman Church is a power, a factor which must be taken into + account; the Evangelical Church is not. This disdain is, for the + latter, the most telling blow which can be inflicted upon it, and + which must aid in strengthening the cause of Rome in a manner that + must become of the deepest significance for the future. After all + that, it is not strange to see the adherents of the Roman cause + conceive the loftiest hopes." + + +The _Volksblatt von Halle_ states that "the Catholic Church has become +neither more timid nor weaker, but more prudent, bolder, of greater +consideration, and in every respect more powerful than ever." We might go +on multiplying such extracts, but our space forbids us. + +The result then to us, to Catholics, is not doubtful, as the result of +persecution never is. It is strange that such a keen-sighted, eminently +practical man as Prince Bismarck should become so suddenly blind to all +the teachings of history. The meanest religion that exists among men +thrives on persecution even when it has nothing better to support it. As +for us, as for the Jesuits particularly, "suff'rance is the badge of all +our tribe." Their great Founder left it to them as his last legacy. And +indeed, the measure he meted out to them has been filled to overflowing. +While we are thus strong in faith, while we know that Prince Bismarck is +only beating the air in his vain and impious efforts to extinguish that +fire which God kindled and bade to burn, while we are calmly confident +that he will shatter his mightiest forces against the Rock of Ages, and +come back from the conflict battered and bruised--finding out too late that +he made the one grand mistake of his life, which greater than he have made +before him--still we cannot shut our eyes to the fact of the great injuries +he is inflicting upon us, and the many fresh trials imposed upon the +church and our Holy Father in his declining years. + +What, then, are we to do? + +We have power, and we must use it. We have voices, and we must make them +heard. We have the silent, if not the outspoken sympathy of powerful +bodies opposed to us in creed. We have the heart, when we show ourselves, +of every free man and hater of oppression in any form. We have the genius +of our own constitution on our side. We must speak out plainly and boldly +as Catholic Americans. We must do what has already been done in London at +the meeting in S. James' Hall, presided over by the Duke of Norfolk; where +peer and ploughman, gentle and simple, priest and layman, were one in +protesting against this slavish policy of Prince Bismarck. Let us do the +like. Let our eminent men, and they are not few, call us together here in +New York, in every city throughout the nation--in behalf not only of our +suffering brethren, but of those rights which are inalienable to every man +that is born into this world--in protestation against a principle and a +policy which, if they found favor here, would sap the life of our nation, +and throw us back into the old slavery that we drowned in our best blood. +Our standpoint is this: as there are rights which the state does not and +cannot give us, those rights are inviolable, and the state cannot touch +them. To God alone we owe them; to God alone we give them back, and are +answerable for them. The state is not supreme in all things, and never +shall be. These are the principles we defend, and are happy in being their +persecuted champions. + +It is not merely a question of creed; Bismarck does not attack a creed. It +is a broad question of right and wrong, of justice and injustice, of +_absolutism_ and freedom. Power was never given into the hands of the +German Chancellor to be abused at the very outset, to oppress his +subjects, Catholic and Protestant. It is not and it must not be supreme; +and we very much mistake the genius of the great German people if they +long allow it to continue so. It is not for him to deprive 14,000,000 of +his people of their natural rights; the right to educate their children as +they think proper, _and as the law allowed them_; the right to consider +marriage a sacrament sanctified by God, and not a civil contract, to be +loosed or unloosed at will by a magistrate; the right of listening to +their most eminent teachers; the right of holding the seminaries and +churches, built by their own money, for the use of their own priests; the +right, above all, of believing that there is a God beyond all governments, +from whom all government, which people make for themselves, springs; that +God has set a law in the conscience which they must obey, even though +princes and kings rage against it, and that it is not in the nature of +things for this first and final law of conscience to clash with any other +unless that other be wrong. When Prince Bismarck succeeds in eradicating +these inborn notions from the minds of the German people, he will then +have attained his supremacy; but that then is--never. + + + + +Choice In No Choice. + + +I know not which to love the more: + The morning, with its liquid light; +Or evening, with its tender lore + Of silver lake and purple height. + +To morn I say, "The fairer thou: + For when thy beauties melt away, +'Tis but to breathe on heart and brow + The gladness of the perfect day." + +And o'er the water falls a hue + That cannot sate a poet's eye: +As though Our Lady's mantle threw + Its shadow there--and not the sky. + +But when has glared the torrid-noon, + And afternoon is gasping low, +The sunset brings a sweeter boon + Than ever graced the orient's glow. + +And I: "As old wine unto new, + Art thou to morn, beloved eve! +And what if dies thy every hue + In blankest night? We may not grieve. + +"Thy fading lulls us as we dote. + Nor always blank the genial night: +For when the moon is well afloat, + Thou mellowest into amber light." + +Is each, then, fairer in its turn? + 'Tis hence the music. Not for me +To wish a dayless morn, or yearn + For nightless eve--if these could be. + +But give me both--the new, the old: + And let my spirit sip the wine +From silver now, and now from gold: + 'Tis wine alike--alike divine! + +LAKE GEORGE, July, 1872. + + + + +Fleurange. + + +By Mrs. Craven, Author of "A Sister's Story." + +Translated From The French, With Permission. + + + +Part Third. The Banks Of The Neckar. + + +"Brama assai--poco spera--nulla chiede."--Tasso. + + +XXXIV. + + +"Return, Gabrielle! if possible, return at once; at all events, come +soon." These simple words from Clement to his cousin give no idea of the +agitation with which they were written. Fleurange herself would never have +suspected it, and less than ever at the arrival of a letter at once so +affecting and so opportune. She even paid very little attention to her +cousin's assurances as to the inutility of any further sacrifices for the +sake of his family. Clement, however, had written her the exact truth. The +situation of Professor Dornthal's family was of course very different from +what it once was, but the change was far from being as great as they had +all anticipated and prepared for a year before, when ruin overwhelmed and +scattered them. + +To leave the house in which they had lived twenty-five years; to see all +the objects that adorned it offered for sale; to give up the place where +the happiest moments of their lives had been spent; all this at first +excluded the possibility of anticipating anything but privation and +sadness without alleviation. Madame Dornthal herself did not look forward +to the future in any other light, and the courage with which she left her +native city was the same she would have shown had her husband been +condemned to suffer exile; she would have shared it with him, endeavoring +to soften it as much as possible, but without anticipating the least +possibility of joy in their changed lives. + +Joy, however, returned. It not unfrequently happens that reverses endured +without murmuring receive unexpected compensations. + +In the first place, their new home, though simple, and even rustic +compared with their old one, was neither gloomy nor inconvenient. Two +spacious rooms on the ground floor allowed the whole family to assemble +not only for their meals, but the evening reunions--their greatest pleasure +when all the absent ones returned. A small garden surrounded the house, +and a grass-plot extended down to the river with a covered alley on each +side. This place, called Rosenheim, merited its name by the abundance of +flowers, and especially of roses, which on every side cheered the eye and +embalmed the air. Their very first impressions, therefore, were quite +different from what they had apprehended. Besides, Clement had reserved +two or three of his father's favorite paintings, several engravings, as +well as a number of other familiar and precious objects, which preceded +them, and were there, like old friends, to welcome them. + +In the next place, the professor's rare collections, and the works of art +he had selected with so correct a taste and such profound knowledge, +proved far more valuable than they had anticipated, so that, if no longer +rich, an independence more than sufficient was assured them. Moreover, +Clement's prospects were exceedingly promising. His extraordinary ability +was soon recognized to a degree that justified Wilhelm Mueller's foresight. +To tell the truth, fortune is not so blind and capricious as she is often +represented, and if she sometimes bestows her favors on those who are +unworthy of them, there are some she reserves exclusively for persevering +industry, perfect integrity, shrewd calculation, strict economy, and +undeviating exactness. These virtues--and not chance--lay the foundations of +durable and honorably acquired fortunes, and where they are lacking the +greatest skill does not prevent them from being frequently lost in a day. + +It was one of these legitimate fortunes Clement was worthy of and capable +of acquiring. His success was already sufficient to dispense his father +from the share of labor he had taken upon himself, but he could not turn +him from his purpose, and soon perceived he ought not to attempt it. He +derived the poetry of his nature from his father, and was indebted to his +mother for his force and energy. Of these the professor, with all the rare +and exquisite gifts of his mind and heart, was entirely destitute. A +profound dejection mingled with his apparent resignation to misfortune, +which sprang from the humiliating conviction--felt too late--of having +brought it on himself by a want of foresight, and thus being responsible +for the ruin of his family. + +He needed something to divert him from this rooted idea, and therefore the +necessity of exerting himself to fulfil the duties of the position he had +accepted, and of pursuing his favorite studies, was too beneficial to make +it desirable he should renounce it. His new life, no longer burdened by +any material anxiety, gradually became both active and serene, and when +the family assembled together, everything would have had nearly the same +aspect as before, had it not been for the vacancies around the hearth. But +after the arrival of Hilda and her husband, and subsequently of Dr. +Leblanc, the evenings at Rosenheim became once more cheerful and almost +lively. Ludwig and Hansfelt resumed their favorite topics of conversation; +Hilda's beauty and happiness delighted her father; the merry voices of the +children resounded anew; and Clement often favored them as of yore with a +lively air on his violin, but more frequently, at his father's request, +with some graver melody, which he would play with such skill and so +pathetic an expression as to surprise Hilda, who asked him one day how he +had found time in his busy life to develop his talent to such a degree. +Clement did not at first hear, he was so absorbed in some strain of +Beethoven's, which gave forth a heart-rending accent under his bow. She +repeated her question. + +"I often play in the evening at Frankfort," he then replied. "Mueller and +his wife accompany me. Music refreshes me after the tedious labors of the +day, and this prevents me from losing what you are so kind as to call my +talent." + +Such was the state of things Fleurange would have found at her new home +had she arrived a month sooner. In that case, her involuntary sadness +might have excited more attention. But the serenity of the household, so +recently regained, had been violently disturbed again. It was not +surprising therefore that tears should mingle with her joy at seeing once +more those she loved, especially as among them she found Dr. Leblanc's +sister in mourning for him, and she had to be informed of another +misfortune, scarcely hinted at in Clement's letter. + +Professor Dornthal's life was indeed no longer in danger, but his memory +was greatly impaired, and his noble mind, if not extinct, only gave out a +feeble and vacillating light. This was hoped to be merely a transient +state, which time and absolute cessation from labor would soon remedy. But +it was a severe affliction to them all, and Clement for the first time saw +his mother's courage waver. It was with truly a sad smile Madame Dornthal +saw her husband recognize and embrace Fleurange without manifesting the +slightest surprise at her presence, or realizing the time and distance +that had separated them. It was the same with Clara; but when she placed +her infant in his arms, there was a momentary reawakening of the invalid's +torpid memory. Tears came into his eyes; he embraced the child, murmured +"God bless him!" and then gave him back to his mother, looking at him with +an expression that filled them for a moment with hope. Then the gleam +vanished, and he fell back into his former state. + +In consequence of all these circumstances, when the family assembled in +the evening in the large salon on the ground floor, every brow was +clouded, all the young smiling faces were grave and anxious, and the same +cause for sadness weighed on every heart. Perhaps this was best for +Fleurange, who, ever ready to forget herself, seemed to feel, and indeed +only felt the sorrows of the rest. + +Ah! how her sadness, which seemed only sympathy, touched one person that +night as he gazed at her in silent admiration. She was sitting between his +sisters, the lamp suspended from the ceiling threw a halo around her +charming face, and the voice, so dear and so long unheard, resounded for +the first time in this place where everything seemed transformed by her +presence! + +The evening, so sad for all the rest, was not so for Clement. Even his +anxiety for his father was suspended: he felt a renewed hope for him as +well as for everything else--yes, _every_ thing. He no longer took a dark +view of things: he was, as it were, intoxicated with hope. With what a +sweet confiding look she had pressed his hand! In what a tone she cried: +"Dear Clement, how happy I am to see you again"! Could the future, then, +be as doubtful as he had so recently feared? As to the smiles of fortune, +he no longer doubted: he was sure of winning them henceforth. He once +thought himself inefficient, but he was mistaken. Might he not also be +mistaken in thinking himself incapable of ever pleasing?--To this question +he heard no other reply but the quickened pulsations of his heart, and the +rippling of the water flowing past the seat to which he had betaken +himself on the banks of the river. + +Meanwhile, Fleurange and her cousins went up-stairs. Clement soon saw them +all talking together in low tones on the large wooden gallery that +extended around the house, and on which all the windows opened. Then they +retired; but the light that shone for the first time that night was a long +time visible, and Clement did not quit his post till he saw it was +extinguished. + + +XXXV. + + +Fleurange gradually resumed the habits of domestic life--once the +realization of all her dreams--and then, only then, she realized the extent +and depth of the change she had undergone while separated from her +friends. + +She was no longer the same. No effort of her will could conceal this fact. +Her heart, her thoughts, her regrets, her desires, and her hopes, were all +elsewhere. Italy in all its brilliancy did not differ more from the +peaceful landscape before her, charming as it was, with the little garden +of roses and the river winding around it, the ruins beyond, and the dark +forest in the background, than the vanished scenes--still so vividly +remembered--of which that land was the enchanting theatre, differed from +those now occurring beneath the more misty sky of Germany. At Florence, +her struggles and efforts, and the necessity of action, stimulated her +courage. The peace she found at Santa Maria revived her strength. But +there, as we have said, the past and the future seemed suspended, as it +were. Now the struggle was over as well as the pause that succeeded it, +and she must again set forth on the way--act, live in the present, and +courageously take up life again as she found it, with its actual duties +and new combats. Fleurange had never felt more difficulty and repugnance +in overcoming herself. + +After the long restraint she had been obliged to make, it would have been +some relief to be dispensed from all effort, especially at concealment, +and freely give herself up to a profound melancholy, to pass away the +hours in dreamy inaction, to weep when her heart was swelling with tears, +and, if not to speak to every one of her sadness, at least take no trouble +to conceal it. + +This would have been her natural inclination, and it was only by an effort +she refrained from yielding to it. But this would have shown the strength +gained in her retreat to have been only factitious, and her intercourse +with Madre Maddalena to have left, this time, no permanent influence. We +have, however, no such act of cowardice to record respecting our heroine. + +On the contrary, whoever saw her up at the first gleam of light in the +east to relieve her aunt from all the cares of the _menage_; whoever +followed her first to the store-rooms to dispense the provisions for the +day, accompanied by little Frida, whom she initiated into the mysteries of +housekeeping, and then to the kitchen to give directions and sometimes +even lend assistance to the old and not over-skilful cook; whoever saw her +even going sometimes to market with a firm step, basket in hand, and +returning with her cloak covered with dew, would not have imagined from +the freshness she brought back from these matutinal walks, and the +brilliancy which youth and health imparted to her complexion, that, more +than once, the night had passed without sleep, and while hearing her early +Mass, never neglected, she had shed so many scalding tears. + +Other cares, more congenial and better calculated to absorb her mind, +occupied the remainder of the day. Her special talent for waiting on the +sick, and the beneficent influence she exercised over them, were again +brought into requisition around her uncle, and Madame Dornthal blessed the +day of her return as she witnessed the evident progress of so prolonged +and painful a convalescence--a progress that gave them reason to hope in +the complete restoration of the professor's faculties, if not in the +possibility of his ever resuming constant or arduous labor. The young girl +found these cares delightful, and her new duties towards her dear old +friend Mademoiselle Josephine no less so. + +Josephine Leblanc's affections had all been centred in her brother. She +lived exclusively for him, and had never once thought of the possibility +of surviving him. A person left alone in a house standing in a district +devastated by war or fire, would not have felt more suddenly and strangely +left alone than our poor old mademoiselle after the fatal blow that +deprived her of her brother, so dear, so admired, and so venerated--the +brother younger than herself, and in whose arms she had felt so sure of +dying! + +She remained calm, however, and self-possessed. But the mute despair +imprinted on her face as she went to and fro in the house, troubling no +one with her grief, affected every beholder. She only begged to remain +there that she might not have to return alone to the place where she had +lived with him. From the first, Madame Dornthal had invited her to take up +her residence near them, and Fleurange's return brought her old friend to +a final decision, which proved so consoling that she firmly believed it to +have been in the designs of Providence. The doctor left considerable +property, which now belonged entirely to his sister. All their relatives +were wealthier than they, and lived in the provinces. There was nothing +therefore to induce Mademoiselle Josephine to return to Paris, and she +resolved to settle near her new friends, that she might be near her whom +long before she had adopted in her heart. It was a formidable undertaking +for a person who for forty years had led a uniform life, always in the +same place, and who was no less ignorant of the world at sixty than she +was at twenty years of age. But it seemed no longer difficult as soon as +she again had some one to live for. As to Fleurange, she found it pleasant +and beneficial to devote herself to her old friend in return, and, in +acquitting herself of this new debt of gratitude, her heart gained +strength for the interior struggle which had become the constant effort of +her life. + +Notwithstanding the marriage of her two cousins, everything now resumed +the aspect of the past. Clara and Julian, established in the neighborhood +where the pursuits of the latter would retain him a year, did not suffer a +day to pass without visiting Rosenheim. Hansfelt no longer thought of +leaving his old friend, and Hilda's calm and radiant happiness seemed to +lack nothing between her husband and her father, whose case now appeared +so hopeful. + +Clement alone was not, as formerly, a part of the regular family circle. +He only came once a week--on Saturday evening--and returned to Frankfort on +Monday morning as soon as it was light. + +Business for which one feels a special aptitude is not generally +repugnant. But Clement had such a variety of talents, and among all the +things he was capable of, the duties of the office where he passed his +days were certainly not what he had the greatest taste or inclination for. +Nothing would have retained him there but the conviction of thereby +serving the best interests of those dear to him. He must accept the most +remunerative employment, and, this once resolved upon, nothing could +exhaust the courageous endurance so peculiar to him. His courage was not +in the least increased by the desire of surprising others or exciting +their admiration, and nothing under any circumstances could daunt or turn +him from his purpose. And he knew how to brave _ennui_ as well as +disaster. But this _ennui_, which he generally overcame by severe +application, became from time to time overwhelming, and he would have had +violent fits of discouragement had it not been for the cheering evenings +he passed in the modest household of which he was a member. + +Wilhelm Mueller perceived that Clement's varied acquirements were useful to +him, and his devotedness to him was mingled with an admiration bordering +on enthusiasm. On his side, he procured Clement the opportunity and +pleasure of talking of something besides their commercial affairs, and +with the aid of music their evenings passed agreeably away. + +But the kind and simple Bertha, with the instinct that often enables a +woman to put her finger on the wound the most penetrating of men would +never have discovered, had found a sure means of diverting him. The +children had never forgotten the great event of their lives--the journey +and the beautiful young lady they met on the way. Clement never seemed +weary of listening to this account, to which Bertha would add many a +comment; and this had been the commencement of a kind of confidential +intimacy, which she discreetly took advantage of, and which was of more +comfort to him than he realized. In short, this was the bright spot in his +weary life. He would need it more than ever when, after a leave of absence +on account of his father's terrible accident, which had been prolonged +from day to day, he would have to return to his bondage, and this time +with an effort that added another degree of heroism to the task he had +imposed on himself. + +It was now the eve of his departure. Fleurange and Hilda were sitting at +twilight on a little bench by the river-side conversing together, and +Clement, leaning against a tree opposite, was looking at the current of +the water, listening silently, but attentively, to the conversation that +was going on before him. They were discussing all that had occurred during +their separation, and Hilda began to question Fleurange about her +journey--about Italy, and the life she led at Florence away from them all. +Fleurange replied, but briefly and with the kind of apprehension we feel +when a conversation is leading to a point we would like to avoid. She +foresaw the impossibility of succeeding in this, and was endeavoring, but +without success, to overcome her embarrassment, when Count George's name +at last was introduced. After some questions, to which Fleurange only +replied by monosyllables, Hilda continued: + +"Count George!--A friend of Karl's, who met him, was pretending the other +day in my hearing that no one could see him without loving him. As you +know him, Fleurange, what is your opinion?" + +The question was a decided one, and Fleurange, as we are aware, had no +turn for evasion. She blushed and remained silent--so long silent that +Clement abruptly turned around and looked at her. Did she turn pale at +this? or was it the light of the moon through the foliage that blanched +her face, and its silver rays that gave her an expression he had never +seen till now? He remained looking at her with attention mingled with +anguish, when at length, in a troubled tone and with a fruitless effort at +a smile, she replied: + +"I think, Hilda, Karl's friend was right." + +These words were very simple after all, but the darkest hour of Clement's +life never effaced from his memory the spot or the moment in which they +were uttered, the silence that preceded, or the tone and look that +accompanied them. + + +XXXVI. + + +The blindness of love is proverbial. His clairvoyance would be equally so, +were it not for the illusion that unceasingly aids the heart in avoiding +the discoveries it dreads. The very instinct that gives keenness to the +eye is as prompt to close it, and when the truth threatens one's happiness +or pride, there are but few who are bold enough to face it regardless of +consequences. + +To this number, however, Clement belonged. There was in his nature no +liability to illusions which had the power of obscuring his penetration. +Therefore the truth was suddenly revealed to him without mercy, and his +newly budding hopes were at once blasted for ever.--That moment of silence +was as tragical as if all his heart's blood had been shed on the spot, and +left him lifeless at the feet of her who had unwittingly given him so +deadly a blow! + +Within a year--since the day he thought himself separated from her for +ever, not only by his own inferiority, but by the sad necessity of his new +position--two unexpected changes had occurred: First, in his exterior +life--then he was apparently ruined: now, he felt capable of repairing his +fortunes. Secondly, in the opinion he had of himself. + +Not that a sudden fatuity had seized the modest and unpretending Clement. +By no means; but the great reverses of his family had certainly effaced in +a day every trace of his youthful timidity, and a kind of barrier had all +at once melted away before him. Hitherto his worth had not been recognized +beyond the narrow circle of his family, and even there he was loved +without being fully appreciated. Necessity threw him in contact with the +world; all his faculties were brought into action and developed by +exercise. His features, his attitude, his manners, and his general +appearance all participated in this transformation. The silent awkwardness +that once left him unnoticed was overcome by the necessity of asserting +himself, and also by that increased confidence in himself produced by a +widening influence over others. This influence, at which he himself was +astonished, was not solely the consequence of the superior ability he +manifested in the dull and prosaic life he had embraced. But in this +career, as everywhere else, he brought his highest faculties into +exercise; and while observing and seizing all these details of his +material life, he understood how to impart a soul to them by his dignity, +trustworthiness, unselfishness, and generous ardor--which are the sweet +flowers of labor and the noble result of a well-regulated nature. + +He also reserved a prominent part of his evenings for the favorite studies +in which he had not ceased to interest himself, as well as a thousand +subjects foreign to his daily occupation, but exceedingly useful in the +development of his mind. Thence sprang a simple and persuasive eloquence, +which gave him an ascendency over every one, and caused him to be +especially sought after on a thousand occasions that had no immediate +connection with his actual position. Once or twice he had even been +invited to speak at some public assembly which had for its object either a +question of public interest, or one relating to literature and the arts, +and he acquitted himself so well as to attract the notice not only of +those to whom the name of Dornthal was already familiar, but of a great +number of strangers. Numerous advances to acquaintance were made him on +all sides, and Clement might easily have passed his evenings elsewhere +than in the unpretending home of the Muellers. But he had no such +inclination. Their company satisfied his present tastes. Music, which he +would not willingly have been deprived of, was the delight of his hosts; +and as is frequently the case in Germany, they were able to join him in +duets or trios which many a professional singer would not have disdained +to listen to. + +Over his whole life, with its varied and absorbing interests, reigned one +dear and ever-present form. It seemed at first like some celestial vision, +far-off and inaccessible, but for some time, under the influence of all we +have referred to, it appeared to have drawn nearer to him. + +On this account, he began to appreciate the increased consideration with +which he was regarded, but which he valued so little on his own. He +ventured at last to ask himself if the good-will that seemed to beam on +him on all sides did not authorize him to hope sooner or later for +something more, and if his favorite poet was wholly wrong in promising +that he who loved should win something in return. + +Such thoughts and dreams, if allowed entrance in the heart, are apt to end +by taking entire possession of it; and, as we have said, Clement was +intoxicated with hope when Fleurange reappeared in their midst. But his +dreams, fancies, and hopes were now all crushed by one word from her--one +word, the fatal meaning of which was clearly revealed by the expression of +her eyes, which Clement caught a glimpse of by the pale light of the moon! + +The grief that pierced his soul enabled him to realize the full extent of +his illusions, and he was astonished he had ever before considered himself +unhappy. For some time after his return to Frankfort, he was overpowered +by a dejection such as he had never experienced. He felt as incapable of +any further effort as he was indifferent to all success. His daily task +became insupportable, and study in the evening impossible. Instead of +returning to the Mueller's at the usual hour, he would leave the city afoot +or on horseback, and roam around the country for hours, as if to wear out +his grief by exhausting his strength. + +Now he clearly saw he had only lived, planned, and exerted himself for her +the two years past; he had given her not only his heart, but his entire +life, and that life had had but one aim--the hope of some day winning in +return the heart which would never belong to him now--because it was given +to another! And while repeating Count George's name with rage, he +sharpened his anguish by recalling him, as he had once seen him, clothed +with irresistible attractions. His noble features, his look of +intelligence, his taste for the arts, the charm of his manners, his voice, +and his language, all came back unpityingly to the memory of his humble +rival. He remembered him in the gallery of the Old Mansion, through which +he accompanied him at a time when he was a mere student, and absolutely +wanting in everything that was, not only attractive, but capable of +exciting the least attention. His imagination mercilessly dwelt on the +contrast between them. Was it surprising (and he blushed at so ridiculous +a comparison) such a man should be more successful than he? And should he, +inferior as he was, be astonished that this man, living so near Fleurange, +under the same roof--At this thought a bitter anguish, a furious jealousy, +took possession of him, and excited a tempest in his heart which neither +duty, nor his sense of honor, nor the energy of his will, could succeed in +calming. There are times when passion rises superior to every other +impulse, and they who have not learned to seek their strength from a +divine source are always vanquished. But Clement had been accustomed to +the powerful restraints of religion; his strength consisted in never +throwing them off. Therefore, he was not to fail in this severe struggle: +he would soon turn his eyes heavenward for the aid he needed in again +becoming master of himself. + + +XXXVII. + + +Disinterestedness, energy, and the power of self-control were, as may have +been perceived, qualities common both to Clement and Fleurange. There was, +in fact, a great resemblance in their natures, which, on his part, was the +secret of the attraction so suddenly ripened into a more lively sentiment; +and, on hers, of an unchanging confidence, in spite of the transformation +of another kind she likewise experienced. And now they were both engaged +in a like struggle: they were united by similarity of suffering, which +separated them, nevertheless, as by an abyss. + +Ah! if Clement could have hoped, as he once did, that a more tender +sentiment would spring out of this sympathy and confidence, with what joy, +what sweet pride, he would have regarded this conformity so constantly +manifest between them! But the aspect of everything was now changed: there +was no longer any possibility of happiness for him, he could now only +suffer; and by the light of what was passing in his own heart he was +enabled to read hers--at once open to him and yet closed against him for +ever! + +With all Clement's self-control, he would have been utterly unable to +conceal the state of his mind from his cousin had he remained at +Frankfort. But, after the days of overpowering anguish we have already +referred to, after yielding without restraint to a despair bordering on +madness, Clement at length succeeded in regaining his clearness of +judgment. + +One morning he rose before day, and left the city on foot. His walk was +prolonged to such an extent that it might be called a pilgrimage, and the +more correctly as its goal was a church, but so unpretending a church that +it only differed from the neighboring houses by a stone cross to be seen +when passing the door which it surmounted. The door was opened by the very +person Clement came to see--a pious and simple young priest who was +formerly his schoolmate. He was inferior to Clement intellectually, but +his guide and master in those regions the soul alone attains. What Clement +now sought was--not merely to pour out his heart by way of confidence--not +even the consolation of discreet and Christian sympathy--but to recover his +firmness by a courageous avowal of all his weakness, and afterwards make +an unchangeable resolution in the presence of God and his representative +at the holy tribunal. He had made a similar one while yet a youth, but now +in his manhood he wished to renew it in a more solemn manner. It would of +course require greater effort after the gleam of hope he had just lost, +and the devotedness he pledged himself to would be more difficult after +the revelation that she whom he loved, and must ever love, had given her +affections to another. His voice faltered as he declared that no word, +look, or act of his should ever trouble her, or reveal the sentiments she +had inspired in the heart of one who would live near her, without her, and +yet for her! + +It was, in fact, his old _devise_: "Garder l'amour et briser l'espoir!" +which he now solemnly assumed with the grave and pious feeling that +accompanies all self-sacrifice. + +Such piety may be regarded by some as rather _exaltee_. They are right, +but it is the kind of exaltation which accords with the real signification +of the word, which elevates the soul it inflames, and which, though +powerless in itself, can effect much when the divine assistance is invoked +to co-operate in aiding, increasing, in a word, exalting human strength! + +That evening Clement quietly resumed his old seat at the Muellers' +fireside. In reply to Wilhelm's questions, he said that during his long +visit at Rosenheim he had neglected affairs that required his attention. +"And then I confess," continued he, "that I have been in a bad humor, and +thought it wiser to relieve you from my society." But to Bertha, who also +questioned him, in a less vague way, however, he acknowledged more +frankly, but no less briefly, that he had met with a great affliction, but +requested her never to mention the subject to him. Then he took his violin +and began to play a strain from Bach. + +Bertha seated herself at the piano, and played an accompaniment to this +and several other pieces. Her husband, who was beating time beside her, +remarked that their young friend's bad humor had a singularly favorable +effect on his talent. + +"I assure you, Dornthal, you never played so well as you have this +evening." + +"Perhaps so," replied Clement with a thoughtful air. "Yes, I think you are +right." + +It was really the truth. Music was the veiled, but eloquent, language of +his soul. The very feelings he so successfully repressed, the words that +no temptation or impulse could induce his lips to betray, made the chords +vibrate beneath his bow, and gave their tones an inexpressible accent it +was impossible to hear without emotion and surprise. + +When, at the end of a fortnight, Clement reappeared at Rosenheim, all +exterior traces of the excessive agitation he had given himself up to had +disappeared. He resumed his usual manner towards Fleurange. No one would +have dreamed--and she less than any one else--that between the past and +present he found the difference of life and death. She little imagined +that the new and strange sympathy that existed between them revealed to +him the secret of all her thoughts and struggles. She also, apparently, +had become the same as before. Her time was actively employed, the care +she had of little Frida and that she lavished on her uncle, the _menage_, +sewing, exercise, and study filled up the days so completely that it was +very seldom she could have been found inactive or pensive. + +Hilda, her favorite cousin, though likewise struck for a moment by the +hesitation with which she replied to her questions about Count George, +almost ceased attaching any importance to this slight incident when she +observed the apparent calmness with which Fleurange fulfilled the duties +of her active life. Only one clearly read her heart and understood the +passing expression of weariness and sorrow that now and then overshadowed +her brow for an instant, and saddened her eye. Only one noticed her +absence when the family assembled in the evening, and followed her in +thought to the little bench on the bank of the river, where he imagined +she had gone to weep awhile, alone and unrestrained. All she suffered he +had to endure himself, and he lived thus united to her, and yet every day +still more widely separated from her. + +The weeks flew rapidly away, however, and the tranquility and happiness of +the family were continually increasing. The professor's mental and +physical strength gradually returned. Work alone was forbidden him, but +reading and conversation were allowable and salutary diversions. His +conversations with Hansfelt were sometimes as interesting as of old, and +he might have been supposed to have regained the complete use of his +faculties had not a partial decay of memory sometimes warned his friends +he had not entirely recovered from his illness. For example, he often +imagined himself in the Old Mansion, and this illusion became stronger +after all his children, including Gabrielle, gathered around him. But in +other respects his memory was good. Hansfelt found him as correct and +clear as ever on all points of history or literary and religious subjects. +It seemed as if the higher faculties of his nature recovered their tone +first, and were invigorated by contact with the noble mind of his friend. +Thus the evenings passed away without _ennui_, even for the youngest, +while listening to their conversation. + +These evenings frequently ended with music, which the professor craved and +indeed required as a part of his treatment. Clement would take his violin, +and not at all unwillingly, for he saw his cousin always listened to it +attentively. In this way he dared address her in a mysterious language, +which he alone understood, but which sometimes gave her a thrill as if she +were listening to the echo of her own cry of pain. + +One evening, when he had excelled, she said: "You call that a song without +words, Clement, but the music was certainly composed for a song, which +perhaps you know, do you not?" + +"No," replied he, "but like you I imagine I can hear the words, and feel +they must exist somewhere." + +Hansfelt had also been listening attentively to the music. + +"Yes," said he smiling, "they exist in the hearts of all who +love--especially in the hearts of all who love without hope. Here I will +express in common language, but not in rhyme, the meaning of what Clement +has just played." + +He took a pencil and hastily wrote four lines nearly synonymous with those +of a French poet: + + + "Du mal qu'une amour ignoree + Nous fait souffrir + Je porte l'ame dechiree + Jusqu'a mourir!"(1) + + The pang of unrequited love + I feel; + 'Tis death the bleeding heart I bear + Must heal! + + +Clement made no reply, but abruptly changed the subject. The children rose +and clapped their hands as he struck up their favorite tarantella, and +became noisy as well as gay. + +Fleurange left the room, unperceived as she supposed, but Hilda, who had +been carefully observing her all the evening, followed her, determined to +obtain a complete avowal of all that was passing in her heart. She softly +entered her cousin's chamber. Fleurange was not expecting her. She had +thrown herself on a chair, with her face buried in her hands, in an +attitude expressive at once of dejection and grief. + +Hilda approached and threw her arms around her. Fleurange sprang up, her +eyes full of tears. + +"Do you remember," said Hilda in a soft, caressing tone--"do you remember, +Gabrielle, the day when I also wept in the library at our dear Old +Mansion? You asked me the reason of my tears, and I answered by opening my +heart to you. You have not forgotten it, have you? Will you not answer me +in a like way now?" + +Fleurange shook her head without uttering a word. + +"It has always seemed to me," continued Hilda, "that the happiness which +has crowned my life dates from my confidence in you that day. Why will you +not trust me in a like manner, and hope as I did?" + +"Happiness was within your reach," replied Fleurange; "an imaginary +obstacle alone prevented you from grasping it." + +"But how many obstacles that seem insurmountable vanish with time or even +beneath a firm will!" She continued slowly and in a lower tone: "Why +should not the Count George, then--" + +"Stop, Hilda, I conjure you," cried Fleurange in an agitated manner. + +Her cousin stopped confounded. + +"Listen to me," resumed Fleurange, at length, in a calmer tone. "As it is +your wish, let us speak of him. I consent. Let us speak of him this time, +but never again. Tell me," she continued with a sad smile, "can you make +me his equal in wealth and rank? Or deprive him of his nobility and make +him as poor as I? In either case, especially in the latter," she cried, +with a tenderness in her tone, and a look she could not repress--"ah! +nothing, certainly nothing but his will, could separate me from him! But +it is reasonable to suppose the sun will rise upon us to-morrow and find +us the same as to-day: we no longer live in the time of fairies, when +extraordinary metamorphoses took place to smooth away difficulties and +second the wishes of poor mortals. Help me then, Hilda, I beseech you, to +forget him, to live, and even recover from the wound, by never speaking to +me either of him, or myself!--" + +Hilda silently pressed her in her arms for a long time, and then said: "I +will obey you, Gabrielle, and never mention his name till you speak of him +first." + + +XXXVIII. + + +The summer and autumn both passed away without anything new, except some +variations in the professor's slow recovery, and an occasional gleam of +happiness for Clement--the revival of a spark of his buried hopes--but such +moments were rare, and succeeded by a sad reaction; nevertheless, they +were sweet and lived long in his memory. + +One day in particular was thus graven on his heart--a fine day in October, +when he had the pleasure of rowing Hilda and his cousin to a shady point +further up on the river, which gracefully winds nearly around it. There +they spent several hours, conversing together with the delightful +familiarity of intimacy, and now and then reading some favorite passage in +the books they brought with them. As he sat listening to the silvery tones +of Fleurange's voice, and met her expressive, sympathetic glance when he +took the book in his turn and read nearly as well as herself; as he sat +thus near her in that lovely, solitary spot, with no other witness but her +whose affection for both seemed only an additional tie, hope once more +entered his heart, as one breaks into a dwelling fastened against him, +but, alas! to be promptly thrust out, leaving him as desolate as before. + +While he was rowing them back in the evening, with his eyes fastened on +Fleurange, he saw her delightful but evanescent emotions of the day fading +away with the light, and another remembrance arise, sadder and more tender +than ever, which gave to her eyes, sometimes fastened on the dark and +rapid current, sometimes fixed on the shore, the expression he had learned +to read so well--an expression that made his heart ache with pity and +sympathy, but at the same time quiver and shrink with anguish, as if a +lancet or caustic had been applied to his wound and caused it to bleed! + +Two months later the festival of Christmas again brought him one of these +fleeting moments of happiness. On the eve--the never-forgotten anniversary +of Fleurange's arrival in their midst--the whole family were reunited, and +felt as if they were living over again the delightful past. The Christmas +tree was as brilliant as of yore; Mademoiselle Josephine, as ready to +participate in the joy of her friends as she was to avoid saddening them +with her sorrows, aided in adorning it, and every one found on its +branches some offering from her generous hand. Then, as in bygone days, +they wove garlands of holly, which Fleurange, as well as her cousins, wore +at dinner, and this time without any entreaty. At a later hour they had +music and dancing, which, ever ready as she was to catch the joy of +others, gave her a feeling of unusual gaiety, to which she unresistingly +abandoned herself--the gaiety of youth, which at times triumphs over +everything, and sometimes breaks out with an excess in proportion to its +previous restraint. Fleurange's laughter rang like music, and her joyous +voice mingled with the children's, to the great joy of him who was looking +on with ecstasy and surprise. Her radiant eyes, her glowing complexion, +the brilliancy happiness adds to beauty, and had so long been wanting to +hers, gave him, who could not behold it revive without transport, a +feeling of intoxication which once more made him forget all and hope +everything! But he was speedily and sadly recalled to himself. + +Madame Dornthal was seated beside her husband's arm-chair, which she +seldom left. A pleasant smile reappeared on her lips as she looked at her +children moving around her. From time to time she leaned towards the +professor, and was glad to see him entering into all that was going on +with his usual pleasure and with perfect comprehension of mind. All at +once she thought he turned pale. She looked at Clement, and made a gesture +which he understood. The noise disturbed his father. In an instant +profound silence was restored, and they all gathered around the +professor's chair. He appeared suddenly fatigued: his eyes closed, and he +leaned his head on his wife's shoulder. They all anxiously awaited his +first words after this sudden fit of somnolency. Presently he opened his +eyes and gave a vague, uneasy glance around. Then, turning to Madame +Dornthal, he said in a sad tone, passing his hand over his forehead: + +"Tell me why Felix is not here: I knew, but cannot remember." + +This new failure of his memory, the name associated with so many painful +recollections and uttered in so distressing a manner, put an end to all +the gaiety of the evening. The effect of so much agitation and fatigue on +the professor was not regarded as very serious, but it left a painful +impression, especially on Fleurange, who had fresh reasons for feeling his +words. + +Clement, who had been informed by Steinberg of what had occurred at +Florence, silently entered into her feelings, and once more the flash of +joy that lit up his heart vanished in a night darker than ever. + +But he could not foresee that a public event of serious import was at that +very hour transpiring far away, in a different sphere from his, which +would have an important and painful influence on his humble destiny. + +To be continued. + + + + +Review of Vaughan's Life Of S. Thomas.(2) + + +It is but too seldom that the reviewer has to welcome a work like that +which we have already had the pleasure of introducing to our readers, and +to which we now desire to render more fitting honors. An original life of +a saint, and of an epoch-making saint like Thomas of Aquin, treated on a +scale adequate to its importance, in the English tongue, by an English +Benedictine monk, is a refreshing novelty to those who, like ourselves, +have so much to say to what is slight, or frivolous, or common, or +hostile. The contemplative reviewer, looking at the two thick volumes of +the English edition, feels inclined, like a man who guesses before he +opens a letter, to conjure up fancies as to what he will find in this new +life of S. Thomas of Aquin. Two volumes, each consisting of more than 800 +pages, are a great deal, in these days, for one saint. They are a great +deal to write, and what is perhaps of more importance, they are a great +deal to read. But no one can suppose that they are too much for such a +saint as Thomas of Aquin. Considering that his own works, as printed in +the splendid Parma edition lately completed, would make up some forty +volumes of the size of these two goodly ones, it is not much. Considering +that Thomas of Aquin has been more written about by commentators for four +or five centuries than any other man, except perhaps Aristotle, who ever +lived--considering that every student of theology is always coming across +his authority, and that he has been the great builder-up of the vast +building of Catholic philosophical and theological terminology, it is not +much that he should have two volumes. Indeed, when we look into the book, +we expect to find Prior Vaughan not seldom complaining of being obliged, +through want of space, to leave out a great deal that he would have wished +to say. And this leads us to notice the author's name. Father Bede +Vaughan, though fairly known by reputation in England, is perhaps a +stranger to the greater number of American Catholics. It is sufficient to +say at present that he is a brother of the Very Rev. Dr. Herbert Vaughan, +whose presence in this country lately, in connection with the mission to +the negroes, will have made his name familiar to many even of those who +had not the pleasure of personally meeting him. Father Bede Vaughan is +Prior of the Benedictine Cathedral Chapter of Newport and Menevia. A +cathedral-prior is a novelty, not only in literature, but absolutely. +There were a great many cathedral-priors in England once upon a time--men +of power and substance--wearing their mitres (some of them) and sitting in +the House of Lords. Whatever be the lands and the revenues of the only +cathedral-priory in English-speaking hierarchies of the present day, it is +pleasant to meet with the old name, and to meet it on the cover of a book. +That a Benedictine should have written a sterling book will not surprise +the world of letters. It is perhaps a little new to find the great +Dominican, the Angel of the Schools, taken up by a member of an order +which S. Thomas is popularly supposed to have in set purpose turned his +back upon. But this is a point on which the work itself will enlighten us. +Meanwhile, on opening the first volume we catch sight of a portrait of the +Saint. It is a reproduction, by photography, of a painting by the Roman +artist Szoldatics, which was painted expressly for the present work. It +represents the well-known scene in which the crucified Master, for whom +the great doctor has written and taught his life long, asks him what +reward he would desire. Portraits of S. Thomas of Aquin are not uncommon. +We are all familiar with the large and portly figure and the full and mild +countenance, the sun upon his breast, the black and the white, and the +shaven crown of the Order of St. Dominic, the open book and the immortal +pen. Some of the representations of the saint exaggerate his traditional +portliness into a corpulence that almost obliterates the light of genius +in his face. On the other hand, there exist many which give at once the +large open features and the look of inspiration and of refinement. Those +who have turned to the title-pages of the best Roman or Flemish editions +of his life or works will remember these. The new portrait, photographed +in the first volume, is very successful. Thomas of Aquin had Norman blood +in his veins, and the fairness of his skin and the contour of his head are +not those of the typical Italian. The artist has managed to convey very +well that massive head, in which every lobe of the brain seems to have +been perfectly developed and roomily lodged, thus furnishing the +intelligence with an imaginative instrument whose power was only equalled +by its delicacy. In the corresponding place in the second volume there is +a photograph of a meritorious engraving, from a picture or engraving +unknown to us, in which, however, the head of the Saint is not so noble or +refined. + +Passing, however, to consider the substance of the work itself, it is not +too much to say that, as a life of S. Thomas of Aquin, it is perfectly +original. We do not mean, of course, that the writer has found out new +facts, or made any considerable alteration in the aspect of old ones. But +his plan of working is new. He has had the idea of giving, not merely S. +Thomas, but his surroundings. Some saints, even of those who have spent +themselves in external labors for their fellow-men, require but little in +the way of background to make their portraits significant. Ven. Bede's +biography would not gain much light from discussions upon Mohammedanism, +or upon the state of England or of Europe during his life. To understand +and love S. Francis of Sales, it is not necessary to study the growth of +Calvinism, to follow the steps of the _De Auxiliis_ controversy, or to +become minutely acquainted with the character of Henri IV. But it is very +different with S. Thomas of Aquin. Opening his mouth, like a true doctor +of the church, "in medio ecclesiae," he had words to speak which all +Christendom listened to, and acted upon, too, in one way or another. He +was a power at Paris, at Cologne, at Naples. Every great influence of the +thirteenth century felt the impulse of his thought: S. Louis the Crusader, +Urban IV., Gregory X., the Greek schismatics, the Arabian philosophers, +the opponents of monasticism, the mighty power of the universities. Prior +Vaughan thus speaks in the preface to the first volume: + + + "The author has found it difficult to comprehend how the life of + S. Thomas of Aquin could be written so as to content the mind of + an educated man--of one who seeks to measure the reach of principle + and the influence of saintly genius--without embracing a + considerably wider field of thought than has been deemed necessary + by those who have aimed more at composing a book of edifying + reading, than at displaying the genesis and development of truth + and the impress of a master-mind upon the age in which he lived. + It has always appeared to him that one of the most telling + influences exerted by the doctor-saints of God, has been that of + rare intellectual power in confronting and controlling the + passions and mental aberrations of epochs, as well as of blinded + and swerving men.... + + "The object which the author of these pages has proposed to + himself is this: to unfold before the reader's mind the far- + reaching and many-sided influence of heroic sanctity, when + manifested by a man of massive mind, of sovereign genius, and of + sagacious judgment, and then to remind him that, as the fruit + hangs from the branches, so genius of command and steadiness of + view and unswervingness of purpose, are naturally conditioned by a + certain moral habit of heart and head; that purity, reverence, + adoration, love, are the four solid corner-stones on which that + Pharos reposes which, when all about it, and far beyond it, is + darkness and confusion, stands up in the midst as the + representative of order, and as the minister of light, and as the + token of salvation. + + "Now, the Angel of the Schools was emphatically a great and + shining light. To write his life is not so much to deal with the + subject of his personal history, as to display the stretch of his + power and the character of his influence. Indeed, few of the great + cardinal thinkers of the world have left much private history to + record. Self was hidden in the splendor of the light which bursts + out from it--just as the more brilliant the flame, so much the more + unseen is the lamp in which it burns. It stands to reason that the + more widespread the influence which such men as these exert, so + much the wider must be the range taken by the writer over the + field of history and theology and philosophy if he wishes + adequately to delineate the action of their lives. The private + history of S. Thomas of Aquin could be conveniently written in + fifty pages, whilst his full biography would certainly occupy many + thousand pages." (Pp. iii., iv.) + + +The view which is thus sketched out is a large one. We have said that the +author presents not merely his hero, but his hero's surroundings. But, in +studying his mind and his work, he does not content himself with making a +vivid background of the thirteenth century. One century is the child of +another, and mind is educated by mind. The past is the seed of the future, +and no time can be understood without understanding the times that gave it +birth. This is especially true of the times when history accumulates most +rapidly, and of minds to whom it is given to fashion history as it is +made. Prior Vaughan finds the story of S. Thomas' intellectual work +commencing far back in the work of those men whom he calls the "columnal +fathers" of the church. He therefore takes his reader back to primitive +ages--to the desert, the laura, the early conflicts of God's servants with +paganism, with heresy, and with worldliness. He sets before him S. +Anthony, in the majesty of his single-hearted union with Christ; S. +Athanasius, worthy disciple of such a master, unsurpassed in the great +opportunities of his life and the strength with which he rose to meet +them; S. Basil, the monk that fought the world, and overcame it; S. +Gregory Theologus, the _vates sacer_ of the fourth century, who sang in +verse and in rhythmical prose the song of the consubstantial Son of God. +He introduces us to S. Augustine, to S. Ambrose, to S. Gregory the Great, +and points out how essential a feature, in the greatness of S. Thomas, is +the way in which he has reproduced all that was eternal and "catholic" in +the thoughts of the men whom God has set up to be the pillars of the +doctrine of his church. With other saints, it would, perhaps, be +superfluous to trace their connection with the fathers; with the author of +the _Summa_, it is indispensable. + + + "The Columnal Fathers and the Angelical were in completest + harmony; they were knit together by the monastic principle. The + intellectual hinges of the Universal Church (speaking humanly) + have been monastic-men--that is to say, men who, through an intense + cross-worship and a keen perception of the beautiful, threw up all + for Christ; and through + + 'The ingrained instinct of old reverence, + The holy habit of obedience,' + + loved, labored, suffered for him, and died into his arms. + + "For the one thread which pierces through all, and maintains a + real communication between the Angelical and the heroes of the + classic age--which creates a brotherhood between S. Thomas of the + thirteenth century and the great athletes in the second and the + third--which makes the 'Sun of the Church' illuminate the 'Pillar + of the World,' and so reciprocally--that is to say, which renders + S. Thomas and S. Anthony one in spirit and in principle--was this, + that their beings were transformed into a supernatural activity, + through an intense and personal love of their Redeemer. + + "This was the one special lesson which the Angelical drew from the + wilderness and the fathers, which came to him through S. Benedict, + indeed, but rather as a principle of _quies_ than of exertion. In + the desert athletes, and those who followed them, he found that + principle operative, and almost military in its chivalrous + readiness to combat and spill blood in defence of truth. It lent + to him what it exhibits in them also--breadth of view, largeness, + moral freedom, stubborn courage, generosity of heart, expansion of + mind, and an electric light of intellect, which bear about them a + touch of the Eastern world. How could the Angelical read Anthony's + life, or follow Athanasius in his exiles, or see Basil so + heroically rigid in his defence of right, or hear, in imagination, + Gregory Theologus pouring out a stream of polished eloquence, + without being impressed by truth's grace and music; how could he + watch S. Chrysostom, all on fire with his love of God and with his + discriminating sympathy for men, or think of the ascetic Jerome, + battling single-handed in the wilderness, or perusing his + Scripture in the cave; how could he dwell in spirit with S. + Ambrose or S. Gregory the Great, or follow the career of the + passionate, emotional, splendid S. Augustine, without expanding in + heart and mind towards all that is best and greatest--all that is + most noble and most fair in the majestic character of God's + tenderly-cherished saints? + + "Had he not known them so intimately, great as he was, his mind + would have been comparatively cramped, his character most probably + would have been less imperial in its mould, and there would have + been less of that oriental mightiness about his intellectual + creations, which now reminds one of those vast monuments of other + days, which still are the marvel of travellers in the East, and + the despair of modern engineers." (II., pp. 523-5.) + + +A great portion of the second volume is taken up with the exposition in +detail of these thoughts and ideas. We do not think that any one who has +thoroughly seized the author's point of view will be sorry that so much +space is given to the lives and characters of men who are not the +immediate subject of the book. The truth is, that the full _significance_ +of S. Thomas of Aquin has been very much overlooked in modern times. The +non-Catholic theory has always been that he was a voluminous "scholastic," +more acute than most of his sort, perhaps, but mediaeval, hair-splitting, +and unprofitable. The Catholic theory has done him greater justice; but +even the Catholic schools have too much forgotten S. Thomas. There is an +interesting passage in one of Lacordaire's letters, in which he tells the +Abbe Drioux, who has done so much for S. Thomas in France, how he read the +Angelical every day, and yet how long it had been before he had come to +know him! And then he speaks with some depreciation of that "Positive" +theology which has pretended to take the place of the scholastic form and +discipline. The great preacher was familiar with the spiritual wants of +the world in their widest aspect, and he no sooner came to know S. Thomas +of Aquin than he saw that he was face to face with the mind that has said +more truth about God and man, and said it better, than any one man who has +ever lived; and he has said it so well, because he has not said it out of +his own consciousness, but first saturated himself with the living truth +of the immortal fathers, and then reproduced in his own way what God had +thus himself imparted to the world. + +The influence which S. Thomas owed to the study and meditation of the +great fathers was surpassed--or rather, we ought to say, most powerfully +shown--by the impressions made upon his heart, even more than his mind, by +his early bringing up. Every one knows that the Angel of the Schools, who +was of the noblest blood of Italy, spent his early years in the great +arch-monastery of Monte Casino. Prior Vaughan has no hesitation in making +the assertion that Thomas of Aquin never lost what he acquired from the +monks of S. Benedict during those seven childish years that he spent with +them in the cloisters of the great abbey. He was never a professed +Benedictine, although he would, in the natural course, have become one +without making any explicit profession, had not the troubles of the times +forced the monks to flee from the abbey. But the Benedictine or monastic +spirit, the principle of _quies_, as our author calls it, with the vivid +appreciation of the kingship of Christ, Thomas took away with him when he +went forth and carried with him to the work he had to do. The new +mendicant orders that had recently been founded were schools of activity, +aggressive, moving hither and thither, pitching their tents in great +towns, and lifting their voices in universities. Their saints were to be +fitted for the regeneration of a new phase of the world. But in the saints +themselves it was only an outward change. The essential spirit remained +the same. That spirit had been the heirloom of the old monastic orders, +and it could never be out of date. In the men who were to do the greatest +things in the new life of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the old +spirit of the cloister must be found strong and deep. In the man who above +all was to stand forth as the sum and crown of the middle age, that +contemplative, immovable, far-seeing realization of "the person of Christ" +must exist as heroically as in Anthony of the Desert or Benedict of the +Mountain. And it was S. Thomas' Benedictine training that contributed much +to make him such a man. + + + "The monks thought much, but talked little; thus the monastic + system encouraged meditation, rather than intellectual + tournaments; reserve rather than display, deep humility rather + than dialectical skill. The Benedictines did not aim so much at + unrestrained companionship of free discussion as at self control; + not so much at secular-minded fantasy as at much prayer and sharp + penance, till self was conquered, and the grace of God reigned, + and giants walked the earth. Self-mastery, springing from the + basis of a supernatural life, moulded the heart to sanctity, and + imparted to the intellect an accuracy of vision which is an act of + nature directed and purified by grace. Theodore, Aldhelm, Bede, + Boniface, Alcuin, Dunstan, Wilfrid, Stephen, Bernard, Anselm, + these names are suggestive of this influence of the monastic + system." (I., p. 26.) + + +It is one of the aims of the book to bring out the view that the prince of +scholastics and the king of dialecticians was a man of the purest and +deepest "monasticism." But he was not destined to be as an Anselm, a +Bernard, or a Hugh of S. Victor. + +The Saint was sent to Naples for the prosecution of his studies, and +whilst there he asked for and received the habit of S. Dominic. The author +gives a brilliant sketch of Naples as it was under the sway of Frederick +II. He then devotes a whole chapter to a "study" of the new orders of S. +Francis and S. Dominic, for the purpose of bringing out vividly before the +reader the new world that was springing up and the new race of men that +the church was calling forth to deal with it. We have no space to quote +from this chapter, but, even taken apart from its connection with S. +Thomas, it is full of interest and life. + +Thus was Thomas of Aquin prepared and equipped; prepared by the great +fathers and by S. Benedict, equipped in the armor of the Order of +intellectual chivalry. And what was the work before him? Who were his +enemies, his friends, his neighbors, his assistants? In answer to these +questions we have the chapters on "Abelard, or Rationalism and +Irreverence"; on "S. Bernard, or Authority and Reverence"; on the "Schools +of S. Victor"; on the "Arabian and the Jewish Influence in Europe"; on +"William of S. Amour"; on "Paris and its University"; and on "Albert the +Great." Some of these chapters relate, as will be seen, to men who were +not contemporaries of S. Thomas. But if Abelard, and S. Bernard, and +William of Champeaux had passed away in the flesh, their influence or +their views still lived on when Thomas wrote. And we see the full +significance of these chapters on the great schools of thought, orthodox +and heterodox, when we arrive at the second volume, and find the author +showing in detail how the Angel of the Schools, in some part or other of +his voluminous writings, met and refuted every form of prevalent error, +and, whilst majestically laying down principles for all ages, never forgot +to clear up the difficulties of his own time. The rationalism of Abelard, +the emanation doctrines that Arabian subtlety had elaborated out of the +reminiscences of the old Gnosticism, the errors of the Greek schismatics, +the perversity of the Jews, are all encountered by his never-resting pen, +either in some one of his numerous _Opuscula_, varying in length from an +essay to an octavo volume, or else in one or other of his two great +_Sums_, or perhaps in more places than one, the refutation being the more +complete as the writing becomes more mature. As for the two greatest and +most prominent of his enterprises--the Christianizing of Aristotle and the +formation of a complete _Sum_ of theology--it was to be expected that Prior +Vaughan should fully enlarge upon them. The chapters on "S. Thomas and +Aristotle," and "S. Thomas and Reason," in the second volume, form a good +introduction to the study of the Angelic Doctor, and at the same time give +the enquiring mind some notion of how S. Thomas has performed one of the +greatest feats that genius ever accomplished--the successful and consistent +"conversion" of the greatest, the most original, and the most precise of +heathen philosophers into a hewer of wood and carrier of water for the +faith. + +We would gladly dwell on the three chapters at the end of Vol. I., in +which the writer, in reviewing the writings of the Saint in defence and +exaltation of monasticism, gives a useful and spirited history of the +whole of that exciting contest which took its beginning in William of S. +Amour's book called _Perils of the Last Times_. It seems really impossible +to say how much the religious state, humanly speaking, owes to the man who +wrote the book _Against Those who attack the Service of God and Religion_, +and that _On the Perfection of the Spiritual Life_. + +Passing now from the more remote surroundings of the hero of the story to +the immediate scene of the greatest portion of his labors, we venture to +believe that one of the most popular parts of this work of Prior Vaughan's +will be his animated description of the university system of the +thirteenth century, and of the University of Paris in particular. He has +spared no pains in getting at correct details and putting them +artistically together. M. Franklin's splendid and comparatively unknown +labors on mediaeval Paris have supplied him with matter that will be found +nowhere else. Paris is the natural type of the great mediaeval university. +More central and accessible than Oxford, safer than Bologna, freer than +Naples, and founded on a wide and grand basis, the University of Paris +soon grew into a formidable assemblage of men who, whilst ostensibly +votaries of science, were not unprovided with excitable spirits and rough +hands. Students gathered, rich and poor, great doctors taught, munificent +founders, like Robert of Sorbon, bestowed their money or their influence, +the monks of all orders gathered round silently, and to some extent +distrustfully, from Citeaux, from Cluny, even from the Grande Chartreuse, +with the Benedictines of S. Germain, the Premonstratensians--their church +was where now stands the _Cafe de la Rotonde_--and the Augustinians. As for +the Dominicans and Franciscans, they, as may be supposed, were early on +the spot, to teach quite as much as to learn. The following is a sketch of +the men who flocked to the great university--at least of one considerable +class: + + + "There were starving, friendless lads, with their unkempt heads + and their tattered suits, who walked the streets, hungering for + bread, and famishing for knowledge, and hankering after a sight of + some of those great doctors, of whom they had heard so much when + far away in the woods of Germany or the fields of France. Some + were so poor that they could not afford to follow a course of + theology. We read of one poor fellow on his death-bed, having + nothing else, giving his shoes and stockings to a companion to + procure a Mass for his soul. Some were only too glad to carry holy + water to private houses, _selon la coutume Gallicane_, with the + hope of receiving some small remuneration. Some were destitute of + necessary clothing. One tunic sometimes served for three, who took + it in turns--two went to bed, whilst the third dressed himself and + hurried off to school. Some spent all their scanty means in buying + parchments, and wasted their strength, through half the night, + poring over crabbed manuscript, or in puzzling out that jargon + which contained the wisdom of the wisest of the Greeks. Whole + nights some would remain awake on their hard pallets, in those + unhealthy cells, trying to work out some problem proposed by the + professor in the schools. But there were rich as well as poor at + Paris. There was Langton, like others, famous for his opulence, + who taught, and then became Canon of Notre Dame; and Thomas a + Becket, who, as a youth, came here to seek the charm of gay + society." (I., p. 354.) + + +Amid all the noise, turmoil, and disputes of the huge colony of students, +numbering more thousands than Oxford or Cambridge at this day can show +hundreds, the great Dominican convent of S. James was a grand and famous +centre of light and work. S. Dominic was not long before he settled in +Paris. At first the friars lived in a mean hired lodging, apparently on +the Island of Notre Dame. But soon their reputation for poverty and +learning attracted the notice of influential benefactors, and they had a +house of their own. It was dedicated to S. James the Apostle, and quickly +became not only a great monastery but a famous school. The Dominican +Order, divinely founded for a want of the time, soon began to show in +front of the progress of the age, and to lead instead of following. It was +here, in S. James, that Alanus de Insulis and Vincent of Beauvois wrote +histories and commentaries; it was here that Albert the Great and Thomas +Aquinas lectured and wrote; and the crowd of lesser names that are +mentioned on its rolls about this time, less distinguished but still +distinguished, would take long to enumerate. It was for S. James that S. +Dominic himself had framed a body of rules. These rules are most striking, +as given in the pages of Prior Vaughan. They show how a saint and monastic +legislator feels the "form and pressure" of the times, and how he provides +for a new feature in monasticism. To read these rules, one feels tempted +to say that the Dominicans sacrificed everything to give their men a +first-rate course of studies. But we must remember the midnight vigil and +the perpetual absence and the long silence. Still, the cloisters of S. +James were different enough from those of Monte Casino. There was a great +hall at S. James', where professors taught and whither students thronged +to hear--how different from the remote cloister of Jarrow, where Venerable +Bede taught his younger brethren for so many years on the quiet flats +between the Wear and the Tyne! The cells knew the light of the midnight +lamp, the cloisters resounded with disputation, the young students of the +Order were men of few books--a Bible, a copy of the _Historia_ of Petrus +Comestor and of the _Sentences_ of Peter Lombard, was all their private +library. But half the day was spent face to face with a professor and with +each other, and the want of books was not much felt. And what an education +it must have been to listen to and take down the _Summa contra Gentiles_ +of the Angel of the Schools! As we have said, the whole of these two +chapters is instinct with the liveliest description, and we cannot do +better than recommend readers to go to it and judge for themselves. + +We must reserve what we have not yet touched upon, viz., the personal life +of the Saint himself, for another notice. It must not be supposed that +Prior Vaughan passes over the person of S. Thomas in his anxiety to show +us what sort of a world he lived in. It will soon be seen, on making some +slight acquaintance with the book, that the strictly biographical portion +is in reality most successful; the story is well told, and, like all +stories of sanctity and supernatural heroism, goes straight to the heart. + +Without saying that Prior Vaughan's two volumes partake of the nature of +the perfect, we frankly say we do not intend to find faults in it. We +welcome it, and it deserves to be welcomed by every Catholic that can read +it. There are, of course, defects and a few errors here and there; but the +book lays down no false principles, takes no dangerous views, and +patronizes no pernicious mistakes. On the other hand, it deals with a wide +theme in a large way. In language which, if at times too copious, is +nevertheless frequently eloquent and always easy and fluent, the writer +raises the life of a saint into a picture of a world-epoch. He has labored +very hard at his authorities and sources, and when the book gets into use +many students, we are sure, will thank him for his copious references and +notes. His imagination is of a high order, and his picture-loving power is +seen in the way in which he sketches with an epithet, puts together the +elements that he finds up and down the old authors, and shakes the dust +and the mildew from valuable bits of ancient chronicle, so that they look +bright again. The Hon. John L. Motley is in the front rank of modern +historians, and to compare any writer with him is to give praise that one +must think much before giving; but if we wished to indicate the _genre_ of +Prior Vaughan's style--its pictorial power, its realism, and its tone of +earnest conviction--we should mention the name of the historian of the +Netherlands. The two writers are very unlike in their convictions; and Mr. +Motley has, no doubt, a perfection and finish of art which few writers can +approach. But still Prior Vaughan is quite fit to be named in the same +sentence. And a book which has cost so many hours of thought and labor, +which aims so high, which is so really the work of a man with views and +with a power to express himself, and which deals with a subject that can +never lose its interest, but one which, if we do not mistake, is as yet +only at the beginning of a grand revival, is a book to be welcomed, to be +read, and to be thankful for. + + + + +The Progressionists. + + +From The German Of Conrad Von Bolanden. + + + +Chapter V. + + +Gerlach whispered something to the banker. Holt pressed his pocket- +handkerchief to the wound. + +"Please yourself!" said the banker loudly in a business tone. Seraphin +again approached the beaten man. + +"Will you please, my good man, to accompany us?" + +"What for, sir?" + +"Because I would like to do something towards healing up your wound; I +mean the wound in there." + +Holt stood motionless before the stranger and looked at him. + +"I thank you, sir; there is no remedy for me; I am doomed!" + +"Still, I will assist you. Follow me." + +"Who are you, sir, if I may ask the question?" + +"I am a man whom Providence seems to have chosen to rescue the prey from +the jaws of a usurer. Come along with us, and fear nothing." + +"Very well, I will go in the name of God! I do not precisely know your +object, and you are a stranger to me. But your countenance looks innocent +and kind, therefore I will go with you." + +They passed through alleys and streets. + +"Do you often visit that tavern?" inquired Seraphin. + +"Not six times in a year," answered Holt. "Sometimes of a Sunday I drink +half a glass of wine, that's all. I am poor, and have to be saving. I +would not have gone to the tavern to-day but that I wanted to get rid of +my feelings of misery." + +"I overheard your story," rejoined Seraphin. "Shund's treatment of you was +inhuman. He behaved towards you like a trickish devil." + +"That he did! And I am ruined together with my family," replied the poor +man dejectedly. + +"Take my advice, and never abuse Shund. You know how respectable he has +suddenly got to be, how many influential friends he has. You can easily +perceive that one cannot say anything unfavorable of such a man without +great risk, no matter were it true ten times over." + +"I am not given to disputing," replied Holt. "But it stirred the bile +within me to hear him extolled, and it broke out. Oh! I have learned to +suffer in silence. I haven't time to think of other matters. After God, my +business and my family were my only care. I attended to my occupation +faithfully and quietly as long as I had any to attend to, but now I +haven't any to take care of. O God! it is hard. It will bring me to the +grave." + +"You are a land cultivator?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Shund intends to have you sold out?" + +"Yes; immediately after the election he intends to complete my ruin." + +"How much money would you need in order with industry to get along?" + +"A great deal of money, a great deal--at least a thousand florins. I have +given him a mortgage for a thousand florins on my house and what was left +to me. A thousand florins would suffice to help me out of trouble. I might +save my little cottage, my two cows, and a field. I might then plough and +sow for other people. I could get along and subsist honestly. But as I +told you, nothing less than a thousand florins would do; and where am I to +get so much money? You see there is no hope for me, no help for me. I am +doomed!" + +"The mortgaged property is considerable," said Gerlach. "A house, even +though a small one, moreover, a field, a barn, a garden, all these +together are surely worth a much higher price. Could you not borrow a +thousand florins on it and pay off the usurer?" + +"No, sir. Nobody would be willing to lend me that amount of money upon +property mortgaged to a man like Shund. Besides, my little property is out +of town, and who wants to go there? I, for my part, of course, like no +spot as much, for it is the house my father built, and I was born and +brought up there." + +The man lapsed into silence, and walked at Seraphin's side like one +weighed down by a heavy load. The delicate sympathy of the young man +enabled him to guess what was passing in the breast of the man under the +load. He knew that Holt was recalling his childhood passed under the +paternal roof; that little spot of home was hallowed for him by events +connected with his mother, his father, his brothers and sisters, or with +other objects more trifling, which, however, remained fresh and bright in +memory, like balmy days of spring. + +From this consecrated spot he was to be exiled, driven out with wife and +children, through the inhumanity and despicable cunning of an usurer. The +man heaved a deep sigh, and Gerlach, watching him sidewise, noticed his +lips were compressed, and that large tears rolled down his weather-browned +cheeks. The tender heart of the young man was deeply affected at this +sight, and the millionaire for once rejoiced in the consciousness of +possessing the might of money. + +They halted before the Palais Greifmann. Holt noticed with surprise how +the man in blouse drew from his waistcoat pocket a small instrument +resembling a toothpick, and with it opened a door near the carriage gate. +Had not every shadow of suspicion been driven from Holt's mind by +Seraphin's appearance, he would surely have believed that he had fallen +into the company of burglars, who entrapped him to aid in breaking into +this palace. + +Reluctantly, after repeated encouragement from Gerlach, he crossed the +threshold of the stately mansion. He had not quite passed the door when he +took off his cap, stared at the costly furniture of the hall through which +they were passing, and was reminded of St. Peter's thought as the angel +was rescuing him from the clutches of Herod. Holt imagined he saw a +vision. The man who had unlocked the door disappeared. Seraphin entered an +apartment followed by Shund's victim. + +"Do you know where you are?" inquired the millionaire. + +"Yes, sir, in the house of Mr. Greifmann the banker." + +"And you are somewhat surprised, are you not?" + +"I am so much astonished, sir, that I have several times pinched my arms +and legs, for it all seems to me like a dream." + +Seraphin smiled and laid aside his cap. Holt scanned the noble features of +the young man more minutely, his handsome face, his stately bearing, and +concluded the man in the blouse must be some distinguished gentleman. + +"Take courage," said the noble-looking young man in a kindly tone. "You +shall be assisted. I am convinced that you are an honest, industrious man, +brought to the verge of ruin through no fault of your own. Nor do I blame +you for inadvertently falling into the nets of the usurer, for I believe +your honest nature never suspected that there could exist so fiendish a +monster as the one that lives in the soul of an usurer." + +"You may rely upon it, sir. If I had had the slightest suspicion of such a +thing, Shund never would have got me into his clutches." + +"I am convinced of it. You are partially the victim of your own good +nature, and partially the prey of the wild beast Shund. Now listen to me: +Suppose somebody were to give you a thousand florins, and to say: 'Holt, +take this money, 'tis yours. Be industrious, get along, be a prudent +housekeeper, serve God to the end of your days, and in future beware of +usurers'--suppose somebody were to address you in this way, what would you +do?" + +"Supposing the case, sir, although it is not possible, but supposing the +case, what would I do? I would do precisely what that person would have +told me, and a great deal more. I would work day and night. Every day, at +evening prayer, I would get on my knees with my wife and children, and +invoke God's protection on that person. I would do that, sir; but, as I +said, the case is impossible." + +"Nevertheless, suppose it did happen," explained Seraphin in a preliminary +way. "Give me your hand that you will fulfil the promise you have just +given." + +For a moment Seraphin's hand lay in a callous, iron palm, which pressed +his soft fingers in an uncomfortable but well-meant grasp. + +"Well, now follow me," said Gerlach. + +He led the way; Holt followed with an unsteady step like a drunken man. +They presented themselves before the banker's counter. The latter was +standing behind the trellis of his desk, and on a table lay ten rolls of +money. + +"You have just now by word and hand confirmed a promise," said Gerlach, +turning to the countryman, "which cannot be appreciated in money, for that +promise comprises almost all the duties of the father of a family. But to +make the fulfilment of the promise possible, a thousand florins are +needed. Here lies the money. Accept it from me as a gift, and be happy." + +Holt did not stir. He looked from the money at Gerlach, was motionless and +rigid, until, at last, the paralyzing surprise began to resolve itself +into a spasmodic quivering of the lips, and then into a mighty flood of +tears. Seizing Seraphin's hands, he kissed them with an emotion that +convulsed his whole being. + +"That will do now," said the millionaire, "take the money, and go home." + +"My God! I cannot find utterance," said Holt, stammering forth the words +with difficulty. "Good heaven! is it possible? Is it true? I am still +thinking 'tis only a dream." + +"Downright reality, my man!" said the banker. "Stop crying; save your +tears for a more fitting occasion. Put the rolls in your pocket, and go +home." + +Greifmann's coldness was effective in sobering down the man intoxicated +with joy. + +"May I ask, sir, what your name is, that I may at least know to whom I owe +my rescue?" + +"Seraphin is my name." + +"Your name sounds like an angel's, and you are an angel to me. I am not +acquainted with you, but God knows you, and he will requite you according +to your deeds." + +Gerlach nodded gravely. The banker was impatient and murmured +discontentedly. Holt carefully pocketed the rolls of money, made an +inclination of gratitude to Gerlach, and went out. He passed slowly +through the hall. The porter opened the door. Holt stood still before him. + +"I ask your pardon, but do you know Mr. Seraphin?" asked he. + +"Why shouldn't I know a gentleman that has been our guest for the last two +weeks?" + +"You must pardon my presumption, Mr. Porter. Will Mr. Seraphin remain here +much longer?" + +"He will remain another week for certain." + +"I am very much obliged to you," said Holt, passing into the street and +hurrying away. + +"Your intended has a queer way of applying his money," said the banker to +his sister the next morning. And he reported to her the story of +Seraphin's munificence. "I do not exactly like this sort of kindness, for +it oversteps all bounds, and undoubtedly results from religious +enthusiasm." + +"That, too, can be cured," replied Louise confidently. "I will make him +understand that eternity restores nothing, that consequently it is safer +and more prudent to exact interest from the present." + +"'Tis true, the situation of that fellow Holt was a pitiable one, and Hans +Shund's treatment of him was a masterpiece of speculation. He had stripped +the fellow completely. The stupid Holt had for years been laboring for the +cunning Shund, who continued drawing his meshes more and more tightly +about him. Like a huge spider, he leisurely sucked out the life of the fly +he had entrapped." + +"Your hostler says there was light in Seraphin's room long after midnight. +I wonder what hindered him from sleeping?" + +"That is not hard to divine. In all probability he was composing a +sentimental ditty to his much adored," answered Carl teasingly. "Midnight +is said to be a propitious time for occupations of that sort." + +"Do be quiet, you tease! But I too was thinking that he must have been +engaged in writing. May be he was making a memorandum of yesterday's +experience in his journal." + +"May be he was. At all events, the impressions made on him were very +strong." + +"But I do not like your venture; it may turn out disastrous." + +"How can it, my most learned sister?" + +"You know Seraphin's position," explained she. "He has been reared in the +rigor of sectarian credulity. The spirit of modern civilization being thus +abruptly placed before his one-sided judgment without previous preparation +may alarm, nay, may even disgust him. And when once he will have perceived +that the brother is a partisan of the horrible monster, is it probable +that he will feel favorably disposed towards the sister whose views +harmonize with those of her brother?" + +"I have done nothing to justify him in setting me down for a partisan. I +maintain strict neutrality. My purpose is to accustom the weakling to the +atmosphere of enlightenment which is fatal to all religious phantasms. +Have no fear of his growing cold towards you," proceeded he in his +customary tone of irony. "Your ever victorious power holds him spell-bound +in the magic circle of your enchantment. Besides, Louise," continued he, +frowning, "I do not think I could tolerate a brother-in-law steeped over +head and ears in prejudices. You yourself might find it highly +uncomfortable to live with a husband of this kind." + +"Uncomfortable! No, I would not. I would find it exciting, for it would +become my task to train and cultivate an abnormal specimen of the male +gender." + +"Very praiseworthy, sister! And if I now endeavor by means of living +illustrations to familiarize your intended with the nature of modern +intellectual enlightenment, I am merely preparing the way for your future +labors." + + + +Chapter VI. Masters and Slaves. + + +Under the much despised discipline of religious requirements, the child +Seraphin had grown up to boyhood spotless in morals, and then had +developed himself into a young man of great firmness of character, whose +faith was as unshaken as the correctness of his behavior was constant. + +The bloom of his cheeks, the innocent brightness of his eye, the suavity +of his disposition, were the natural results of the training which his +heart had received. No foul passion had ever disturbed the serenity of his +soul. When under the smiling sky of a spring morning he took his ride over +the extensive possessions of his father, his interior accorded perfectly +with the peace and loveliness of the sights and sounds of blooming nature +around him. On earth, however, no spring, be it ever so beautiful, is +entirely safe from storms. Evil spirits lie in waiting in the air, dark +powers threaten destruction to all blossoms and all incipient life. And +the more inevitable is the dread might of those lurking spirits, that in +every blossom of living plant lies concealed a germ of ruin, sleeps a +treacherous passion--even in the heart of the innocent Seraphin. + +The strategic arts of the beautiful young lady received no small degree of +additional power from the genuine effort made by her to please the stately +double millionaire. In a short time she was to such an extent successful +that one day Carl rallied her in the following humorous strain: "Your +intended is sitting in the arbor singing a most dismal song! You will have +to allow him a little more line, Louise, else you run the risk of +unsettling his brain. Moreover, I cannot be expected to instruct a man in +the mysteries of progress, if he sees, feels, and thinks nothing but +Louise." + +The banker had not uttered an exaggeration. It sometimes happens that a +first love bursts forth with an impetuosity so uncontrollable, that, for a +time, every other domain of the intellectual and moral nature of a young +man is, as it were, submerged under a mighty flood. This temporary +inundation of passion cannot, of course, maintain its high tide in +presence of calm experience, and the sunshine of more ripened knowledge +soon dries up its waters. But Seraphin possessed only the scanty +experience of a young man, and his knowledge of the world was also very +limited. Hence, in his case, the stream rose alarmingly high, but it did +not reach an overflow, for the hand of a pious mother had thrown up in the +heart of the child a living dike strong enough to resist the greatest +violence of the swell. The height and solidity of the dike increased with +the growth of the child; it was a bulwark of defence for the man, who +stood secure against humiliating defeats behind the adamantine wall of +religious principles--yet only so long as he sought protection behind this +bulwark. Faith uttered a serious warning against an unconditional +surrender of himself to the object of his attachment. For he could not put +to rest some misgivings raised in his mind by the strange and, to him, +inexplicable attitude which Louise assumed upon the highest questions of +human existence. The uninitiated youth had no suspicion of the existence +of that most disgusting product of modern enlightenment, the _emancipated_ +female. Had he discovered in Louise the emancipated woman in all the +ugliness of her real nature, he would have conceived unutterable loathing +for such a monstrosity. And yet he could not but feel that between himself +and Louise there yawned an abyss, there existed an essential repulsion, +which, at times, gave rise within him to considerable uneasiness. + +To obtain a solution of the enigma of this antipathy, the young gentleman +concluded to trust entirely to the results of his observations, which, +however, were far from being definitive; for his reason was imposed upon +by his feelings, and, from day to day, the charms of the beautiful woman +were steadily progressing in throwing a seductive spell over his judgment. + +The banker's daughter possessed a high degree of culture; she was a +perfect mistress of the tactics employed on the field of coquetry; her +tact was exquisite; and she understood thoroughly how to take advantage of +a kindly disposition and of the tenderness inspired by passion. How was +the eye of Seraphin, strengthened neither by knowledge nor by experience, +to detect the true worth of what lay hidden beneath this fascinating +delusion? + +Here again his religious training came to the rescue of the inexperienced +youth, by furnishing him with standards safe and unfalsified, by which to +weigh and come to a conclusion. + +Louise's indifference to practices of piety annoyed him. She never +attended divine service, not even on Sundays. He never saw her with a +prayer-book, nor was a single picture illustrative of a moral subject to +be found hung up in her apartment. Her conversation, at all times, ran +upon commonplaces of everyday concern, such as the toilet, theatre, +society. He noticed that whenever he ventured to launch matter of a more +serious import upon the current of conversation, it immediately became +constrained and soon ceased to flow. Louise appeared to his heart at the +same time so fascinating and yet so peculiar, so seductive and yet so +repulsive, that the contradictions of her being caused him to feel quite +unhappy. + +He was again sitting in his room thinking about her. In the interview he +had just had with her, the young lady had exerted such admirable powers of +womanly charms that the poor young man had had a great deal of trouble to +maintain his self-possession. Her ringing, mischievous laugh was still +sounding in his ears, and the brightness of her sparkling eyes was still +lighting up his memory. And the unsuspecting youth had no Solomon at his +side to repeat to him: "My son, can a man hide fire in his bosom, and his +garments not burn? Or can he walk upon hot coals, and his feet not be +burnt?... She entangleth him with many words, and she draweth him away +with the flattery of her lips. Immediately he followeth her as an ox led +to be a victim, and as a lamb playing the wanton, and not knowing that he +is drawn like a fool to bonds, till the arrow pierce his liver. As if a +bird should make haste to the snare, and knoweth not that his life is in +danger. Now, therefore, my son, hear me, and attend to the words of my +mouth. Let not thy mind be drawn away in her ways: neither be thou +deceived with her paths. For she hath cast down many wounded, and the +strongest have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, reaching +even to the inner chambers of death."(3) + +For Seraphin, however, no Solomon was at hand who might give him counsel. +Sustained by his virtue and by his faith alone, he struggled against the +temptress, not precisely of the kind referred to by Solomon, but still a +dangerous one from the ranks of progress. + +Greifmann had notified him that the general assembly election was to be +held that day, that Mayor Hans Shund would certainly be returned as a +delegate, and that he intended to call for Gerlach, and go out to watch +the progress of the election. + +Seraphin felt rather indifferent respecting the election; but he would +have considered himself under weighty obligation to the brother for an +explanation of the peculiar behavior of the sister at which he was so +greatly perplexed. + +Carl himself he had for a while regarded as an enigma. Now, however, he +believed that he had reached a correct conclusion concerning the brother. +It appeared to him that the principal characteristic of Carl's disposition +was to treat every subject, except what strictly pertained to business, in +a spirit of levity. To the faults of others Carl was always ready to +accord a praiseworthy degree of indulgence, he never uttered harsh words +in a tone of bitterness, and when he pronounced censure, his reproof was +invariably clothed in some form of pleasantry. In general, he behaved like +a man not having time to occupy himself seriously with any subject that +did not lie within the particular sphere of his occupation. Even their +wager he managed like a matter of business, although the landowner could +not but take umbrage at the banker's ready and natural way of dealing with +men whose want of principle he himself abominated. Greifmann seemed good- +natured, minute, and cautious in business, and in all other things +exceedingly liberal and full of levity. Such was the judgment arrived at +by Seraphin, inexperienced and little inclined to fault-finding as he was, +respecting a gentleman who stood at the summit of modern culture, who had +skill in elegantly cloaking great faults and foibles, and whose sole +religion consisted in the accumulation of papers and coins of arbitrary +value. + +Gerlach's servant entered, and disturbed his meditation. + +"There is a man here with a family who begs hard to be allowed to speak +with you." + +"A man with a family!" repeated the millionaire, astonished. "I know +nobody round here, and have no desire to form acquaintances." + +"The man will not be denied. He says his name is Holt, and that he has +something to say to you." + +"Ah, yes!" exclaimed Seraphin, with a smile that revealed a pleasant +surprise. "Send the man and those who are with him in to me." + +Closing a diary, in which he was recording circumstantially the +experiences of his present visit, he awaited the visitors. A loud knock +from a weighty fist reminded him of a pair of callous hands, then Holt, +followed by his wife and children, presented himself before his +benefactor. They all made a small courtesy, even the flaxen-headed little +children, and the bright, healthy babe in the arms of the mother met his +gaze with the smile of an angel. The dark spirits that were hovering +around him, torturing and tempting, instantly vanished, and he became +serene and unconstrained whilst conversing with these simple people. + +"You must excuse us, Mr. Seraphin," began Holt. "This is my wife, and +these are seven of my children. There is one more; her name is Mechtild. +She had to stay at home and mind the house. She will pay you an extra +visit, and present her thanks. We have called that you might become +acquainted with the family whom you have rescued, and that we might thank +you with all our hearts." + +After this speech, the father gave a signal, whereupon the little ones +gathered around the amiable young man, made their courtesies, and kissed +his hands. + +"May God bless you, Mr. Seraphin!" first spoke a half-grown girl. + +"We greet you, dear Seraphin!" said another, five years old. + +"We pray for you every day, Mr. Seraphin," said the next in succession. + +"We are thankful to you from our hearts, Mr. Seraphin," spoke a small lad, +in a tone of deep earnestness. + +And thus did every child deliver its little address. It was touching to +witness the noble dignity of the children, which may, at times, be found +beautifully investing their innocence. Gerlach was moved. He looked down +upon the little ones around him with an expression of affectionate +thankfulness. Holt's lips also quivered, and bright tears of happiness +streamed from the eyes of the mother. + +"I am obliged to you, my little friends, for your greetings and for your +prayers," spoke the millionaire. "You are well brought up. Continue always +to be good children, such as you now are; have the fear of God, and honor +your parents." + +"Mr. Seraphin," said Holt, drawing a paper from his pocket, "here is the +note that I have redeemed with the money you gave me. I wanted to show it +to you, so that you might know for certain that the money had been applied +to the proper purpose." + +Gerlach affected to take an interest in the paper, and read over the +receipt. + +"But there is one thing, Mr. Seraphin," continued Holt, "that grieves me. +And that is, that there is not anything better than mere words with which +I can testify my gratitude to you. I would like ever so much to do +something for you--to do something for you worth speaking of. Do you know, +Mr. Seraphin, I would be willing to shed the last drop of my blood for +you?" + +"Never mind that, Holt! It is ample recompense for me to know that I have +helped a worthy man out of trouble. You can now, Mrs. Holt, set to work +with renewed courage. But," added he archly, "you will have to watch your +husband that he may not again fall into the clutches of beasts of prey +like Shund." + +"He has had to pay dearly for his experience, Mr. Seraphin. I used often +to say to him: 'Michael, don't trust Shund. Shund talks too much, he is +too sweet altogether, he has some wicked design upon us--don't trust him.' +But, you see, Mr. Seraphin, my husband thinks that all people are as +upright as he is himself, and he believed that Shund really meant to deal +fairly as he pretended. But Michael's wits are sharpened now, and he will +not in future be so ready to believe every man upon his word. Nor will he, +hereafter, borrow one single penny, and he will never again undertake to +buy anything unless he has the money in hand to pay for it." + +"In what street do you live?" inquired Gerlach. + +"Near the turnpike road, Mr. Seraphin. Do you see that knoll?" He pointed +through the window in a direction unobstructed by the trees of the garden. +"Do you see that dense shade-tree, and yon white-washed wall behind the +tree? That is our walnut-tree--my grandfather planted it. And the white +wall is the wall of our house." + +"I have passed there twice--the road leads to the beech grove," said the +millionaire. "I remarked the little cottage, and was much pleased with its +air of neatness. It struck me, too, that the barn is larger than the +dwelling, which is a creditable sign for a farmer. Near the front entrance +there is a carefully cultivated flower garden, in which I particularly +admired the roses, and further off from the road lies an apple orchard." + +"All that belongs to us. That is what you have rescued and made a present +of to us," replied the land cultivator joyfully. "Everybody stops to view +the roses; they belong to our daughter Mechtild." + +"The soil is good and deep, and must bring splendid crops of wheat. I, +too, am a farmer, and understand something about such matters. But it +appeared to me as though the soil were of a cold nature. You should use +lime upon it pretty freely." + +In this manner he spent some time conversing with these good and simple +people. Before dismissing them, he made a present to every one of the +children of a shining dollar, having previously overcome Holt's protest +against this new instance of generosity. + +Old and young then courtesied once more, and Gerlach was left to himself +in a mood differing greatly from that in which the visitors had found him. + +He had been conversing with good and happy people, and his soul revelled +in the consciousness of having been the originator of their happiness. + +Suddenly Greifmann's appearance in the room put to flight the bright +spirits that hovered about him, and the sunshine that had been lighting up +the apartment was obscured by dark shadows as of a heavy mass of clouds. + +"What sort of a horde was that?" asked he. + +"They were Holt and his family. The gratitude of these simple people was +touching. The innocent little ones gave me an ovation of which a prince +might be envious, for the courts of princes are never graced by a +naturalness at once so sincere and so beautiful. It is an intense +happiness for me to have assured the livelihood of ten human beings with +so paltry a gift." + +"A mere matter of taste, my most sympathetic friend!" rejoined the banker +with indifference. "You are not made of the proper stuff to be a business +man. Your feelings would easily tempt you into very unbusinesslike +transactions. But you must come with me! The hubbub of the election is +astir through all the streets and thoroughfares. I am going out to +discharge my duties as a citizen, and I want you to accompany me." + +"I have no inclination to see any more of this disgusting turmoil," +replied Gerlach. + +"Inclination or disinclination is out of the question when interest +demands it," insisted the banker. "You must profit by the opportunity +which you now have of enriching your knowledge of men and things, or +rather of correcting it; for heretofore your manner of viewing things has +been mere ideal enthusiasm. Come with me, my good fellow!" + +Seraphin followed with interior reluctance. Greifmann went on to impart to +him the following information: + +"During the past night, there have sprung up, as if out of the earth, a +most formidable host, ready to do battle against the uniformly victorious +army of progress--men thoroughly armed and accoutred, real crusaders. A +bloody struggle is imminent. Try and make of your heart a sort of monitor +covered with plates of iron, so that you may not be overpowered by the +horrifying spectacle of the election affray. I am not joking at all! True +as gospel, what I tell you! If you do not want to be stifled by +indignation at sight of the fiercest kind of terrorism, of the most +revolting tyranny, you will have to lay aside, at least for to-day, every +feeling of humanity." + +Gerlach perceived a degree of seriousness in the bubbling current of +Greifmann's levity. + +"Who is the enemy that presumes to stand in the way of progress?" enquired +he. + +"The ultramontanes! Listen to what I have to tell you. This morning +Schwefel came in to get a check cashed. With surprise I observed that the +manufacturer's soul was not in business. 'How are things going?' asked I +when we had got through. + +" 'I feel like a man,' exclaimed he, 'that has just seen a horrible +monster! Would you believe it, those accursed ultramontanes have been +secretly meddling in the election. They have mustered a number of votes, +and have even gone so far as to have a yellow ticket printed. Their yellow +placards were to be seen this morning stuck up at every street corner--of +course they were immediately torn down.' + +" 'And are you provoked at that, Mr. Schwefel! You certainly are not going +to deny the poor ultramontanes the liberty of existing, or, at least, the +liberty of voting for whom they please?' + +" 'Yes, I am, I am! That must not be tolerated,' cried he wildly. 'The +black brood are hatching dark schemes, they are conspiring against +civilization, and would fain wrest from us the trophies won by progress. +It is high time to apply the axe to the root of the upas-tree. Our duty is +to disinfect thoroughly, to banish the absurdities of religious dogma from +our schools. The black spawn will have to be rendered harmless: we must +kill them politically.' + +" 'Very well,' said I. 'Just make negroes of them. Now that in America the +slaves are emancipated, Europe would perhaps do well to take her turn at +the slave-trade.' But the fellow would not take my joke. He made +threatening gesticulations, his eyes gleamed like hot coals, and he +muttered words of a belligerent import. + +" 'The ultramontane rabble are to hold a meeting at the "Key of Heaven," ' +reported he. 'There the stupid victims of credulity are to be harangued by +several of their best talkers. The black tide is afterwards to diffuse +itself through the various wards where the voting is to take place. But +let the priest-ridden slaves come, they will have other memoranda to carry +home with them beside their yellow rags of tickets.' + +"You perceive, friend Seraphin, that the progress men mean mischief. We +may expect to witness scenes of violence." + +"That is unjustifiable brutality on the part of the progressionists," +declared Gerlach indignantly. "Are not the ultramontanes entitled to vote +and to receive votes? Are they not free citizens? Do they not enjoy the +same privileges as others? It is a disgrace and an outrage thus to +tyrannize over men who are their brothers, sons of Germania, their common +mother." + +"Granted! Violence is disgraceful. The intention of progress, however, is +not quite as bad as you think it. Being convinced of its own +infallibility, it cannot help feeling indignant at the unbelief of +ultramontanism, which continues deaf to the saving truths of the +progressionist gospel. Hence a holy zeal for making converts urges +progress so irresistibly that it would fain force wanderers into the path +of salvation by violence. This is simply human, and should not be regarded +as unpardonable. In the self-same spirit did my namesake Charles the Great +butcher the Saxons because the besotted heathens presumed to entertain +convictions differing from his own. And those who were not butchered had +to see their sacred groves cut down, their altars demolished, their time- +honored laws changed, and had to resign themselves to following the ways +which he thought fit to have opened through the land of the Saxons. You +cannot fail to perceive that Charles the Great was a member of the school +of progress." + +"But your comparison is defective," opposed the millionaire. "Charles +subdued a wild and blood-thirsty horde who made it a practice to set upon +and butcher peaceful neighbors. Charles was the protector of the realm, +and the Saxons were forced to bend under the weight of his powerful arm. +If Charles, however, did violence to the consciences of his vanquished +enemies, and converted them to Christianity with the sword and mace, then +Charles himself is not to be excused, for moral freedom is expressly +proclaimed by the spirit of Christianity." + +"There is no doubt but that the Saxons were blundering fools for rousing +the lion by making inroads into Charles' domain. The ultramontanes, are, +however, in a similar situation. They have attacked the giant Progress, +and have themselves to blame for the consequences." + +"The ultramontanes have attacked nobody," maintained Gerlach. "They are +merely asserting their own rights, and are not putting restrictions on the +rights of other people. But progress will concede neither rights nor +freedom to others. It is a disgusting egotist, an unscrupulous tyrant, +that tries to build up his own brutal authority on the ruins of the rights +of others." + +"Still, it would have been far more prudent on the part of the +ultramontanes to keep quiet, seeing that their inferiority of numbers +cannot alter the situation. The indisputable rights of the ascendency are +in our days with the sceptre and crown of progress." + +"A brave man never counts the foe," cried Gerlach. "He stands to his +convictions, and behaves manfully in the struggle." + +"Well said!" applauded the banker. "And since progress also is forced by +the opposition of principles to man itself for the contest, it will +naturally beat up all its forces in defence of its conviction. Here we are +at the 'Key of Heaven,' where the ultramontanes are holding their meeting. +Let us go in, for the proverb says, _Audiatur et altera pars_--the other +side should also get a hearing." + +They drew near to a lengthy old building. Over the doorway was a pair of +crossed keys hewn out of stone, and gilt, informing the stranger that it +was the hostelry of the "Key of Heaven," where, since the days of hoar +antiquity, hospitality was dispensed to pilgrims and travellers. The +principal hall of the house contained a gathering of about three hundred +men. They were attentively listening to the words of a speaker who was +warmly advocating the principles of his party. The speaker stood behind a +desk which was placed upon a platform at the far end of the hall. + +Seraphin cast a glance over the assembly. He received the painful +impression of a hopeless minority. Barely forty votes would the +ultramontanes be able to send to each of the wards. To compensate for +numbers, intelligence and faith were represented in the meeting. Elegant +gentlemen with intellectual countenances sat or stood in the company of +respectable tradesmen, and the long black coats of the clergy were not few +in number. On a table lay two packages of yellow tickets to be distributed +among the members of the assembly. At the same table sat the chairman, a +commissary of police named Parteiling, whose business it was to watch the +proceedings, and several other gentlemen. + +"Compared with the colossal preponderance of progress, our influence is +insignificant, and, compared with the masses of our opponents our +numerical strength is still less encouraging," said the speaker. "If in +connection with this disheartening fact you take into consideration the +pressure which progress has it in its power to exert on the various +relations of life through numerous auxiliary means, if you remember that +our opponents can dismiss from employment all such as dare uphold views +differing from their own, it becomes clear that no ordinary amount of +courage is required to entertain and proclaim convictions hostile to +progress." + +Seraphin thought of Spitzkopf's mode of electioneering, and of the +terrible threats made to the "wild men," and concluded the incredible +statement was lamentably correct. + +"Viewing things in this light," proceeded the orator, "I congratulate the +present assembly upon its unusual degree of pluck, for courage is required +to go into battle with a clear knowledge of the overwhelming strength of +the enemy. We have rallied round the banner of our convictions +notwithstanding that the numbers of the enemy make victory hopeless. We +are determined to cast our votes in support of religion and morality in +defiance of the scorn, blasphemy, and violence which the well-known +terrorism of progress will not fail to employ in order to frighten us from +the exercise of our privilege as citizens. We must be prepared, gentlemen, +to hear a multitude of sarcastic remarks and coarse witticisms, both in +the streets and at the polls. I adjure you to maintain the deportment +alone worthy of our cause. A gentleman never replies to the aggressions of +rudeness, and should you wish to take the conduct of our opponents in gay +good-humor, just try, gentlemen, to fancy that you are being treated to +some elegant exhibition of the refinement and liberal culture of the +times." + +Loud bursts of hilarity now and then relieved the seriousness of the +meeting. Even Greifmann would clap applause and cry, "Bravo!" + +"Let us stand united to a man, prepared against all the wiles of +intimidation and corruption, undismayed by the onset of the enemy. The +struggle is grave beyond expression. For you are acquainted with the aims +and purposes of the liberals. Progress would like to sweep away all the +religious heritages that our fathers held sacred. Education is to be +violently wrested from under the influence of the church; the church +herself is to be enslaved and strangled in the thrall of the liberal +state. I am aware that our opponents pretend to respect religion--but the +religion of would-be progress is infidelity. Divine revelation, of which +the church is the faithful guardian, is rejected with scorn by liberalism. +Look at the tone of the press and the style of the literature of the day. +You have only to notice the derision and fierceness with which the press +daily assails the mysteries and dogmas of religion, the Sovereign Pontiff, +the clergy, religious orders, the ultramontanes, and you cannot long +remain in the dark concerning the aim and object of progress. Christ or +Antichrist is the watchword of the day, gentlemen! Hence the imperative +duty for us to be active at the elections; for the legislature has the +presumption to wish to dictate in matters belonging exclusively to the +jurisdiction of the church. We are threatened with school laws the purpose +of which is to unchristianize our children, to estrange them from the +spirit of religion. No man having the sentiment of religion can remain +indifferent in presence of this danger, for it means nothing less than the +defection from Christianity of the masses of the coming generation. + +"Gentlemen, there is a reproach being uttered just now by the +progressionist press, which, far from repelling, I would feel proud to +deserve. A priest should have said, so goes the report, that it is a +mortal sin to elect a progressionist to the chamber of deputies. Some of +the writers of our press have met this reproach by simply denying that a +priest ever expressed himself in those terms. But, gentlemen, let us take +for granted that a priest did actually say that it is a mortal sin to +elect a progressionist to the chamber of deputies, is there anything +opposed to morality in such a declaration? + +"By no means, if you remember that it is to be presumed the progressionist +will use his vote in the assembly to oppose religion. Mortal sin, +gentlemen, is any wilful transgression of God's law in grave matters. Now +I put it to you: Does he gravely transgress the law of God who controverts +what God has revealed, who would exclude God and all holy subjects from +the schools, who would rob the church of her independence, and make of her +a mere state machine unfit for the fulfilment of her high mission? There +is not one of you but is ready to declare: 'Yes, such an one transgresses +grievously the law of God.' This answer at the same time solves the other +question, whether it is a mortal sin to put arms in the hands of an enemy +of religion that he may use them against faith and morality. Would that +all men of Christian sentiment seriously adverted to this connection of +things and acted accordingly, the baneful sway of the pernicious spirit +that governs the age would soon be at an end; for I have confidence in the +sound sense and moral rectitude of the German people. Heathenism is +repugnant to the deeply religious nature of our nation; the German people +do not wish to dethrone God, nor are they ready to bow the knee before the +empty idol of a soulless enlightenment." + +Here the speaker was interrupted by a tumult. A band of factorymen, +yelling and laughing, rushed into the hall to disturb the meeting. All +eyes were immediately turned upon the rioters. In every countenance +indignation could be seen kindling at this outrage of the liberals. The +commissary of police alone sat motionless as a statue. The progressionist +rioters elbowed their way into the crowd, and, when the excitement caused +by this strategic movement had subsided, the speaker resumed his +discourse. + +"For a number of years back our conduct has been misrepresented and +calumniated. They call us men of no nationality, and pretend that we get +our orders from Rome. This reproach does honor neither to the intelligence +nor to the judgment of our opponents. Whence dates the division of Germany +into discordant factions? When began the present faint and languishing +condition of our fatherland? From the moment when it separated from Rome. +So long as Germany continued united in the bond of the same holy faith, +and the voice of the head of the church was hearkened to by every member +of her population, her sovereigns held the golden apple, the symbol of +universal empire. Our nation was then the mightiest, the proudest, the +most glorious upon earth. The church who speaks through the Sovereign +Pontiff had civilized the fierce sons of Germany, had conjured the hatred +and feuds of hostile tribes, had united the interests and energies of our +people in one holy faith, and had ennobled and enriched German genius +through the spirit of religion. The church had formed out of the chaos of +barbarism the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation--that gigantic and +wonderful organization the like of which the world will never see again. +But the church has long since been deprived of the leadership in German +affairs, and what in consequence is now the condition of our fatherland? +It is divided into discordant factions, it is an ailing trunk, with many +members, but without a head. + +"It is rather amusing that the ultramontanes should be charged with +receiving orders from Rome, for the voice of the Father of Christianity +has not been heard for many years back in the council of state." + +"Hurrah for the Syllabus!" cried Spitzkopf, who was at the head of the +rioters. "Hurrah for the Syllabus!" echoed his gang, yelling and stamping +wildly. + +The ultramontanes were aroused, eyes glared fiercely, and fists were +clenched ready to make a summary clearing of the hall. But no scuffle +ensued; the ultramontanes maintained a dignified bearing. The speaker +calmly remained in his place, and when the tumult had ceased he again went +on with his discourse. + +"Such only," said he, "take offence at the Syllabus as know nothing about +it. There is not a word in the Syllabus opposed to political liberty or +the most untrammelled self-government of the German people. But it is +opposed to the fiendish terrorism of infidelity. The Syllabus condemns the +diabolical principles by which the foundations of the Christian state are +sapped and a most disastrous tyranny over conscience is proclaimed." + +"Hallo! listen to that," cried one of the liberals, and the yelling was +renewed, louder, longer, and more furious than before. + +The chairman rang his bell. The revellers relapsed into silence. + +"Ours is not a public meeting, but a mere private gathering," explained +the chairman. "None but men of Christian principles have been invited. If +others have intruded violently, I request them to leave the room, or, at +least, to refrain from conduct unbecoming men of good-breeding." + +Spitzkopf laughed aloud, his comrades yelled and stamped. + +"Let us go!" said Greifmann to Gerlach in an angry tone. + +"Let us stay!" rejoined the latter with excitement. "The affair is +becoming interesting. I want to see how this will end." + +The banker noticed Gerlach's suppressed indignation; he observed it in the +fire of his eyes and the expression of unutterable contempt that had +spread over his features, and he began to consider the situation as +alarming. He had not expected this exhibition of brutal impertinence. In +his estimation an infringement of propriety like the one he had just +witnessed was a far more heinous transgression than the grossest +violations in the sphere of morals. He judged of Gerlach's impressions by +this standard of appreciation, and feared the behavior of the +progressionist mob would produce an effect in the young man's mind far +from favorable to the cause which they represented. He execrated the +disturbance of the liberals, and took Seraphin's arm to lead him away. + +"Come away, I beg of you! I cannot imagine what interest the rudeness of +that uncultivated horde can have for you." + +"Do not scorn them, for they are honestly earning their pay," rejoined +Gerlach. + +"What do you mean?" + +"Those fellows are whistling, bawling, stamping, and yelling in the employ +of progress. You are trying to give me an insight into the nature of +modern civilization: could there be a better opportunity than this?" + +"There you make a mistake, my dear fellow! Enlightened progress is never +rude." + +To Be Continued. + + + + +Gavazzi Versus The See Of S. Peter. + + +By a Protestant Doctor of Philosophy. + + + +Introductory Note. + + +The topic of this article has already been fully and satisfactorily +treated in THE CATHOLIC WORLD. It is well, however, to adopt, in handling +the truth, Voltaire's maxim in regard to falsehood, and to keep +continually repeating those truths which are frequently denied. Not only +the mountebank Gavazzi, but others more respectable than he is, keep on +reasserting the denial of S. Peter's Roman Episcopate, notwithstanding the +evidence which has been over and over again presented in proof of it by +Protestant as well as Catholic writers. We, therefore, willingly give +admission to the present article, which, we may as well state, has been +printed from the author's MS. copy, without any alteration.--ED. C. W. + + ------------------------------------- + +At our examination in the diocese of the Protestant Episcopal Church in +which we took holy orders, the question of S. Peter's being at Rome was +debated with some warmth by the clerical examiners and the bishop. We had +at that time just passed our majority, and, while our reading had been +pretty full, we had not touched the subject of this article, for it was +indeed comparatively new to us. We remember well the remark of our bishop, +whose opinion on theological questions we held in veneration. He was +prominent on the bench of bishops as one of the most learned of our +prelates, and he had wielded his pen in defence of Anglican Church +principles with great reputation to himself among Episcopalians, +particularly the High Church school of religious thought. At the period to +which we refer, he gave it as his opinion that it was extremely doubtful +that S. Peter ever visited Rome, and that he was the first bishop of its +See was beyond the province of historical proof. Previous to this date in +our studies, we would as lief have questioned the fact of the existence of +Rome itself as that of S. Peter's residence there, and his occupancy of +that metropolitan see. We had reached this conclusion by no investigation: +it was, rather, one of those traditional questions which fix themselves in +the mind without much thought in either direction. The fact, as we +supposed, had never been doubted. To hear for the first time a denial of +its truth, and that, too, from our ecclesiastical superior, made an +impression upon our mind which led us to investigate the subject as soon +as time and opportunity were afforded us. From that day to this, we have +heard the same theory advanced by Protestant clergymen of every shade of +denominational opinion, and in the minds of many it has lodged itself as +one of those mooted questions which baffle historical proof. + +About twenty years ago, an Italian known as "Father Gavazzi" visited the +United States. His crusade against the Church of Rome during that visit is +familiar to all. Of its merits or the motives which prompted it we do not +propose to speak, as it is foreign to the subject to which the interest of +the reader is invited. Again the same Alessandro Gavazzi, as +"Commissioner" of what he denominates the "Free Christian Church of +Italy," is lecturing to audiences in our principal cities, for the purpose +of securing subscriptions for "evangelization" and for the "Biblical +College in Rome." What these terms may mean we do not know, and of them we +have no disposition to speak. In the month of June last, "Father Gavazzi" +was advertised to lecture under the auspices of the Young Men's Christian +Association in the city in which we reside. Among others, who had no +interest perhaps in the especial work in which he is engaged, we attended +his lecture. From a report of the lecture in the issue of a daily paper of +the following morning we make the quotation which forms the text, upon +which we propose to place before the reader some historical proofs for the +belief that S. Peter was at Rome. + +"Father Gavazzi" said: "A discussion was proposed in Rome as to whether S. +Peter was ever there or not. The Pope favored, insisted upon it, and in +two days his chosen champions retired defeated from the contest. That is +something. The Bible is entirely silent on this subject. But the priests +say that is merely negative proof. The silence of S. Luke is, however, +positive proof that S. Peter was never there. The discussion of this +subject, once prohibited in Rome, is now talked of freely in all public +places. It was his delight to fight the Pope. Pius IX. was no more the +successor of S. Peter than he was the successor of the emperor of China. +_S. Peter was never in Rome to be succeeded by anybody._" + +Modern investigation at best has done little to clear up the difficulties +connected with the geographical history of the Apostle Peter. That he was +at Rome, and suffered martyrdom in that city, is the general belief of the +fathers. And it was not until the dawn of the Reformation that the +apostle's journey to that city, and his martyrdom there, became even a +subject of doubt. So great was the anxiety of some to disprove the Primacy +of the Roman See that scholarly men lent themselves to the repetition of +myths and traditions which had no foundation in fact, and later writers, +biased by early education and ecclesiastical connection, have even +introduced into historical literature mythical stories, the germs of which +run through the popular mythology of ancient and modern times. If, they +argue, it can be proved that S. Peter was never at Rome, then we at once +overturn the pretensions of the Papacy; or, again, if we can demonstrate +that there is a break in the chain of succession of its bishops from S. +Peter, the belief in the doctrine of an apostolic succession is clearly +disproved, and the idea of a line of bishops reaching back through the +long period of the _Mores Catholici_, or _Ages of Faith_, only a senseless +forgery which originated with some monk the abbot of whose monastery was +perhaps the first to give it form after he had ascended the chair of +Peter. Mosheim, a respectable writer in the Protestant world, blinded by a +singular prejudice which led him at times to forget the critical duties of +the historian, is one among the few German scholars who has tarnished the +pages of his _Ecclesiastical History_ by giving credence to the fabulous +story of Pope Joan. "Between Leo IV., who died 855, and Benedict III.," +says he, "a woman who concealed her sex and assumed the name of John, it +is said, opened her way to the pontifical throne by her learning and +genius, and governed the church for a time. She is commonly called the +Papess Joan. During five subsequent centuries the witnesses to this +extraordinary event are without number; _nor did any one prior to the +Reformation by Luther regard the thing as either incredible or disgraceful +to the church_." The earliest writer from whom any information relating to +the fable of Pope Joan is derived is Marianus Scotus, a monk of S. Martin +of Cologne, who died A.D. 1086. He left a chronicle which has received +many additions by later writers, and among those interpolations the +students of mythical lore regard the passage which refers to this story. +Platina, who wrote the _Lives of the Popes_ anterior to the time of Martin +Luther, relates the legend, and, with more of the critical acumen than +Mosheim, adds: "These things which I relate are popular reports, but +derived from uncertain and obscure authors, which I have therefore +inserted briefly and baldly, lest I should seem to omit obstinately and +pertinaciously what most people assert." The legend of Pope Joan has been +so thoroughly exposed that no controversialist of discrimination thinks of +reviving it as an argument against the succession of the Bishops of Rome. +Now and then it may be related to an ignorant crowd by an anti-popery +mountebank of our cities during times of religious excitement, but it is +never heard from the lips of an educated Protestant. We are inclined to +think, however, that the class of minds that seeks to throw doubt upon S. +Peter's residence at Rome in order to subvert the Primacy of the Apostolic +See would not hesitate, in view of the evidence from early ecclesiastical +writers, to introduce again this Papess Joan to their unlearned readers. + +Turning, then, to the proofs of the subject of our paper, we take as the +motto for our investigation of this and all kindred ecclesiastical +questions the golden words of Tertullian: "Id esse verum, quodcunque +primum; id esse adulterum quodcunque posterius."(4) Or that petition of a +great Anglican divine: "Grant, O Lord! that, in reading thy Holy Word, I +may never prefer my private sentiments before those of the church in the +purely ancient times of Christianity."(5) + +The earliest testimony is borne by S. Ignatius. He was closely connected +with the apostles, both as a hearer of their teachings and sharer of the +extraordinary mysteries of their faith.(6) S. John was his Christian +Gamaliel, at whose feet he was taught the doctrines of Christianity, which +prepared him not only to wear the mitre of Antioch, the most cultivated +metropolis of the East, but also to receive the brighter crown of a +martyr's agonizing death. Full of years, the follower of the beloved +disciple was hurried to Rome, to seal with his blood the truth of the +religion of Christ. On his journey to the pagan capital, he was permitted +to tarry for a season at Smyrna, to visit, for the last time, S. Polycarp, +the aged bishop of that city. Here, in view of the dreadful death that +awaited him in the Roman amphitheatre, and in communion with the revered +fellow-laborer of his life, he wrote his four epistles. From the one to +the Romans we quote the following evidence: "I do not command you as S. +Peter and S. Paul did; they were apostles of Jesus Christ, and I am a mere +nothing" (the least).(7) "What can be more clear," says the Anglican +expositor of the Creed, Bishop Pearson, "from these words than that this +most holy martyr was of opinion that Peter, no less than Paul, preached +and suffered at Rome?" + +Eusebius relates, upon the authority of Papias and S. Clement of +Alexandria, that "S. Mark wrote his gospel at the request of S. Peter's +hearers in Rome," and he further adds that "S. Peter mentions S. Mark in +his first epistle, written from Rome, which he figuratively calls +Babylon."(8) + +S. Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, in his epistle addressed to the Romans, +affirms that S. Peter and S. Paul preached the Gospel in Corinth and in +Rome, and suffered martyrdom about the same time in the latter city.(9) + +S. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, who was born at Smyrna, though of Greek +extraction, had been the disciple of S. Polycarp, Pothinus, and Papias, +from whose lips he had heard many anecdotes of the apostles and their +immediate followers. He was alike eminent both as a scholar in the +learning of the times and as a controversialist of no mean repute. The +part he bore against the Gnostic and other heresies rendered his name +illustrious, not only within the limits of his episcopal jurisdiction, but +wherever the claims of Christianity had been presented. The wonderful +aptness with which he interwove Scripture and scriptural phraseology into +his style, not altogether unpolished, is perhaps unequalled in patristic +theology. Residing in a city whose language and intellectual +characteristics differed from those of his native country, his writings +are essentially foreign, and, with few exceptions, were lost at an early +period. In the fragments which remain we find an unequivocal testimony in +behalf of the subject under discussion. His language is: "S. Peter and S. +Paul preached the Gospel in Rome, and laid the foundation of the +church."(10) + +Caius, a learned Roman presbyter, and, as some suppose, bishop, arguing +against Proclus, the chief champion of Montanism at Rome, says that he can +"show the trophies of the apostles." "For if you will go," he continues, +"to the Vatican, or to the Ostian Road, you will find the trophies of +those who have laid the foundation of this church."(11) + +Origen, a man of encyclopaedic learning, who had been carefully nurtured by +Christian parents, and who was imbued with the hardy, stern culture of the +Greek literature, at the early age of eighteen became the leader of the +Alexandrine school of Christian philosophy. He proved no unworthy +successor of the logical Clement. Certainly no name stands higher in the +catechetical school than that of the iron-souled Origen ({~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}). The +eloquent teachings of this youthful master nerved many a Christian soul to +endure with fortitude the fiery trials of martyrdom, and even comforted +the bleeding heart of Leonides, his father, who became a victim of the +unrelenting persecutions of Severus. From Origen we learn "that S. Peter, +after having preached through Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and +Asia, to the Jews that were scattered abroad, went at last to Rome, where +he was crucified." "These things," says Eusebius, "are related by Origen +in the third book of his {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER XI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}."(12) + +Tertullian by birth was a heathen and Carthaginian. He was the son of a +centurion, and had been educated in all the varied learning of Greece and +Rome. Skilled as a rhetorician and advocate in Rome, he brought, on his +conversion to Christianity, the accomplishments of a highly cultivated +intellect, but a sombre and irritable temper. The natural lawlessness of a +mind guided by a passionate and stubborn disposition led him gradually to +renounce the truths which the light of a higher intelligence had revealed, +until at last he was anathematized for his Montanistic teachings. His +writings are an invaluable addition to the Punic-Latin theology, and a +repository from which we receive great information concerning the polemic +questions which at that period harassed the Christian church. Upon the +subject of our article he writes as follows: "Let them, then, give us the +origin of their churches; let them unfold the series of their bishops, +coming down in succession from the beginning, so that the first bishop was +appointed and preceded by any of the apostles, or apostolic men, who, +nevertheless, preserved in communion with the apostles, had an ordainer +and predecessor. For in this way the apostolic churches exhibit their +origin; thus the Church of Smyrna relates that Polycarp was placed there +by John, as the Church of Rome also relates that Clement was ordained by +Peter."(13) + +Again: "If thou be adjacent to Italy, there thou hast Rome, whose +authority is near at hand to us. How happy is this church, to which the +apostles poured forth their whole doctrine with their blood! where Peter +is assimilated to our Lord; where Paul is crowned with a death like that +of John."(14) + +And again: "Let us see with what milk the Corinthians were fed by Paul; +according to what rule the Galatians were reformed; what laws were to the +Philippians, Thessalonians, Ephesians; what also the Romans sound in our +ears, to whom Peter and Paul left the Gospel sealed with their blood."(15) + +To this list of witnesses we might add the testimony of the fathers and +ecclesiastical writers who have flourished in different ages of the +church, but we now propose to briefly survey the opinions of some of the +most noted Protestant commentators. + +The First Epistle of S. Peter is said by the apostle to have been written +from Babylon, but whether it be Babylon in Chaldea, Babylon in Egypt, +Jerusalem, or Rome, has given rise to much speculation.(16) Our Lord +foretold the manner of St. Peter's death,(17) and an event of such +importance would naturally have awakened more than ordinary interest. +Seven cities claimed the honor of Homer's birth,(18) but no other place +than Rome ever assumed to itself the glory of the apostle's martyrdom. +Controversies arose concerning the time of celebrating Easter, the baptism +of heretics, and questions of a like nature, yet none disputed the place +in which S. Peter was martyred. It is highly improbable that S. Peter ever +visited either Babylon in Egypt or Babylon in Chaldea. Certainly no fact +of history nor even possibility of conjecture furnishes the least +warrantable presumption of either opinion. The great burden of proof +points toward Rome. Like Babylon, pagan Rome was idolatrous. Like Babylon, +it persecuted the church of God. Like Babylon, the glory of its pagan +temple and fane had departed. In many manuscripts this epistle is dated +from Rome. + +Calvin, who little regarded the authority of the fathers, when, in the +presumption of his self-opinionated orthodoxy, he said: "All the ancients +were driven into error,"(19) yet from evidence the most patent he believed +that S. Peter suffered martyrdom at Rome. His language is: "Propter +scriptorum consensum non pugno quin illic mortuus fuerit."(20) + +"On the meaning of the word Babylon," says Grotius, one of the most +celebrated of the Calvinistic school, "ancient and modern interpreters +disagree. The ancients understand it of Rome, and that Peter was there no +true Christian ever doubted; the moderns understand it of Babylon in +Chaldea. I adhere to the ancients."(21) + +Rosenmueller, of whom an able American critic has said, "He is almost +everywhere a local investigator,"(22) has left his testimony in the same +language as Grotius: "Veteres Romam interpretantur." + +Dr. Campbell very reluctantly yielded, by the force of evidence, to the +same opinion when he wrote: "I am inclined to think that S. Peter's +martyrdom must have been at Rome, both because it is agreeable to the +unanimous voice of antiquity, and because the sufferings of so great an +apostle could not fail to be of such notoriety in the church as to +preclude the possibility of an imposition in regard to the place."(23) + +"From a careful examination of the evidence adduced," says the learned +Horne, "for the literal meaning of the word Babylon, and of the evidence +for its figurative or mystical application to Rome, we think that the +_latter_ was intended."(24) + +We commend to "Father Gavazzi," and to the Rev. Doctors Sunderland and +Newman of Washington, who are ever ready to throw down the gauntlet when +an argument is made to prove that S. Peter was at Rome, the language of +the logical and laborious Macknight, who clearly expresses our own view, +and whose diligence, learning, and moderation were so fully appreciated by +Bishop Tomline: "It is not for our honor nor for our interest, either as +Christians or Protestants, to deny the truth of events ascertained by +early and well-attested tradition. If any make an ill use of such facts, +we are not accountable for it. We are not, from a dread of such abuses, to +overthrow the credit of all history, the consequences of which would be +fatal."(25) + + + + +Number Thirteen. An Episode Of The Commune. + + +Mlle. de Lemaque and her sister Mme. de Chanoir lived at No. 13 Rue +Royale. They were the daughters of a military man whose fortune when he +married consisted in his sword, nothing else; and of a noble Demoiselle de +Cambatte, whose wedding portion, according to the good old French fashion, +was precisely the same as her husband's, minus the sword. But over and +above this joint capital the young people had a good stock of hope and +courage, and an inexhaustible fund of love; they had therefore as good a +chance of getting on as other young folk who start in life under the same +pecuniary disadvantages. M. de Lemaque, moreover, had friends in high +place who looked kindly on him, and promised him countenance and +protection, and there was no reason, as far as he and his wife could see, +why he should not in due time clutch that legendary baton which Napoleon +declared every French soldier carries in his knapsack. Nor, indeed, +looking at things from a retrospective point of view, was there any +reason, that we can see, why he should not have died a marshal of France, +except that he died too soon. The young soldier was in a fair way of +climbing to the topmost rung of the military ladder; but just as he had +got his foot on the third rung, Death stepped down and met him, and he +climbed no further. His wife followed him into the grave three years +later. They left two daughters, Felicite and Aline, the only fruits of +their short and happy union. The orphans were educated at the Legion of +Honor, and then sent adrift on the wide, wide world, to battle with its +winds and waves, to sink or swim as best they could. They swam. Perhaps I +ought rather say they floated. The eldest, Felicite, was married from S. +Denis to an old general, who, after a reasonably short time, had the +delicacy to betake himself to a better world, leaving his gay wife a widow +at the head of an income of L40 a year. Aline might have married under +similar circumstances, but, after turning it over in her mind, she came to +the conclusion that, all things considered, since it was a choice of +evils, and that she must earn her bread in some way, she preferred earning +it and eating it independently as a single woman. This gave rise to the +only quarrel the sisters had had in their lives. Felicite resented the +disgrace that Aline was going to put on the family name by degenerating +into a giver of private lessons, when she might have secured forty pounds +a year for ever by a few years' dutiful attendance on a brave man who had +fought his country's battles. + +"Well, if you can find me a warrior of ninety," said the younger sister, a +month before she left S. Denis, "I'm not sure that he might not persuade +me; but I never will capitulate under ninety; I couldn't trust a man under +that; they live for ever when they marry between sixty and eighty, and +there are no tyrants like them; now, I would do my duty as a kind wife for +a year or so, but I've no notion of taking a situation as nurse for +fifteen or twenty years, and that's what one gets by marrying a young man +of seventy or thereabouts." + +Felicite urged her own case as a proof to the contrary. General de Chanoir +was only sixty-eight when she married him, and he retired at seventy. +Aline maintained, however, that this was the one exception necessary to +prove the rule to the present generation, and as no eligible _parti_ of +fourscore and ten presented itself before she left school, she held to her +resolve, and started at once as a teacher. + +The sisters took an apartment together, if two rooms, a cabinet de +toilette, and a cooking-range in a dark passage, dignified by the name of +kitchen, can be called an apartment, and for six years they lived very +happily. + +Mme. de Chanoir was small and fair, and very distinguished-looking. She +had never known a day's illness in her life, but she was a hypochondriac. +She believed herself afflicted with a spine disease, which necessitated +reclining all day long on the sofa in a Louis Quinze dressing-gown and a +Dubarry cap. + +Aline was tall and dark, not exactly pretty, but indescribably piquant. +Without being delicate, her health was far less robust than her sister's; +but she was blessed with indomitable spirits and a fund of energy that +carried her through a variety of aches and pains, and often bore her +successfully through her round of daily work when another would have given +in. + +The domestic establishment of the sisters consisted in a charwoman, who +rejoiced in the name of Mme. Clery. She was a type of a class almost +extinct in Paris now; a dainty little cook, clean as a sixpence, honest as +the sun, orderly as a clock, a capital servant in every way. She came +twice a day to No. 13, two hours in the morning and three hours in the +afternoon, and the sisters paid her twenty francs a month. She might have +struck for more wages, and rather than let her go they would have managed +to raise them; but Mme. Clery was born before strikes came into fashion, +it was quite impossible to say how long before; her age was incalculable; +her youth belonged to that class of facts spoken of as beyond the memory +of the oldest man in the district. Aline used to look at her sometimes, +and wonder if she really could have been born, and if she meant to die +like other people; the crisp, wiry old woman looked the sort of person +never to have either a beginning or an end; they had had her now for eight +years--at least Mme. de Chanoir had--and there was not the shadow of a +change in her. Her gowns were like herself, they never wore out, neither +did her caps--high Normandy caps, with flaps extended like a wind-mill in +repose, stiff, white, and uncompromising. Everything about her was +antiquated. She had a religious regard for antiquity in every shape, and a +proportionate contempt for modernism; but, of all earthly things, what her +soul loved most was an old name, and what it most despised a new one. She +used to say that if she chose to cook the _rotis_ of a parvenu she might +make double the money, and it was true; but she could not bend her spirit +to it; she liked her dry bread and herbs better from a good family than a +stalled ox from upstarts. She was as faithful as a dog to her two +mistresses, and consequently lorded over them like a step-mother, +perpetually bullying and scolding, and bewailing her own infatuation in +staying with them while she might be turning a fatter pullet on her own +spit at home than the miserable _coquille_ at No. 13 ever held a fire to. +Why had she not the sense to take the situation that M. X----, the _agent de +change_, across the street, had offered her again and again? The _femme de +menage_ was, in fact, as odious and exasperating as the most devoted old +servant who ever nursed a family from the cradle to the grave. But let any +one else dare so much as cast a disrespectful glance at either of her +victims! She shook her fist at the _concierge's_ wife one day for +venturing to call Mme. de Chanoir Mme. de Chanoir _tout court_, instead of +Mme. la Generale de Chanoir, to a flunky who came with a note, and she +boxed the _concierge's_ ears for speaking of Aline as "l'Institutrice." As +Mme. la Generale's sofa was drawn across the window that looked into the +court, she happened to be an eye-witness to the two incidents, and heard +every word that was said. This accidental disclosure of Mme. Clery's +regard for the family dignity before outsiders covered a multitude of sins +in the eyes of both the sisters. Indeed, Mme. de Chanoir came at last, by +force of habit, almost to enjoy being bullied by the old soul. "_Cela nous +pose, ma chere_," she would remark complacently, when the wind from the +kitchen blew due north, and Aline threatened to mutiny. + +Aline never could have endured it if she had been as constantly tried as +her easy-going sister was; but, lucky for all parties, she went out +immediately after breakfast, and seldom came in till late in the +afternoon, when the old beldame was busy getting ready the dinner. + +It was a momentous life they led, the two young women, but, on the whole, +it was a happy one. Mme. de Chanoir, seeing how bravely her sister carried +the burden she had taken up, grew reconciled to it in time. They had a +pleasant little society, too; friends who had known them from their +childhood, some rich and in good positions, others struggling like +themselves in a narrow cage and under difficult circumstances; but one and +all liked the sisters, and brought a little contingent of sunshine to +their lives. As to Aline, she had sunshine enough in herself to light up +the whole Rue Royale. Every lesson she gave, every incident of the day, no +matter how trivial, fell across her path like a sunbeam; she had a knack +of looking at things from a sunny focus that shot out rays on every object +that came within its radius, and of extracting amusement or interest from +the most commonplace things and people; even her own vexations she had +turned into ridicule. Her position of governess was a fountain of fun to +her. When another would have drawn gall from a snub, and smarted and been +miserable under a slight, Aline de Lemaque saw a comic side to the +circumstance, and would dress it up in a fashion that diverted herself and +her friends for a week. Moreover, the young lady was something of a +philosopher. + +"You never find out human nature till you come to earn your own bread--I +mean, women don't," she used to say to Mme. de Chanoir. "If I were the +mother of a family of daughters, and wanted to teach them life, I'd make +every one of them, no matter how big their _dots_ were, begin by running +after the _cachet_. Nobody who hasn't tried it would believe what a castle +of truth it is to one--a mirror that shows up character to the life, a sort +of moral photography. It is often as good as a play to me to watch the +change that comes over people when, after talking to them, and making +myself pass for a very agreeable person, I suddenly announce the fact that +I give lessons. Their whole countenance changes, not that they look on me +straightway with contempt. Oh! dear no. Many good Christians, people of +the 'help yourself and God will help you' sect, conceive, on the contrary, +a great respect for me; but I become metamorphosed on the spot. I am not +what they took me for, they took me for a lady, and all the time I was a +governess! They did not think the less of me, but they can't help feeling +that they have been taken in; that, in fact, I'm an altogether different +variety from themselves, and it is very odd they did not recognize it at +first sight. But these are the least exciting experiences. The great fun +is when I get hold of an out-and-out worldly individual, man or woman, but +a woman is best, and let them go on till they have thoroughly committed +themselves, made themselves gushingly agreeable to me, perhaps gone the +length of asking, in a significant manner, if I live in their +neighborhood; then comes the crisis. I smile my gladdest, and say, +'Monsieur, or Madame, I give lessons!' _Changement de decoration a vue +d'oeil, ma chere._ It's just as if I _lanced_ an _obus_ into the middle of +the company, only it rebounds on me and hits nobody else; the eyebrows of +the company go up, the corners of its mouth go down, and it bows to me as +I sit on the ruins of my respectability, shattered to pieces by my own +_obus_." + +"I can't understand how you can laugh at it. If I were in your place, I +should have died of vexation and wounded pride long ago," said Mme. de +Chanoir, one day, as Aline related in high glee an obus episode that she +had had that morning; "but I really believe you have no feeling." + +"Well, whatever I have, I keep out of the reach of vulgar impertinence. I +should be very sorry to make my feelings a target for insolence and bad +breeding," replied Aline pertly. This was the simple truth. Her feelings +were out of the reach of such petty shafts; they were cased in +cheerfulness and common sense, and a nobler sort of pride than that in +which Mme. de Chanoir considered her sister wanting. If, however, the obus +was frequently fatal to Mlle. de Lemaque's social standing, on the other +hand it occasionally did her good service; but of this later. Its present +character was that of an explosive bomb which she carried in her pocket, +and _lanced_ with infinite gusto on every available opportunity. + +On Saturday evening the sisters were "at home." These little soirees were +the great event of their quiet lives. All the episodes and anecdotes of +the week were treasured up for that evening, when the intimes came to see +them and converse and sip a glass of cold _eau sucree_ in summer, and a +cup of hot ditto in winter (but then it was called tea) by the light of a +small lamp with a green shade. There was no attempt at entertainment or +finery of any kind, except that Mme. Clery, instead of going home as soon +as the dinner things were washed up, stayed to open the door. It was a +remnant of the sort of society that used to exist in French families some +thirty years ago, when conversation was cultivated as the primary +accomplishment of men and women, and when they met regularly to exercise +themselves in the difficult and delightful art. It was not reserved to the +well-born exclusively to talk well and brilliantly in those days, when the +most coveted encomium that could be passed on any one was, "He talks +well." All classes vied for it; every circle had its centre of +conversation. The _fauteuil de l'aieule_ and the salon of the _femme +d'esprit_, each had its audience, attended as assiduously, and perhaps +enjoyed quite as much, as the vaudevilles and ambigus that have since +drawn away the bourgeois from the one and the man of fashion from the +other. Besides its usual habitues for conversation, every circle had one +habitue who was looked upon as the friend of the family, and tacitly took +precedence of all the others. The friend of the family at No. 13 was a +certain professor of the Sorbonne named M. Dalibouze. He was somewhere on +the sunny side of fifty, a bald, pompous little man who wore spectacles, +took snuff, and laid down the law; very prosy and very estimable, a model +professor. He had never married, but it was the dream of his life to +marry. He had meditated on marriage for the last thirty years, and of +course knew more about it than any man who had been married double that +time. He was never so eloquent or so emphatic as when dilating on the joys +and duties of domestic life; no matter how tired he was with study and +scientific researches, how disappointed in the result of some cherished +literary scheme, he brightened up the moment marriage came on the tapis. +This hobby of the professor's was a great amusement to Mme. de Chanoir, +who delighted to see him jump into the saddle and ride off at a canter +while she lay languidly working at her tapestry, patting him on the back +every now and then, by a word of encouragement, or signifying her assent +merely by a smile or a nod. Sometimes she would take him to task seriously +about putting his theories into practice and getting himself a wife, +assuring him that it was quite wicked of him not to marry when he was so +richly endowed with all the qualities necessary to make a model husband. + +"Ah! madame, if I thought I were capable of making a young woman happy!" +M. Dalibouze would exclaim with a sigh; "but at my age! No, I have let my +chance go by." + +"How, sir, at your age!" the generale would protest. "Why, it is the very +flower of manhood, the moment of all others for a man to marry. You have +outlived the delusions of youth and none of its vigor; you have crossed +the Rubicon that separates folly from wisdom, and you have left nothing on +the other side of the bridge but the silly chimera of boyhood. Believe me, +the woman whom you would select would never wish to see you a day +younger." + +And M. Dalibouze would caress his chin, and observe thoughtfully: "Do you +think so, madame?" Upon which Mme. de Chanoir would pour another vial of +oil and honey on the learned head of the professor, till the wonder was +that it did not turn on his shoulders. + +Aline had no sympathy with his rhapsodies or his jeremiads; they bored her +to extinction, and sometimes it was all she could do not to tell him so; +but she disapproved of his being made a joke of, and testified against it +very decidedly when Felicite, in a spirit of mischief, led him up to a +more than usually ridiculous culmination. It was not fair, she said, to +make a greater fool of the good little man than he made of himself, and +instead of encouraging him to talk such nonsense one ought to laugh him +out of it, and try and cure him of his silly conceit. + +"I don't see it at all in that light," Mme. de Chanoir would answer. "In +the first place, if I laughed at him, or rather if I let him see that I +did, he would never forgive me, and, as I have a great regard for him, I +should be sorry to lose his friendship; and in the next place, it's a +great amusement to me to see him swallow my little doses of flattery so +complacently, and I have no scruple in dosing him, because nothing that I +or any one else could say could possibly add one grain to his self- +conceit, so one may as well turn it to account for a little +entertainment." + +It was partly this system of flattery, which Aline resented on principle, +that induced her occasionally to snub the professor, and partly the fact +that she had reason to suspect his dreams of married bliss centred upon +herself. In fact, she knew it. He had never told her so outright, for the +simple reason that, whenever he drew near that crisis, Aline cut him short +in such a peremptory manner that it cowed him for weeks, but nevertheless +she knew in her heart of hearts that she reigned supreme over M. +Dalibouze's. She would not have married him, no, not if he could have +crowned her queen of the Sorbonne and the College de France, but the fact +of his being her slave and aspiring to be her master constituted a claim +on her regard which a true-hearted woman seldom disowns. + +Felicite would have favored his suit if there had been the ghost of a +chance for him, but she knew there was not. + +Mme. Clery looked coldly on it. Needless to say, neither M. Dalibouze nor +his cruel-hearted lady-love had ever made a confidante of the _femme de +menage_; but she often remarked to her mistresses when they ventured an +opinion on anything connected with her special department, "Je ne suis pas +nee d'hier," an assertion which, strange to say, even the rebellious Aline +had never attempted to gainsay. Mme. Clery was not, indeed, born +yesterday, moreover she was a Frenchwoman, and a particularly wide-awake +one, and from the first evening that she saw Aline sugaring M. Dalibouze's +tea, dropping in lump after lump in that reckless way, while the little +man held his cup and beamed at her through his spectacles as if he meant +to stand there for ever simpering, "Merci encore!"--it occurred to Mme. +Clery when she saw this that there was more in it than tea-making. Of +course it was natural and proper that a young woman, especially an orphan, +should think of getting married, but it was right and proper that her +friends should think of it too, and see that she married the proper +person. Now, on the face of it, M. Dalibouze could not be the proper +person. Nevertheless, Mme. Clery waited till the suspicion that M. +Dalibouze had settled it in his own mind that he was that man took the +shape of a conviction before she considered it her duty to interfere. + +By interfering Mme. Clery meant going _aux renseignements_. Nobody ever +got true _renseignements_, especially when there was a marriage in +question, except people like her; ladies and gentlemen never get behind +the scenes with each other, or, if they do, they never tell what they see +there. They are very sweet and smiling when they meet in the salon, and +nobody guesses that madame has rated her _femme de chambre_ for not +putting the flowers in her hair exactly to her fancy, or that monsieur has +flung a boot at his valet for giving him his shaving-water too hot or too +cold. If you want the truth, you must get it by the back-stairs. This was +Mme. Clery's belief, and, acting upon it, she went to M. Dalibouze's +_concierge_ in the Rue Jean Beauvais to consult him confidentially about +his _locataire_. + +The first thing to be ascertained before entering on such secondary +details as character, conduct, etc., was whether or not the professor was +of a good enough family to be entertained at all as a husband for Mlle. de +Lemaque. On this _sine qua non_ question the _concierge_ could +unfortunately throw no light. The professor had a multitude of friends, +all respectable people, many of them _decores_, who drove to the door in +spruce _coupes_, but of his family Pipelet knew nothing; of his personal +respectability there was no doubt whatever; he was the kindest of men, a +very pearl of tenants, always in before midnight, and gave forty francs to +Pipelet on New Year's day, not to count sundry other little bonuses on +minor _fetes_ during the year. But so long as her mind was in darkness on +the main point, all this was no better than sounding brass in the ears of +Mme. Clery. + +"Has he, or has he not, the _particule_?" she demanded, cutting Pipelet +short in the middle of his panegyric. + +"The _particule_?" repeated Pipelet. "What's that?" + +"The _particule nobiliaire_," explained Mme. Clery, with a touch of +contempt. "There is some question of a marriage between him and one of my +ladies; but, if M. Dalibouze hasn't got the _particule_, it's no use +thinking of it." + +"Madame," said Pipelet, assuming a meditative air--he was completely at sea +as to what this essential piece of property might be, but did not like to +own his ignorance--"I'm not a man to set up for knowing more of my tenant's +business than I do, and M. Dalibouze has never opened himself to me about +how or where his money was placed; but I could give you the name of his +agent, if I thought it would not compromise me." + +"I'm not a woman to compromise any one that showed me confidence," said +Mme. Clery, tightening her lips, and bobbing her flaps at Pipelet; "but +you need not give me the name of his agent. What sort of a figure should I +make at his agent's! Give me his own name. How does he spell it?" + +"Spell it!" echoed Pipelet. + +"A big _D_ or a little _d_?" said Mme. Clery. + +"Why, a big _D_, of course! Who ever spelt their name with a little one?" +retorted Pipelet. + +"Ah!..." Mme. Clery smiled a smile of serene pity on the benighted +ignoramus, and then observed coolly: "I suspected it! I'm not easy to +deceive in that sort of things. I was not born yesterday. Good-morning, M. +le Concierge." She moved towards the door. + +"Stop!" cried Pipelet, seizing his berette as if a ray of light had shot +through his skull--"stop! Now that I think of it, it's a little _d_. I have +not a doubt but it's a little _d_. I noticed it only yesterday on a letter +that came for monsieur, and I said to myself: 'Let us see!' I said. 'What +a queer fancy for a man of distinction like M. le Professeur to spell his +name with a little _d_!' La! if I didn't say those words to myself no +later than yesterday!" + +Mme. Clery was dubious. Unluckily there was no letter in M. Dalibouze's +box at that moment, which would have settled the point at issue, so she +had nothing for it but to go home, and turn it in her mind what was to be +done next. After all, it was a great responsibility on her. The old soul +considered herself in the light of a protector to the two young women, one +a cripple on the broad of her back, and the other a light-hearted creature +who believed everything and everybody. It was her place to look after them +as far as she could. That afternoon, when Mme. Clery went to No. 13, after +her fruitless expedition to the Rue Jean Beauvais, she took a letter in to +Mme. de Chanoir. She had never seen, or, at any rate, never noticed, the +writing before, but as she handed the envelope to her mistress it flashed +upon her that it was from M. Dalibouze, and that it bore on the subject of +her morning's peregrination. + +She seized a feather-broom that hung by the fireplace, and began +vigorously threatening the clock and the candlesticks, as an excuse for +staying in the room, and watching Mme. de Chanoir in the looking-glass +while she read the letter. The old woman was an irascible enemy to dust; +they were used to see her at the most inopportune times pounce on the +feather-broom and begin whipping about her to the right and left, so Mme. +de Chanoir took no notice of this sudden castigation of the chimney-piece +at four o'clock in the afternoon. She read her note, and then, tossing it +into the basket beside her, resumed her tapestry as if nothing had +occurred to divert her thoughts from roses and Berlin wool. + +"Mme. la Generale, pardon and excuse," said Mme. Clery, deliberately +hanging the feather-broom on its nail, and going up to the foot of the +generale's sofa. "I have it on my mind to ask something of madame." + +"Ask it, my good Mme. Clery." + +"Does Mme. la Generale think of marrying Mlle. Aline?" + +Mme. de Chanoir opened her eyes, and stared for a moment in mild surprise +at her charwoman, then a smile broke over her face, and she said: + +"You are thinking that you would not like to come to me if I were alone?" + +"I was not thinking of that, madame," replied Mme. Clery, in a tone of +ceremony that was not habitual, and which would have boded no good (Mme. +Clery was never so respectful as when she was going to be particularly +disagreeable), except that she looked very meek, and, Felicite thought, +rather affectionately at her as their eyes met. + +"Well," said Mme. de Chanoir, "I suppose we must marry her some day; I +ought, perhaps, to occupy myself about it more actively than I do; but +there's time enough to think about it yet; mademoiselle is in no hurry." + +"Dame!" said Mme. Clery testily, "when a demoiselle has become an old +maid, there is not so much time to lose! Pardon and excuse, Mme. la +Generale, but I thought, I don't know why, that that letter had something +to do with it?" + +"This letter! What could have put that into your head?" + +Mme. de Chanoir took up the note to see if the envelope had anything about +it which warranted this romantic suspicion, but it was an ordinary +envelope, with no trace of anything more peculiar than the post-mark. + +"As I have told Mme. la Generale before," said Mme. Clery, shaking her +head significantly, "I was not born yesterday"--she emphasized the _not_ as +if Mme. de Chanoir had denied that fact and challenged her to swear to it +on the Bible--"and I don't carry my eyes in my pocket; and when a +demoiselle heaps lumps of sugar into a gentleman's cup till it's as thick +as honey for a spoon to stand in, and a shame to see the substance of the +family wasted in such a way, and she never grudging it a bit, but looking +as if it would be fun to her to turn the sugar-bowl upside down over it--I +say, when I see that sort of thing, I'm not femme Clery if there isn't +something in it." + +Felicite felt inclined to laugh, but she restrained herself, and observed +interrogatively: + +"Well, Mme. Clery, suppose there is?" + +This extravagance of sugar on M. Dalibouze was an old grievance of Mme. +Clery's. In fact, it had been her only one against the professor, till she +grew to look upon him as the possible husband of Mlle. Aline, and then the +question of his having or not having the _particule_ assumed such alarming +importance in her mind that it magnified all minor defects, and she +believed him capable of every misdemeanor under the sun. + +"Mme. la Generale," she replied, "one does not marry every day; one ought +to think seriously about it; Mlle. Aline has not experience; she is _vive_ +and light-hearted; she is a person to be taken in by outward appearances; +such things as learning, good principles, and _esprit_ would blind her to +serious shortcomings; it is the duty of Mme. la Generale to prevent such a +mistake in time." + +"What sort of shortcomings are you afraid of in M. Dalibouze, Mme. Clery?" +inquired Mme. de Chanoir, dropping her tapestry, and looking with awakened +curiosity at the old woman. + +"Let us begin with a first principle, Mme. la Generale," observed Mme. +Clery, demurely slapping the palm of her left hand. "Mlle. Aline is _nee_; +the father and mother of mamzelle were both of an excellent family; it is +consequently of the first necessity that her husband should be so, too; +the first thing, therefore, to be considered in a suitor is his name. Now, +has M. Dalibouze the _particule_, or has he not?" + +It was a very great effort for Mme. de Chanoir to keep her countenance +under this charge and deliver with which the old woman solemnly closed her +speech, and then stood awaiting the effect on her listener; still, such is +the weakness of human nature, the generale in her inmost heart was +flattered by it; it was pleasant to be looked up to as belonging to a race +above the common herd, to be recognized in spite of her poverty, even by a +_femme de menage_, as superior to the wealthy parvenus whose fathers and +mothers were not of a good family. + +"My good Mme. Clery," she said after a moment's reflection, "you, like +ourselves, were brought up with very different ideas from those that +people hold nowadays. Nobody cares a straw to-day who a man's father was, +or whether he had the _particule_ or not; all that they care about is that +he should be well educated, and well conducted, and well off; and, my +dear, one must go with the times, one must give in to the force of public +opinion around one. Customs change with the times. I would, of course, +much rather have a brother-in-law of our own rank than one cleverer and +richer who was not; but what would you have? One cannot have everything. +It is not pleasant for me to see Mlle. de Lemaque earning her own bread, +running about the streets like a milliner's apprentice at all hours of the +day. I would overlook something to see her married to a kind, honorable +man who would keep her in comfort and independence." + +"_Bonte divine!_" exclaimed Mme. Clery, with a look of deep distress and +consternation, "madame would then actually marry mamzelle to a _bourgeois +sans particule_? For madame admits that M. Dalibouze has not the +_particule_, that he spells his name with a big _D_?" + +"Alas! he does," confessed the generale; "but he comes, nevertheless, of a +good old Normandy stock, Mme. Clery; his great-grandfather was _procureur +du roi_ under--" + +"Tut! tut!" interrupted Mme. Clery; "his great-grandfather may have been +what he liked; if he wasn't a gentleman, he has no business marrying his +great grandson to a de Lemaque. No, madame; I am a poor woman, but I know +better than that. Mamzelle's father would turn in his grave if he saw her +married to a man who spelt his name with a big _D_." + +The conversation was interrupted by a ring at the door. It was Aline. She +came back earlier than usual, because one of her pupils was ill and had +not been able to take her lesson. The young girl was flushed and excited, +and flung herself into an arm-chair the moment she entered, and burst into +tears. Mme. de Chanoir sat up in alarm, fearing she was ill, and suggested +a cup of _tisane_. + +"Oh! 'tis nothing. I'm an idiot to mind it or let such impertinence vex +me," she said, when the first outburst had passed off and relieved her. + +"_Mon Dieu!_ but what vexes mamzelle?" inquired Mme. Clery anxiously. + +"A horrid man that followed me the length of the street, and made some +impudent speech, and asked me where I lived," sobbed Aline. + +"Is it possible!" exclaimed the old woman, aghast, and clasping her hands. +"Well, mamzelle does astonish me! I thought young men knew better nowadays +than to go on with that sort of tricks; fifty years ago they used to. I +remember how I was followed and spoken to every time I went to church or +to market; it was a persecution; but now I come and go and nobody minds +me. To think of their daring to speak to mamzelle!" + +"That's what one must expect when one walks about alone at your age, _ma +pauvre_ Aline," said the generale, rather sharply, with a significant look +at Mme. Clery which that good lady understood, and resented by compressing +her lips and bobbing her flaps, as much as to say, "One has a principle or +one has not"--principle being in this instance synonymous with _particule_. + +Things remained _in statu quo_ after this for some years. Mme. de Chanoir +did not enlighten her sister on the subject of the conference with Mme. +Clery, but she worked as far as she could in favor of the luckless suitor +who spelt his name with a capital _D_. It was of no use, however. Aline +continued to snub him so pertinaciously and persistently that Mme. de +Chanoir at last gave up his cause as hopeless, and the professor himself, +when he saw this, his solitary stronghold, surrender, thought it best to +raise the siege with a good grace, and make a friendly truce with the +victor. He frankly withdrew from the field of suitors, and took up his +position as a friend of the family. This once done, he accepted its +responsibilities and prerogatives, and held himself on the _qui vive_ to +render any service in his power to Mme. de Chanoir; he kept her +_concierge_ in order, and brought bonbons and flowers to No. 13 on every +possible occasion. He knew Aline was passionately fond of the latter, and +he was careful to keep the flower stand that stood in the pier of the +little salon freshly supplied with her favorite plants, and the vases +filled with her favorite flowers. He never dared to offer her a present, +but under cover of offering them to the generale he kept her informed +about every new book which was likely to interest her. Finally, Frenchman- +like, having abandoned the hope of marrying her himself, he set to work to +find some more fortunate suitor. This was _par excellence_ the duty of a +friend of the family, and M. Dalibouze was fully alive to its importance. +The disinterested zeal he displayed in the discharge of it would have been +comical if the spirit of genuine self-sacrifice which animated him had not +touched it with pathos. One by one every eligible _parti_ in the range of +his acquaintance was led up for inspection to No. 13. Mme. de Chanoir +entered complacently into the presentations; they amused her, and she +tried to persuade herself that, sooner or later, something would come of +them; but she knew Aline too well ever to let her into the secret of the +professor's matrimonial manoeuvres. The result would have been to furnish +Mlle. de Lemaque with an _obus_ opportunity and nothing more. + +But do what she would, the generale could never cheat Mme. Clery. The old +woman detected a _pretendant_ as a cat does a mouse. It was an instinct +with her. There was no putting her off the scent. She never said a word to +Mme. de Chanoir, but she had a most aggravating way of making her +understand tacitly that she knew all about it--that, in fact, she was not +born yesterday. This was her system, whenever M. Dalibouze brought a +_parti_ to tea in the evening. Mme. Clery was seized next day with a +furious dusting fit, and when the generale testified against the feathers +that kept flying out of the broom, Mme. Clery would observe, in a +significant way: + +"Mme. la Generale, that makes an impression when one sees a salon well +dusted; that proves that the servant is capable--that she attends to her +work. Madame does not think of those things, but strangers do." + +It became at length a sort of cabalistic ceremony with the old woman; +intelligible only to Mme. de Chanoir. If Aline came in when the fit was on +her, and ventured to expostulate, and ask what she was doing with the +duster at that time of day, Mme. Clery would remark stiffly: "Mamzelle +Aline, I am dusting." Aline came at last to believe that it was a modified +phase of S. Vitus' dance, and that for want of anything better the old +beldame vented her nerves on imaginary dust which she pursued in holes and +corners with her feathery weapon. + +This went on till Mlle. de Lemaque was six-and-twenty. She was still a +bright, brave creature, working hard, accepting the privations and toil of +her life in a spirit of sunshiny courage. But the sun was no longer always +shining. There were days now when he drew behind a cloud--when toil pressed +like a burden, and she beat her wings against it, and hated the cage that +cooped her in; and she longed not so much for rest or happiness as for +freedom--for a larger scope and higher aims, and wider, fuller sympathies. +When these cloudy days came around, Aline felt the void of her life with +an intensity that amounted at times to anguish; she felt it all the more +keenly because she could not speak of it. Mme. de Chanoir would not have +understood it. The sisters were sincerely attached to each other, but +there was little sympathy of character between them, and on many points +they were as little acquainted with each other as the neighbors on the +next street. They knew this, and agreed sensibly to keep clear of certain +subjects on which they could never meet except to disagree. The younger +sister, therefore, when the sky was overcast, and when her spirits +flagged, never tried to lean upon the older, but worked against the enemy +in silence, denying herself the luxury of complaint. If her looks betrayed +her, as was sometimes the case, and prompted Mme. de Chanoir to inquire if +there was anything the matter beyond the never-ending annoyance of life in +general, Aline's assurance that there was not was invariably followed by +the remark: "_Ma soeur_, I wish you were married." To which Aline as +invariably replied: "I am happier as I am, Felicite." It was true, or at +any rate Mlle. de Lemaque thought it was. Under all her surface +indifference she carried a true woman's heart. She had dreamt her dreams +of happiness, of tender fireside joys, and the dream was so fair and +beautiful that for years it filled her life like a reality, and when she +discovered, or fancied she did, that it was all too beautiful to be +anything but a dream, that the hero of her young imagination would never +cross her path in the form of a mortal husband, Aline accepted the +discovery with a sigh, but without repining, and laid aside all thought of +marriage as a guest that was not for her. As to the marriages that she saw +every day around her, she would no more have bound herself in one of them +than she would have sold herself to an Eastern pasha. Marriage was a very +different thing in her eyes from what it was in Mme. de Chanoir's. There +was no point on which the sisters were more asunder than on this, and +Aline understood it so well that she avoided touching on it except in +jest. Whenever the subject was introduced, she drew a mask of frivolity +over her real feelings to avoid bringing down the generale's ridicule on +what she would stigmatize as preposterous sentimentality. + +M. Dalibouze alone guessed something of this under-current of deep feeling +in the young girl's character. With the subtle instinct of affection he +penetrated the disguise in which she wrapped herself, but, with a delicacy +that she scarcely gave him credit for, he never let her see that he did. +Sometimes, indeed, when one of those fits of _tristesse_ was upon her, and +she was striving to dissemble it by increased cheerfulness towards +everybody, and sauciness towards him, the professor would adapt the +conversation to the tone of her thoughts with a skill and apropos that +surprised her. Once in particular Aline was startled by the way in which +he betrayed either a singularly close observation of her character, or a +still more singular sympathy with its moods and sufferings. It was on a +Saturday evening, the little circle was gathered round the fire, and the +conversation fell upon poetry and the mission of poets amongst common men. +Aline declared that it was the grandest of all missions; that, after the +prophet and priest, the poet did more for the moral well-being, the +spiritual redemption of his fellows than any other missionary, whether +philosopher, artist, or patriot; he combined them all, in fact, if he +wished it. If he was a patriot, he could serve his country better than a +soldier, by singing her wrongs and her glories, and firing the souls of +her sons, and making all mankind vibrate to the touch of pain, or joy, or +passionate revenge, while he sat quietly by his own hearth; she quoted +Moore and Krazinski, and other patriot bards who living had ruled their +people, and sent down their name a legacy of glory to unborn generations, +till warmed by her subject she grew almost eloquent, and broke off in an +impulsive cry of admiration and envy: "Oh! what a glorious privilege to be +a poet, to be even a man with the power of doing something, of living a +noble life, instead of being a weak, good-for-nothing woman!" + +The little ring of listeners heard her with pleasure, and thought she must +have a very keen appreciation of the beauties of the poets to speak of +them so well and so fervently. But M. Dalibouze saw more in it than this. +He saw an under-tone of impatience, of disappointment, of longing to go +and do likewise, to spread her wings and fly, to wield a wand that had +power to make others spread their wings; there was a spirit's war-cry in +it, a rebel's impotent cry against the narrow, inexorable bondage of her +life. + +"Yes," said the professor, "it is a grand mission, I grant you, but it is +not such a rare one as you make it out, Mlle. Aline. There are more poets +in the world than those who write poetry; few of us have the gift of being +poets in language, but we may all be poets in action if we will; we may +live out our lives in poems." + +"If we had the fashioning of our lives, no doubt we might," asserted Aline +ironically; "but they are most of them so shabby that I defy Homer himself +to manufacture an epic or an idyl out of them." + +"You are mistaken. There is no life too shabby to be a poem," said M. +Dalibouze; "it is true, we can't fashion our lives as you say, but we can +color them, we can harmonize them; but we must begin by believing this, +and by getting our elements under command; we must sort them and arrange +them, just as Mme. la Generale is doing with the shreds and silks for the +tapestry, and then go on patiently working out the pattern leaf by leaf; +by-and-by when the web gets tangled as it is sure to do with the best +workers, instead of pulling angrily at it, or cutting it with the sharp +scissors of revolt, we must call up a soft breeze from the land of souls +where the spirit of the true poet dwells, and bid it blow over it, and +then let us listen, and we shall hear the spirit-wind draw tones of music +out of our tangled web, like the breeze sweeping the strings of an AEolian +harp. It is our own fault, or perhaps oftener our own misfortune, if our +lives look shabby to us; we consider them piecemeal instead of looking at +them as a whole." + +"But how can we look at them as a whole?" said Aline. "We don't even know +that they ever will develop into a whole. How many of us remain on the +easel a sort of washed-in sketch to the end? It seems to me we are pretty +much like apples in an orchard; some drop off in the flower, some when +they are grown to little green balls, hard and sour and good for nothing; +it is only a little of the tree that comes to maturity." + +"And is there not abundance of poetry in every phase of the apple's life, +no matter when it falls?" said M. Dalibouze. "How many poems has the +blight of the starry blossom given birth to? And the little green ball, +who will count the odes that the school-boy has sung to it, not in good +hexameters perhaps, but in sound, heart poetry, full of zest and the gusto +of youth, when all bitters are sweet? O mon Dieu! when I think of the days +when a bright-green apple was like honey in my mouth, I could be a poet +myself! No _pate de foie gras_ ever tasted half so sweet as that forbidden +fruit of my school-days!" + +"Good for the forbidden fruit!" said Aline, amused at the professor's +sentiment over the reminiscence; "but that is only one view of the +question: if the apples could speak, they would give us another." + +"Would they?" said M. Dalibouze. "I'm not sure of that. If the apples +discuss the point at all, believe me, they are agreed that whatever +befalls them is the very best thing that could. We have no evidence of any +created thing, vegetable, mineral, or animal, grumbling at its lot; that +is reserved to man, discontent is man's prerogative, he quarrels with +himself, with his destiny, his neighbors, everything by turns. If we could +but do like the apples, blossom, and grow, and fall, early or late, just +as the wind and the gardener wished, we should be happy. Fancy an apple +quarrelling with the sun in spring for not warming him as he does in +August! It would be no more preposterous than it is for men to quarrel +with their circumstances. The fruit of our lives have their seasons like +the fruit of our gardens; the winter and snows and the sharp winds are +just as necessary to both as the fire of the summer heat; all growth is +gradual, and we must accept the process through which we are brought to +maturity, just as the apples do. It is not the same for all of us; some +are ripened under the warm vibrating sun, others resist it, and, like +certain winter fruit, require the cold twilight days to mellow them. But +it matters little what the process is, it is sure to be the right one if +we wait for it and accept it." + +"I wonder what stage of it I am in at the present moment," said Aline. "I +can't say the sun has had much to do with it; the winds and the rain have +been the busiest agents in my garden so far." + +"Patience, mademoiselle!" said M. Dalibouze. "The sun will come in his own +good time." + +"You answer for that?" + +"I do." + +Aline looked him straight in the face as she put the question like a +challenge, and M. Dalibouze met the saucy bright eyes with a grave glance +that had more of tenderness in it than she had ever seen there before. It +flashed upon her for a moment that the sun might come to her through a +less worthy medium than this kind, faithful, honorable man, and that she +had been mayhap a fool to her own happiness in shutting the gate on him so +contemptuously. + +Perhaps the professor read the thought on her face, for he said in a +penetrated tone, and fixing his eyes upon her: + +"The true sun of life is marriage." + +It was an unfortunate remark. Aline tossed back her head, and burst out +laughing. The spell that had held her for an instant was broken. + +"A day will come when some one will tell you so, and you will not laugh, +Mlle. Aline," said M. Dalibouze humbly, and hiding his discomfiture under +a smile. + +This was the only time within the last two years that he had betrayed +himself into any expression of latent hope with regard to Mlle. de +Lemaque, and it had no sooner escaped him than he regretted it. The +following Saturday, by way of atonement, he brought up a most desirable +_parti_ for inspection, and next day Mme. Clery was seized with the +inevitable dusting fit. Nothing, however, came of it. + +Things went on without any noticeable change at No. 13 till September, +1870, when Paris was declared in a state of siege. The sisters were not +among those lucky ones who wavered for a time between going and staying, +between the desire to put themselves in safe-keeping, and the temptation +of living through the _blocus_ and boasting of it for the rest of their +days. There was no choice for them but to stay. Aline, as usual, made the +best of it; she must stay, so she settled it in her mind that she liked to +stay; that it would be a wonderful experience to live through the most +exciting episode that could have broken up the stagnant monotony of their +lives, and that, in fact, it was rather an enjoyable prospect than the +reverse. + +Mme. Clery was commissioned to lay in as ample a store of provisions as +their purse would allow. The good woman did the best she could with her +means, and the little group encouraged each other to face the coming +events like patriotic citizens, cheerfully and bravely. Of the magnitude +of those events, or their own probable share in their national calamities, +they had a very vague notion. + +"The situation," M. Dalibouze assured them, "was critical, but by no means +desperate. On the contrary, France, instead of being at the mercy of her +enemies, was now on the eve of crushing them, of obtaining one of those +astonishing victories which make ordinary history pale. It was the +incommensurable superiority of the French arms that had brought her to +this pass; that had driven Prussia mad with rage and envy, and roused her +to defiance. Infatuated Prussia! she would mourn over her folly once and +for ever. She would find that Paris was not alone the Greece of +civilization and the arts and sciences, but that she was the most +impregnable fortress that ever defied the batteries of a foe. Europe had +deserted Paris, after betraying France to her enemies; now the day of +reckoning was at hand; Europe would reap the fruits of her base jealousy, +and witness the triumph of the capital of the world!" + +This was M. Dalibouze's firm opinion, and he gave it in public and private +to any one who cared to hear it. When Mme. de Chanoir asked if he meant to +remain in Paris through the siege, the professor was so shocked by the +implied affront to his patriotism that he had to control himself before he +could trust himself to answer her. + +"_Comment_, Mme. la Generale! You think so meanly of me as to suppose I +would abandon my country at such a crisis! Is it a time to fly when the +enemy is at our gates, and when the nation expects every man to stand +forth and defend her, and scatter those miserable eaters of sauerkraut to +the winds!" + +And straightway acting up to this noble patriotic credo, M. Dalibouze had +himself measured for a National Guard uniform. No sooner had he endorsed +it than he rushed off to Nadar's and had himself photographed. He counted +the hours till the proofs came home, and then, bursting with satisfaction, +he set out to No. 13. + +"It is unbecoming," he said, shrugging his shoulders as he presented his +carte de visite to the generale, "_mais que voulez-vous?_ A man must +sacrifice everything to his country; what is personal appearance that it +could weigh in the balance against duty! Bah! I could get myself up as a +punchinello, and perch all day on the top of Mont Valerien, if it could +scare away one of those despicable brigands from the walls of the +capital!" + +"You are wrong in saying it is unbecoming, M. Dalibouze," protested the +generale, attentively scanning the portrait, where the military costume +was set off by a semi-heroic military _pose_, "I think the dress suits you +admirably." + +"You are too indulgent, madame," said the professor. "You see your friends +through the eyes of friendship; but, in truth, it was purely from an +historical point of view that I made the little sacrifice of personal +feeling; the portrait will be interesting as a souvenir some day when we, +the actors in this great drama, have passed away." + +But time went on, and the prophetic triumphs of M. Dalibouze were not +realized; the eaters of sauerkraut held their ground, and provisions began +to grow scarce at No. 13. The purse of the sisters, never a large one, was +now seriously diminished, Aline's contribution to the common fund having +ceased altogether with the beginning of the siege. Her old pupils had +left, and there was no chance of finding any new ones at such a time as +this. No one had money to spend on lessons, or leisure to learn; the study +that absorbed everybody was how to realize food or fuel out of impossible +elements. Every one was suffering, in a more or less degree, from the +miseries imposed by the state of _blocus_; but one would have fancied the +presence of death in so many shapes, by fire without, by cold and famine +within, would have detached them generally from life, and made them +forgetful of the wants of the body and absorbed them in sublimer cares. +But it was not so. After the first shock of hearing the cannon at the +gates close to them, they got used to it. Later, when the bombardment +came, there was another momentary panic, but it calmed down, and they got +used to that too. Shells could apparently fall all round without killing +them. So they turned all their thoughts to the cherishing and comfort of +their poor afflicted bodies. It must have been sad, and sometimes grimly +comical, to watch the singular phases of human nature developed by the +_blocus_. One of the oddest and most frequent was the change it wrought in +people with regard to their food. People who had been ascetically +indifferent to it before, and never thought of their meals till they sat +down to table, grew monomaniac on the point, and could think and speak of +nothing else. Meals were talked of, in fact, from what we can gather, more +than politics, the Prussians, or the probable issue of the siege, or any +of the gigantic problems that were being worked out both inside and +outside the besieged city. Intelligent men and women discussed by the +hour, with gravity and gusto, the best way of preparing cats and dogs, +rats and mice, and all the abominations that necessity had substituted for +food. Poor human nature was fermenting under the process like wine in the +vat, and all its dregs came uppermost: selfishness, callousness to the +sufferings of others, ingratitude, all the pitiable meanness of a man, +boiled up to the surface and showed him a sorry figure to behold. But +other nobler things came to the surface too. There were innumerable silent +dramas, soul-poems going on in unlikely places, making no noise beyond +their quiet sphere, but travelling high and sounding loud behind the +curtain of gray sky that shrouded the winter sun of Paris. The cannon +shook her ramparts, and the shells flashed like lurid furies through the +midnight darkness; but far above the din and the darkness and the death- +cries rose the low sweet music of many a brave heart's sacrifice; the +stronger giving up his share to the weaker, the son hoarding his scanty +rations against the day of still scantier supplies, when there would be +scarcely food enough to support the weakened frame of an aged father or +mother, talking big about the impossibility of surrender, and lightly +about the price of resistance. There were mothers in Paris, too, and +wherever mothers are there is sure to be found self-sacrifice in its +loveliest, divinest form. How many of them toiled and sweated, aye, and +begged, subduing all pride to love for the little ones, who ate their fill +and knew nothing of the cruel tooth that was gnawing the bread-winner's +vitals! + +We who heard the thunder of the artillery and the blasting shout of the +mitrailleuse, we did not hear these things, but other ears did, and not a +note of the sweet music was lost, angels were hearkening for them, and as +they rose above the dark discord, like crystal bells tolling in the storm +wind, the white-winged messengers caught them on golden lyres and wafted +them on to paradise. + +To Be Continued. + + + + +On A Picture Of S. Mary Bearing Doves To Sacrifice. + + + My eyes climb slowly up, as by a stair, + To seek a picture on my chamber wall-- + A picture of the Mother of our Lord, + Hung where the latest twilight shadows fall. + + My lifted eyes behold a childlike face, + Under a veil of woman's holiest thought, + O'ershadowed by the mystery of grace, + And mystery of mercy--God hath wrought. + + Down through the dim old temple, moving slow, + Her drooping lids scarce lifted from the ground, + As if she faintly heard the distant flow + Of far-off seas of grief she could not sound. + + I think archangels would not count it sin + If, underneath the veil that hides her eyes, + They, seeing all things, saw the soul within + Held more of mother-love than sacrifice. + + She walks erect, the virgin undefiled, + Back from her throat the loose robe falls apart, + And e'en as she would clasp her royal Child, + She holds the dovelets to her tender heart. + + No white wing trembles 'neath her pitying palm, + No feather flutters in this last warm nest, + And thus she bears them on--while solemn psalm + Wakes dim, prophetic stirrings in her breast. + + Sweet Hebrew mother! many a woman shares, + Thy crucifixion of her hopes and loves, + And in her arms to death unshrinking bears + Her precious things--even her turtle-doves. + + But often, ere the temple's marble floor + Has ceased the echo of her parting feet, + Her gifts prove worthless--thine is ever more + The gift of gifts--transcendent and complete. + + We mothers, too, have treasures all our own, + And, one by one, oft see them sacrificed: + Thou, Blessed among women--thou alone + Hast held within thine arms the dear Child-Christ. + + Therefore, mine eyes mount up, as by a stair, + To seek the picture on my chamber wall; + Therefore my soul climbs oft the steeps of prayer, + To rest where shadows of thy Son's cross fall. + + + + +Centres Of Thought In The Past. First Article. The Monasteries. + + +It seems very ambitious to try and present to the reader a sketch of +anything so vast as the field of research pointed out by the above title, +and, indeed, far from aiming at this, we will set forth by saying, once +for all, that our attempts will be nothing more than passing views, +isolated specimens of that immense whole which, under the names of +education, progress, development, scholasticism, and _renaissance_, forms +the intellectual "stock in trade" of every modern system of knowledge. + +The "past" is divided into two distinct eras--the monastic and the +scholastic. In the earlier era, the centres of thought were the +Benedictine and the Columbanian monasteries; in the second era, +intellectual life gathered its strength in the universities, under the +guidance of the church, typified by the Mendicant Orders. The first era +may be said to have lasted from the fifth century to the eleventh, and to +have reached its apogee in the seventh and eighth. The second reached from +the eleventh century to the sixteenth, and attained its highest glory in +the prolific and gifted thirteenth century. Each had its representative +centre _par excellence_, its representative men, philosophy, and religious +development. Prior Vaughan, in his recent masterpiece, the _Life of S. +Thomas of Aquin_, expresses this idea in many ways. "From the sixth to the +thirteenth century," he says, "the education of Europe was Benedictine. +Monks in their cells ... were planting the mustard-seed of future European +intellectual growth." Further on he says: "Plato represents rest; +Aristotle, inquisitiveness. The former is synthetical; the latter, +analytical. _Quies_ is monastic, inquisitiveness is dialectical." Thus, +Plato is the representative master of the earlier era; S. Benedict and his +incomparable rule, its representative religious outgrowth; the study of +the Scriptures, the Fathers, and the liberal arts, its representative +system of education. We do not hear of many "commentaries" in those days, +nor of curious schedules of questions, such as, "Did the little hands of +the Boy Jesus create the stars?"(26) On the other hand, elegant Latinity +was taught, and the Scriptures were multiplied by thousands of costly and +laborious transcriptions. The first era was eminently conservative. Its +very schools were physically representative; "the solitary abbey, hidden +away amongst the hills, with its psalmody, and manual work, and unexciting +study."(27) In the scholastic era, things were reversed. "Latinity grew +barbarous, and many far graver disorders arose out of the daring and undue +exercise of reason. Yet intellectual progress was being made in spite of +the decay of letters.... In the extraordinary intellectual revolution +which marked the opening of the thirteenth century, the study of +_thoughts_ was substituted for the study of _words_."(28) Here the +representative exponent was Aristotle; the religious developments, the +Crusades and the Mendicant Orders; and the personal outgrowth of the +clashes of the two systems--that of the old immovable dogmatic church, and +that of irreverence and rationalism--S. Bernard, S. Dominic, S. Thomas of +Aquin, on the one hand, and Peter Abelard and William de Saint Amour, on +the other. Here, again, we find the _locale_ analogous to the spirit of +the age. Cities were now the centres of knowledge; noisy streets, with +ominous names, such as the "Rue Coupegueule,"(29) in Paris, so named from +the frequent murders committed there during university brawls, take the +place of the silent cloister and long stone corridors of the abbey; +physical disorder typifies the moral confusion of the day; and Paris the +chaotic stands in the room of Monte Casino, S. Gall, or English Jarrow. +Then followed the "Renaissance," that "revival of practical paganism."(30) +"The saints and fathers of the church gradually disappeared from the +schools, and society, instead of being permeated, as in former times, with +an atmosphere of faith, was now redolent of heathenism."(31) Petrarch and +Boccaccio were the representatives of this refined (if we must use the +word in its ordinary sensual meaning) infidelity; Plato was the god of the +new Olympus, but unrecognizable from the Plato embodied in the Fathers and +Benedictine _litterateurs_, for, practically speaking, polite life had now +become Epicurean; while as for the religious development of the times, +since it could no longer be representative, it became apostolic. +Savonarola and S. Francis Xavier are names that stand out in the moral +darkness of that era, and the latter suggests the only new creation in the +church from that day to our own. Christian education had been Benedictine, +then Dominican; it now became Jesuit. The world knew its old enemy in the +new dress, and ever since has warred against it with diabolical foresight +and unwearied venom. Of this last phase of the past, which is so like the +present that we have classed it apart, we do not purpose to speak, but +will confine ourselves to those older and grander, though hardly less +troublous times known as the middle ages. + +The first two centres of Christianity and patristic learning outside Rome +were Alexandria and Constantinople. The latter soon fell away into schism, +and thence into that barbarism which the vigorous Western races were at +that very same time casting off through the influence of the church that +Byzantium had rejected. From Alexandria we may date the beginnings of our +own systems of learning. The end of the second century already found the +Christian schools of that city famous, and the converted Stoic Pantaenus +spoken of as one of "transcendent powers." Clement of Alexandria, Origen, +Hippolytus, Bishop of Porto, were teachers in those schools, and the _Acts +of the Martyrs_ tell us that Catharine, the learned virgin-martyr, was an +Alexandrian. Hippolytus was a famous astronomer and arithmetician. Clement +used poetry, philosophy, science, eloquence, and even satire, in the +interests of religion. Origen became the master of S. Gregory Thaumaturgus +and his brother Athenodorus. "It was now recognized that Christians were +men who could think and reason with other men, ... and of whom a +university city need not be ashamed. Christians were expected to teach and +study the liberal arts, profane literature, philosophy, and the Biblical +languages, ... and all the time the business of the school went on, +_persecution_ raged with _small intermission_."(32) Prior Vaughan says +that "Faith took her seat with her Greek profile and simple majesty in +Alexandria, and withstood, as one gifted with a divine power, two subtle +and dangerous enemies--heathen philosophy and heretical theology--and, by +means of Clement and of Origen, proved to passion and misbelief that a new +and strange _intellectual_ influence had been brought into the world."(33) +Antioch and Constantinople claimed the world's attention later on, and the +Thebaid teemed with equal treasures of learning and of holiness. S. John +Chrysostom exhorts Christian parents, in 376, "to entrust the education of +their sons to the solitaries, to those _men of the mountain_ whose lessons +he himself had received."(34) + +When the glories of the patristic age were waning, and the East seemed to +fail the church, through whose influence alone she had become famous, +there arose in the West, among the half-barbarous races of Goths, Franks, +Celts, and Teutons, other champions of monasticism and pioneers of +learning. The raw material of Christian Europe was being moulded into the +heroic form it bore during mediaeval times by poet, philosopher, and +legislator-monks. + +Of these monastic centres, Lerins is perhaps the oldest. Founded in 410, +on an island of the Mediterranean near the coast of France, it became +"another Thebaid, a celebrated school of theology and Christian +philosophy, a citadel inaccessible to the works of barbarism, and an +asylum for literature and science which had fled from Italy on the +invasion of the Goths."(35) All France sought its bishops from this holy +and learned isle. Among its great scholars was Vincent of Lerins, the +first controversialist of his time, and the originator of the celebrated +formula: _Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est_. We may +be pardoned for extending our notice of him, since the words he uses on +the progress of the church are so singularly appropriate to our own times +and problems. Having established the unchangeableness of Catholic +doctrine, he goes on to say: "Shall there, then, be no progress in the +church of Christ? There shall be progress, and even great progress, ... +but it will be _progress_ and _not change_. With the growth of ages there +must necessarily be a growth of intelligence, of wisdom, and of knowledge, +for each man as for all the church. But the religion of souls must imitate +the progress of the human form, which, in developing and growing in years, +never ceases to be the same in the maturity of age as in the flower of +youth."(36) Had the monk of Lerins foreknown the aberrations of the doctor +of Munich, he could not have better refuted the latest heresy of our own +day. S. Lupus of Troyes, who arrested Attila at the gates of his episcopal +city, and successfully combated the Pelagian heresy in England; S. +Cesarius of Arles, who was successively persecuted and finally reinstated +by two barbarian kings, and who gave his sister Cesaria a rule for her +nuns which was adopted by Queen Radegundes for her immense monastery of +Poictiers; Salvian, whose eloquence was likened to that of S. Augustine, +were all monks of Lerins. S. Cesarius has well epitomized the training of +this great and holy school when he says: "It is she who nourishes those +illustrious monks who are sent into all provinces of Gaul as bishops. When +they arrive, they are children; when they go out, they are fathers. She +receives them as recruits, she sends them forth kings."(37) As late as +1537, we find on the list of the commission appointed by Pope Paul III. to +draw up the preliminaries of the Council of Trent, and especially to point +out and correct the abuses of secular training and paganized art, the name +of Gregory Cortese, Abbot of Lerins.(38) But we must hasten on to other +foundations of a reputation and influence as world-wide as that of the +Mediterranean Abbey. + +In 580, there was a famous school at Seville, where all the arts and +sciences were taught by learned masters, presided over by S. Leander, the +bishop of the diocese. Then S. Ildefonso, of Toledo, a scholar of Seville, +founded a great school at Toledo itself (where the famous councils took +place later on), which, together with Seville, made "Spain the +intellectual light of the Christian world in the seventh century."(39) + +From the South let us turn to the fruitful land where monks supplied the +place of martyrs, and where the faith, planted by Patrick, grew so +marvellously into absolute power within the short space of a century. +Armagh, Bangor, Clonard, are names that at once recall the palmy days of +sacred learning. "Within a century after the death of S. Patrick," says +Bishop Nicholson, "the Irish seminaries had so increased that most parts +of Europe sent their children to be educated there, and drew thence their +bishops and teachers."(40) "By the ninth century, Armagh could boast of +7,000 students."(41) "Clonard," says Usher, "issued forth a stream of +saints and doctors like the Greek warriors from the wooden horse."(42) The +Irish communities, Montalembert tells us in his brilliant language, +"entered into rivalry with the great monastic schools of Gaul. They +explained Ovid there; they copied Virgil; they devoted themselves +especially to Greek literature; they drew back from no inquiry, from no +discussion; they gloried in placing boldness on a level with faith." The +young Luan answered the Abbot of Bangor, who warned him against the +dangers of too engrossing a study of the liberal arts: "If I have the +knowledge of God, I shall never offend God, for they who disobey him are +they who know him not." + +The Irish were as adventurous as they were learned, and Montalembert bears +witness to the national propensity in the following graceful language: +"This monastic nation became the missionary nation _par excellence_. The +Irish missionaries covered the land and seas of the West. Unwearied +navigators, they landed on the most desert islands; they overflowed the +continent with their successive immigrations. They saw in incessant +visions a world known and unknown to be conquered for Christ." And the +author of _Christian Schools and Scholars_ reminds us of the beautiful +legend of S. Brendan, the founder of the great school of Clonfert in +Connaught, the school-fellow of Columba, and the pupil of Finian at +Clonard, who is declared to have set sail in search of the Land of +Promise, and during his seven years' journey to have "discovered a vast +tract of land, lying far to the west of Ireland, where he beheld wonderful +birds and trees of unknown foliage, which gave forth perfumes of +extraordinary sweetness." Whatever fiction is mingled with this marvellous +narrative, it is difficult not to admit that it must have had some +foundation of truth, and the poetic legend which was perfectly familiar to +Columbus is said to have furnished him with one motive for believing in +the existence of a western continent. Later on we shall find Albertus +Magnus foreshadowing the same belief in his writings. Two of the Irish +missionaries deserve especial notice--Columba, the Apostle of Caledonia, +and Columbanus, the founder of Luxeuil in Burgundy. The former, with his +stronghold of Iona, which "came to be looked upon as the chief seat of +learning, not only in Britain, but in the whole Western world,"(43) is +familiar to all readers of Montalembert's great monastic poem, and to that +other public who have had access to the Duke of Argyll's recent work on +the rock-bound metropolis of Christian Britain. We are told that the most +scrupulous exactitude was required in the Scriptorium of Iona, and that +Columba himself, a skilful penman, wrote out the famous _Book of Kells_ +with his own hand. It is now preserved in the library of Trinity College, +Dublin. The monks of Iona studied and taught the classics, the mechanical +arts, law, history, and physic. They transferred to their new home all the +learning of Armagh and Clonard. Painful journeys in search of books or of +the oral teaching of some renowned master were nothing in their eyes; they +listened to lectures on the Greek and Latin fathers, hung entranced over +Homer and Virgil, and were skilled in calculating eclipses and other +natural phenomena. They astonished the world with their arithmetical +knowledge and linguistic erudition, and their keen logic and love of +syllogism are spoken of by S. Benedict of Anian in the ninth century.(44) +Art was equally cultivated, but this, strictly speaking, is outside our +present subject. As an example of Columba's liberal spirit and devotion to +the best interests of literature, we may remark his defence of the bards +at the Assembly of Drumceitt. Poets, historians, law-givers, and +genealogists, the bards represented all the learning of a past age and +system; and if their arrogance now and then overstepped the bounds of +courtesy, and even sometimes the restraints of law, in the main their +institute was heroic and praiseworthy. Columba argued against their +opponent, a prince of the Nialls of the South, Aedh, that "care must be +taken not to pull up the good corn with the tares, and that the general +exile of the poets would be the death of a venerable antiquity, and that +of a poetry which was dear to the country and useful to those who knew how +to employ it." His eloquence saved the bardic institute, and the poets in +their gratitude composed a famous song in his praise, which became +celebrated in Irish literature under the name of _Ambhra_, or _Praise of +S. Columbkill_.(45) + +Columbanus, a monk of Bangor, was destined to found an Irish colony of +even greater fame and longer duration than Iona. Luxeuil, founded in 590, +at the foot of the Vosges in Burgundy, soon counted among its sons many +hundred votaries of learning. Montalembert says of it that "no monastery +of the West had yet shone with so much lustre or attracted so many +disciples". It became another Lerins, a nursery of bishops for the +Frankish and Burgundian cities, a notable seat of secular knowledge, and, +above all, a school of saints. Indeed, among the meagre, skeleton-like +details that come down to us of these giant abodes of a supernatural race +of men, we find ourselves perforce repeating over and over the same +formula of commendation. What more could one say but that each of these +monastic centres was a school of saints? And yet how much variety in that +sameness! How much that even we can see, and distinguish, and mentally +dissect! We see some soaring spirit, whose burning love is never content +with renunciation, but ever seeks, with holy restlessness, some deeper +solitude in which to pray and meditate, like the Bavarian monk Sturm, the +pupil and companion of S. Boniface, and the founder of the world-renowned +Abbey of Fulda; or, again, some great thinker like Alcuin of York, whose +touching love for his own land and city makes us feel with pardonable +pride how near akin is our own weak human nature to that of even the giant +men of old; or spirits like the gentle Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, the +traditions of whose unwearied moderation and "inestimable gift of kindness +and light-heartedness," as well as his "intense and active sympathy for +those human sorrows which in all ages are the same," are all the more +precious to us that they are also mingled with tales of his wondrous +horsemanship, athletic frame, and simple enjoyment of legitimate sports. +The same author we have just quoted, Montalembert, says that the +description of his childhood reads like that of a little Anglo-Saxon of +our own day, a scholar of Eton or Harrow. So that, when one after another +we read of Gaulish, Celtic, and Teutonic abbeys that were intellectual +capitals and centres of far-reaching and all-embracing knowledge, we must +always remember that these words, grown trite at last from frequent use, +have as varied a meaning as the collective name of Milky Way, which stands +for countless worlds of unknown stars. + +As Christianity spread in the early part of the middle ages, these +monastic centres were multiplied like the posterity of Abraham, Isaac, and +Jacob. Lindisfarne, the Iona of the eastern coast of England, soon +rivalled her Scottish predecessor, and retained much the same impress of +Celtic learning, while Melrose served as a supplementary school and +novitiate. The Teutonic element now began to make itself felt. Caedmon, +the Saxon cowherd, transformed into a poet and a monk by a direct call +from God, sang the creation in strains "which," says Montalembert, "may +still be admired even beside the immortal poem of the author of _Paradise +Lost_." Wilfrid, the S. Thomas a Becket of the seventh century, vigorously +planted Roman traditions and customs in the Saxon monastery of Ripon, and +perpetuated the name of S. Peter in his other magnificent foundation of +Peterborough, the poetic "Home among the Meadows," or Medehamstede.(46) +Theodore, the Greek metropolitan of England, in 673 introduced into the +Anglo-Saxon schools "an intellectual and literary development as worthy of +the admiration as of the gratitude of posterity; the study of the two +classic tongues (Greek and Latin) chiefly flourished under his care.... +Monasteries, thus transformed into homes of scientific study, could not +but spread a taste and respect for intellectual life, not only among the +clergy, but also among their lay-protectors, the friends and neighbors of +each community."(47) + +Benedict Biscop, the contemporary of the chivalrous Wilfrid of York, is +eminently a representative of Anglo-Saxon cultivation. Montalembert puts +his name in the "monastic constellation of the seventh century" for +intelligence, art, and science. He it was who undertook a journey to Rome +(which place he had visited many times before on other errands) solely to +procure books; and it must be borne in mind that this journey was then +twice as long and a hundred times more dangerous than a journey from +London to Australia is now. After having founded the Abbey of Wearmouth, +at the mouth of the Wear, Benedict set forth again, bringing masons and +glass-makers from Gaul to teach the Anglo-Saxons some notions of solid and +ornamental architecture. He was a passionate book-collector, and wished +each of his monasteries to have a great library, which he considered +indispensable to the discipline, instruction, and good organization of the +community. Originally a monk at Lerins, whither he had gone after giving +up a knightly and seignorial career in his own country, he naturally drank +in that thirst for learning which, in the earlier middle ages, seems to +have been almost inseparable from holiness. Jarrow, the sister monastery +to Wearmouth, situated near it by the mouth of the Tyne, was even yet more +famous as a school of hallowed knowledge, and has become endeared to the +hearts of all Englishmen as the home of the Venerable Bede. His is a +figure which, even in the foreign annals of the church, stands pre-eminent +among ecclesiastical writers, and one in whom the Anglo-Saxon character is +thoroughly and beautifully revealed. Calm and steadfast self-possession, +that beautiful attribute of the followers of the "Prince of Peace," is the +key-note to the writings of the historian-monk of Jarrow. The first +glimpse we have of him is as the solitary companion of the new-made abbot, +Ceolfrid, chanting the divine office at the age of seven; his voice choked +with sobs as he thought of the elder brethren, all of whom a grievous +pestilence had carried off. But though the choir had gone to join in the +hymns of the New Jerusalem, the canonical hours were nevertheless kept up +by the sorrowing abbot and the child-chorister until new brethren came to +take the place of the old ones. Bede was never idle; he says himself that +"he was always his own secretary, and dictated, composed, and copied all +himself." His great history was the means of bringing him into contact +with the best men of his day. "The details he gives on this subject show +that a constant communication was kept up between the principal centres of +religious life, and that an amount of intellectual activity as surprising +as it is admirable--when the difficulty of communication and the internal +wars which ravaged England are taken into account--existed among their +inhabitants."(48) Bede's political foresight seems to have been of no mean +order, and the grave advice he administers to bishops on ecclesiastical +abuses shows at once his practical common sense and fearlessness of +character. He also condemns the too sweeping grants of land, exemptions +from taxes, and privileges offered to monastic houses, and gives the +wisest reasons for his strictures. "The nations of Catholic Europe envied +England the possession of so great a doctor, the first among the offspring +of barbarous races who had won a place among the doctors of the church, +... and his illustrious successor Alcuin, speaking to the community of +Jarrow which Bede had made famous, bears witness to his celebrity in these +words: 'Stir up, then, the minds of your sleepers by his example; study +his works, and you will be able to draw from them the secret of eternal +beauty.' "(49) + +Malmesbury was another Anglo-Saxon centre of thought, and the memory of S. +Aldhelm long gave it that "powerful and popular existence which lasted far +into the middle ages."(50) The cathedral school of York, "which rose into +celebrity just as Bede was withdrawn from the scene of his useful +labors,"(51) produced one of the greatest of English scholars, and one +instrumental in carrying knowledge acquired among monks to the warrior +court of a foreign prince. Charlemagne and his Palatine schools of Aix-la- +Chapelle would have been shorn of half their glory had it not been for the +Englishman Alcuin. But it was not without a pang that the home-loving +master left the school he had almost formed, and which he cherished as the +product of his first efforts, and undertook to foster the same +institutions in a strange land. These schools, in which enthusiastic +French writers love to trace the germ of the mighty University of Paris, +seem to have possessed a system of equality very creditable both to their +master and their imperial patron. Later on, when the wearied _magister_ at +last wrested from Charlemagne the permission to retire into some +monastery, since he had failed in obtaining leave to return and die at +York, it was only to found another school that he occupied his leisure. S. +Martin's at Tours now became as famous as the Palatine at Aix-la-Chapelle. +"He applied himself to his new duties with unabated energy, and by his own +teaching raised the school of Tours to a renown which was shared by none +of its contemporaries. In the hall of studies, a distinct place was set +apart for the copyists, who were exhorted by certain verses of their +master, set up in a conspicuous place, _to mind their stops and not to +leave out letters_."(52) Here, then, is another of those pleasant little +details which creates a fellow-feeling between the human nature of to-day +and that of past ages. The description of his life from which we have +drawn this sketch closes thus: "In short, his active mind, thoroughly +Anglo-Saxon in its temper, worked on to the end; laboring at a sublime end +by homely practical details. One sees he is of the same race with Bede, +who wrote and dictated to the last hour of his life, and, when his work +was finished, calmly closed his book and died."(53) + +We have already named Fulda, the glorious monastic centre where the monk +Sturm established the Benedictine rule in 744, and where, before his +death, 400 monks sang daily the praises of God, and good scholars were +trained to intellectual warfare in the name of faith. In 802, "mindful of +its great origin, it was one of the first to enter heartily into the +revival of letters instituted by Charlemagne," and sent the monks Hatto +and Rabanus to study under Alcuin. We find a most graphic description of +the daily routine of this great school in _Christian Schools and +Scholars_. It so well illustrates the common life of the middle ages that +we do not hesitate to give it at some length: "The German nobles gladly +entrusted their sons to Rabanus' care, and he taught them with wonderful +gentleness and patience. At his lectures every one was trained to write +equally well in prose or verse on any subject placed before him, and was +afterwards taken through a course of rhetoric, logic, and natural +philosophy.... The school of Fulda had inherited the fullest share of the +Anglo-Saxon spirit, and exhibited the same spectacle of intellectual +activity which we have already seen working in the foundations of S. +Benedict Biscop. Every variety of useful occupation was embraced by the +monks.... Within doors the visitor might have beheld a huge range of +workshops, in which cunning hands were kept constantly busy on every +description of useful and ornamental work in wood, stone, and metal.... +Passing on to the interior of the building, the stranger would have been +introduced to the scriptorium, over the door of which was an inscription +warning the copyists to abstain from idle words, to be diligent in copying +good books, _and to take care not to alter the text by careless mistakes_. +Not far from the scriptorium was the interior school ... where our +visitor, were he from the more civilized South, might well have stood in +mute surprise in the midst of these fancied barbarians, whom he would have +found engaged in pursuits not unworthy of the schools of Rome. The monk +Probus is perhaps lecturing on Virgil or Cicero, and that with such hearty +enthusiasm that his brother-professors accuse him in good-natured jesting +of ranking them with the saints. Elsewhere disputations are being carried +on over the _Categories_ of Aristotle, and an attentive ear will discover +that the controversy which made such a noise in the twelfth century, and +divided the philosophers of Europe into the rival sects of Nominalists and +Realists, is perfectly well understood at Fulda, though it does not seem +to have disturbed the peace of the school. To your delight, if you be not +altogether wedded to the study of the dead languages, you may find some +engaged on the uncouth language of their fatherland, and, looking over +their shoulders, you may smile to see the barbarous words which they are +cataloguing in their glossaries, _words, nevertheless, destined to +reappear centuries hence in the most philosophic literature of Europe_.... +It may be added that the school of Fulda would have been found ordered +with admirable discipline. Twelve of the best professors were chosen, and +formed a council of elders or doctors, presided over by one who bore the +title of principal, and who assigned to each one the lectures he was to +deliver to the pupils. In the midst of this world of intellectual life and +labor, Rabanus continued for some years to train the first minds of +Germany, and reckoned among his pupils the most celebrated men of the +age.... For the rest, he was an enemy to anything like narrowness of +intellectual training. His own works in prose and verse embraced a large +variety of subjects, ... and he is commonly reputed the author of the +_Veni Creator_."(54) + +One of his pupils, the monk Otfried of Weissembourg, entered with singular +ardor into the study of the Tudesque or native dialect. Inspired by +Rabanus, who himself devoted much attention to this subject, and +encouraged by a "certain noble lady named Judith," Otfried undertook to +translate into his native tongue the most remarkable Gospel passages +relating to Our Lord's life. His verses speedily became familiar to the +people, and by degrees took the place of those pagan songs of their +forefathers, by which much of the leaven of heathenism yet remained in the +minds of the peasantry, associated as it was with all the touching +prestige of nationalism and the honest pride they felt in their ancestors' +prowess. + +Rabanus, while master of the Fulda school, had much to suffer from the +eccentricities of his abbot, Ratgar, who, afflicted with the _building +mania_, actually forced his monks to interrupt their studies, and even +shorten their prayers, to take up the trowel and the hod and hasten on his +new erections. Here we have the other side of the daily life of the middle +ages, and a more ludicrous scene can hardly be imagined than the enforced +labor of the scholar-monks, their rueful countenances showing their +despair at the unpleasant task, yet their unflinching principle of +obedience towering above their disgust, and compelling them to work in +silence till relieved by the Emperor Louis himself. The new abbot, +installed in Ratgar's place by a commission empowered to look into the +latter's unheard-of abuse of his authority, was a saint as well as a +scholar, and "healed the wounds which a long course of ill-treatment had +opened in the community." Rabanus himself succeeded him, and resigned the +mastership of the school to his favorite assistant, Candidus. + +Passing over many abbeys whose merits it were too long a story to +enumerate, we come to S. Gall, the great Helvetian centre of thought. +Originally it was founded by Gall, the disciple of Columbanus, and in the +reign of King Pepin changed the Columbanian for the Benedictine rule. +Already, in its early beginnings, it was a home of art, and Tutilo's works +in gold, copper, and brass were famous throughout the Germanic world. The +mills, the forge, the workshops of all sorts, the cloisters for the monks, +the buildings for the students, the immense tracts of arable land, the +reclaimed forests, the fleet of busy little boats on the great Lake of +Constance, all told of a stirring centre of human life. And while art, +science, philosophy, agriculture, and mechanical industry were all at work +in the townlike abbey, "you will hear these fine classical scholars +preaching plain truths, in barbarous idioms, to the rude race of the +mountains, who, before the monks came among them, sacrificed to the evil +one, and worshipped stocks and stones."(55) "S. Gall was almost as much a +place of resort as Rome or Athens, at least to the learned world of the +ninth century. Her schools were a kind of _university_, frequented by men +of all nations, who came hither to fit themselves for _all professions_. +S. Gall was larger and freer, and made more of the arts and sciences; +indeed, so far as regards its studies, it had a better claim to the title +of _university_ than any single institution which can be named as existing +before the time of Philip Augustus.(56) You would have found here not +monks alone, but courtiers, soldiers, and the sons of kings. All +diligently applied themselves to the cultivation of the Tudesque dialect, +and to its grammatical formation, so as to render it capable of producing +a literature of its own."(57) The monks were in correspondence with all +the learned monastic houses of France and Italy, and the transfer of a +codex, a Livy, or a Virgil from one to the other occasioned as much +diplomacy, interest, and excitement as a commercial treaty or the +discovery of new gold fields would in our day. S. Gall had its Greek +scholars, too, and seems to have fostered among its copyists a love for +"fine editions," such as would do honor to an English or Russian +bibliomaniac of to-day. They made their own parchment from the hides of +the wild animals of their mountains, and employed many hands on each +precious manuscript. The costly binding was likewise all home-made, and +many a jewelled missal must have come from the hand of the artist-monk +Tutilo. Music was a specialty of S. Gall, if one may say so in an age when +music was so much a part of education that alone of all the arts it was +included in the _quadrivium_, or higher instruction of the mediaeval +schools. Romanus of S. Gall it was who first named the musical notes by +the letters of the alphabet, a system which is universal in Germany, and +very commonly followed in England to this day. + +We should multiply names _ad infinitum_ were we to allow ourselves to roam +further over that field of history so falsely called the dark ages. +Einsiedeln, Paderborn, Magdeburg, Utrecht, are but a few of the many +equally deserving of notice, the latter being, we are told, "a +_fashionable_ place of education for the sons of German princes" in the +tenth century. Before we go on to the second stage of the learning of the +past--the era of the universities--we cannot help looking back to the little +Saxon island where, in 882, Alfred devoted one-fourth of his revenue to +the restoration of the Oxford schools and obtained from Pope Martin II. a +brief constituting them what may be fairly called a university. This was +at a time when learning was at a low ebb, and the invasions of the Danes +were endangering the cause of letters--a cause so intimately wrapped up in +that of the great monasteries. Glastonbury, the ruined home of so much +wisdom, science, and philosophy, was destined under S. Dunstan to retake +her place among the schools. A great revival was initiated by him, a +reform among the clergy vigorously enforced, episcopal seminaries +reopened, and monastic schools once more brought to their ancient place in +the vanguard of civilization. Ethelwold, Dunstan's disciple, was zealous +for the study of sacred learning, and "loved teaching for its own sake. A +new race of scholars sprang up in the restored cloisters, some of whom +were not unworthy to be ranked with the disciples of Bede and Alcuin."(58) +At Glastonbury, like as at Fulda, the native tongue was cultivated, +harmonized, and rendered capable of being ranked no longer as a dialect, +but as the characteristic language of an eminently masterful people. +Croyland, also, a ruined centre of intellectual life, rose again from its +ashes; new monks and scholars reared its walls and filled its schools, and +the Danish horrors were soon forgotten in the thoughtful kindness of the +new abbot, Turketul, the nephew of Alfred, who, as we read, from a warrior +and a courtier, a minister of state, and a royal prince, became a gentle +monk and the rewarder of his little pupils. "Turketul took the greatest +interest in the success of the school, visiting it daily, inspecting the +tasks of each child, and taking with him a servant who carried raisins, +figs, and nuts, or more often apples and pears, and such like little +gifts, that the boys might be encouraged to be diligent, not with words +only or blows, but rather by the hope of reward." Such is the sweet, +homely picture given us by the historian Ingulph of one of the greatest of +schools in its early monastic beginnings. We have left ourselves so little +space that even the metropolis of the Benedictines, the glorious and +world-renowned Monte Casino, can find but a scant notice in these pages. +If Subiaco was the spiritual birthplace of _the_ order _par excellence_, +Monte Casino was its intellectual cradle. There the rule was written +which, by some mysterious fate, was destined to absorb and supersede that +of the widespread Columbanians; there were the missionary principles first +established which led to the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon race; there the +school of _quies_ and reverence first planted which made this wonderful +monastery "the most powerful and celebrated in the Catholic universe."(59) +It was likened to Sinai by Pope Victor III., the successor of Hildebrand, +in bold and simple verses, full of divine exultation and Christian pride: +it has been defended and protected by an English and Protestant +scholar,(60) the minister of a nation whose civilization once flowed from +its bosom, and whose learning was fostered in its early "scriptoria." It +has outlasted many of its own offspring, and still stands undecayed in its +moral sublimity, fruitful yet in saints and scholars, the mother-house of +an order whose origin stretches beyond Benedict far into the desert of +Paul and Anthony, Jerome and Hilarion. + +And now that we are forced, reluctantly enough, to let fall the veil over +that teeming life of the mediaeval cloister, the fruitful nursery of every +later intellectual development, shall we tell the reader what has most +struck us throughout the short sketch we have been able to give of these +centres of thought? Does not their history sound like some "monkish +chronicle"? How is it that all the most "celebrated men of their time" +(the phrase so often repeated in these annals) are monks, and so many not +only monks, but saints? How is it that we come upon so many instances of +these great scholars taking their turn at the mill, the forge, and the +bake-house, and that these details sound neither sordid nor vulgar, as +they might of modern and secular _litterateurs_? It was the monastic +principle, the Christ-principle, as Prior Vaughan calls it in his _Life of +S. Thomas of Aquin_--the principle of faith, obedience, purity, adoration, +and reverence. "The monks had a world of their own.... Whilst the +barbarians were laying all things in ruins, they, heedless alike of fame +or profit, were patiently laying the foundations of European civilization. +They were forming the languages of Schiller, of Bacon, and of Bossuet; +they were creating arts which modern skill in vain endeavors to imitate; +they were preserving the codices of ancient learning, and embalming the +world 'lying in wickedness' with the sweet odor of their manifold +virtues."(61) Not only were they men who "wrote and spoke much, and, by +their _masculine genius_ and _young and fresh inspiration_, prevented the +new Christian world from falling back from its first advances, either by +literature or politics, under the yoke of exhausted paganism";(62) not +only were they men of progress even while essentially conservative, men of +the future even while their studies were all of the past, but, "in +opposing poverty, chastity, and obedience, the three great bases of +monastic life, to the orgies of wealth, debauchery, and pride, they +created at once a contrast and a remedy."(63) Prior Vaughan, in his +brilliant lifelike picture of mediaevalism, _S. Thomas of Aquin_, +perpetually refers to the ruling principle of monasticism: "To omit +mention of the Benedictine principle would be to manifest great ignorance +of the action of the highest form of truth upon mankind. The mastership of +authority and reverence, springing out of the school of _quies_, did not +cease to exert a considerable influence even after the dominant power of +the monastic body had nearly disappeared."(64) Elsewhere we read: "There +was nothing of the sophist or logician in those sweet and venerable +countenances, the unruffled beauty of which is so often dwelt upon by +their biographers.... One of the marks of the age is the absence of the +disputatious spirit, which, if it diminishes their rank (that of the +monastic thinkers) in the world of letters, forms the charm of their +characters as men. The real spirit of the age was one of reverence for +tradition."(65) + +The foresight of the monk-teachers of the earlier middle ages is no less +remarkable than their holiness. Everywhere they fostered the native idiom, +and labored to reduce it to an intelligible grammar. The national and +patriotic feeling thus awakened in the centres of learning must needs have +endeared them to, and more closely linked them with, the intellectual +progress of the people they instructed. A modern author observes that +"Bede's words are evidence that the establishment of the Teutonic nations +on the ruins of the Roman Empire did not _barbarize_ knowledge. He +collected and taught more natural truths than any Roman writer had yet +accomplished, and his works display an advance, not a retrogression, in +science." Indeed, natural science seems to have been from the first a +peculiarly monastic pursuit. The great names of Bede, Gerbert, Albertus +Magnus, and Roger Bacon are as a mighty chain from century to century, +leading up to the discoveries of Galileo, Newton, Arago, and Humboldt; +while in S. Brendan we have a bold precursor of Columbus. + +The monasteries were so entirely the sole centres of civilization that +numberless towns owe their origin to them. Scholars came for instruction, +and remained for edification; grateful patients settled near the heaven- +taught physicians who had cured them; peasants clustered round the abbeys +for protection, and thus grew towns and villages without number in +Germany, Switzerland, France, England, and Italy. Even America bears to- +day, in the name of one of her oldest English settlements, and a +hereditary representative of intellect--Boston--a memento of the old +intellectual supremacy of monasticism. S. Botolph, an Anglo-Saxon hermit, +left his monastery, and settled in a hut on one of the plains of +Lincolnshire. Scholars gathered around him, and, despite his +remonstrances, set up other huts around his, and the Benedictine monastery +of Icanhoe was founded. As time went on, a village sprang up and became a +town, and was called Botolphstown. The name was afterwards corrupted and +cut down into Boston, and from Boston it was that the founders of New +England set sail on their journey to Holland, their first stage on their +way to the New World. + +In old times, then, monasteries created towns; now, alas, it is towns that +necessitate monasteries. We have now to plant the monastic school in the +midst of the teeming emporiums of trade and vice, where thousands toil +harder for a bare crust and a hard board than the monks of old toiled for +the kingdom of heaven. It is not to listen to a learned or holy man that +settlements are made nowadays, but to dig oil-wells or work coal and iron +mines. Modern towns are made by traders, eager to be beforehand with their +competitors, and the journalist and the liquor-seller are the first +_citizens_ of the new town. _Quies_ is relegated to the region of romance; +it is unpractical, it "does not pay"; learning itself, if it succeeds in +getting a footing in the centres of commerce, partakes of the commercial +spirit, and is rather to be called "cramming" than knowledge, and, as to +the moral result of the contrast between the Benedictine principle of the +early ages and the principle of hurry, of contention, of money-worship +current in our days, let the annals of modern crime be called upon to +witness. + + + + +Versailles. + + +What an apotheosis of royalty the name evokes! Versailles and Louis +Quatorze. As if by the stroke of the enchanter's wand, there starts up +before us a long procession of heroes and poets and statesmen and wits and +fair women, a galaxy of glory and beauty revolving around one central +figure as satellites round their sun. We lose sight of all the dark spots +upon the disc in contemplating the blaze of brightness that emanates from +it. We forget the iniquitous follies of the Grand Monarque, and remember +nothing but the splendors of his reign, its unparalleled monarchical +triumph; we see him through a mist of proud achievements in war and peace, +excellence in every branch of science and industry, fine arts and letters, +all that dazzled his contemporaries still dazzles us, and even at this +distance his faults and follies are, if not quite eclipsed, softened and +modified in the daze of a fictitious light. The group of illustrious men +who surround his throne magnify rather than diminish the individuality of +the man, lending a false halo to him, as if their genius were a thing of +his creation, an effect rather than a cause of his ascendency. How far, in +truth, Louis may have tended to create by his personal influence, his +kindly patronage and keen discrimination, that wonderful assemblage of +talent in every grade which will remain for ever associated with his name, +it would be difficult to determine, but, judging from the extraordinary +influx of genius which signalized his reign, and the corresponding dearth +of it in the succeeding ones, we are tempted to believe that he at least +possessed in an almost supernatural degree the gift, so precious to a +king, of divining genius wherever it did exist, and of calling it forth +from its hiding-places, however dismal or remote, to the light of success +and fame. But for the discriminating admiration of Louis, which fanned the +poetic fire of the timid and sensitive Racine and stimulated the wit of +the obscure and humble Moliere, we should assuredly have missed some of +the noblest efforts of both those poets. Louis was prodigal of his smiles +to rising talent, for he knew that to it the sunshine of encouragement is +as beneficent as the sun's warmth to the earth in spring-time. + +But we are beginning at the end. Versailles is identified to us chiefly if +not solely with Louis Quatorze and his age; but it was not so from the +beginning. Once upon a time it was a marshy swamp, unhealthy and +uncultivated; and, if we deny Louis the faculty of creating men of genius, +we cannot refuse him that of having evolved an Eden from a wilderness. +There is little indeed in the history of this early period to compensate +the reader for keeping him waiting while we review it, still it is better +to cast our glance back a little, not very far, a century or so, to see +what were the antecedents of the site of one of the grandest historic +monuments of France. + +In the year 1561, Martial de Lomenie was seigneur of Versailles, and was +frequently honored by the visits of Henri de Navarre, who went out to hunt +the stag in his subject's swampy wilderness. De Lomenie sold it to Albert +de Gondy, Marechal de Retz, who in his turn was honored by the presence of +his sovereign, Louis XIII., there. Louis was in the habit of indulging his +favorite pastime at Versailles, but, beyond placing his land and his game +at the disposal of the king, the marechal seems to have shown scant +hospitality to the royal hunter. Saint-Simon tells us that during these +excursions Louis usually slept in a windmill or in a dingy inn, whose only +customers were the wagoners who journeyed across that out-of-the-way +place. Of the two lodgings he inclines to think the windmill was the most +comfortable. Louis probably found neither quarters very luxurious, for in +1627 he purchased a piece of ground which had been in the Soisy family +since the fourteenth century, and built himself a hunting-lodge on the +ruins of an old manor-house there, to the great discomfiture of a large +colony of owls who had made themselves at home in the moss-grown ruin. +Bassompierre deplores the vandalism which swept away the venerable shelter +of the owls, and declares that after all the lodge was but a sorry +improvement on the windmill, being "too shabby a dwelling for even a plain +_gentilhomme_ to take conceit in." Such as it was, it satisfied the king, +and remained untouched till it was swallowed up in the great palace which +was to embody all the glories of the ensuing reign. When Louis Quatorze +conceived the design of building Versailles, he confided the execution of +his vast idea to Mansard, laying down, however, as a primary condition +that the shabby little hunting-lodge of the late king should be preserved, +and comprised in the new structure. Mansard declared that this was +impossible, to which Louis, with true kingly logic, replied coolly: +_Raison de plus_.(66) No argument of artistic beauty or common sense could +move him from his resolution, or induce him to sanction the demolition of +the quaint little building that his father had raised. Rather than be +guilty of such an unfilial act, he said he would give up the notion of his +new palace altogether. Mansard had nothing for it but to give way, and +pledge himself that the ugly red-brick lodge should stand somehow and +somewhere in the magnificent pile that was already reared in his +imagination. The only concession he obtained was that it should be +concealed, if this were possible. Mansard swore he would make it possible, +and he kept his word. The lodge of Louis XIII. was swallowed up in the +elaborate stone-work of that part of the palace facing the Avenue de +Paris, and remains to this day an enduring if not a very sensible proof of +the filial respect of Louis XIV. This was the one solitary impediment that +Louis threw in the architect's way; in everything else he gave him _carte +blanche_, power unlimited, and all but unlimited wealth to work out his +fantastic and superb conception. Simultaneously with this mighty fabric +another work of almost equal magnitude had to be undertaken; this was the +planting of the park and the gardens. The country for miles around the +site of the palace was a swamp abounding with reptiles, and reeking with +vapors of so deadly a character that the men employed in draining it died +like flies of a malaria that raged like a pestilence for months together. +They refused after a time to continue the work, though enormous wages were +offered, and it was found necessary at last, under pain of abandoning it, +to press men into the service as for the army in time of war. No accurate +statistics are extant as to the number of victims who perished in the +execution of this royal freak; but the most authentic opinions of the time +put it at the astounding figure of _twenty thousand_. So much for the good +old times of the _ancien regime_, that we are apt to invest with a sort of +pathetic prestige. What were the lives of so many _vilains_(67) and the +tears and hunger of innumerable _vilaines_, widows and orphans of the dead +men, in comparison to the supreme pleasure of the king and the +accomplishment of his omnipotent will? The death-sweat of these human +cattle rained upon the swamp, and in due time it was' made wholesome, +purified as so many foul spots upon the earth are by the sweat of toil and +sorrow, and fitted to grow flowers and green trees that would diffuse +their fragrance and spread pleasant shade where corruption and barrenness +had dwelt. + +Le Notre, that prince of gardeners, may be truly said to have created the +pleasure-grounds of Versailles; nature had thrown many obstacles in his +way, she thwarted him at every step, but her obstinate resistance only +stimulated his genius to loftier flights and his indomitable energy to +stronger efforts. He conquered in the end. Never was conquest more fully +appreciated than Le Notre's by his royal master. Louis not only rewarded +him with more than princely liberality, but admitted him to his personal +intimacy, treating the plebeian artist with an affectionate familiarity +that he never extended to the high and mighty courtiers who looked on in +envy and admiration. Le Notre was too little of a courtier himself to +value adequately the honor of the king's condescension, but he loved the +man, and took no pains to conceal it; there was an expansive _bonhomie_, a +native simplicity in his character, that, contrasting as it did with the +artificial atmosphere of the court, charmed Louis, and he would listen +with delight to the honest fellow's garrulity while he related, with naive +satisfaction, the tale of his early struggles and the difficult and hardy +triumphs of his talent and perseverance. Versailles was, of course, to be +the crowning achievement of his life, and nothing could exceed the +diligence and ardor that he brought to bear on it. He besought the king +not to inspect the works while they were in the progressive stage, but to +wait, once he had seen the disposition of the ground, till they were +advanced to a certain point. Louis humored him by consenting, though +greatly against his inclination. He kept his word faithfully in spite of +all temptations of curiosity and impatience; contenting himself with +questioning Le Notre, at stated times, as to how things were getting on, +but never once, in his frequent and regular visits of inspection to the +palace, did he set foot within the forbidden precincts. The day came at +last when his forbearance was to be rewarded. Le Notre invited him to +enter the closed doors. Louis came, and found that the reality far +outstripped his most sanguine expectations; he was in raptures with all he +beheld, and declared himself abundantly rewarded for his patience. Le +Notre, no less enchanted than the king, walked on beside his chair, doing +the honors of the gardens and the park, and listening with a swelling +heart to the exclamations of delight that greeted every fresh view that +opened in the landscape. It seemed, indeed, as if a whole army of fairies +had been at work to bring such a paradise out of chaos; long rows of +stately full-grown trees, brought from a distance and transplanted into +the arid soil, had taken root and were flourishing as in their native +earth; winding paths intersected majestic avenues, and led the visitor, +unexpectedly, to richly planted groves, where marble fauns hid coyly, as +if frightened to be caught by the sunlight in their unveiled beauty; all +the elves in fairyland, all the gods in Olympia, were here congregated, +now astray in the green tangle of the wood, now standing in majestic +groups, or peeping singly through an opening in the foliage as if they +were playing hide-and-seek; water-nymphs, dashing the soft spray round +their naked limbs, started unexpectedly from nooks and corners, cooling +the air that was heavy with the scent of flowers; the rush of the cascade +answered the laughing ripple of the fountain; from bower to bower there +came a concert of water-music, such as no mortal ear had ever heard +before; it was, indeed, a sight to set before a king, and the gardener +might well rejoice who had worked these wonders in the desert. + +Le Notre had been all this time trotting briskly by the king's rolling- +chair. When they had gone over the enchanted region, Louis said: "You are +tired, my friend; get up here beside me, and let us go over it all once +more." + +And Le Notre, without more ado, jumped up beside the king, and they began +it all over again, as the children say of their favorite stories. He +explained to Louis how he nearly despaired of ever getting that birch- +grove right, owing to a bed of rock that would not be dislodged to make +room for it; now and then he would catch the king by the sleeve, and bid +him shut his eyes and not open them till they came to a certain point, +when he would cry _Voila!_--demeaning himself altogether like a true child +of nature, and enjoying thoroughly the sympathy of the companion who, for +the time being, a common delight made kindred with him. Suddenly, however, +it seems to have dawned upon him that he was riding side by side with the +king of France. He rubbed his hands, and exclaimed with childlike glee: +"What a proud day this is in my life!" And then, as the tears came +unchecked into his honest eyes, he added: "And if my good old father could +but see me, what a happy one it would be!" + +Louis, entering into the son's emotion, made him talk on about his old +father, and listened with profound interest to the story of their humble +life in common. He wanted to give Le Notre letters-patent of nobility, and +so raise all his family to the rank of _gentilshommes_, but the offer was +gratefully declined; it would have been a temptation to most men, but it +was not to Le Notre; he had no ambitions of a worldly cast; his sole +aspirations were those of a man of genius, and he preferred retaining the +name of his father and ennobling it by a higher title than it was in the +power of kings to bestow. + +As soon as the palace and the grounds were finished, Louis came and took +up his abode at Versailles. Then began that series of fetes and pageants +that makes the annals of that time read like the description of a long +carnival. One of the most gorgeous of these fetes was a sort of +_carrousel_, given in 1664, when no less than five hundred guests were +conveyed to Versailles in the king's suite and at his expense--no small +matter in the days when railways were unknown, and carriages drawn by six +or eight horses were the only mode of travelling for persons of rank. The +king played the part of "Roger" in the _carrousel_, and came riding on a +white charger, magnificently caparisoned, all the court diamonds being +given up to the adornment of rider and steed; he advanced at the head of a +cavalcade of two hundred knights, after which came a golden chariot, +called the "Chariot of the Sun," and filled with shepherds and many +mythological personages; the three queens, namely, the queen-dowager Anne +d'Autriche, the reigning queen, and the Queen of England, widow of Charles +I., surrounded by three hundred ladies of the rank and beauty of France, +assisted at the entrance of the tournament, while a vast concourse of +enthusiastic spectators added by their presence to the enlivenment of the +scene. At night "four thousand huge torches" illuminated the gardens; the +supper was spread by nymphs and fauns, while Pan and Diana, "advancing on +a moving mountain," came down to preside over the festive board. Not the +least noteworthy episode of the entertainment, which lasted seven days, +was the representation of Moliere's _Princesse d'Elide_ and the first +three acts of _Tartuffe_, played now for the first time. The earlier fetes +at Versailles were marked by the presence of the greatest and fairest +names that illustrated the reign of Louis Quatorze, so fertile throughout +in celebrities. + +Foremost in the gay and brilliant throng stands the figure of the one +woman whom Louis ever really loved, the pale and pensive Louise de la +Valliere, she who was in reality the goddess of this gorgeous temple, but +who, in the words of Mme. de Sevigne, "hid herself in the grass like a +violet," and whose modesty and humility in the midst of her erring +triumphs drew from all hearts the pardon she never wrung from her own +uncompromising conscience. + +All the glories of France flocked to Versailles as to a shrine where they +did homage and were glorified in turn. At every step we meet the majestic +figure of the Grand Monarque. See him at the top of the great stair, +calling out to the Grand Conde, who toils painfully up the marble steps, +bending under the weight of years and the fatigues of war: "Take your +time, cousin; you are too heavily laden with laurels to walk fast; we can +wait for you." Not a room, or a terrace, or a gallery but has a witness to +bring forth of the king's courtesy or the king's magnificence. There is +the _cabinet du roi_, where he used to work at the affairs of state with +his ministers, not one of whom worked as hard as the king himself. His +ministers were not his tools nevertheless; despotic as he was, Louis let +them hold their own against him, and when they had justice on their side +he could yield gracefully to the opposition and respect the courage that +prompted it. Witness the scene between him and his Chancellor Voisin, +which took place in this same _cabinet du roi_. One of the most +disreputable men of that not very reputable court, by dint of intrigue, +obtained from Louis a promise of _lettres de grace_. Next day, when the +chancellor came in to his usual work, the king desired him to affix the +great seals to the document, which was ready prepared. Voisin looked over +it first conscientiously as was his custom, and then flatly refused to +obey the king's command, denouncing the grant of the _lettres de grace_ to +such a man as an abuse of the royal privilege. Louis replied that his word +was pledged, and it was too late now to discuss the unworthiness of the +subject; he put forward his hand, and, seeing that Voisin did not move, he +took the seals himself and affixed them to the deed. The chancellor looked +on in silence, but, when Louis handed him back the badge of office, he +drew away his hand, and said haughtily: "They are polluted; I will never +take them back." + +"What a man!" exclaimed Louis, with a glance of frank admiration at his +sturdy minister, and he flung the deed into the fire. + +Voisin quietly took up the seals, and went on with his work as if nothing +had occurred to interrupt it. + +It was in the _cabinet du roi_ that Louis took leave of the Duc d'Anjou, +on the eve of his departure for Spain, with those memorable words: +"Partez, mon fils, il n'y a plus de Pyrenees!"(68) + +But it is in the _Salle du Trone_ that the Grand Monarque appears to us in +his most congenial attitude; here we see him in his true element, playing +the king as the world never saw it played before, and assuredly never will +again; here all the potentates of the earth came and greeted him +spontaneously as _le roi_, as if he were the only real king, and they his +vassals, or, at least, his humble imitators. One day we see the ambassador +of the Dey of Algiers presenting in his name "a little present of twelve +Arab steeds, and humbly praying that the mighty majesty of France would +deign to accept them, seeing that King Solomon himself had accepted the +leg of the grasshopper tendered to him by the ant." + +On another occasion, we see the stately Doge of Genoa advancing to pay his +court; Louis questions him concerning the behavior of the courtiers to +him, and the doge replies: "Truly, if the King of France steals away the +liberty of our hearts, his courtiers take care to restore it." The king +suspects the reply to be provoked by some discourtesy on the part of his +_entourage_, and, having investigated the matter and found that Louvois +and De Croissy had demeaned themselves with unseemly hauteur to the +sensitive stranger, he severely rebuked them in the presence of the whole +court. + +It was here, no doubt, seated on his golden throne, that Louis received +the chief of Chateaubriand's tale, and astonished him by the splendor of +his state, and sent the noble savage back to his home in the far West to +relate to the awe-stricken children of the forest the wonders of the great +French chief "whose superb wigwam he had beheld." + +The _Salle du Sacre_ is less exclusive in its associations, the presence +of the _grand roi_ being thrown into the shade by the subsequent military +glory of the _grande armee_. David has covered the walls with the chief +events of Napoleon's career, beginning with the first consulship, and +continuing through the triumphal march of the Empire. When the first +series of these immense pictures was shown to Napoleon, he, startled by +their magnitude, of which he was probably a better judge than of their +talent, turned to the painter, and exclaimed: "Now I must build a palace +to lodge them!" + +The _Salle des Amiraux_, which, as its name indicates, is consecrated to +the memory of the naval heroes of France, was formerly the room of the +Dauphin, son of Louis XIV. So little is known of this prince beyond the +fact that he was the direct antithesis of his father in habits and +character, that the following anecdote may be found interesting as +connected with him: + +The dauphin, like most princes of his time, was passionately fond of the +chase. On one occasion he set out on a hunting expedition accompanied by a +large party, and towards nightfall he and one of his equerries got +separated from the rest, and found themselves astray in a dense wood, +where they wandered for some hours without meeting any signs of human +habitation. They came at last upon a small cottage, which, from its +isolated position and shabby appearance, he set down as most likely a +rendezvous of robbers, that part of the country being much frequented by +these worthies. They were well armed, however, and determined to risk the +barbarous hospitality of the thieves rather than pass the night amidst the +snakes and other uncomfortable inmates of the woods. They knocked at the +door, first meekly, then more peremptorily, and at last furiously; getting +no answer, they resolved to break open the house, and began hammering away +vigorously with the but-end of their guns at the shaky old door. At this +crisis a window opened somewhere, and a voice, that quavered with fright, +besought the burglars to go away, as they would find nothing in so poor a +lodging to repay their trouble. Summoned to say whom it belonged to, the +voice replied that it was that of the _cure_ of the neighboring hamlet, +whereupon the huntsmen begged him to come down and spare them further +trouble by opening the door himself. After much expostulation the host +obeyed, and then his guests desired him to serve the best he had for their +supper; there was no use protesting with visitors who had such formidable +arguments on their shoulders and glistening in their belts, so the cure +obeyed with the best grace he could. There was nothing substantial in the +larder, he declared, but a leg of mutton, which the gentlemen were welcome +to if they would undertake to cook it and let him go back to his bed. This +they agreed to, with great good-humor and many courteous thanks, and the +old priest, after showing them where to find food and shelter for their +horses, wished them a good appetite and betook himself to his couch, +marvelling much at the sudden gentleness and courtesy of these singular +burglars who had made their entry in so boisterous and uncivil a manner. +The burglars, meantime, did full justice to his hospitality and their own +cooking, and, having supped heartily, flung themselves at full length on +the floor, and were soon sound asleep--sounder, no doubt, than their host, +whose slumbers, if he slept at all, were most likely disturbed by visions +of highwaymen arresting and murdering the king's subjects or throttling +honest folk in their beds, and such like unrefreshing dreams. The good man +was up betimes, and while the hunters were still fast asleep he slipt out +to seek some breakfast for them. Meantime the hunt, which had been in +pursuit of the prince all night, perceived the little wreath of smoke that +curled up from the cure's chimney on the clear morning air, and at once +made for the point whence it proceeded, sounding the horn as it +approached. The prince and his companions started to their feet at the +first note of the welcome signal, rushed to their horses, and were in the +saddle and far out of sight before their host returned from his foraging +expedition. Great was his surprise to find the birds had flown, but he was +glad to be rid of them, and on such easy terms, for they had carried off +nothing--the house was just as he had left it. It was not a thing to boast +of, having harbored a couple of highwaymen for a night, though they had +behaved so considerately to him--the cure, therefore, kept the adventure to +himself. But he had not heard the last of it. The next day a messenger +came in hot haste from Versailles with a summons for him to appear without +further delay before the king. Terrified out of his five wits, and knowing +full well what had brought this judgment upon him, the worthy old priest +took up his stick and asked no questions, but forthwith made his way to +the palace. He was conducted at once to the Salle du Trone, where Louis, +surrounded by the rank and blood of France, was seated as for some solemn +ceremonial on his chair of state. He bent a stern gaze on the cure, and in +accents that made the culprit's soul shake within him, demanded how it +came to pass that a man of his holy calling made his house a rendezvous +for midnight robbers who prowled about the country, disturbing honest +subjects and breaking the king's laws. The cure fell upon his knees, and +humbly confessing cowardly concealment of a fact that he was in conscience +bound to have denounced at once to the nearest magistrate, pleaded, +nevertheless, that the bearing of those malefactors was so noble and their +manners so courteous that he had doubts as to whether they were indeed +such and not rather two knights of his majesty's court; whereupon Louis +bade the malefactors come forward, and, introducing them by name to the +bewildered cure, enjoined him to be less cautious another time in opening +his doors to benighted gentlemen. + +"And in payment of the leg of mutton which my son was so unmannerly as to +confiscate on you," continued the king, "I name you Grand Prieur, with the +revenues and privileges attached to the office." This was assuredly the +highest price that ever a leg of mutton fetched. + +The _chambre a coucher de la reine_(69) plays a distinct part of its own +in the annals of Versailles. We forget its first occupant, the gentle, +long-suffering Marie Therese, of whom, on hearing of her death, Louis +Quatorze exclaimed: "This is the first sorrow she ever caused me!" we +forget the longer-suffering wife of Louis Quinze, the charitable Marie +Leczinska, surnamed by the people "the good queen"; we lose sight of all +the august figures who pass before us in the retrospect of this royal +chamber, and see only Marie Antoinette, the haughty sovereign, the heroic +mother and devoted wife, who has made it all her own. We see her, woke out +of her sleep, and the cries of the mob menacing the palace in the dead of +the night, and flying hardly dressed from the _chambre de la reine_ to +take refuge in the dauphin's apartment, while the faithful guards dispute +with their lives the entrance of her own to the mad multitude that have +now broken in like a destroying torrent and are close upon the threshold. +The walls seem still to echo the cry of those two brave guards as they +fell: "Save the queen! Save the queen!" The great tragedy that was to +change the whole destinies of France may be said to have begun on this +terrible night of the 6th of October. + +The _chambre a coucher du roi_(70) is, on the other hand, filled with +Louis Quatorze to the exclusion of all other memories. Here was performed +that solemn comedy in which the warriors and statesmen of the day took +their part so gravely: the _lever_ and _coucher de roi_. When we read the +minute details given in the chronicles of the time of the ceremonial gone +through by his courtiers every time the king got in and out of bed, it is +a severe tax on our credulity to believe that the _dramatis personae_ who +played the farce so seriously were not fools or grinning idiots, but sane +and sober men whose lineage was second only in blue-blooded antiquity to +that of Caesar himself, men of talent, men of genius, heroes who fought +their country's battles and deemed it no derogation to come from the field +of glory and fight for the honor of handing the king his stockings or his +pantaloons. This proud _noblesse_ whom Richelieu could not conquer by the +sword or subdue by tortures and imprisonment, lay down at the feet of +Louis, and, it is hardly a figure of speech to say, licked them. They +appear to have looked upon him, not as a mortal like themselves, however +elevated above them in rank and power, but as a god, a being altogether +apart from them in species. One is tempted to believe that both they and +he must occasionally have been possessed with some vague notion that it +was so; there is no other way of accounting for the servile worship which +they tendered as a duty, and which he accepted as a due. Truly that famous +"_L'etat c'est moi!_"(71) sounds more of a god than a man; and that other +utterance of Louis, _Messieurs, j'ai failli attendre!_(72) addressed to +the proudest nobility in Europe, who were barely in their places when the +flourish of trumpets announced the king's entrance, is scarcely less +grotesque in its superhuman pride. + +This great and little _coucher_ which was surrounded by so much prestige +in the court of France was somewhat ridiculed by contemporary sovereigns, +for the honor of humanity be it said; their admiration for Louis did not +go the length of viewing the august ceremonial otherwise than in the light +of a bore or a joke. When Frederick the Great heard from his ambassador an +account of the first _grand lever_ at which he assisted at Versailles, he +burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, and exclaimed: "Well, if I +were king of France, I would certainly hire some small king to go through +all that for me!" + +Considering how eagerly his courtiers contended for the honor of dressing +the king's person, one would have fancied the privilege of making his bed +would have been proportionately coveted, and held second only to the honor +of holding his majesty's boots; but, such is the inconsistency of human +beings, this was not the case. The courtiers probably felt that a line +should be drawn somewhere, so they drew it here; they would not perform +this menial office for the Grand Monarque, and the distinction of turning +his mattresses and spreading his quilt devolved on valets of a lower +grade. Among this inferior herd was one named Moliere, a youth whom his +comrades laughed at and treated as a sort of crazy creature who was always +in the moon. One day when it happened to be his turn to spread the royal +sheets, the poet Belloc overheard them chaffing him and refusing to help +him in his work. He went up to Moliere, and said: "Monsieur de Moliere, +will you do me the honor of allowing me to help you to make the king's +bed?" and Moliere granted the request. The incident came to the king's ear +and led to his noticing the eccentric valet. A little later, and we see +him standing behind the valet's chair in this same room, where his +majesty's dinner was sometimes served, and waiting upon him, while the +courtiers who had refused to sit at table with Moliere stood round, +looking on in "mute consternation at the strange spectacle," Saint-Simon +tells us, who owns naively to sharing their consternation. + +"Since none of my courtiers will admit Monsieur de Moliere to their +table," said Louis, "I must needs set him down at mine, and show them that +I count it an honor for the King of France to wait upon so great a man." + +Here, in this bed that Belloc and Moliere had made together, Louis +Quatorze died. From under the crimson and gold canopy which had witnessed +the eternal _levers_ and _couchers_, Louis rebuked the violent grief of +two young pages who stood within the balustrade, that sanctum sanctorum +which none under a prince of the blood or a high chancellor dare pass at +any other time; they were weeping bitterly. "What!" exclaimed the king, +"did ye, then, think I was immortal?" There was a time when he himself +seemed to have thought so; but viewed by that vivid light that breaks +through the mists of death, things wore a different aspect in his eyes; +and the adulation which would fain have treated him as immortal, and which +was during life as the breath of his nostrils to Louis, showed now as the +empty bubble that it was. + +No one ever again slept in the bed which had been honored by the last sigh +of the Grand Monarque; the room remained henceforth unoccupied, and, with +the exception of the pictures which have been removed, is still just as he +left it. Louis carried his favorite pictures about with him wherever he +went. "David," by Domenichino, his best beloved of them all, is now to be +seen at the Louvre; otherwise little has been altered in the _chambre du +roi_; the bed and the _ruelle_ are in their old place, also the table, on +which a cold collation was laid every night in case of the king's awaking +and feeling hungry; this precautionary little meal was called the _en +cas_; and the name with the habit, which had given rise to it, is still +perpetuated in many old-fashioned French families. Louis Quinze, from some +superstitious feeling, could never bring himself to sleep in the death- +chamber of his illustrious great-grandfather; he took possession of what +was then the _salle de billiard_, a noble room opening into the _oeil-de- +boeuf_ (bull's eye), so called from its having an _oeil-de-boeuf_ over the +large window at the north end. In an alcove in this billiard hall, Louis +XV. died. The adjoining _oeil-de-boeuf_ was filled with the courtiers, who +dare not venture within the polluted atmosphere of the royal chamber, but +stood outside it, consulting together in "guilty whispers" as to what they +ought to do; dreading on one hand the reward of their cowardice if the +king should recover, and fearing on the other to fly too soon with their +servile congratulations to his successor. In the great court below another +crowd was assembled, watching in breathless silence for the signal which +was to proclaim the king's death. What a spectacle it was!--what a lesson +for a king! The flatterers who yesterday had been his slaves, pandering to +his vices, and helping to make him the abject creature that he was, +abandoned him now that he was struggling with grim Death, and, all +absorbed in selfish cares for their own interest, in speculations of the +favor of the new king, they had no pity in their hearts for the master who +could pay them no more. It came at last, the signal; the small flame of a +candle was seen flickering through the darkness, and then held up at the +window of the _oeil-de-boeuf_. "Suddenly there was a noise," says the +historian of that ghastly scene, "like a roll of thunder, it was the +courtiers rushing from the antechamber of the dead king to greet his +successor." Only his daughters had been brave enough to stand by the +bedside of the dying man, and, now that he was gone, there was not one in +all that multitude who could be induced to perform the last office of +mercy towards his poor remains. It was imperative, nevertheless, that the +body should be embalmed, and this appalling task devolved upon Andouille, +the late king's surgeon. The Duc de Villequier went up to him and reminded +him of it; he knew that the operation must insure certain death to the +operator, but that was not his concern. + +"It is your duty, monsieur," said the duke; and he was coolly turning away +when Andouille stopped him. "Yes," he replied, "it is my duty, and it is +yours to hold the head." De Villequier had forgotten this; he made no +answer, but left the room, and nothing more was said about the embalmment. +The body was hustled into a coffin, and smuggled rather than conveyed in +the dead of the night to S. Denis, a few menials accompanying the King of +France to his last resting-place. The spirit of French loyalty may be said +to have been buried with Louis Quinze; "the divinity that doth hedge a +king" was that night laid low in France, wrapped in the shroud that +covered the unutterable mass of corruption consigned like a dog to the +ready-made grave in S. Denis. _Le roi_ could never again be to the nation +what he had been heretofore. _Le roi est mort, vive le roi!_(73) ceased to +be the watchword of its fealty; _le roi_, that being invested not merely +with supreme authority, but with a sort of vague personal sacredness that +has no parallel in modern loyalty, died with Louis Quinze, never to be +resuscitated. The miserable death of the libertine prince, fit ending to +an ignoble life, came upon his people in the light of a divine judgment, +swift and awful, and dealt the last blow at that prestige which had for +generations been the bulwark of king-worship and shaded with its +mysterious reverence the iniquities of the throne. No man suffers alone +for his sins, but how much more truly may this be said of kings! Who could +measure the depth of the gulf that Louis XV. had dug through his long +reign for those who were to come after him, and realize the consequences +of his evil deeds to future generations of Frenchmen? There is no greater +fallacy than to attribute to an age the responsibility of its own +destinies; none probably ever saw the beginning and end of its own +history, for good or evil, but less than any other can the period of the +Revolution be said to have witnessed this unity. We must look much further +back to trace the rising of the red flood that inundated France in '93. It +was the insane extravagance of Louis XIV.'s reign and the official +depravity of the succeeding one that sowed the harvest that was to be +reaped in fire by the innocent victims of a corruption which for a whole +century had been seething as in the caldron of the Prophet's vision, till +it boiled over in the mad frenzy of the Revolution, and swallowed up not +only the monarch, but the soul and reason of France, in a deluge of +exasperated hate and suicidal revenge. Louis Seize, the martyred king who +was to expiate the follies and crimes of his predecessors, next passes +before us along the galleries of Versailles. There is an interval of +peace, a short halcyon time of pastorals and idyls, we see Marie +Antoinette playing at shepherdess in Arcadia, we hear Trianon ringing with +the music of her light-hearted laughter, we see her choosing a friend,(74) +and braving the jealous anger that makes a crime of her friendship though +it be wise, and rebukes her mirth though it be innocent; but the queen +turns a deaf ear to all warning sounds and shuts her eyes to the gathering +clouds. Imprudent Marie Antoinette! Ill-adapted wife of timid, hesitating, +magnanimous Louis Seize, the Bourbon of whom it was written with truth: + + + "Louis ne sut qu'aimer et pardonner, + S'il avait su punir, il aurait su regner."(75) + + +He loved and forgave to the end, but he never learned to punish. Warnings +were not wanting, but he would not heed them. See him standing in the +embrasure of the window of that _cabinet du roi_ whence Louis Quatorze +ruled the kings and peoples of Europe; a new power has arisen; it is the +people's turn to rule the king, his brow is clouded, his lip trembles, not +with fear--that base emotion never stirred the soul of Louis Seize--but with +anguish, perplexity, doubts in himself that amounted to despair. He +listens to the murmurs of the crowd down below; and to De Breze, who +repeats, in tremulous accents, Mirabeau's message of tremendous import: +"Go tell the king that the will of the people has brought us here, and +nothing but the force of bayonets shall drive us hence!" That force he +knew full well would never be appealed to; it was not the people who +should be driven hence, it was they who would drive the king. Presently we +see the ponderous state coach jolting slowly down the Avenue de Paris, the +first stage of the royal martyrs towards the guillotine; the mob, in a +frenzy of drunken triumph, jostled it from side to side, pressing rudely +through the windows to stare at their victims, and insulting them by +thrusting the red cap into their faces, and shouting as they go: "The +baker and the bakeress! now we have caught them, and the people shall have +bread!" This journey dates a new era in the annals of Versailles, it is +the death-knell of the pleasant days of royalty; there are to be no more +_fetes pastorales_ at Trianon, no more merry children of France careering +over the flowery terraces, making the sombre alleys bright and the gay +flowers brighter with the sweet melody of child laughter; all this is +gone, and passed like a dream. "The old order of things has vanished, +making place for the new." Soon we shall see the palace of Louis Quatorze +stripped of its costly furniture, invaded by the rabble, and pillaged from +garret to cellar. The Convention will deem it right to utilize the +"foregoing abode of the tyrants" by turning it into a hospital; they will +transport the invalids to Versailles, but the rheumatic old heroes will +find the apartments of the Grand Monarque too grand to be comfortable, +they will complain of their pains and aches being aggravated by the +draughts, and beg to be taken back to their homely quarters, and the +Convention, in its benevolence, will accede to the request. + +Louis XVIII. was anxious to fix his residence at Versailles, and went the +length of spending six millions of francs on repairing the facade, which +had been sadly battered by the Revolution, but he found that the expense +of refurnishing the palace would have been too much for the exhausted +finances of France; so he gave up the idea. + +Louis Philippe restored it to its ancient splendor, but not for his own +use; he made it over to the nation as a museum, where they might go and +enjoy themselves, and see all the glories of their country commemorated. +Many of the victories of the _grande armee_ were painted to his order to +complete the series already decorating the walls. Versailles has retained +ever since this national character. Under the Second Empire it was used +occasionally for fetes given to foreign princes; the most magnificent of +these was the one prepared for the Queen of England when she visited +Napoleon III. after his marriage. + +France has undergone many strange vicissitudes, and her palaces have +harbored many unlikely guests; but among the strangest on record none can +assuredly compete with the recent experiences of Versailles. If the spirit +of Louis XIV. be permitted sometimes to haunt the scene of his earthly +pride, what must his feelings have been during the last two years! What +did he feel on beholding the halls which had echoed to his conquering step +held by the victorious soldiers of Germany, and vacated by them to make +way for the President of the French Republic? But this crowning enormity +stopped short at the threat. The _chambre du roi_ was indeed placed at the +disposal of the President, but whether it was that he shrank from the +profanation, or feared the vast proportions of the great king's palace, as +likely to prove too large a frame for the representative of a republic, he +declined taking up his abode there. Versailles continues still to be the +resort of the people and of travellers from all parts of the world. + + + + +Father Isaac Jogues, S.J. + + +Father Isaac Jogues, the first of the missionaries to bear the cross into +the interior of our country, and the first to shed his blood on its soil +for the faith of Christ, was a native of Orleans, France. He was born on +the 10th of January, 1607, of a family distinguished alike for their +virtues and their worth. In the bosom of this pious family the young Isaac +was reared up, surrounded by all the profound and pleasing practices of +Catholic devotion. Lessons of religion and letters were imparted together, +and the scholar from his earliest youth proved himself remarkably apt at +both. As soon as he was old enough, he was sent, to his own great joy, to +the college at Orleans, then recently established by the Jesuit Fathers, +under whose instruction he made rapid progress in his studies. The virtues +of his character so ingratiated him with his companions at college, that +no thought of jealousy ever entered their hearts at the eminence he +enjoyed as a student. + +As the close of his collegiate course drew near, he began, more seriously +than ever, to meditate on the greatest act of one's life--the selection of +a vocation. It was his extraordinary devotion to the Passion of Our Lord +that settled this question for him. The cathedral church of his native +city was dedicated to the Holy Cross, and there from his tenderest years +he gazed daily upon that sacred symbol of the Passion and Redemption +glittering from the spires of the temple, and it became the object of his +warmest affection. + + + "O lovely tree whose branches wore + The royal purple of his gore! + Oh! may aloft thy branches shoot, + And fill all nations with thy fruit!" + + +Impelled by this devotion, he retired into himself in order to discover +his vocation, and heard within his soul the voice of Heaven calling him to +the Society of Jesus. Having applied for admission into the Society, and +being received with alacrity by the superior, he entered upon his +novitiate in October, 1624. To complete his studies he next went to the +celebrated college of La Fleche, where he passed his examination in +philosophy at the end of three years with great distinction. Then, in +obedience to the discipline of his order, the young Jesuit went to teach +in the college at Rouen, and for four years instructed the youth of that +city in the elements of the Latin language, in the principles of religion +and the practice of piety. So fruitful were his labors in this regard that +his scholars were ever distinguished for the solidity and constancy of +their virtues, and many of them became companions of their saintly +preceptor in the Society of Jesus. + +We now find him winning laurels in the flowery path of literature. It was, +at the period of which we speak, the custom at the Jesuit colleges to test +the qualifications of the teachers, by requiring them, at the opening of +the year, to deliver an oration or poem, or read a lecture of their own +production, in public. Simply in obedience to this rule, and without any +desire of his own to gain distinction, the gifted Jogues participated in +these exercises, and on one occasion produced a poem of rare excellence. +But his heart was too thoroughly pre-engaged to covet the laurels of +literary fame. He was intent on winning another crown--the glorious crown +of martyrdom. Yet so obedient was the young scholastic to the will of his +superior and to the spirit of his institute, that he, who only desired for +himself the wigwam and council fires of the roving tribes of the Western +wilds, went out with as much labor and zeal to acquire all the +accomplishments of learning as though a professor's chair in Europe was to +be the field of his ambition. He was next sent to Paris, where he began +his course of divinity at the college of Clermont. + +He applied himself to these studies with the greatest zeal, since they +constituted the last probation and delay preceding his elevation to the +sacred ministry, and the realization of his fondest hope--a foreign +mission. He seems not to have discovered his future plans to his family, +to whom he was, however, most tenderly attached. Writing to them in April, +1635, on receiving their complaint at his not having joined them in one of +their family festivals, he says: "The prayers which I offer up, as well +afar off as near you, are the most affectionate marks I can give of my +interest in you all." + +When the time for the reception of holy orders drew near, he prepared +himself by a spiritual retreat, and was ordained in February, 1636. His +family, who were extremely devoted to him, were not present at his +ordination; but his fond mother obtained from his superior a promise that +he might say his first Mass in his native city. He accordingly went to +Orleans, and offered up the holy sacrifice for the first time in the +church of the Holy Cross. Then, tearing himself away from his mother and +sisters, never to see them again, he went to Rouen, and entered upon what +is called the second novitiate in the Society of Jesus. But a fleet was +soon ready to sail from Dieppe for Canada, and the young missionary must +hasten to his chosen field of labor and love. + +He was accompanied on the voyage by the Jesuit Fathers Garnier and +Chatelain, and by M. de Chanflour, afterwards governor at Three Rivers. +The vessel in which they sailed being leaky, the pumps were kept in +constant motion, and the labor thus imposed upon the crew gave rise to a +mutiny, which Father Jogues alone was able to quell. M. de Chanflour ever +afterwards, in speaking of the voyage, attributed his safety to the +influence of Father Jogues' prayers with God, and of his persuasion with +the men. + +After words of pious affection and encouragement which this exemplary son +knew well how to address to that excellent mother, he proceeds in one of +his letters addressed to her: + +"I write this more than three thousand miles away from you, and I may +perhaps this year be sent to a nation called the Huron, distant nearly a +thousand miles more from here. It shows great dispositions for embracing +the faith. It matters not where we are, provided we are ever in the arms +of Providence and in his holy grace. This I beg for you and all our family +daily at the altar." + +By his short stay at Miscou he missed the Indian flotilla, and Fathers +Garnier and Chatelain embarked without him; but, some canoes having come +in later, the Indians, when about to return, asked, as if reproachfully, +why there was no black-gown to be carried by them. Father Jogues, being +then at Three Rivers, was summoned to embark, and at once joyfully entered +the canoes. + +We would gladly reproduce, did our space allow, a letter addressed to his +mother, under date June 5, 1637, giving an account of this voyage. Suffice +it to say that in nineteen days he accomplished what usually took twenty- +five or thirty; joining Fathers Garnier and Chatelain, who had preceded +him but a month, and three other missionaries who had been five or six +years in the country. + +Supported by his zeal, he accomplished his arduous and laborious passage, +but no sooner arrived at Ihonitiria than his exhausted nature sank under a +dreadful malady, which for more than a month threatened to terminate his +existence. With four others he lay during all this time in a cabin, +without medicines or food, except such food as was an aggravation to the +disease. By the middle of October Father Jogues was so far recovered as to +be able to take the ordinary food of the country, the sagamity. + +In November he set out from Ihonitiria to join Father Brebeuf at the great +town of Ossossane, where for a time they were companions on earth who were +destined to be companions in heaven, in the enjoyment of the glorious +crown of martyrdom. Sickness was raging over the land, and the +missionaries hastened from town to town, and from cabin to cabin, +baptizing the dying infants, and such of the adults as were willing to +receive the words of eternal life. They even extended their visits to the +neighboring Nipissings, who had been terribly afflicted with the +prevailing maladies. The poor Indians, in most cases, would not listen to +the voice of the fathers, because they could not promise, as their own +sorcerers pretended, to cure their bodily afflictions. The horrid orgies +of the medicine-men were consequently in great requisition, and one of +them, a little deformed creature, offered his services to one of the +fathers in his sickness. + +There was another medicine-man, Tehoronhaegnon, who filled the land with +dances and orgies of the most wicked and revolting character. The +missionaries labored to banish these abominations from the country, and to +introduce in their place the pure and holy rites of the Christian +religion. Unacquainted with their language, Father Jogues labored under +the greatest disadvantages, but by zealous and persevering application he +was soon able to make himself well understood; and in a few years he was +master of the Huron, the key-tongue to so many others. Remaining at +Ossossane as his place of residence, he was incessant in his visits and +ministrations in the cabins of the people, preaching the faith to all, and +at the same time rapidly acquiring their language. Late in 1637 he +returned to labor in the same way at Ihonitiria. On the ruin of this town +and its mission, he went again to join his superior, Father Brebeuf, at +Teananstayae. + +In 1639, Father Jogues accompanied Father Garnier in his expedition to +plant the cross among the mountains of the Petuns, or Tobacco Indians. +They twice visited the Petun village of Ehwae, which they dedicated to SS. +Peter and Paul. But their noble efforts were in vain; every door was +closed against them, and menaces assailed them on every side; even the +women reproached their husbands for not killing them, and the children +pursued them through the streets. The sachems gave a feast to the young +warriors in order to induce them to destroy the missionaries; but the +providence of God saved his servants from the impending blow. + +In the next year, Father Jogues was stationed with Father Francis Duperon +at the new residence at S. Mary's. Four towns partook of their care, and +these they piously dedicated to S. Ann, S. John, S. Denis, and S. Louis. +Obliged to select the worst season of the year for their labor, because +then only were the neophytes drawn together, their time was incessantly +occupied in conveying to the untaught natives the faith and its +consolations. Next year Father Jogues was stationed permanently at St. +Mary's. Here the fathers established a hospice, where the wayfarer was +ever sure to find refreshment and relief for the body as well as the soul. +To this sacred spot in the wilderness came Indians from distant villages +to receive instruction in the faith, some to be baptized, some to prepare +for the reception of Holy Communion, some to be trained in the duties of +catechists, and others, like Joseph Chihatenhwa, to make a spiritual +retreat. + +But now a new enterprise for the Gospel drew Father Jogues away from St. +Mary's. This was to plant the cross in the region now comprising the state +of Michigan. The missionaries knew that beyond the Huron Lake another vast +expanse of water lay which never yet had been visited by them. The strait +which connected the two lakes had formerly been known by the name of +Gaston, and was supposed to have been once visited by Nicholet, but no +intercourse ever subsisted between the French and the tribes of those +regions. In the summer of 1641, numerous delegations from all the nations +and tribes, scattered over a great expanse of country, were attracted to +the "Feast of the Dead," now to be given by the Algonquins. + +Thus, on the present occasion, the numerous branches of the vast Algonquin +family were brought in contact with the Jesuit missionaries and the +Christian Hurons, and the latter spread far and near in this vast assembly +the fame of the black-gown chiefs. In the general interchange of presents, +the missionaries presented to the strangers "the wampum of the faith." The +Panoitigoueieuhak, or Sauteux, as the French called them, a tribe +inhabiting the small strip near the Falls of St. Mary, were particularly +friendly and earnest, and invited the black-gowns to come and bring the +faith to their cabins as they had done for the Hurons. Father Raymbault +and Father Jogues were named by the superior to visit this new and distant +vineyard. Launching their canoes in the latter part of September at St. +Mary's, they glided over the little river Wye, and were soon on the broad, +clear bosom of the great "Fresh-Water Sea." For seventeen days their frail +canoes glided through the multitude of little islands that stud the water +from the Huron promontory. They reached without accident the strait where +Superior empties its waters into the lower lakes, and then they +encountered Indians assembled to the number of two thousand. From these +they learned of innumerable wild and warlike tribes stretching far to the +west and south. Here, too, their eager ears were feasted with tidings of a +mighty river rolling towards the south till it met the sea, whose shores +were lined with numberless tribes and nations. Planting the cross at Sault +St. Mary's, the two fathers turned it hopefully and prophetically towards +this great mysterious river, whose vast and teeming valley they thus took +possession of in the name of the Prince of Peace. Having opened the way to +this immense mission-field by their visit, the two missionaries encouraged +the Sauteux with the prospect of a future permanent mission, and, amidst +the regrets of their new friends, again launched their canoes and returned +to their mission-house at St. Mary's. "Thus," says Bancroft, "did the +religious zeal of the French bear the cross to the banks of the St. Mary +and the confines of Lake Superior, and look wistfully towards the homes of +the Sioux in the Valley of the Mississippi, five years before the New +England Eliot had addressed the tribes of Indians that dwelt within six +miles of Boston Harbor." + +At St. Mary's, Father Jogues remained constantly employed at the hospice +with Father Duperon in instructing and preparing the Indians for the +reception of the faith. One hundred and twenty were baptized during the +winter, and among these was the famous warrior, Ahasistari, a chief of the +town of St. Joseph's. + +This brave and chivalrous chief had been for some time receiving +instruction in the faith, and he now came forward to ask for baptism. The +fathers at first put him off, in order that he might become still better +instructed; but his entreaties were so earnest, and his appreciation of +the Christian truths so intelligent, that it was deemed no longer +necessary or proper to postpone the boon. He accordingly received the +sacrament on Holy Saturday, 1642. + +It has been seen how, at Orleans, the ardent novice of the Society of +Jesus was passionately devoted to the cross, the memento of our Saviour's +Passion. Like S. Peter, his heart was still for ever enamored with the +sacred humanity of his divine Master. Thus his devotion to the Blessed +Sacrament was intense, and the Real Presence, the greatest of blessings, +made the wilderness of America a paradise to Father Jogues. Father Buteux +says of him that he was "a soul glued to the Blessed Sacrament." His +prayers, meditations, office, examens of conscience--in fine, all his +devotions--were performed in the little chapel before the Holy Eucharist. +Neither heat, nor cold, nor the swarms of mosquitoes, with which the +chapel was infested, could induce him to forego the society of his +Saviour. No wonder he was attracted thither; for it was in the little +chapel that he was not unfrequently favored with heavenly visitations. It +was there, too, that he breathed that heroic prayer, whose only petition +was that he might be allowed to bear a portion of his Saviour's cross. His +prayer was heard--a warning voice fortified his soul for the approaching +conflict. + +The necessities of the Huron missionaries had now arrived at the point of +extreme distress. They were reduced to procure the wine for the altar from +the wild grape; at last, flour to make the sacred host was wanting for the +holy sacrifice, and the missionaries themselves were in want of clothes +and other necessaries of life. The perilous passage through various +intervening hostile tribes to procure relief from Quebec for the pressing +demands of the mission must now be undertaken by some one, and Father +Jerome Lalemant, the superior, selected Father Jogues for the task, which, +however, at the same time, he permitted him to accept or decline. His +immediate preparation to depart showed that he did not hesitate about +accepting. To his great joy, the faithful and noble chief, Eustace +Ahasistari, came forward, and offered to become his escort and guide. A +flotilla of four canoes, bearing the missionary, the Christian chief, four +Frenchmen, and eighteen Hurons, started from St. Mary's on the 13th of +June. The voyagers had to endure the usual portages at the rapids, and +other hardships of such trips; but, by the exercise of great care and +vigilance, they reached Quebec without harm from the savages. The faithful +messenger, besides procuring books, vestments, and sacred vessels, had all +things in readiness by the last day in July, the feast of S. Ignatius. He +stopped to celebrate the feast of the great founder of his order, in which +his companions united by approaching the sacraments in solemn preparation +for their perilous return. The flotilla, now increased to twelve canoes, +started from Three Rivers on the 1st day of August, and at first made slow +progress against the impetuous current of the St. Lawrence. They spent the +night on a small island in Lake St. Peter, twelve leagues from Three +Rivers, and on the second morning they had not proceeded far when they +discovered suspicious footprints on the adjacent shore. Nerved by the +dauntless courage of Ahasistari, they pushed on, and had not advanced a +league when suddenly a volley from a Mohawk ambush riddled their bark +canoes. Panic-struck, the Hurons, whose canoes were near the shore, fled +in all directions. Only fourteen rallied round the gallant Ahasistari, who +had now to oppose a force of twice his numbers. The Mohawks, armed with +fire-arms, and reinforced from the other shore, overpowered the Hurons, +who broke and fled. Father Jogues, ever mindful of his sacred calling, in +the heat of the attack calmly stopped to take up water for the baptism of +his pilot, who was the only unbaptized Indian in his canoe. Seeing himself +almost alone, he made to the shore; but he did not attempt to escape, +which he might easily have done. "Could I," he says, "a minister of +Christ, forsake the dying, the wounded, the captive?" Advancing to the +guard of the prisoners, he asked to be made a captive with them, and their +companion in danger and in death. Well might the Mohawk guard, at the +sight of such heroism, have been scarcely able to believe his senses! Well +might the historian exclaim, "When did a Jesuit missionary seek to save +his own life, at what he believed to be the risk of a soul?"(76) Father +Jogues at once began his offices of mercy among his fellow-captives. He +encouraged and confessed his faithful companion, the good Rene Goupil; he +instructed and baptized the Hurons, and as, one after another, they were +brought in prisoners, the priest of God rushed to meet and embrace them, +and to unite them to the fold of Christ. + +In the meantime, Ahasistari, having got beyond the reach of his pursuers, +looked round for Ondessonk. Finding that the black-gown was not there, the +noble chief relinquished his freedom that he might share in the captivity +of the father, whom he had promised never to abandon. While Father Jogues +was engaged in ministering to the prisoners, the voice of Ahasistari +struck upon his astonished ears. "I made a vow to thee that I would share +thy fortunes, whether death or life. Brother, here I am to keep my vow." +Also a young Frenchman, one of those _donnes_ who accompanied and aided +the missionaries, returned to join the prisoners with the same exalted +motive; and, as Father Jogues tenderly embraced him, all bleeding and +mangled as he was, the savages could not restrain their fury. Rushing upon +the father, they beat him with their fists and clubs till he fell +senseless to the ground. Then, seizing his hands, they tore out most of +his nails with their teeth, and inflicted upon him the exquisite torture +of crunching his fingers, especially the two forefingers. But these +tortures were only the first outbursts of savage rage and cruelty, the +forerunners of more cruel ones in reserve. + +The time consumed in collecting the prisoners, dividing the booty, and +preparing for retreat enabled Father Jogues to complete the instruction +and baptism of the remaining prisoners. + +On Lake Champlain, another Mohawk war-fleet met the flotilla, and, drawing +up on an island, the newcomers prepared to receive their countrymen and +the prisoners. They erected a scaffold on the highest point of land for +the prisoners; then offering thanks to the sun as the genius of war, they +lined the shore, and welcomed the conquering fleet with a salute of +firearms. The number of savages on the new flotilla was about two hundred, +and, as their native superstition taught them that their success in war +would be proportioned to their cruelty to the prisoners, sad indeed was +the fate of the latter. Father Jogues closed the line of prisoners as they +marched up to the scaffold, and so terrific was the shower of blows that +assailed him that he fell exhausted to the ground: "God alone," he +exclaims--"God alone, for whose love and glory it is sweet to suffer, can +tell what cruelties they wreaked upon me then." Unable to proceed, he was +dragged to the scaffold, when, on reviving, he suffered the ordeal of fire +and steel. His closing wounds were reopened, his remaining nails were torn +from their sockets, and the bones forced through the crushed fingers. +Twice one of his tormentors rushed to cut off his nose--a certain prelude +of death to follow--and was twice restrained by some invisible, some +providential power. Falling repeatedly to the ground, the blazing brands +and burning calumets forced him to rise. Thus tortured and fainting, the +paternal eyes of Jogues still possessed tears of tenderest sympathy to +shed for the sufferings of his fellow-captive, Ahasistari, who, amidst his +own sufferings, cried aloud in praise of the father's courage and love of +his children. The night was spent without food, and in the morning the +voyage was resumed. While passing over the lake, again they met a Mohawk +fleet, and again the victorious Mohawks must honor their countrymen by +fresh tortures of the prisoners. On the next day, the ninth of the +captivity, the flotilla reached the extremity of the lake, where the +entire party landed. The prisoners, weakened and suffering with wounds and +hunger, were now loaded with all the luggage, and, in this plight, forced +to commence a four days' journey by land. Some berries, gathered on the +wayside, constituted their only food, and the exhausted father narrowly +escaped being drowned in crossing the first river. On the eve of the +Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, they reached the river near the Mohawk +village. Here again the captives became the objects of cruel tortures for +the amusement of the crowds swarming from the settlement to see them. "And +as he ran the gauntlet, Jogues comforted himself with a vision of the +glory of the Queen of Heaven,"(77) for it was the eve of her glorious +Assumption into Heaven. Some Hurons, who met them at the river, exclaimed +in compassion, "Frenchmen, you are dead!" Before going up to the village, +Father Jogues was again cruelly beaten with clubs and sticks, especially +on the head, which by its baldness excited the derision of the savages. +Two remaining finger-nails, which had escaped their impatient cruelty +before, were now torn out with the roots. "Conscious that, if we withdrew +ourselves from the number of the scourged, we withdrew from that of the +children of God, we cheerfully presented ourselves," were the words of the +martyr himself, relating how he advanced to receive new tortures. + +The line of march was formed for the village, Father Jogues closing as +before the procession. Again the scaffold was erected, again the heroic +band ran the gauntlet in marching to the scaffold hill, and the signal for +the tortures to begin was given by a chief, who struck each captive three +times on the back with a club. An old man approached Father Jogues, and +compelled an aged captive woman to sever his left thumb from his hand with +a dull knife. Long and various were the tortures which Father Jogues and +his companions now endured, and though exhausted from the loss of blood, +he consoled them in their sufferings. As night approached, the prisoners +were tied to stakes driven in the ground, and thus exposed to the +maltreatment of the children, who threw burning coals upon them, "which +hissed and burned in the writhing flesh, till they were extinguished +there."(78) + +On the following day the prisoners were led forth half naked through the +broiling sun, to be exhibited and tortured in all the Mohawk towns. At the +second village the same tortures were endured as at the first. On entering +the last town the heart of Father Jogues was melted at the sight of a +fresh band of Huron prisoners just brought in. Forgetting his own +captivity and sufferings, he approached the captives with every expression +of sympathy and kindness: he could not release their bodies from bondage; +but he offered to their immortal souls the freedom of the Gospel. There +was no water at hand with which to baptize these devoted captives; when, +lo! the dews of heaven were supplied. An Indian at that anxious moment +passed by with Indian corn, and threw a stalk at the father's feet. As the +freshly cut plant passed through the sunlight, dew-drops upon the blades +were revealed to the eager eyes of the missionary, who, gathering the +precious drops into his hands, baptized two Hurons on the spot. A little +brook they afterwards crossed supplied the saving water for the others. + +In this town, also, the tortures were repeated with many horrid additions. +Father Jogues, ever tender and sympathetic for the sufferings of his +converts, was compelled to look on, and see the fingers of one of his +Hurons nearly sawed off with a rough shell, and then violently torn off +with the sinews uncut. Father Jogues and his companion Rene Goupil were +led to a cabin and ordered to sing. Availing themselves of the command, +they devoutly chanted the Psalms of David. They were burned in several +parts of their bodies. Then two poles were erected in the air, in the form +of a cross, and Father Jogues was tied to it by cords of twisted bark, +thus throwing the whole weight of his body upon his wounded and lacerated +arms. He asked to be released in mercy, in order that he might prepare for +death, which he thought would result from his tortures, but this was +refused him. Begging pardon of God for having made such a request, he had +already resigned himself to the mercies of heaven, when suddenly an Indian +in the crowd, touched with compassion, rushed forward and cut the cords +that bound him to the cross. During the night he was again tied to a stake +driven in the ground, and his sufferings were prolonged without relief +till morning. On the following day the prisoners were carried back to the +second town they had entered. Here the council decided to spare the lives +of the French for the present, and to put the Hurons to death. + +Father Jogues and Rene Goupil lingered in suffering, and almost at the +point of death, for three weeks, at Gandawague, now Caughnawaga, in New +York. The Mohawks had concluded to send them back when convenient to Three +Rivers. In the meantime, the Dutch settlers in New Netherland, who were +allies of the Mohawks, heard that their Iroquois neighbors and friends had +taken some European prisoners. These generous Dutch, headed by their +minister, the worthy Dominie Megapolensis, took the matter in hand, and +raised six hundred guilders for the ransom of the French prisoners. +Accordingly Arendt Curler set out with this sum, accompanied by two +burghers from Rensselaerswyck, now Albany, for the Mohawk castles. The +treaty between the Dutch and the Mohawks was renewed, but neither money +nor diplomacy could move the chiefs to deliver up the prisoners, whose +importance they began now to perceive from the effort made for their +release. All that the Dutch could obtain was a promise to send them back +to Three Rivers. + +Afterwards, divisions arose among the savages as to what disposition +should be made of Father Jogues and Rene. In the meantime their lives were +suspended upon the capricious humors and passions of the cruel Mohawks. +The master of the cabin on seeing this ordered a young brave to put Rene +to death; that order was afterwards obeyed. + +After the death of Rene, Father Jogues remained among the Mohawks, the +sole object of their barbarous cruelty and superstitious hatred. Amidst +the countless sufferings he endured, his consolation consisted in prayer +and visits of religion to the Huron prisoners. In his poverty he was rich +in the possession of a volume containing one of the Epistles of S. Paul, +and an indulgenced picture of S. Bruno. These, his only possessions, he +carried always about his person. + +In the fall, he was obliged to accompany the tribe as a slave on a grand +hunt, and then for two months inconceivable hardships and labors were his +constant lot. When the chase was unproductive, he was accused as the demon +of their ill success. When sacrifice was offered to the god Aireskoi, he +refused to eat any of the food of the idolatrous sacrifice, and was +thereupon repulsed and avoided as polluted and polluting; and every door +was closed against him, food was denied him, and a shelter refused. After +performing the menial and oppressive labors which they imposed upon him, +he retired at night to his little oratory, with its roof of bark and floor +of snow, to commune with his Heavenly Father, his only friend; even to +that sacred spot, the arrows, clubs, and once the tomahawk, of his +persecutors followed him. He was finally sent back to the village, loaded +with venison, over a frozen country, thirty leagues in extent, and almost +perished of cold on the way. But even such a journey possessed its +consolations; for on the way, by an act of heroism, he saved an Indian +woman and her infant from drowning, and, as the infant was on the point of +expiring from its exposure and injuries, he poured the waters of +regeneration on its head, and saved another soul for heaven. + +On arriving at the village, he was ordered to return over the same road to +the hunting-ground, but his repeated falls on the ice compelled him to +abandon the journey and return to the village, to endure equal torments +there. Obliged to become the nurse of one of the most inveterate of his +enemies, who was lying devoured by a loathsome disease, the good Samaritan +entered upon his task as a work of love, and for an entire month bestowed +the most tender care and sympathetic attention upon his patient. In the +spring of 1643, he was compelled to accompany a fishing party to a lake +four days' journey off, when he suffered over again the cruelties of the +recent hunt. On the lake shore, as on the hunting-grounds, his cross and +little oratory of fir branches were his only consolations. His mode of +life in these wildernesses is thus described by Bancroft: "On a hill apart +he carved a long cross on a tree, and there, in the solitude, meditated +the imitation of Christ, and soothed his grief by reflecting that he +alone, in that vast region, adored the true God of earth and heaven. +Roaming through the stately forests of the Mohawk Valley, he wrote the +name of Jesus on the bark of trees, graved the cross, and entered into +possession of these countries in the name of God--often lifting up his +voice in a solitary chant." + +Repeatedly during this period was the murderous tomahawk suspended over +his head; and twice was he selected to be sacrificed to the manes of some +Indian warrior who had gone on the hunt and had not returned. But his life +was in the hands of an invisible Protector. A generous Indian matron +adopted him as her son, in the place of her own son she had just lost; and +now, when he mingled with the Mohawks as their brother, he spoke to them +of God, heaven, eternity, and hell. Though he convinced them that his +words were true, they were too much wedded to their idols to yield to the +grace of conversion. On one occasion he was led out to be sacrificed to +the manes of the braves who had gone on a war party, and, not having +returned, were supposed to be lost; but before the ceremony proceeded too +far, the warriors returned just in time to save his life. They brought +with them some Abnaki prisoners whom they destined for the stake. Father +Jogues secured the services of an interpreter, instructed them in the +faith, and succeeded in converting several of them, whom he baptized at +Easter. + +It was shortly after this that Father Jogues was compelled to witness the +horrid spectacle of human sacrifice offered to the demon Aireskoi. How +wonderful are the ways of divine Providence! for it was in the midst of +this act, the lowest point in the scale of human degradation and of insult +to God, that a human soul is regenerated by one of the Christian +sacraments, and that soul is the victim itself of the superstitious rite. +A woman was chosen for the victim, and was tied to the stake. The savages +formed a line, and as they approached the stake each one did his share in +burning, cutting, or otherwise torturing the unhappy victim. Father Jogues +had previously instructed the woman. He took no part, of course, in this +awful and wicked sacrifice, but he availed himself of an opportunity to +press forward in the crowd, and as the victim bowed to receive the +sacrament from his hands, the missionary poured the baptismal waters on +her head, in the midst of the raging flames of the heathen sacrifice. + +An effort was now made by his friends in Canada to secure the release of +Father Jogues. Some braves of the Sokoki tribe, living on the Connecticut, +had been captured by the Algonquins, and were now led forth for torture. +The French governor procured their liberation, committed them to the care +of the hospital nuns, and, after their wounds were healed, sent them back +to their own country, with a request that they would induce their tribe to +send an embassy to their allies the Mohawks to intercede for the relief of +Father Jogues. The embassy was accordingly sent, the Mohawks lit their +council fires, the Sokoki presents were accepted, but the main question +was parried, and finally the old promise to send him back to Three Rivers +was the only result. Perceiving now more than ever the dignity and +importance of their prisoner, the Mohawks led him forth in triumph to show +their allies that even the powerful French nation was tributary to the +Iroquois. This cruel journey, two hundred and fifty miles long, was over a +rugged and barren country, and many were the sufferings our missionary had +to endure. Yet this journey was not without its peculiar consolations to +Father Jogues. On one occasion he baptized five dying infants; and as he +passed through the cabins in search of souls, he heard the voice of a +former benefactor, the Indian who had so generously cut loose the cords +that bound him to the cross of logs hoisted in the air in the village of +Tinniontiogen, crying to him from his bed of misery and death. Father +Jogues embraced his benefactor with a burst of gratitude and sympathy. +Unable to reward him with worldly goods or temporal relief, the father +instructed him in the truths of eternal life, bestowed upon the willing +convert the treasure of the faith, and shortly before his death sealed all +with the sacrament of baptism. + +After his return to the village he was rushed upon one day by an +infuriated savage, whose club laid him almost lifeless on the ground. +Every day he was thus exposed to some imminent peril. His life was +suspended upon the merest chance or savage caprice or passion. The good +old woman who had adopted him, and whom he called his aunt, was his only +friend in that vast region. She advised him to make his escape, but he +believed it to be the will of God that he should remain there. + +In August, 1643, he had to accompany a portion of the tribe on a hunting +and fishing party, during which he visited for the second time the Dutch +at Rensselaerswyck, the present city of Albany. The inhabitants again made +a generous effort to secure the liberation of Father Jogues, but their +appeal to the savage Mohawk was in vain. It was here, too, amid the +dangers and distractions that encompassed him at Rensselaerswyck, that he +produced that beautiful monument of taste and learning, as well as of +apostolic zeal and love, the relation of his captivity and sufferings to +his superior, which has been so greatly admired for its pure and classic +Latin. In this letter, he says: "I have baptized seventy since my +captivity, children, and youth, and old men of five different tongues and +nations, that men of every tribe, and tongue, and nation, might stand in +the presence of the Lamb." + +While engaged in helping the Iroquois to stretch their nets for fish, he +heard of more Huron prisoners brought to the village, two of whom had +already expired at the stake unbaptized. Obtaining the permission of his +good aunt who had adopted him, he at once dropped the fish-nets, and +returned to the village in order that he might set his net for human +souls. On his way to the village he passed through Rensselaerswyck. Van +Curler insisted on his making his escape by flight, since certain death +awaited him at the village, and offered a shelter and a passage on board +of a ship destined first for Virginia and then for Bordeaux or Rochelle. +It has already been related that Father Jogues had resolved to regard the +Mohawk as his mission, he therefore hesitated to accept the generous offer +of the Dutch, though inevitable death would soon remove him from that +chosen field. But Van Curler and the minister of the settlement, John +Megapolensis, pressed their appeal with such powerful arguments that the +missionary promised to consider it, and asked one night for prayer and +consultation with his soul and with God. After fervent supplication for +the aid of heaven in deciding the matter with impartiality, and after much +reflection, Father Jogues, knowing that if he returned to the village +death would soon remove him from it, and convinced that his return to +France or Canada would prove the only means of founding a regular mission +in the Mohawk, resolved to attempt his escape, and went in the morning to +announce his resolution to Van Curler and Megapolensis. They then arranged +together the plan of escape. Returning to the custody of his guards, he +accompanied them to their quarters. When they all retired at night to +their barn to rest, the Iroquois slept around the father, in order to +secure him closely within, while without the premises were guarded by +ferocious watch-dogs. In his first attempt early in the night, the dogs +rushed upon him and tore his leg dreadfully with their teeth, and he was +obliged to return into the barn. Towards daybreak a second attempt was +more successful; the dogs were silenced; the prisoner quietly escaped over +the fence, and ran limping and suffering with his lacerated limb fully a +mile to the river where the ship lay. But here he found the bark sent by +Van Curler for his escape lying high and dry and immovable on the beach, +and the vessel was not within hailing distance. In these straitened +circumstances, he had recourse to prayer. In making another effort to move +the bark he seemed to be gifted with renewed strength, and soon the boat +was afloat, and thus he succeeded alone in reaching the vessel. He was +immediately concealed in the bottom of the hold, and a heavy box was +placed over the hatch. In the filth of this narrow and unventilated place +he remained two days and nights, suffering extremely from his wound, from +hunger and the noisome air. + +Father Jogues was then carried into the settlement to remain until all was +quiet and it was time to embark. He was confided to the care of a man who +permitted him to be thrust into a miserable loft, where he remained six +weeks crouched behind a hogshead as his only shelter, with scarcely food +sufficient to keep him alive, enduring every discomfort, and exposed to +detection and recapture by the Iroquois or Mohawks, who incessantly +haunted the house. + +After six weeks thus spent, Father Jogues, accompanied by the minister, +Dominie Megapolensis, took the first boat for New Amsterdam, as the city +of New York was then called. The voyage lasted six weeks, during which +Father Jogues became a great favorite with all on board. As they passed a +little island in their route, the crew named it in honor of Father Jogues +amid the discharge of cannon, and the Calvinist minister honored the +Jesuit by contributing a bottle of wine to the festivities of the +occasion. After an agreeable voyage, they arrived at New Amsterdam. The +germ of the present monster city consisted then of a little fort +garrisoned with sixty men, a governor's house, a church, and the houses of +four or five hundred men scattered over and around the entire Island of +Manhattan. There were many different sects and nations represented there. +The director-general told Father Jogues that there were eighteen different +languages spoken on the island. The Jesuit was enthusiastically received +at New Amsterdam, for the people turned out in crowds to greet him. One of +them, a Polish Lutheran, when he saw the mangled hands of Father Jogues, +ran and threw himself at his feet to kiss his wounded hands, exclaiming, +"O martyr of Christ! O martyr!" So practical, however, were the notions of +the old Dutch inhabitants of the city about such matters, that they asked +the missionary how much the company of New France would pay him for all he +had suffered! Father Jogues made a vigilant search in New Amsterdam for +Catholics. He found two: one, a Portuguese woman, with whom he could not +converse, showed that she still clung to her faith by the pious pictures +which were hanging round her room; the other, an Irishman, trading from +Virginia, who availed himself of the father's presence to go to his +confession. It was from the latter that he learned that the English +Jesuits had been driven from Maryland by the Puritan rulers of that +colony, and had taken refuge in Virginia. + +He remained there three months altogether in the old Dutch colony. +Receiving commendatory letters from William Kieft, the governor of New +Netherland, he sailed from the majestic harbor of New Amsterdam on the 5th +of November, 1643. The little vessel possessed no comforts or +accommodations. The father's only bed was a coil of rope on deck, where he +received severe drenchings from the waves breaking over him. A furious +storm drove the vessel in on the English coast, near Falmouth, which was +then in possession of the king's party: two parliamentary cruisers pursued +the Dutch vessel, but she escaped and anchored at the wharf. The storm- +beaten crew went ashore to enjoy themselves, leaving only Father Jogues +and another person on board, when the vessel was boarded by robbers, who +pointed a pistol at the missionary's throat and robbed him of his hat and +coat. He appealed to a Frenchman, the master of a collier at the wharf, +for relief, who took him on board his boat, gave him a sailor's hat and +coat, all his own poverty could spare, and a passage to France. In this +plight, this celebrated missionary, whose fame filled all France, landed +on his native shore on Christmas morning, at a point between Brest and St. +Pol de Leon. + +He borrowed a more decent hat and cloak from a peasant near the shore, and +hastened to the nearest chapel, to make his thanksgiving and unite in the +glorious solemnity of Christmas. As it was early he had the consolation of +approaching the tribunal of penance, and of receiving the Holy Eucharist, +for the first time in sixteen months. The touching story of his captivity +and sufferings among the savages subdued their hearts and drew floods of +sympathizing tears from the peasants whose hospitality he shared. They +offered him all they had to forward him on his journey. A good merchant of +Rennes, then passing on his way, heard the thrilling incidents he related, +and saw his mangled hands: touched with compassion, he took the missionary +under his care, and paid his expenses to Rennes, where he arrived on the +eve of the Epiphany. He went to the college of his order in that city, and +as soon as it was known that he was from Canada, all the members of the +community gathered round him to ask him if he knew Father Jogues, and +whether he was yet alive and in captivity. He then disclosed his name, and +showed the marks of his sufferings; all then pressed forward to embrace +their saintly brother, and kiss his glorious wounds. + +He reposed for a few days at the college at Rennes, and then pushed on +towards Paris, to place himself again at the disposal of his superior, +humbly and modestly intimating a desire, however, to be sent back to his +mission in America. His fame had long preceded him, and, when he arrived +at the capital, the faithful pressed forward in crowds to venerate him and +kiss his wounds. The pious queen-mother coveted the same happiness, and +he, whom we saw so recently the captive and slave of brutal savages, is +now honored at the court of the first capital of Christendom. But the +humility of Father Jogues took alarm at the honors paid to him. Throwing +himself at his superior's feet, he entreated that he might be sent back to +the wilderness from which he had just escaped. The superior consented; but +an obstacle here presented itself. So great were the injuries inflicted +upon his hands by the Mohawks that he was canonically disqualified from +offering up the holy sacrifice of the Mass. Application for the proper +dispensation was made to the Sovereign Pontiff, upon a statement of the +facts. Innocent XI. was moved by the recital, and, with an inspired +energy, exclaimed, "_Indignum esse Christi martyrem, Christi non bibere +sanguinem_"--"It were unjust that a martyr of Christ should not drink the +blood of Christ!" Pronounced by the Vicar of Christ on earth to be a +martyr, though living, he now goes to seek a double martyrdom in death. In +the spring he started for Rochelle, and F. Ducreux, the historian of +Canada, sought the honor of accompanying him thither. + +He embarked from Rochelle for Canada, where he arrived on the 16th May, +1644. He found the Iroquois war still raging with unabated fury, and the +colony of New France reduced to the verge of ruin. When his brethren in +Canada heard and saw how cruelly Father Jogues had been treated in the +Mohawk, and that his timely flight alone had saved his life, they felt the +saddest apprehensions about the fate of Father Bressani, who had also +fallen into the hands of the Iroquois. Finding it impossible to return to +Lake Huron, Father Jogues joined Father Buteux in the duties of the holy +ministry at the new town of Montreal, to which its founders gave the name +of the City of Mary, in consecrating it to the Mother of God. It was +during their sojourn together that the superior endeavored to draw from +Father Jogues, by entreaty, and even by command, the circumstances of his +sufferings in captivity; but his humility and modesty were so great that +it was with the greatest difficulty that anything concerning himself could +be drawn from him. In this spirit he avoided all the honors that were +pressed upon him. After his return to Canada, he was so desirous of being +unknown and unhonored that he ceased signing his name, and even his +letters which he addressed to his superior after his return to Canada are +without signatures. + +Some Mohawk prisoners, kindly treated by the Governor of Canada and +released, returned to their country, and disposed the Mohawks to make +peace. A solemn deputation of their chiefs came to Three Rivers, and were +received on the 12th of July, 1645, with great ceremony and pomp. Father +Jogues was present, though unseen by the deputies; so was Father Bressani, +who, having passed the ordeal of a most cruel captivity among the Mohawks, +had been ransomed by the Dutch of New York, sent to France, and had now, +like Father Jogues, returned to New France to suffer again. When all was +silent, the orator of the deputies arose, and opened the session with the +usual march and chants. He explained, as he proceeded to deliver the +presents, the meaning of each. Belt after belt of wampum was thrown at the +governor's feet, until at last he held forth one in his hand, beautifully +decorated with the shell-work of the Mohawk Valley. "This," he exclaimed, +"is for the two black-gowns. We wished to bring them both back; but we +have not been able to accomplish our design. One escaped from our hands in +spite of us, and the other absolutely desired to be given up to the Dutch. +We yielded to his desire. We regret not their being free, but our +ignorance of their fate. Perhaps even now that I name them they are +victims of cruel enemies or swallowed up in the waves. The Mohawk never +intended to put them to death." + +The French had little faith in the sincerity of the Mohawk, yet they +wanted peace. The past was forgiven, the missionaries buried the +remembrance of their wrongs with the hatchet of the Mohawk, and peace was +concluded. The deputies returned to their castles to get the sachems to +ratify the peace, and Father Jogues to Montreal to prepare himself for the +terrible ordeal which he foresaw a Mohawk mission would open to him. His +preparation consisted in prayer, meditations, and other spiritual +exercises. The peace was ratified; the Indians asked for missionaries; the +French resolved to open a mission among them, and Father Jogues was +selected for the perilous enterprise. When he received the letter of his +superior informing him of his selection, Father Jogues joyfully accepted +the appointment, and prepared at once to depart. His letter in reply to +the superior contains these heroic words: "Yes, father, I will all that +God wills, and I will it at the peril of a thousand lives. Oh! how I +should regret the loss of so glorious an occasion, when it depends but +upon me that some souls may be saved. I hope that his goodness, which did +not forsake me in the hour of need, will aid me yet. He and I are able yet +to overcome all the difficulties which can oppose our project." + +On arriving at Three Rivers, he ascertained that he and the Sieur Bourdon +were to go to the Mohawk castle, in the first instance, merely as +ambassadors, to make sure of the peace. They departed on this dangerous +embassy on the 16th of May, 1646, and during their absence public prayers, +offered for their return, testified the fears felt for their safety. As +they were about to start, an Algonquin thus addressed Father Jogues: +"There is nothing more repulsive at first than this doctrine, that seems +to annihilate all that man holds dearest, and as your long gown preaches +it as much as your lips, you would do better to go at first in a short +one." Thereupon the prudent ambassador parted for the time with the habit +of his order, and substituted a more diplomatic costume. + +They were accompanied by four Mohawks and two Algonquins. After ascending +the Sorel, and gliding through the beautiful islands of Lake Champlain, +they arrived at the portage leading to the Lake Andiatarocte on the 29th +of May, which was the eve of Corpus Christi. Here Father Jogues paused, +and named the lake Saint Sacrament; but by a less Christian taste that +beautiful name, given in honor of the King of kings, has since yielded to +one given in honor of one of the kings of earth.(79) They suffered greatly +for food on the way, but obtained a supply of provisions at Ossarane, a +fishing station on the Hudson, supposed to be Saratoga. Then, gliding down +the Hudson, they came to Fort Orange, where Father Jogues again, in the +most earnest and sincere terms, expressed his deep gratitude to his +liberators, the Dutch, whose outlay in his behalf he had already +reimbursed to them from Europe. Not satisfied with expressing his thanks, +Father Jogues endeavored to bestow upon his friend, Dominie Megapolensis, +the greatest of possible returns--the true faith. He wrote from this place +a letter to the minister, in which he used every argument that his well- +stored mind or the unbounded charity of his heart could suggest to reclaim +him to the bosom of that ancient church which his fathers had so +unfortunately left. + +After a short repose at Albany, they proceeded to the Mohawk, and arrived +at the nearest town on the 7th of June. A general assembly of the chiefs +was called to ratify the peace, and crowds came from all sides; some +through curiosity to see, and others with a desire to honor, the untiring +and self-sacrificing Ondessonk. Father Jogues made a speech appropriate to +the occasion and the purposes of his visits, which the assembled chiefs +heard with great enthusiasm; presents were exchanged, and peace was +finally and absolutely ratified. The Wolf family in particular, being that +in which Father Jogues had been adopted, exclaimed, "The French shall +always find among us friendly hearts and an open cabin, and thou, +Ondessonk, shalt always have a mat to lie on and fire to keep thee warm." +Father Jogues endeavored to impress favorably the representatives of other +tribes who were there by presents and friendly words. Then remembering his +sacred character as a minister of God, he visited and consoled the Huron +captives, especially the sick and dying; he heard the confessions of some, +and baptized several expiring infants. Before departing Father Jogues +desired to leave behind his box containing articles most necessary for the +mission, which he was soon to return and commence among them; the Mohawks, +however, dreading some evil from the box, objected at first, but the +father opened it, and showed them all it contained, and finally, as he +supposed, overcame their superstitious fears, and the box was left behind +among them. + +The ambassadors and their suite set out on their return, on the 16th of +June, bearing their baggage on their backs. They also constructed their +own canoes at Lake Superior, and, having crossed the lake in safety, +arrived at Three Rivers, after a passage of thirteen days, on the feast of +SS. Peter and Paul, to the infinite joy and relief of all their friends. + +On the 28th day of September, Father Jogues was on his way to the Mohawk, +accompanied by Lalande, a young Frenchman from Dieppe, an Iroquois of +Huron birth, and some other Hurons. As they advanced, tidings of war on +the part of the Mohawks became more frequent, and the Indian escorts began +to desert. They passed Lake Champlain in safety, and had advanced within +two days' journey of the Mohawk when a war-party, marching on Fort +Richelieu, came upon them. The savages rushed upon them, stripped Father +Jogues and Lalande of their effects, bound them as prisoners, and turning +back led them to the village of Gandawague,(80) the scene of Father +Jogues' first captivity and sufferings. Here they were received with a +shower of blows, amid loud cries for their heads, that they might be set +up on the palisades. + +Towards evening, on the 18th of October, some of the savages of the Bear +family came and invited Father Jogues to sup in their cabin. Scarcely had +the shadow of the black-gown darkened the entrance of their lodge, when a +concealed arm struck a well-aimed blow with the murderous tomahawk, and +the Christian martyr fell lifeless to the ground. The generous Kiotsaeton, +who had just arrived as a deputy of a council called to decide on his +case, rushed to save him, but the blade had done its work, and now spent +its remaining force by inflicting a deep wound in the arm of that noble +chief. The head of Father Jogues was severed from his body, and raised +upon the palisade. The next day the faithful Lalande, and a no less +faithful Huron, shared the same fate. + +Father Jogues was in his fortieth year when he received the fatal stroke. +When the tidings of his death arrived, every tongue in Canada and in +France was zealous in the recital of his many virtues, and in praise of +his glorious death. His zeal for the faith, his courage in danger, his +humility, his love of prayer and suffering, his devotion to the cross, +were conspicuous among the many exalted virtues that adorned his life and +death. While his brethren lamented the loss the missions had sustained, +they envied him the crown he had won. "We could not," says Father +Ragueneau, "bring ourselves to offer for Father Jogues the prayers for the +dead. We offered up the adorable sacrifice, indeed, but it was in +thanksgiving for the favors which he had received from God. The laity and +the religious houses here partook our sentiments as to this happy death, +and more are found to invoke his memory than there are to pray for his +repose." + + + + +Dona Ramona. + + +From The Spanish. + +In an empire whose name history has failed to record, there lived in a +miserable stable a poor laborer and his wife. Juan and Ramona were their +names, though Juan was better known by the nickname "Under present +circumstances," which they gave him because in season or out of season +that phrase was continually dropping from his lips. Juan and Ramona were +so wretchedly poor that they would have had no roof to cover them unless a +laborer of the province of Micomican had taken pity upon them, and given +them a hut to live in, which in other days had served as a stable, and was +now his property. + +"We are badly enough off in a stable," said Juan: "but we ought to conform +ourselves with our lot, since under present circumstances God, though he +was God, lived in a stable when he made himself man." + +"You are right," replied Ramona. + +So both worked away, if not happy, at least resigned--Juan in going out day +after day to gain his daily reward of a couple of small pieces of money, +and Ramona in taking care of the house, if house be a proper term to apply +to a stable. + +The emperor was very fond of living in the country, and had many palaces +of different kinds in the province of Micomican. One day Juan was working +in a kitchen garden near the road, when far away he saw the carriage of +the emperor coming at a rate almost equal to that of a soul that the devil +was trying to carry off. + +"I'll bet you," said Juan, "that the horses have escaped from his majesty, +and some misfortune is going to happen! It would be a great pity, for +under present circumstances an emperor is worth an empire." + +Juan was not mistaken. The emperor's horses had escaped, and the emperor +was yelling: + +"God take pity on me! I'm going to break my neck over one of those +precipices! Isn't there a son of a gun to save me? To whoever throws +himself at the head of these confounded horses, I'll give whatever he +asks, though it be the very shirt on my back." + +But no one dared throw himself at the horses' heads; for they tore along +at such a furious rate that to rush at them was to rush into eternity. + +Juan, enraged at the cowardice of the other workmen, and moved by his love +for the emperor as well as his natural propensity to do good without +looking at the person to whom he did it, threw himself at the horses' +heads, and succeeded in stopping the coach, to the admiration of the +emperor himself, who at that moment would not have given a brass farthing +for his life. + +"Ask whatever you like," said the emperor to him, "for everything appears +to me small as a recompense to the man who has rendered me so signal a +service." + +"Sire!" said Juan to him, "I, under present circumstances, am a poor day +laborer, and the day that I don't gain a couple of _pesetas_ my wife and I +have to fast. So, if your majesty will only assure me my day's labor +whether it rains or whether it is fine weather, my wife and I will sing +our lives away in happiness, for we are people content with very little." + +"That's pretty clear. Well, go along, it's granted. The day that you have +nothing to do anywhere else, go to one of my palaces, whichever you like, +and occupy yourself there in whatever way you please." + +"Thank you, sire!" + +"What! No; no reason for thanks, man. That is a mere nothing." + +The emperor went on his road happy enough, and Juan went on his, thinking +of the great joy he was about to give his wife when he returned home at +night, and told her that he had his day's work secured for the rest of his +life whether it rained or was fine weather. + +In fact, his wife was greatly rejoiced when he carried her the good news. +They supped, and went to bed in peace and in the grace of God, and Juan +slept like one of the blessed; but Ramona passed the whole night turning +about in the bed like one who has some trouble or desire that will not let +him sleep. + +"Do you know what I have been thinking the whole night long, Juan?" said +Ramona, the following morning. + +"What?" + +"That yesterday you were a fool to ask so little from the emperor." + +"Indeed! What more had I to ask?" + +"That he would give us a little house to live in, something more suitable +and decent than this wretched stable." + +"You are right, woman; but now there is no help for it." + +"Perhaps there may be." + +"How?" + +"Look here; go and see the emperor, and ask him." + +"Yes; now is the time to go on such an errand!" + +"Go you shall, and quickly, too!" + +"But, woman, don't get angry. My goodness! what a temper you have! Well, +well; I will go, and God grant his majesty does not send me off with a +flea in my ear, although, under present circumstances, he is a very open- +hearted, outspoken gentleman." + +Well, Juan set out for the palace of the emperor; and the emperor granted +him an audience immediately on his arrival. + +"Hallo, Juan!" said his majesty. "What brings you this way, man?" + +"Sire!" replied Juan, twirling and twirling the hat which he held in his +hand, "my wife, under present circumstances, is as good as gold; but, you +see, the stable that we live in is gone to rack and ruin, and we wish to +get it out of our sight. So she said to me this morning: 'If your majesty, +who is so kind, would only give us a little house, something better than +the one we have, who dare sneeze at us then?' " + +"Does your wife want nothing more than that? Well, it's granted. This very +moment I will give orders that they place the little white house at her +disposal. Go into the dining-room, and take a mouthful and a drop of +something; and, instead of going afterwards to the stable, go to the +little white house, and there you will find your wife already installed." + +Juan returned thanks to the emperor for his latest kindness, and, passing +on to the dining-room, filled himself with ham and wine. + +Our friend commenced his journey home, and, when he arrived at the white +house, his wife rushed out to receive him with tears of joy. + +And indeed it was very natural for poor Ramona to find herself so merry, +for the little white house was a perfect jewel. It occupied the summit of +a gentle acclivity, whence the whole beauty of the plain was spread out +before it. A large Muscatel vine covered the whole of the porch, and +beneath it there were seats and little plots of pinks and roses. The +apartments of the house were a little drawing-room, very white, and clean, +and pretty, with its chairs, its cupboard, and its looking-glass; an +alcove with its bed, so soft and clean and beautiful that the emperor +himself might have slept in it; a little kitchen with all its +requirements, among which were included the utensils, which shone like +gold; and a little bewitching dining-room, with four chairs, a table, and +a sideboard. To the dining-room there was a fairy entrance, adorned +without by an arc of flowers, and through this entrance you passed into a +garden, where there were fruits, and flowers, and vegetables, and a small +army of chickens clucked; and every egg they laid was as big as Juan's +fist. + +When night came on, Juan and Ramona took their supper like a couple of +princes in their little dining-room, and soon after laid them down in +their beautiful bed. They both slept well, particularly Juan, who stirred +neither hand nor foot the whole night through. + +Ramona began to find fault the very next day, and Juan noticed that every +night her sleep was more disturbed. + +"Woman, what the devil is the matter with you, that all night long you are +twisting like a reel?" asked Juan, one morning. "Why, there are no fleas +here as there were in the stable." + +"Fleas hinder my sleep very little." + +"Well, then, what hinders it, woman?" + +"What hinders it? Your stupidity in asking the emperor so little hinders +it." + +"In the name of the Father, and of the Son!... And you still think it +little that I have asked, and he granted us?" + +"Yes, indeed I do. This little house is so small that one can scarcely +turn in it; and if to-morrow or some other day we have children, what +shall we do with them in a hut like this?" + +"Say what you like about it, there is no help for it now." + +"Perhaps there may be." + +"And how, I should like to know?" + +"Going back and seeing his majesty, and telling him to give us a larger +house, of course." + +"Go to Jericho, woman. You don't catch me going on an errand of that +kind!" + +"Well, go you shall, then; or we'll see who is master here." + +"But, wife, don't you see that my very face would drop from me with +shame?" + +"Now, that's enough of talk on the matter. All you have to do is, run +along to the palace as fast as you can, if you care to have a quiet time +of it." + +"Well, well; since you wish it, I'll go." + +Juan, who did not possess an ounce of will of his own--a thing which is the +greatest misfortune that can befall a husband who is not blessed with such +a wife as God ordained for him--set out once more on his road towards the +palace of the emperor. + +"Indeed," said he to himself, with more fear than shame, "it is very +possible he will send me down-stairs head foremost, because it is only +natural that this abuse of his good-nature will prove too much, even for +him. And it will serve me right for my unfortunate weakness of character." + +Juan's fears were not realized. So soon as he sought an audience with his +majesty it was granted, and the emperor asked him, with a smiling face: + +"How goes it at the little white house?" + +"Not badly, sire!" + +"And your wife, how does she find herself there?" + +"Not badly, sire, but your majesty knows what the women are. Give 'em an +inch, they'll take an ell. My wife, under present circumstances, hasn't a +flaw in her; but she says that, if to-morrow or the day after we have +youngsters, we shall all be crowded there like bees in a bottle." + +"You are right. So she wants, of course, a house a little larger?" + +"You've just hit it, sire!" + +"Well, turn into the dining-room till they give you a snack of something; +and, instead of returning to the white house, go to the Azure Palace, +where you will find your wife installed with the attendance befitting +those who live in a palace." + +Juan returned the emperor thanks for his great goodness, and, after +stuffing himself till he looked like a ball in the dining-room, off he +set, as happy as could be, to the Azure Palace, which was one of those +that the emperor had in that district. + +The Azure Palace was neither very large nor furnished with great wealth; +but it was very beautiful and adorned with becoming elegance. A servant in +livery received Juan at the door and conducted him to the apartment of the +lady. The lady was Ramona, whom her maid had just finished dressing in one +of the beautiful robes which she found in her new dwelling. Juan could do +nothing but open his mouth and stare in amazement at seeing his wife in +such majestic attire. + +Juan and Ramona feared they would go mad when they found themselves lords +of a palace, well fitted, elegant, and waited on by four servants: namely, +a coachman, a footman, a maid, and a cook. + +"Take off that clown's dress," said Ramona to Juan. "Aren't you ashamed to +show yourself in such a trim before our own servants?" + +"This is a new start," said Juan, astonished at the sally of his wife. "So +I, who, under present circumstances, have passed all my life in digging +the earth, and things even worse than that, must feel ashamed of the +clothes I have worn all my life long!" + +"But, you stupid head," replied Ramona, "if you have costume corresponding +to your rank, why didn't you put it on?" + +"My rank!... Come, this woman's head is turned." + +"Juan, go to your apartment and change your things, and don't try my +patience so much, for you know already that my temper will not stand too +great a trial." + +"Well, there's no need to put yourself out, woman. Here I'm going now," +said Juan, turning to the room from which he saw Ramona come out. + +"Blockhead!" said she, catching hold of him and showing him another room, +"this apartment is mine, and that is yours." + +"Hallo! this is another surprise. So my wife's room is not mine also?" + +"No; that is only among common folk; but in people of our rank no." + +Juan gave up the dispute, and, entering the room which she had pointed out +as his, found therein a wardrobe with a quantity of fine changes befitting +a gentleman, and came out again transformed into a milord. + +There passed fifteen days since Juan and Ramona came to live in the Azure +Palace, and Ramona grew day by day more captious, and slept less and less +every night. + +"What the deuce ails you? One would think the ants were at you," said Juan +to her, one morning. + +"What ails me is that I have the biggest fool for a husband that ever ate +bread." + +"Hey for the sweet tempers! So you are not yet content with the sweet +little fig that your husband gathered for you?" + +"No, sir, I am not. One must be a dolt like you to content herself with +what we have, when we might have much more only for the asking." + +"But, woman alive, have you lost your senses? Can the emperor grant us +more than he has granted us, or do we need more to make us happy?" + +"Yes, he can give us more, and we need it." + +"Explain yourself, and the devil take the explanation, for you're going to +drive me mad with your ambition." + +"Explain myself! I'll explain myself, and very clearly, too; for, thank +God, there are no hairs on my tongue to prevent me speaking to anybody, +even to the emperor himself. To make you happy, all that is wanting is +what common folk want--a good table where you may stuff yourself with +turkey all the day long; but for us who have higher aims, we want +something more than chunks of meat and wine that would make an ox dance a +hornpipe. You can swell yourself out and look big when you walk out here, +and hear them calling you Don Juan; but as for me, I could eat myself with +rage when they call me Dona Ramona." + +"Well, and isn't it better for them to call us that than Juan and Ramona, +as they used to call us before? What more do you want, woman?" + +"I want them to call me lady marchioness." + +"Have you lost your ears, Ramona? Now I tell you, and tell you again, that +that wicked ambition of yours has deprived you of your senses." + +"Look here, Juan, you and I are not going into disputes and obstinacy. You +know me well enough already, or if you don't you ought to, to be certain +that it doesn't take long for my nose to itch. I want to be no less than +the Marchioness of Radishe and the Countess of Cabbidge, who at every turn +fill their mouths with their grand titles, and, when they meet one, don't +seem to have time to say with their drawling affectation, 'Adios, Dona +Ramona.' Now, since the emperor has told you, when you saved his life, +that you might ask him even for the shirt that he had on his back, go and +see him, and ask him to make us Marquises." + +"Go and ask him if he has a head on his shoulders, why don't you say? But +there's enough about it. Even in fun I don't like to hear such nonsense." + +"Juan, don't provoke me; take care that I don't send you with a flea in +your ear." + +"But, woman alive, however much of your husband's breeches you may wear, +could you even imagine that I was going to agree to this new start of +yours?" + +"I bet you, you will agree." + +"I tell you I am not going again to see the emperor." + +"Go you shall, though you have to go on your head." + +"But, wife, don't be a fool--" + +"Come, come; less talk, and run along." + +"Well, I'm going, then, since you are so anxious about it. The saints +protect me, if I don't deserve to be shot for this chicken-hearted +weakness of character!" + +Juan took the road to the court, and solicited a new audience with the +emperor. Though he took it for certain that his majesty would send him to +Old Nick if he did not throw him to him over the balcony, he found that +his majesty was very ready to grant him an audience. + +"Sire, your majesty will pardon so many impertinences--" he stammered out, +full of shame, when he drew near the emperor. + +"Why, man, don't be ashamed and a fool," interrupted his majesty kindly. +"Well, how goes it in the Azure Palace?" + +"Beautifully, sire." + +"And how is that little rib of yours, eh?" + +"Who--she? Oh! very well, under present circumstances." + +"And content with her lot? Is it not so?" + +"Well, as for that, sire! Well, your majesty knows what the women are. +Their mouths are like a certain place I wouldn't mention before your +majesty, always open, and there's no getting at the bottom of it." + +"Well, and what does the good Dona Ramona ask now?" + +"What, sire? But there--one is ashamed to say it." + +"Go on, man; out with it, and don't be bashful. To the man that saved my +life I'd give anything, even the crown I wear." + +"Well, then, sire! She wants to be a marchioness." + +"A marchioness! Is that all? Then from this instant she is the Marchioness +of Marville." + +"Thank you, sire." + +"Keep the thanks for your wife; and look into the dining-room to see if +there is anything to lay hands on. And when you go back you will find your +wife already installed in the palace belonging to her title, for the Azure +Palace is not good enough for marquises." + +Juan passed into the dining-room, and, after running the danger of +bursting, he made his way for the palace of Marville. The palace of +Marville was not such a very great wonder as its name might lead one to +believe; but, for all that, one might very well pass his life in it! + +A crowd of footmen and porters received Juan at the gates of the palace, +addressing him as my lord marquis; and Juan, for all his modesty, could +not but feel a little inflated with such a reception and such a title. + +But there was nothing to hold the pride of his wife (though one might be +as big as the bell of Toledo, under which one day there sat down seven +tailors and a shoemaker) at hearing herself called by her maids lady +marchioness here, and lady marchioness there. + +"Well, so you are at last content, wife?" said Juan to her. + +"Yes, of course, I am. And indeed it was very provoking to hear one's self +called Dona Ramona, short like, as though one were only the wife of the +apothecary or the surgeon. You see the truth of what I have said; if one +has only to open her mouth in order to be a marchioness, why shouldn't +she? Now you see that his majesty did not eat you for asking such a +reasonable thing." + +"Well, do you know, now, that it cost me something to ask it of him?" + +"Ah! get out of that; men are good for nothing." + +"But it gave me more courage when his majesty said to me: 'Don't be +bashful, man; for to the man that saved my life I'd give even the crown I +wear.' " + +"Whew! so he said that to you?" + +"As sure as I'm here." + +"Then why didn't you ask him more?" + +"There we are again! What more had I to ask?" + +"You are right; for, as somebody said, 'there are more days than long +sausages,' and + + + 'A horse and a friend + No work can spend.' " + + +On the following day the Marquis and Marchioness of Marville took a turn +in their grandest coach, and it was a sight to see how they rolled along, +at every hour in the day, all around those parts, the very wheels seeming +to say envy! envy! to the Marchioness of Radishe and the Countess of +Cabbidge. Some little trouble took place on account of the actions and +complaints of the country folk, who prevented them from passing in their +coach over this and that road, or by this and that property. But the +marchioness quite forgot all these annoyances when, for example, at +meeting the wife of the apothecary or surgeon, she said to them from her +coach wherein she reclined in all her glory, "Adios, Dona Fulana," and the +other answered her, trotting along on foot, "Good-by, my lady +marchioness." + +After some time the marquis thought he noticed that his wife was not +perfectly happy, because he found her every day more capricious, and she +never slept quietly. + +One morning, when the day was already advanced, the marquis slept away +like a dormouse, and the marchioness, who had passed a more restless and +sleepless night than ever, lay awake at his side impatiently waiting for +him to awake. + +"S. Swithin! what a sleeper!" exclaimed the marchioness; and, no longer +able to restrain her impatience, she gave her husband a tremendous pinch, +and said, "Wake up, brute." + +"Oh! ten thousand d----!" yelled the marquis. + +"Are you not ashamed to sleep so much?" + +"Ashamed! of something so natural? More ashamed should the one be who does +not sleep, for sleeplessness bespeaks an unquiet conscience. What the +devil is the matter with you that you have not ceased the whole night from +turning and twisting about?" + +"Yes, indeed, if one only had a soul as broad-shouldered as you." + +"I don't understand you, woman." + +"Well, then, you shall understand me, blockhead though you are. Now, tell +me, Juan, an emperor is greater than a king?" + +"Why shouldn't he be?" + +"That is to say, that emperors can make kings?" + +"I think so. For instance, suppose his majesty the emperor wished to say +to us, 'Ha, my good friends the Marquis and Marchioness of Marville, I +convert the province of Micomican, which belongs to me, into a kingdom, +and I make you the monarchs of my new kingdom,' I believe nobody could +hinder it." + +"Very well, then; I wish his majesty to say and do this at your petition." + +The very house seemed to fall atop of Juan at hearing this from his wife; +but this latest caprice of Ramona was so absurd that he had courage to +hope in its all being a joke. + +"Don't you think his majesty would give the person a nice slap in the face +who was so impudent and barefaced as to go to him with such a petition as +this?" he said. + +"If you go, he will not; since he has said that he cannot deny even his +crown to the man who saved his life. So go along, ducky, hurry and see his +majesty." + +"But you mean this?" + +"Why shouldn't I mean it? I have a nice temper for jokes! I want to be +queen, in order to let those little folks know their proper places, who +pass their lives in digging the earth and eating potatoes, and have the +impudence to dare face gentlefolk who condescend to pass wherever they +please." + +"Well, well, now it's clear that you have lost your wits altogether!" + +"What you are going to lose, since you have no wits, is your teeth, with a +slap in the face, if you don't make haste and hurry off to the court." + +"I'd lose my head before I'd commit such an absurdity. There. I've given +way enough already." + +"Indeed! Then from this day forward know that you have no longer a wife. +This is my room, and you shall never set foot in it again, nor I in +yours." + +"But, woman!" + +"No, no; remember we are strangers to each other." + +"Come, don't be obstinate, my own Ramonita." + +"Don't I tell you, sir, that all is over between us?" + +"Now, look here, pigeon." + +"Stop your prate!" + +"The dev--! Well, come, you shall be satisfied; I will go and see his +majesty, and tell him that you want to be queen, though I know he will +shoot me on the spot." + +Ramona bestowed a caress on her husband in reward for his consent, and our +good Juan made his way to the court cursing his own foolish weakness of +character. + +Contrary to his expectations, the emperor hastened to grant him an +audience, and received him with the accustomed smile. + +"Well, marquis, what is it?" he asked. + +"What ought it to be, sire? A fresh impertinence." + +"Come, out with it man, and don't be bashful. Something concerning the +marchioness, eh?" + +"You've hit it again, sire. These foolish women are never content." + +"Well, what does yours want?" + +"Nothing, sire. She says, would it please your majesty to make her queen?" + +"Queen! nothing more than that? Well, she is queen already, then. Now, go +into the dining-room, and see if there is anything there you can destroy; +and, instead of returning to the palace of Marville, go to the palace of +the Crown, where you will find your wife installed as becomes the Queen of +Micomican." + +Juan outdid himself in thanks and courtesies, and, after treating himself +in the dining-rooms right royally, made his way home. On his arrival at +the palace of the Crown, a salvo of artillery announced his coming. The +troops were drawn up around the palace, where he entered to the sound of +the Royal March, and amid the _vivas_ of the people, who became mad in the +presence of the husband of their new sovereign. + +Her Majesty, the Queen Dona Ramona the First, was holding a levee at the +moment when her august spouse arrived at the palace, and he, seating +himself by her side, gave also his royal hand to kiss; but it was so dirty +that as many as kissed it hurried out of the chamber spitting. To be king, +it is necessary to keep the hands very clean. + +The King and Queen of Micomican amused themselves mightily during the +first weeks of their reign: so that all was feasting and rejoicing in +celebration of their happy coming to the throne. But so soon as the +festival passed, the Queen Dona Ramona began to grow sad and weary. + +The king summoned the chief physician of the court, and held a deep +consultation with him. + +"Man alive," said he to him, "I have summoned you in order to see what the +devil you have to say to me touching the sorrow and evil state in which I +have noticed my august spouse to be for some time past. She is always +turning and twisting about in her bed, so that she neither sleeps herself +nor lets me sleep, and the worst part of it is, that every day she is +sadder, and everything irritates and exasperates her." + +"Well, sire, in the first place, we must please her in everything and by +everything." + +"I agree with you there, man; but there are things beyond human power. If +it rains, she is put out because it rains; if it blows, she is put out +because it blows; if we are in the winter, she is put out because the +spring has not come, and her mind is so turned that she cries out: 'I +command it not to rain,' 'I command it not to blow,' 'I command the spring +to come at once.' Now, you see that it is only by being God one can secure +obedience of orders like these. Well, then, to what the deuce do you +attribute these whims of my august spouse?" + +"Sire, it is very possible that they may presage a happy event." + +"Ah, ah! I take you. Well, to be sure, and I never thought of such a +thing. And wouldn't it be a joy to me and to my august spouse to find +ourselves with a direct successor? For, if not, there is no use in +deluding ourselves: the day that we close our eyes, in comes civil war, +and the kingdom is gone to Old Nick." + +So the Queen Dona Ramona remained watching to see what would happen. But +months and months passed, and the queen grew every day sadder and more +capricious. + +One day the king decided on interrogating very seriously the queen +herself, to see if he might draw from her the secret of her sadness and +capriciousness. + +"Well, let us know, now, what the deuce is the matter with you," he said, +"that you neither sleep nor let me sleep, and remain for ever like the +thorn of S. Lucy." + +"I am very unhappy," answered the queen, beginning to weep like a +Magdalen. + +"You unhappy?--you who lived in a stable as empty and bare as that which +Our Lord lived in when he became man, and under present circumstances you +find yourself the somebody of somebodies, a queen clean and complete? What +the deuce do you want?" + +"It is true, I am a queen. But I die of sadness when from the throne I +look back and see nothing of what other queens see." + +"Well, and what do other queens see?" + +"For instance, the Queen of Spain sees a series of great and glorious +kings, named Recaredo, Pelayo, San Fernando, Alonso the Wise, Isabel the +Catholic, Ferdinand the Catholic, Charles V., Philip II., Charles III.--and +those kings had blood of hers, and seated themselves on the throne, and +loved and made great the people that she loves and makes great." + +"You are right, wife. But you wish to do what is impossible, and that God +alone can do." + +"Well, then, those impossibilities are the very things that tease and +exasperate me. What is the use of being a queen, if even in the most just +desires one sees herself constrained, and unable to realize them? It is a +fine afternoon, for instance, and I begin to get ready to go out for a +walk in the palace gardens, but a wretched little cloud appears in the +sky, as though to say to one, 'Don't get ready!' And when one wishes to go +out, that insolent cloud begins to pour down water, and one is obliged to +remain at home, disgusted and fretting. What I want is to have power +enough to prevent a miserable little cloud from laughing at me." + +"But, woman, don't I tell you that this power God alone can have?" + +"Then I want to be God." + +Juan made the sign of the cross on himself, filled with shame and horror +at hearing his wife give utterance to such a thing, whose head was +undoubtedly turned by the demon of ambition. But he did not wish to +exasperate the poor crazed being with lessons which, had she been in her +right senses, she would have deserved. + +"But don't you know, child," he said to her with sweetness, "that the +fulfilment of that desire is as impossible as it is foolish? The emperor +has granted us whatever we have asked, but what you want now he cannot +grant." + +"Still, I want you to go and see him, and say so to him; for perhaps +between him and the Pope they will be able to manage it." + +"But if there is and never can be more than one God, how can you be made +God?" + +"I have always heard say that God can do everything. If the emperor +consults with the Pope, and the Pope has recourse to God, then you'll see +if God, who can do everything, will disappoint them both." + +"But if God cannot?" + +"Hold your tongue, Jew, and don't say such awful things. God can do +everything." + +Juan thought it would be more prudent to abstain from contradicting his +wife any further. So he retired and summoned the chief physician of the +court, in order to lay before him the new and extraordinary phase which +the moral malady of the queen displayed. The physician said that in his +long professional career he had met with cases of mental aberration even +more extraordinary than that of the queen; and insisted that, far from +contradicting the august invalid, they should comply with her every wish +as far as it was humanly possible. + +The king returned soon after to the chamber of his august spouse, who the +moment she saw him became a perfect wasp. + +"How, sire?" she exclaimed. "So you are the first to disobey my orders?" + +"How disobey?" + +"Yes, sire! Did I not tell you that I want you to go and see the emperor, +and implore him to place himself in communication with the Pope in order +to see whether between them they could so manage that I might be God?" + +"Yes, you told me so, but--" + +"There are no buts for me. How is it that you are not already on the road +to comply with my orders? Now, none of your nice little jokes with me, if +you please--you, who are no more than the husband of the queen--and, if you +ruffle my feathers, I'll send you off to be hanged as soon as look at +you." + +"Come, child, don't be angry, you shall be obeyed instantly." + +"Remember, none of your pranks, now! And listen: go and tell that health- +killer whom you seem to have made one of your council, that if you don't +go to see the emperor, and perform in every point the commission which I +charge you with, he shall serve you as partner in your dance in the air." + +The king withdrew; and when he reported to the chief physician what his +wife had just said to him, the physician insisted more than ever on the +necessity of pleasing the august invalid in everything. + +So the king set out on his journey to the imperial court. The extravagant +and impious nature of his mission disturbed him greatly; but the +consideration gave him comfort that he was no longer a Juan nobody, as on +other occasions when he had made the same journey, but a monarch about to +consult with another monarch. The only thing that weighed at all on his +mind was the question of etiquette. + +"I don't know," said he, "for the life of me what shoes to tread in when I +address the emperor. I have heard it said that all we sovereigns call each +other cousins, though not a bit of cousinship exists between us: but how +do I know, if I call the emperor cousin, that he may not give me a blow +that would send all the teeth down my throat?" Occupied with such +thoughts, he arrived at the imperial court, and the emperor hastened to +receive him when he had scarcely set foot in the palace. + +"How is her majesty, Queen Dona Ramona?" asked the emperor kindly. + +"Bad enough, under present circumstances." + +"Man, that is the worst news yet! And what ails her?" + +"What the devil do I know? The evil one alone understands these women. If +your majesty could only guess the commission she has given me--" + +"Hallo, hallo! Well, let us hear it." + +"She says--but pshaw! One is ashamed to say it. She says to see if your +majesty could consult with the Pope, and between you manage to make her +God." + +"Eh! That is a greater request. Make her God, eh!" + +"Your majesty sees already that it is a piece of madness; for a woman +can't complain of the small advance in her career who to-day is a queen, +and not a year ago lived in a stable. A stable is a disgrace to nobody, +sure enough; for, after all, Our Lord, though he was God, lived in one +when he made himself man." + +"So the good Dona Ramona wishes to be God, eh!" + +"You've hit it, your majesty." + +"Well, we will please her as far as we are able. Let your majesty step +into the dining-room and drive the wolf from the door, and on returning +you will find your wife, if not changed into God, changed into something +which is like to him." + +The royal consort turned into the dining-room, but, do what he would, he +could scarcely swallow a mouthful. Everything seemed to disagree with him, +and the cause of it lay in his feeling within him a restlessness which +seemed to forebode some misfortune. He made his way homewards, and on +arriving at the palace of the crown he saw, with as great sorrow as +dismay, that the palace was closed and deserted. + +"What has happened here?" he inquired of a passer-by. + +"The emperor has put an end to the kingdom of Micomican, re-establishing +the ancient province, and re-incorporating it with the empire." + +Juan had neither courage nor strength to ask more. He wandered about for +hours and hours like one demented without knowing whither, when suddenly +he found himself at the door of the stable where he had lived with his +wife, and on pushing open the door, which revolved on its hinges, he found +his wife installed there once more. The only thing Godlike which the woman +who had entertained the criminal ambition of becoming like to him, +consisted in the similarity of her dwelling to the stable which God +occupied when he became man. + + + + +The Distaff. + + +"In der guten alten Zeit wo die Koenigen Bertha spann." + +"In the good old times when Queen Bertha span" is a thrifty proverb still +current in France and some parts of Germany where the distaff is yet seen +beneath the arm of the shepherdess, looking, as she tends her flock, +precisely like S. Genevieve just stept out from her canvas, or that more +modern saint of the hidden life, Germaine of Pibrac, who is always +represented with her spindle and distaff. In the very same fields where S. +Germaine watched her flocks and twirled her spindle in the old scriptural +way, keeping her innocent heart all the while united to God, have we seen +the young shepherdess clad in the picturesque scarlet or white capuchon of +the country, which covers their heads and half veils their forms--guarding +their sheep and spinning at the same time. + +And the same womanly implement is sometimes found in the hands of those of +gentle birth in those old lands where so many still cling to the +traditions of the past. We read of the now world-famous Eugenie de Guerin +that the same hand that wrote such charmingly naive letters and journals +did not disdain the spindle and the distaff. She writes thus in her +journal: "I have begun my day by fitting myself up a distaff, very round, +very firm, and very smart with its bow of ribbon. There, I am going to +spin with a small spindle. One must vary work and amusements: tired of a +stocking, I take up my needle and then my distaff. So time passes, and +carries us away on its wings." And again a day or two after: "I took my +distaff by way of diversion, but all the while I was spinning, my mind +spun and wound and turned its spindle at a fine rate. I was not at my +distaff. The soul just sets that kind of mechanical work going and then +leaves it." + +This reminds us of Uhland's verse: + + + "Long, long didactic poems + I spin with busy wheel, + The lengthened yarns of epic + Keep running off my reel: + + "My wheel itself has a lyrical whirr, + My cat has a tragic mew, + While my spindle plays the comic parts + And does the dancing too." + + +Eugenie's charming Arcadian life, passed in the primitive occupations of +spinning, sewing, superintending the kitchen--even going, like Homer's +Nausicaa, to the margin of the stream to wash the linen in the running +waters, and afterwards taking pleasure in spreading it all white on the +green grass, or seeing it wave on the lines: all this, we say, without +detracting from the poetry and grace of her nature, is enough to make us +recall with a sigh the good old days when Queen Bertha span. + +And this queen was _Berthe au grand pied_, the mother of Charlemagne, who +had one foot larger than the other, and hence her name: + + + "You are the beautiful Bertha, the spinner, queen of Helvetia, + She whose story I read at a stall in the streets of Southampton, + Who, as she rode on her palfrey o'er valley and meadow and + mountain, + Ever was spinning her thread from a distaff fixed to her saddle. + She was so thrifty and good, that her name passed into a proverb." + + +Whether this Queen of Helvetia is our Bertha with the great foot we know +not. The name is found in many curious old legends like the German one of +Frau Bertha, a kind of tutelar genius of spinners, with an immense foot +and a long iron nose, which doubtless served as a spindle. And an old +manuscript, long hidden in some obscure corner of a German monastery, +tells how King Pepin, wishing to wed the fair Bertha of Brittany, sent his +chief officers to bring her to his court. The steward, who had charge of +the escort, was not without ambitious views respecting his own daughter. +He ordered his servants to put Bertha to death on the way. But they, +instead of killing her, left her in a forest. Not long after--O happy +chance!--King Pepin, overtaken by night while hunting, awaited the dawn in +a house where he was served by the most beautiful maid his eyes had ever +beheld. Of course it was Bertha with her great foot, which, we may be +sure, she gracefully concealed beneath her flowing garments. And so they +were married. Old poems sing of her industry, and tell us she knew how to +spin like the princesses of scriptural and Homeric days. She is +represented, too, on old coins seated on a throne with a distaff in her +hands. All writers speak of her as _Berthe au grand pied_, but as +otherwise beautiful and skilful in wielding the earliest implement of +feminine industry. We may safely imagine her as tapping the mighty +Charlemagne, leader of peerless knights, while yet a boy, with her +convenient distaff; for her ascendency over him was such that he always +regarded her with great reverence, even after his elevation to power! + +And Bertha was not the only princess that laid her hand hold of the +spindle. When the tomb of Jeanne de Bourbon, wife of Charles V. of France, +was opened at St. Denis, among other things was found a distaff of gilded +wood, but greatly decayed. And there is another in the Hotel de Cluny, +once used by some queen of France, we forget whom, on which is carven all +the notable women of the Old Testament. + +So too the daughters of Edward the Elder of England, though carefully +educated, were so celebrated for their achievements in spinning and +weaving that the term spinster is said to be derived from them. + +And S. Walburga, the daughter of S. Richard, King of the Saxons, used to +spin and weave among the royal and saintly maidens of Wimburn Minster. It +was a common custom in those days. The distaff and the spindle were +considered "the arms of every virtuous woman." + +The ancients held the use of them as such an accomplishment that Minerva +is said to have come down to earth to teach the Greek women how to spin. +Venus herself did not disdain to take upon herself the semblance of a +spinner of fair wool when she appeared to Helen. + +And spinning was as universal an acquirement among the Jewish as the +Grecian women. They used to spin by moonlight on the housetops and, true +to the instinct of their sex, kept so faithful an eye on their neighbors +in the meanwhile that the ancient spinsters' tongues were potent in the +world of gossip. There is a tradition that S. Ann spun the virginal robes +of her immaculate child in the pure beams of the chaste Dian. + +Of the valiant woman in the Book of Proverbs it is said: "Her fingers have +taken hold of the spindle." And in Exodus we read that "the skilful women +gave such things as they spun, violet, purple, and scarlet, and fine linen +and goats' hair, all of their own accord," for the tabernacle. + +We are told that the Jewish maidens who devoted themselves to the service +of the temple were employed, among other things, in spinning the fine +linen on their spindles of cedar, or ithel, a species of the oriental +acacia, black as ebony and probably the same as the setim, or shittim +wood, of the Holy Scriptures. According to tradition, the Blessed Virgin +Mary, who passed her early days in the temple, participated and excelled +in all the pursuits then carried on. The _Protevangelion_ of S. James the +Less relates that, when a new veil was to be made for the temple of our +Lord, the priests confided the work to seven virgins of the tribe of +David. They cast lots to see "who should spin the gold thread, who the +blue, who the scarlet, and who the true scarlet." It fell to Mary's lot to +spin the purple. Leaving her work, one day, to draw water in her jar, the +angel drew near with his _Ave Maria_. + +A distaff lies at Mary's feet in Raphael's "Annunciation," and in many +other celebrated paintings she is represented with one. In a "Riposa" by +Albert Duerer she is depicted spinning from her distaff beside the Divine +Babe who is sleeping in its cradle: + + + "Inter fila cantans orat + Blanda, veni somnuli." + + +S. Bonaventura tells us that several of the early sacred writers speak of +our Blessed Lady's industry in spinning and sewing for the support of her +Son and S. Joseph in the land of Egypt. So reduced to poverty were they +that, according to him, she went from house to house to obtain work, +probably flax to spin as she sat watching the Holy Infant in the grove of +sycamores of traditional renown. Her unrivalled skill in spinning the fine +flax of Pelusium became a matter of tradition, and the name of _Virgin's +Thread_ has been given to that network of dazzling whiteness and almost +vaporous texture that floats over the deep valleys in the damp mornings of +autumn, says the Abbe Orsini. + +It is said the Church at Jerusalem preserved some of Mary's spindles among +its treasures, which were afterwards sent to the Empress Pulcheria, who +placed them in one of the churches of Constantinople. + +Other nations, too, had their famous spinsters. Dante's ancestor in +Paradise, looking back to earth, tells him of a Florentine dame of an +opulent family who, + + + "With her maidens drawing off + The tresses from the distaff, lectured them + Old tales of Troy, and Fiesole, and Rome." + + +And a Spanish writer of past times says, speaking of the model woman: +"Behold this wife who purchases flax that she may spin with her maids. See +her thus seated in the midst of her women." Thus did Andromache spin among +her attendants. + +So have we seen old nuns spinning in the cloisters of the remote provinces +of France: the white wool on their distaffs diminishing slowly and calmly +as their own even lives. They looked as if spinning out their own serene +destinies. Such a happy destiny is not reserved for all whose thread is +drawn out by Lachesis. + + + "Twist ye, twine ye! even so + Mingle shades of joy and woe, + Hope and fear, and peace and strife, + In the thread of human life." + + +At Rome there are two white lambs blessed on S. Agnes' day ("S. Agnes and +her lambs unshorn," says Keats) in her church on the Nomentan road, and +then they are placed in a convent till they are shorn, when their wool is +spun by the sacred hands of the nuns. Of this the pallium is made--the +distinctive mark of a metropolitan. + +I have called the distaff the earliest implement of feminine industry. +Such is the old tradition. There is a pathetic miniature of the twelfth +century depicting an angel giving Adam a spade and Eve a distaff previous +to their expulsion from Paradise: and on the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus +of the fourth century, Adam is represented with a sheaf of grain, for he +was to till the earth, and Eve with a lamb whose fleece she was to spin. +And we have our old English rhyme: + + + "When Adam delved and Eve span, + Where was then the gentleman?" + + +And so faithfully was the tradition handed down that the distaff has +always been regarded as a symbol of womanhood, which woman scorned to see +even in the hands of a Hercules. + +In these days, when even our rustic belles are overloaded with +accomplishments, the piano takes the place of "Hygeia's harp" on which the +fair maidens of the olden time loved to discourse fair music, like the +gentle Evangeline of Acadie, seated at her father's side, + + + "Spinning flax for the loom that stood in the corner behind her," + + +who, I fear, would be regarded in these days of improvement, at least in +our country, with nearly as much horror as those other indefatigable +spinners are by the good housewife: + + + "Weaving spiders, come not here; + Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence!" + + +What charming pictures some of us retain in our memories of our gray- +haired grandmothers of New England country life--delicately nurtured, +too--sitting down in the afternoon by the huge fire-place to spin flax on a +little carved wheel! How many of us carefully preserve such a wheel in +memory of those by-gone days, when we loved to linger and watch the +mysterious process, and look at the face that always was so kindly, and +listen to the whirr whose music is now hushed for ever! + +But though spinning by hand will soon become one of the lost arts, there +is one who will spin on till time shall be no more--one from whose distaff +is drawn out the web of our lives--the star-crowned Clotho: + + + "Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! + Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! + Life is short and beset by sin, + 'Tis only God endures for ever!" + + + + +A Martyr's Journey. + + +From The French. + +In the Beaujolais, the country _par excellence_ of beautiful women and +beautiful vines, a little village lies hidden among luxuriant arbors. Each +house is clothed in green leaves, and the wine, though rare, is not so +wonderful as the immense tuns that hold it. Yet Coigny, with its nectar, +its beautiful sky, its coquettish habitations its robust sons and +attractive daughters, had not a habitable church. Still it dreamed of one, +and four worthy priests worked hard and hopefully for the realization of +the dream. One of them climbed well his ladder of orders, and has since +become Bishop of Coutances; and if, as it is said, the zeal, piety, and +legitimate influence of four ecclesiastics will finish the Cathedral of +Cologne, notwithstanding the devil's theft of the plan, what might not be +hoped for Coigny? + +So nothing more need be told than that, from amidst the lovely, smiling +verdure of the little town, there sprang an exquisite white marble church, +a temptation to pray in as well as to see, and the admiration of the +entire province. + +Madame la Marquise de ---- gave all her inimitable guipures to ornament the +high altar, and Monsieur le Comte de ----, a great amateur in pictures, +placed a true Mignard--a Madonna with a lovely smile--upon the walls, even +before they dried. + +So each and all offered homage in the new house of God. + +Still the beautiful little church lacked a patron, a saint under whose +invocation it might be placed, and the blessed one must be represented by +his own venerable ashes, a relic of the past, a protection for the future. + +The village of Coigny, therefore, spared neither pains nor expense to be +satisfied in this regard, and the Holy Father was applied to to select the +patron. The dear old man replied favorably to the little town he could +scarcely find on the map, and which was more noted for bearing the cross +than ringing the bell; and a curious and grave ceremony took place. + +They opened the Roman Catacombs, and they descended into the vaults of the +cemetery of S. Cyriac, and there they chose the mortal remains of a +Christian martyr buried for many centuries. + +The stone that closed the cell bore a palm branch and the inscription, + + + Hilary At Rest, + + +and indicated he had died for the faith in the early ages of Christianity. +His bones and the size of his head denoted only the adolescent, scarcely +more than a child; while the whole expressed the courage of the man united +to the grace of the angel. + +The account from which this is taken adds, this young soldier of Christ +was found sleeping peacefully at his post, extended on his granite bier, +with his forehead cleft asunder, his neck cut open, of which the little +bottle by his side held the precious blood. The figure of the young martyr +had been covered with virgin wax, carefully enclosing the sacred bones, +and, attired in silk and embroidery, he is holding the palm branch in his +hand. The wounded head inclines as if bending to his murderers, his throat +lies open in its deep sword-wound, his hands and feet have bled, and the +purple tide gushes from his wounds and trickles over his limbs; but his +lips are shut with love, and his eyes are fixed, regarding with S. Stephen +the heavens opening to receive him. + +So this child of eighteen hundred years ago, this soldier of the faith, +taken from the Roman Catacombs, was sent by the Pope to Coigny. + +Can we not imagine his reception? Did not the village ring out its festal +bells, and scatter flowers on his path, and with thousands of candles in +the nave, and incense mounting far above the high altar, did not the +little church welcome this contemporary of Nero, who had travelled +surrounded by glorious palms in his own carriage over the line from Italy? + +He has come, and twenty priests bear him on their shoulders, and his final +resting-place is under the high altar. + +Coigny, the coquette, crowned by its green vine branches, bacchante-like, +the pious Coigny, has its martyr in the vaults of its own dear church, no +more nor less than if it were a basilica. + +True, he was an almost forgotten saint, and anonymously canonized, but the +Scriptures told us long ago, "God knows how to recompense his own." + + + + +Odd Stories: III. Peter The Powerful. + + +Long and loud was the flourish of trumpets that greeted the day on which +Philip the Mighty was born to his father's dukedom; so rare was the +promise of a babe. Need it be said that, nurtured under the eye of his +stern sire, he grew in the strength of justice? To such a degree had he +inherited the zeal of his ancestors, that while yet in his cradle he +strangled a wretched nurse for stealing his spoon; whereat there was +another flourish of trumpets. Subsequent reflections upon the loss of so +useful a servant taught him to restrain the exercise of his just powers; +and hence, when his tutors failed to instruct him within a given time in +the arts, sciences, languages, and literatures, he merely broke their +heads. We live to learn; and so it proved even to a prince as well endowed +as Philip the Mighty. In these early acts we can see the foundations of +that character which was afterwards so great a monument among men. + +During the famous period in which our prince served his sire in the +administration of justice, the dungeons were never empty of thieves and +wranglers, nor the axe long idle for want of miscreant heads. To a peasant +who once stole an apple, he said, "How now, varlet, dost confess?" +Answered the trembling churl: "Nay, most puissant lord, I stole not the +fruit." Then spoke Philip: "By my halidom, I'll mend thine honesty"; +whereupon the fellow was put on the rack till he broke a blood-vessel, +still not confessing, for it was death to steal an apple out of the duke's +garden. At night the peasant died in his bed of a hemorrhage, piously +acknowledging in his last moments that he had committed the theft; whereat +was another flourish of trumpets. Life is a great lesson, however, and it +must not be supposed that our powerful hero could content himself with a +few exploits at court when he felt that he had a mission to reform the +world. + +Therefore it was that Philip the Mighty set out upon a knight's errand to +slay all the witches, devils, malefactors, giants, goblins, and monsters +that came in his path. But one squire rode with him, bearing a golden +trumpet, which, when Peter had done to death a sour-faced hag who shrieked +at him on the mountain-side, he blew right merrily. Now, the old witch had +asked the valiant knight for justice against her lord at court. Life is a +science not to be mastered without blows; and Philip learned to slay and +fear not in such stout earnest that soon he won the renown of being, as in +fact he was called, the Champion Wrong-killer of the age. + +When a foul, black-hearted necromancer was tracked to his hiding-place, +what else should our good knight do but put him to the sword? When a five- +eyed dwarf was accused of deviltry, who else should carve him for the +crows but our duke's son? When a grim ogre, breathing death and fury, +beset him whose arm was so mighty, when malefactors pestered the land, +when monsters of all kind raged on every hand, who dealt them such +lightning doom as the champion wrong-killer? On every occasion did his +trusty squire blow the trumpet of gold right lustily, to the wonder of +lords and people. Now, it was whispered that the slain sorcerers had +helped husbandmen and artisans with their strange inventions; that the +malefactors were slaughtered outright for the crimes of their fellows; +that the giants were amiable men, sometimes, but provoked beyond +endurance; that dwarfs and witches were poor old people, seldom as bad as +they seemed to be. Nevertheless, the real monsters of the land increased +day by day, in spite of the champion killer's sword and his squire's +golden trumpet. + +Weary with much slaughter of false knights and caitiff wretches and +monsters, the paladin Philip resolved to undertake the deliverance of the +poor from the oppressions of the rich. Filled with this noble idea, he +slew a yeoman who was chastising his servant without mercy. Seeing a +number of slaves at work, he set them all free by killing their master. He +divided the estates of the rich among the poor. He distributed largesses +among multitudes of the needy. He rescued honest damsels who were being +carried away by villain lords. Alas! for an ingrate world. 'Twas rumored +that the yeoman had left a widow and seven children to mourn him. The +slaves became marauders; the poor quarrelled among themselves; the beggars +got drunk; and some of the honest damsels lamented their fallen lords. +Howbeit, the faithful squire blew his trumpet louder than ever. + +Meanwhile had our good knight grown religious, and burned men at the +stake; but the more the fuel, the greater the flame. The more lances he +shattered for honor's sake, the more swords he blunted for justice's sake; +the more money he spent to give feasts to beggars, and the more land he +parcelled among the poor, all the more honor, justice, bounty, estate, +remained to be won and adjusted. His sharp judgments had, after all, won +him nothing but the sound of his trumpet. He had killed the innocent and +robbed the poor, when he intended to do otherwise, and, if he executed +Heaven's judgments, it was by a kind of mistake. One thing he had not +slain--himself. + +All the while, he who had killed so many monsters was growing in bulk and +stature out of all proportion. As his legs and arms increased their +strength of muscle, his ears grew longer, and his eyes grew blinder. He +scorned, nay, devoured the weak he once defended, and, at last, a monster +himself, was killed by a conspiracy of those whose champion he once was. +For Philip, though a champion wrong-killer, was blind to his own wrong- +doing; and, though a reformer, never allowed people to reform themselves; +so he destroyed the wheat with the chaff and killed the good with the bad. + + + + +New Publications. + + + THE BOOK OF THE HOLY ROSARY. A Popular Doctrinal Exposition of its + Fifteen Mysteries, mainly Conveyed in Select Extracts from the + Fathers and Doctors of the Church. By the Rev. Henry Formby, of + the Third Order of St. Dominic. Embellished with thirty-six full- + page illustrations. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. + 1872. + + +The devotion of the Holy Rosary is one of the most beautiful which the +Catholic Church proposes to her children, and is also probably the one +which has been received by them everywhere, without distinction of +nationality or class, with the most sincere delight. Catholics, it is +true, are for the most part familiar with the general history and +significance of this devotional practice, which in itself forms a +compendium of popular theology. Most of the books, however, on this +subject, with which we are acquainted, are intended to excite Christians +to the frequent and devout use of this form of prayer, rather than to give +them a full and clear understanding of its natural connection with the +great and fundamental truths which form the basis of Christianity. The +book of F. Formby is both doctrinal and devotional; all the more +devotional because the piety which it inculcates is enlightened by true +Christian science. + +The work is divided into three parts corresponding with the three groups +of mysteries of which the Rosary is composed. The author prefaces each of +these groups with an introduction, in which he carefully compares its +mysteries with their corresponding types in the Old Testament. This +comparison is again instituted in a more particular manner as each mystery +in turn presents itself for elucidation. + +In treating of the different mysteries, he first quotes from Scripture +those passages upon which they are formed, and then adduces the +corresponding types from the Old Testament, still further illustrating the +subject by apposite quotations and allusions taken from the classics of +pagan literature. These are followed by extracts from the writings of the +great Fathers and Doctors of the church, many of which will be new to the +English reader. Thus each chapter of the book forms a comprehensive +treatise, both doctrinal and devotional, of the particular mystery in the +life of our divine Saviour or that of his Blessed Mother to which it is +devoted. + +Without going out of his way, F. Formby by the simple exposition of the +doctrine and practice of the church shows in the most conclusive manner +how utterly groundless are the objections of Protestants to Catholic +devotion to the Mother of Christ. We have not for a long time read a book +with which we are so perfectly pleased as with this of F. Formby. The +clergy especially will find in it a rich mine from which to draw +instruction for the people. It may be read with profit, however, by all +classes of persons, as the plain and simple style in which it is written +does not raise it above the comprehension of even uneducated minds. The +book is ornamented with thirty-six full-page woodcuts, unusually excellent +both in design and execution; which, added to the attractions of clear +typography and tasteful binding, make it a work of art as well as of +religion. + + + HENRY PERREYVE. By A. Gratry, Pretre de l'Oratoire, etc. + Translated by special permission. London: Rivingtons. 1872. (New + York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.) + + +After a life of singular purity and great activity in the cause of truth, +F. Gratry entered upon his rest on the 6th of February, 1872. His +impulsive and ardent nature hurried him for a moment, towards the close of +his life, into a controversy which, for a time, caused the greatest +anxiety to his friends, and threatened to throw a cloud over an existence +otherwise so brilliant and precious. His heart, however, always remained +loyal to the church and to truth, and, when he was made aware of his +error, he himself was the first to acknowledge it, and to do all in his +power to atone for it. The writings of F. Gratry have always possessed for +us a singular charm. He has in a high degree the gift of making his +thoughts contagious. He throws the warmth and life of his whole heart into +his writings; his words breathe and palpitate and affect one like the +presence of a noble and high-wrought nature. In Henry Perreyve he found a +subject peculiarly fitted to call forth these qualities of his style. The +history of the outer life of Henry Perreyve was uneventful and short. +Designed by his parents for the bar, disposed by his own vigorous and +impetuous nature to the military life, he was called of God to the +priesthood. When he had once recognized the voice of God, he devoted to +this high vocation all the energies of a most gifted and courageous +nature. At an early age he developed remarkable talents both for writing +and speaking. He possessed the divine gift of eloquence, and Lacordaire, +who loved him more than any other man in the world, looked forward to the +day when his own voice, having grown feeble by age, would be born again +with redoubled strength and warmth on the lips of Henry Perreyve. Alas, +that such hope should be delusive! He to whom Lacordaire wrote, "You live +in my heart eternally as my son and my friend," was destined soon to +follow his great preceptor to the grave. He died in 1865, when but thirty- +four years old. The story of his life, as told by F. Gratry, is a poem +full of the most exalted sentiment, and impressed with the highest form of +beauty. "All who knew him," says his biographer, "agree on this point, +that the one characteristic which stamps his outward life and his inward +soul is only to be expressed by that word Beauty. All the inward beauty +wherewith courage, intelligence, devotion, and goodness can invest a soul, +and all the outward expression of beauty with which such a soul can stamp +the living man, were combined in him. Nature and grace had alike done +their very best for him; he overflowed with their choicest gifts." Whoever +will read F. Gratry's sketch will be persuaded that these words are not +too strong. The life of Henry Perreyve is another confirmation of the +truth that the ideal type of perfect manhood can be developed only in the +Catholic Church. We especially recommend this book to the young men of our +country. Even though it should not inspire them with the exalted ambition +of consecrating their lives to God, it will at least teach them the +transcendent beauty of Christian courage, of self-devotion, of nobility of +purpose. + +Henry Perreyve was most ardent in urging his friends to aspire to the +priesthood. In this connection F. Gratry remarks: "Truly, I know no wiser +enthusiasm than that which stimulates men to become laborers for God. We +have too few priests; we have far too many soldiers. No man becomes a +priest whether he will or no; but on all sides the strong hand of the +powers that be constrains men to be soldiers whether they will or no. Why +is the priest's lot to be counted worse than the soldier's? He who chooses +the sacred toil of God's harvest-field for his life's labor, chooses the +better part. Surely his ambition is beyond all comparison the greatest, +best and noblest: his work the most fruitful, the most necessary. That is +but a sorry delusion by which the world would set the priesthood before +men as in the shadow of death, and other careers as in a glow of light and +glory." + + + THE SPOKEN WORD; or, The Art of Extemporary Preaching: Its + Utility, its Danger, and its True Idea. With an easy and practical + Method for its Attainment. By Rev. Thomas J. Potter, Professor of + Sacred Eloquence in the Missionary College of All Hallows, Author + of "Sacred Eloquence," etc., etc. Boston: P. Donahoe. 1872. + + +One of the most favorable omens attending the great Catholic revival in +the English-speaking world is the appearance of works bearing upon the +various duties of the sacred ministry. In the earlier days of struggle in +England and America, the missionary priest entered upon a life of toil +which gave but scant opportunity for adding to the fund of learning that +served as its outfit. Hence, while the greatness of the Catholic +champions, who entered the arena armed _cap-a-pie_ by a long and thorough +training, was brought into striking relief, the depression of minds less +trained and of less capacity among the clergy was marked by the absence of +a native literature suited to their class. + +When a priest rarely had a day free from harassing labors, and was barely +able to run into debt for the brick, beams, and shingles of a nondescript +building wherein to assemble his flock, he certainly did well if, after +reading his breviary and peeping into his moral theology, he kept himself +informed of current events. Such circumstances of poverty were not +favorable to literature or eloquence. Ecclesiastical art, with its +intricate ceremonial and its peculiar music, was in a fair way to be lost; +and the refinements of clerical education were rather sources of +discouragement in the present than of bright anticipation for the future. + +But this phase, having in some measure passed away in England, has lost +much of its gloom for us in America. Pastors have more time to prepare +instructions for their people. Congregations by their magnitude and +intelligence call forth the highest efforts of eloquence. The instincts of +Catholic devotion require that God's house should be made a house of +prayer, and demand, for their satisfaction and increase, the sacristy and +choir, which shall be "for a glory and a beauty." Meanwhile, increasing +wealth furnishes means for fulfilling the requirements of the Roman +Ritual. + +The work which we notice is one of many signs of the times, and also one +of a series of similar efforts by its earnest and experienced author. It +is written in a clear and flowing style, slightly marred, however, by the +frequent repetition of the adjective "expedite," as qualifying the noun +"knowledge," and the perpetual recurrence of "a man who," or "the man +who." The general effect is nevertheless pleasing, and the book itself +ought to be read. The title contains a fair analysis of the work. It +remains for us to say that the author is thorough in the treatment of his +subject. His hints and warnings are useful to those accustomed to preach +extempore; while his suggestions for the composition of sermons are +entirely applicable to those who perfect their oratorical preparations +before ascending the pulpit. + +The appearance of the book is also quite in its favor, and we might adduce +it as a sign of the times in a department to which we have not yet +alluded. + + + THE BELOVED DISCIPLE. By the Rev. Father Rawes, O.S.C. London: + Burns, Oates & Co. 1872. New York: Sold by The Catholic + Publication Society. + + +This is a beautiful sketch of the life of "the disciple whom Jesus loved." +Father Rawes, in common with S. Jerome, S. Augustine, and S. Bernard, has +a great and special devotion to the Evangelist S. John. This little book +is well written and is eminently devotional and instructive. + + + UNAWARES. By the Author of "The Rose Garden." Boston: Roberts + Bros. 1872. + + +One experiences a sense of rest and refreshment in reading this +unpretending volume. It is a narrative of French life, not at all after +the sensational order, but beautifully wrought out, with enough of romance +to sustain the interest and chain the attention of the reader, but not a +line or word that one could wish unwritten. With a slight plot and few +incidents, this pleasing story charms us with a delightfully artistic +description of a quaint old town in France, where the grand cathedral +stands, the central object of attraction--solemn, steadfast, ever +varying--severe or tender, as the case may be--but always inconceivably +peaceful. + +The characters, drawn with a skilful hand and admirably sustained, the +chaste beauty of the language and style, with the gems of thought worthy +of life-long remembrance scattered throughout the volume, lead us to +desire an acquaintance with other books this attractive author may have +written. + + + THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER. By George MacDonald. Boston: Roberts Bros. + 1872. + + +If not to be sensational is a merit, this book certainly has that merit. +The Introduction, which in most books is apt to be dull, and often is +skipped by the reader who wishes to plunge _in medias res_, is here the +spiciest part, the sugar-coating of the pill--if it be not ill-natured to +call this work a pill. A very mild one it is, and the patient, if none the +better, will certainly be none the worse for taking it. Its object seems +to be to promulgate some Presbyterian ideas concerning the means to be +used for elevating the spiritual condition of the poor. The London poor is +the class considered, but the general rules laid down may be supposed good +for all poor. Some very queer ideas are broached; among others, that it is +better to give a workman a gold watch than a leg of mutton, because by so +doing you will pay him a compliment for which he will be grateful, but +that he should have nothing given him "which he ought to provide for +himself--such as food, or clothing, or shelter." There is a Miss Clare who +is possessed by such a missionary spirit and love for the poor, that we +cannot help wishing she might find her proper sphere by becoming a +Catholic "Little Sister of the Poor," or some other equally useful sister +of charity. The church utilizes such women much more wisely than they +manage to find the best way alone. There is a chapter of Miss Clare's +reading and discussing of the Gospel with some workmen, which, if not +positively irreverent itself, will be very likely to make the reader, who +has any sense of humor, feel so in spite of his better instincts. + +The Vicar's daughter, Mrs. Percivale, is a very sprightly and well-drawn +character, whom we cannot help liking very much. She is the teller of the +story, and in this Dr. MacDonald has shown much skill. It is in some parts +so like a woman's way of thinking and writing, that we can hardly believe +it to be the work of a man, especially in Mrs. Percivale's thoughts after +the birth of her child. And in this the author approaches very nearly the +Catholic ideal: + + + "I had read somewhere--and it clung to me although I did not + understand it--that it was in laying hold of the heart of his + Mother that Jesus laid his first hold of the world to redeem it; + and now at length I began to understand it. What a divine way of + saving us it was--to let her bear him, carry him in her bosom, wash + him and dress him and nurse him and sing him to sleep! ... Such a + love might well save a world in which were mothers enough." + + +But alas! he makes the vicar himself save his faith from shipwreck by +marrying the woman he wants--a queer and new argument for the marriage of +the clergy, to be able to _believe_ through such means. Not that this is +intended by the author for any such argument; he being a Presbyterian, +makes no question of the propriety and wisdom of the clergy marrying, but +that a clergyman should be taught _belief_ by getting the woman of his +choice _is_ "passing strange." He also prefers giving his daughter to a +sceptic rather than to a "thoroughly religious man," for fear the latter +might "_confirm her in doubt_." To a Catholic, this seems a wonderful +conclusion. + +The chapter called "Child Nonsense" is nonsense indeed, and much below +"Mother Goose" in literary merit. We wonder it found a place in the +volume, which contains much genuine wit and good writing. + +The illustrations to the book are clever, and the type and binding +attractive. + + + AMBITION'S CONTEST; or, Faith and Intellect. By "Christine." + Boston: P. Donahoe. 1872. + + +We cannot, perhaps, give a better idea of the style and scope of this +modest volume than by a quotation from the Preface: "It would be +presumptuous to say that I have attempted this little work in order to aid +in preventing these numerous wrecks of the soul; for where other and +gifted pens, essaying so much and so well in this direction, still find it +difficult to do all _they_ would, it would be folly to suppose that my +crude effort could accomplish anything. Still it is an effort made for the +purpose of accomplishing _some_ good, and written under the auspices of +her who has never yet failed to assist the weak, the ever-glorious and +Blessed Virgin-Mother of God, it may perhaps add a mite to that which is +now being done for the proper training of our Catholic youth." + + + GARDENING BY MYSELF. By Anna Warner. New York: A. D. F. Randolph. + 1872. + + +We cannot imagine a pleasanter way of studying horticulture than by +adopting Miss Warner's volume as a text-book. We can overlook the little +attempts at moralizing, after the evangelical fashion, as she goes along, +in view of the dismal theological efforts made by her sister (if we +mistake not) a few years since. We advise our lady readers who have space +for cultivating flowers to consult this little manual, assured that the +occupation of which it discourses, and its results, will bring them a +large store of unalloyed enjoyment. + +THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY has in press, and will publish early in +November, _The Life and Times of Sixtus the Fifth_, by Baron Hubner. +Translated from the original French by James F. Meline. + + + + + +THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XVI., NO. 92.--NOVEMBER, 1872. + + + + +Centres Of Thought In The Past. Second Article. The Universities. + + +The change from the monastic to the scholastic era was one of which we can +hardly form an idea. As radical as that brought about in politics by the +tempest of 1793, it was less sudden, and, though to the full as dangerous +as the unhappy "Reformation," it was fortunately shorn of its heretical +perils by the vigorous and successful hand laid upon it by the church. +Instead of producing an organized system of antagonism to revealed truth, +which it seemed at one time on the very verge of doing, it became so +thoroughly absorbed into the church's system that to many minds +"scholasticism" is synonymous with "bigotry." Yet how opposite was the +reality to the idea which it conveys to the modern mind! The real temper +of the church, the temper which will be hers eternally in heaven, is the +temper of Mary; the contemplative, monastic ideal of perfect peace. In the +XIIIth century (we say the XIIIth typically, for the change was gradually +working some time before, and only grew to its maturity in that age), a +giant intellectual convulsion took place, and the church was rudely +wakened out of her placid ecstasy, to find herself assailed by brilliant +and popular fallacies, urged by men of dazzling talent and fearless powers +of questioning. It was as if some holy monk, who from childhood to ripe +old age had spent his life on his knees before the silent tabernacle of a +huge and perfect abbey-church, were suddenly to be startled into action by +the rude attack of a sacrilegious band on the very altar at whose steps he +had worshipped so long. See him spring to his feet, and with unexpected +strength throw himself before the priceless treasure, quell by his eagle +glance the bewildered assailers of his peace, and convert by his heaven- +dictated eloquence those very men into saints, those enemies into friends, +those proud opponents into fellow-watchers at the same hallowed shrine. So +sprang the church to the defence of those doctrines which hitherto it had +been mainly her duty to _guard_, and the struggle, distasteful as it must +have been at first, nevertheless ended by producing a new harvest of +saints, and increasing the human prestige as well as the spiritual armory +of the church. The reader will no doubt be pleased to see what the writers +already quoted have to say of this mighty intellectual revolution, and we +gladly yield to them the field of description. "It will suffice to +reconcile us to the temporary necessity of the change," says the author of +_Christian Schools and Scholars_, "that it was accepted by the church, and +that she set her seal to the due and legitimate use of those studies which +were to develop the human intellect to its full-grown strength. Nay, more, +she absorbed into herself an intellectual movement which, had she opposed +it, would have been directed against her authority, and so to a great +extent she neutralized its powers of mischief. The scholastic philosophy +which, without her direction, would have expanded into an infidel +rationalism, was woven into her theology itself, and made to do duty in +her defence, and that wondrous spectacle was exhibited, so common in the +history of the church, when the dark and threatening thunder-cloud, which +seemed about to send out its lightning-bolts, only distils in fertilizing +rain." Speaking of S. Dominic, Prior Vaughan, in his _Life of S. Thomas of +Aquin_, says: "He felt that a single man was but a drop in the ocean in +the midst of such a vast and organized corruption. Man may be met by man, +but a system only can oppose a system. A religious institution, combining +the poverty of the first disciples of Christ with eloquence and learning, +would alone stand a chance of success in working a regeneration." He tells +us further on that Albertus Magnus, the master of S. Thomas, saw that +"Aristotle must be christianized, and that faith itself must be thrown +into the form of a vast _scientific_ organism, through the application of +christianized philosophy to the _dogmata_ of revealed religion." The state +of men's minds is thus pithily described by the same author: "For, +especially at this period, theory speedily resolved itself into practice; +what to-day was a speculation of the schools, to-morrow became a fact; men +lived quickly, thought quickly, and acted quickly in the days of William +of Champeaux and Abelard." Still, in summing up the character of those +strange, contradictory times, so eminently "ages of faith" when contrasted +with our day, yet ages of jarring contention when compared with the +previous centuries, Prior Vaughan gives us the brighter side of the +picture also: "Men were not startled in those days by the unusual deeds +and privileges of chosen men. They took God's word for granted. They +believed what they saw; they did not pry and test and examine their souls. +They got nearer the truth than we do. Their minds were not corroded by +false science." And in a footnote he adds, speaking of the great +difference between heresy in the middle ages and heresy now: "In this (the +reverence for authority) is seated the great distinction between the +darkness of those days and the darkness of the present. Then, men fell +away in detail, they denied this or that truth, or fanatically set up as +teachers of novel doctrines, or were cruel, or superstitious, or fond of +dress, or of excitement, or self-display. But they held to the master- +principle of order and of salvation, they did not reject the authority of +the teaching church, or presume to call in question the directive power +and controlling office of the sovereign pontiff." + +Now, let us at the outset anticipate one question our readers may very +naturally ask themselves: Have we undertaken a sketch of the history of +the church, or that of human thought and progress? The latter, +undoubtedly. Then, how is it that "the church" runs through the whole, +like the ground melody of the system? How is it that, even in the +emancipating times on which we have now come, the doctors and masters of +the schools are all monks and clerics, the theses chosen from Scripture +texts, the disputes all turning on points of doctrine, and those, too, +uncompromisingly of _Catholic_ doctrine? We can only answer that such are +the facts; secular learning hardly existed, and what there was of it was +so tinged with religion that it was hardly distinguishable from that of +theologians. Take Dante, for instance, an accomplished scholar, a patriot, +a politician, and a keen philosopher. Who would not think him a priest and +a theologian, from the way he has cast his grand and unrivalled poem? It +is a summary of Catholic doctrine and tradition, a poetical version of S. +Thomas' _Summa_, without some knowledge of which it is absolutely +impossible to read the third part, the _Paradiso_, and _understand_ it. We +cannot help it if we seem to be sketching ecclesiastical, while we are +engaged on intellectual, history. Never before the "Reformation" were they +divorced, and no better proof than this could be adduced of the +essentially teaching mission of the church. + +The proximate cause of the greatness of the University of Paris may be +traced through four or five generations of scholars up to our Saxon master +Alcuin. His pupil Rabanus, the great Abbot of Fulda, formed Lupus of +Ferrieres in his own mould; he in turn instructed Henry of Auxerre, the +_scholasticus_ or master of the Auxerre school, where he found Remigius, +destined to become the re-establisher of sacred studies at Rheims, the +Canterbury of France. From Rheims this Remigius removed to Paris (in the +Xth century), and from his time the schools of that city continued to +increase in reputation and importance till they developed into the great +university. He it was "who opened the first public school which we know +with any certainty to have been established in Paris."(81) The first +rudiments of the laws governing the greatest corporate institution of +scholastic times seem to have sprung from the very disorders occasioned by +the immense numbers and pugnacious national characteristics of the rival +students of all nations who flocked to Paris. In 1195, we find a certain +John, Abbot of S. Alban's, associated with the _body of elect +masters_,(82) and the year previous Pope Celestine III. ruled that the +students should be subject to ecclesiastical tribunals only, and should be +exempt from all civic interference in their affairs on the part of the +town authorities.(83) In 1200, the university is acknowledged by Philip +Augustus as a corporate body, governed by a head who shall not be +responsible for his acts to any civil tribunal whatsoever. And now begins +in good earnest a system the like of which was never seen, and for +brilliancy as for license will never be surpassed. It is like plunging +into the seething cauldron of a "witches' Sabbath" to read of the +marvellous and feverish state of things in the Paris of the XIIIth +century, and even of that of earlier days. For a vivid description of the +turbulent city we can refer our readers to the recent work of the +Benedictine, Prior Vaughan, and to the no less graphic pen of Victor Hugo +in his _Notre Dame de Paris_. A grotesqueness wholly French pervades the +latter work, but gives perhaps a truer picture of the reality than any +less fastidious language could convey. In the Paris of old, as in our own +day, things seem to have been inextricably mingled: the sage and the +buffoon are elbowing each other in the streets; students who have come for +fashion's sake flaunt their vulgar splendor and their disgusting +shamelessness in vice in the face of the poor scholar who sits attentive +and eager on the _straw_-covered floor of the lecture-room; midnight +orgies that seldom end in less than murder take place within a few feet of +the oases of monastic life, where the canonical hours are still faithfully +repeated and _the rule_ still silently kept up. Vanity and frivolity are +there, and the arrogance of wealthy dunces. Witness the young man whose +father sent him to Paris with an annual allowance of a hundred _livres_. +"What does he do?" asks a chronicler of that time, Odofied. "Why, he has +his books bound and ornamented with gold initials and strange monsters, +and has a new pair of boots every Saturday." This was at the time that +pointed shoes were the "rage," and the university even passed a decree +against them as follies unbecoming a scholar.(84) "We read of starving, +friendless lads with their unkempt heads and tattered suits, who walked +the streets, hungering for bread and famishing for knowledge, and +hankering after a sight of some of those famous doctors of whom they had +heard so much when far away in the woods of Germany or the fields of +France."(85) Many had to share their miserable garments with their +companions, and take it by turns to wear their _one_ tunic so as to make a +decent appearance in the lecture-hall, while the rest stayed at home. +Others spent all they had on parchment, and were in need of oil for their +lamps to study at nights. Long before the collegiate system became +general, the lay-students were huddled together in unhealthy tenements, +over the shops of the burghers, with whom they had many an affray on the +score of extortion and injustice. While the rich students employed their +many servants and the tradesmen they patronized as instruments in their +shameful intrigues, the poor scholars struggled on, some selling books at +ruinously low prices, others absolutely begging their food in the streets +or at the doors of the rich shopkeepers, while others again, more +miserable because less determined, took refuge in the taverns, and drank +away the little remains of vitality left in them, or as often were +despatched in the unseemly brawls which tavern-life was sure to foster. +Then, as the brighter side of the picture, there were the monasteries, +especially that of the Dominicans of S. James, where eager scholars +studied in peace and order; the cloisters of Notre Dame, where venerable +orthodoxy was long entrenched; the Sorbonne, destined to be for ages the +most celebrated school of theology in Europe, and to hold its own long +after the mediaeval university had decayed. Disputed cases were sent to the +Sorbonne for decision, popes took the advice of its doctors on important +ecclesiastical matters, and its students possessed even greater personal +immunities than their fellows of other colleges. Then, if we are to take +the personal representatives of this wonderful university into account, +what a forest of illustrious names starts up before our bewildered vision! +In the XIth century, quite at the latter end, we are introduced to the +gifted Abelard, who during the first half of the XIIth century gathered +together all the stormy elements of the age, and centred upon himself the +attention of the intellectual world. "He appears to have possessed," says +Prior Vaughan, "the special gift of rendering articulate the cravings of +the age in which he lived.... One day he took into his hands Ezechiel the +Prophet, and boasted that next morning he would deliver a lecture on the +Prophecy. With bitter irony some of his companions implored him to take a +_little_ longer time to prepare; he replied with disdain, 'My road is not +the road of custom, but the road of genius.' He was true to his word, and +mockery was speedily turned to amazement when his companions, overcome +with his eloquence, followed him verse after verse as he unfolded the +hidden sense of the obscurest of prophecies, with a facility of diction +and clearness of exposition and a readiness of resource which subdued the +mind and captivated the imagination." Success was his idol, pride his +natural temper. He thought no question above his understanding, no truth +beyond his apprehension; he threw down the glove in the face of a system +more for the sake of routing its exponent than of impugning its truth, and +when all eyes were upon him, and the populace of Paris rushed madly out on +its door-steps and house-tops to cheer him as he passed, his end was won +and his dearest wish fulfilled. One by one all his opponents were +silenced; from school to school he rose, till at last the chair of Notre +Dame was his; his name eclipsed that of all the masters of Paris, and +drove from men's minds even the fame of the doctors of the church.... And +then what was the climax? It is told in three words--Heloise, Soissons, and +Sens. True, there was a long interval between the two misfortunes +represented by the first two names, and that galling one which at last +proved his salvation at Sens, and during the interval his fame revived, +and again at Paris, though at S. Genevieve and no longer at Notre Dame, +his _prestige_ broke down all prejudice and his victorious career began +afresh. Then see the last drama of his stormy, eventful life. He meets S. +Bernard at Sens before a court of bishops, monks, and princes, his own +disciples crowding triumphantly around him, a huge concourse of people +heaving before him, he "the spokesman of thousands, from whose midst he +would, as it were, advance and proclaim the creed of human reason."(86) +Opposed to him stands one whose cheeks are furrowed with tears, and who +has made no preparation to meet the irrefragable dialectician, the prince +of debate, but who, "though in appearance but an emaciated mystic from the +solitude of his cell, would represent as many thousands more who saw +beyond the range of human vision, and judged the highest natural gifts of +God from the elevation of a life of faith."(87) History gives us the +thrilling _denouement_ in startlingly simple form. When summoned to +defend, deny, or explain the heretical propositions drawn from his +brilliant works, Abelard turns in sudden contempt from the august +assembly, and answers thus: "I appeal to the Sovereign Pontiff." But all +felt that this was defeat, the blow had been struck, the heresy was dead. +And the heretic? Let many who have tried to-day to walk in the dizzy path +his footsteps have marked out, strive rather to imitate the end of his +life; let them follow him to the solitary Benedictine Abbey where his +gentle friend Peter the Venerable led him like a little child, and where +his earnest, passionate nature, that could do nothing by halves, soon +transformed him into a saint. And let the world which knows him chiefly +through his sin and early shame fix its eyes upon him as one who, having +abdicated honors greater than those of the greatest throne, having +sorrowed with more than David's sorrow, and taught with more than +Solomon's wisdom, at last found peace and justification in a narrow cell +and in his daily avocations of instructing a small and obscure community +on "divine humility and the nothingness of human things."(88) Among the +other great names that stand out in the tumult of Paris as stars of +learning and holiness are William of Champeaux, Abelard's chief adversary, +and the founder of that saintly school of S. Victor which gathered in one +the spirit of the old cloisters with that of the new scholastic teachers, +and led the way through its famous doctor-saints, Hugh and Richard, to the +final welding together of the new form of theology, the incomparable +_Summa_ of S. Thomas. Then, too, we have the preacher Fulk of Neuilly, who +became a scholar at a ripe age, and soon surpassed the young students +whose aim was display rather than knowledge--the man who preached the fifth +crusade at the tournament of Count Thibault de Champagne,(89) and was +followed by such crowds that, to rid himself of them and their +inconvenient homage (shown by cutting pieces out of his habit), he called +out, "My habit is not blessed, but I will bless the cloak of yonder man, +and you can take what you please."(90) John of St. Quentin, also, a famous +doctor, who, preaching on holy poverty and the vanity of all learning, all +riches, and all honors, suddenly stops, descends the pulpit-stairs, kneels +at the feet of the astonished prior of the Dominicans, and will not rise +before the latter has thrown around him his own black cloak and enrolled +him in the army of that holy poverty he had just praised with so much +zeal. Then Albert the Great, whose followers were so numerous that he had +to leave the schools and speak in the open air, so that the square where +he delivered his lectures was called _Place du maitre Albert_, which name +later on became corrupted into the form it still bears, Place Maubert. +Albert brings before us the school of Cologne, inferior of course to the +mighty university, but yet a centre, at least for Germany. There S. Thomas +of Aquin first studied, and now and then astonished his undiscerning +companions by the "bellowings of the great dumb Sicilian ox," until he was +finally sent to Paris, the scene of his matchless and altogether spiritual +triumph. In him, the heir of the old Benedictine school of _quies_, +sanctity worked that marvellous union of the old spirit and the new which +ended by harmonizing the truths of the church with the clamoring +aspirations of a new and venturesome age. But, inseparably connected +though he be with the crisis of the XIIIth century, when passion was at +its hottest, and the intoxication of world-wide success made Paris reel +like a drunken man, we feel nothing but peace in the life of the Angel of +the Schools, the greatest scholar of the European university. A divine +calm seems to curtain off his soul from the contentions in which his mind +and body are engaged; his lessons seem rather to be given from a holy of +holies than from a professor's chair, and, while we see in him the +greatest thinker of the age, we feel that above all he was its greatest +saint. One might say of him, with all due reverence, that he was the only +man of that turbulent and questioning day who had looked upon the face of +God and lived. Beside him was his gentle friend, Bonaventure, of whom, +though a professor also, we hear but little intellectually, but whom the +highest authority on earth has sealed as a doctor of the church, a burning +seraph of love. + +And here we must leave that greatest of centres, Paris, whose prosperity +at that time seemed so unalterable, and take a glance, necessarily a +cursory one, at the other continental universities. Bologna undoubtedly +claims the first place. It was called the "Mater Studiorum" of Italy, and +vied more successfully with Paris than any other of the universities. The +great Countess Mathilda of Tuscany, the liberal patroness of learning and +protectress of the Holy See, was connected with its foundation, and by the +end of the XIth century it was celebrated as the first law school in +Europe.(91) This characteristic it always retained, while in the XIIth +century canon law began to be equally studied there. Connected with +Bologna was the publication of the _Decretals of Gratian_, a summary of +the decrees of the popes, of a hundred and fifty councils, of selections +from various royal codes, and of extracts from the fathers and other +ecclesiastical writers.(92) The few errors in this gigantic work have +often served as a peg whereon to hang many calumnies against the church; +but the whole scope of the undertaking, so bold in its conception, so +lucid in its exposition--has it ever been sufficiently examined outside the +church? And will the world be astonished to know who was its compiler and +who spent twenty-five years of his hidden life upon it? A simple +Benedictine monk of Chiusi, of whom nothing is known but his immortal +work. + +M. de Maistre has cleverly said, "_Grattez le Russe et vous trouverez le +Tartare_," and we might adapt the pithy saying thus: Raise but the +thinnest crust of what we call civilization, and you will find beneath the +solid structure, the immovable foundation of monasticism. + +In 1138, Frederic Barbarossa consulted the Bolognese doctors as to the +framing of a code of laws for his Germano-Italian Empire, and in return +for their help gave them the _Habita_, or series of protective ordinances +which raised the Italian university almost to the level of that of Paris. +Alexander III., formerly a theologian in its schools, also favored +Bologna, and a tide of scholars from all parts of Europe began to flow +towards the Apennines. Among these we find S. Thomas of Canterbury, who, +as we know, made such brave use of the legal science he acquired there. +Bologna was the second centre of the Dominican Order, the teaching order +of the church--the instrument raised up in the warm-hearted but intemperate +middle ages to guide aright those lava-streams of misdirected enthusiasm +which at one time threatened to rationalize or fanaticize the intellectual +world. It is at Bologna that we read of the miracles of the gentle and +bright S. Dominic, and of the angels that constantly followed him to do +the bidding of him who through opposition and misunderstanding was always +doing God's bidding. Here, too, S. Thomas of Aquin came once, and, being +unknown to the procurator of the convent, was required to carry the basket +while his companion collected the friars' daily pittance through the +streets. A true monk, he gladly obeyed, and was pained and confused when +some of the passers-by told the procurator of the mistake he had made. + +Italy was fruitful in universities, for, to mention only prominent names, +there were Padua, Pavia, Salerno, and Naples, besides Rome, where the +tradition of learning, especially sacred learning, was never quite broken. +Padua was an offshoot from Bologna, and became famous in the XIIIth +century for its devotion to classic literature and the liberal arts. At +the time of the "Renaissance" it had become, however, a notorious focus of +atheism.(93) Salerno was a school of medicine, and Pavia a brilliant and +wicked resort of every intellectual aberration. We remember reading an +excellent description of its vices, its dangers, and its attractions, in +the life of a Venetian, a poet and child of genius, the friend and +librettist of Mozart, whose name we cannot, however, recall. Even in those +days of moral decadence the picture seemed appalling, and at Pavia as at +Paris, as at Oxford in old times and our own day, there appears to have +been no lack of brainless young profligates whose college career was a +disgrace to their early education, and must have been a remorse prepared +for their more sober conscience in later life. + +The University of Naples, as we learn from Prior Vaughan, was the creation +of Frederick II., the Sybarite emperor whose splendid barbaric physique +knew how to make all Eastern luxury of body and Greek luxury of mind +minister to his sovereign pleasure. The description of his harem, his +kiosks, his palaces, his gardens at Naples, reads like a page from the +_Arabian Nights_, and rival the impossible tales that are told of Bagdad's +lavish magnificence under the caliphs. Utterly pagan the university seems +to have avowedly been. It had no being of its own, but was a royal +appurtenance, as the other institutions of Frederick II. Learning was a +luxury, and it behooved the emperor to have all luxuries at his feet. +Students from all parts of his kingdom of Naples were compelled by +arbitrary enactments to study nowhere else but in the exotic university; +the professors were all paid from the public treasury, and among them, +with characteristic pride and contemptuous eclecticism, the imperial +patron had canonists, theologians, and monks. Astrology and the wildest +theories were broached, Michael Scott, the pretended seer and alchemist, +was conspicuous for his brilliant talents and pagan tendencies, the +existence of the soul was freely questioned, materialism openly professed, +and many _literati_ ostentatiously paraded their preference of the +philosophy of Epicurus or Pythagoras over the religion of Jesus Christ. A +secret society is also alluded to in a popular poem of the day, its +express purpose being the _expunging of Christianity and the introducing +of the exploded obscenities of paganism in its place_.(94) This reminds us +of Disraeli's _Lothair_, in which such prominence is given to a secret +society called _Madre Natura_, framed for the identical purpose we have +just mentioned. It is said to have existed ever since the time of Julian +the Apostate, and always with the same intent. The materialistic theories +of the artist Phoebus concerning the absolute necessity of "beauty worship" +and the superiority of the Aryan over the Semitic races (or principles) +are only modern echoes of this pestilential teaching of the deification of +materialism. Whether Disraeli, descended from that high race whose history +and laws are a standing protest, and have been for ages a bulwark, against +the "concupiscence of the flesh," believes in these theories, is more than +we can tell; he has at any rate clothed them with suspiciously gratuitous +beauty in his recent work, and has, moreover, tried to fix upon the Anglo- +Saxon race the stigma of practically adopting them as her own. The +monastic history of the countrymen of Bede and Wilfrid tells a very +different tale, and nevertheless does not omit to mention the love of +sport and athletic exercises peculiar to Englishmen. How far, however, is +the character of the young race-riders(95) and fox-hunters(96) of monastic +England from that of the voluptuous Oriental and sensuous Greek! + +Germany, Poland, Bohemia, Spain, and Flanders likewise had their own +centres, more local, however, than those of Italy, all of them under the +new form of universities, and all more or less emancipated from the +strictly monastic spirit of the older centres of learning. Vienna, Erfurt, +Heidelberg, and Wittenberg were the foremost in Germany; Cracow was +founded by a saint, the holy Hedwige of Poland; and Prague, which gave so +much trouble and anxiety to the church in former times and hardly less in +our own day, owes much of its glory to the holy women of the middle ages. +Thus Dombrowka, a princess of Bohemia, married to a Polish chief, and +Hedwige, the great queen and patron saint of Poland, established colleges +there and endowed them liberally. Salamanca had a wider reputation, and +fell heir to all the brilliant learning of the Arabian and Jewish schools, +whose influence on Christian thought in the days of S. Thomas of Aquin had +been so dangerous. All the scientific knowledge of the East thus became +its natural property, while the intensely Catholic mind of the Spaniards +held them aloof from what was poisonous in Eastern philosophy. And here +let us stop to remark that Spain, ranked as it has always been among the +Latin nations, nevertheless owes its first Christian traditions, and, no +doubt, also its imperial notions of universal sway, to the vigorous Gothic +races, mingled with the Frankish and Burgundian blood brought in by +intermarriage with the Merovingian princes of France. There is something +in Spanish history, in Spanish perseverance, we might almost say in +Spanish toughness, that reveals the Visigoth, the man of the northern +forests, with his indomitable energy and insatiable thirst for the sole +rule of land and sea. Alcala, the creation of Cardinal Ximenes, and +Coimbra, besides twenty-four colleges dignified by the name of +universities, make up the quota contributed by Spain to the intellectual +progress of Europe. We wish we had more space and time to devote to them. + +Flanders, the home of art in the middle ages, and the model of dignified +and successful civic government, was not fated to be behind-hand in the +world of letters. As early as 1360, a gay scholar of the University of +Paris, and a native of Deventer, returned to his birthplace with the halo +of success and worldly fame about him. After a few years of vain display, +Gerard of Deventer suddenly, through the agency of a holy companion, +became an altered and converted man. Having fitted himself for a spiritual +career by a three years' seclusion among the Carthusians, he returned to +his native city and instituted a congregation of Canons Regular, whom he +entrusted to a disciple of his, a former canon of Utrecht. He himself died +soon after, but under his successor, Florentius, the school grew in +importance and renown till, in 1393, a scholar entered its cloisters, by +name Thomas Hammerlein, now known to the Christian world as Thomas a +Kempis, the reputed author of _The Following of Christ_. His life is too +entirely spiritual to be mentioned here, but of the institute in which he +was reared the same rule will not apply. Although the aim of the Deventer +school was to revive the old monastic ideal, and although its spirit seems +forcibly to remind us of Bede and Rabanus of Fulda, still it gave forth +scholars like the "Illustrious Nicholas of Cusa, the son of a poor +fisherman, who won his doctor's cap at Padua, and became renowned for his +Greek, Hebrew, and mathematical learning."(97) It is also told of the +Deventer brethren that they "displayed extraordinary zeal in promoting the +new art of printing, and that one of the earliest Flemish presses was set +up in their college."(98) The famous Erasmus passed his first years of +study at Deventer in the latter end of the XVth century, and drew from his +masters the prediction that he would "one day be the light of his age." +The later Flemish University of Louvain, founded in 1425, by Duke John of +Brabant, was eminently an orthodox institution, and became, in the XVIth +century, "one of the soundest nurseries of the faith," as well as the +chief seat of learning in Flanders. Even Erasmus owned in his letters that +the schools of Louvain were considered second only to those of Paris. +Here, as usual, the Dominicans were foremost in the breach, and enjoyed +great privileges, while their influence made itself powerfully felt +throughout the university. S. Thomas of Aquin was, of course, the +recognized authority followed by the whole university in matters of +theology. + +Ireland was not so fortunate during the scholastic as during the monastic +era of intellectual development, but what benefits she had she owed them +again to the same institution which had educated her sons in olden days. +The first University of Dublin was founded in 1320, and had for its first +master a Dominican friar. It soon decayed for want of funds and in +consequence of the troubles of the times, but the Dominicans would not let +learning perish, if they could help it. In 1428, a century later, they +opened a free "high school" on Usher's Island, where they taught +_gratuitously_ all branches of knowledge, from grammar to theology, and +admitted all students, lay and ecclesiastical. Between this college and +their convent in the city they built a stone bridge, the only erection of +such solid material known in Dublin for two centuries afterwards, and, +says Mr. Wyse in a speech on Education delivered at Cork in 1844, "it is +an interesting fact in the history of education in Ireland that the only +stone bridge in the capital of the kingdom was built by one of the +monastic orders as a communication between a convent and its college, a +thoroughfare thrown across a dangerous river for teachers and scholars to +frequent halls of learning where the whole range of the sciences of the +day was taught gratuitously."(99) A few years later, the four Mendicant +orders, headed by the Dominicans, obtained from Pope Sixtus IV. a brief +constituting their Dublin schools one university, with the same +ecclesiastical rights and privileges enjoyed by the great University of +Oxford, and this body corporate is mentioned as in active exercise of its +powers just before the "Reformation." It showed the general destruction +brought by the apostasy of England on all monastic bodies, but such as it +was it was the church's creation, and a fitting successor to those centres +of rare learning, the Columbanian monasteries of the VIIth and VIIIth +centuries. + +The Scotch universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen have been +purposely left out, as we have no records of them at hand; of the latter, +the remains of which we happened to visit some years ago, it will suffice +to say that it possesses a library, the germs of which are due to Catholic +collectors, and still has some very fine specimens of illuminated +manuscripts. The wood carvings of the choir stalls and screen, of Flemish +workmanship, are very beautiful, and the collegiate chapel, still +existing, bears marks of the harmony and symmetry natural to the grand +worship it once typified. + +We have left Oxford to the last, since its history is perhaps almost +unique. No university of its day can match it; its vitality has outlasted +the "Reformation" itself, and its spirit and statutes remain to this +moment as obstinately Catholic as in the days of Bacon and Duns Scotus. +True, infidelity has not respected it, but no more did it respect the +University of Paris in the XIIIth century, and far more vigorous than its +great mediaeval rival, Oxford still epitomizes the genius of a nation, +while Paris has lost every vestige of its former academical sway. Its +beginnings are lost in the ages of fable, for tradition asserts that long +before Alfred there were schools and disputations there. The schools of +Osney Abbey, and the Benedictine school in connection with Winchcomb +Abbey, are among the earliest foundations, but as yet (in 1175) there were +no buildings of any architectural pretensions. About that time a great +fire destroyed the greater part of the city, and for a long while very +little order prevailed among its motley inhabitants. Robert Pulleyn, an +English scholar from Paris, who had set up a school in 1133 and in 1142, +went to Rome, was made cardinal there, and obtained many ecclesiastical +privileges for the Oxford scholars. Law already began to be studied in +this century, but a historian of the time complains bitterly that "purity +of speech had decayed, philosophy was neglected, and nothing but Parisian +quirks prevailed. Had the monastic schools retained their ascendency," he +says, "polite letters would never have fallen into such neglect."(100) In +the XIIIth century there were 30,000 students at Oxford, though many among +them were "a set of varlets who pretended to be scholars," and passed +their time in thieving and villany. The brawls of these said "varlets" +were to the full as violent as those of the Rue Coupegueule, and much of +the same kind of license disgraced Oxford as it did Paris. Nationality +seems to have been a common pretext for fights, and S. George's, S. +Patrick's, and S. David's days were, instead of peaceful festivals, days +of bloodshed and plunder. At last every demonstration on these days had to +be forbidden under pain of excommunication. "Town and gown" fights too +were frequent, and even _internecine_ battles took place among the +scholars themselves over a false quantity in pronunciation or a disputed +axiom in philosophy. The fare in those days seems to have been scanty; +here for instance is a collegiate _menu_: "At ten of the clock they go to +dinner, whereat they be content with a penny piece of beef among four, +having a few pottage made of the broth of the said beef, with salt and +oatmeal and nothing else." When they went to bed, "they were fain to run +up and down half an hour to get a heat on their feet," and what the _beds_ +were may be surmised from the fact of the students lodging where they +could, generally in lofts over the burghers' shops, as at Paris. + +In the earlier part of the XIIIth century Cambridge was founded, and Peter +of Blois, the continuator of Ingulphus, tells us that from this "little +fountain (the first lectures given successively in the same barn, on +various subjects, by three or four monks of Croyland) of Cottenham, the +abbot's manor near Cambridge, which has swelled to a great river, we now +behold the whole city of God made glad, and teachers issuing from +Cambridge, after the likeness of the Holy Paradise." Cambridge seems to +have cultivated the Anglo-Saxon tongue, as Tavistock also did, a monastic +school where the language was regularly taught "to assist the monks in +deciphering their own ancient charters." + +"Old Oxford" was not the imposing pile of ecclesiastical buildings its +later representative is now. Osney and S. Frideswide stood like castles in +its surrounding meadows, but the main body of the university consisted in +straw-thatched houses and timber schools. There were pilgrimage wells +where, on Rogation Days, various blessings were invoked on the fruits of +the earth, and these were called by our forefathers "Gospel places." It +was a sort of religious "Maying," the students carrying poles adorned with +flowers and singing the _Benedicite_. The streets bore singular +names--"School Street," "Logic Lane," "Street of the Seven Deadly Sins." +Here is the "Schedesyerde," where abode the sellers of parchment, the +_schedes_ or sheets of which gave their name to the locality. The schools +can be distinguished by pithy inscriptions over dingy-looking doors--_Ama +scientiam_, _Impostu ras fuge_, _Litteras disce_--but you will look in vain +for public schools or collegiate piles. In these humble schools many great +scholars were reared: S. Edmund of Canterbury, who, for instance, unless +he chanced to spend it in relieving the distress of some poor scholar or +little orphan child, left the money his pupils paid him lying loose on the +window-sill, where he would strew it with ashes, saying, "Ashes to ashes, +dust to dust"; or, again, S. Richard, Edmund's friend, and afterwards his +chancellor at Canterbury, who while at Oxford was so poor that he could +seldom allow himself the luxury of _mutton_, then reckoned as ordinary +scholar's fare, and who lodged with two companions, of whom we hear the +Parisian tale of the single gown worn alternately at lecture by each, +while the others remained at home; Robert Grossetele, the Franciscan, a +universal genius and a most holy man, a zealous lover of natural science, +and so well versed in the Scriptures that one of his modern biographers +has candidly admitted that his "wonderful knowledge of them might probably +be worth remark in our day, though in its own _not more than was possessed +by all theological students_"; Roger Bacon, the greatest natural +philosopher who appeared in England before the time of Newton; and +Alexander of Hales, "the Irrefragable Doctor," who also taught in the +Franciscan schools of Paris--were among prominent Oxford scholars of the +middle ages. Then the marvellous Duns Scotus a scholar of Merton and +afterwards a Franciscan monk, an Abelard in brilliancy, versatility, and +keenness of argument, who, disputing one day before the doctors of the +Sorbonne (to whom he was personally unknown), was interrupted by one of +them with this exclamation, "This must be either an angel from heaven, a +demon from hell, or Duns Scotus from Oxford!" A similar legend is told of +Alanus de Insulis, a Paris doctor, who, having left the schools and become +a lay-brother at Citeaux, accompanied the abbot to Rome to take charge of +his horses. Being allowed to sit at the abbot's feet during the council +against the Albigenses, and finding the scales inclining in favor of the +heretics, he rose, and, begging the abbot's blessing, suddenly poured +forth his irresistible arguments and defeated the sophistry of the +Albigenses, who, baffled and furious, exclaimed, "This must be either the +devil himself or Alanus." + +Thomas of Cantilupe, the son of the Earl of Pembroke, was another +representative Oxford scholar. Of noble birth and great intellectual +powers, he rose to the highest dignities of the realm, and, though Oxford +was still a scene of violent disorders, he preserved his purity and +calmness through all its dangers. The collegiate system soon came to put +an end to this state of things, and Merton was the first college, properly +so-called, where moral order and architectural proportions received some +attention. The aspect of the university now rapidly changed. Lollardism +seriously affected the great seat of learning, and at first its doctrines +were much upheld by the jealous secular teachers, who saw in his calumnies +a weapon to be used against the saintly and successful friars; the tone of +the university declined, and literature was wofully neglected for a time. +However, as Lollardism faded from men's minds, a revival of letters took +place, and in the XVIth century Erasmus, who was very kindly entertained +and welcomed at Oxford, pays the following tribute to its literary +proficiency: "I have found here classic erudition, and that not trite and +shallow, but profound and accurate, both Latin and Greek, so that I no +longer sigh for Italy."(101) And again: "I think, from my very soul, there +is no country where abound so many men skilled in every kind of learning +as there are here"(102) (in England). His own Greek learning was chiefly +acquired at Oxford, for, previous to his coming hither, his knowledge of +that language was very superficial. + +We have lingered over the history of mediaeval Oxford longer than our +readers may be inclined to think reasonable, and we must confess that our +interest in the only institution of the middle ages which stands yet +unimpaired in glory, influence, and renown, has led us beyond the limits +we had honestly proposed to ourselves. + +Little now remains to be said. We have come upon the uninviting times when +reason broke away from faith and carried desolation in its headlong course +through the field of the human intellect. A literary and philosophical +madness settled on men's minds, and Babel seemed to have come again, +except where the calm round of old studies was pursued with the old spirit +of _quies_ within the sphere of the ancient faith. All beyond was +confusion and hurry; every one set up as a teacher before having been a +disciple; each man dictated and no one listened; each would be the +originator of a system which his first follower was sure to alter, with +the perspective of having _his_ alterations remodelled again by his first +pupil, and so on _ad libitum_, till systems came to be called by men's +names, and to vary in meaning according to the particular temper of each +one that undertook to explain them. + +With all its turbulence and occasional excesses contrasted with the +cynical refinement and polite indifferentism of to-day, was not the older +system the better one? + + + + +Fleurange. + + +By Mrs. Craven, Author Of "A Sister's Story." + +Translated From The French, With Permission. + +Part Third. + +The Banks Of The Neckar. + + + +XXXIX. + + +About a fortnight after Christmas, Clement was returning to his lodgings a +little sooner than usual, when he met Wilhelm Mueller at the door. + +"Ah! you have come at the right moment," said he. "Let me tell you why. A +courier from St. Petersburg arrived this morning with important news, +which will have a serious effect on our business." + +"Are you referring to the death of the Emperor Alexander? I knew that +yesterday. What else is there?" + +"Quite another affair, indeed. Constantine has been set aside, and the +Grand Duke Nicholas is to succeed his brother." + +"Are you sure?" + +"Yes. But that is not all; we knew that yesterday. The news the courier +brought this morning is more serious. It seems a conspiracy has broken +out--" + +"A conspiracy! Where?" + +"At St. Petersburg. The courier left the twenty-fourth of December. They +were then fighting on the square before the palace, and the emperor was in +the midst of the fight." + +"Constantine?" + +"No, indeed; his brother." + +"The Grand Duke Nicholas? Is he at the head of the plot?" + +"No; on the contrary, it seems to be Constantine, and yet it is not he +either.--In fact, no one knows anything about it, the report is so very +confused. But come and help me, if you will. We have despatches to send in +every direction. We shall certainly have further news this evening. I dare +say Waltheim (the chief member of the firm of which they were the +principal clerks) is this very moment beside himself." + +The two friends set off together. They had hardly gone two steps before +they came upon quite a group standing around the doorway of a fine house +almost opposite Mueller's. It was the residence of the Russian legation. +They were told in reply to their questions that a courier had just arrived +on horseback, covered with dust and half-dead with fatigue. He left St. +Petersburg on the twenty-sixth, and had been ten days on the way. + +"Does anybody know what news he has brought?" asked Mueller of the man who +gave him this information. + +"Nothing definite, of course. And we shall learn nothing there," pointing +to the diplomatic residence, "except what they please to tell us." + +Mueller and Clement stopped no longer. + +"The twenty-sixth!" said Mueller. "I should like to know the contents of +the despatch." + +"The other legations must soon have news of as late a date, to say nothing +of our own correspondent, who will give us the earliest information +possible. But, now I think of it, one of the attaches of the French +legation is somewhat of a friend of mine; what if I go and ask him for the +details?" + +Mueller thought this a capital idea, and Clement left him at once to go to +the residence of the French legation. Mueller kept on to his office at +Waltheim's, where he would wait for him. + +The young attache referred to was the Vicomte de Noisy. He had been +present at one of the public assemblies in which Clement distinguished +himself as a speaker, and conceived a fancy for him from that time. They +frequently made excursions together on foot or horseback, and the vicomte +sought every opportunity of meeting Clement with an eagerness the latter +sometimes reproached himself for not responding to with more warmth. He +relied, therefore, on a cordial reception, and, in fact, as soon as he was +announced, he was taken into a small room next the _chancellerie_, where +M. de Noisy passed the greater part of his time. He found him seated at a +table covered with papers. Before Clement had time to utter a word, the +young attache exclaimed, without leaving his place: + +"Have you come with news? or to get some?" + +"What a question! You know well our commercial agents are never able to +rival the speed of the bearers of political despatches." + +"And yet it happens sometimes." + +"But not this time, unfortunately. The Russian legation has just received +a despatch from St. Petersburg dated the twenty-sixth." + +"So we have just heard. It came in an incredibly short time. I fear ours +will not do as well. And yet the French embassy at St. Petersburg is not +often caught napping." + +Some one rang furiously. A hussar opened the door and made a sign to the +vicomte, who sprang forward. + +"The courier!" he exclaimed. "Bravo! Vive l'ambassadeur! To be only one +hour behind the Russian courier is wonderful! Here, _mon cher_, are some +cigars. Take the arm-chair and wait till I return. I shall soon be back, +and will bring you the news." + +Clement threw himself into the arm-chair, lit a cigar, took up a +newspaper, and patiently awaited the young attache's return beside a good +fire, which, without prejudice to the large stove at one end of the room, +did not give out too much heat at this rigorous season. At the end of an +hour, however, he was beginning to feel he was losing his time, when the +Vicomte de Noisy reappeared with his hands full of letters, which he threw +on the table. + +"There," he said. "To decipher and read these is not all: they are to be +answered, and I do not know when I shall be able to leave the +_chancellerie_." + +"Would it be indiscreet for you to tell me the nature of your despatches?" + +"By no means. We have good news. It is all over. The struggle was severe, +but short. The new emperor conducted admirably. The regiments in revolt +have returned to their duty, all the leaders of the insurrection have been +taken. The only serious thing is that among the latter are several +belonging to the _noblesse_, and a great many gentlemen of social standing +are compromised. This interests me more than anything else, because I was +connected with the embassy at St. Petersburg before I came here, and know +them all." + +"Have they given any of the leader's names?" + +"Oh! yes: Troubetzkoi, Rilieff, Mouravieff, Wolkonsky, and a host of +others. But among all these names there is one I am amazed at finding. Who +would ever have thought Walden would be drawn into such a row?" + +Clement's heart gave a leap. "Walden, did you say? What, the Count George +de Walden?" + +"The very person. Do you happen to know him?" + +"Yes, I know him." + +"Well, can you conceive of a man of his ability and distinction being +mixed up in such a plot? It was an atrocious conspiracy to assassinate the +emperor, and a foolish attempt to establish a republic. Constantine's name +was only made use of as a pretext." + +"And is Count George seriously compromised?" asked Clement. + +"He could not be more so. He is classed among those who have no other +alternative but Siberia or death.--But excuse me, Dornthal, I am forced to +leave you. I dare say we shall have to work all night. Here," said he, +searching in his pocket, "here is a letter I have received from St. +Petersburg by the courier. You may find in it some additional details that +will interest you." + +The attache hurried off through the door of the _chancellerie_, and +Clement left the house. It was not till he found himself in the street +that he began to recover from the stupefaction caused by the news he had +just heard. He turned mechanically towards the office, where Mueller was +waiting for him, and gave him an account of what he had just learned, with +the exception of the one fact of this political event of infinitely more +importance to him than all the rest. He remained some time at his post, +making an almost superhuman effort to control his bewildered mind and keep +it on the work he had to do. At last he took leave of Mueller and went back +to his lodgings. Without stopping, as he usually did, to see the family, +he went directly up-stairs, and shut himself up in his room. He wished to +be alone, that he might decide at leisure upon the course to pursue in +consequence of so unforeseen and serious an event. + +Gabrielle!--He thought of her--and her alone. How would she support such a +blow? How was she to be informed of it? + +He remained a long time buried in these reflections without thinking of +the letter in his pocket. At length he bethought himself of it, and with +the hope of getting some light began to read it attentively. After some +preamble, which he ran over hastily, he came to what follows: + +"This conspiracy, which broke out with the suddenness of a thunderbolt, +and appeared to be only the spontaneous result of the prevailing doubt at +the beginning of the present reign as to which of the two brothers was the +real emperor, was really arranged a long time before, it seems. It is said +to have had deep and extensive ramifications, and they who fomented and +directed the plot only availed themselves of the circumstances that +followed Alexander's death as a pretext. It is said their plans were to +have been executed in the spring, if the deceased emperor's life had been +prolonged till that time. But what seems equally certain is that a great +number of those who are now seriously compromised had only a very +imperfect idea of what was going on. Among these, I cannot doubt, is our +poor friend George de Walden. You know he has always been dreaming of +possible or impossible reforms. As evil would have it, he met in Italy +during the past year a certain man named Lasko--very intelligent and +capable, but an intriguer ready for anything, and mixed up with all the +plots that have agitated Italy and Germany the past ten years. Imprisoned, +then released, Heaven knows how, assuming a thousand names, in a word, one +of those evil-minded persons who are docile instruments in the hands of +the real leaders of the great plots of the day, George was accidentally +brought in contact with him, and once, only once, was persuaded to attend +one of their meetings through mere curiosity. There by a still more +unfortunate accident he happened to meet one of the leaders just referred +to. The latter at once saw the influence to be derived from George's name, +position, enthusiasm, and even his ignorance of the extent of their +schemes. He persuaded him to repair to St. Petersburg at a given time, and +hold himself in readiness to second a combined movement, secretly +arranged, but too extensive to be suppressed. This movement, he said, was +to bring about the realization of some of George's theories. I had these +details from the Marquis Adelardi, the genial Milanais who spent a winter +here three years ago, and is, you know, George's intimate friend. The +marquis, uneasy about the count's sudden departure from Florence, and +still more so when three months passed away without his return, came here +to join him. He arrived only three days before the fatal twenty-fourth. It +appears George was certainly on the square that day and in the foremost +ranks of the insurgents. Adelardi declares he went there sincerely +convinced, by the representations of those who were desirous of leading +him on, that Constantine's renunciation was a pretence, and his rights +ought to be maintained in the interests of their projects, which that +prince, they declared, was ready to second. However that may be, it is +only too certain that close beside him on the square was this same Lasko, +who was killed at the very moment of firing at the Grand Duke Michael. One +witness--and but one, for it requires some courage to testify in favor of a +man in his situation--has stated it was George who turned his deadly weapon +aside (thus saving the grand duke's life) before the aide-de-camp of the +latter shot the assassin. But there is so strong a feeling against him, +both at court and in the city, that no one dares insist how much this +circumstance is in his favor. He himself obstinately refuses to take +advantage of it, and his haughty attitude since his arrest is by no means +favorable to his interests. What makes his case more complicated, his +secretary was an Italian most intimately connected with Lasko. This man, +Fabiano Dini by name, was also on the square the day of the insurrection, +and was severely wounded." + +Here Clement stopped. These last lines increased his agitation to the +highest pitch. All their vague fears were thus confirmed--his cousin's +fatal destiny pursued him to the end! Unfortunate himself and a source of +misfortune to others! Yes, that was Felix: capable of realizing his +disgrace, but not of repairing it; seeking the post of danger and the +opportunity of displaying his courage, reluctant to leave the obscurity in +which he had hidden his life, he became one of those secret agitators who +were then, perhaps even more than now, silently undermining Europe. He +soon became their agent, and his talents, contempt of danger and death, +made him a useful one. In this way he speedily came to an end that was +inevitable. + +Clement paced up and down his chamber a long time unable to calm his +confused mind, but, after much reflection, came to the conclusion George's +trial would probably be prolonged, and might terminate less tragically +than was to be feared from this letter. At all events, he ought to spare +Fleurange all the anguish of this uncertainty as long as possible. This +would not be difficult at Rosenheim, for the professor was not allowed to +read the newspapers, and therefore none were left about the rooms occupied +by the family. Hansfelt alone read them and communicated the news. Clement +hastened to write his sister Hilda a few lines, confiding to her all he +had just learned, and recommending her, as well as Hansfelt, to withhold +from Gabrielle all information on the subject. "I shall be at Rosenheim in +a week," said he at the close, "and we will consult together, dear sister, +about what will then be advisable. Meanwhile, I rely on your prudence and +affection for her." + +Clement and his sister had never discussed the subject now referred to, +but they had long read one another's thoughts. They were now of the same +mind, and Fleurange would have remained a long time ignorant of what they +wished to conceal from her, had not an unforeseen circumstance overthrown, +a few days after, all the plans laid by their prudence and affection. + + + +XL. + + +The poor you always have with you. This is our Saviour's declaration, and +it accords with human experience. We find the poor everywhere, unless we +wilfully turn away our eyes with culpable indifference. Mademoiselle +Josephine, we are well aware, was not of the number of these blind or +insensible persons. She therefore found quite as much work on her hands at +Heidelberg as at Paris, with this difference, which was a keen +mortification--she was unable to hold any communication with the objects of +her bounty, except by gestures rarely expressive enough on either side to +be understood. This forced her to dispense with what had always been the +most pleasant feature of charity--kind words, and sometimes long chats with +the poor on whom she bestowed alms. + +"I only wish they understood a little French," she said. "It seems as if +it might be easy enough for them, whereas it is utterly impossible for me +to learn German." In a word, not to know French and to understand German +seemed to Mademoiselle Josephine among the mysteries of nature. +Nevertheless, as the poor people persisted in using only their own +language, and resentment must not be carried so far as to refuse aiding +them, mademoiselle was very glad to accept Fleurange as her interpreter +and the agent of her charity. The young girl came every day at the same +hour, either to accompany her or receive her orders and make the daily +round in her stead. + +She generally found mademoiselle in her laboratory, that is, in a room on +the ground-floor, in which the principal piece of furniture was an immense +_armoire_, containing all kinds of things to be distributed among her +actual or anticipated _proteges_. She liked to have a good supply on hand, +and it was seldom a poor person found her without the means of aiding them +at once. + +"Here, Gabrielle," said she one morning, when Fleurange appeared as usual, +basket in hand, to get the charitable supplies for the day. "See, +everything is ready." And she pointed towards the things on the table, +which, with the large _armoire_ and two chairs, comprised all the +furniture in the room. Everything was indeed arranged in fine order: on +one side were two pairs of stockings and a woollen skirt; on the other, a +covered tureen of broth, a small quantity of sugar, a bottle of wine, some +tobacco, and two or three newspapers. To all these things she added a +small vial, the contents of which required some explanation. + +"The stockings and skirt," said mademoiselle, "are for the mother of the +little girl to whom you carried clothes yesterday. The broth and sugar are +for our poor old woman, as well as this little vial of _eau de melisse_ of +my own preparation, and not the worse for that. And the wine and tobacco +are for the invalid soldier, the old carpenter whom you visited last week. +His daughter succeeded in making me understand yesterday that nothing +would give this poor man more pleasure than to lend him a newspaper +occasionally. You can give him these which I procured for him this +morning. Ah!--apropos, your cousin Clement left two nice cigars for him +which I forgot. While I am gone for them, you can put all these things in +your basket." + +The kind woman left the room to get the cigars. They were up-stairs, but +she never thought of counting her steps when it was a question of doing a +kind act, however insignificant, for another. Only, she did not ascend the +stairs quite as nimbly as she once did, and on this occasion it took her +about fifteen minutes to go and return. + +During this time Fleurange, standing at the table, proceeded to stow away +all the things in her basket, and last of all was about to put in the +newspapers when her eye fell on a paragraph in one of them that gave her a +start. She seized the paper, opened it, and began to read with ardent +curiosity. All at once she uttered a feeble cry, the journal dropped from +her trembling hands, a mist came over her eyes, and, when her old friend +returned, she found her lying on the floor, pale, cold, and senseless. + +Fortunately, Mademoiselle Josephine did not lack presence of mind or +experience. She flew to Fleurange, knelt beside her, raised her head, and +supported her in her arms. Then she drew a smelling-bottle from her pocket +to revive her, and while showing her these attentions she racked her +brains to guess what could have caused one so robust and generally so calm +to faint in this mysterious way. All at once she noticed the newspaper, +which had fallen at the young girl's feet. "Ah!" she said, "she read +something in that medley, perhaps some bad news; but, merciful heavens! +what could it have been to produce such an effect?--Dear child," she +continued, looking tenderly at the pale and lovely face resting on her +shoulders, "she said yesterday she never fainted but once in her life, and +that was at our house in Paris two years ago when she was overcome by +weakness and hunger." + +Poor Mademoiselle Josephine! compassion, and the remembrances thus +awakened, doubly affected her, and her eyes were still filled with tears +when Fleurange opened hers with an expression of surprise soon followed by +an indistinct recollection. She rose slowly up, but, before mademoiselle +could aid her, she threw her arms around her old friend's neck. + +"O dear mademoiselle!" she murmured, "did you know it?--did you know it?" + +Poor Josephine had never been so embarrassed. To say she was totally +ignorant of the point was to invite a confidence quite unsuitable at such +a moment, and a contrary reply would also have its inconveniences. She +therefore took refuge in an innocent subterfuge. + +"Well, well, my poor child, what use is there in speaking of it now? Be +calm, and do not say anything at present. We will talk about it another +time. Be easy," she added at a venture, "everything will be arranged if +you take what I am going to give you." + +Then aiding Fleurange to rise, and placing her in a chair, she ran for a +glass of water, into which she poured a few drops of _eau de melisse_--a +genuine panacea in her estimation--which she held to the young girl's lips. +Fleurange drank it all, and then gave a long sigh. + +"What happened to me?" she said. + +"Nothing. You were only faint. That is all." + +"That is strange, for I never faint." And she passed her hand over her +forehead. + +"O my God! I remember it all now," she suddenly exclaimed. "But is it +true? May not this be false--a mere idle tale?" + +"Who can tell?" replied mademoiselle vaguely. "That is quite possible. +They say so many things." + +"But tell me all you know." + +"No, no, not now, Gabrielle, not now. You are not able to hear it. Do as I +say, and we will talk about it at another time." + +Fleurange made no reply. A moment after, she rose. "I am well now," she +said; "I feel revived." + +She gathered up her long hair, which had fallen around her shoulders, took +the journal and put it in her pocket, then put on the little velvet hat +trimmed with fur which she generally wore in winter, and said: "Thanks, +dear mademoiselle, and pardon me. I have quite recovered, but do not feel +equal, however, to the visits you expected me to make to-day." + +"No, indeed, of course not." + +"I must go home at once." + +"Yes, certainly, I am going with you. You must go to bed. You are +generally pale, but now your cheeks are as red as those curtains," +pointing to the bright cotton curtains at the window. + +"No, no, I am not ill," said Fleurange, her eyes aflame. "The air will do +me good. Do not feel uneasy. You see my faintness has entirely passed +off." + +As mademoiselle had not the least idea of the cause of this sudden +indisposition, and the young girl really seemed quite recovered, she did +not oppose her wish to go home alone and on foot. The distance was not +far. Fleurange came every day without any escort, she allowed her +therefore to go, merely accompanying her as far as the gate of her little +yard, where they separated, bidding each other good-by till evening. + + + +XLI. + + +The thermometer was down to five or six degrees. The little hat Fleurange +wore protected her forehead, but showed the tresses of her thick hair +behind. She drew up her hood when she wished to guard more effectually +against the severity of the weather. But now she did not take this +precaution. She only drew the folds of her thick cloak around her form, +and set off with rapid steps. The keen, frosty air was refreshing to her +burning cheeks and revived her strength, and, with the exception of an +unusual glow in her complexion and in her eyes, there was no trace of her +recent faintness when she reached home. As soon as she entered, without +stopping an instant, she went directly upstairs, and, giving a slight +knock at the door, entered the chamber between her own and Hilda's, which +Hansfelt had used as a study since his arrival at Rosenheim. When +Fleurange entered, she found him and his young wife together. They started +with surprise at seeing her, and stopped talking, with a certain +embarrassment which did not escape Fleurange. + +"I can guess the subject of your conversation," she said with emotion, but +without hesitation, "and it is what I wish to speak to you about." + +Her cousin looked at her, uncertain what reply she ought to make. + +"Hilda," said Fleurange, "you agreed never to mention Count George's name +to me till I should speak of him first. Well, I have now come to speak of +him, and beg you both to tell me all you know about him. Here," continued +she, throwing the newspaper she had brought on the table, "read that, and +then tell me all I am still ignorant of." + +What could they say? She stood before them so calm, resolute, and decided, +that any reticence seemed useless. Hansfelt ran over the journal. He saw +the article Fleurange referred to did not contain any details, but only a +list of the accused, followed by some very clear comments on the fate +which awaited them. Count George's name figured among the first on the +list. + +"What is he accused of? What is the crime in question?" asked she in a +decided tone. + +Hansfelt still hesitated. But his wife knew better than he the character +of her who was questioning them. "Karl," said she, "you can tell her, and +ought to do so. We must conceal nothing more from Gabrielle." + +"And why have you done so hitherto?" said Fleurange. "Ah! yes, I +understand"--and a slight blush mounted to her forehead--"the secret I +thought so well hidden has been discovered by you all!" + +"No, no," cried Hilda, "only by me--and you know I can conceal nothing from +Karl--by me and Clement." + +"Clement also?" said Fleurange, with a start of surprise and a confusion +which deepened her blush. "But, after all, what difference does it make?" +she continued. "I shall conceal nothing more from any one, and I wish +nothing to be kept from me either. Come, Karl, I assure you earnestly I do +not lack fortitude, and hereafter you must not try to spare me. Surprise +alone overpowered me for an instant. Now I am prepared for the worst, and +ready to hear what you have to tell." + +But in spite of these words, when Hansfelt at last decided, after some +further hesitation, to satisfy her, while he was giving her a +circumstantial account of all Count George had done to forfeit his life, +the color produced by the keen air, her walking so fast, and her +agitation, vanished completely from the young girl's face, and she became +as pale as death. + +"Siberia or death!" she repeated two or three times in a low tone, as if +it were as difficult to understand as to utter such terrible words. + +"As to the worst of these two sentences, it is to be hoped he will +escape," said Hansfelt. + +Fleurange shuddered. Was it really of him--_him!_--they were talking in this +way? "But tell me, Karl, is there no other alternative? May he not be +condemned to prison or expatriation? They are also great and fearful +punishments. Why speak only of two sentences, one almost as horrible as +the other?" + +Hansfelt shook his head. "His name, his rank, the benefits the government +had conferred on his family, the favors so many times offered him, will +all aggravate his crime in the eyes of his judges. His life, I trust, will +be spared, but--" + +"But--the mines, fetters, and fearful rigors of Siberia--do you think he +will be condemned to suffer all these penalties without any alleviation?" + +Hansfelt was silent. Hilda pressed Fleurange's hands and tenderly kissed +her colorless cheeks. + +"I have said enough, and too much," said Hansfelt. "Why will you ask me +such questions, Gabrielle? And why do you tell me to answer her, Hilda?" + +"Because I wish to know everything," said Fleurange, raising her head, +which she had rested a moment on her cousin's shoulder, and recovering her +firmness of voice. After a moment's hesitation she continued: "Then +nothing can save him?" + +"You wished for the truth without any disguise, Gabrielle, and I have not +concealed it from you. According to all human probability, nothing can +save Count George from the fate that awaits him: that is beyond doubt. But +it sometimes happens in Russia that sudden caprice on the part of the +sovereign arrests the hand of justice. Nevertheless, it would be deceiving +you if I did not add that there is nothing to lead us to hope he will be +such an object of clemency. On the contrary, all the reports agree in +stating that the irritation against him is extreme, and surpasses that +against all the other conspirators." + +Fleurange remained a long time absorbed in thought. "Thank you, Karl," +said she at length. "You will hereafter tell me all you learn, will you +not?" + +After receiving the promise asked for, she turned to leave the chamber. +"One more question," said she. "My head must be very much confused, or I +should have asked you before in what way his poor mother learned the news, +and how she bears it." + +"Clement heard she was at Florence, as usual at this season, but on +learning the news started at once for St. Petersburg." + +"St. Petersburg! at this time of year! The poor woman will die on the +way." + +"I can tell you nothing more. Clement will be here this evening. He may +have additional news." + +But when Clement arrived that night, Fleurange, prostrated by the anxiety +and excitement of the day, was unable to leave her chamber. Her aunt, who +remained with her, declared she should see no one else till the next day, +and the interview she hoped to have with Clement was deferred. Meanwhile +the latter was steeling himself for the new phase in the trial before him +by listening to all the details of what had occurred. Mademoiselle +Josephine informed them of what had happened to Fleurange at her house, +and in return learned with interest mingled with profound astonishment the +real cause of her fainting. Of all the sufferings in the world, those +caused by love were the most unintelligible to her. If she had been +suddenly informed that her dear Gabrielle had lost her mind, or was going +into a consumption, she would not have been more surprised and disturbed. +Perhaps less so, for the terror mystery lends to distress, and a complete +ignorance of the suitable remedies for such a case, added powerlessness to +anxiety. She, who had so many remedies of all kinds for every occasion, +could absolutely think of nothing suitable for this. How this unknown +person, whose name she had never heard until to-day, could all at once +become so essential to the happiness of this dear child, who was +surrounded by so much affection from others and had always seemed so +happy, was in her eyes a still greater phenomenon than knowing German. As +for that language, she now resolved to study it, thinking the day might +again arrive when there would be something within her comprehension and +power to do for her. "I will endeavor to acquire it, that I may not lose +an opportunity of profiting by it," said she. This vague hope consoled her +for her present incompetency, and satisfied, for the time, the devotedness +of her kind heart, now quite out of its latitude. + + + +XLII. + + +The following morning Fleurange, quite recovered from the physical effects +of her agitation, was up at her usual hour, that is, at daybreak. She put +on her thick cloak, her little fur-trimmed hat, and started off to church +for the first Mass, which she daily attended at this season. At her +arrival she threw back her hood, and knelt as near the altar as possible. +The church was so dark that each one brought a lantern, a bit of candle, +or some other portable light to read by. These lamps and tapers, +increasing with the number of worshippers, at last diffused sufficient +light throughout the church to enable one to distinguish the people and +objects in it. Fleurange did not bring a candle and needed none, for she +had no prayer-book, but she was not the less profoundly recollected. Pale +and motionless, her hands clasped, her head raised, her eyes fastened on +the altar, the delicate and regular outline of her face distinctly visible +by a neighboring taper, she resembled a statue of white marble wrapped in +sombre drapery. She prayed with fervor, but without agitation, without +tears, and even without moving her lips. Her whole soul seemed centred in +her eyes. Her look at once expressed the faith that implores and hopes, +submission to God's will, and courage to fulfil it. It was a prayer that +must prevail, or leave the heart submissive and strengthened. + +The Mass ended, all the lights were extinguished one after the other, but +the faint glimmering in the east soon increased to such a degree that, +when Fleurange rose after the church was nearly empty, she recognized +Clement only a few steps off. He followed her to the door, she took the +holy water from his hand, and they went out together. + +It was now broad daylight, but the sky was veiled with gray clouds, a +violent wind swept before it the snow that covered the ground, and when +they issued into the street they were met by a perfect whirlwind of +driving snow which Fleurange was scarcely able to withstand. Clement +supported her, then retained her arm, and they walked on for some time +without speaking. He had dreaded this interview in spite of himself, and +now rallied all his strength to listen calmly to what she was about to +say. But, at last, as she remained silent, he spoke first: + +"You were ill last evening, Gabrielle. I was far from expecting to find +you at church so early in such severe weather." + +"Ill?" replied Fleurange. "No; I was not ill, but suffering from a great +shock, as you know, do you not, Clement?" + +"Yes, Gabrielle, I know it." + +These few words broke down the barrier. What had haunted Clement's +thoughts now proved to be an actual reality; but energetic natures prefer +the most terrible realities to vague apprehensions, and even to vague +hopes, and he felt his courage rise in proportion as self-abnegation +became more completely rooted in his soul. After a moment's silence, he +said: + +"Gabrielle, why have you not treated me of late with the same confidence +you once showed me?" + +She replied without any hesitation: "Because I made a resolution never to +mention _him_--I made it," she continued, without noticing the slight start +Clement was unable to repress, "because I wished to forget him. It was +therefore better for me to be reserved even with Hilda--even with you, +Clement. But now," continued she, with a kind of exaltation in which grief +and joy were confounded, "now I think of that no longer. It seems as if a +new life had commenced for him and for me. And yet we are separated, as it +were, by death. But death breaks down barriers, and reunites, too. What +shall I say, Clement? I seem nearer to him to-day than yesterday, and in +spite of myself (for I am well aware it is an illusion) I feel I shall be +able to serve him in some way or other. At all events, I no longer have +any motive for concealing my feelings, and to throw off this restraint is +in itself a comfort." + +Clement listened without interrupting her. Each word gave him a sharp +pang, but he steeled himself, somewhat as one does to the clash of arms +and the firing of cannon till there is not even a movement of the eyelids +to betray the fear of death or the possibility of being wounded. As to the +illusion she spoke of, it was the last dream of sorrow and love. He would +not try to dispel it. + +"Let us hope, my dear cousin," said he in a calm tone. "So many unforeseen +circumstances may occur during a trial like that about to commence! There +is no reason to despair.--Whatever may happen," added he, as they +approached the house, "promise me, Gabrielle, from this time forth, to +show the same confidence in me you once did--a confidence which will induce +you to tell me everything, and rely on me under all circumstances. You +once made me such a promise: have you forgotten it?" + +"No, Clement, and I now renew it. You are my best friend, as I once told +you. My opinion has not changed." + +Yes, she had said so. He had forgotten neither the day nor the spot, and +his heart throbbed at the remembrance! Though he was but little more than +twenty years of age, and the honeysuckle he still preserved in memory of +that hour was scarcely withered, a long life seemed to have intervened +since they exchanged nearly the same words. + +But when they separated with a pressure of the hand at the end of the +conversation, on that gloomy winter morning, Clement was left with a less +painful impression than that which came over him on the banks of the +Neckar, when, in the pale light of the moon, he had so sudden and fatal a +revelation from the expression of her eyes and the tone of her voice. She +had told him nothing to-day he did not know before. Instead of happiness, +a vague perspective of devotedness opened before him. But even this was +something to live for. + +The following days passed without any new incident. The necessity of +concealing their preoccupation from the professor obliged them all to make +an effort which was beneficial especially to Fleurange, who remained +faithful to her ordinary duties, passing as much time as usual beside her +uncle's arm-chair, and with Mademoiselle Josephine and her poor +_protegees_. But a feverish anxiety was sometimes apparent in her +movements and in the troubled expression of her eyes when she went daily +at the regular hour to ask Hansfelt what was in the newspapers. For more +than a week, however, there was nothing new either to comfort her or to +increase her sorrow. Clement had returned to Frankfort, and the days +dragged along with deep and silent anguish. One morning, when least looked +for, he suddenly appeared with unexpected news: the Princess Catherine was +at Frankfort, and would be at Heidelberg the following day! + +Fleurange trembled.--The Princess Catherine!--All the remembrances connected +with that name revived with an intensity that for a moment overpowered +her. She felt incapable of uttering a word.--"Coming here?" she said at +length. "To Heidelberg? What for? What can bring her here? How do you +know? Who told you? Oh! tell me everything, and at once, Clement!" + +Clement implored her to be calm, and she became so by degrees while he +related what he had learned the night before from the Princess Catherine +herself. At her arrival at Frankfort, she was informed by M. Waldheim, her +banker, that young Dornthal was in the city, and she begged him to call on +her. Clement complied, but not without emotion, with the wish of Count +George's mother, and found her fearfully prostrated with grief and +illness. He had, however, a long conversation with her, the substance of +which was that, leaving Florence as soon as she learned the fatal news, +she travelled night and day till she reached Paris, where she fell ill. +After four days, however, she resumed her journey, but when she arrived at +Frankfort the physician declared her utterly incapable of continuing it, +and especially of enduring the increasing severity of the weather in +proportion as she approached St. Petersburg. Able to go no further, she +resolved at least to keep on as far as Heidelberg, hoping the care of a +young physician of that city, since and even then very celebrated, would +speedily enable her to resume her sad journey. + +"I shall make the effort," said the princess, "for I wish to live. I wish +to go to him, if possible. I long to behold him once more! I hope much +from Dr. Ch----'s attendance, as well as your cousin Gabrielle's. I depend +on her, tell her so. Tell her," added she, weeping, "that I long to see +her again, and beg her to come to me as soon as I arrive at Heidelberg." + +"And she will be here to-morrow?" said Fleurange, much affected. + +"Yes, towards night. I am going to notify the physician, and have the best +apartments in the city prepared for her. Though she did not say so, I am +sure, Gabrielle, she expects to meet you at her arrival." + +Fleurange merely replied she would be there, but her heart beat with a joy +she thought she could never feel again. To behold George's mother once +more, and at such a time! Was it not like catching a glimpse of him? She +would be sure of constantly hearing his name--of constant and direct news +respecting him--in a word, this was the realization of a secret wish she +had not dared utter. + +The next day, a long time before the appointed hour, Fleurange was in the +room prepared for the princess, arranging the furniture in the way she +knew would suit her, trying to give everything a cheerful aspect, to +lessen the sadness of the poor traveller, who, towards the close of this +long day, at length arrived exhausted with fatigue, and fell sobbing into +the young girl's arms. + +The time when she feared no other danger for her son than Gabrielle's +presence was forgotten. The impressions of the moment always overruled all +others, and her present troubles were, besides, well calculated to absorb +every thought. Therefore, in meeting her young _protegee_ she only thought +of the pleasure of seeing her again, of the comfort to be derived from her +care and presence at a time when they were most needed, and everything +except her first fancy for Fleurange seemed to be effaced from her memory. + + + +XLIII. + + +A subdued light veiled every object. A bright fire sparkled in the small +fireplace, only intended to be ornamental, as the room was otherwise +heated by a stove. The princess was, as we have already seen her, +reclining on a _canape_ sheltered by a large screen. Her elbow rested on a +small table loaded with the various objects she always carried with her; +her feet were covered with a large shawl, and near her sat Fleurange on a +stool in the old familiar attitude. + +There was a great change, however. They no longer resorted to reading as +they once did, or followed the lead of the princess' thoughts, generally +more or less frivolous. One subject alone absorbed every faculty--a subject +which she who listened with such ardent interest was still less weary of +than herself. + +To this the afflicted mother continually came back, sometimes with +agitation, sometimes with a dull despair, but always with profound grief, +heart-rending to her whose sorrow equalled her own. + +It was the first time the Princess Catherine had ever been subdued by +misfortune. Subdued, but not changed, she not only instinctively retained +all her elegant habits, but her passionate nature was unchanged, and burst +forth into recriminations against all whom she thought implicated in her +son's misfortunes. This enabled her to pity, without blaming, him. It was +one of these occasions Fleurange heard her exclaim that "Fabiano Dini was +his evil genius!" and she shuddered in recalling her presentiment, so soon +and so fatally justified. + +"Yes," said the princess during one of their conversations, "it was he--it +was that Fabiano Dini who brought him in contact with that reprobate of a +Lasko!" + +And then she told the young girl about that person whose tragical end did +not seem to have sufficiently expiated all the evil he had done her +son--about his arrival at Florence, the ascendency he acquired over George, +and the skill and promptness with which he took advantage of all his weak +points. She had been incredulous at first, notwithstanding Adelardi's +warnings--alas! too long, too foolishly incredulous! But her fears once +roused, how much had she not suffered! What efforts had she not made! +Alas! but in vain! + +"He was always so--that dear, unfortunate child! No prudence, no fear of +danger, ever stopped him on the very brink where his inclinations led him. +Oh! those wretches! they soon discovered his imprudence, his generosity, +and his courage! And now," she exclaimed, rising from her pillow, while +her thick but somewhat gray hair fell over her shoulders in unusual +disorder, "can he possibly be confounded with them? Oh! if I could only +get well, only strong enough to start, to make the journey, to see the +young empress even but once, I should obtain his pardon, I am sure!" + +Then she fell back exhausted, murmuring as she wrung her hands: "And +Vera!--Vera absent from St. Petersburg at such a time! She was expected +there, but who knows if she may not arrive too late? And above all, who +knows but she will be his worst enemy, and if he has not foolishly +poisoned the very source whence he might now derive safety?" + +These words, which perhaps might have caused fresh trouble, were not heard +by her to whom they were addressed. Fleurange had softly left the +princess' side as she laid her weary head on her pillow, and was at the +other end of the room preparing a soothing draught which the poor invalid +mechanically took from her hand from hour to hour without obtaining the +relief of a moment's sleep. This overpowering excitement, which resisted +every remedy, was somewhat soothed at the arrival of one of the Marquis +Adelardi's frequent letters. He was still at St. Petersburg, and kept her +accurately informed of all that happened, sometimes reviving her hopes, +and again confirming her fears. But hitherto he had not succeeded in +learning anything certain as to the fate reserved for his friend. +Sometimes, therefore, after eagerly reading these letters, she threw them +into the fire with despair. + +So much agitation at length brought on a high fever, and the princess had +been confined to her bed several days, when one morning another letter +arrived from St. Petersburg. Fleurange softly approached the bedside, and +perceived the invalid was fast asleep. It was important this brief moment +of repose should not be disturbed, and, besides, the physician had +requested, some days previous, that no letter should be given her till it +had been read, for fear she might learn some distressing news before she +was prepared--as it was easy to foresee might happen. Fleurange promised to +read the letters first, and with the less scruple that for more than a +week she had been obliged to read them to the princess, who was too worn +out to do so herself. + +She now left her to the care of the faithful Barbara, and went into the +salon, where, carefully closing the door, she broke the seal of the letter +in her hands, which was also from the Marquis Adelardi. "At last," he +wrote, "I think I can certainly reassure you as to the most terrible of +the events that seemed possible. The extreme rigor of the law will only be +enforced against the acknowledged leaders of the conspiracy--four or five +in number. All the others, among whom is George, will incur, alas! a +terrible penalty, but we must be thankful not to look forward to one more +frightful--I say we, my dear unfortunate friend, for, as to him, I fear +this sentence will produce a contrary effect. I am persuaded he will +consider it a thousand times more dreadful than the other. + +"Since I last wrote you, through the intervention of one of the +ambassadors, I have been allowed the privilege of entering the fortress +where George is confined, and having a private interview with him. Pardon +has been offered him if he will reveal the names of some of his +accomplices. You will not be surprised at his refusing. But the numerous +proofs of their criminal projects, which have been set before him in order +to wrest some acknowledgment from him, have convinced him of the nature of +the enterprise in which he risked his honor and life. The effect of this +discovery has been to plunge him in the deepest dejection, and his only +fear now is that his life may be spared. + +" 'I merit death for my folly, Adelardi,' said he: 'you were right in +warning me there would be no consolation in such a reflection at the +extremity I am now in. But I shall submit to my fate without weakness, as +you do me the honor to believe, I hope. I do not wish, however, to appear +more courageous than I am, and if, instead of death, I am sentenced to +drag out the life of a criminal in Siberia, I do not know what my despair +might lead me to do.' + +"As much precaution therefore must be taken in informing him of the +mitigation of his punishment, as in announcing to others the severity of +theirs. Before that time, I hope to obtain entrance again. + +"Meanwhile I have learned with as much admiration as surprise that several +who are doomed to the same punishment as he are to have an unexpected and +unparalleled consolation. Their wives--their admirable and heroic +wives--have begged to be allowed to share their fate, and at this very +moment several ladies whom you know, young, beautiful, and accomplished, +are preparing to follow their husbands to Siberia by inuring themselves to +the rigor of the season. These unfortunate men, degraded from the +nobility, deprived of their wealth, and stripped of everything in the +world, cannot be deprived of the affection of these self-sacrificing +creatures whose noble devotedness nothing daunts. I confess this amazes +and confuses me, for I never before realized, or even suspected, how much +heroism and generosity there is in the heart of a woman!"-- + +Fleurange's own heart throbbed so violently she was unable to continue the +letter. With overflowing eyes she was still dwelling on the page she had +just finished--reading it over and over--when she was told the princess was +awake, and wished to know if there was a letter for her. For some days her +mind had been so full of terrible anticipations about the final result as +sometimes to produce fits of delirium. When, therefore, the contents of +this letter were communicated to her, she felt an unexpected--an unhoped- +for relief. His life--George's life!--would be spared! There was yet time +for her to effect something. She began to hope everything from the future, +and became calmer than she had been for a long time. She was even to get +up in the evening. She conversed, she spoke eagerly of her plans, her +hopes, all she would do to soften her son's exile, and the efforts she +would make to abridge it; but what was extraordinary, Fleurange seemed +absent-minded and made scarcely any reply. + +About nine o'clock Julian or Clement always came to accompany her back to +Rosenheim--a half-hour's walk from the princess' house, which was at the +other end of the city. On this occasion, when she was sent for, she was so +absorbed in her own thoughts that she did not notice which of the two was +with her. It was starlight, but very cold, and her hair was blown about by +the wind from beneath her little velvet hat. + +"Draw your hood up, Gabrielle; it has not been so cold this winter." + +It was Clement's voice which suddenly roused her from her reverie. + +"Is it you, Clement?--Excuse me, I did not know whether I was with you or +Julian." + +He gently attempted to raise her hood. + +"No, no!" she said earnestly. "Let me breathe the air. Though it is +scarcely more than two years since I saw snow for the first time in my +life, I am not afraid of the cold. I could if necessary endure far more +severe weather than this.--There!" And she took off her hat and walked some +steps with her head completely exposed to the frosty night air. "You +know," she continued, with an animation that singularly contrasted with +her previous silence--"you know, during the Russian campaign, those who +endured the cold best were the Neapolitan soldiers. Well, like them, I +have brought a supply of sunshine from the South which much harder frosts +than this could not exhaust!" + +Nevertheless, at Clement's renewed entreaties, she laughingly put on her +hat, and they walked quickly along, leaving scarcely a trace of their +steps on the hard snow, deep as it was. + +Her liveliness that evening was strange! Clement noticed it without +comprehending the cause. Her cheerful tone and charming smile, instead of +delighting him as usual, now made him inexpressibly uneasy, and sadder +than ever! + + + +XLIV. + + +As is often the case with people of violent and impressionable natures, +the Princess Catherine seldom saw things long in the same light. Though +her thoughts were sorrowfully fastened on one subject in consequence of +the tragical events that so suddenly threw a dark, ominous veil over a +life hitherto so smiling, she found means of giving a thousand different +shades to her misfortune, and it was not always easy to follow her in the +fitful turns of her grief. What consoled her one day was a source of +irritation the next: what she affirmed in the morning, she vehemently +denied in the evening. Sometimes she expressed her fears on purpose that +they might be opposed; at other times, she burst into tears at the +slightest contradiction, and, if they endeavored to reassure her, she +accused them of cruelty and indifference to her troubles. + +In consequence of one of these sudden fluctuations, the day following the +arrival of the Marquis Adelardi's letter which had seemed so consoling, +Fleurange, at the hour of her usual visit, found her abandoned to the +deepest dejection. Everything had assumed a new aspect, or perhaps it +would be more just to say that everything now wore the terrible aspect of +truth. And was it really enough that her idolized son was delivered from +death? Was not the prospect she now dwelt on almost as fearful to bear? +He--George!--her son!--in her eyes the perfect model of manly beauty, +elegance, and nobleness of character, clad in the frightful garb of a +criminal!--and going alone amid that wretched crowd to that dreary region, +where the hardest and most humiliating labor awaited him, without even the +consoling voice of a friend to encourage him, to take him by the hand, to +love him, and to tell him so! + +"Oh!" she exclaimed, in that accent which is as different from every +other, as the grief of a mother differs from every other grief--"oh! +feeble, ill, and exhausted as I am, why cannot I accompany him? It really +seems to me, Gabrielle, if I were allowed, I should find strength, I +should have the courage to go. I would start, I would go and share his +wretched existence, I would participate in all the severities of so +frightful a life, and by dint of affection I would make it endurable for +him!" + +This energetic cry of disinterested affection--its evident sincerity--was so +rare a thing with the princess that it was the more affecting. Pale, +silent, and motionless before her, Fleurange listened with an emotion that +prevented her uttering the words that hung on her trembling lips. The poor +princess was sobbing aloud, with both hands to her face, apparently +exhausted by her own vehemence, when Fleurange, suddenly kneeling beside +her, said in a low tone: + +"Do you remember, princess, the promise you exacted from your son, one +evening?" + +The princess raised her head with surprise and a shade of resentment: +"What do you mean? Do you wish to reproach me at such a time? The moment +is well chosen, but such a thing from you, Gabrielle, surprises me!" + +"Reproach you!" cried Fleurange. "No, I did not think of such a thing. It +was a request, a petition, or, rather, it was a question I wished to ask +you." + +"A question!" The princess looked at Fleurange. She was struck by the +expression of her countenance, and interest, mingled with surprise, roused +her from her dejection. What request was she going to make in so +extraordinary a manner? And why did she look so determined, and speak in +so supplicating a tone? + +"Go on, speak, ask whatever you wish, Gabrielle." + +"Well, first let me tell you this: The eve of my departure from Florence, +while descending from San Miniato with him--with Count George, he asked if +I would be his wife, adding he was sure of obtaining your consent." + +"Why recall all these remembrances, Gabrielle? I thought you generous, but +you are without mercy!" + +Fleurange went on as if she did not hear: "I replied that I would never +listen to him, unless, by some unforeseen circumstance impossible to +conceive, his mother--you, princess--would gladly consent to receive me as a +daughter." She stopped a moment, as if too agitated to continue. + +"What are you aiming at?" said the princess. + +"I beg you to listen to me, princess. Here is my question: When this +terrible sentence is pronounced, when Count George de Walden is degraded +from his rank, deprived of his wealth, and even of his name (you shudder, +alas! and I also at the thought)--but to return--when that day comes, if he +asks the consent he promised you to wait for, will you grant it?" + +The princess looked at her with astonishment, without appearing to +comprehend her. + +"Will you allow me to tell him you have consented? Will you on that day +tell me you are willing I should become your daughter?" + +The princess began to catch at her meaning, but she was too stupefied to +reply. + +"Ah! say the word, princess," continued Fleurange, her face expressing +both angelic tenderness and a more than feminine courage, "say it, and I +will start. I will be at St. Petersburg before his sentence is pronounced, +and when he comes out of his dungeon I will be there, and before he +departs for the place of his exile a tie shall unite us that will permit +me to accompany him and share all its severity!"--She continued in +faltering tones: "And if ever the tenderness of a mother, the care of a +sister, or the love of a wife, were able to alleviate misfortune, my heart +shall have the combined power of these various affections." + +We are aware that, when certain chords were touched in the princess' +heart, they vibrated strongly, and made her for a moment forget herself. +But never, under any circumstances of her life, had she felt an emotion +equal to that now caused by Fleurange's words and accents. She looked at +her a moment in silence while great tears rolled down her cheeks, then, +opening her arms and pressing the young girl passionately to her heart, +she covered her forehead and eyes with kisses, repeating at intervals with +a voice broken by sobs: "Yes, yes, Gabrielle, be my daughter: I consent +with joy--with gratitude. I give you now my consent and a mother's +blessing!"-- + +To Be Continued. + + + + +The Poor Ploughman. + + + A true worker and a good was he, + Living in peace and perfect charity; + God loved he, best, and that with alle his herte, + At alle times, were it gain or smart; + And then his neighbour right as himselve. + He wolde thresh, and thereto dyke and delve + For Christe's sake, for every poor wight + Withouten hire, if it lay in his might. + His tithes paid he full fair and well, + Both of his proper work, and his cattel.--_S. Anselm._ + + + + +A Dark Chapter In English History.(103) + + +One of the most gratifying features of the literature of the present, and +one that in some measure compensates us for the evils produced by the many +worthless books that are still allowed to issue from the press, is its +tendency by close investigation and collation to vindicate the truth of +modern history, and especially of that portion of it directly or +indirectly relating to the XVIth century. Gradually, but most effectually, +the inventions and gross calumnies of the post-Reformation writers are +being dissipated, and the meretricious grandeur with which the characters +and acts of the anti-Catholic sovereigns, statesmen, and generals of that +eventful period were designedly clothed, has been stripped off, revealing +to their descendants the deformity and impiety of the heroes of the +Reformation. Whether we turn to England or Germany, Edinburgh or Geneva, +we find the men and women who in our own school-boy days we were urged to +regard as patterns of patriotism and morality, become under the scrutiny +of living historiographers the veriest counterfeits--the prey of passion +and the untiring enemies of every principle of government and religion +which we are bound to respect. Yet this is what, logically, we might have +anticipated. A bad cause needs to be sustained by vicious instruments; but +so closely and consistently has the web of falsehood been woven around the +true designs and actions of the reformers that it required the labor of +many skilful and patient hands to undo the meshes and reduce the fabric, +so dexterously spun, to its original elements. This is peculiarly +difficult with the works of English historians and biographers of the past +three centuries, whose unanimity in magnifying the virtues and screening +the crimes of their public men is so remarkable as to utterly destroy the +value of their works as authorities among people of other nations. The +beastly vices of the eighth Henry were, of course, so glaring that they +could neither be denied nor extenuated; but who would expect to find that +his worthy daughter Elizabeth, the "virgin queen" and _Gloriana_, before +whose benign altar even Shakespeare offered the incense of his flattery, +should at this remote period be discovered to be: as a woman ugly, ill- +tempered, and unchaste, and as a ruler fickle, cruel, cold-blooded, and +thoroughly despotic. James I., the head of a long line of gallant princes, +to whom his pliant prelates attributed "divine illumination," and +subsequent historians praised for his learning and wit, we at length know +to have been a miser and a charlatan, as deformed in mind as he was +uncouth in person. "His cowardice," says his compatriot and co-religionist +Macaulay, "his childishness, his pedantry, his ungainly person and +manners, his provincial accent, made him an object of derision" to his +English subjects. The unscrupulous Northampton and the subtle Cecil, the +trusted ministers of both sovereigns, who had long been regarded as the +unswerving champions of English independence and the bulwark of Protestant +ascendency, are now proved to have been all along the paid tools of +Catholic Spain, with whose ill-gotten gold their lofty palaces were built +and their luxurious wants regularly supplied.(104) The chivalrous and +romantic Raleigh of other days, examined by the inexorable scrutiny of the +XIXth century, turns out a spy in the pay of a foreign and by no means +friendly power; the philosophic Bacon, a common peculator; and Coke, the +father of English common law, a falsifier of sworn evidence and a +concocter of legal conspiracies against the liberties of his countrymen. +Yet these were the leading personages, who, with many others equally +corrupt, in their day and generation swayed the destinies of England, +desolated the church of God, originated or abetted plots and schemes, at +home and abroad, for the spoliation and extermination of the professors of +the ancient faith. + +This tardy measure of historical justice is partly due to the appearance +in different parts of Europe of important public and private documents and +correspondence, which have shamed British Protestant authors into +something like truthfulness, but principally to the revival of Catholicity +in England, which has been the means of drawing out a mass of original and +reliable information, that had long been allowed to slumber in the dark +closets of a few noble families or in inaccessible libraries during the +gloomy era of persecution and proscription. Our readers are already +familiar with the articles which formerly appeared in these columns on the +long-unsettled and vexed question of the character of Mary, Queen of +Scots, and the justice or injustice of her treatment by +Elizabeth--contributions to current literature which in their collective +form have found their way among the _literati_ of all nations, and, from +their admirable cogency of argument and conscientious appeals to +contemporary authorities, have at length cleared away from the character +of that ill-starred lady the foul aspersions and unexampled obloquy heaped +on it by the minions of the English sovereign. + +Some more recent publications have thrown additional light on the tragic +incidents of her reign and of that of her successor James, which, as far +as they relate to the Catholics of Great Britain, are full of freshness +and interest. Chief among them is the _Life of Father John Gerard_, for +many years a Jesuit missionary in England under both rulers, with his +account of the celebrated Gunpowder Plot, written soon after the failure +of that conspiracy. Many of the participants in the plot were personally +known to him, and he himself was accused of having taken an active part in +its formation; but, though his name has been frequently mentioned in +connection with it and his manuscript narrative more or less correctly +quoted, it remained for a member of his Order, the Rev. John Morris, the +able editor of the book before us, to present to the world for the first +time the only complete and accurate history of an event which has been the +fruitful subject of misrepresentation and comment by every writer on +English history for the last two hundred years. + +Few incidents of modern times can be said to have provoked more hostility +to the church and the Jesuit Order than the Gunpowder Plot, few have been +so dexterously used by the enemies of Catholicity to poison the public +mind against the priesthood, and none the details of which are so little +understood even at the present day by friends and foes. The 5th of +November, the anniversary of its discovery, has long been a gala-day with +the more ignorant of the British populace; Protestant writers, divines, +and politicians of the lower sort are not yet tired of alluding to the +time when, as they are wont to allege, the Catholics by one fell swoop +attempted to destroy king, lords, and commons; and even Lingard and +Tiernay, with the very best intentions and after considerable examination +of authorities, give a partial assent to the old popular conviction that, +in some way or another, the Jesuits were at the bottom of the diabolical +scheme, which in reality was the creation of a handful of desperate +laymen. In fact, the former, with a penetration totally at variance with +his general character, alludes to the taking of the oath of secrecy by +Catesby and his companions in terms that would lead any superficial reader +to adopt this absurd hypothesis. "All five," he says, "having previously +sworn each other to secrecy, received in confirmation of their oath the +sacrament at the hands of the Jesuit missionary Father Gerard."(105) It is +true that in a subsequent edition of his _History_ he endeavored to +explain away, but in a very unsatisfactory manner, the implication of +guilty knowledge on the part of Gerard; but, whether from an imperfect +acquaintance with the writings of that priest, then unpublished, or from +that spirit of timidity which too often characterized the conduct of the +English Catholics of the last generation, his refutation is not of that +full and hearty nature which might be expected from so clear and critical +a scholar. + +What Dr. Lingard was unwilling or unable to undertake may now, in view of +more complete evidence, be accomplished by persons of lesser erudition, +who, untrammelled by national partiality, are not alarmed at popular +clamor or unwilling to disturb time-honored but unfounded historical +fallacies. We design, therefore, in this article to prove: + +1. That the Gunpowder Plot was formed and carried out to its disastrous +end by not more than a dozen desperate men, the victims of unrelenting +persecution for conscience' sake. + +2. That the Catholic body in England, lay and clerical, till its +discovery, neither were aware of its existence, approved of its aims, nor +rendered any assistance to its projectors. + +3. That no priest, Jesuit or other, was concerned in its formation, or +afforded it any encouragement at any time; and that of all the seculars +and regulars in the kingdom but two were ever aware of its existence, and +that to them the knowledge came under the seal of confession and could not +be revealed. + +4. That those two used every possible effort to dissuade the conspirators +from their design, and denounced on every occasion all violent attempts to +redress the wrongs under which the Catholics suffered. + +The state of England at the beginning of the XVIIth century, when James of +Scotland was called upon to ascend the throne of his mother's murderer, +was deplorable in the extreme. Less than half a century had sufficed to +change entirely the whole face of the country socially and morally, and +the once "merrie" people were divided into two hostile camps, one the army +of plunder and persecution, the other the cowering, dissatisfied, and +impoverished masses. Many were yet alive who recollected with sorrow the +time when the cross gleamed on the spires of a thousand churches, when the +solemn sacrifice was offered up on myriads of altars, when the poor and +afflicted easily found food and shelter at the numerous convents and +abbeys that dotted the land of S. Augustine, and the young and the aged, +the weak woman and the strong man, together bowed their knees in reverence +before the statues of the "blessed among women" and other saints. Now all +was reformed away--changed not with the consent of the people nor by the +argument or eloquence of the preacher, but by the brute force and cunning +fraud of a corrupt sovereign, a dissolute and avaricious court, and, +partially at least, by a venal and cowardly episcopate. The churches no +longer resounded from morning till night with the solemn sacred chants, +the monasteries were in ruins or the scenes of impious revelry, the +festivals of the church were abolished, and the peasantry, formerly +accustomed to look forward to them as days of rest from hard toil and +occasions of innocent enjoyment, were sullen and discontented. Those who +had shared in the ecclesiastical plunder spent their time in the +metropolis in wild extravagance, while the gentry, most of whom still +adhered secretly to the faith, remained at home, the prey of anxiety and +the tax-gatherer. The masses were fast degenerating into that state of +stolid ignorance and unbelief from which all subsequent legislation has +failed to raise them. The laws of Elizabeth aimed at the suppression of +all outward manifestation of Catholicity and the ultimate protestantizing +of the nation; those of James, at the utter extirpation of the Catholics +themselves. + +As early as A.D. 1559, the first year of Elizabeth's reign, a law was +passed compelling every person holding office, either temporal or +spiritual, under the crown, to take an oath of allegiance declaring the +queen the supreme head of the church. The penalty for refusing this oath +was forfeiture of goods and imprisonment, and a persistence in such +refusal, _death_. Whoever affirmed the spiritual supremacy of the pope was +declared guilty of treason; penalty, confiscation and _death_. Attendance +at Mass was to be punished by perpetual imprisonment, and non-attendance +at Protestant service by a weekly fine. In the fifth year of her reign, +any aider or abettor of such offenders was for the first offence to be +fined and imprisoned for life, for the second to suffer _death_. Any +clergyman celebrating Mass or refusing to observe the regulations of the +_Book of Common Prayer_ forfeited offices, goods, and liberty. In the +thirteenth year, introducing into the kingdom a bull or other instrument +of the pope was treason, penalty _death_; abetting the same, _death_; +acting under such authority, _death_; introducing, wearing, or having in +his or her possession an _Agnus Dei_, cross, etc., confiscation and +perpetual imprisonment; and for leaving the kingdom without permission, +forfeiture of lands and personal estate. In the twenty-third year, any +person granting absolution from sin in the name of the "Roman Church," or +receiving the same, their aiders, etc., was declared guilty of treason, +penalty _death_; and for not disclosing knowledge of such offenders, +confiscation and imprisonment. In the twenty-ninth year, the tax for non- +attendance at Protestant service was increased to L20 per lunar month, or +forfeiture of two-thirds of all lands and goods; and for keeping a +schoolmaster or tutor, other than a Protestant, a fine of L10 per month +was imposed, together with imprisonment at pleasure. By the statutes of +the 21st, 27th, and 28th Elizabeth, every priest, Jesuit, or other +ecclesiastic ordained out of the realm was obliged forthwith to leave the +kingdom, and in case of his return he was to suffer _death_; those who +received or harbored him were subject to a like punishment. Those being +educated abroad were required to return home, and after neglect to do so, +upon their being found in the kingdom, were to be put to _death_. For +contributing money for colleges abroad and for sending students there, +fine and imprisonment for life were considered adequate punishments; but +by the 25th chapter of Elizabeth, all who persisted in refusing attendance +on Protestant worship were liable to be transported for life, and if they +evaded the statute they were liable to suffer _death_.(106) + +We see, therefore, by this comprehensive penal code that every office +under the crown was reserved as a bribe to recreant Catholics; that +private tutors were commanded to teach nothing but the new heresy in +Catholic families, while those who objected to such method of instruction +could neither send their children abroad nor contribute to the support of +those already there. All priests were obliged to take the oath of +supremacy and observe the _Book of Common Prayer_; such as did not were to +be banished, and if they returned were to be executed forthwith. No priest +could, of course, be ordained at home, and if ordained abroad he was to be +hanged whenever caught, without delay. If one of the laity attended Mass +or wore the image of his crucified Redeemer, he was to be imprisoned for +life; if he did not attend Protestant service, he was to be fined +enormously; if he had no money to pay the fine, he might be banished for +ever from his home and country, and if he endeavored to conceal himself at +home his career was to be ended by the hangman. + +Nor must it to be supposed that these sanguinary statutes, affecting the +rights and liberties of at least one-half of the population, were nothing +but the splenetic fits of a jealous and tyrannical bigot or mere idle +threats to frighten a half-civilized horde. On the contrary, we have +abundant facts to prove that they were thoroughly and cruelly enforced, +and that the sufferers were principally the better class of the community. +In 1573, the Rev. Thomas Woodhouse was drawn, half-hanged, and then +quartered alive in the usual way at Tyburn, for having denied the queen's +supremacy. Two years later, Father Cuthbert Mayne was executed with +similar barbarity in Cornwall for having in his possession a copy of a +Jubilee and for saying Mass in the house of a Mr. Teagian; the latter, +with fifteen others, for being present on the occasion, was imprisoned for +life. In 1577, Mr. Jenks was tried and convicted at Oxford for exposing +some Catholic books for sale, and about this time we are informed the +prisons were so full of "recusants" that a pestilence broke out and large +numbers of the inmates perished. Among the sufferers in 1578 we find the +names of Father Nelson and a Mr. Sherwood, who were hanged and quartered +solely for being recusants. In 1582, Fathers Campion (the celebrated +Jesuit missionary), Sherwin, and Briant, after the mockery of a trial, +were executed in London, and in May of the year following no less than +seven other priests suffered death at Tyburn. Thus nearly every year +supplied its quota to the martyrology of the church in England, not to +speak of the nameless thousands who died in confinement by the quick but +silent process of torture and pestilence, or abroad, broken-hearted and +neglected. During the fourteen years succeeding the dispersion of the +Spanish Armada, when fanaticism was rampant and bigotry held full sway in +the councils of Elizabeth, sixty-one clergymen, forty-seven laymen, and +two gentlewomen expiated their offence of being Catholics by a horrible +and ignominious public death; while, according to the records still +extant, the total number of the "good Queen Bess'" ecclesiastical victims +amounted to the handsome number of one hundred and twenty-three, including +one hundred and thirteen seculars, eight Jesuits, one friar, and one monk, +besides innumerable laymen in whose veins flowed the best blood of the +land. + +The rack and the thumb-screw almost invariably preceded the half-hanging +and disembowelling, so that many looked upon the gallows as a welcome +relief from worse sufferings. Priests were tortured to compel them to +disclose the names of their penitents, and laymen to force them into the +betrayal of their pastors. Father Campion was four times racked, and then +secretly brought before the queen to discuss theology with that model +Supreme Head of the Church; while others like Nichols found it more +convenient to swear to all their tormentors required, for, as that +recreant shepherd naively says in his _Apology_, "it is not, I assure you, +a pleasant thing to be stretched on the rack till the body becomes almost +two feet longer than nature made it." Father Gerard, who speaks from +personal experience, has left us in his Memoirs the following account of +this most effectual method of extorting confessions in the glorious reign +of that queen to which so many of our modern writers refer with pride and +congratulation: + + + "Then they led me to a great upright beam, or pillar of wood, + which was one of the supports of this vast crypt. At the summit of + this column were fixed certain iron staples for supporting + weights. Here they placed on my wrists manacles of iron, and + ordered me to mount upon two or three wicker steps; then raising + my arms they inserted an iron bar through the rings of the + manacles, and then through the staples in the pillar, putting a + pin through the bar so that it could not slip. My arms being thus + fixed above my head, they withdrew those wicker steps I spoke of, + one by one, from my feet, so that I hung by my hands and arms. The + tips of my toes, however, still touched the ground; so they dug + away the ground beneath, as they could not raise me higher, for + they had suspended me from the topmost staples in the pillar. Thus + hanging by my wrists I began to pray, while those gentlemen + standing around me asked again if I was willing to confess. I + replied, 'I neither can nor will.' But so terrible a pain began to + oppress me that I was scarcely able to speak the words. The worst + pain was in my breast and belly, my arms and hands. It seemed to + me that all the blood in my body rushed up my arms into my hands, + and I was under the impression at the time that the blood actually + burst forth from my fingers and the back of my hands. This was, + however, a mistake, the sensation was caused by the swelling of + the flesh over the iron that bound it.... I had hung this way till + after one of the clock, as I think, when I fainted."(107) + + +It must not be supposed, however, that the zeal of the queen's ministers +was satisfied with these harsh measures against the clergy and the more +prominent delinquents. All Catholics were put beyond the pale of the law. +The country swarmed with spies and informers. Lists were accurately made +out and carefully preserved of the recusants who owned property of any +sort, and every possible method of espionage was adopted to detect them in +the slightest infraction of the bloody code. Domiciliary visits became the +order of the day, or rather of the night, for that was the time usually +chosen by the pursuivants. Doors were broken open, closets ransacked, +bedrooms of women and invalids invaded without ceremony; and frequently, +the previous movements having been properly concerted, whole families were +simultaneously borne off to prison, there to be detained without the least +warrant of law for months and years. The tax of L260 annually, equal to at +least five thousand dollars at the present day, was not only vigorously +enforced, but upon the faintest rumor of a foreign invasion or domestic +broil, special imposts were laid on the remaining property of the +Catholics, and the owners were carried to the nearest dungeon till the +affair blew over, when they were as unceremoniously dismissed until the +next occasion arose for plunder and personal revenge. + +Thus was the work of reformation and evangelization urged briskly forward +in free England, and she was fast becoming converted and enlightened. +Torture, death, and confiscation dogged the steps of the unhappy recusant +who dare to profess, even in the privacy of his house, the faith of his +fathers for ten centuries--that religion which had raised his ancestors +from barbarism, freed him from the thraldom of feudalism, and given him +_Magna Charta_, trial by jury, and representative government. The crown +lawyers, like Coke, Stanhope, and Bacon, laid the plans, pious bishops +like those of London, Ely, and Winchester, leaving their flocks to the +devouring Puritan wolves, constituted themselves a sort of episcopal +sheriffalty, and vied with each other in their ardor for the spread of the +Gospel and their love for the spoils of the Papists. Their leader in all +this was a vulgar wretch named Topcliffe, whose audacity, profanity, and +lewdness made him the terror of men and the abhorrence of women, but whose +usefulness was so apparent that he was constantly the object of government +favors and clerical eulogy. + +But human hate and diabolical ingenuity, it was thought, could not last +for ever. On the 24th of March, A.D. 1603, Elizabeth died, to the last the +prey of vain desires and unsatisfied ambition. For weeks before her +decease she was haunted by the phantoms of her innumerable crimes, and so +terrified at the approach of death that she refused to lie in her bed or +to receive any sustenance from her usual attendants. The courts of Europe, +to which she had ever been an object of dislike and fear, could ill +conceal their pleasure at the event, but millions of her subjects, the +impoverished, the widowed, and the orphaned, made desolate by her despotic +cruelty, in silence execrated her memory. + +The Catholics generally found consolation in the thought of her successor, +and, with that unqualified confidence in the house of Stuart, which now +seems like fatality, they began to hope for better days under his sway. +Was he not, they asked each other, the son of Elizabeth's royal victim, +and could he be unmindful of the affection with which the Catholics of the +three kingdoms ever regarded his mother? Had he not before he ever put +foot in England authorized Father Watson to promise in his name justice +and protection, and did not Percy, the agent and kinsman of the great Duke +of Northumberland, assure his friends, on the strength of the royal word +solemnly pledged, that the days of persecution were at an end? Poor +deluded people, they little knew how much deceit lay in the heart of him +whom the Protestant lord primate rather blasphemously averred "the like +had not been since the time of Christ." He had scarcely put on the crown +when the Catholics discovered that they had neither mercy nor justice to +expect from him. Once secure in the support of the Protestant party, he +turned a deaf ear to their complaints, and even had the mendacity to deny +his own word of honor, giving as a reason "that, since Protestants had so +generally received and proclaimed him king, he had now no need of +Papists." Being by nature intolerant, he oppressed the Puritans, by whom +he had been trained, to please the Episcopalians, and to gratify both he +ground the Catholics into dust; arrests for recusancy multiplied, illegal +visitations became more frequent, and if possible more annoying, the +arrears of the monthly tax which he at first pretended to remit were +demanded, and the amount, already enormous, was even increased so as to +satisfy the ever-increasing rapacity of his pauper courtiers who had +followed him into England. In place and out of it, he made the most +violent attacks on the faith of his dead mother and of at least one-half +of his English subjects, and his remarks were taken up and repeated from +every Protestant pulpit and in every conventicle throughout the length and +breadth of the land, till the hopes of the Catholics grew fainter and +fainter, and finally expired. Unlike Elizabeth, he was not only expected +to live a long life, but his progeny would succeed him, the heirs of his +authority and cruelty; and being constitutionally a coward and an +intriguer, he was bent on making peace with foreign powers, and thus +cutting off all sympathy which the Catholic sovereigns might have felt it +their interest to express for their suffering co-religionists in Great +Britain. + +Though the principles of reciprocal protection and allegiance were not as +well defined at that period as, they have since been, the Catholics of +England would have been more or less than human if they could have +regarded James' government with any feeling other than detestation, and +the wonder is not that a plot was laid to destroy it, but that so very few +of the persecuted multitude could be found to embark in it, +notwithstanding the manifold reasons afforded by the king and parliament +for their destruction. It was an age of conspiracies and counterplots, +when the highest and most trusted in every land endeavored by force or +fraud to accomplish political and personal ends, success being the only +criterion of merit. The history of Europe from the middle of the preceding +century is full of dark schemes and secret contrivances, in which nobles +and princes figure alternately as the bribers or the bribed, the patrons +or the victims of the assassin, now devoted patriots and anon double-dyed +traitors. The long civil wars, the vicious legacy of the Lutheran attempt +to unsettle the faith of Christendom, had nearly ceased from sheer +exhaustion, and unemployed soldiers of desperate fortunes but undoubted +courage were to be easily had for any enterprise, no matter how dangerous. + +Of this character was Guy or Guido Fawkes, whose name, though not himself +the originator of the Gunpowder Plot, is most intimately associated with +it in popular tradition. The real authors were Robert Catesby, Thomas +Percy, Thomas Winter, and John Wright; all of whom were country gentlemen +of good family and education, but, except Catesby, very much reduced in +circumstances owing to the unjust and repeated exactions of the penal +laws, which had not only robbed them of their property and shut them out +from all public employment, but had branded them with the stigma of +traitors to their country and enemies to their sovereign; for, having in +the early part of their lives conformed to Protestantism, they had +subsequently returned to the church into which they had been baptized--an +offence in the eyes of the rulers of that day of the deepest dye. + +In the early part of 1604, the five conspirators met in London, and, +having taken a solemn oath of secrecy, determined on their future schemes +for the total destruction of the government. Wishing, however, it seems, +to exhaust all milder remedies, they sent agents to Spain and other +foreign powers friendly to the Catholic cause, to induce them to use their +good offices in mitigating the sufferings of the English recusants. The +answers were generally favorable, but non-committal, and the practical +result nothing. They then determined to depend on themselves alone, and in +the autumn rented a building adjoining the Palace of Westminster, the old +House of Parliament, and commenced to undermine the dividing wall. This, +some three yards thick of solid masonry, they found a work of difficulty, +and from the paucity of their numbers and their inexperience in manual +labor, advanced slowly. A circumstance soon occurred to modify their +plans. A portion of the cellar immediately under the prince's chamber, +which had been used by a coal dealer, was vacated by the tenant, and Percy +rented it, ostensibly for storage purposes. The mine was abandoned, and +thirty-two barrels of powder, which had been stored previously at Lambeth, +were introduced in the night-time, and covered from observation by wood, +furniture, etc. All that was now required to complete the conspiracy was a +proper moment for the application of the match. This work had brought them +into the spring of 1605, and, as parliament was not to assemble for some +months, they resolved to separate, some going into the country to see +their relatives, and others to the Continent to enlist the assistance of +such adventurers as could be found willing to take service under the +anticipated new _regime_. Meanwhile eight more persons were admitted into +the plot, the principal of whom were Rokewood, Grant, Tresham, and Sir +Everard Digby, all young men of family and fortune, whose proud spirits +chafed continually under the social and political ostracism to which all +recusants of the period were doomed. + +The opening of parliament, expected in September, was, however, postponed +till the 5th of November, but, to the secret satisfaction of Catesby and +his fellows, the penal laws continued to be rigidly enforced, and +additional measures of persecution were devised by the king's council for +the adoption by the legislature when it should meet. As that time +approached and everything augured success, the parts of the leading actors +in the bloody drama were distributed. Fawkes was to fire the powder which +was to blow the king, his oldest son Henry, and the lords and commons into +eternity; Prince Charles, the next in succession, having been seized by +Percy, was to be proclaimed king at Charing Cross by Catesby; while +Tresham, Grant, and Digby were to gain possession of the person of the +infant princess Elizabeth, at Lord Harrington's country-seat. After the +explosion, Fawkes was to sail for Flanders to bring over reinforcements, +and the others, a protector for the royal children having been appointed, +were to rendezvous at Digby's residence and raise the country in favor of +the new government. There was a method in the madness of these men, and +the first part of their programme would undoubtedly have been carried out +but for one important fact upon which it seems they did not reckon: Cecil +was fully cognizant of all their movements, and for his own good reasons, +as we shall hereafter see, allowed them to proceed unchecked to the very +last moment. + +That moment expired soon after midnight on the night of the 4th-5th of +November, only a few hours before the expected catastrophe. As Fawkes was +entering the cellar to assure himself that all was in readiness, he was +seized by a body of soldiers under the command of Sir Thomas Knevett. His +dress denoted that he was prepared for a journey, arms and matches were +found upon his person, a dark-lantern was discovered in a corner, and the +removal of the _debris_ that was piled in the vault revealed the powder +arranged ready for explosion. + +The scene that ensued was highly dramatic, and did great credit to the +histrionic genius of the secretary. The lords of the council were hastily +summoned to the king's bed-chamber, the prisoner was brought up for +examination by torch-light, and the royal pedant sat on the side of his +couch in his night-clothes for several hours, questioning and cross- +questioning the would-be murderer. But Guy was made of stern stuff, and, +while he freely admitted that his intention had been "to blow the Scotch +beggars back to their native mountains," he obstinately refused to +disclose the names of his associates. The news spread with rapidity, and +London at daylight was in the wildest commotion. The other conspirators in +the city, with the exception of Tresham, fled to Digby's house near +Dunchurch, where a hunting party had assembled, but upon the disclosure of +the treason and its failure the guests rapidly dispersed, two or three +only, from friendship or other causes, resolving to remain with the +conspirators and share the fate which now seemed certain to overtake them. +One of these was Stephen Littleton, who resided at Holbeach in +Staffordshire, a strongly Catholic county, and thither the whole party, +numbering between forty and fifty, including grooms and other servants, +proceeded through Warwick and Worcester, vainly endeavoring on their road +to excite the people to join them. At Holbeach they resolved to make a +stand, but an accident destroyed whatever little chance might have +remained of a successful resistance. Their ammunition, which had been wet +during their hurried journey, exploded while being dried, and not only +seriously injured Catesby and three others, but afforded an excuse for +their handful of followers to forsake them. In this condition they were +soon surrounded by the forces of Sir Richard Walsh, who, after summoning +them to surrender and receiving a defiant negative, ordered his men to +fire. The brothers Wright, Percy, and Catesby, fell mortally wounded; +Rokewood, Winter, Morgan, and Grant were wounded and taken prisoners, and +Digby and the two others were soon after captured. They were immediately +taken to London, tried, and with Fawkes executed on the 30th of the +following January. + +Under ordinary circumstances, this insane conspiracy of a dozen desperate +men would have ended here, and the plot itself have become lost in the +thousand-and-one concerted crimes against authority which disfigure the +annals of European monarchy in the middle ages; but the Puritan party in +England, the more insatiable enemies of the Catholics, who saw in it an +excellent opportunity for wholesale spoliation of what yet remained to the +persecuted, endeavored to involve the millions in the treasonable guilt of +the few, and Cecil, who had so long nursed the designs of the traitors, +had his own deep schemes to subserve by endorsing this foul calumny. But +James, bigot as he was, could not, in the face of such palpable facts to +the contrary, go to this extreme length. "For though it cannot be denied," +he said in his speech to parliament recounting the discovery and origin of +the plot, "that it was only the blind superstition of their errors in +religion that led them to this desperate device, yet doth it not follow +that all professing that Romish religion were guilty of the same." Yet the +Puritan party, who hungered for the spoils, by constant repetition +succeeded in fastening the imputation of guilt on the entire Catholic body +in England, and for a long time it was partially believed abroad, and re- +echoed without hesitation by subsequent historians. The author of _Her +Majesty's Tower_, to whom Catholicity owes little else, has, we are happy +to say, had the manhood to set the matter in its true light in his recent +publication. He says: + + + "The news of this plot was heard by the old English Catholics with + more astonishment than rage, though the expression of their anger + was both loud and deep. The priests were still more prompt to + denounce it than their flocks. The venerable Archpriest, George + Blackwell, took up his pen before a single man had yet been killed + or captured in the shires, and in a brief address to the Catholic + clergy stigmatized the plot as a detestable contrivance in which + no true Catholic could have a share--as an abominable thing, + contrary to Holy Writ, to the councils, and to the instructions of + the spiritual guides. Blackwell told his clergy to exhort their + flocks to peace and obedience, and to avoid falling into snares." + + +But it was necessary for the purpose of affording a decent pretext for +further penal legislation, long since agreed upon in the council, as well +as to destroy the sympathy still felt at foreign courts for the persecuted +English, that the blame of the foul conspiracy should be laid not on the +inhuman laws which had driven gallant and loyal men into deadly conflict +with the government, but on the church. As it was impossible to implicate +any considerable number of the laity or the secular clergy, it was +resolved to single out the few Jesuits then in the country, and through +them the entire Order, as fitting objects of national hatred and universal +obloquy. The trick was not new even then, though since much practised and +refined. Its execution was consonant also with the parliamentary design of +exterminating Catholicity in the three kingdoms. The old clergy, or, as +they were called, "Queen Mary's priests," were few, aged, and sure soon to +die out in the course of nature, while the authorities had taken good care +that they should leave no successors of native education. The Jesuits, on +the contrary, were young men, generally scions of noble houses, gentle in +breeding, and, from their continental training, thorough linguists, acute +reasoners, and polished gentlemen. Their erudition made them feared by the +half-taught sophists of the reformed prelacy, their refined manners +secured their admission into the best families, and their noble enthusiasm +defied the utmost severity of the Puritan and Episcopal magistrates. Their +knowledge of the country was accurate, and, though they were accused by +such hired defamers as Coke of using many _aliases_, the odium was not +theirs, but the law's, that made their very presence in their native land +treason. No religious community, it is well known, is the church, nor is +she responsible for the conduct of each particular member, but the orders +may be regarded as the _vedettes_ of her grand army, and before it can be +successfully attacked they must be driven in or captured. + +Accordingly, one of the first steps taken by the king's advisers after the +trial of the conspirators was to issue a proclamation for the arrest of +Fathers Gerard, Greenway, and Garnett, three of the four Jesuit +missionaries then known to be in England. In this official document it was +alleged "to be plain and evident from the examinations that all three had +been peculiarly practisers in the plot." Now, let us examine for a moment +upon what those grave accusations were based. Simply on confessions of the +prisoners, for it has never been alleged that the slightest proof, +documentary or oral, other than those and the admission of Father Garnett, +the provincial, were ever produced to connect the priests with the +conspiracy. The examinations were conducted with the most exquisite +tortures, taken down by the creatures of the government, and afterwards +mutilated and altered by the attorney-general to suit his own views. +Fawkes, by special command of his majesty, was so frequently racked that +he could not use a pen to sign his name, much less could he read what had +been written for him, and Nicholas Owen, a lay-brother, was so stretched +that his bowels protruded and he expired in the hands of his tormentors. +Of Father Gerard, mention was made by two of the original plotters, Fawkes +and Winter, in allusion to the oath of secrecy. The latter said that "the +five administered the oath to each other in a chamber _in which no other +body was_," which the latter confirms more in detail. + + + "The five," he says, "did meet at a house in the field, beyond S. + Clement's Inn, where they did confer and agree upon the plot, and + there they took a solemn oath and vows by all their force and + power to execute the same, and of secrecy not to reveal it to any + of their fellows, but to such as should be thought fit persons to + enter into that action; and in the same house they did receive the + sacrament of Gerard the Jesuit, to perform their vow and oath of + secrecy aforesaid. _But that Gerard was not acquainted with their + purpose._"(108) + + +This last sentence was by order of Coke underlined with red, notated +_hucusque_, and was carefully suppressed in the reading of the examination +on the trial! The original document is still preserved in the Public +Record Office, and how such an indefatigable student as Mr. Dixon could +have overlooked this part of it is, to say the least, very suspicious. His +version of the affair is as follows: + + + "An upper room of Widow Herbert's house was turned into a chapel; + and when the priest was ready for his part, Catesby, Percy, Tom + Winter, Jack Wright, and Fawkes assembled in the house--a quaint + old Tudor pile at the corner of Clement's Lane--first in the lower + room, where they swore each other upon the Primer, and then in the + upper room, where they heard Father Gerard say Mass, and took from + his hand the sacrament on that oath. Each of the five conspirators + was sworn upon his knees, with his hand on the Primer, that he + would keep the secret, that he would be true to his fellows, that + he would be constant in the plot." + + +Is this perversion of the facts of history accidental, or a piece of +downright dishonesty? At first, overlooking the writer's known hostility +to the Jesuits, and his insinuation about the priest being "ready for his +part," we concluded that the sentence describing how the conspirators were +sworn was intended to commence after the word "Primer," to preserve the +unity of the action, but by inadvertence was put after the mention of the +taking of the sacrament, thus conveying the false idea that the +conspirators swore also _after_ or during Mass; but, having had occasion +to refer to the index, we find that we had done Mr. Dixon's dexterity +injustice at the expense of his veracity. In seeking for the page of his +book upon which this opaque statement appears, we find the following words +in the index under the head "Gerard"--"administers the oath of secrecy to +the Powder Plot conspirators in a house in Butcher's Row, p. 95." Thus the +author of _Her Majesty's Tower_, who, we presume, occupies a decent +position among men of letters in his own country, not only cannot discover +after the "occasional labor of twenty years" a most essential point of +testimony bearing on the very subject to which his book is mainly devoted, +but to make out a case against the much-hated Jesuits actually falsifies +and perverts facts already known and admitted; doing in the year of grace +1869 gratuitously, what Coke in 1606 did for hire. Can the force of malice +go further? Digby, who, it will be remembered, was subsequently admitted +into the plot, on his trial went even further than the originators of it; +and, in exculpating the Jesuit Order, was most emphatic in denying any +knowledge of the conspiracy on the part of Gerard, either in its progress +or, as far as he knew, at its inception. So much for Father Gerard's +innocence as proved by others; the following is his own statement, made +years after the occurrence when he was beyond the reach of English law, +and subsequently affirmed in substance on his solemn oath: + + + "I have stated in the other treatise of which I spoke, that a + proclamation was issued against those Jesuit fathers, of whom I am + one; and, though the most unworthy, I was named first in the + proclamation, whereas I was the subject of one and far inferior in + all respects to the other. All this, however, I solemnly protest + was utterly groundless; for I knew absolutely nothing of the plot + from any one whatsoever, not even under the seal of confession, as + the other two did; nor had I the slightest notion that any such + scheme was entertained by any Catholic gentleman, until by public + rumor news was brought us of its discovery, as it was to all + others dwelling in that part of the country."(109) + + +The treatise referred to in this extract is his _Narrative_, and in it +Gerard takes frequent occasion to reiterate in the most positive manner, +speaking in the third person, all knowledge of the conspiracy, even to +saying Mass on the occasion alluded to by Fawkes. The house in Clement's +Inn, he fully acknowledges, was used by him and his friends, among whom +there were at least two priests during his absence; and we can well +believe that the two prisoners were mistaken in his identity, as we have +no evidence that they were familiar with his appearance or personally +acquainted with him. However, this does not signify. Some priest +undoubtedly celebrated Mass, and the question is, Did he administer the +oath, or knowingly administer the sacrament in confirmation of it? Winter +and Fawkes declare he did not; Digby, who was most intimate with Father +Gerard, denied in open court that that Jesuit knew anything about the +plot; and Gerard himself repeatedly, under the strictest forms known in +his Order, asserts his entire innocence, and it has never even been hinted +that any other priest was concerned in the early stages of the conspiracy. +This matter may therefore be considered closed. + +Now, it is equally certain that Fathers Garnett and Tesimond, _alias_ +Greenway, did become acquainted with the plot during its progress; but the +information came to them under the seal of confession, and _could not be +revealed_. It is unnecessary to support this proposition by argument, as +its wisdom is now generally recognized by the civil law even in Protestant +countries. Confidential communications to priest, doctor, or lawyer are at +last held sacred. What was the extent of their knowledge, and what was +their conduct on receiving the same? In Thomas Winter's public dying +declaration, communicated by an eye-witness to the author of the +_Narrative_, he said: "That whereas divers of the fathers of the society +were accused of counselling and furthering them in this treason, he could +clear them all, and particularly Father Tesimond, from all fault and +participation therein." "And indeed Mr. Thomas Winter might best clear +that good father, with whom he was best acquainted," adds Father Gerard, +"and knew very well how far he was from counselling or plotting that +business. For himself, having first told the father of it (as I have +heard) long after the thing was ready, and that in such secret as he might +not utter it, but with his leave, unto his superior only, the father, both +then and after, did so earnestly persuade him, and by him the rest, to +leave off that course (as his duty was), that Mr. Winter might well find +himself in conscience to clear this father from his wrongful accusation of +being a counsellor and furtherer of the plot."(110) + +This statement was also repeatedly confirmed by Father Tesimond, both in +his writings and in his account of the matter soon after his escape, +published by Joannes in his _Apologia_. + +Gerard and Tesimond having fled the country to avoid the popular tumult, +"which," says Mr. Dixon, "took no note of the difference between the +children of S. Edward and the pupils of S. Ignatius," the only remaining +victim was the provincial Father Garnett. Him the government spies soon +hunted down, and in company with Father Ouldcorne arrested at Hendlip +House and lodged in the tower. This capture occurred on the 28th of +February, and his trial took place on the 28th of March; the intervening +month having been spent by the officers of the crown in procuring evidence +of his guilt, but with so little success that an attempt was made to +procure his condemnation by parliament, without the intervention of a +jury, by inserting surreptitiously a clause in the bill of attainder +introduced against the families of Digby and others. Cajolery was first +resorted to, next torture, then the subterfuge of allowing him speech with +his fellow-prisoner Ouldcorne, overheard unknown to them by persons +secretly hidden for the purpose, and again torture, but all to no effect. +He at first refused to admit any knowledge of the conspiracy, but finally +confessed that he had heard of it from Father Tesimond (Greenway) under +the seal of confession, and that he had reprimanded that priest for ever +so communicating it to him, and had admonished him to use all efforts to +dissuade the conspirators from their rash designs. This was all that could +be proved against him at his trial, but he was of course condemned, not +however for treason, but for misprision of treason, and two months after +executed, declaring his entire innocence most solemnly. Father Ouldcorne, +who was also found guilty of knowledge after the fact, on no better +evidence, suffered with him. + +The provincial was examined no less than twenty-three times before his +trial, and much stress was laid during its progress and long afterwards on +his equivocations in answer to the various searching queries touching the +guilt of himself and others. The question of the morality of such evasion +of the truth under the peculiar circumstances has, however, no practical +value for us, as now by the well-recognized policy of law in all civilized +countries no person is bound to criminate himself either as a principal or +a witness, and every individual is allowed to be the judge of his own case +in this respect. No one has a right to entrap a prisoner into a confession +of guilt, much less compel disclosures by foul means or torture. + +Let us inquire for a moment how far Father Garnett's statements in prison +were borne out by his previous conduct. Several letters of his are still +extant addressed to Father Persons, the English superior at Rome, on the +state of the Catholics in England previous to the explosion of the plot, +in which he intimates his suspicions that something desperate was about to +be attempted against the government, and begs the superior to influence +the Holy Father to interfere. On the 29th of August, 1604, he wrote: "If +the affair of toleration go not well, Catholics will no more be quiet. +What shall we do? Jesuits cannot hinder it. Let Pope forbid all Catholics +to stir." In May following he says: "All are desperate, divers Catholics +are offended with Jesuits; they say that Jesuits do impugn and hinder all +forcible enterprises." On the 24th of July, after reviewing the +threatening state of affairs in the kingdom, he repeats his request for +pontifical assistance in keeping the people quiet. He then wrote: + + + "Wherefore, in my judgment, two things are necessary; first, that + his holiness should prescribe what in any case is to be done; and + then that he should forbid any force of arms to the Catholics + under censures, and by brief publicly promulgated, an occasion for + which can be taken from the disturbance lately raised in Wales, + which has at length come to nothing."(111) + + +His public acts were consistent with his views thus confidentially +expressed. It is acknowledged that he was mainly instrumental in defeating +the Grey conspiracy, in which Father Watson and many Catholics were +involved, and, when Catesby and the other conspirators approached him on +the subject of forcible resistance to James' government, he denounced all +such attempts in the most positive manner. "It is to you and such as you," +said that desperate plotter to the provincial, "that we owe our present +calamities. This doctrine of non-resistance makes us slaves. No authority +of priest or pontiff can deprive a man of his right to repel injustice." +When it became apparent that such men as Catesby could not be stayed by +ordinary means, he recommended that before any forcible measures were +adopted an agent should be sent to Rome, and in the meantime took steps to +procure the co-operation of the sovereign pontiff himself to suppress all +attempts at insurrection. In fact, his whole life was divided between his +duty to God and his efforts to teach peace and longanimity to his +persecuted countrymen, but the very fact that he was a Jesuit and a +Catholic missionary was enough to condemn him in the eyes of the judges of +that day. Let us hope that posterity will do him fuller justice. + +The general accusation against the Order was grounded on the fact that +many of the conspirators were converts and pupils of the Jesuits, and +_therefore_ they were their agents and instruments. This is plausible, and +might be worthy of attention if true, but it lacks the essential element +of reliability. Some were Catholics from their birth, others had only for +the time being or during their minority outwardly conformed to +Protestantism, and were simply reclaimed from their vicious habits by the +Jesuits. But even if they had all been converts it would not strengthen +their opponents' position. So were many hundreds, nay, thousands of +Englishmen who took no act or part in the conspiracy. Besides the Jesuits +that had suffered in the preceding reign, the four fathers we have just +mentioned had spent each over eighteen years in the country, laboring with +a zeal and success seldom equalled, and it was this very success in +gaining souls to Christ that furnished the greatest incentive for their +destruction. Their intimacy with the conspirators was simply that of +pastors with their penitents; the assertions of Bates, the servant of +Catesby, to the contrary notwithstanding. That poor wretch was tortured +and tampered with to induce him to make some accusation against the +missionaries, and then hanged, but not before he retracted on the scaffold +every sentence uttered by him when a hope of pardon had been held out as +the reward of his perjury. Further, Mr. Dixon's wild attempts to throw +discredit on the English Jesuits abroad rest on no foundation whatever, +nor has he a single impartial authority to support him in his broad +assertions and elaborate reports of what are said to have been strictly +private interviews and confidential correspondence between the plotters in +England and the Jesuit colleges abroad. Owen and Baldwin, the alleged +foreign correspondents, the parties most sought to be implicated, were +never tried, but the latter was examined in England ten years after and +discharged, nothing having been proved against him. So much for the +bugbear of Catholics justifying wholesale assassination as a remedy for +persecution, that has been such a sweet morsel under the tongues of +Protestant divines and zealots for so many centuries. + + + + +The Progressionists. + + +From The German Of Conrad Von Bolanden. + + + +Chapter VI.--Continued. + + +The tumult continued. As soon as the orator attempted to speak, his voice +was drowned by cries and stamping. + +"Commissary!" cried the chairman to that officer, "I demand that you +extend to our assembly the protection of the law." + +"I am here simply to watch the proceedings of your meeting," replied +Parteiling with cool indifference. "Everybody is at liberty in meetings to +signify his approval or disapproval by signs. No act forbidden by the law +has been committed by your opponents, in my opinion." + +"Bravo! bravo! Three cheers for the commissary!" + +All at once the noise was subdued to a whisper of astonishment. A miracle +was taking place under the very eyes of progress. Banker Greifmann, the +moneyed prince and liberal, made his appearance upon the platform. The +rioters saw with amazement how the mighty man before whom the necks of all +such as were in want of money bowed--even the necks of the puissant +leaders--stepped before the president of the assembly, how he politely +bowed and spoke a few words in an undertone. They observed how the +chairman nodded assent, and then how the banker, as if to excite their +wonder to the highest pitch, mounted to the speaker's desk. + +"Gentlemen," began Carl Greifmann, "although I have not the honor of +sharing your political views, I feel myself nevertheless urged to address +a few words to you. In the name of true progress, I ask this honorable +assembly's pardon for the disturbance occasioned a moment ago by a band of +uncultivated rioters, who dare to pretend that they are acting in the +cause and with the sanction of progress. I solemnly protest against the +assumption that their disgraceful and outrageous conduct is in accordance +with the spirit of the party which they dishonor. Progress holds firmly to +its principles, and defends them manfully in the struggle with its +opposers, but it is far from making itself odious by rudely overstepping +the bounds of decency set by humanity and civilization. In political +contests, it may be perfectly lawful to employ earnest persuasion and even +influences that partake of the rigor of compulsion, but rudeness, +impertinence, is never justifiable in an age of civilization. Commissary +Parteiling discovers no legally prohibited offence in the expression of +vulgarity and lowness--may be. Nevertheless, a high misdemeanor has been +perpetrated against decorum and against the deference which man owes to +man. Should the slightest disturbance be again attempted, I shall use the +whole weight of my influence in prosecuting the guilty parties, and +convince them that even in the spirit of progress they are offenders and +can be reached by punishment." + +He spoke, and retired to the other end of the hall, followed by loud +applause from the ultramontanes. Nor were the threats of the mighty man +uttered in vain. Spitzkopf hung his head abashed. The other revellers were +tamed, they listened demurely to the speakers, ceased their contemptuous +hootings, and stood on their good behavior. Greifmann's proceeding had +taken Seraphin also by surprise, and the power which the banker possessed +over the rioters set him to speculating deeply. He saw plainly that +Louise's brother commanded an extraordinary degree of respect in the camp +of the enemies of religion, and the only cause that could sufficiently +account for the fact was a community of principles of which they were well +aware. Hence the opinion he had formed of Greifmann was utterly erroneous, +concluded Gerlach. The banker was not a mere secluded business man--he was +not indifferent about the great questions of the age. Then there was +another circumstance that perplexed the ruddy-cheeked millionaire to no +inconsiderable degree--Greifmann's unaccountable way of taking things. The +tyrannical mode of electioneering which they had witnessed at the sign of +the "Green Hat" had not at all disgusted Greifmann. Spitzkopf's threats +had not excited his indignation. He had with a smiling countenance looked +on whilst the most brutal species of terrorism was being enacted before +him, he had not expressed a word of contempt at the constraint which they +who held the power inhumanly placed on the political liberty of their +dependents. On the other hand, his indignation was aroused by a mere +breach of good behavior, an offence which in Gerlach's estimation was as +nothing compared with the other instances of progressionist violence. The +banker seemed to him to have strained out a gnat after having swallowed a +whole drove of camels. The youth's suspicions being excited, he began to +study the strainer of gnats and swallower of camels more closely, and soon +the banker turned out in his estimation a hollow stickler for mere outward +decency, devoid of all deeper merit. He now recollected also Greifmann's +dealings with the leaders of progress, and those transactions only +confirmed his present views. What he had considered as an extraordinary +degree of shrewdness in the man of business, which enabled him to take +advantage of the peculiar convictions and manner of thinking of other men, +was now to his mind a real affinity with their principles, and he could +not help being shocked at the discovery. + +He hung his head in a melancholy mood, and his heart protested earnestly +against the inference which was irresistibly forcing itself upon his mind, +that the sister shared her brother's sentiments. + +"This doubt must be cleared up, cost what it may," thought he. "My God, +what if Louise also turned out to be a progressionist, a woman without any +faith, an infidel! No, that cannot be! Yet suppose it really were the +case--suppose she actually held principles in common with such vile beings +as Schwefel, Sand, Erdblatt, and Shund? Suppose her moral nature did not +harmonize with the beauty of her person--what then?" He experienced a +spasmodic contraction in his heart at the question, he hesitated with the +answer, but, his better self finally getting the victory, he said: "Then +all is over. The impressions of a dream, however delightful, must not +influence a waking man. My father's calculation was wrong, and I have +wasted my kindness on an undeserving object." + +So completely wrapt up was he in his meditations that he heard not a word +of the speeches, not even the concluding remarks of the president. +Greifmann's approach roused him, and they left the hall together. + +"That was ruffianly conduct, of which progress would have for ever to be +ashamed," said the banker indignantly. "They bayed and yelped like a pack +of hounds. At their first volley I was as embarrassed and confused as a +modest girl would be at the impertinence of some young scapegrace. Fierce +rage then hurried me to the platform, and my words have never done better +service, for they vindicated civilization." + +"I cannot conceive how a trifle could thus exasperate you." + +Greifmann stood still and looked at his companion in astonishment. + +"A trifle!" echoed he reproachfully. "Do you call a piece of wanton +impudence, a ruffianly outrage against several hundreds of men entitled to +respect, a trifle?" + +"I do, compared with other crimes that you have suffered to pass unheeded +and uncensured," answered Gerlach. "You had not an indignant word for the +unutterable meanness of those three leaders, who were immoral and +unprincipled enough to invest a notorious villain with office and honors. +Nor did you show any exasperation at the brutal terrorism practised by men +of power in this town over their weak and unfortunate dependents." + +"Take my advice, and be on your guard against erroneous and narrow-minded +judgments. The leaders merely had a view to their own ends, but they in no +manner sinned against propriety. The raising a man of Shund's abilities to +the office of mayor is an act of prudence--by no means an offence against +humanity." + +"Yet it was an outrage to moral sentiment," opposed Seraphin. + +"See here, Gerlach, moral sentiment is a very elastic sort of thing. +Sentiment goes for nothing in practical life, and such is the character of +life in our century." + +"Well, then, the mere sense of propriety is not worth a whit more." + +"I ask your pardon! Propriety belongs to the realm of actualities or of +practical experiences, and not to the shadowland of sentiment. Propriety +is the rule that regulates the intercourse of men, it is therefore a +necessity, nothing else will serve as a substitute for it, and it must +continue to be so regarded as long as a difference is recognized between +rational man and the irrational brute." + +"The same may be said with much more reason of morality, for it also is a +rule, it regulates our actions, it determines the ethic worth or +worthlessness of a man. Mere outward decorum does not necessarily argue +any interior excellence. The most abandoned wretch may be distinguished +for easy manners and elegant deportment, yet he is none the less a +criminal. A dog may be trained to many little arts, but for all that it +continues to be a dog. + +"It is delightful to see you breaking through that uniform patience of +yours for once and showing a little of the fire of indignation," said the +banker pleasantly. "I shall tell Louise of it, I know she will be glad to +learn that Seraphin too is susceptible of a human passion. But this by the +way. Now watch how I shall meet your arguments. That very moral sentiment +of which you speak has caused and is still causing the most enormous +crimes against humanity, and the laws of morality are as changeable as the +wind. When an Indian who has not been raised from barbarism by +civilization dies, the religious custom of the country requires that his +wife should permit herself to be burned alive on the funeral pyre of her +husband. Moral sentiment teaches the uncivilized woman that it is a +horrible crime to refuse to devote herself to this cruel death. The pious +Jews used to stone every woman to death who was taken in adultery--in our +day, such a deed of blood would be revolting to moral sentiment, and would +claim tears from the eyes of cultivated people. I could mention many other +horrors that were practised more or less remotely in the past, and were +sanctioned by the prevailing moral sentiment. Here is my last instance: +according to laws of morality, the usurer was at one time a monster, an +arch-villain--at present, he is merely a man of great enterprise. +Propriety, on the other hand, enlightenment, and polish are absolute and +unalterable. Whilst rudeness and impertinence will ever be looked upon as +disgusting, good manners and politeness will be considered as commendable +and beautiful." + +Seraphin could not but admire the skill with which Greifmann jumbled +together subjects of the most heterogeneous nature. But he could not, at +the same time, divest himself of some alarm at the banker's declarations, +for they betrayed a soul-life of little or absolutely no moral worth. +Money, interest, and respectability constituted the only trinity in which +the banker believed. Morality, binding the conscience of man, a true and +only God, and divine revelation, were in his opinion so many worn-out and +useless notions, which the progress of mankind had successfully got +beyond. + +"When those who hold power take advantage of it at elections, they in no +manner offend against propriety," proceeded Carl. "Progress has +convictions as well as ultramontanism. If the latter is active, why should +not the former be so too? If, on the side of progress, the weak and +dependent permit themselves to be cowed and driven, it is merely an +advantage for the powerful, and for the others it is a weakness or +cowardice. For this reason, the mode of electioneering pursued by +Spitzkopf and his comrades amused but nowise shocked me, for they were not +acting against propriety." + +Seraphin saw it plainly: for Carl Greifmann there existed no distinction +between good and evil; he recognized only a cold and empty system of +formalities. + +The two young men issued from a narrow street upon the market-place. This +was occupied by a large public building. In the open space stood a group +of men, among whom Flachsen appeared conspicuous. He was telling the +others about Greifmann's speech at the meeting of the ultramontanes. They +all manifested great astonishment that the influential moneyed prince +should have appeared in such company, and, above all, should have made a +speech in their behalf. + +"He declared it was vulgar, impudent, ruffianly, to disturb a respectable +assembly," reported Flachsen. "He said he knew some of us, and that he +would have us put where the dogs would not bite us if we attempted to +disturb them again. That's what he said; and I actually rubbed my eyes to +be quite sure it was banker Greifmann that was speaking, and really it was +he, the banker Greifmann himself, bodily, and not a mere apparition." + +"I must say the banker was right, for it isn't exactly good manners to +howl, stamp, and whistle to annoy one's neighbors," owned another. + +"But we were paid for doing it, and we only carried out the orders given +by certain gentlemen." + +"To be sure! Men like us don't know what good breeding is--it's for +gentlemen to understand that," maintained a third. "We do what men of good +breeding hire us to do, and if it isn't proper, it matters nothing to +us--let the gentlemen answer for it." "Bravo, Stoffel, bravo!" applauded +Flachsen. "Yours is the right sort of servility, Stoffel! You are a real +human, servile, and genuine reactive kind of a fellow--so you are. I agree +with you entirely. The gentlemen do the paying, and it is for them to +answer for what happens. We are merely servants, we are hirelings, and +what need a hireling care whether that which his master commands is right +or not? The master is responsible, not the hireling. What I am telling you +belongs to the exact sciences, and the exact sciences are at the pinnacle +of modern acquisitions. Hence a hireling who without scruple carries out +the orders of his master is up to the highest point of the age--such a +fellow has taken his stand on servility. Hallo! the election has +commenced. Be off, every man of you, to his post. But mind you don't look +too deep into the beer-pots before the election is over. Keep your heads +level, be cautious, do your best for the success of the green ticket. Once +the election is carried, you may swill beer till you can no longer stand. +The gentlemen will foot the bill, and assume all responsibilities." + +They dispersed themselves through the various drinking-shops of the +neighborhood. + +Near the door of the building in which the voting was to take place stood +a number of progressionist gentlemen. They all wore heavy beards, smoked +cigars, and peered about restlessly. To those of their party who chanced +to pass they nodded and smiled knowingly, upon doubtful voters they smiled +still more blandly, added some pleasant words, and pressed the acceptance +of the green ticket, but for ultramontane voters they had only jeers and +coarse witticisms. As Greifmann approached they respectfully raised their +hats. The banker drew Gerlach to one side, and stood to make observations. + +"What swarms there are around the drinking-shops," remarked Greifmann. "It +is there that the tickets are filled under the persuasive influence of +beer. The committee provide the tickets which the voters have filled with +the names of the candidates by clerks who sit round the tables at the +beer-shops. It is quite an ingenious arrangement, for beer will reconcile +a voter to the most objectionable kind of a candidate." + +A crowd of drunken citizens coming out of the nearest tavern approached. +Linked arm-in-arm, they swayed about and staggered along with an unsteady +pace. Green tickets bearing the names of the candidates whom progress had +chosen to watch over the common weal could be seen protruding from the +pockets of their waistcoats. Gerlach, seeing the drunken mob and +recollecting the solemn and important nature of the occasion, was seized +with loathing and horror at the corruption of social life revealed in the +low means to which the party of progress had recourse to secure for its +ends the votes of these besotted and ignorant men. + +Presently Schwefel stepped up and saluted the young men. + +"Do you not belong to the committee in charge of the ballot-box?" inquired +Greifmann. + +"No, sir, I wished to remain entirely untrammelled this morning," answered +the leader with a sly look and tone. "This is going to be an exciting +election, the ultramontanes are astir, and it will be necessary for me to +step in authoritatively now and then to decide a vote. Moreover, the +committee is composed exclusively of men of our party. Not a single +ultramontane holds a seat at the polls." + +"In that case there can be no question of failure," said the banker. "Your +office is closed to-day, no doubt?" + +"Of course!" assented the manufacturer of straw hats. "This day is +celebrated as a free day by the offices of all respectable houses. Our +clerks are dispersed through the taverns and election districts to use +their pens in filling up tickets." + +"I am forced to return to my old assertion: an election is mere folly, +useless jugglery," said the banker, turning to Seraphin. "Holding +elections is no longer a rational way of doing, it is no longer a business +way of proceeding, it is yielding to stupid timidity. Mr. Schwefel, don't +you think elections are mere folly?" + +"I confess I have never considered the subject from that point of view," +answered the leader cautiously. "But meanwhile--what do you understand by +that?" + +"Be good enough to attend to my reasoning for a moment. Progress is in a +state of complete organization. What progress wills, must be. Another +party having authority and power cannot subsist side by side with +progress. Just see those men staggering and blundering over the square +with green tickets in their hands! To speak without circumlocution, look +at the slaves doing the behests of their masters. What need of this silly +masquerade of an election? Why squander all this money, waste all this +beer and time? Why does not progress settle this business summarily? Why +not simply nominate candidates fit for the office, and then send them +directly to the legislature? This mode would do away with all this +nonsensical ado, and would give the matter a prompt and business cast, +conformable to the spirit of the age." + +"This idea is a good one, but we have an election law that would stand in +the way of carrying it out." + +"Bosh--election law!" sneered the banker. "Your election law is a mere +scarecrow, an antiquated, meaningless instrument. Do away with the +election law, and follow my suggestion." + +"That would occasion a charming row on the part of the ultramontanes," +observed the leader laughing. + +"Was the lion ever known to heed the bleating of a sheep? When did +progress ever pay any attention to a row gotten up by the ultramontanes?" +rejoined Greifmann. "Was not the fuss made in Bavaria against the +progressionist school-law quite a prodigious one? Did not our own last +legislature make heavy assaults on the church? Did not the entire +episcopate protest against permitting Jews, Neo-pagans, and Freemasons to +legislate on matters of religion? But did progress suffer itself to be +disconcerted by episcopal protests and the agonizing screams of the +ultramontanes? Not at all. It calmly pursued the even tenor of its way. Be +logical, Mr. Schwefel: progress reigns supreme and decrees with absolute +authority--why should it not summarily relegate this election law among the +things that were, but are no more?" + +"You are right, Greifmann!" exclaimed Gerlach, in a feeling of utter +disgust. "What need has the knout of Russian despotism of the sanction of +constitutional forms? Progress is lord, the rest are slaves!" + +"You have again misunderstood me, my good fellow. I am considering the +actual state of things. Should ultramontanism at any time gain the +ascendency, then it also will be justified in behaving in the same +manner." + +Upon more mature consideration, Gerlach found himself forced to admit that +Greifmann's view, from the standpoint of modern culture, was entirely +correct. Progress independently of God and of all positive religion could +not logically be expected to recognize any moral obligations, for it had +not a moral basis. Everything was determined by the force of +circumstances; the autocracy of party rule made anything lawful. Laws +proceeded not from the divine source of unalterable justice, but from the +whim of a majority--fashioned and framed to suit peculiar interests and +passions. + +"We have yet considerable work to do to bring all to thinking as clearly +and rationally as you, Mr. Greifmann," said the leader with a winning +smile. + +Schwefel accompanied the millionaires into a lengthy hall, across the +lower end of which stood a table. There sat the commissary of elections +surrounded by the committee, animated gentlemen with great beards, who +were occupied in distributing tickets to voters or receiving tickets +filled up. The extraordinary good-humor prevailing among these gentlemen +was owing to the satisfactory course of the election, for rarely was any +ultramontane paper seen mingling in the flood that poured in from the +ranks of progress. The sides of the hall were hung with portraits of the +sovereigns of the land, quite a goodly row. The last one of the series was +youthful in appearance, and some audacious hand had scrawled on the broad +gilt frame the following ominous words: "May he be the last in the +succession of expensive bread-eaters." Down the middle of the hall ran a +baize-covered table, on which were numerous inkstands. Scattered over the +table lay a profusion of green bills; the yellow color of the ultramontane +bills was nowhere to be seen. The table was lined by gentlemen who were +writing. They were not writing for themselves, but for others, who merely +signed their names and then handed the tickets to the commissary. Several +corpulent gentlemen also occupied seats at the table, but they were not +engaged in writing. These gentlemen, apparently unoccupied, wore massive +gold watch-chains and sparkling rings, and they had a commanding and stern +expression of countenance. They were observing all who entered, to see +whether any man would be bold enough to vote the yellow ticket. People of +the humbler sort, mechanics and laborers, were constantly coming in and +going out. Bowing reverently to the portly gentlemen, they seated +themselves and filled out green tickets with the names of the liberal +candidates. Most of them did not even trouble themselves to this degree, +but simply laid their tickets before the penman appointed for this special +service. All went off in the best order. The process of the election +resembled the smooth working of an ingenious piece of machinery. And there +was no tongue there to denounce the infamous terrorism that had crushed +the freedom of the election or had bought the votes of vile and venal men +with beer. + +Seraphin stood with Greifmann in the recess of a window looking on. + +"Who are the fat men at the table?" inquired he. + +"The one with the very black beard is house-builder Sand, the second is +Eisenhart, machine-builder, the third is Erdfloh, a landowner, the fourth +and fifth are tobacco merchants. All those gentlemen are chieftains of the +party of progress." + +"They show it," observed Gerlach. "Their looks, in a manner, command every +man that comes in to take the green ticket, and I imagine I can read on +their brows: 'Woe to him who dares vote against us. He shall be under a +ban, and shall have neither employment nor bread.' It is unmitigated +tyranny! I imagine I see in those fat fellows so many cotton-planters +voting their slaves." + +"That is a one-sided conclusion, my most esteemed," rejoined the banker. +"In country villages, the position here assumed by the magnates of +progress is filled by the lords of ultramontanism, clerical gentlemen in +cassocks, who keep a sharp eye on the fingers of their parishioners. This, +too, is influencing." + +"But not constraining," opposed the millionaire promptly. "The clergy +exert a legitimate influence by convincing, by advancing solid grounds for +their political creed. They never have recourse to compulsory measures, +nor dare they do so, because it would be opposed to the Gospel which they +preach. The autocrats of progress, on the contrary, do not hesitate about +using threats and violence. Should a man refuse to bow to their dictates, +they cruelly deprive him of the means of subsistence. This is not only +inhuman, but it is also an accursed scheme for making slaves of the people +and robbing them of principle." + +"Ah! look yonder--there is Holt." + +The land cultivator had walked into the hall head erect. He looked along +the table and stood undecided. One of the ministering spirits of progress +soon fluttered about him, offering him a green ticket. Holt glanced at it, +and a contemptuous smile spread over his face. He next tore it to pieces, +which he threw on the floor. + +"What are you about?" asked the angel of progress reproachfully. + +"I have reduced Shund and his colleagues to fragments," answered Holt +dryly, then approaching the commissary he demanded a yellow ticket. + +"Glorious!" applauded Gerlach. "I have half a mind to present this true +German _man_ with another thousand as a reward for his spirit." + +The fat men had observed with astonishment the action of the land +cultivator. Their astonishment turned to rage when Holt, leisurely seating +himself at the table, took a pen in his mighty fist and began filling out +the ticket with the names of the ultramontane candidates. Whilst he wrote, +whisperings could be heard all through the hall, and every eye was +directed upon him. After no inconsiderable exertion, the task of filling +out the ticket was successfully accomplished, and Holt arose, leaving the +ticket lying upon the table. In the twinkling of an eye a hand reached +forward to take it up. + +"What do you mean, sir?" asked Holt sternly. + +"That yellow paper defiles the table," hissed the fellow viciously. + +"Hand back that ticket," commanded Holt roughly. "I want it to be here. +The yellow ticket has as good a right on this table as the green one--do +you hear me?" + +"Slave of the priests!" sputtered his antagonist. + +"If I am a slave of the priests, then you are a slave of that villain +Shund," retorted Holt. "I am not to be browbeaten--by such a fellow as you +particularly--least of all by a vile slave of Shund's." He spoke, and then +reached his ticket to the commissary. + +"That is an impudent dog," growled leader Sand. "Who is he?" + +"He is a countryman of the name of Holt," answered he to whom the query +was addressed. + +"We must spot the boor," said Erdfloh. "His swaggering shall not avail him +anything." + +Holt was not the only voter that proved refractory. Mr. Schwefel, also, +had a disagreeable surprise. He was standing near the entrance, observing +with great self-complacency how the workmen in his employ submissively +cast their votes for Shund and his associates. Schwefel regarded himself +as of signal importance in the commonwealth, for he controlled not less +than four hundred votes, and the side which it was his pleasure to favor +could not fail of victory. The head of the great leader seemed in a manner +encircled with the halo of progress: whilst his retainers passed and +saluted him, he experienced something akin to the pride of a field-marshal +reviewing a column of his victorious army. + +Just then a spare little man appeared in the door. His yellowish, sickly +complexion gave evidence that he was employed in the sulphurating of +straw. At sight of the commander the sulphur-hued little man shrank back, +but his startled look did not escape the restless eye of Mr. Schwefel. He +beckoned to the laborer. + +"Have you selected your ticket, Leicht?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Let me see the ticket." + +The man obeyed reluctantly. Scarcely had Schwefel got a glimpse of the +paper when his brows gathered darkly. + +"What means this? Have you selected the yellow ticket and not the green +one?" + +Leicht hung his head. He thought of the consequences of this detection, of +his four small children, of want of employment, of hunger and bitter +need--he was almost beside himself. + +"If you vote for the priests, you may get your bread from the priests," +said Schwefel. "The moment you hand that ticket to the commissary, you may +consider yourself discharged from my employ." With this he angrily turned +his back upon the man. Leicht did not reach in his ticket to the +commissary. Staggering out of the hall, he stood bewildered near the +railing of the steps, and stared vaguely upon the men who were coming and +going. Spitzkopf slipped up to him. + +"What were you thinking about, man?" asked he reproachfully. "Mr. Schwefel +is furious--you are ruined. Sheer stupidity, nothing but stupidity in you +to wish to vote in opposition to the pleasure of the man from whom you get +your bread and meat! Not only that, but you have insulted the whole +community, for you have chosen to vote against progress when all the town +is in favor of progress. You will be put on the spotted list, and the +upshot will be that you will not get employment in any factory in town. Do +you want to die of hunger, man--do you want your children to die of +hunger?" + +"You are right--I am ruined," said the laborer listlessly. "I couldn't +bring myself to write Shund's name because he reduced my brother-in-law to +beggary--this is what made me select the yellow ticket." + +"You are a fool. Were Mr. Schwefel to recommend the devil, your duty would +be to vote for the devil. What need you care who is on the ticket? You +have only to write the names on the ticket--nothing more than that. Do you +think progress would nominate men that are unfit--men who would not promote +the interests of the state, who would not further the cause of humanity, +civilization, and liberty? You are a fool for not voting for what is best +for yourself." + +"I am sorry now, but it's too late." sighed Leicht. "I wouldn't have +thought, either, that Mr. Schwefel would get angry because a man wanted to +vote to the best of his judgment." + +"There you are prating sillily again. Best of your judgment!--you mustn't +have any judgment. Leave it to others to judge; they have more brains, +more sense, more knowledge than you. Progress does the thinking: our place +is to blindly follow its directions." + +"But, Mr. Spitzkopf, mine is only the vote of a poor man; and what matters +such a vote?" + +"There is your want of sense again. We are living in a state that enjoys +liberty. We are living in an age of intelligence, of moral advancement, of +civilization and knowledge, in a word, we are living in an age of +progress; and in an age of this sort the vote of a poor man is worth as +much as that of a rich man." + +"If only I had it to do over! I would give my right hand to have it to do +over!" + +"You can repair the mischief if you want." + +"Instruct me how, Mr. Spitzkopf; please tell me how!" + +"Very well, I will do my best. As you acted from thoughtlessness and no +bad intention, doubtless Mr. Schwefel will suffer himself to be +propitiated. Go down into the court, and wait till I come. I shall get you +another ticket; you will then vote for progress, and all will be +satisfactory." + +"I am a thousand times obliged to you, Mr. Spitzkopf--a thousand times +obliged!" + +The agent went back to the hall. Leicht descended to the courtyard, where +he found a ring of timid operators like himself surrounding the sturdy +Holt. They were talking in an undertone. As often as a progressionist drew +near, their conversation was hushed altogether. Holt's voice alone +resounded loudly through the court, and his huge strong hands were cutting +the air in animated gesticulations. + +"This is not a free election; it is one of compulsion and violence," cried +he. "Every factoryman is compelled to vote as his employer dictates, and +should he refuse the employer discharges him from the work. Is not this +most despicable tyranny! And these very tyrants of progress are +perpetually prating about liberty, independence, civilization! That's a +precious sort of liberty indeed!" + +"A man belonging to the ultramontane party cannot walk the streets to-day +without being hooted and insulted," said another. "Even up yonder in the +hall, those gentlemen who are considered so cultivated stick their heads +together and laugh scornfully when one of us draws near." + +"That's so--that's so, I have myself seen it," cried Holt. "Those well-bred +gentlemen show their teeth like ferocious dogs whenever they see a yellow +ticket or an ultramontane. I say, Leicht, has anything happened you? You +look wretched!" Leicht drew near and related what had occurred. The honest +Holt's eyes gleamed like coals of fire. + +"There's another piece of tyranny for you," cried he. "Leicht, my poor +fellow, I fancy I see in you a slave of Schwefel's. From dawn till late +you are compelled to toil for the curmudgeon, Sundays not excepted. Your +church is the factory, your religion working in straw, and your God is +your sovereign master Schwefel. You are ruining your health amid the +stench of brimstone, and not so much as the liberty of voting as you think +fit is allowed you. It's just as I tell you--you factorymen are slaves. How +strangely things go on in the world! In America slavery has been +abolished; but lo! here in Europe it is blooming as freshly as trees in +the month of May. But mark my word, friends, the fruit is deadly; and when +once it will have ripened, the great God of heaven will shake it from the +trees, and the generation that planted the trees will have to eat the +bitter fruit." + +Leicht shunned the society of the ultramontanes and stole away. Presently +Spitzkopf appeared with the ticket. + +"Your ticket is filled out. Come and sign your name to it." Schwefel was +again standing near the entrance, and he again beckoned the laborer to +approach. "I am pacified. You may now continue working for me." + +Carl and Seraphin returned to the Palais Greifmann. Louise received them +with numerous questions. The banker related what had passed; Gerlach +strode restlessly through the apartment. + +"The most curious spectacle must have been yourself," said the young lady. +"Just fancy you on the rostrum at the 'Key of Heaven'! And very likely the +ungrateful ultramontanes would not so much as applaud." + +"Beg pardon, they did, miss!" assured Seraphin. "They applauded and cried +bravo." + +"Really? Then I am proud of a brother whose maiden speech produced such +marvellous effects. May be we shall read of it in the daily paper. +Everybody will be surprised to hear of the banker Greifmann making a +speech at the 'Key of Heaven.' " Carl perceived the irony and stroked his +forehead. + +"But what can you be pondering over, Mr. Seraphin?" cried she to him. +"Since returning from the turmoil of the election, you seem unable to keep +quiet." He seated himself at her side, and was soon under the spell of her +magical attractions. + +"My head is dizzy and my brain confused," said he. "On every hand I see +nothing but revolt against moral obligation, sacrilegious disregard of the +most sacred rights of man. The hubbub still resounds in my ears, and my +imagination still sees those fat men at the table with their slaveholder +look--the white slaves doing their masters' bidding--the completest +subjugation in an age of enlightenment--all this presents itself to me in +the most repulsive and lamentable guise." + +"You must drive those horrible phantoms from your mind," replied Louise. + +"They are not phantoms, but the most fearful reality." + +"They are phantoms, Mr. Seraphin, so far as your feelings exaggerate the +evils. Those factory serfs have no reason to complain. There is nothing to +be done but to put up with a situation that has spontaneously developed +itself. It is useless to grow impatient because difference of rank between +masters and servants is an unavoidable evil upon earth." A servant entered +to call them to dinner. + +At her side he gradually became more cheerful. The brightness of her eyes +dispelled his depression, and her delicate arts put a spell upon his +young, inexperienced heart. And when, at the end of the meal, they were +sipping delicious wine, and her beautiful lips lisped the customary +health, the subdued tenderness he had been feeling suddenly expanded into +a strong passion. + +"After you will have done justice to your diary," said she at parting, "we +shall take a drive, and then go to the opera." + +Instead of going to his room, Seraphin went into the garden. He almost +forgot the occurrences of the day in musing on the inexplicable behavior +of Louise. Again she had not uttered a word of condemnation of the +execrable doings of progress, and it grieved him deeply. A suspicion +flitted across his mind that perhaps Louise was infected with the +frivolous and pernicious spirit of the age, but he immediately stifled the +terrible suggestion as he would have hastened to crush a viper that he +might have seen on the path of the beautiful lady. He preferred to believe +that she suppressed her feelings of disgust out of regard for his +presence, that she wisely avoided pouring oil upon the flames of his own +indignation. Had she not exerted herself to dispel his sombre reflections? +He was thus espousing the side of passion against the appalling truth that +was beginning faintly to dawn upon his anxious mind. + +But soon the spell was to be broken, and duty was to confront him with the +alternative of either giving up Louise, or defying the stern demands of +his conscience. + +The brother and sister, thinking their guest engaged with his diary, +walked into the garden. They directed their steps towards the arbor where +Gerlach had seated himself. + +He was only roused to consciousness of their proximity by the unusually +loud and excited tone in which Louise spoke. He could not be mistaken; it +was the young lady's voice--but oh! the import of her words. He looked +through an opening in the foliage, and sat thunderstruck. + +"You have been attempting to guide Gerlach's overexalted spirit into a +more rational way of thinking, but the very opposite seems to be the +result. Intercourse with the son of a strait-laced mother is infecting you +with sympathy for ultramontanism. Your speech to-day," continued she +caustically, "in yon obscure meeting is the subject of the talk of the +town. I am afraid you have made yourself ridiculous in the minds of all +cultivated people. The respectability of our family has suffered." + +"Of our family?" echoed he, perplexed. + +"We are compromitted," continued she with excitement. "You have given our +enemies occasion to set us down for members of a party who stupidly oppose +the onward march of civilization." + +"Cease your philippic," broke in the brother angrily. "Bitterness is an +unmerited return for my efforts to serve you." + +"To serve me?" + +"Yes, to serve you. The disturbing of that meeting made a very unfavorable +impression on your intended. He scorned the noisy mob, and was roused by +what, from his point of view, could not pass for anything better than +unpardonable impudence. To me it might have been a matter of indifference +whether your intended was pleased or displeased with the fearless conduct +of progress. But as I knew both you and the family felt disposed to base +the happiness of your life on his couple of millions, as moreover I feared +my silence might be interpreted by the shortsighted young gentleman for +complicity in progressionist ideas, I was forced to disown the disorderly +proceeding. In so doing I have not derogated one iota from the spirit of +the times; on the contrary, I have bound a heavy wreath about the brow of +glorious humanity." + +"But you have pardoned yourself too easily," proceeded she, unappeased. +"The very first word uttered by a Greifmann in that benighted assembly was +a stain on the fair fame of our family. We shall be an object of contempt +in every circle. 'The Greifmanns have turned ultramontanes because Gerlach +would have refused the young lady's hand had they not changed their +creed,' is what will be prated in society. A flood of derision and sarcasm +will be let loose upon us. I an ultramontane?" cried she, growing more +fierce; "I caught in the meshes of religious fanaticism? I accept the +Syllabus--believe in the Prophet of Nazareth? Oh! I could sink into the +earth on account of this disgrace! Did I for an instant doubt that +Seraphin may be redeemed from superstition and fanaticism, I would +renounce my union with him--I would spurn the tempting enjoyments of +wealth, so much do I hate silly credulity." + +Seraphin glanced at her through the gap in the foliage. Not six paces from +him, with her face turned in his direction, stood the infuriate beauty. +How changed her countenance! The features, habitually so delicate and +bright, now looked absolutely hideous, the brows were fiercely knit, and +hatred poured like streams of fire from her eyes. Sentiments hitherto +skilfully concealed had taken visible shape, ugly and repulsive to the +view of the innocent youth. His noble spirit revolted at so much hypocrisy +and falsehood. What occurred before him was at once so monstrous and so +overwhelming that he did not for an instant consider that in case they +entered the arbor he would be discovered. He was not discovered, however. +Louise and Carl retraced their steps. For a short while the voice of +Louise was still audible, then silence reigned in the garden. + +Seraphin rose from his seat. There was a sad earnestness in his face, and +the vanishing traces of deep pain, which however were soon superseded by a +noble indignation. + +"I have beheld the genuine Louise, and I thank God for it. It is as I +feared, Louise is a progressionist, an infidel that considers it +disgraceful to believe in the Redeemer. Out upon such degeneracy! She +hates light, and how hideous this hatred makes her. Not a feature was left +of the charming, smiling, winning Louise. Good God! how horrible had her +real character remained unknown until after we were married! Chained for +life to the bitter enemy of everything that I hold dear and venerate as +holy--think of it! With eyes bandaged, I was but two paces from an abyss +that resembles hell--thank God! the bandage has fallen--I see the abyss, and +shudder. + +" 'The ultramontane Seraphin'--'the fanatical Gerlach'--'the shortsighted +Gerlach,' whose fortune the young lady covets that she may pass her life +in enjoyment--a heartless girl, in whom there is not a spark of love for +her intended husband--how base! + +" 'Ultramontane'?--'fanatical'?--yes! 'Shortsighted?' by no means. One would +need the suspicious eyes of progress to see through the hypocrisy of this +lady and her brother--a simple, trusting spirit like mine cannot penetrate +such darkness. At any rate, they shall not find me weak. The little flame +that was beginning to burn within my heart has been for ever extinguished +by her unhallowed lips. She might now present herself in the garb of an +angel, and muster up every seductive art of womanhood, 'twould not avail; +I have had an insight into her real character, and giving her up costs me +not a pang. It is not hollow appearances that determine the worth of +woman, but moral excellence, beautiful virtues springing from a heart +vivified by faith. No, giving her up shall not cost me one regretful +throb." + +He hastened from the garden to his room and rang the bell. + +"Pack my trunks this very day, John," said he to his servant. "Tomorrow we +shall be off." + +He then entered in his diary a circumstantial account of the unmasked +beauty. He also dwelt at length upon the painful shock his heart +experienced when the bright and beautiful creature he had considered +Louise to be suddenly vanished before his soul. As he was finishing the +last line, John reappeared with a telegraphic despatch. He read it, and +was stunned. + +"Meet your father at the train this evening." He looked at the concise +despatch, and fancied he saw his father's stern and threatening +countenance. + +The contemplated match had for several years been regarded by the families +of Gerlach and Greifmann as a fixed fact. Seraphin was aware how +stubbornly his father adhered to a project that he had once set his mind +upon. Here now, just as the union had became impossible and as the youth +was about to free himself for ever from an engagement that was destructive +of his happiness, the uncompromising sire had to appear to enforce +unconditional obedience to his will. A fearful contest awaited Seraphin, +unequal and painful; for a son, accustomed from childhood to revere and +obey his parents, was to maintain this contest against his own father. +Seraphin paced the room and wrung his hands in anguish. + +To Be Continued. + + + + +The Virgin. + + + Mother! whose virgin bosom was uncrost + With the least shade of thought to sin allied: + Woman! above all women glorified, + Our tainted nature's solitary boast; + Purer than foam on central ocean tost, + Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn + With fancied roses, than the unblemished moon + Before her vane begins on heaven's blue coast, + Thy image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween, + Not unforgiven, the suppliant knee might bend, + As to a visible power, in which did blend + All that was mixed and reconciled in thee + Of mother's love with maiden purity, + Of high and low, celestial with terrene.--_Wordsworth._ + + + + +The Homeless Poor Of New York City. + + +In this class, the homeless poor, we embrace all those who have no fixed +habitation--who have no idea in the morning where they will obtain shelter +for their weary bodies during the coming night. We find here every age +represented--from the infant in the mother's arms, through the rapid stages +of development (as it is well known that pain and hunger have a wonderful +effect in maturing infant humanity), to the aged, tottering towards the +grave, only waiting for their summons to cross over the river of time; +looking with yearning eyes towards the Home prepared for them on the shore +of eternity. + +It is impossible to estimate the number of this class, as we have no +statistics to guide us, but it is supposed that there are about forty +thousand vagrant children alone in this metropolis. From this frightful +number of infant waifs we may judge of the amount of misery and +destitution in our midst--hidden from view behind our imposing marble +warehouses and stately brownstone mansions. + +We have been informed by a reliable police official that there are a large +number of poor widows, whose husbands died in the service of our country +during the late war, in a most destitute condition in this city, and that +they frequently bring their children with them and apply for shelter at +the station-houses. They attempt to eke out a miserable livelihood by +sewing, and when this fails them they are obliged to go (in this Christian +city) to the abodes of crime, to avoid the inclemency of the winter +nights. Few persons can form an idea of the struggles, the privations, and +the daily sufferings of lone women who earn their daily bread by the use +of the needle. If the fine ladies who adorn themselves in costly robes +could go behind the scenes after they have left their orders at the +elegant shops of the dressmakers; could they see their delicate fabrics +taken home by the poor sewing-women; see the weary forms bent over their +work in the cheerless tenement-houses, each stitch accompanied by a +painful throb of heart and brain as the night wears on and the solitary +candle burns low; the famishing child as he tosses and turns on his bundle +of rags, murmuring, "Bread, mother, bread!"--ay! if the beaming eyes of the +votaries of fashion could by some magic power see on their rustling silks, +their costly linen, their beautiful lace, the imprint of the gaunt, lean +fingers of the poor sewing-women; could the tears that trickled down the +worn cheeks crystallize where they have fallen; could the sighs which +welled up from the overburdened heart strike with their low wailing sound +on the ears of these worldlings--they would be filled with a larger sense +of duty to their fellow-creatures, a greater desire to follow the golden +motto, "Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you." + +There is an official apathy to the condition of the extreme poor which, +with the ballot placed in the hands of every man, has already produced +baneful results to the well-being of the Republic, and must eventually, if +not remedied, act detrimentally to its safety. If an unfortunate wretch, +clad in tattered garments, pass through our streets or loiter near our +homes, he is at once eyed suspiciously--to wear the habiliments of poverty +is evidence sufficient that the black heart of a criminal is enclosed +within. It is true that promiscuous charity may do great harm, but it is +surely the correct policy for a government, while it judiciously supplies +the immediate wants of its poor classes with one hand, to open the avenues +to employment with the other; thus teaching them the lesson impressed upon +our first parents as they were banished from the Garden of Eden--that man +must earn his daily bread by the sweat of his brow. + +We have already said that it is computed by well-informed persons that we +have in our midst some forty thousand vagrant children. Let us glance for +a moment at their condition, and what is being done for them. It is +difficult for any one to conceive the deplorable condition of these +homeless children without personal observation. They tread the paths +leading to moral destruction with such rapidity that hundreds of them are +confirmed thieves and drunkards before they reach the age of twelve years. +The day is passed in pilfering, and at night they sleep in some out-of- +the-way place--under door-steps, in wagons, or wherever they can store +their diminutive forms. Some time since, a regularly organized band of +boys were discovered to have constructed a shelter under one of the piers; +and here they congregated at night, each bringing in his booty stolen +during the day. A few days since, during a visit to one of the mission- +houses of this city, the lady in charge pointed out to us a little girl, +not more than nine years old, telling us that she never came to the house +without being more or less under the influence of liquor, and a glance at +the bloated features and nervous, trembling hands showed conclusively that +it was her habitual condition. We understand that there are fiends in the +shape of men and women in this city who will sell such children a penny's +worth of rum. Some persons have argued that these children are from bad +parents, and under any circumstances, no matter how favorable, would be +corrupt. Such an opinion is a libel on God and human nature. A certain +proclivity to vice may be transmitted in the blood, but free-will remains +in the most degenerate, and is sufficient, with the aid of a good +education and the grace of God, to overcome this obstacle to virtue. We +know well the plastic nature of childhood, and, if educated from the first +to honesty, morality, and sobriety, it will indeed be found a rare +exception in which the developed man will not possess these virtues, and +prove an honor to himself and society. But if the first lisp of the infant +repeats an oath which is used more frequently than any other word by the +debased mother, or if, as is the case with many, as soon as the babe can +walk alone it is taught the art of begging and stealing, what can we look +for in the same child simply developed to manhood? Are you surprised that +he makes a thief? He has never been taught anything else, and he naturally +looks upon the law as something that interferes with the right to take +anything he desires, if he can only do so without being detected. Would +you look for pure water from a stream whose bed is covered with filthy +slime, and whose banks are the receptacle of disgusting, decomposed offal? +Surely you would not drink of such, no matter how pure you knew the +gurgling springs to be high up on the mountain-side from whence it +received its supply. Look at a babe as it is blessed with the first gleam +of reason--its ability to notice things about it. Is there anything in the +bright black eye to indicate the future cunning of the burglar? Do the +rosy lips, wreathed in angel smiles, look as if they were fashioned to +utter foul oaths and blasphemies? And the little chubby hands clasped in +baby glee around the mother's neck, could they, by a natural instinct, +ever be turned in brutal wrath against that self-same mother? Reason +answers No to all these questions; and we argue that such vices are +developed principally by education and example. Take this for granted, +and, if we do nothing to save the child from such education, what right +have we to imprison the developed man for acting upon the only doctrine he +has ever been taught? Or a better view of the subject is: Would it not be +the dictate of a sound political economy to take these children from the +streets, and teach them some useful trade or pursuit, giving them, at the +same time, the fundamental principles of Christianity, without which +society is a tottering fabric, minus its very foundation? Do this, and we +make producers out of the very men and women who will otherwise become +consumers upon the state in the common prisons. + +In several parishes of this city benevolent efforts are being made to +rescue these children, but, so far as we can learn, the only institutions +established where they are regularly taken care of and kept permanently +are the following: "The Five Points House of Industry," "The Five Points +Mission-House," "The Howard Mission"; and last, but we hope soon to be +first in its wide-spread influence over these little creatures, is the one +established some two years ago, and now located in East Thirteenth Street. +This is managed by certain charitable Catholic ladies, and called "An +Association for Befriending Children." As most of the poor children on the +Island are, or should be, Catholics, it is but just that the last- +mentioned should receive support and countenance from every Catholic in +the city able to assist it, and thus enable the lady managers in a short +time to erect branch homes in every parish on the Island. + +But come with us, dear reader, and let us look for ourselves at the +condition of those who take advantage of the hospitality of the station- +houses. Think for a moment that in 1862 there were seventy thousand nine +hundred and thirty-eight lodgers, while 1871 presents the fearfully +increased number of one hundred and forty-one thousand seven hundred and +eighty who sought this shelter. Oh! that this number (equal nearly to one- +sixth of the population of this vast metropolis), with its fearful weight +of destitution and misery, suffering and despair, could be placed in +burning letters upon the minds of those able, even without discommoding +themselves, to relieve it! + +Let us go back to midwinter. A blinding snow-storm is wrapping the earth +in a white mantle, and it is after midnight, but these are only better +reasons for our undertaking, as they secure us increased opportunity to +see the phase of suffering we seek; for surely in a night like this the +shelter of any roof is a luxury compared to the exposure of the street. + +Let us stop first at the Fifteenth Precinct: we ask the sergeant at the +desk for the presiding officer, and we are at once shown to the captain's +room. He reads the note from headquarters giving us the _entree_, and +informs us that he will give us any information we desire. We request him +to show us the quarters of the night lodgers. He leads us through a rear +door into the yard, and here we find a second building, two stories high, +built of brick and stone. The lower story is cut up into cells, with iron +cross-barred doors, for prisoners; and the upper is divided into two +rooms--one devoted to the female, and the other to male, lodgers. The heavy +granite stone forming a roof to the cells is also the floor of the upper +rooms. As we make an inspection of the prison, we ask the captain what he +thinks of this connection of homeless vagrants with prisoners? He promptly +replies that it is most unfortunate, and should not be allowed, and with +great kindness of heart says he would be willing to take care of a house +in his precinct for any number of lodgers, if allowed to do so. He tells +us that he does everything to alleviate the condition of these paupers he +can; that, if a particularly distressing case presents itself, he allows +the doorman to give the party a cell in the prison, that this is far more +comfortable than the rooms above. + +Think of this, you who at night rest your heads on pillows of down and +wrap your bodies in fine rose blankets; think of beings so unfortunate +that a prisoner's cell, with the clanking iron-barred door, is looked upon +as a special favor! But let us ascend to the upper story. The door to the +male apartment is opened, and the picture is before us. The ceiling is +lofty, and a large ventilator opens to the roof from its centre, but where +is the stone floor? It cannot be seen, so densely is it packed with +outcast humanity. We can think of no other comparison but the way we have +seen sardines packed in little tin boxes. Glance at this first row: here +is an old German, next what looks to be a countryman, then three negroes, +so black that they might have just arrived from the burning climate of +Africa, then three Arabs, and in the distant corner more white men. The +other rows are but copies of this, differing only in color or nationality, +and such a heterogeneous mass of humanity, made common bed-fellows by +want, it would be impossible to find. Around the wall are placed iron +frames, about one foot high, and in these fit plain boards, painted black; +but here, again, none of this can be seen, the human flooring covers all. +Think of this apartment, with seventy-four men, of every description, from +the octogenarian leaning over the brink of the grave, to the young boy +seventeen or eighteen years old. Every clime has a representative; and in +the vast group every variety of shade and color possessed by the human +family can be seen. Opening the door to the female apartment, we find it +occupied by a much smaller number; and we can see better the arrangement +of the floor. The iron frames with their board covering extend from each +wall towards the centre about six feet, leaving a space in the middle of +the room as a passway. The same variety in color, age, and nationality is +visible. Look at the different expressions of countenance--how replete with +sadness, misfortune, degradation, and misery! These lodgers are divided +into three classes: the first are officially known as bummers; they are +generally inebriates and worthless idlers, the drones of the hive, who +make the station-houses their permanent lodging-places, going night after +night to different ones, thus distributing their patronage to a large +number; but in spite of this the wary eye of the policeman soon recognizes +them as belonging to this class. The second are those who by misfortune +are obliged to seek this temporary shelter. Here are poor women, with +their young children, forced out of their homes at night by drunken +husbands; single persons, temporarily unable to obtain employment; here +also you find those whose lives have been failures, whose every effort to +succeed has proved abortive, who have been held down to the world's hard +grindstone by the iron grasp of poverty. The third class embraces those +who have homes in the rural districts, and other poor strangers, who are +by accident left in the city for the night. + +Having completed our survey here, let us look in for a few moments at the +Eighth Precinct. We find the captain obliging in his politeness, and we +ask at once to be permitted to see the night lodgers. About the centre of +the building a door opens, leading by a common stairway to the basement +below. A fearful and sickening odor greets us as we pass down, and this, +the captain informs us, permeates every part of the building, to the great +detriment of his officers. He also tells us that his accommodations for +wayfarers are very poor; that he is obliged to put them in two small rooms +in the basement, which are close and unhealthy. We find this statement +correct, the floor upon which the lodgers rest being about four feet below +the street level; the ceiling is also very low, and the ventilation +extremely imperfect. The only light in the apartment is from a small oil- +lamp, and its sickly flame seems to add intensity to the aspect of the +miserable surroundings. Look at that old man with long white beard and +tattered garments, the first in the row near the entrance. There lingers +still a look of dignity about his fine face, but his whole appearance +denotes the victim of intemperance. See that young boy with his chest +exposed, the third from the old man. He has never known his parents. +Picked up in the streets when a babe by an old crone, he has been tossed +about ever since with the vilest scum of metropolitan society. He is +sixteen, but can count for you the number of dinners he has had in all +those years, the number of times he has slept in a comfortable bed, ay, +even the number of kind words that have been spoken to him! What can be +expected from the future of such children, cradled in a den for the +punishment of crime while yet the snowy innocence of babyhood is +untarnished, the only lullaby the coarse jest, rude repartee, and foul +oaths of the outcasts who surround them? The curses and impotent railings +against a fate for which generally each is individually to blame, and the +bitter invective against their more fortunate fellow-beings, form a sad +school in which to nurture pliable minds. But enough; the foul air of this +basement oppresses us, and we gladly make our way to the outer world. + +In the large cities of Europe, there are refuges established for this +class on the following simple plan: An airy, comfortable, and well- +ventilated room is procured, and fitted up with plain bedsteads and +bedding, the latter of such materials as are easily washed. The next thing +of importance is to provide means for bathing, and to require every person +admitted to make use of these means before retiring to rest. It is also +the custom to give the lodgers when they come in, and again in the morning +when they leave, a large basin of gruel and a half-pound of bread. The +cost of such hospitality here would not exceed fifteen cents per night, +and not as much as this if these houses were under the care of a religious +community, saving by this the salaries of matrons and other employees, and +at the same time ensuring the order always produced by the presence of +disciplined authority. There should be separate houses for males and +females, and each could be cared for by persons of their own sex; but all +such institutions would require supervision by the police, as some unruly +characters must be expected in a promiscuous crowd of vagrants. The night +refuges of London for women and children, established by Catholics, are +under the care of the Sisters of Mercy, and are most admirably conducted. +The order and docility of the lodgers is said to be remarkable under the +gentle sway of these ladies. Those in Montreal and Quebec are in charge of +the Gray Nuns. It would not require a large number of these lodging-houses +for the relief of our city, but they should be located with regard to the +density of population in given districts. Four or five for each sex, with +proper accommodations, would be amply sufficient, as the total number of +lodgers in the most inclement nights would hardly reach one thousand. + +It is difficult to estimate the advantage to society as well as to the +poor these homes would prove. In erecting them we should strike at the +very foundation of the great social evil, and save hundreds of young +women--strangers and unfortunates out of employment--from the snares set for +their ruin in their lonely wanderings at night in search of shelter. + + + "There is near another river flowing, + Black with guilt, and deep as hell and sin; + On its brink even sinners stand and shudder, + Cold and hunger goad the homeless in." + --_Procter._ + + +As the station lodgings now are, they form an incentive to the class known +as bummers to avoid work. These people know there are thirty station- +houses, and by frequent changes they manage to pass the year through +without drawing marked attention at any one place. This class is composed +of low thieves, drunkards, and beggars. If but few lodging-places existed, +they would soon become well known, and could then be committed to the +workhouse. A sojourn for them on the "island of penance" in the East River +would result in a marked decrease in the thieving constantly carried on +about our wharves and private dwellings. + +In erecting these night homes, either by charity or legislative +enactments, we should save our city from a burning disgrace, and give +hopes of respectability to many a weary soul beaten down to the dust by +the undeserved humiliations which link misfortune with crime. + +As a charitable investment, these homes would prove a wise economy, as +they would permit the truly unfortunate to be properly cared for, which is +impossible at present. They would throw a safeguard around the morals of +homeless young women by giving them shelter with persons of their own sex, +who could protect, sympathize with, and advise them. They would assist in +detecting those who live by swindling their hardworking neighbors. Lastly +and most important, they would separate the children of poverty from the +abodes of crime. + + + [NOTE.--The foregoing article is the substance of a lecture + delivered by Dr. Raborg before the Catholic Institute connected + with the parish of S. Paul the Apostle in this city. Its + suggestions are so apropos to the present season that we have + deemed them worthy of reproduction in this permanent form. We + desire also to state that the lecture had the effect of inducing + several philanthropic ladies and gentlemen to visit the station- + houses and make a personal examination themselves, the result of + which was a rather extended article in _Frank Leslie's Newspaper_ + of March 2, 1872, embracing some passages from the lecture, and + accompanied by a clever illustration. + + The sectarian institutions for vagrant children having been + alluded to, and certain former allusions to the same in this + magazine having been misunderstood, we think it necessary to make + a remark here in explanation. We must admit and praise the + philanthropic motive which sustains these institutions. At the + same time, we regard them as really nuisances of the worst kind, + so far as Catholic children are concerned, on account of their + proselytizing character. Moreover, in their actual working they + violate the rights both of parents and children, and we have + evidence that these poor children are actually sold at the West, + both by private sale and by auction. The horrible abuses existing + in some state institutions are partly known to the public, and we + have the means of disclosing even worse things than those which + have recently been exposed in the daily papers. We trust, + therefore, that the eloquent appeal of the author of the article + will produce its effect upon all our Catholic readers, and + stimulate them to greater efforts in behalf of these poor + children.--ED. C. W.] + + + + +The House That Jack Built. + + +By The Author Of "The House Of Yorke." + +In Two Parts. + + + +Part I. + + +It stood in one of the wildest spots in New England, surrounded by woods, +a "frame house" in a region of log-houses, and, as such, in spite of +defects, a touch beyond the most complete edifice that could be shaped of +logs. + +The defects were not few. The walls were slightly out of the +perpendicular, there were strips of board instead of clapboards and +shingles, the immense stone chimney in the centre gave the house the +appearance of being an afterthought, and the two windows that looked down +toward the road squinted. + +Yes, a most absurd little house, with all sorts of blunders in the making +of it, but, for all that, a house with a worth of its own. For Jack +Maynard had put the frame together with his own unassisted hands, had +raised it with but two men to help him, and had finished it off alone. And +round about the work, and through and over it, while his hands built +visibly, his fancy also built airy habitations, fair and plumb, and +changed all the landscape. Before this fairy wand, the forest sank, broad +roads unwound, there was a sprinkle of white houses through the green +country, like a sprinkle of snow in June; and in place of this rustic nest +rose a fair mansion-house, with a comely matron standing in the door, and +rosy children playing about. + +At this climax of his castle-building Jack Maynard caught breath, and, +coming back to the present, found himself halfway up a ladder, with a +hammer suspended in his hand, the wild forest swarming with game all about +him, and the matron of his vision still Miss Bessie Ware, spinster. + +Jack laughed. "So much the better!" he exclaimed, and brought his hammer +down with such force, laughing as he struck, that the nail under it bent +up double and broke in two, the head half falling to the ground, the point +half flattened lengthwise into the board, making a fragment of rustic +buhl-work. + +"There's a nail driven into the future," said the builder, and selected +another, and struck with better aim this time, so that the little spike +went straight through the board, and pierced an oaken timber, and held the +two firmly together, and thus did its work in the present. + +"Well done!" said Jack; "you have gone through fifty summers in less than +a minute." + +The startled woods rang to every blow, the fox and the deer fled at that +tocsin of civilization, and the snake _slid_ away, and set the green grass +_crawling_ with its hidden windings. Only one living creature, besides the +builder, seemed happy and unafraid, and that was a brown-and-white spaniel +that dozed in the shadow of the rising walls, stirring only when his +master whistled or spoke to him. + +"Wake up, Bruno, and tell me how this suits your eyes," Jack would call +out. Whereat Bruno would lift his lids lazily, show a narrow line of his +bright brown eyes, give his tail a slow, laborious wag, and subside to his +dreams again, and Jack would go on with his work. It seemed to be his +heart, rather than the hammer, that drove the nails in; and every timber, +board, latch, and hinge caught a momentary life from his hands, and +learned his story from some telegraphing pulse. The very stones of the +chimney knew that John Maynard and Bessie Ware were to be married as soon +as the house should be ready for them. + +There was not a dwelling in sight; but half a mile further down the road +toward the nearest town, there was an odd, double log-house, wherein lived +Dennis Moran and his Norah, three little girls, and Bessie Ware, Dennis +Moran's sister's child. + +Jack paused in his work, took off his straw hat to wipe away the +perspiration from his face and toss his hair back, first hanging on a +round of the ladder just above him the hammer that had driven a nail +through fifty summers. As he put his hat on again, he glanced downward, +and there, at the foot of the ladder, stood twenty summers, looking up at +him out of a face as fair as summers ever formed. The apple-blooms had +given it their pink and white, the June heavens were not bluer than those +eyes, so oddly full of laughter and languor. The deepest nook under a low- +growing spruce, nor shadow in vine-draped cave, nor hollow in a thunder- +cloud, ever held richer darkness than that hidden in the loose curls and +waves of hair that fell about Bessie Ware's shoulders. No part of the +charm of her presence was due to her dress, save an air of fresh neatness. +A large apron, gathered up by the corners, was full of fragrant arbor-vitae +boughs, gathered to make a broom of. The large parasol, tilted back that +she might look upward, allowed a sunbeam to fall on her forehead. + +"Oh! what a tall pink has grown up since I came here!" exclaimed the +builder, as he saw her. + +"And what a great bear has climbed on to my ladder," retorted the girl. + +He came down from the ladder and began to tell her his plans. + +"Bessie, I mean this shall be yet one of the best farms in the state. On +that hill I will have corn and clover; there shall be an orchard in the +hollow next to it, with peach-trees on the south side of the little rise; +and I will plant cranberries in the swamp beyond. In ten years from now, +if a man should leave here to-day, he wouldn't know the place." + +Bessie smiled at the magician who was to work such wonders--never doubting +but he would--then glanced about at the scene of his exploits. Sombre, +blue-green pines brooded over the hill that was one day to be pink with +clover, or rustling with corn; oaks, elms, maples, birches, and a great +tangle of undergrowth, with rocks and moss, cumbered the ground where +peaches were to ripen their dusky cheeks, when Jack should bid them grow, +and large, green, and red-streaked and yellow apples were to drop through +the still, bright, autumn air; and she knew that the future cranberry- +swamp now stood thick and dark with beautiful arborvitae trees, whose high- +piled, flaky boughs, tapering to a point far up in the sunshine, kept cool +and dim the little pools of water below, and the black mould in which +their strong roots stretched out and interwove. But Jack could do anything +when he set out, and her faith in him was so great that she could shut her +eyes now and see the open swamp matted over with cranberry-vines, and hear +the corn-stalks clash their green swords in the fretting breeze, and the +muffled bump of the ripe apple as it fell on the grass. + +After a while, Bessie started to go, but came back again. + +"I forgot," she said, and gave her lover a book that had been hidden under +the boughs in her apron. "A book-pedlar stopped at our house last night, +and he left this. Uncle Dennis doesn't want it, and I do not. Perhaps you +can make some sense out of it." + +It was a second-hand copy of Comstock's _Natural Philosophy_, for schools, +and was scribbled through and through by the student who had used it, +years before. + +Jack took the book. + +"And that reminds me of your white-faced boarder," he said, with a slight +laugh. "Is he up yet?" + +"Oh! he gets up earlier than any of us," she answered lightly. "He doesn't +act cityfied at all. And you know, Jack, the reason why he is white is +because he has been sick. Good-bye! Aunt Norah will want her broom before +she gets it." + +Bessie struck into the woods instead of going down to the road, and was +soon lost to view. Standing beside her little house, she had looked a +tall, fairly-formed lassie; but with the great trunks of primeval forest- +trees standing about her, and lifting their green pyramids and cones far +into the air, she appeared slim and small enough for a fairy. Even the +birds, chippering about full of business, seemed to flout her, as if she +were of small consequence--not worth flying from. + +She laughed at them, and whispered what she did not dare to say aloud: +"Other people besides you can build nests!" then looked quickly around to +see if any listener were in sight. + +There was a slight, rustling sound, and an eavesdropping squirrel +scampered up a tree and peered down with twinkling eyes from a safe +height. She was just throwing one of the green twigs in her apron at him, +when she heard her name spoken, and turned quickly to meet a pleasant- +faced young man, who approached from an opposite direction. This was the +white-faced boarder who had left the city to find health in this wild +place. + +The two walked on together, Bessie as shy as any creature of the woods, +and her companion both pleased and amused at her shyness, and trying to +draw her out. To his questioning, she told her little story. Her mother +was Dennis Moran's youngest sister, her father had been a color-sergeant +in the English army. There had been other children, all younger than she, +but all had died, some in one country, some in another. For Sergeant +Ware's family had followed the army, and seen many lands. + +"I am an East Indian," Bessie said naively. "I was born at Calcutta. The +others were born in Malta, in England, and in Ireland. It didn't agree +with them travelling about from hot to cold. My father died at Gibraltar, +and my mother died while she was bringing me to Uncle Dennis Moran's. May +God be merciful to them all!" + +Mr. James Keene had heard this pious ejaculation many a time before from +the lips of humble Catholics, and had found nothing in it to admire. But +now, the thought struck him that this constant prayer for mercy on the +dead, whenever their names were mentioned, was a beautiful superstition. +Of course he thought it a superstition, for he was a New England +Protestant of the most liberal sort--that is, he protested against being +obliged to believe anything. + +They reached the house, near which Dennis Moran and his wife stood +watching complacently a brood of new chickens taking their first airing. +The young gentleman joined them, and listened with interest to the farm +talk of his host. + +What had set Dennis Moran, one of the most rigid of Catholics, in a +solitude where he saw none of his own country nor faith, and where no +priest ever came, he professed himself unable to explain. + +"I'm like a fly caught in a spider's web, sir," he said. "When Norah and I +came over, and I didn't just know what to do, except that I wanted to have +a farm of my own some day, I hired out to do haying for John Smith's +wife--John had died the very week he began to cut his grass, and Norah she +helped Mrs. Smith make butter. Then they wanted me to get in the crops, +and after that I had a chance to go into the woods logging. When I came +out of the woods, Mrs. Smith wanted me to plough and plant for her. And +one thing led to another, and there was always something to keep me. Norah +had a young one, and Bessie came--a young witch, ten years old," said +Dennis, pulling his niece's hair, as she stood beside him. "So I had to +take a house. And the long and short of the matter is, that I've been here +going on ten years, when I didn't mean to stay ten weeks. But I shall pull +up stakes pretty soon, sir," says Dennis, straightening up. "I don't mean +to stay where I have to go twenty miles to attend to my Easter duties, and +where my children are growing up little better than Protestants (he called +it Prodestant). I'm pretty sure to move next fall, sir." + +At this announcement, Mrs. Norah tossed up her head and uttered an +unspellable, guttural "Oh!" brought from the old land, and preserved +unadulterated among the nasal-speaking Yankees. "We hear ducks!" + +Whatever might be the meaning and derivation of this remark, the drift of +it was evidently depreciatory, and it had the effect of putting an end to +her husband's eloquence. Doubtless, Mrs. Moran had heard such +announcements made before. + +Bessie stole a little hand under her uncle's arm, and smiled into his +face, and told him that she had given Jack the book, and soon made him +forget his mortification. She knew that he was sometimes boastful, and +that the great things he was constantly prophesying of himself never came +to pass; but she knew also that he had a kind heart, and it hurt her to +see him hurt. + +That same book, which the girl mentioned merely to divert attention, was +to be a matter of more consequence to her than she dreamed. It was more +important than the wedding-dress and the wedding-cake, which occupied so +much of her thoughts--more important than the jealous interference of +Jack's mother, who did not like Bessie's foreign blood and religion, +though she did like Bessie--more important than even her Uncle Dennis' +actual flitting, when fall came--all which we pass by. Only one thing in +her life then was of more consequence than that old school-book, which the +pedler left because no one would buy it, and that was the earnest and +sorrowing advice of good old Father Conners when, against his will, he +united her to a Protestant. + +John Maynard said later, that before he read that book he was like a beet +before it is pulled out of the ground, when it doesn't know but it is a +turnip, and firmly believes that it is growing upward instead of downward, +and that those waving leaves of its own, which it feels, but sees not, +exist in some outer void where nothing is, and that angle-worms are the +largest of locomotive creatures. + +It is doubtful if the artistic faculty is any more a special gift in the +fine than in the useful arts, or if he who creates ideal forms, in order +to breathe into them the breath of such life as is in him, is more +enthusiastic in his work, or more fascinated by it, than he who, taking +captive the powers of nature, binds them to do his will. + +This enthusiastic recognition of the work to which nature had appointed +him, John Maynard felt from the moment when he first knew that a crowbar +is a lever. He read that book that Bessie gave him with interest, then +with avidity, and, having read, all the power latent in that wide brow of +his waked up, and demanded knowledge. He got other and more complete works +on mechanics and studied them in his leisure hours, he made experiments, +he examined every piece of mechanism that came in his way. + +Coming home one Sunday from a meeting which she had walked six miles to +attend, Mrs. Maynard, senior, was horrified to find that her son had paid +her a visit during her absence for the sole purpose of picking in pieces +her precious Connecticut clock. There lay its speechless fragments spread +out on the table, while the yawning frame leaned against the wall. Bessie +sat near, looking rather frightened, and Jack, in his shirt-sleeves, sat +before the table, an open book at his elbow. He was studying the page +intently, his earnest, sunburnt face showing an utter unconsciousness of +guilt. + +"Land sakes, Jack!" screamed his mother. "You've been and ruined my +clock!" + +A clock was of value in that region, where half the inhabitants told the +hour by sun-marks, by the stars, or by instinct. + +He put his hand out to keep her back, but did not look up. "Don't worry, +mother," he said, "and don't touch anything. I'll put the machine together +in a few minutes." + +Mrs. Maynard sank into a chair, and gazed distressfully at the ruins. That +the pendulum, now lying prone and dismembered, would ever tick again, that +those two little hands would ever again tell the time of day, that the +weights would run down and have to be wound up every Saturday night, or +that she should ever again on any June day hear the faithful little gong +strike four o'clock in the morning--her signal for jumping out of bed with +the unvarying ejaculation: "Land sakes! it's four o'clock!"--seemed to her +impossible. + +"And to think that you should do such work on the Sabbath-day!" she +groaned out, casting an accusing glance on her daughter-in-law. "You seem +to have lost all the religion you ever had since you got married." + +Bessie's blue eyes lighted up: "I think it just as pious for Jack to +study, and find out how useful things are made, as to wear out a pair of +shoes going to hear Parson Bates talk through his nose, or sit at home and +spoil his eyes reading over and over about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." + +"Come, come!" interposed Jack; "if you two women quarrel, and bother me, I +shall spoil the clock." + +This procured silence. + +Had he been a little more thoughtful and tender, he would have told his +mother that Bessie had tried to dissuade him from touching the clock, and +had urged the impropriety of his doing such work on Sunday; but he did not +think. She shielded him, and he allowed her to, scarcely aware that she +had, indeed. + +The young man's prediction was fulfilled. Before sunset, the clock was +ticking soberly on the mantelpiece, the minute-hand hitching round its +circle, and showing the reluctant hour-hand the way, and Jack was marching +homeward through the woods, with his rifle on one arm and his wife on the +other. + +They were both so silent--that dark-browed man and bright faced woman--that +they might almost be taken as kindred of the long shadows and sunstreaks +over which they walked. He was building up a visionary entanglement of +pulleys in the air, through which power should run with ever-increasing +force, and studying how he should dispense with an idle-wheel that +belonged in that maze; and she was thinking of him. He was thinking that +this forest, that once had bounded his hopes and aspirations, now pressed +on his very breathing, and hemmed his steps in, and wishing that he had +wings, like that bird flitting before him; and she was watching his eyes +till she, too, saw the bird. + +Jack stopped, raised his rifle, took a hasty aim, and fired. Bessie ran to +pick up the robin: + +"How could you, Jack!" she exclaimed reproachfully, as she felt the +fluttering heart stop in her hand. + +He looked at it without the slightest compunction. "I wanted to see, as it +stood on that twig, which way the centre of gravity would fall," he said. +"Don't fret, Bessie! There are birds enough in the world." + +The young wife looked earnestly into her husband's face, as they walked on +together. "Jack," she said, "you might kill me, and then say that there +are women enough in the world." + +He laughed, but looked at her kindly, as he made answer: "What would all +the women in the world be to me, Bessie, if my woman were out of it?" + +Could she ask more? + +"Jack, where do you suppose the song has gone to?" she asked, presently. + +"Bessie, where does a candle go when it goes out?" was the counter- +question. + +There had been a season in this man's life, during the brief bud and +blossom of his love for Bessie Ware, when his mind had been as full of +fancies as a spring maple of blossoms. But he was not by nature fanciful, +and, that brief season past, he settled down to facts. Questions which +could not be answered he cared not to ask nor ponder on and all +speculations, save those which built toward an assured though unseen +result, he scouted. The sole impression the bird had made on him was that +it was a nice little flying-machine, which he would like to improve on +some day. Meantime, he had much to learn. + +The extent of his ignorance did not discourage John Maynard, perhaps +because it opened out gradually before him, over a new, unknown path +starting from the known one. He was strong, fresh, and healthy, and the +very novelty of his work, and his coming to it so late, was an assistance +to him. "I have a head for all I want to get into it," he said to his +wife. "When my brain gets hold of an idea, it doesn't let go." + +It seemed so, indeed; and sometimes when he sat studying, or thinking, +utterly unconscious of all about him, his eyes fixed, yet glimmering, his +mouth close shut, his breathing half lost, his whole frame, while the +brain worked, so still that his hands and feet grew cold, Bessie became +almost afraid of him, and was ready to fancy that some strange and perhaps +malign spirit had entered into and taken possession of her husband's soul. + +And thus it happened that, after two years, the house that Jack built was +abandoned to one of his relatives, and the young couple, with their baby +boy, left the forest for the city. + +Of course, no one is to suppose that John Maynard failed. + +It was summer again, and lavish rains had kept to July the fresh +luxuriance of June. The frame house stood nearly as it was when its +builder finished it. The walls had changed their bright yellow tint for +gray, and a few stones had fallen from the top of the chimney--that was +all. The forest still gathered close about, and only a few patches of +cultivated land had displaced the stumps and stones. A hop-vine draped the +porch at the back of the house, and a group of tall sunflowers grew near +one of the open curtainless windows. + +Civilization had passed by on the other side, and, though not really so +remote, was still invisible. Twice a day, with a low rumble, as of distant +thunder, a train of cars passed by through the valley beyond the woods. + +There was no sound of childish voices, no glimpse of a child anywhere +about. The air bore no more intelligent burden than the low colloquial +dropping of a brook over its pebbly bed, the buzzing of bees about a hive, +and a rustling of leaves in the faint stir of air that was more a +respiration than a breath. The only sign of human life to be seen without +was a frail thread of blue smoke that rose from the chimney, and +disappeared in the sky. + +Inside, on the white floor of the kitchen, the shadows of the sunflowers +lay as if painted there, only now and then stirring slightly, as the air +breathed on the wide, golden-rayed shields outside. In the chimney-corner, +almost as silent as a shadow, an old woman sat in a rocking-chair, +knitting, and thinking. The two small windows, with crossing light, made +one corner of the room bright; but where this woman sat, her face could be +seen plainly only by firelight. + +It was a rudely-featured face--one seldom sees finely moulded features in +the backwoods--but it showed fortitude, good sense, and that unconscious +integrity which is so far nobler than the conscious. The gray hair was +drawn tightly back, and fastened high on the head with a yellow horn comb; +the tall, spare figure was clad in a gown of dark-blue calico covered with +little white dots, and a checked blue-and-white apron tied on with white +tape strings, and the hands that held the knitting were bony, large- +jointed, and large-veined. + +The stick of wood that had been smouldering on the andirons bent in the +middle, where a little flickering flame had been gnawing industriously for +some time. The flame brightened, and made a dive into this break, where it +found a splinter. The stick bent yet more, then suddenly snapped in two, +one end dropping into the coals, the other end standing upright in the +corner. + +"Bless me!" muttered the old woman, dropping her work with a start. +"There's a stranger! I wonder who it is." + +She sat gazing dreamily at the brand a moment, and, as her face half +settled again, it became evident that the expression was one of profound +melancholy as well as thoughtfulness. The lifted eyelids, and the start +that roused without brightening, showed that. + +After a moment's reverie, she drew a long sigh, and, before resuming her +work, took the long iron tongs that leaned in the corner, and most +inhospitably tossed the figurative stranger into the coals. + +"I wonder why my thoughts run so on Jack and Bessie to-day," she +soliloquized, fixing the end of the knitting-needle into the leather +sheath at her side. "I wish I knew how they are. It's my opinion they'd +have done as well to stay here. I don't think much of that machinery +business." + +The coming event which had thus cast its shadow before, was already at the +gate, or, more literally, at the bars. Bessie Maynard had walked alone up +the road she had not trodden for years, and now stood leaning there, and +looking about with eyes that were at once eager and shrinking. Her face +was pale, her mouth tightly closed; she had grown taller, and her +appearance disclosed in some indefinable way a capacity for sternness +which would scarcely have been suspected, or even credited, in the girl of +twenty we left her. A glance would show that she had suffered deeply. + +Presently, as she gazed, tears began to dim her eyes. She brushed them +away, let down the slim cedar pole that barred her passage, stepped +through, replaced the bar, and walked up the path to the house. + +The knitter in the chimney-corner heard the sound of advancing steps, and +sat still, with her face turned over her shoulder, to watch the door. The +steps reached the threshold and paused there, and for a moment the two +women gazed at each other--the one silent from astonishment, the other +struggling to repress some emotion that rose again to the surface. + +The visitor was the first to recover her self-possession. She came in +smiling, and held out her hands. + +"Haven't you a word of welcome for me, Aunt Nancy?" she asked. + +Her voice broke the spell, and the old woman started up with a true +country welcome, hearty, and rather rough. It was many a year since Bessie +Maynard's hands had felt such a grasp, or her arms such a shake. + +"But where is Jack?" asked his aunt, looking toward the door over Bessie's +shoulder. + +"Oh! he's at home," was the reply, rather negligently given. "But how are +you, Aunt Nancy? Have you room for me to stay awhile? I took a fancy to be +quiet a little while this summer. The city is so hot and noisy." + +The old lady repeated her welcomes, mingled with many apologies for the +kind of accommodations she had to offer, all the while helping to remove +her visitor's bonnet and shawl, drawing up the rocking-chair for her, and +pressing her into it. + +"Do sit down and rest," she said. "But where is the baby? Why on earth +didn't you bring her?" + +Bessie clasped her hands tightly in her lap, and looked steadily at the +questioner before answering. "The baby is at home!" she said then, in a +low voice. + +Aunt Nancy was just turning away for some hospitable purpose, but the look +and tone arrested her. + +"You don't mean--" she began, but went no further. + +"Yes," replied Bessie quietly; "there is only James left." + +James was the eldest child. + +Mrs. Nancy Maynard was not much given to expressions of tenderness--New +England people of the old sort seldom were--but she laid her hand softly on +her niece's shoulder, and said unsteadily: + +"You poor dear, how tried you have been!" + +"We have all our trials," responded the other, with a sort of coldness. + +The old woman knew not what to say. She turned away, mending the fire. If +Bessie had wept, she would have known how to comfort her; but this strange +calmness was embarrassing. Scarcely less embarrassing was the light, +indifferent talk that followed, the questions concerning crops, and +weather, and little household affairs, evidently put to set aside more +serious topics. + +This baby was the fourth child that Bessie Maynard had lost. After the +first, no child of hers had lived to reach its third year. Each one had +been carried away by a sudden distemper. The first death had been +announced to John Maynard's aunt in a long letter from Bessie, full of a +healthy sorrow, every line stained with tears. John had written the next +time, his wife being too much worn out with watching and grief to write. +At the third death, there came a line from Bessie: "My little boy is gone, +Aunt Nancy. What do you suppose God means?" + +Aunt Nancy had wondered somewhat over this strange missive, but had +decided that, whatever God meant, Bessie meant resignation. + +But now, as she marked her niece's changed face and manner, and +recollected that laconic note, she was forced to give up the comforting +thought. There might be endurance, but there was no resignation in that +face. + +The sense of distance and strangeness grew on her, though Bessie began to +help her get supper ready, drawing out and laying the table as though she +had done it every day of her life, and even remembering the cup that had +been hers, and the little iron rack on which she used to set the teapot. +"Jack found the brass-headed nail this hangs on miles back in the woods," +she said. "It's a wonder how it got there." + +"Why didn't Jack come with you?" asked Aunt Nancy, catching at the +opportunity to say something personal. + +A deep blush ran up Bessie's face at being so caught, but her hesitation +was only momentary. + +"He is too busy," she answered briefly. + +"But I should think he might take a rest now and then," persisted her +aunt. + +Bessie gave a short laugh that was not without bitterness. + +"What rest can a man take when he has a steam-engine spouting carbonic +acid in one side of his brain, a flying-machine in the other side, and a +wheel in perpetual motion between them? John is given over to metals and +motions. I might as well have a locomotive for a husband. Shall I take up +the applesauce in this bowl?" + +"Yes. I should think that James might have come." Aunt Nancy held +desperately to the thread she had caught. + +"James is a little John," replied Bessie, pouring the hot, green +applesauce into a straight, white bowl with a band of narrow blue stripes +around the middle of it. "Never mind my coming alone, Aunt Nancy. I got +along very well, and they will do very well without me." + +They sat down to the table, and Bessie made a great pretence of eating, +but ate nothing. Then they went out and looked at the garden, talking all +the while about nothing, and soon, to the relief of both, it was bed-time. + +To Be Continued. + + + + +Where Are You Going? + + +We happened, the other day, to notice in the columns of a ribald infidel +newspaper an advertisement in which a young lady gave notice of her desire +to find "board in an infidel or atheist family." There are many persons +nowadays who are looking for a lodging-place and for food which will give +rest and refreshment to their minds and hearts, in the bosom of the +infidel and atheistic family circle. They may not, in most cases, +distinctly perceive and expressly avow that they are going over to dwell +in the tents of atheism, but they have turned their faces and steps in +that direction, and into the path leading thitherward, and those who keep +on their way must arrive, sooner or later, at that destination. It is to +these that we address the question: Where are you going? We would like to +have them reflect a little on the kind of entertainment which they may +reasonably expect to find in the private family of the household, and in +the larger family of human society, when these are constituted on +atheistic principles. + +Before going any further, we will designate more precisely what class of +persons we intend by the above description. In general, all who do not +believe in a law made known to the mind and conscience by Almighty God, +and, in particular, those who, having been brought up in the Catholic +faith, no longer believe in that law as made known by the authority of the +church. We class these last individuals, for whose benefit chiefly though +not exclusively we are writing, with those first mentioned advisedly and +for a reason; and warn them that they are included in the number of those +whose faces are set toward atheism. Nevertheless, we do not say this on +the ground that every one who is not a Catholic is either incapable of +knowing God and his law, or logically bound to deny their existence. A +Theist, a Jew, or a Protestant has a rational ground for holding against +the atheist or infidel all that portion of Catholic truth which his +religion includes. Therefore, we have not included any of these in the +number of the atheistical. + +Those only who do not believe in any law of God over the conscience we +have charged with this tendency to positive atheism. Against such, the +justice of the charge is manifest. For they are practically atheists +already, and by denying an essential attribute of the Creator, and a +relation which the creature must have toward him on account of this +attribute, the way is opened to a denial of his existence. As for those +who have been instructed in the Catholic faith and have thrown off its +authority over their conscience, we say that they have turned towards +atheism, because we are convinced that, as a matter of fact, the motives +and reasonings which have induced them to this fatal apostasy are +practically and theoretically atheistical, even if they themselves are not +distinctly aware of their ultimate tendency. We do not deny that a +Catholic may lapse into some imperfect form of Christianity or natural +religion. The first Protestants had been originally Catholics, and so have +been some of the so-called philosophers professing natural religion. But +the present tendency of unbelief is toward atheism, and those believers in +positive, revealed religion, whether Catholics, Protestants, or Jews, who +are swept by this current, are carried toward the abyss whither it is +rushing. Those who reject the law of God which is proclaimed and enjoined +by the authority of the church, do so because its moral or intellectual +restraints are irksome, and they wish to be at liberty. In plain words, +they wish to be free to sin, to follow the proclivity of our fallen nature +to indulge in pride and concupiscence, without any fear of God before +their eyes to disturb their peace. Therefore, they deny the authority of +the church to bind their conscience to believe the doctrines and obey the +moral precepts which she promulgates in the name of God. Their revolt is +against the law itself and the sovereign authority of God. They sin +against faith and against reason also; against the natural as well as the +revealed law. They sin with the understanding as well as with the will, +and their sin is one which goes to the root of all moral obligation and +responsibility in the creature toward the Creator. It is an assertion of +perfect individual liberty of thought and action, of independence and +self-sovereignty; and as such an independence is completely incompatible +with the existence of God, it is but a step to deny that he exists, or at +least that we have any knowledge of his existence. Moreover, modern +unbelief proceeds by the way of objections, difficulties, and doubts. It +is sceptical in its principle; and one who rejects the authority of the +church and of divine revelation on the principle of scepticism, easily +rejects all philosophy and natural religion on the same principle, and +runs down into pure materialism and atheism. + +There are many persons in Europe, and some in this country, who have sunk +into a state of avowed impiety and violent hostility to all religion which +places them beyond the reach of every appeal to reason, conscience, or +right feeling. We do not attempt to argue with such as these; but we +suppose in those whom we address a condition of the mind and heart much +less degenerate and hopeless. We suppose them to recognize the excellence +and necessity of the private and social virtues, and to retain some +intellectual and moral ideal in their minds which they cherish and +venerate. They believe in truthfulness, honor, fidelity, honesty, true +love, friendship, in the cultivation of knowledge and the fine arts, in +all that can give decorum, refinement, and charm to domestic and social +life, power, dignity, and splendor to political society. But all this is +looked on as a spontaneous, natural growth, which finds its perfection and +its end from and on this earth, and in this life, without any direct +relation to God and an immortal life in another sphere of existence. Now, +that such persons are intellectually and morally on a height which +elevates them far above those who are wholly degraded in mind and +character, we readily admit. But they are on the verge of a precipice. It +is the black and awful abyss of atheism which yawns beneath them. And we +invite them to look over the brink, and down into those dark depths, that +they may consider deliberately whither their steps are leading them, +before it is too late to retreat to a safer position. + +In what consists the reality of truth, let us ask of one who professes to +love truth, or the obligation of respecting it, if Christianity is a +falsehood, and its Founder a deceiver of mankind? One who knows the +evidence on which Christianity rests, and rejects it as a delusion, has +adopted a principle of scepticism which destroys all the evidence on which +any truth can rest. The principles of reason are denied or called in +question, unbelief or doubt extends to everything. The existence of God is +doubted, the distinct and immortal existence of the soul is questioned, +nothing remains but the senses and the phenomena which are called sensible +facts. Take away God, the Essential Truth, who can neither be deceived nor +deceive us, and who has manifested to us the truth by the lights of reason +and revelation, and there is no such thing as truth. The descendants of +apes, whose whole existence is merely one of sensation, who have sprung +from material forces and are resolved into them by dissolution, can have +no more obligation of speaking the truth than their cousins the monkeys. +If lying, calumny, or perjury will increase the means of your sensible +enjoyment, why not employ them against your brother-apes, as well as +entrap a monkey and cage him for your amusement? Whence comes the +excellence and obligation of honor, that principle which impels a man +rather to die than to betray a trust or abandon the post of duty? On what +is based honesty? Why should one choose to pass his life, and to make his +family pass their lives, in poverty and privation, rather than take the +gold of another, when he can steal it with impunity? Where lies the +detestable baseness of bribery and swindling? Why does the heart revolt +against the conduct of the man or woman who is faithless to conjugal, +parental, or filial love, who is a false friend, ungrateful for kindness, +a traitor to his country? It is all very well to say that our natural +instincts impel us to love certain qualities and detest others, as we +spontaneously admire beauty and are displeased with ugliness. This is +certainly true. And it is very well to say that happiness and well-being +are, on the whole, promoted by virtuous sentiments and actions, and +hindered by those which are vicious. But if mere selfish, sensitive +enjoyment of the good of this life be the end of life itself, all virtue +is resolved at last into the quest of this enjoyment by the most sure and +suitable means. When virtue requires the sacrifice of this enjoyment, it +is no longer virtue. Why should a wife sacrifice her happiness to a cruel, +sickly, or disagreeable husband, a husband preserve fidelity to a wife who +is hopelessly deranged or who has violated her marriage vows? Why should a +soldier expose his life in obedience to the order of a stupid or reckless +commander, or shed his blood in an unnecessary war brought on by the folly +or ambition of incompetent or unscrupulous rulers? Why should a seaman die +for the sake of saving passengers who are nothing to him, and many of whom +are perhaps worthless persons, leaving his widow and children without a +protector? Why trouble ourselves about taking care of the poor, ruined +wrecks of humanity, who can never more be capable of enjoying life or +contributing to the enjoyment of others? If we are not the offspring of +God, but of the earth, mere sensitive and mortal animals, existing for the +pleasure of a day, all the virtues which demand self-sacrifice are absurd; +and the sentiments which we feel about these virtues are illusions. It is +very well to appeal to these sentiments; but those who do so must admit +that these sentiments must be capable of being justified by reason. An +atheist or a sceptic cannot do this. If a man is essentially the same with +a pig, there cannot be any reason for treating him otherwise than as a +pig. Our natural sentiments, which revolt against the practical +consequences of the degrading doctrine of atheism, prove that it is +contrary to nature, and therefore false. It is because our nature is +rational and immortal that we owe to ourselves and our fellows those +obligations and charities which are not due to the brutes; that life, +chastity, property, honor, love and friendship, promises and engagements, +political, social, and personal rights of all kinds, are to be respected +and held sacred. Our rational and immortal nature cannot exist except by +participation from God, and its constitutive principle is the capacity to +know God and recognize his law as our supreme rule. The obligation of +doing that which is just and honorable is derived from that law. Our own +rights and the rights of our neighbor are inviolable, because God has +given them. They are the rights of God, as that great philosopher Dr. +Brownson has so frequently and conclusively proved. God, as our lawgiver, +must necessarily give us a law which is plain and certain. It can be no +other than the Christian law. And every one who has been instructed in the +Catholic faith must see that Christianity and the Christian law are +guaranteed, defined, proclaimed, and enforced on the conscience by the +authority of the church. + +Let him reject that authority, and he has disowned God; and by so doing +has taken away the basis of virtue. Self-interest, sentiment, and human +instincts are no sufficient support for it. For, although our temporal +interests coincide in great part with the claims of virtue, and natural +sentiments and instincts are radically good, we are subject to inordinate +and even violent passions. Take away the fear of God, and the passions +will sweep away all slighter barriers. Pride and concupiscence will assert +their sway, make a wreck of virtue, and eventually destroy even our +earthly and temporal happiness. + +Even with all the power and influence which religion can exercise over men +under the most favorable circumstances, there is enough of sin and misery +in the world; but what are we to expect if atheism should prevail? The +practical atheism, or, to speak Saxon, the ungodliness of the age, has +produced enough of bitter and deadly fruit to give us a taste of the +entertainment which is awaiting us if the time ever comes when the power +which religion still retains is altogether taken away. We do not need to +refer to the pages of professed moralists, or to quote sermons on this +topic. It is enough to take what we find in the works of those masterly +novelists who describe and satirize the crimes and follies of modern +society and depict its tragic miseries, and what we read every day in the +newspapers. The intrigues, villanies, swindlings, divorces, murders, and +suicides which blacken the record of each passing month, and the hidden, +untold tragedies going on perpetually in private life, give us proof +enough of the ravages which the passions of fallen, weak human nature will +make when all fear of God is removed, and they are left uncontrolled by +anything stronger than self-interest, and physical coercion in the hands +of the civil power. No one who casts off all faith in God, allegiance to +his authority, and fear of his just retribution, can foresee what he +himself may become, or what he may do before his life is ended. The +natural virtues, the intellectual gifts, the education, refinement, +elevated sentiments, and pure affections which such a person may possess +in youth, whether it be a young man or a young woman, are no sure +guarantee or safeguard, even in a religious and moral community. Much less +are they in one which is wholly irreligious. No one knows, therefore, how +wicked he may become, or how miserable he may make himself. Still less can +any one foresee what treachery, cruelty, and ingratitude, what bitter +sufferings, and what ruin, may await him at the hands of others, if he is +to be a member of a great infidel or atheist family which he has helped to +form. He will be like the unhappy Alpine tourist who fell down from the +Matterhorn, dragging with him and dragged by his companions from his +dangerous foothold, and all dashed in pieces in the abyss beneath. + +Let any one who has been brought up in the enjoyment of those advantages +which give decorum, charm, and refined pleasure to life--and who wishes and +expects to possess the same in the future which he looks forward to in +this world, with a zest and freedom increased by the riddance of all fear +of God--think for a moment about one very important question. To what is he +indebted for the blessings he has already enjoyed, and to what can he look +for those he is expecting? In order that he should have a happy home, his +parents must fulfil all the obligations of the conjugal and parental +relations. If he is born to wealth, his father has had to work for him, or +at least to take care of his property. If he has had a good mother, it is +needless to expatiate on all that a woman must be, must do, and must +suffer, to give a child such a blessing as that which is expressed by the +tender and holy name of mother. For his education, how many noble and +disinterested men have toiled, how many generous sacrifices of time, and +labor, and money have been required! To create the nation which gives him +the advantages of political order, the civilization which gives him a +society to live in, the arts which minister to his higher tastes and +personal comforts, how many causes have concurred together, what a +multitude of the most noble, self-sacrificing, heroic exertions of genius, +philanthropy, patriotism, fructified by a plentiful besprinkling of the +blood of just and faithful men, have been necessary through long ages of +time! In his ideal of a happy life, which he hopes for in this world, what +a multitude of things he requires which presuppose the fidelity of +thousands of persons to those obligations and relations of life on which +he is dependent as an individual. His bride must bring to the nuptial +feast her virgin purity, and keep her wedding-ring unbroken and undimmed. +His children must be such as a father's heart can regard with pride and +joy. Those with whom he has relations of business must act with honesty +and integrity. He must have good servants to work for him, and hundreds of +skilful and industrious hands must minister to his wants or caprices. +Society must be kept in order, the machinery of the world must be kept +going, the law must protect his life and property, and the majority of his +fellow-men must remain content with a lot of hard work and poverty, that +he may enjoy his dignity, leisure, splendor, and comfort in peace and +security. + +Now it is a simple fact, that the principles and laws which have wrought +out whatever is high and excellent in modern civilization, have been +derived from the Christian religion. The public, social, and private +virtues which alone preserve society from corruption and extinction, are +the fruit either of religious conscientiousness, or of the influence of +religion on the natural conscience of those who live in the atmosphere +which it has purified and irradiated. There has never been such a thing as +human society founded on atheism; and when atheism, practical or +theoretical, has begun to prevail in any community, it has begun to +perish. Whoever tampers with that poison is preparing suicide for himself, +and death for all around him that is living. A large dose will kill at +once all that is capable of death in a soul which is, in spite of itself, +immortal. The slow sipping of small doses will gradually produce the same +effect. The general distribution of the poison will destroy more or less +rapidly the vital principle of the family, of society, of the state, of +human civilization. Human beings cannot live together in peace and order, +in love and friendship, in mutual truth and fidelity, in happiness and +prosperity, if they believe that they are mere animals, whose only good is +the brief pleasure which can be snatched from the present life. Even the +imperfect amity and good-fellowship, the lower grade of society, the +inferior well-being and enjoyment, the faint dim similitude of the +rational order which exists among the irrational animals, cannot be +attained by the human race when it strives to degenerate itself to the +level of the brute creation. The irrepressible, inextinguishable, violent +appetite for a satisfying good, when it is defrauded of its true object +and turned away from its legitimate end, becomes a devastating tornado of +passion. There is too much suffering, and too small a supply of sensible +enjoyment in human life, to allow mankind to be quiet, and to agree +together amicably in the relations of civilized society, in the common +pursuit of temporal happiness. Pride and concupiscence are as insatiable +as the grave and as cruel as death. The fear of God can alone restrain +them. Take that away from the individual, and he will be faithless to the +duties of life, friendship, honesty, patriotism, philanthropy, to his +nobler instincts, his higher sentiments, his ideal standard of good, in +proportion as his passions gain power over him. Take it away from the +family and the social order, and mutual faithlessness, breeding mutual +hatred and warfare, will be the result. Take it away from the masses of +men, and the commune will come, the maddened rabble will rush for the +coveted possessions of the smaller number who appear to have exclusive +possession of the real good, and at last all will be resolved into a state +of barbarism in which the race will become extinct. + +This will never take place; for the church and religion of Jesus Christ +are imperishable, and God will bring the world to a sudden end before the +human race has had time to destroy itself. But such is the tendency of the +infidelity and atheism of the age. Whoever turns his back on Christianity +is a partaker in this tendency, and a companion of that band of +conspirators against religion and society whose end is more infernal and +whose means are more cruel than those of the Thugs of India. + + + + +Number Thirteen. An Episode Of The Commune. Concluded. + + +There was music enough chiming at No. 13 to keep a choir of angels busy. +Mme. de Chanoir, with the petulance of weakness, grumbled unceasingly, +lamenting the miseries of her own position, altogether ignoring the fact +that it was no worse, but in some ways better, than that of those around +her, whinging and whining from morning till night, pouring out futile +invectives against the Prussians, the Emperor, the Republic, General +Trochu, and everybody and everything remotely conducive to her sufferings. +She threatened to let herself die of hunger rather than touch horse-flesh, +and for some days she so perseveringly held to her determination that +Aline was terrified, and believed she would hold it to the end. The only +thing that remained to the younger sister of any value was her mother's +watch, a costly little gem, with the cipher set in brilliants; it had been +her grandfather's wedding present to his daughter-in-law. Aline took it to +the jeweller who had made it, and sold it for one hundred and fifty +francs. With this she bought a ham and a few other delicacies that tempted +Mme. de Chanoir out of her suicidal abstinence; she ate heartily, neither +asking nor guessing at what price the dainties had been bought; and Aline, +only too glad to have had the sacrifice to make, said nothing of what it +had cost her. Gradually everything went that could be sold or exchanged +for food. Aline would have lived on the siege bread, and never repined, +had she been alone, but it went to her heart to hear the never-ending +complaints of Mme. de Chanoir, to see her childish indignation at the +great public disasters which her egotism contracted into direct personal +grievances. Fortunately for herself, Mlle. de Lemaque was not a constant +witness of the irritating scene. From nine in the morning till late in the +evening she was away at the Ambulance, active and helpful, and cheering +many a heavy heart and aching head by her bright and gentle ministry, and +forgetting her own sufferings in the effort to alleviate greater ones. + +"If you only could come with me, Felicite, and see something of the +miseries our poor soldiers are enduring, it would make your own seem +light," she often said to Mme. de Chanoir, when, on coming home from her +labor of love, she was met by the unreasonable grumbling of the invalid; +"it is such a delight to feel one's self a comfort and a help to them. I +don't know how I am ever to settle down to the make-believe work of +teaching after this long spell of real work." + +She enjoyed the work so much, in fact, that, if it had not been for the +sufferings, real and imaginary, of her sister, this would have been the +happiest time she had known since her school days. The make-believe work, +as Aline called it, which had hitherto filled her time had never filled +her heart. It was a means of living that kept her brains and her hands at +work, nothing more; and it had often been a source of wonder to her in her +busiest days to feel herself sometimes seized with _ennui_. That trivial, +hackneyed word hardly, perhaps, expresses the void, the sort of hunger- +pang, that more and more frequently of late years had made her soul ache +and yearn, but now the light seemed to break upon her, and she understood +why it had been so. The work itself was too superficial, too external. It +had overrun her life without satisfying it; it had not penetrated the +surface, and brought out the best and deepest resources of her mind and +heart--it had only broken the crust, and left the soil below untilled. She +had flitted like a butterfly from one study to another; history, and +literature, and music had attracted her by turns; she had gone into them +enthusiastically, mastered their difficulties, and appropriated their +beauties; but after a time the spell waned, and she glided imperceptibly +into the dry mechanism of the thing, and went on giving her lesson because +it brought her so much a _cachet_. But this work of a Sister of Mercy was +a different sort of life altogether. The enthusiasm, instead of waning, +grew as she went on. At first, the prosaic details, the foul air, the +physical fatigue and moral strain of the sick-nurse's life were +unspeakably repugnant to her; her natural fastidiousness turned from them +in disgust, and she would have thrown it all up after the first week but +for sheer human respect; she persevered, however, and at the end of a +fortnight she had grown interested in her patients; by degrees she got +reconciled to the obnoxious duties their state demanded of her; and before +a month had passed it had become a ministry of love, and her whole soul +had thrown itself into the perfect performance of her duties. She was +often tired and faint on leaving the Ambulance, but she always left it +with regret, and the evident zest and gladness of heart with which she set +out each morning became at last a grievance in the eyes of her sister. +Mme. de Chanoir vented her discontent by harping all the time of breakfast +on the hard-heartedness of some people who could look at wounds and all +sorts of horrors without flinching; whereas the very sight of a drop of +blood made her almost faint; but then she was so constituted as to feel +other people's wounds as if they were her own; it was a great misfortune; +she envied people who had hard hearts; it certainly enabled them to do +more, while she could only weep and pity. Aline bore the querulous +reproaches as cheerfully as if she had been blessed with one of those +hearts of stone that Mme. de Chanoir so envied. She had the indulgence of +a happy heart, and she had found the secret of making her life a poem. But +the nurse's courage was greater than her strength. After the first three +months, material privations, added to arduous attendance on the sick and +wounded, began to tell; her health showed signs of rebellion. + +M. Dalibouze was the first to notice it. He came regularly on the Saturday +evenings as of old; his age exempted him from the terrible outpost work on +the ramparts; and he profited by the circumstance to keep up, as far as +possible, his ordinary habits and enjoyments, "_afin de soutenir le +morale_," as he said. When he noticed this change in Aline, he immediately +used his privilege of friend of the family to interfere; he begged her to +modify her zeal for the poor sufferers at the Ambulance, and to consider +how precious her life was to her sister and her friends. + +Aline took the advice very kindly, but assured him that, far from wearing +out her strength as he supposed, her work was the only thing that +sustained it. The tone in which she said this convinced him it was the +truth. It then occurred to him that her pallor and languid step must be +caused by the unhealthy diet of the siege. Everybody suffered in a more or +less degree; but, as it always happens, those who suffered most said least +about it. The _gros rentier_, who fared sumptuously on kangaroo, and +Chinese puppies, and elephant at a hundred francs a pound, talked loud +about the miseries of starvation which he underwent for the sake of his +country; but the _petit rentier_, whose modest meal had long since been +replaced by a scanty ration of horse-flesh, and that only to be had by +"making tail," as they call it, for hours at the butchers shop--the _petit +rentier_ said very little. He was perishing slowly off the face of the +earth; but, with the pride of poverty strong in death, he gathered his +rags around him, and made ready to die in silence. + +It was on such people as Mme. de Chanoir and her sister that the siege +pressed hardest; their _concierge_ was far better off than they; she could +claim her _bons_, and fight for her rations; and she had fifteen sous a +day as the wife of a National Guard. + +As to Mme. Clery, she proved herself equal to the occasion. She had no +National Guard to fall back upon, but she was sustained by the thought +that she was suffering for her country; she, too, was a good patriot. +Patriotism, however, has its limits of endurance, and hay bread was the +border line that Mme. Clery's patriotism refused to pass. When the good +bread was rationed, she showed signs of mutiny; but when it degenerated +into that hideous compound, of which we have all seen specimens, her +indignation declared itself in open rage. "What is this?" she cried, when +the first loaf was handed to her after three hours' waiting. "Are we +cattle, to eat hay?" And, breaking the tawny, spongy lumps in two, she +pulled out a long bit of the offensive weed, and held it up to the scorn +of the _queue_. + +As to Mme. de Chanoir, when she saw it she went into hysterics for the +rest of the day. But Providence was mindful of No. 13. Just at this +crisis, when Aline's altered looks aroused her sister from the selfish +contemplation of her own ailments and wants, M. Dalibouze arrived early +one morning soon after Mme. de Lemaque had started for the Ambulance, and +announced that he had received the opportune present of a number of hams, +tins of preserved meat, condensed milk, and an indefinite number of pots +of jam. It was three times as much as he could consume before the siege +was raised--for raised it infallibly would be, and, if he were not greatly +mistaken, within forty-eight hours--so he begged Mme. la Generale to do him +the favor of accepting the surplus. + +Mme. de Chanoir, with infantine simplicity, believed this credible story, +and did M. Dalibouze the favor he requested. So, thanks to his generous +friend, the professor in turn became the benefactor of the two sisters, +and had the delight of seeing Aline revive on the substantial fare that +arrived so apropos. Well, it came at last, the end of the _blocus_; not, +indeed, as M. Dalibouze had prognosticated. But that was not his fault. He +had not reckoned with treachery. He could not suspect what a brood of +traitors the glorious capital of civilization was nourishing in her +patriotic bosom. But wait a little! It would be made square yet. Europe +would see France rise by-and-by, like the Phoenix from her ashes, and +spread her wings, and take a flight that would astonish the world. As to +the Prussians, those vile vandals, whose greasy moustaches were not fit to +brush the boots of Paris, let them bide a while, and they shall see what +they should see! + +Thus did M. Dalibouze _resumer la situation_, while Paris on her knees +waited humbly the terms that Prussia might dictate as the price of a loaf +of bread for her starving patriots. + +But the worst was to come yet. Hardly had the little _menage_ at No. 13 +drawn a long breath of relief after the prolonged miseries and terrors of +the siege, than that saturnalia, the like of which assuredly the world +never saw before, and let us hope never will again, the Commune, began. +Like a fiery flood it rose in Paris, and rose and rose till the red wave +swept from end to end of the city, spreading desolation and terror +everywhere, and making the respectable party of order long to call back +the Prussians, and help them out of the mess. How it began, and grew, and +ended we have heard till we know the miserable story by heart. I am not +going to tell it here. The Commune is only the last episode in the history +of No. 13. + +There was work to do and plenty in binding the wounds and smoothing the +pillows of dying men, and words to be spoken that dying ears are open to +when spoken in Christian love. Aline de Lemaque's courage did not fail her +in this last and fearful ordeal. She resumed her duties as Sister of +Mercy, asked no questions as to the politics of the wounded men, but did +the best she could for them. Mme. de Chanoir could not understand how her +sister spent her time and service on Red Republicans; the sooner the race +died out, the better, and it was not the work of a Christian to preserve +the lives of such snakes and fiends. + +"There are dupes and victims as well as fiends among them," Aline assured +her; "and those who are guilty are the most to be pitied." After a time, +however, the dangers attendant on going into the streets became so great +that Aline was forced to remain indoors. Barricades were thrown up in +every direction, and made the circulation a dangerous and almost +impracticable feat to members of the party of order. The Rue Royale, which +had been safe during the first siege, was now a threatened centre of +accumulated danger. It was armed to the teeth. The Faubourg end of it was +barred by a stone barricade that might have passed for a fortress--a wall +of heavy masonry weighted with cannon, two black giants that lay couched +like monster slugs peeping through a hedge. But after those terrible weeks +there came at last the final tug, the troops came in, and Greek met Greek. +Shell and shot rained on the city like hailstones. The great black slugs +gave tongue, bellowing with unintermitting fury; all round them came +responsive roars from barricades and batteries; it was the discord of hell +broke upward through the earth, and echoing through the streets of Paris. + +Aline de Lemaque and her sister sat in the little saloon at No. 13, +listening to the war-dogs without, and straining their ears to catch every +sound that shot up with any significant distinctness from the chaos of +noise. Mme. Clery was with them; she stayed altogether at No. 13 now, +sleeping on the sofa at night. It would have been impossible for her to +come and go twice a day while the city was in this state of commotion. To- +day the old woman could not keep quiet; she was constantly up and down to +the _concierge's_ lodge to pick up any stray report that came through the +chinks of the _porte-cochere_. Once she went down and remained so long +that the sisters were uneasy. An explosion had reverberated through the +street, shaking the house from cellar to garret, and, like an electric +shock, flinging both the sisters on their knees simultaneously. Mme. de +Chanoir's spine had recovered itself within the last week as if by magic. +She had abandoned her usual recumbent position, and came and went about +the house like the rest of them. If the Commune did nothing else, it did +this. We must give the devil his due. + +"Felicite, I must go and see what it is. I hear groans close under the +window; perhaps a shell has fallen in the court and killed her," said +Aline. And, rising, she turned to go. + +"Don't leave me! For the love of heaven, don't leave me alone, Aline!" +implored her sister. "I'll die with terror if that comes again while I'm +here by myself." + +"Come with me, then," said Aline. And, taking her sister's hand, they went +down together. + +Mme. Clery was not killed. This fact was made clear to them at once by the +spectacle of the old woman standing in the _porte-cochere_, and shaking +her fist vehemently at somebody or something at the further end of it. + +"Stay here," said Aline to Mme. de Chanoir, motioning her back into the +house. "I will see what it is; and if you can do anything I'll call you." + +It was the _concierge_ that Mme. Clery was apostrophizing. And this was +why: a shell had burst, not in the yard, as the sisters fancied, but in +the street just outside, and the explosion was followed by a shriek and a +loud blow at the door, while something like a body fell heavily against +it. + +"_Cordon!_" cried Mme. Clery; "it is some unfortunate hit by the shell." + +"More likely a communist coming to pillage and burn. I'll _cordon_ to none +of 'em!" declared the _concierge_. "The door is locked; if they want to +get in, they may blow it open." But Mme. Clery flew at her throat, and +swore, if she didn't give up the key, she, Mme. Clery, would know the +reason why. The _concierge_ groaned, and felt, in bitterness of spirit, +what a difficult task the _cordon_ was. But she opened the door; under it +lay two wounded men, both of them young; one was evidently dying; he had +been mortally struck by a fragment of the shell that had burst over the +thick oaken door and dealt death around and in front of it. The other was +wounded, too, but much less seriously; he had been flung down by his +companion, and the shock of the fall, more than his wound, had stunned +him. Mme. Clery dragged them in under the shelter of the _porte-cochere_, +and proposed laying them on the floor of the lodge. But the _concierge_ +had no mind to take in a dead and a dying man, and vowed she would not +have her lodge turned into a coffin. The dispute was waxing warm, Mme. +Clery threatening muscular argument, when Aline made her appearance. Her +training in the Ambulance stood her in good stead now. + +"Poor fellow! He will give no more trouble to any one," she said, after +feeling the pulse of the first, and laying her hand for a moment on his +heart; "bring a cloth, and cover his face; he must lie here till he can be +removed." + +The _concierge_ obeyed her. They composed the features, and laid the body +under cover of the gateway. + +Aline then examined the other. His arm was badly wounded. While she was +still probing the wound, the man opened his eyes, stared round him for a +moment with a speculative gaze of returning consciousness, made a +spasmodic effort to rise, but fell back at once. "You are wounded--not +severely, I hope," said Aline; "but you must not attempt to move till we +have dressed your arm." + +She despatched Mme. Clery for the box containing her ambulance appliances, +lint, bandages, etc., and then, with an expertness that would have done +credit to a medical student, she washed and dressed the shattered limb, +while Mme. de Chanoir watched the operation in shuddering excitement +through the glass door at the foot of the stairs. What to do next was the +puzzle. The _concierge_ resolutely refused to let him into her lodge; +there was no knowing who or what he was, and she was a lone woman, and had +no mind to compromise herself by taking in bad characters. The poor fellow +was so much exhausted from loss of blood that he certainly could not help +himself, and it would have been cruel to leave him down in the courtyard, +where his unfortunate comrade was lying dead within sight of him. Aline +saw there was nothing for it but to take him up to their own apartment. +How to get him there was the difficulty. He looked about six feet long, +and might have weighed any number of stone. She and Mme. Clery could never +succeed in carrying him. He had not spoken while she was dressing his arm, +but lay so still with his eyes closed that they thought he had fainted. + +"We must carry him," said Aline in a determined voice, and beckoned the +_concierge_ to come and help. + +But before proceeding to the gigantic enterprise, Mme. Clery poured out a +tumbler of wine, which she had had the wit to bring down with the lint- +box, and held it to the sufferer's lips, while Aline supported his head +against her knee. He drank it with avidity, and the draught seemed to +revive him instantaneously; he sat up leaning on his right arm. + +"We are going to carry you up-stairs, _mon petit_," said Mme. Clery, +patting him on the shoulder with the patronizing manner an amazon might +have assumed towards a dwarf. + +"_You_ carry me!" said the young man, measuring the short, trim figure of +the charwoman with a sceptical twinkle in his eyes: they were dark-gray +eyes, particularly clear, and piercing. + +"Me and Mlle. Aline," said Mme. Clery, in a tone that testified against +the supercilious way in which her measure was being taken. + +Aline was behind him. He turned to look at her with a jest on his lips, +but, changing his mind apparently, he bowed; then, with a resolute effort, +he bent forward, and, before either she or Mme. Clery could interfere, he +was on his feet. It was well, however, they were both within reach of him, +for he staggered, and must have fallen but for their prompt assistance. + +"La!" said Mme. Clery, "what it is to be proud! Lean on Mlle. Aline and +me, and try and get up-stairs without breaking your neck." + +"It is the fortune of war," said the gentleman laughing, and accepting the +shoulder that Aline turned towards him. + +They accomplished the ascent in safety, and then, in spite of his +assertion that he was all right now, Mme. de Chanoir insisted on their +guest lying down on her sofa while the charwoman prepared some food for +him. But safety, in truth, was nowhere. The fighting grew brisker from +minute to minute. The troops were in possession of the neighboring +streets; they had taken the Federals in the rear, and were mowing them +down like corn. The struggle could not last much longer, but it was +desperate, and the loss of life, already appalling, must be still greater +before it ended. The stranger who had introduced himself so unexpectedly +to No. 13 had formed one of the party of order, he told his good +Samaritans, who had gone unarmed, with a flag of truce, to the Federals in +the Rue de la Paix; he had seen the ghastly butchery that followed, and +only escaped as if by miracle himself; he had fought as a _mobile_ against +the Prussians, and received a sabre-cut in the head, which had kept him in +the hospital for weeks; he had, of course, refused to join the Federals, +and it was at the risk of his life that he showed himself abroad in Paris; +just now he had been making an attempt to join the troops, when that shell +burst, and stopped him in his venturesome career. All day and all night +the four inmates of the little _entresol_ waited and watched in breathless +anxiety for the close of the battle that was raging around them. It never +flagged for an instant, and as it went on the noise grew louder and more +bewildering, the tocsin rang from every belfry in the city, the drum beat +to arms in every direction, the chassepots hissed, the cannon boomed, and +yells and shrieks of fratricidal murder filled the air, mingling with the +smell and smoke of blood and powder. It was a night that drove hundreds +mad who lived through it. Yet the worst was still to come. Late the next +afternoon, Aline, who was constantly at the window, peeping from behind +the mattress stuffed into it to protect them from the shells, thought she +discovered something in the atmosphere indicative of a change of some +sort. She said nothing, but slipped out of the room, and ran up to a +bull's-eye at the top of the house that served as a sort of observatory to +those who had the courage of their curiosity, as the French put it, and +ventured their heads for a moment to the mercy of the missiles flying +amongst the chimney-pots. It was an awful sight that met her. A fire was +raging close to the house. Where it began and ended it was impossible to +say, but clearly it was of immense magnitude, and blazed with a fury that +threatened to spread the flames far and wide. She stood rooted to the +spot, literally paralyzed with horror. Were they to be burnt to death, +after living through such miseries, and escaping death in so many shapes? +Yet how could they escape it? There were barricades on every side of them; +if they were not shot down like dogs, which was the most likely event, +they would never be allowed to pass. All this rushed through her mind as +she gazed in blank despair out of the little bull's-eye, that embraced the +whole area of the Rue Royale and the adjacent streets. As yet, there was a +space between the fire and No. 13. Mercifully, there was no wind, and she +saw by the swaying of the flames that they drew rather towards the +Madeleine than in the direction of the Rue de Rivoli. Flight was a forlorn +hope, but still they must try it. She turned abruptly from the window, and +was crossing the room, when a loud crash made her heart leap. She looked +back. The roof of another house, one nearer to No. 13, had fallen in, and +the flames, leaping through like rattlesnakes out of a bag, sprang at the +sky, writhing and hissing as they licked it with their long red tongues. + +"O God, have pity on us!" + +Aline fell on her knees for one moment, and then hurried down to the +_salon_. + +"We must leave this at once," she said, speaking calmly, but with white +lips; "the street is on fire." + +M. Varlay, _citoyen_ Varlay, as he gave his name, started to his feet, +and, pulling the mattress from the window, looked out. He saw the flames +above the house-top. + +"Let us go, with the help of God!" he exclaimed. "We must make for the Rue +de Rivoli!" + +Mme. de Chanoir and the charwoman, as soon as they caught sight of the +fire, shrieked in chorus, and made a headlong rush at the stairs. + +"You must be quiet, madame!" cried M. Varlay in a tone that arrested both +the women; "if we lose our presence of mind, we had better stay where we +are. Have you any valuables, papers or money, that you can take in your +pocket?" he said, turning to Aline. She alone had not lost her head. + +Yes; there were a few letters of her parents, and some trinkets, valuable +only as souvenirs, which she had had the forethought to put together. She +took them quickly, and the four went down the stairs. There was no one in +the lodge. The _concierge_ had taken refuge in her cellar, and her husband +was supposed to be saving France somewhere else. Mme. Clery pulled the +string, and the little band sallied forth into the street. The air was so +thick they could hardly see their way, except for the fiery forks of flame +that shot up successively through the fog, illuminating dark spots with a +momentary lurid brightness, while now and then the crash of a roof or a +heavy beam was followed by a pillar of sparks that went rattling up into +the sky like a fountain of rockets. The Babel of drums, and bells, and +artillery added to the confusion of the scene as the fugitives hurried on +singly under the shadow of the houses. They fared safely out of the Rue +Royale and turned to the left. The Tuileries was enveloped in smoke, but +the flames were nearly spent, only here and there a tongue of fire crept +out of a crevice, licked the wall, twisted and twirled, and drew in again. +A crowd was gathered under the portico of the Rue de Rivoli, watching the +last throes of the conflagration, and discussing many questions in excited +tones. Our travellers pushed on, and came unmolested to the corner of the +Rue St. Florentine, where a sentry levelled his bayonet before them, and +cried "Halt!" Mme. de Chanoir, who walked first, answered by a scream. +_Citoyen_ Varlay, laying his hand on her shoulder, drew her quickly behind +him. "Stand here while I speak to him," he said, and he advanced to parley +with the Federal, at the same time putting his hand into his pocket. They +had not exchanged half a dozen words when the sentinel shouldered his +chassepot, and said: + +"Quick, then, pass along!" + +Varlay stood for the women to pass first. Mme. de Chanoir and the +charwoman rushed on, but no sooner had they stepped into the street than, +clasping their hands, they fell upon their knees with a cry of agonized +terror. The sight that met them was indeed enough to make a brave heart +quail. To the left, extending right across the street, rose a barricade, a +fortress rather, surmounted at either end by two warriors of the Commune, +bending over a cannon as if in the very act of firing; in the centre two +amazon _petroleuses_ stood with chassepots slung _en baudeliere_ and red +rags in their hands that they waved aloft proudly like women who felt that +the eyes of Europe were upon them; the intermediate space on either side +of them was filled up with soldiers planted singly or in groups, and +_posed_ in the attitudes of men whom forty centuries look down upon. Just +as Mme. de Chanoir and her _bonne_ came in front of the terrible _mise-en- +scene_, and before they could go backward or forward, the word _Fire!_ +rang out from the fortress, two matches flashed in the hands of the +gunners, and the women dropped to the ground with a shriek that would have +waked the dead. + +"What's the matter now?" cried the sentinel. + +"They are going to fire!" + +"Imbeciles! No, they are going to be photographed!"(112) + +And so they were. A photographic battery was set up against the railings +opposite. Aline and _citoyen_ Varlay seized the two half-fainting women by +the arm, and dragged them across and out of the range of the formidable +_tableau vivant_. Meanwhile, the fire was gaining on No. 13. The house +three doors down from it was _flambee_. It had been deserted the day +before by all its occupants, save one family composed of a husband and +wife, who had obstinately refused to believe in the danger till it was too +late to evade it. They were friends of M. Dalibouze's and the professor +turned in to see them this morning on his way to No. 13. "The situation +was a difficult one," he said; "it were foolhardy to defy it, and the time +was come when good citizens should save themselves." He convinced M. and +Mme. X---- that this was the only reasonable thing to do. So casting a last +look at their belongings, they sallied forth from their home accompanied +by their servant, an _ex-sapeur_, too old for military service, but as +hale and hearty as a youth of twenty. The professor had got in by a +backway from the Faubourg St. Honore, and thither he led his friends now; +but, though less than fifteen minutes had elapsed since he had entered, +the passage was already blocked: part of the wall had fallen and stopped +it up. There was nothing for it but to go boldly out by the front door, +and trust to Providence. But they reckoned without the _petroleuses_. +Those zealous daughters of the Commune, braving the shot, and the shell, +and the vengeful flames of their own creation, sped from door to door, +pouring the terrible fluid into holes and corners, through the gratings of +cellars, under the doors, through the chinks of the windows, everywhere, +dancing, and singing, and laughing all the time like tigers in human +shape--tigers gone mad with fire and blood. When the _sapeur_ opened the +door, he beheld a group of them on the _trottoir_; one was rolling a +barrel of petroleum on to the next house, another was steeping rags in a +barrel already half empty, and handing them as fast as she could to +others, who stuffed them into appropriate places, and set a light to them; +every flame that rose was hailed by a shout of demoniacal exultation. The +_sapeur_ banged the door in their faces. + +"We must set to work, and cut a hole through the wall," he said; "it's the +last chance left us." + +No sooner said than done. He knew where to lay his hands on a couple of +crowbars and a pickaxe; the professor fired the contents of his chassepot +at the wall, and then the three men went at it, and worked as men do when +death is behind them and life before. It was an old house, built chiefly +of stone and mortar, very little iron, and it yielded quickly to the +hammering blows of the workmen. A breach was made--a small one, but big +enough to let a man crawl through. M. X---- passed out first, and then +helped out his wife. M. Dalibouze and the _sapeur_ followed. They hurried +through the next apartment. M. Dalibouze reloaded his gun; whiz! whiz! +went the bullets; bang! bang! went the crowbars; down rattled the stones; +another breach was made, and again they were saved. Three times they +fought their way through the walls, while the fire like a lava torrent +rolled after them, and then they found themselves at No. 13. M. +Dalibouze's first thought was for the little apartment on the _entresol_ +at the other side. They made for it; but as they were crossing the court a +blow, or rather a succession of blows, struck the great oak door; it +opened like a nut, and fell in with a crash like thunder. The burglars +beheld M. Dalibouze in his National Guard costume scudding across the +yard, and greeted him with howls like a troop of jackals. Whiz! went the +grape-shot. M. Dalibouze fell. + +Mme. X---- and her husband had fallen back before the door gave way, and +thus escaped observation. No one was left but the old _sapeur_. + +"What sort of work is this?" he said, walking defiantly up to the +men--there were five of them--"what do you mean by breaking into the houses +of honest citizens?" + +"You had better break out of this one if you don't want to grill," +answered one of the ruffians; "we are going to fire it, _par ordre de le +Commune_." + +The women had disappeared, and left their implements in the hands of the +men. + +"Oh! _par ordre de le Commune!_" echoed the _sapeur_; "then I've nothing +to say; I hope they pay you well for the work?" + +"Not over and above for such work as it is," said one of the incendiaries, +rolling a barrel into the concierge's lodge. + +"How much?" + +"Ten francs apiece." + +"Ten francs for burning a house down! Pshaw! you're fools for your pains!" + +The _sapeur_ shrugged his shoulders, and, turning on his heels, walked +off. Suddenly, as if a bright thought struck him, he turned back, and +faced them with his hands in his pockets. + +"Suppose you got twenty for leaving it alone?" + +"Twenty apiece?" + +"Twenty apiece, every man of you!" + +They stopped their work, and looked from one to another. + +"_Ma foi_, I'd take it, and leave it alone!" said one. + +"_Pardie!_ we've had enough of it, and, as the _citoyen_ says, it's +beggarly pay for the work," said another. + +"Done!" said the _sapeur_.(113) + +He pulled out a leathern purse from his breast-pocket, and counted out one +hundred francs in five gold pieces to the five communists. + +"_Une poignee de main, citoyen!_" said the first spokesmen. The others +followed suit, and the _sapeur_, after heartily wringing the five rascally +hands, sent them on their way rejoicing to the cabaret round the corner. +This is how No. 13 was saved. No. 11 was burnt to the ground, and then the +fire stopped. + +But to return to Aline and her friends. They got on well till they came to +the Rue d'Alger, where they were caught in a panic, men, and women, and +children struggling to get out of reach of the flames, and threatening to +crush each other to death in their terror. Our friends got clear of it, +but, on coming out of the _melee_ at separate points, the sisters found +they had lost each other. Mme. de Chanoir had held fast by Mme. Clery, and +was satisfied that Aline was safe under the wing of _citoyen_ Varlay. But +she was mistaken. He had indeed lifted her off the ground, holding her +like a child above the heads of the crowd, and so saved her from being +trampled under foot, most likely; but when he set her down, and Aline +turned to speak to him, he was gone. It would have been madness to attempt +to look for him in the _melee_, so she determined to wait at the nearest +point of shelter, and then when the crowd dispersed they would be sure to +meet. She made for the door-way of a mourning house at the corner of the +Rue St. Honore. But she had not been many minutes there when she heard a +hue and cry from the Tuileries end of the street, and a troop of men and +women came flying along, driving some people before them, and firing at +random as they went. The sensible thing for Aline to do was, of course, to +flatten herself against the wall, and stay where she was, and of course +she did not do it. She saw a flock of people running, and she started from +her hiding-place, and turned and ran with them. They tore along the Rue +St. Honore till they came to the Rue Rohan; here the band broke up, and +many disappeared at opposite points; but one little group unluckily kept +together, and, though diminished to a third its size at the starting +point, it still held in view, and gave chase to the pursuers. Mlle. de +Lemaque kept with this. On they flew like hares before the hounds, till, +turning the corner of the Place du Palais Royal, they were stopped by two +Federals, who levelled their chassepots and bade them stand. The fugitives +turned, not like hares at bay to face the hunters and die, but to rush +into an open shop, and fall on their knees, and cry, "Mercy!" + +The Federals were after them in a second. Instead of shooting them right +off, however, they set to discussing the propriety of taking them out and +standing them in regulation order, with their backs to the wall, and doing +the thing in a proper business-like manner. While this parley was going +on, Aline de Lemaque cast a glance round her, and saw that her fellow- +victims were two young lads and half a dozen women, all of them of the +lower class apparently; most of them wore caps. The men who were making +ready to shoot them without rhyme or reason, as if they were so many rats, +were evidently of the very dregs of the Commune, and looked half-drunk +with blood or wine, or both--it was hard to say--but there was no trace of +manhood left upon the faces that gave a hope that mercy had still a +lurking-place in their hearts. One of the women suddenly started to her +feet. "What!" she cried, "you call yourselves men, and you are going in +cold blood to shoot unarmed women and boys? Shame on you for cowards! +There is not a man amongst you!" + +She snapped her fingers right into their faces with an impudence that was +positively sublime. The cowards were taken aback. They looked at each +other, and burst out laughing. + +"_Sapristi!_ She's right," exclaimed one of them; "they're not worth +wasting our powder on!" + +Like lightning, the women were on their feet, fraternizing with the men, +embracing, shaking hands, and swearing fraternity in true communistic +fashion. Mlle. de Lemaque alone stood aloof, a silent, terror-stricken +spectator of the scene. + +"What have we here? _Une canaille d'aristocrate_, I'll be bound! It's +written on her face," said one of the ruffians, seizing her by the arm; +"let us make away with her, comrades! It will be a good job for the +Republic to rid it of one more of the lazy aristos that live by the +_ouvrier's_ meat." There was a lull in the kissing and hand-shaking, and +they turned to stare at Aline. Her life hung by a thread. A timid word, a +guilty look, and she was lost. But the soldier's blood rose up in her; she +bethought her of her _abus_, and _lanced_ it. + +"Lazy!" she cried; "I am a soldier's daughter; my father fought for +France, and left his children nothing but his sword; I work for my bread +as hard as any of you!" + +The effect was galvanic; they gathered around her, shouting, "Bravo! Give +us your hand, citoyenne!" + +And Aline gave it, and, like the statesman who thanked God he had a +country to sell, she blessed him that she had a hand to give. + +--Blood ran like water in the sewers of Paris for a few days, and then the +troops were masters of the field, and order was restored--restored so far +as to enable honest men to sleep in their beds at night. + +Mme. de Chanoir was back again in the little saloon at No. 13, and +diligently reading the newspaper aloud to a gentleman who was lying on the +sofa near her; the _generale's_ spine complaint had been radically cured +by the Commune, and she sat erect in a chair now like other people. The +invalid's face and head were so elaborately bandaged that it was +impossible to see what either were like, while his bodily proportions +disappeared altogether under a voluminous travelling-rug. He listened for +some time without comment to the political tirade which Mme. de Chanoir +was reading to him, an invective against France, and her soldiers, and her +generals, and the nation at large--a sweeping anathema, in fact, of +everything and everybody, till he could bear it no longer, and, sitting +bolt upright, he exclaimed: + +"Madame, the man who wrote that article is a traitor. France is greater +to-day in her unmerited misfortunes than she was in the apotheosis of her +glory; she is more sublime in her widowed grief than her ignoble foe in +his barbarous successes! She is, in fact, still France. The situation is +compromised for a moment, but--" + +"_La, la, voyons!_" broke in Mme. Clery, putting her head in at the door, +and shaking the lid of a sauce-pan at the invalid. "How is the _tisane_ to +take effect if you will talk politics and put yourself into a rage about +_la situation_! Mme. _la Generale_, make 'um keep still!" + +The _generale_ thus adjured laid down the newspaper, and gently insisted +on M. Dalibouze's resuming his horizontal position on the couch. Aline was +not there; she was off at her old work at the Ambulance again. The +hospitals had been replenished to overflowing by the street-fighting of +the last week of the Commune, _la denouement de la situation_, as M. +Dalibouze called it, and nurses were in great demand. _Citoyen_ Varlay had +not turned up since the night they had lost him in the crowd. The +excitement and confusion which had reigned in the city ever since had made +it difficult to set effective inquiries on foot, even if the sisters had +been accurately informed regarding their quondam guest's identity and +circumstances, which they were not. All they knew of him was his +appearance, his name, and his wound. This was too vague to assist much in +the search. Mme. de Chanoir was sincerely sorry for it; she had been +attracted at once by the frank bearing and courteous manners of the young +_citoyen_; but his cool courage, his forgetfulness of himself for others, +and the stoical contempt for bodily pain which he had displayed on the +occasion of their flight, had kindled sympathy into admiration, and she +spoke of him now as a hero. She spoke of him constantly at first, loudly +lamenting his loss; for lost she believed him. He had, no doubt, been +overpowered by the crowd; his disabled arm deprived him of half his +strength, and, exhausted as he was by previous pain, and the violent +effort to protect Aline in the struggle, he had probably fainted and been +suffocated or crushed to death. This was the conclusion Mme. de Chanoir +arrived at; but when she mentioned it to Aline, the deadly paleness that +suddenly overspread the young girl's features made her wish to recall her +words, and from that out the name of the young soldier was never +pronounced between the sisters. + +Mme. Clery had formed on her side an enthusiastic affection for him, and +sincerely regretted his fate, but with a woman's instinct she guessed that +the one who regretted it most said least about it. She never mentioned +_citoyen_ Varlay to Aline, but made up for the self-denial by pouring out +his praises and her own grief into the sympathizing ear of the _generale_. + +"What a pretty couple they would have made!" said the old woman one +morning, wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron; "he was such a fine +fellow, and so merry; he only wanted the _particule_ to make him perfect; +but, after all, who knows? He may not have been as good as he looked. One +can never trust those _parvenus_." + +A month passed. Mme. de Chanoir was alone one afternoon, when Mme. Clery +rushed into the room in a state of breathless excitement, her eyes +literally dancing out of her head. + +"Madame! madame! I guessed it! I was sure of it! I'm not that woman not to +know a gentleman when I see him. I told madame he was! Let madame never +say but I did!" + +And having explained herself thus coherently between laughing and crying, +she held out a card to her mistress. + +Mme. de Chanoir read aloud: + + + LE BARON DE VARLAY, + _Avocat a la Cour de Cassation_. + + +Another month elapsed, and the great door of the Madeleine was opened for +a double marriage. The first bridegroom was a tall, slight man, on whose +face and figure the word _distingue_ was unmistakably stamped. The second +was a plump, dapper little man, who, as he walked up the carpeted aisle of +the church, seemed hardly to touch the ground, so elastic was his step; +his countenance beamed, he was radiant, and it is hardly a figure of +speech to say that he was buoyant with satisfaction. If he could have +given utterance to his feelings, he would have said that "the situation +was perfect, and absolutely nothing more could be desired." + +Mme. Clery was present in her monumental cap, trimmed with Valenciennes +lace brand-new for the occasion, and a chintz gown with a peacock pattern +on a pea-green ground that would have lighted up a room without candles. +She, too, looked the very personification of content. The first couple was +all her heart could wish, and more than her wildest ambition had ever +dreamed of for her favorite Aline. The second she had grown +philosophically reconciled to. The marriage had one drawback, a grievous +one, but the charwoman consoled herself with the reflection that Mme. de +Chanoir might condone the _bourgeoisie_ of her new name, by signing +herself: + + + FELICITE DALIBOUZE, + _Nee_ de Lemaque. + + + + +Use And Abuse Of The Novel. + + +If the question were put to us--What class of books, viewed merely as +reading, without tutelage or commentary of any kind, had the greatest +influence in moulding and training the thoughts, aspirations, mode of +life, of the mass of readers in these days?--we should, notwithstanding the +slur and sneer which it is fashionable for clever writers to cast upon +them, answer unhesitatingly--Novels. + +This answer, we have no doubt, might shock the sensibilities of some of +our readers, as it might very cordially agree with those of a not +insignificant body of others. Without going into a dry analytical +discussion of the _pros_ and _cons_ of the question, we will adopt the +easier course of taking at the outset everything we want for granted, and +allowing the truth of it to emanate from the body of our article; merely +premising that, if it be true, Catholics have too much neglected, are far +too weak in, this very important collateral branch of modern education. + +Every age, every cycle, every period in the history of the world has its +distinctive features, its proper individualities, its representative men, +systems, or facts, strongly and clearly marked. Ours is the iron age. Our +province is matter. Our tastes are material. The world seems, strangely +enough, to be working backwards. We began with intellect: we finish with +matter. The signs of the past are stamped with intellect or the +intellectual. The development of the present is steam and electricity. If +we ask the ages, What have you given us? the answer comes rolling down out +of the dim mountain of the past: Homer, Phidias, Apelles; the alphabet, +the geometrical figure, the science of numbers; Plato and Aristotle; +Virgil and the historians; the practical greatness of Rome; the great +faith of the new-born middle ages; the Crusades, the Gothic order, the +great masters, Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton. We have our distinctive +mark; the one indicated: the mastery over the material world. In the +intellectual order, if we look for one, we must set it in the daily +newspaper and the novel. These are the peculiar intellectual development +of the XIXth century. Against the names of Homer, Plato, AEschylus, Virgil, +Horace, Dante, Shakespeare, we pit those of Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, +Eugene Sue, George Sand, Victor Hugo, Dumas, Bulwer, Wilkie Collins, Miss +Braddon, and her kin. + +Surely this is rank heresy. Is not this the age of the rationalists, the +free-thinkers, "the swallowers of formula," of Hegel, Cousin, Comte, Mill, +Herbert Spencer, Huxley, Thomas Carlyle? All these are nothing to the +purpose. Thinkers, dreamers, idealists, doubters, belong to all ages. The +novelists belong to ours alone, as surely as do the steamboat, the +railway, the electric telegraph, the daily press, the penny post. + +In saying this, we are not blind to the fact that novels and romances were +written long before our century dawned. Cervantes and Le Sage are old +enough; the Romaunts are older still. De Foe, Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, +Richardson, are names of a bygone century. But novelism, to use the word +in a new sense, considered as a science--for such it has practically +become--as the most popular branch of literature known in these days, with +men and women of genius devoted to its pursuit, with an ever-increasing +progeny spreading and growing, and stifling each other out of life, is an +intellectual phase proper of to-day. + +Philosophic historians trace the decline of peoples and periods in the +decline of their literature; in its tone, its style, its subjects, and +manner of treatment. If this test be applied to us, what a show should we +make! But happily the test, though in the main a true one, is not an +infallible one. The facility opened up by the invention of printing for +writers of every shade of opinion to express their thoughts upon any given +subject at any length and in any quantity, provided only they pay the +printer, must weaken to some extent the theory that writers are the exact +reflex of the times and peoples for and among whom they write. Still there +rests the significant fact that to-day the novel, and particularly the +worst form of it, is the _book of the period_; the most popular, widely +read, best paid class of literature that we possess--a fact which tells its +own tale of our intellectual and moral advance. + +The ancients seem not to have conceived such a thing. And, despite the +danger of such an admission in the face of what the novel has come to be +among ourselves, we can only regret its loss among them. Had the Greeks +and Romans caught the idea, and turned their brilliant, clear-sighted, +manly, and truth-loving intellects to the portrayal of everyday life; to +the picture of how the world wagged behind the scenes long ago, what a +flood of light would have been let in on their history, its meaning, its +philosophy, so as to render almost superfluous the works of such men as +Niebuhr, Gibbon, Grote. We should have had plenty of evil undoubtedly, +plenty to sicken us; but, after all, would the foulness of the pagans have +been much worse than the spicy dishes cooked and served up to us every day +by our own novelists; by gray-haired men; by ladies, at whose age we will +not venture to guess; by smart young girls who have just bounced out of +their teens? The glimpse we have had of Socrates' spouse makes us wish for +a closer acquaintance with that dame. We are anxious to know how she +received the news of his draught of hemlock, for she evidently entertained +the utmost contempt for all his doctrine and philosophy, and must have +been rather surprised at the state bothering itself so much about _her_ +husband. What an irreparable loss we have sustained in Diogenes, his +sayings and doings, his snarls and life in that tub of his! What living +pictures would have been left us of the life in the groves, the +disputations, the clash of intellect with intellect where all was +intellect; the great games, who betted, who lost, who won, who contended; +of the mysteries and the sacrifices; of Greece at the invasions; of the +party strifes; how Alcibiades pranked and ruled in turn; how Balbus built +that famous wall of his that he is always building in the _Delectus_; how +Agricola ploughed his field; how the _Symposia_ passed off with Cicero and +his friends; how Caesar spent his youth, and how the conspiracy worked that +destroyed him; what sort of companions brought Catiline's conspiracy +about; the effect of the _quousque tandem_ speech related by an eye- +witness; the coming of the great Apostles; the dawn of Christianity; how +the gay Greeks listened to that first strange sermon given from the altar +to the Unknown God. + +These things have been told us in a way. We can pick and sort them out of +the brilliant works of the writers of the time. But had they been told us +by a Greek or Roman novelist, a Thackeray, Dickens, or Bulwer, with the +actors set living and real and palpable on the scenes, speaking the +language, using all the little peculiarities, of everyday life, with all +their natural surroundings and coincidents, what a lost world would have +been opened up to us! + +Abandoning, however, such vain and useless regrets, let us turn to the +immediate subject of our own article. The title, Novel, we here use in the +popular signification of the word, as comprising all works of fiction, +distinct from those that are purely satirical, and history as written by +such men as Mr. James Anthony Froude and Mr. John S. C. Abbott. Novelists, +we know, are apt to be nice on the question of titles. No lady of third- +rate society, who with time on her hands to do good devoted it to the +study of the court balls and the pages of Debrett, was ever more so. Here +is your romance, which looks down upon your mere story; your novelette +which shrinks with awe from your psychological romance; your story of real +life, a republican sort of fellow often, who hustles and bustles and +shoulders them all and stands on his own legs; and a variety of others as +numerous as they are, to the public at large--which is, as it should be, a +poor respecter of titles--unnecessary. We purpose, in the name of the +public, dealing very summarily with these titled folk, throwing them, high +and low, in the same category, and designating one and all as novels pure +and simple, with the single distinction, which shall appear in due time, +of the sensational novel. + +As we have arrived at this point, it may not be amiss to ask, What purpose +do novels serve; with what object are they written? + +A hard question truly. We reply to the second part of the query first. It +may not be unnatural, nor dealing unfairly with their authors, to suppose +that novels are written, in the first place, with the very laudable desire +of earning one's bread: so that "the root of all evil" lies at the bottom +of the "psychological romance," as of far humbler things in this world. As +to what purpose, earthly or unearthly, they serve, the answer to that +depends, first of all, on the author's secondary motive in writing them; +secondly, on the effect they produce on the reader--which are two very +different things. We have not the slightest doubt that the French +novelists, as popularly known, entertained the very loftiest ideas with +regard to morality, Christianity, the laws of God and man, the +conventional relations between husband and wife, and so on, before +ushering into the world the representatives of their--to put it +mildly--somewhat peculiar views on these questions. Well, if the world read +them wrongly, mistook faith for infidelity, a deep lesson in purity for +adultery, loyalty and obedience to the sovereign for rank outspoken +disturbance and rebellion, who was to blame? The world was simply stupid. +M. Dumas _fils_, for instance, has lately been good enough to enlighten us +with his ideas on the vexed questions of matrimony and women in general. +M. Dumas _fils_ is undoubtedly an excellent guide on such subjects. He is +an advanced man, a man of the age, of society, of the world. His +testimonies on such subjects ought, therefore, to be of value. He has +disposed of the whole question in, for a Dumas, a few words--a single +volume. The moral of his doctrine comes to this: if your wife is +faithless, kill her. We have not yet heard of any practical results +arising from this new gospel, as preached by M. Dumas _fils_; from which, +we have no doubt, he will draw the very agreeable inference that his +remedy for the regeneration of society, and the nice adjustment of the +marriage-knot once for all, was altogether unnecessary. If his doctrine +should spread to any alarming extent, no doubt M. Dumas _fils_ will be +satisfied that at last the world is beginning a new era of advancement, +that there is still hope for it; and he will hold himself answerable for +all the consequences. By the bye, we believe he has omitted one little +thing: the course to be adopted by the wife in the event of the husband's +infidelity. But probably such a high-minded, virtuous man as M. Dumas +never contemplated the possibility of such a contingency arising. + +Mr. Collins, Mr. Reade, Miss Braddon, and the rest hold, doubtless, the +same ideas with regard to the relative value of their productions. Whether +their praiseworthy efforts have been duly appreciated; whether they have +ever made man, woman, or child a whit better or sounder by the perusal of +any of their works, we do not know. We are inclined to think not. If any +reader would kindly come forward and show that we are wrong in this from +his or her own experience, we shall only be too happy to stand corrected. +At all events, the advantage derived must be in very small proportion to +the quantity of literary medicine and advice administered by those social +physicians to the craving multitude. + +Laying aside, then, the invariably pure and lofty motives of the authors; +laying aside the cloak which novels serve for at times, as in the hands of +a Disraeli, to attack a policy or a system; and taking them as they affect +ourselves, the readers, one may safely say that they serve mainly to +amuse; to fill up those spare moments that nothing else can fill up. They +constitute the play-ground of literature--a recreation and relief for the +mind. We gulp them down as we are whirled along in the railway train. We +take them with us on long voyages, as the Scotch patient took his weekly +sermon at the kirk, as an opiate--thus fulfilling to the letter the +traditional notion of the "Sabbath" being a day of rest. When the brain is +heavy and the body worn, when to talk is labor and to think is pain, then +we can seize the novel, loll on the sofa, or recline under the leafy shade +by the brink of the musical river, and float away, half asleep, half +awake, into dreamland. In a moment a new world, as real and living to the +mind's eye as that in which we move, is conjured up before us. We are on +intimate terms with a villain whose dagger is as air-drawn as Macbeth's. +We can commit cold-blooded murders that will never bring us to the dock; +or shocking improprieties that even the far-reaching nose of Mrs. Grundy +will fail to catch scent of. Or we go over "the old, old story," and are +bumped, jerked, and jolted along the delicious course that never _will_ +run smooth; mapping it out if we have not yet had the fortune (or +misfortune) to traverse it; filling it in with many a well-known form, if +we have. And if the never-running-smooth theory be true of love, this much +we ungrudgingly grant the novelists--they certainly hold to their tether. +The labyrinth of Daedalus was nothing to it; the twistings, the windings, +the sudden and unexpected meetings, the separations, the jiltings, the +halts by the way, the joy, the sorrow, the ecstasy, the despair, the +losings, the seekings, the findings, the torturing uncertainty, the +wanderings through hopeless mazes, to end, as we knew at the outset it +would and must end, according to "the eternal fitness of things," in some +man marrying some woman--the most extraordinary phenomenon that the world +ever witnessed! + +The novel invites us, as the noonday devil is supposed to do, at dangerous +moments--those moments that come to all of us when matter holds the mastery +over mind. Place in the hands of the reader at such a time a book which, +while it interests, while it soothes, lulls, and gently enwraps in its +kindly meshes the abstracted brain, never palls; containing at least what +is harmless; and good, not very great certainly, but at least of a kind, +is effected. + +But let the novel be like the favorites of its class, a thing to fire the +imagination with impure thoughts clothed in the thinnest veil of mock +morality, at the very moment when the imagination of the reader is ready +to run riot; and evil, great, sometimes irreparable, is produced. + +"All the wrong that I have ever done or sung has come from that confounded +book of yours," writes Byron to Moore in a moment of bitterness. If the +accusation be well founded, what an intellectual wreck has Moore to answer +for; what a multitude of lesser disasters following in the train of a +great genius, so early led astray! + +The novelist beats every other writer from the field. We all read him, +from the crop-haired schoolboy to the octogenarian who has quite grown +through his hair; from the nearest approach to Mr. Darwin's ideal man to +the philosopher "who would circumvent God"; from the artless maiden who +fondly dotes over those wicked but excessively handsome villains, those +athletic but ridiculously stupid lovers, those consumptive heroines with +the luminous eyes and rippling glories of golden hair; those lady +poisoners with the floating locks and sea-green orbs--to the dyspeptic lady +who makes novel-reading a science, who dawdles out her languid existence +in elegant nothingness, who looks to the production of a new story as men +look to a change in the constitution, or as astronomers lately looked to +the comet that would not come; who is, in a word, utterly useless for all +the purposes of life, of wifehood, of womanhood--novel-struck, novel-bred, +only fit to "resolve and thaw into a dew" of weak sentimentality and +essence of inanity. From this category of readers we must not omit the +typical old maid, who is continually telling us that she renounced such +things as love and other rubbish long ago; yet daily treats herself to her +spruce, strong, highly flavored dish of the purest, spiciest scandal, and +takes her diurnal dose of immorality as regularly as her "drops" or her +tea. + +All the world lies open to the novelist. From no place is he excluded, +save from a few high and dry quarterlies; and even they are stirred from +their abstract regions into sledgehammer activity or solemn admiration by +him from time to time. Of monthlies, fortnightlies, weeklies, dailies, he +forms the chief ingredient. Even editors of metaphysical fortnightlies +find they must flavor their own romance with a spice, of the more regular +and orthodox in order to make it "go down with the public." + +What a field, then, is the novelist's!--what ground for a high, pureminded +man or woman to sow seeds in that may sprout, and spread, and fill the +world with truth, with purity, with noble aspirations, with right +teachings set in the goodliest garb! The youth of the generations is their +own. + +Who has forgotten those earlier days when we stood, fair-haired, open- +hearted children, on the threshold of life, steeped in the morning sun of +a future that looked all golden? A warm mist hung about us, shrouding all +in beautiful, mystical dimness. There was no storm, no darkness, no night. +Whisperings of soft voices stole out of the magic mist, and called us on +to do great things; to rift the mist and open up the glorious world of +God, as we saw it in our imaginings. The morning of life, like the morning +of the world, is all Eden. We walk with God, for we are innocent. But the +doom is on us; we must pluck the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The +moment we taste of it, the golden dream is no more; the mist is reft +asunder; and slowly the world opens on our saddened eyes in all its hard +reality, to be subjected by the labor of our hands and the sweat of our +brow. As we merge from that innocence, so we go on. Some great event may +change us; may make this one a saint, that a fiend. But, as a rule, the +sapling grows into the tree, weakly or strong, straight and tall and +looking heavenwards, or stunted, useless, and unsightly as it grew from +the grafting. + +The grafting is the mother's voice, the father's example, the companions +around us, the guidance of our thoughts. And the great mass of our +thoughts, at a time when we are all imagination, springs from the books we +read. Here steps in the crying need of a series of story-books for +Catholic children; for all children up to the age when study becomes a +more serious work. + +One other glance back at the days of our childhood, and the manner in +which they were spent; for it is not the least important part of our +subject. What a round of acquaintance we had, necessitating a +corresponding round of visits! One day we dropped in on our best of +friends, _Robinson Crusoe_, on that lonely island of his, wishing that all +the world were islands and we were all Crusoes. All we wanted to live +happily was a boat, six or seven guns and pistols, a goat-skin cap, a +parrot, a Man Friday, an umbrella, and an occasional savage to kill. After +taking a sail with him in his boat, helping him to build his castle, +tending the goats, running down to see if we could find that second +footprint on the sand, giving Friday a lesson in English, we bade him +good-bye with the promise of calling again soon, and hurried off on that +expedition to the other end of the world with our old acquaintance Captain +Marryat, to search for our father, play our practical jokes, and fight our +triangular duels. Then we had to hunt up that Indian trail for Cooper, and +no redskin ever followed the track half so keenly as we, marking the way, +notching the giant trunks with our six-bladed penknife, shooting the +buffalo with our pop-guns, sleeping round the campfires in those limitless +prairies and thickest jungles of our imagination. Ha! by'r Lady! Here we +are at the gentle trial of spears at Ashby de la Zouch. How brave it was! +The glinting of the lances, and the clash of steel on helm and hauberk; +the gay plumes shorn and floating on the wind like thistledown. And out we +rushed, and called the friend of our bosom a caitiff knight and a false +knave, and plighted our troth to that imprisoned maiden--no matter who, and +no matter where--to do her right, and do our devoir as leal and belted +knight. That caitiff deals in leather now, and does a thriving business; +his knightly limbs are cased in the best of cloth, cut by the cleverest of +artists; his knightly stomach is naught the worse for wear, but quite +beyond the girth of steel armor; and he has a son who, at this moment, is +assisting at the joust as we did, spurring into the _melee_ and bearing +all down before us, to spur out again victor, and meet Charlie O'Malley +waiting for us outside; to ride with him for dear life into to-day. What a +race it is; how the world spins past us; how our heart throbs, and our +eyes grow dim, and our hopes sink as we fall and dislocate our shoulder at +that last fence. By heaven! up again--on, and in a winner! And we sink to +the ground with the shouts of thousands ringing in our ears, to wake in a +darkened chamber with low voices breaking on us--the voices of our dear +Irish girls, who make "smithereens" of our hearts only to heal them the +next minute, and sit there wooing us back into life and love. + +Such was the favorite mental food of our earlier days, our literary candy. +If the reading of youth were restricted to authors such as these, on the +whole we might consider them in safe hands. But books multiply and cheapen +day by day, and as usual "the cheap and nasty" carries everything before +it. The favorite stories of the mass of boys that we see consist of what +is known as the _Dime Novel_ and those blood-and-thunder weeklies with the +terrific titles and startling pictures. By some strange freak of nature, +boys are fond of blood; the warlike element prevails; the peaceful is +nowhere. We feel certain that, if Mr. Barnum possessed a real live +murderer among his collection of curiosities--though we fear he could +scarcely ticket such an animal "a curiosity" in these days--and caged him +up among the other wild beasts, he would prove a greater attraction to the +juvenile visitor than anything else in the famous exhibition. It were easy +enough to satisfy this morbid craving for muscular Christianity in a safe +and sound manner, if our writers of fiction took up systematically the +incidents of history; the great wars; the crusades, the parts played by +great Christian heroes, by the saints of God; the scenes of martyrdom, the +labors of the missionaries, and a thousand other subjects as entertaining +as they are instructive and strictly true. We know that there are many +such; but we want to be overloaded with them, as we are with those others +to which we referred. We can scarcely at the moment call to mind one +Catholic story to compete at all with a crowd of children's books written +by Protestants. The production of children's stories has grown into a +science among them. We frequently see pages of stately reviews and the +columns of the London _Times_ devoted to as critical an examination of +this class of books as to the works of the greatest writers. They +recognize the necessity and the advantage of giving their children +something to save them from the evil effects that must ensue from a +continual history of daring and impossible feats by young burglars, +detectives, spies, and the like. The best writers of this kind are, as +they should be, women, who know best how to interest children, who watch +them with an eye to their every want, that a man cannot attain. Here, +then, is a field for Catholic ladies--a field wide open, which cries to be +filled up. + +But our article deals not alone with children and children's books. We +purpose looking higher and looking deeper, at the mental recreation of the +day, of the age; at the literature that loads our tables, our shelves, our +public libraries, our bookstalls: the book "of the period"--the sensational +novel. + +What is a sensational novel? Who has defined it? Who dare define it? It is +a pity the author of _Rasselas_ had not some faint conception of it. The +idea of calling _Rasselas_ a novel in these days! We might imagine him to +have dealt with it somewhat in the following style: + +Sensational Novel: A complexity of improbabilities woven around a crowd of +nonentities, interspersed with fashionable filth, and relieved by sleek- +coated beastliness; meaning nothing, and good for less. + +What is this word that possesses us! Sensation!--as though we had not +enough of it. The age is so dreadfully prosaic, so workaday, so dull. We +must run off the track, out of the common groove, or we are ill at ease. +Where is the sensation in steam and electricity? We are whirled through a +continent in a week: but that is a thing done every day. It almost equals +the mantle of the genii in the _Arabian Nights_; we had only to step upon +it, and find ourselves at whatever point of the compass we wished. We +cross thousands of miles of ocean in a similar period, mastering the +elements with a clockwork regularity, fair weather or foul. We knit sea to +sea. We rise from foe-encircled cities, and sail safe away into the air. +The whisper of what has been done in one quarter of the world has not had +time to pass abroad before it is discussed in the others. We have linked +the disjointed world by an electric flame that flashes knowledge +throughout its circle instantaneously. We build up vast empires and topple +down thrones every day, as though they were ninepins, and yet we want +sensation! We sigh for the cap and bells; the jousts and games and +junketings of old. Even the feast of horrors, crimes, and incidents, the +births, deaths, and marriages, and the scandals of the "fashionable +world," served up to us at breakfast daily, with all the inventive genius +of the newspaper correspondent, pall upon our surfeited appetites. "We +have supped full of horrors. Time was when our fell of hair would have +uplifted to hear a night-shriek. But now, how weary, stale, flat, and +unprofitable seem to us all the uses of this world of ours. Life is as +dreary as a twice-told tale." We are not satisfied; we feel a craving +after something. Our want, our craving, springs not from the desire for a +higher spirit in it all, not from an absence of faith and noble purpose, +of something greater than utility, not from a horror of a daily widening +infidelity and impurity that mocks the pagan; but simply and purely from a +lack of sensation! In the face of the dull routine of this age of marvels +that old Friar Bacon dimly saw in his dreams, and was deemed a madman for +his foresight; in the face of wars like our own rebellion and the +devastation of France; in the midst of fallen thrones and falling +peoples--we ask for sensation! as the philosopher, though perhaps with more +reason, took a lantern to look for a man. We find it not in these things; +we pass them by, and bury ourselves in the pages of Wilkie Collins, Miss +Braddon, and their kind. They are the wonder-workers of the age. + +Here we find what we are seeking; here is a response to our ravenous +craving, in those delicious, torturing plots that take our breath away. +Here we sit hob and nob with what the fourth-rate newspaper is fond of +calling "the scions of nobility." We get an animated description and +category of their articles of clothing, from their boots and who made +them, to their linen and where it was bought. What a pleasure it is to +know a count and a lord, and a lady and a duchess; to know how they eat +and drink, and the chronicle of all the fearful scandal that goes on in +what the newspaper man again knows as "certain circles"! What peeps we +have into the green-room! Pages are devoted to the eyes of an opera- +singer, the ankles of a _danseuse_, the charming slang of an actress. The +scene is varied by dips into the purlieus of society; into the bagnio and +the gin-mill; the prize-ring and the barracks; the dancing saloon and the +gaming-table; the betting ring; into every place, every person, everything +the lowest, the meanest, the worst. + +Is this exaggeration? Is it a false, outrageous libel on this age, so full +of great things, and still greater capabilities? Is it particularly false +of ourselves, the simple-hearted, simple-mannered republicans, who have +set our faces as sternly against the ungodly and the ways of sin as our +old crop-haired, steeple-crowned Puritans professed to do? We shall only +be too happy if somebody convinces us that such is the fact. In the +meanwhile; incidentally to our purpose appeared a few statistics the other +day from public libraries, bearing on this very question, showing that in +libraries, which, as a rule, a class of intelligent and sensible readers +are supposed to frequent, the books most in demand were of the style we +deplore, and complaints were laid at their doors because they failed +adequately to supply this demand. + +There must be something very delicious in vice. Nothing else will satisfy +us. The novelists have sounded the depths of depravity; and in their +efforts to find a lower depth still, are driven to walking the hospitals, +diving into blue-books, frequenting the asylums for the diseased, the +depraved, the insane. The repertory of evil seems almost used up. They +have so beaten the drawing-room carpet, so sifted and shaken out for the +public gaze the smallest speck of fashionable filth that the most +delicately organized imagination of the refined lady could discern, that +there is nothing left on it. Titles even are growing common, and we want +some new type of a coroneted brow to bind our scandal on. Dickens and +Collins and Yates have overrun us with burglars and detectives. They did +good service in their day; but even they are growing unromantic. The +Krupp, the mitrailleuse, the needle-gun, have killed off the slashing +cavalry heroes, who rode at everything, neck or nothing, in perfect +safety, and were as irresistible in love as in war. We must abandon these +higher regions with a sigh, and go down to the dirtiest columns of the +dirtiest newspapers in our efforts to find "something rich and strange." +And to this men and women of "genius," as it is called, bend their every +effort. The gifts that God has given them to ennoble man they devote to +stirring the puddle of filth which they take as the mirror of human +nature, and, holding before the admiring gaze of humanity whatever they +have fished up, say--Behold yourselves! + +Are these the lessons society must look for in its gifted children? Is the +great book of nature narrowed down to these limits? Is there nothing in +human life, human thought, human activity, more worthy our attention, more +deeply interesting to man, than the chronicle of his vices? Is the +attractive in human nature confined to third or fourth hand glimpses of +"the scions of nobility," the bywords of the barracks, the slang of the +gutter, the echoes of the footlights? Is vice alone captivating, and +morality such an everyday, humdrum affair that we are sick of excess of +it? Is love the thing they present to us?--love, the great passion, the +pure divine flame that God has set in our hearts to link together and +perpetuate the generations, and finally lead us up to him? Is this maudlin +rubbish that the writers of the day surfeit us with, love?--this weak, +puny, consumptive thing; inane, jejune, sickly, fleshly, sensual, impure, +inhuman? Love is a divine-inspired passion of the soul, planted there by +God, to grow and flourish in its great, pure, single strength. They have +cut it, and hacked and torn it to shreds, and left nothing of divinity in +it. They set it in the flesh, and convert a heaven-born gift into the +lowest of animal passions. + +It requires no very powerful stretch of the imagination to draw from the +foul pens of these writers the germ of the question which to-day threaten +to turn the world topsy-turvy--the so-called theory of _Woman's +Rights_--which has for champions philosophers of the stamp of Stuart Mill +and Professor Fawcett, and for first-born, _Free Love_. + +We will suppose Mr. Stanley, of the _New York Herald_, to have brought +back with him a native of the countries he visited in his marvellously +successful search for Dr. Livingstone. The native has learned the English +language on his journey. He is suddenly thrown among a people whom he can +only look upon as gods, as the Indians first looked upon the Spaniards. He +is surrounded by the results of all the ages. He wishes to learn something +about these gods: how they live and move and have their being. A novel "of +the period"--any one by any of the thousand authors of the species--is put +into his hands as the faithful reflex of this society. What can we imagine +would be his feelings at the end of its perusal? A comparison rather in +favor of his own countrymen would be the most natural inference. + +But it may be objected that we are pessimists. We attack a class whom no +decent person would defend. There are more schools of novelists than the +sensational school. There are Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, Bulwer. Are these +all that we would wish, or do they also fall under our sweeping +condemnation? + +As for Scott, we are still proud to acknowledge him by his old title--"The +Wizard of the North." He was a man who, taking into account the times in +which he lived, the prejudices still rife, the people for whom he wrote, +the purpose of his writings, turned every faculty of his marvellously +gifted, richly stored mind to its best account. Even Livy's "pictured +page" almost dims in our eyes before the range and variety of his. His +works are the illumination of history; his characters almost as true, as +rounded, as full as Shakespeare's, and partaking of the great master's +"infinite variety." His plots are deeply interesting, his fidelity to +nature in character and scene sustained and equal, whether the subject be +Queen Bess or Queen Mary of Scotland, Louis XI. or King Jamie, a moss- +trooper or a crusader, a free-lance or a pirate, a bailie or a Poundtext; +whether the scene lie in Palestine or in the Trosachs, in mediaeval France +or mediaeval England, in the camp or the court, the prisons of Edinburgh or +the purlieus of Alsatia. He has laughed at us Catholics good-naturedly +sometimes, but despite that, his novels did us a vast service at a time +when our road was very dark, and we were looked upon at best as something +utterly inhuman--something, in fact, like what the sailor conceived who, +when stranded somewhere with his mess-mate in the neighborhood of the +North Pole, beheld for the first time a white bear squatted on its +haunches before them, and taking a contented survey. + +"What's that 'ere beggar, Jack?" + +"Oh!" said the other, taking a solemn glance at the animal, between the +whiffs of his pipe, "I can't say exactly, but I expect it's one o' them +there what they call Roman Cawtholics too." + +Scott first made us known to the mass of English readers in a fair way. +The barriers of anti-Catholic prejudice, centuries old, which had resisted +stoutly and stubbornly every effort which reason, right, and common +humanity made against it, crumbled at once beneath the fairy wand of the +magician, and English Protestants came to know something of us and +recognize us, though still in a cautious manner, as fellow-men. + +From Scott all readers may undoubtedly derive much good. And now we turn +to the others, the leaders of modern fiction: the standard, though, as we +showed, not the most widely read authors of the day. + +They are Thackeray, Dickens, Bulwer; and though the men themselves, so far +as their lives are known to us, had little or no faith in any particular +church or any particular creed, and must therefore be wanting in a firm, +steadfast groundwork, absolutely necessary to impart a pure, high-minded +spirit to their writings, we lay this aside, and look at them only through +their works. In Thackeray and Bulwer we have two eminently clever, highly +cultivated men--writers who cannot fail to grace everything that they +touch, who cannot fail to interest deeply and always. They were men of +much learning, of great insight into character, whose mode of life and +circle of acquaintances threw them into the heart of the world, their +world, and gave them every facility of knowing it thoroughly. They came +and saw. And what is the result of their investigation? They found it all +a great sham. The genius of both consists in thoroughly exposing this +great sham, in tearing off the gilded mask, and showing the hollow, empty, +grim death's-head beneath it; in leaving not a rag to cover its nakedness. +After reading Thackeray, there springs up in us an utter contempt for +ourselves and for the world in general. All human nature is false, rotten, +and utterly worthless. There is no religion in it, no faith, and as a +consequence no honesty and no law save the law of expediency. If there are +any characters to admire at all, they are certainly not his good men; for +they, and those of Dickens also--Tom Pinch, for instance--are the most +insipid numskulls that ever crossed our vision; the most wretched +caricatures of goodness that could possibly be conceived. Very truly might +he say that, "when he started a story, he was very dubious as to the +morality of his characters." We respect his good men infinitely less than +his rogues. Among them he is at home: in his Lord Steynes, his Becky +Sharpes, his drunken parsons, his wicked gray-hairs, his asses or black- +legs among the young, his solemn humbugs, his tuft-hunters, his silly, +useless, vain, untruthful women, his worldly mammas who hold up their +charming daughters at auction; those charming daughters who submit to it +with such good grace, who simper so chittishly under their pink bonnets +and look for soft places on the sofa to faint; his designing and +unprincipled adventuresses, to whom the world is as a market, a betting +ring, or a faro-table, and the thing to be sold, the stake to be played +for, is the virtue they never possessed. Such is Thackeray's world; and he +has done well to show it up so openly and unsparingly in all its +nakedness. But is it altogether a true portrait; could he do no more than +this? Is this the true world, after all--so utterly depraved and given over +to evil? Are there no such things as truth, honesty, morality, religion, +among us? Are there no men and women, no bodies, endowed with sense +enough, power enough, and wit enough to give the lie to this, and bring +this false world with shame to their feet? If there be, it is not to be +found in the pages of Thackeray. + +In Bulwer, it is the same story told in Bulwer's way, with less of heart +and more of licentiousness. Thackeray was, we believe, a virtuous man, as +the phrase goes; that is, he was contented with one wife, paid his bills, +kept his word, and very rarely woke with a headache. But Bulwer rather +glories, or was wont to do, in the opposite character. He used to be fond +of telling us that he knew the world; had mixed in, shared, felt its vices +and its follies. He comes out of this world of his, sits down, and tells +us all about it; what sort of men and women he found in it; what motives +actuate them; what they live for, what code of morality they follow. Taken +as a whole, their code of morality is fashion; their temple is the world; +their religion, worldliness; their god, themselves. Crime is only crime in +the humble; in the wealthy it is elevated into vice. Such is the doctrine +of the Bulwer world; the doctrine that our children imbibe unconsciously, +while only diverted momentarily by the interest of the story. So far, +then, notwithstanding grace of style, elegance of diction, happiness of +conception--all which may be found in a hundred writers infinitely +superior, essayists and historians--we have nothing but a very doubtful +negative gain. + +And Dickens--who has made us weep over fireside virtues, the hardness and +quiet nobleness of humble struggle, and the greatness of spirit that beats +as strong in the cottage as on the throne--must we cast him into the same +category? Hard as it is to say, we find him wanting, though in a less +degree than the two above-mentioned. He has fought sham, and fought it, as +few others have done, successfully. He did not take up the whole world and +fight it as one gigantic falsehood. This is useless. The world is large +enough and strong enough to withstand the mightiest single-handed and hold +its own. It will not be put down in this way, and it only laughs at the +tooting tin whistles that are continually blowing such shrill but tiny +blasts of regeneration at it, till they crack and are silenced for ever. +Dickens fought it as the first Napoleon fought the combinations arrayed +against him; he cut them off in detachments. So with the world; you must +take it by pieces. Show it one sham, and all the other shams will cry +shame. The silks, and the satins, and the perfumed licentiousness of the +drawing-room, Dickens left to other hands. But he opened up to the eyes of +these fine folk, who sinned so elegantly in their carriages and palaces, a +black, yawning, startling gulf right under their feet; with its hot +elements seething in corruption and danger beneath them, because they +would not look at it; because they would not recognize this other nation, +as Disraeli called it in _Sybil_; because that world was to them as far +off and unknown as Timbuctoo. He showed them the thieves' and harlots' +dens, and how they were fed; by the innocent and pure, brutalized by the +system of the jail, school, and workhouse, presided over by such men as +have lately stood unabashed in the broad light of day before us, and +openly confessed to cruelties that Squeers would have blushed at; who +passed unharmed and triumphant from the court of justice, and found +lawyers and excellent "ministers of God's Word" to uphold them, and +proclaimed in the press and elsewhere that they were honest, humane men +and maligned saints. Dickens showed us what these Squeerses and Stigginses +were made of. He showed us what the jails were made of, the asylums, the +workhouses, the schools; and undoubtedly aided in effecting many a reform. +He warmed our hearts towards each other, and towards the unfortunates to +whom all life was a bitter trial from birth to the grave. He undoubtedly +did great good; and many a book of his is a never-ending, never-wearying +sermon, preached to a broad humanity. As Catholics we owe him a deep debt +for never having systematically or seriously abused his talents by abusing +us, where abuse is ever welcome and well rewarded. But he has given us so +much that we look for more from him; for some great, broad, sound +principles to guide us through the hard battle of life; since his problem +was life, human nature, its difficulties and its dangers. While confessing +our debt to him for what he has done, we find a good deal in Dickens that +we do not like. His code of ethics is a very easy one, and a very +dangerous one, running into that indifferentism so prevalent and +demoralizing to-day. We find, after reading him, that there is a great +amount of evil in the world counterbalanced by a tolerably fair amount of +good, and that it is useless to hope for anything more. That, so far as +religion goes, mankind may be divided into two classes--the humbugs and the +humbugged: the humbugs--the Chadbands, the Stigginses--getting decidedly the +better of the bargain. That, provided a man is not intolerably bad, he is +as good as the generality of his neighbors, and has a fair chance of +arriving safe at the end of life's journey, wherever or whatever that end +may be, without being extraordinarily particular about it. That +drunkenness is not a vice unworthy of man, it is rather an amiable +weakness, a good joke, something funny, something to be laughed at; +something that you and ourselves might fall into now and again without +doing much harm. Nowhere in Dickens, as far as we recollect, does +drunkenness appear as what it is, a vice lower than the appetite of the +brute. As for our quarrel with him as Americans, though a grievous and a +just one, we will let that pass now. He endeavored to atone for it at the +end, so let it rest with him in his grave. In considering his works as a +whole, his almost unrivalled power of moving us to laughter or to tears, +we cannot help contrasting what he has done, great as it is, with what he +might have done had he been endowed with a clear religious belief, and not +a heart open only to mere human goodness. + +To conclude, then: the point of our article is this. The novel is a power +among us to-day: a new weapon thrown into the midst of the strife of good +and evil, to be taken up by either party. Those who would uproot all +morality, all law, all faith, the basis of humanity, have been quick to +see its efficacy, seize upon it, and turn it to a terrible account. It is +not so much the open direct teachings of heathen, pagan, +rationalistic--call it what you will, it means the same in the long +run--philosophy that we are to fear. The intellects that breathe in that +atmosphere are few and far between. But when this heathenism comes +filtered down to us through sources that meet us at every turn, and +impregnates and poisons the innocent streams that ought to beautify and +fertilize the intellect of the mass--when it comes to us half disguised in +the literature that we place in the hands of our sons and daughters, it is +time for us to purge this poison out. + +Stop novels we cannot. Let preachers thunder as they may, they will be +written, and they will be read. It is for us to seize upon that weapon, +and turn it to our own purpose. We have already done so to a degree. Our +great thinkers, Wiseman, Newman, have recognized the necessity of this, +and themselves set us the example. But not to such men as these are we to +look for a Catholic school of novelists: their duties are higher, their +work more laborious, though not, and we may say it advisedly, from the +necessities of the day more important. We want a crowd of such writers as +Gerald Griffin, Bernard McCabe, Lady Fullerton, the authoress of _The +House of Yorke_. In France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and Spain, we have +been more successful. The Countess of Hahn Hahn, Bolanden, Mrs. Craven, +Conscience, Manzoni, Fernan Caballero, show us that Catholic writers who +give themselves to this necessary and noble work can make the novel their +own, and compete successfully even in the matter of sale with the Dumases, +the Eugene Sues, George Sands, Wilkie Collinses, Charles Reades, Miss +Braddons. Their works are received with heartfelt approval by the critics +of the Protestant press. And we cannot refrain from thanking these +gentlemen for the very fair, honest and manly, and conscientious use they +make of their pens in this particular at least. Critics are heartily weary +of the mass of rubbish they are compelled to wade through week after week, +month after month. If anything, they are too mild. We lack something of +that hearty knock-down criticism which prevailed in the palmy days of the +quarterlies; which killed or cured; which lashed Byron into savagery and +brought out his true genius; which crushed the weakly and the worthless. + +Catholic novelists, and Protestant also, have a noble field before them +wherein to sow and reap. It is for them to show that vice and unchastity +are not the only subjects which can interest us; that godliness and _true_ +love are not such dull, insipid, everyday things; that suffering and self- +denial and sacrifice for a noble purpose, the soul-conflict of human +passion against the eternal decrees, and its mastery after much struggle +and weary strife, are full of the profoundest interest for man; that +history is but the chronicle of this conflict, and when rightly read shows +it forth in every page; that our souls can be fired, our flagging senses +stimulated, our admiration aroused, by the well-told story of the struggle +of right when we see a God moving and acting in it all, far more than by +the adoration of indecency deified. + + + + +Review Of Vaughan's Life Of S. Thomas: Concluded.(114) + + +In our last number, we endeavored to give our readers some idea of Prior +Vaughan's _Life of S. Thomas of Aquin_. We purposely omitted, however, to +say anything of his treatment of the personal history of the saint +himself. The name of Thomas of Aquin belongs to church history, to +theology and philosophy; but it also belongs to what is known by the +somewhat uncouth name of hagiography; and the story of the _saint_ is more +engaging to the greater number of readers, than the history of the +theologian or the philosopher. We have already hinted that some of Prior +Vaughan's best pages are to be found in the narrative of the saint's +personal story. + +Biography is as old as the days of Confucius, or at least as the times of +his early disciples; and whilst its object has been, on the whole, the +same in all ages, its forms have undergone infinite variety. Men have +written Lives in order to cheat Death of his victims. They have tried to +keep heroes alive by embalming them in incorruptible and imperishable +speech, that all time might know them, and their influence might reach +from age to age. Biography has always had a moral purpose: to make men +patriotic, or brave, or virtuous--to make them better in heart, rather than +more subtle in intellect. Example being the great motive power in the +world, the images of men in books have done much to shape the world's +course. But the books that have preserved the memory of heroic men have +been of many different sorts. In old times, they used to be books of +anecdote--books which were a threaded series of pithy sayings and generous +deeds, each with a point of its own, and altogether tending to form the +citizen, the soldier, or the virtuous man. And the style of Plutarch and +of Diogenes Laertius was continued by Ven. Bede, by William of Malmesbury, +by Froissart, and by the innumerable chroniclers of the middle ages. The +biographer speaks in his own person now and then, but his words are very +brief, and are often not so much an assistance to the tale, as a break in +it or a sort of private _aside_ with the reader. The personal features of +the hero, his mind or his body, are not made much of by the old +biographers. You hear about his height, his complexion, the color of his +hair, or the length of his chin; but you are never told when his eye +flashes or his lip curls. Dates are not matters of importance. You have +his birth and his death, but there is none of that curious comparative +chronology which modern readers know of. And as for any sense of the +picturesque, any idea of scene-painting or putting in backgrounds, it need +not be said that the old biographies are as plain as the background of a +Greek theatre. They now and then give particulars of time, place, and +circumstance which their modern transcribers seize upon as a miner seizes +on the rare and welcome nugget; but these are entirely beyond their own +intention. The historical and the moral are the only two elements to be +found in lives from Xenophon down to Dr. Johnson. The latter biographer +suggests that, in his days, the _moralizing_ element had developed out of +the merely moral. But the life of Prior and the life of Alcibiades are not +very distantly related. The time was coming when lives began to be +picturesque. The growth of the propensity to the picturesque is a curious +problem. Why is it that Homer never describes Troy, that Herodotus never +gives us a picture of Marathon, that Caesar has no eye for the Rhine, and +that Froissart does not paint St. Denis on the day of the Oriflamme, +whilst, on the other hand, Montalembert stops his story to describe the +Western Isles, De Broglie lets us see the Council of Nicea as it sat, +Stanley consecrates pages to paint Judaea and Carmel, and every writer of a +saint's life at the present hour provides for a picture or two in every +chapter? Who began this? We do not mean who began the picturesque in +literature, for that question, though a curious one is not so difficult to +answer; but who began the picturesque in biography? It is Chateaubriand +who usually gets the credit of having initiated all the romance and +sentimentality that has crept into serious literature during the last +half-century. Chateaubriand has only left, if we remember rightly, one +attempt at biography, and the _Vie de Rance_ contains certainly sentiment +and romance enough, but it is not graphic in the way that modern +biographies are. The author dashes off brilliant sketches of society, he +recites imaginary scenes, or rather episodes, in which nature plays her +part, he makes incisive remarks, and utters beautiful poetry; but when he +comes face to face with De Rance, the penitent and the monk, his hand +seems to falter, and he grows feeble and disappointing, just where a +modern writer would have seized the opportunity of powerful painting and +strong situation. For ourselves, whatever influence Chateaubriand had--and +he had much--in directing men's thoughts to analogies that lie beneath the +surface of nature, of history, and of the human heart, we are inclined to +attribute the modern craving for the picturesque to the development of a +quality in which Chateaubriand did not especially excel; we mean, +earnestness and reality. Many causes, and most of all, perhaps, that +series of political and religious phenomena which is summed up in the word +_revolution_, have combined, during the present century, to take +literature out of the hands of merely professional writers, or to make +those only choose it as a profession who have something earnest to say. +Style and thought have come to be considered one thing. As De Quincey +observes, style is not the mere alien apparelling of a thought, but rather +its very incarnation. + +It is easy to see how earnestness leads to the picturesque in biography. +In proportion as the writer is able to fix his mind upon his hero, in the +same proportion he comes to realize him, as the phrase is. Not only are +all the facts and circumstances collected with the care of a lawyer +getting up a brief, but words and names that look dead and speechless are +analyzed as with magnifying power, till they take significance and life. +Every name, as Aristotle saw, is itself a picture; but it is a picture +that only requires a more powerful imaginative lens to grow greater, +fuller, and more living. And therefore the earnest writer, because he +looks more intently at his subject, sees more in it to put upon his +canvas; and the reader, struck by the significance that he cannot gainsay, +and moved by the pictures, as pictures always move the human fancy, is +held in bonds by the writer, and remembers long and vividly what impressed +his thought so strongly at the first. He is like one who has seen the site +of a great battle, and has once for all fixed for himself, as he gazed, +the relative positions and movements of the fight; he will not easily +forget it. Something must, no doubt, be added to this; something must be +allowed to modern culture, to modern appreciation of art as art, to modern +love of landscape, and to the general _romanesque_ tendency begun by +Chateaubriand. But so far from the tendency to picturesque biography being +wholly attributable to sentiment, we hold that it is precisely our modern +earnestness that makes us demand to see things nearer and more real. +Doubtless the picturesque biographer is exposed to many dangers, and his +readers to many trials. He may "realize" what does not exist; he may +"analyze" out of his inner consciousness alone; he may usurp what is the +privilege of the poet and the romancer, and give names and habitations not +only to airy nothings, but, what is much more serious, to unsubstantial +mistakes. And therefore we do not wonder that many well-meaning people, +with the results of romantic biography or history before their eyes, and +youthful remembrances of Lingard and Butler, have come to distrust every +account of a personage or of a fact which contains the smallest mixture of +imagination. + +The length of these prefatory remarks may lead the reader to suppose that +Prior Vaughan has written picturesquely and sensationally about S. Thomas +of Aquin. Yet this, stated absolutely, would by no means be true. We shall +presently give one or two passages, in which a fine imaginative and +descriptive power, we think, is displayed. But the book bears no sign of a +straining after pictorial effect. Yet its whole idea is pre-eminently +picturesque. Prior Vaughan has written with the idea of not merely giving +the history of his chosen saint, but of localizing it in time and in +space. It is with this view that he enters into descriptions of Aquino, of +Monte Cassino, of Paris and its University; it is for this that he brings +S. Dominic and S. Francis on the canvas, and sketches the figures of +Frederick II., of Abelard, of S. Bernard, of William of Paris. Each of +these names has some connection with Thomas of Aquin, and each throws +fresh light on the central object, when it is analyzed with care. + +Here is the description, taken from the opening pages of the first volume, +of the town of Aquino, which was, if not the birthplace of the saint, at +least the principal seat of his family: + + + "The little town of Aquino occupies the centre of a vast and + fertile plain, commonly called Campagna Felice, in the ancient + Terra di Lavoro. This plain is nearly surrounded by bare and + rugged mountains, one of which pushes further than the rest into + the plain; and on its spur, which juts boldly out, and which was + called significantly Rocca Sicca, was situated the ancient + stronghold of the Aquinos. The remnants of this fortress, as seen + at this day, seem so bound up with the living rock, that they + appear more like the abrupt finish of the mountain than the ruins + of a mediaeval fortress. Yet they are sufficient to attest the + ancient splendor and importance of the place; and the torrent of + Melfi, which, tumbling out of the gorges of the Alps, runs round + the castellated rock, marks it out as a fit habitation for the + chivalrous and adventurous lords of Aquino, Loreto, and + Belcastro."--i. 3, 4. + + +Prior Vaughan, as a Benedictine, is naturally drawn to dwell upon the fact +of S. Thomas having lived as a boy for five or six years in the Abbey of +Monte Cassino. It certainly seems true that the child was placed by his +parents in the abbey with a view to his continuing there after he came to +years of discretion; just as so many children had been from the days of S. +Benedict downwards. "To all intents and purposes," says the author, "S. +Thomas of Aquin was a Benedictine monk. Had he continued in the habit till +his death--without any further solemnity beyond the offering of his +parents--he would have been reckoned as much a Benedictine as S. Gregory, +S. Augustine, S. Anselm, or S. Bede" (i. 20). We do not think that this +can be denied. It was affirmed on oath, in the process of canonization, by +an exceedingly trustworthy witness, that the saint's father "made him a +monk" at Monte Cassino. And a monk he was, no doubt, as much as a boy of +twelve can be a monk--and the Council of Trent, be it remembered, had not +then fixed the age of religious vows at sixteen. But the frightful +confusion of the times brought his Benedictine days to a premature close. +Monte Cassino was pillaged and nearly destroyed, the community was +scattered, and Thomas of Aquin went to Naples to study--and to find the +habit of S. Dominic. + +The personal character which is drawn in this work is that of a large- +minded, serene man, of powerful natural genius and winning character, who +steps forth from the ranks of mediaeval nobility, and, turning his back on +sword and lance, and giving no heed to the tumult of war and rapine, +deliberately consecrated himself wholly to God, and, grace being added to +natural gifts, illuminates the world as a doctor and as a saint. It would +be interesting to dwell, if we had space, upon the circumstances of S. +Thomas joining the Order of S. Dominic. The opposition of his family, the +utter unscrupulousness with which they carried out their opposition, the +quiet yet fervent persistence of the saint--feudal violence, maternal +desperation, and ecclesiastical interference--all this makes up a scene of +wonderful reality and deep suggestiveness. But we must pass it over. S. +Thomas became a Dominican, and we follow him from Naples to Cologne, from +Cologne to Paris. We follow the course of his academical life, his +writings, his teaching, his promotion to the grade of bachelor, of +licentiate, of doctor. The first chapter of the second volume is entitled +"S. Thomas made doctor." It contains a lively picture of the great +University of Paris and its life from day to day; and with it, moreover, +the author gives an eloquent summary of the character of his hero, part of +which we extract, because it is in some sort a key to the whole story of +his life. + + + "A man with the power possessed by the Angelical could afford to + be serene and tranquil. He lived, as it were, behind the veil; he + saw through, and valued at its intrinsic worth, this earth's + stage, and took the measure of all the actors on it. Like Moses, + he came down from the mountain, into the turmoil of the chafing + world below, and, enlarged by the greatness of the vision in which + he habitually lived, it shrank into insignificance before his eye; + and those events or influences which excited the minds of others, + and disturbed their peace, were looked upon by him somewhat in the + same way as we may imagine some majestic, solitary eagle surveys + from his high crag, with half-unconscious eye, the world of woods + below him. The Angelical himself had drawn his first lessons from + a mountain eyrie. His elastic mind, even as a boy, had expanded, + as he looked down from the mighty abbey, on teeming plain and + rugged mountain, with the far-distant ranges of the snowy + Apennines standing up delicate and crisp against the sky. God, who + made all this, had drawn him to himself, and the fingers of a + heavenly hand, striking on his large, solitary heart, had sealed + him imperially, for all his life to come, as the great master of + the heavenly science, and as the gentle prince of peace.... + Immense weight of character, surpassing grasp of mind, and + keenness of logical discernment, added to a sovereign benignity + and patience, and to a gentleness and grace which spoke from his + eyes and thrilled in the accents of his voice, made men conscious, + when in contact with him, that they were in presence of a man of + untold gifts, and yet of one so exquisitely noble as never to + display them, save for the benefit of others. Men knew that he had + the power to crush them; but since he was so great, they knew also + that he never would misuse it; they found him ever self-forgetting + and self-restrained. A character with such a capability of + asserting itself, and yet ever manifesting such gentle self- + repression, must have acted with a singular fascination on any + generous mind that came into relation with it.... He was a vast + system in himself, and appears to have been specially created for + achieving such an end. He was one single, simple man--doubtless. + But he was a 'system,' or the representation of a system--the + highest type of what heroism can do in human heart and mind. + Christ, in choosing him, had chosen the most majestic of human + creations, converting it into a powerful exponent of the light, + peace, and splendor which strike out from the cross. He, if any + man, had rested on the bosom of his Lord. He, the great Angelical, + with the golden sun flashing from his breast, and the fire of + heaven scintillating round his massive brow--he, if any man, had + broken the bread of the strong, and had refreshed his lips with + the blood of the grape, and had been transfigured by the draught. + There is a largeness about him which, whilst it expands the heart, + seems almost to take away the breath. We look up at him, and say: + 'How great art thou! how gently courteous, and how tenderly true! + Sweet was the power of God, and the grace of Christ, which made + thee all thou art. O gentle mighty sun, shine on in thy sweet + radiance, spread thy pure invigorating rays amidst the deep sad + shadows of the earth!'... Such was his character. And, prescinding + from his natural gifts, how did he become so mighty? The cause has + been touched on and partially developed already. The reader, + adequately to realize it, would do well to study and master, with + his heart as well as with his head, the monastic theology of S. + Victor's--the Benedictine science of the saints. Grasp the spirit + of S. Anselm, S. Bernard, and the Victorines, weigh it as a whole, + follow its drift, mark its salient points, learn to recognize the + aroma of that sweet mystic life of tough yet tender service and + self-forgetfulness, and you will have discovered that spring of + living waters which ran into the heart and mind of the great + Angelical, and lent to all his faculties--aye, and even to his very + person and expression--a warmth and glow which seemed to have come + direct from heaven. From the rock, which was Christ, flowed + straight and swift into the paradise of his soul four crystal + waters: Love--fixing the entire being on the sovereign good, and + doing all for him alone; Reverence--that is, self-distrust and + self-forgetfulness, produced by the vision of God's high majesty + awfully gazed on with the eye of faith; Purity--treading all + created things, and self first, under the feet, and, with entire + freedom of spirit, basking and feeding in the unseen world; + Adoration--love, reverence, and purity, combined in one act of + supreme worship, as the creature, with all he has and all he is, + bends prone to the earth, and with a feeling of dust and ashes + whispers to his soul: 'The Lord he is God, he made us, and not we + ourselves!' " (ii. 31-48.) + + +The mind and heart are both fond of dwelling on the heroic; and the heroic +is met with at every step in the life of S. Thomas. We are reminded, as we +read, of that Achilles on whose prowess hangs the fate of Troy and of the +Greeks, + + + "Full in the midst, high-towering o'er the rest," + + +his limbs encased in an armor that is more divine than that which the +father of fire forged for the son of Peleus, the gold upon his breast, the +sword of the Spirit by his side, the "broad refulgent shield" of heavenly +faith upon his arm, and in his hand the great paternal spear that none but +he can wield--not a "whole ash" felled upon Pelion by old Chiron; but the +seven gifts of the Christian doctorate wielded by the force of seraphic +love. His appearance in the lists of argument, in the contest of the +schools, in the field of intellectual strife, has all the _quelling_ power +that is ascribed to the greatest heroes of the battle-field; and his place +in the records of mental and theological history is that of a discoverer, +a conqueror, and a king. Here is a scene which is perhaps more or less +familiar, but it is a type of many scenes in this wonderful life. It +occurred whilst Thomas was under Albertus Magnus, at Cologne: + + + "Master Albert had selected a very difficult question from the + writings of Denis the Areopagite, and had given it to some of his + scholars for solution. Whether in joke or in earnest, they passed + on the difficulty to Thomas, and begged him to write his opinion + upon it. Thomas took the paper to his cell, and, taking his pen, + first stated, with great lucidity, all the objections that could + be brought against the question; and then gave their solutions. As + he was going out of his cell, this paper accidentally fell near + the door. One of the brothers passing picked it up, and carried it + at once to Master Albert. Albert was excessively astonished at the + splendid talent which now, for the first time, by mere accident, + he discovered in that big, silent student. He determined to bring + out, in the most public manner, abilities which had been for so + long a time so modestly concealed. He desired Thomas to defend a + thesis before the assembled school, on the following day. The hour + arrived. The hall was filled. There sat Master Albert. Doubtless + the majority of those who were to witness the display imagined + that they were about to assist at an egregious failure. How could + that heavy, silent lad--who could not speak a word in + private--defend in public school, against the keenest of opponents, + the difficult niceties of theology? But they were soon undeceived, + for Thomas spoke with such clearness, established his thesis with + such remarkable dialectical skill, saw so far into the coming + difficulties of the case, and handled the whole subject in so + masterly a manner, that Albert himself was constrained to cry + aloud, '_Tu non videris tenere locum respondentis sed + determinantis_!' 'Master,' replied Thomas with humility, 'I know + not how to treat the question otherwise.' Albert then thought to + puzzle him, and show him that he was still a disciple. So, one + after another, he started objections, created a hundred + labyrinths, weaving and interweaving all manner of subtle + arguments, but in vain. Thomas, with his calm spirit and keen + vision, saw through every complication, had the key to every + fallacy, the solution for every enigma, and the art to unravel the + most tangled skein--till, finally, Albert, no longer able to + withhold the expression of his admiration, cried out to his + disciples, who were almost stupefied with astonishment: 'We call + this young man a dumb ox, but so loud will be his bellowing in + doctrine that it will resound throughout the whole world' " (i. + 321, 322). + + +How exactly this prophecy was fulfilled need not be said. S. Thomas was +soon employed in speaking to the world what God had given him to say. He +spoke in the class-hall and in the church; he wrote for young and for old; +and wherever his voice was heard men wondered as at a portent. The +students of Paris, the professors of France and of Italy, his fellow- +religious, the intimate friend of his privacy, the rough people round his +pulpit, the pope himself as he sat and heard him preach, every one said +over again the wondering words that Albert the Great had used in the hall +at Cologne. And if we had no record of what men thought, we should still +be secure in saying that they were astonished; for we are astonished +ourselves. Many men who have made a great noise in their lifetime have +left posterity to wonder, not at themselves, but at their reputation. But +the writer of the _Summa_ _must_ have been great even in his lifetime. +That breadth of view, that keenness of analysis, that comprehensive reach +of thought, that enormous memory--we can see it for ourselves, and every +story of his prowess we can readily credit from what the imperishable +record of his written works attests to our own eye. Prior Vaughan relates +interesting anecdotes of his power of discussion, and of his influence +over the irreverent world of his scholastic compeers, filling up the +outlines of the annalist with no greater exercise of imagination than is +fairly permitted to the serious biographer. + +But the heroic in the life of the Angel of the Schools would not be +perfect unless the giant strength had been joined to the gentleness of the +servant of Christ. There is nothing, perhaps, that will so strike a reader +of this Life as his mild, equal, and gentle spirit. It does not seem that +S. Thomas was naturally of a quick and impetuous nature, like S. Ignatius +or S. Francis of Sales. From his youth he had been a contemplative in the +cloisters of Monte Cassino; when but a child he had charmed his teachers +by asking with childish meditative face, "_What was God?_" His quiet +determination had conquered his mother when she opposed him being a +Dominican; his calm courage had converted his sisters and shamed his +brothers. And in the schools, his silence and his humility, virtues never +more difficult to be practised than in the field of intellectual combat, +had soon become the marvel of all who knew him. A great natural gift--the +gift of a changeless serenity of heart and temper--was perfected in him by +grace, until it became heroic. The contest he once had in the Paris +schools with Brother John of Pisa, a Franciscan friar who afterwards +became Archbishop of Canterbury, is typical of what always happened when +the Angelical discussed: + + + "John of Pisa, though a keen and a learned man, had no chance with + the Angelical. It would have been folly for any one, however + skilled--yes, for Bonaventure, or Rochelle, or even Albert the + Great himself--to attempt to cross rapiers with Br. Thomas. He was + to the manner born. Br. John did all that was in him, used his + utmost skill--but it was useless: the Angelical simply upset him + time after time. The Minorite grew warm; the Angelical, bent + simply on the truth, went on completing, with unmoved serenity, + the full discomfiture of the poor Franciscan. John of Pisa at + length could stand it no longer. In his heat he forgot his middle + term and forgot himself, and turned upon the saint with sarcasm + and invective. The Angelical in his own gentle, overpowering way, + giving not the slightest heed to these impertinences, went on + replying to him with inimitable tenderness and patience; and + whilst teaching a lesson which, after so many hundred years, men + can still learn, drew on himself, unconsciously, the surprise and + admiration of that vast assembly. Such was the way in which the + Angelical brought the influence of Benedictine _quies_ and + _benignitas_ into the boisterous litigations of the Paris schools. + And what is more, Frigerio tells us that the saint taught the + great lesson of self-control, not only by the undeviating practice + of his life, but also by his writings; that he looked upon it as + an 'ignominy' (ignominia) to soil the mouth with angry words; and + contended that 'quarrels,' immoderate contentions, vain + ostentation of knowledge, and the trick of puzzling an adversary + with sophistical arguments--such as is often the practice of + dialecticians--should be banished from the schools" (ii. 57-59). + + +The appearance of such a man as S. Thomas, in the midst of the scholastic +agitation of the XIIIth century, partakes of that providential character +which the eye of faith sees in the lives of all the great saints. We have +already, in a former notice, touched upon the marvellous way in which he +turned the current of thought against rationalism, heresy, and impiety. +But his personal influence was no less than what we may term his official. +At the moment when theology was beginning, with philosophy as her +handmaid, to enter on that course of development in which system, on the +one hand, advanced in equal steps with discovery on the other, it was the +will of God that a saint should show the world in his own person a perfect +model of the Catholic scholastic theologian. His powers were undeniable, +his genius imperial, his rights undoubted; and he used his privileges and +his grand position to enforce upon the noisy spirits of the time, and upon +all generations of students yet to be, that the true type of theological +discussion was "_humilis collatio, pacifica disputatio_." + +The theologian was to be no proud dogmatist, laying down the law as if he +had discovered all truth, but one who, taking the faith for his standing- +point, humbly put forth and peacefully discussed the views that he thought +to be true. This was his great lesson; he taught it in the tone of his own +lectures and discussions, in the turn of his phrase when he wrote, in the +meekness of his answers, and in the moderation of his conclusions. And we +may thank the Providence that sent S. Thomas for that calm and judicial +serenity which has ever been the prevailing character of Catholic +theology. The great Dominican school that he founded carried on the +traditions of their master; and (to take an example not far from our own +days) the weighty and admirably clear pages of a Billuart are not +unworthy, in their broad, searching, yet tranquil argument, of the master +whom they follow. A troubled reach of time separates Paris in the XIIIth +century from Douay in the XVIIth; yet the spirit of S. Thomas had been +living over it all. Not only in his own religious family was his influence +strong. The Franciscan Order has its own tradition; but it is a tradition +that sprung up side by side with the Dominican. It was the seraphic +Bonaventure that sat beside Thomas of Aquin in the hall of the University +of Paris on the day when each of them received the insignia of the +doctorate. They were friends--more than friends, for each knew the other to +be a saint. Each heard the other speak, and the spirit of one was the +spirit of both. And in spite of divergences and varieties, such as our +Lord permits in order to draw unity from diversity or good from evil, the +two Orders have taught in harmonious spirit during all the long centuries +they have been before the world. S. Thomas, who reverenced S. Bonaventure, +has had the reverence of all S. Bonaventure's children; and we have before +us as we write the _Cursus Theologiae_ of a venerable bearded Capuchin, +considerably esteemed in the theological classes of the present day, who +stops in his enumeration of fathers and of doctors to add his emphatic +tribute of veneration to the Angelic Doctor, who, he reminds us, is, with +S. Augustine, "_praecipuus theologorum omnium temporum magister_"--the great +master of theologians of all ages. And what we say of the Franciscan Order +we may say of that great school which dates its traditions from that +Cardinal Toletus who was the pupil of the Dominican Soto. It is not that +the Jesuit theologians, even the many-sided Suarez, have looked up to S. +Thomas as to their prince and teacher: this they have done; but even if +they had left his teaching, or where they have left his teaching, they +have followed his spirit. That spirit we might name the spirit of +_conciliation_. We do not mean the spirit of compromise, or of going only +half-way in matters of truth. S. Thomas was as downright as Euclid. But +what we refer to is that readiness to admit all the good or the true in an +opposite view, the shrinking from forcing a vague word upon an adversary, +the impartial dissection of words and phrases which issues from the +scholastic and Thomistic method of _distinction_. The _distinguo_ of the +tyro or the sophist is a trick that is easily learned and easily laughed +at; but we claim for the scholastic method that its _distinguo_ is the +touchstone of truth and of falsehood; it requires acuteness and stored-up +learning to make it and sustain it; but it requires, above all, that +perfect fairness of mind, that judicial impartiality of view, which calms +the promptings of ambitious originality; it requires that patience which +seeks only the truth and cares nothing for the victory, and that honesty +which is afraid of declamation, and sets its matter out in unadorned and +colorless simplicity. This is the true scholastic spirit, and it is pre- +eminently the spirit of S. Thomas. If we might personify that grand +science which has been so high in this world, and seems now to have sunk +so low (yet, with the signs around us, we dare hardly say so now), it +would be under the figure of him who is its prince and lawgiver. + + + "See him, then, our great Angelical, as with calm and princely + bearing he advances, a mighty-looking man, built on a larger scale + than those who stand around him, and takes the seat just vacated + by Bonaventure. His portrait as a boy has been sketched already. + Now he has grown into the maturity of a man, and his grand + physique has expanded into its perfect symmetry and manly + strength, manifesting, even in his frame, as Tocco says, that + exquisite combination of force with true proportion which gave so + majestic a balance to his mind. His countenance is pale with + suffering, and his head is bald from intense and sustained mental + application. Still, the placid serenity of his broad, lofty brow, + the deep gray light in his meditative eyes, his firm, well- + chiselled lips, and fully defined jaw, the whole pose of that + large, splendid head--combining the manliness of the Roman with the + refinement and delicacy of the Greek--impress the imagination with + an indescribable sense of giant energy of intellect, of royal + gentleness of heart, and untold tenacity of purpose. That sweet + face reflects so exquisite a purity, that noble bust is cast in so + imperial a mould, that the sculptor or the painter would be struck + and arrested by it in a moment; the one would yearn to throw so + classical a type into imperishable marble, and the other to + transfer so much grandeur of contour, and such delicacy of + expression, so harmonious a fusion of spotlessness with majesty, + of southern loveliness with intellectual strength, to the enduring + canvas" (ii. 108, 109). + + +The angelic quality of the Angel of the Schools--his calmness and his power +over men--was not bought without a price. Like all the saints, he too had +to bear the cross, and like all the saints he was not content with +suffering the cross, but he sought it and courted it. We cannot quote much +more of Prior Vaughan's narrative, or else we would fain draw attention to +the account he gives from authentic sources of Thomas' holy distress of +mind, and his midnight prayer the night before he received the doctorate. +But the following paragraph must be transcribed: + + + "Let the carnal man, after looking on the sweet Angelical + fascinating the crowded schools, take the trouble to follow him, + as silently, after the day's work, he retires to his cell, + seemingly to rest; let him watch him bent in prayer; see him take + from its hiding-place, when all have gone to sleep, that hard iron + chain; see him--as he looks up to heaven and humbles himself to + earth--without mercy to his flesh, scourge himself with it, + striking blow upon blow, lacerating his body through the greater + portion of the sleepless night: let the carnal man look upon this + touching sight; let him shrink back in horror if he will--still let + him look on it, and he will learn how the saints labored to secure + a chaste and spotless life, and how a man can so far annihilate + self-seeking as to be gentle with all the world, severe with + himself alone. If in human life there is anything mysteriously + adorable, it is a man of heroic mould and surpassing gifts showing + himself great enough to smite his own body, and to humble his + entire being in pretence of his Judge" (ii. 60, 61). + + +S. Thomas died in the prime of life--when scarcely forty-eight years old. +He was called away a little before his great work, the _Summa_, was +completed, as if his Master wished to show the lamenting world that his +own claims were paramount to every other thing. But it was that divine +Master himself who had rendered it necessary to take away his servant when +he did; for S. Thomas could write no more. After that vision and ecstasy +which rapt his soul in the chapel of S. Nicholas at Naples, he ceased to +write, he ceased to dictate; his pen lay idle, and the _Summa_ stood still +in the middle of the questions on penance. It was, as he said to his +companion Reginald, _Non possum!_ "I cannot! Everything that I have +written appears to me as simply rubbish." From that day of S. Nicholas he +lived in a continual trance: he wrote no more. As the new year (1274) came +in, he set out, at the pope's call, to attend the general council at +Lyons: but he was never to get so far. He had not journeyed beyond +Campania--he was still travelling along the shores of that sunny region +which had given him birth, when mortal illness arrested him, and he was +taken to the Abbey of Fossa Nuova to die. + + + "The abbot conducts him through the church into the silent + cloister. Then the whole past seems to break in upon him like a + burst of overflowing sunlight; the calm and quiet abbey, the + meditative corridor, the gentle Benedictine monks; he seems as if + he were at Cassino once again, amidst the glorious visions of his + boyish days--amidst the tender friendships of his early youth, + close on the bones of ancient kings, near the solemn tomb of + Blessed Benedict, in the hallowed home of great traditions, and at + the very shrine of all that is fair and noble in monastic life. He + seemed completely overcome by the memories of the past, and, + turning to the monks who surrounded him, exclaimed '_This_ is the + place where I shall find repose!' and then ecstatically to + Reginald in presence of them all: '_Haec est requies mea in saeculum + saeculi, hic habitabo quoniam elegi eam_--This is my rest for ever + and ever; here will I dwell, for I have chosen it' " (ii. 921). + + +The whole of this last scene of the great saint's pilgrimage is admirably +and most touchingly brought out by the author, and our readers must go to +it themselves. As we conclude the story, we are forced to agree with Prior +Vaughan when he exclaims, "It is but natural, it is but beautiful, that he +who in early boyhood had been stamped with the signet of S. Benedict, +should return to S. Benedict to die!" + +We are sure that this life of S. Thomas of Aquin will do good. It is a +large book, but it deals with a large and a grand life. It is the work of +one who evidently has an interest in his subject far beyond that of the +mere compiler. The earnestness, the warmth, the very redundancy and +fulness of the author's style, leave the impression of one whose heart is +strongly impressed by the glorious career which he has been following so +minutely, and there is little doubt that his readers will sympathize with +him. And there can be just as little doubt of the benefits which a +practical study of the life of the great doctor will confer upon students, +upon priests, and upon all serious men at the present day. Sanctity taught +by example is always an important lesson; but the saintliness of learning +and genius is still more important and still more rare. We live in an age +when there are numbers of men who are profoundly scientific and splendidly +accomplished in the different branches of knowledge which they profess; +and there is no one who is more sure of the world's attention and +reverence than the man who can show that he knows something which other +men do not. The present time, therefore, is one at which we are to look +for and to hope for men who in theology and Catholic philosophy shall be +as able and as learned as are the leaders of profane science. Hard work +and unwearying devotedness are essential to this; and the example of S. +Thomas shows us what these things mean. But there is something which is +more necessary still; something which is especially necessary in sacred +science. "_In malevolam animam non intrabit Sapientia, nec habitabit in +corpore subdito peccatis._" There is no such thing as the highest wisdom +without the highest purity of heart. The perfection of the Christian +doctorate is the consequence of the perfect possession and exercise of the +Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost. And the holy fathers who have written on +Christian wisdom tell us repeatedly, using almost identical words, that a +man might as well try to study the sun with purblind eyes as to be perfect +in theology with a heart defiled. There has been no greater example in the +range of sanctity of what S. Augustine calls the "_mens purgatissima_" +than that of him who on account of his purity has been called the +Angelical. Leaving the world as a child, his heart hardly knew what +earthly concupiscence was. With his loins girded by angels' hands, with +his body subdued by hard living, with his thought always ranging among +high and elevating things, the soul of S. Thomas lived in a region that +did not belong to the world. He learnt his wisdom of the crucifix, he +found his inspirations at the foot of the altar; and the same lips that +dictated the _Commentaries on Aristotle_ were ready to break forth with +the _Lauda Sion_ and the _Pange Lingua_. If he taught in the daytime, he +chastised his body during the watches of the night. Born to a gentle life, +with powerful friends, with the world and its attractions within his +reach, he lived in his narrow cell, cleaving to his desk and to his +breviary, walking the streets with a quick step and downcast eye, letting +the world go on its way. He wanted only one thing--not as a reward for his +labor, because his labor was only a means to a great end--he wanted only +that one object which he asked for when the figure spoke to him from the +Cross, "Thee, O Lord! and thee alone!" + +Prior Vaughan has accomplished a task for which he will receive the thanks +of all English-speaking Catholics. His book will be read, and will be +treasured; for it is a book with a large purpose, carried out with +unwearying labor, presenting the results of wide reading, and offering the +student and the general reader a large variety of solid information and of +suggestive thought. If the book were less honestly wrought out than it is, +we could excuse the author, in consideration of the heart and soul he has +thrown into it. S. Thomas of Aquin is evidently a very real, living being +with him. His hero is no abstraction of the past, no quintessence of a +scholastic that must be looked at as one looks at an Egyptian papyrus in a +museum. He is a man to _know_, not merely to know about; a man who taught +in Paris and who reigns in heaven; a man who led an angel's life here +below, and who can help us to lead a life more or less angelic from his +place above. To have worked with such a spirit is to have worked in the +true spirit of the Catholic faith. The saints are our teachers and +masters; and, what is more, they are the trumpets that rouse us to battle, +the living voices that make our hearts burn to follow them. And therefore +a true life of a saint will live, and will do its work. Our wish is that +Prior Vaughan's _S. Thomas_ may make its way into the hearts of earnest +men, and it is our conviction that it _will_ make its way, and that men +will be the better for it. + + + + +To S. Mary Magdalen. + + + 'Mid the white spouses of the Sacred Heart, + After its Queen, the nearest, dearest, thou. + Yet the aureola around thy brow + Is not the virgins'. Thine a throne apart. + Nor yet, my Saint, does faith-illumined art + Thy hand with palm of martyrdom endow: + And when thy hair is all it will allow + Of glory to thy head, we do not start. + O more than virgin in thy penitent love! + And more than martyr in thy passionate woe! + How should thy sisters equal thee above, + Who knelt not with thee on the gory sod? + Or where the crown our worship could bestow + Like that long gold which wiped the feet of God? + + + + +God's Acre. + + +In all countries and in all creeds, the dead have claimed the affectionate +notice of the living. The idea of housing them, deifying them, +propitiating them, of remembering them in _some_ way, however diverse, has +always been a prominent one. The belief in the soul's immortality seems to +have been even more clear to the ordinary mind of the natural man than +that of a Supreme and Almighty Being. When Christianity appeared, the +departed had a place assigned them among the members of the church, and +were commemorated as absent brethren gone before their fellows one stage +further on the last great journey; when the Reformation disfranchised +human nature in the XVIth century, and levelled all its hallowed +aspirations with the brute instincts of the animal kingdom, the dead, +though divorced from communion with the living, were yet remembered, and +placed in two categories--the elect, or the precondemned. Another life was +even then believed in, and later branches of the reforming sects all +condescended at least to theorize on the future state of disembodied +spirits. It remained for our times to foster the cruel _un_belief that +dooms our loved ones, not even to everlasting perdition, but to absolute +annihilation. It was hard enough in Puritan days for a pious though +mistaken mind to bring itself to the belief that possibly the loved +companion of childhood, the chosen mate of youth, the venerable parent, +the upright teacher, was one of those predestined to eternal torments, one +of the holocausts to the greater glory of God; but how far harder now for +a fond heart, a clinging nature, to see in those it loves so many +perishable puppets, without future and without hope! But happily there is +a haven to which these storm-tossed souls may come with the precious +freight of their love and their unerring Catholic instincts. Their +companions and brethren are not gone into trackless chaos, they are not +absorbed into that monstrous "nothing" of which a false philosophy has +made a bewildering bugbear. Every year the church protests against such +revolting doctrines on the day which she publicly consecrates to prayers +for and remembrance of the departed. This festival is like a spiritual +harvest-home; coming as it does just at the close of the ecclesiastical +year, it marks an epoch in the life of the church suffering; and various +"revelations" made to saints, as well as the collective belief of the +faithful, agree in considering it a day of liberation and rejoicing among +the souls in Purgatory. "God's Acre" (according to the touching and +suggestive German idiom) is reaped on that auspicious day, though, like +Boaz, the Divine Reaper leaves yet a few ears of corn to be gleaned into +heavenly rest by the prayers of the faithful on earth. + +Before we go further into our own beautiful view of the future life, let +us stop to see how other races and religions have treated the dead. + +Of the Egyptians, it is difficult to speak except at too great a length, +and, not having at hand sufficient authority, we can only set down what +our recollection will supply. The readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD will no +doubt remember some interesting articles published a few months since +regarding the ancient civilization of Egypt, in which copious reference +was made to the esteem and respect paid to the dead in that country. The +singular custom of pledging the embalmed body of a father or ancestor, on +the receipt of a loan, was noticed; also the dishonor attaching to the +non-redemption of such a pledge. A learned English author, speaking +incidentally of Egyptian embalming, mentions that the word mummy is +derived from "mum," which, he says, is Egyptian for _wax_. Representations +of the embalming process have been found on tombs and sarcophagi, in which +the men engaged in it are seen wearing masks with eagles' beaks, probably +iron masks, thereby denoting of what a poisonous and dangerous nature this +absolutely incorruptible embalmment must have been. The Pyramids are +perhaps the most imposing funeral monuments ever raised to the memory of +mortals, and even the famous Mausoleum of Artemisia can have had no more +massive or _eternal_ an aspect. + +To pass from the cradle of older civilization to the land whose original +peopling has sometimes been attributed, though we believe inaccurately, to +Egyptian enterprise, the America of the Aztec and the Red Indian, we find +in Parkman's _Jesuits in America_ some lengthy details on the funereal +customs of the Huron tribe, now extinct. He says that "the primitive +Indian believed in the immortality of the soul, but not always in a state +of future punishment or reward. Nor was the good or evil to be rewarded or +punished (when such a belief _did_ exist) of a moral nature. Skilful +hunters, brave warriors, men of influence, went to the happy hunting- +grounds, while the slothful, the weak, the cowardly, were doomed to eat +serpents and ashes in dreary regions of mist and darkness.... The spirits, +in form and feature, as they had been in life, wended their way through +dark forests to the villages of the dead, subsisting on bark and rotten +wood. On arriving, they sat all day in the crouching posture of the sick, +and when night came hunted the shades of animals, with the shades of bows +and arrows, among the shades of trees and rocks; for all things, animate +and inanimate, were alike immortal, and all passed together to the gloomy +country of the dead." The public ceremony of exhuming the dead, of which +some interesting details are given further on, was supposed to be the +occasion of the beginning of the other life. The souls "took wing, as some +affirmed, in the shape of pigeons; while the greater number believed that +they journeyed on foot ... to the land of shades, ... but, as the spirits +of the old and of children are too feeble for the march, they are forced +to stay behind, lingering near their earthly homes, where the living often +hear the shutting of their invisible cabin doors, and the weak voices of +the disembodied children driving birds from their corn-fields.... The +Indian land of souls is not always a region of shadows and gloom. The +Hurons sometimes represented the souls of their dead as dancing +joyously.... According to some Algonquin traditions, heaven was a scene of +endless festivity, ghosts dancing to the sound of the rattle and the +drum.... Most of the traditions agree, however, that the spirits were +beset with difficulties and perils. There was a swift river which must be +crossed on a log that shook beneath their feet, while a ferocious dog +opposed their passage, and drove many into the abyss. This river was full +of sturgeon and other fish, which the ghosts speared for their +subsistence. Beyond was a narrow path between moving rocks which each +instant crashed together, grinding to atoms the less nimble of the +pilgrims who endeavored to pass. The Hurons believed that a personage +named Oscotarach, or the Head-Piercer, dwelt in a bark house beside the +path, and that it was his office to remove the brains from the heads of +all who went by, as a necessary preparation for immortality. This singular +idea is found also in some Algonquin traditions, according to which, +however, the brain is afterwards restored to its owner." + +Le Clerc, in his _Nouvelle Relation de la Gaspesie_, tells a curious +story, which is mentioned in a foot-note by Parkman. It was current in his +(Le Clerc's) time among the Algonquins of Gaspe and Northern New +Brunswick, and bears a remarkable likeness to the old myth of Orpheus and +Eurydice. "The favorite son of an old Indian died, whereupon the father, +with a party of friends, set out for the land of souls to recover him. It +was only necessary to wade through a shallow lake, several days' journey +in extent. This they did, sleeping at night on platforms of poles which +supported them above the water. At length, they arrived and were met by +Papkootparout, the Indian Pluto, who rushed on them in a rage, with his +war-club upraised, but, presently relenting, changed his mind and +challenged them to a game of ball. They proved the victors, and won the +stakes, consisting of corn, tobacco, and certain fruits, which thus became +known to mankind. The bereaved father now begged hard for his son's soul, +and Papkootparout at last gave it to him in the form and size of a nut, +which, by pressing it hard between his hands, he forced into a small +leather bag. The delighted parent carried it back to earth, with +instructions to insert it into the body of his son, who would thereupon +return to life. When the adventurers reached home, and reported the happy +issue, of their journey, there was a dance of rejoicing; and the father, +wishing to take part in it, gave his son's soul to the keeping of a squaw +who stood by. Being curious to see it, she opened the bag, upon which it +escaped at once, and took flight for the realms of Papkootparout, +preferring them to the abodes of the living." + +These superstitions, although they may make us smile, yet attest, through +their rude simplicity, the _natural_ and deep-rooted existence in all +races of a belief not only in the immortality of the soul, but in the +possibility of communication with the departed. The Buddhist doctrine of +transmigration is but a distorted version of the truth we call purgatory, +that is, a state of temporary expiation and gradual cleansing. The +Egyptian practice of embalming the dead and often of preserving the bodies +of several generations of one's forefathers in the family house, is +another consequence of the primeval belief in the soul's immortality. +Everywhere reverence for the dead implied this belief and symbolized it, +and even the custom of placing in the mouth of the Roman dead the piece of +money, _denarius_, with which to pay their passage over the Styx, is +referable to the true doctrine of good works being laid up in heaven and +helping those who have performed them to gain the desired entrance into +eternal repose. + +The following minute description of the Indian feast of the dead, of which +mention has already been made, is interesting, and is condensed from the +account given by Father Breboeuf: "The corpses were lowered from their +scaffolds and lifted from their graves. Each family claimed its own, and +forthwith addressed itself to the task of removing what remained of flesh +from the bones. These, after being tenderly caressed with tears and +lamentations, were wrapped in skins and pendent robes of beaver. These +relics, as also the recent corpses, which remained entire, but were +likewise carefully wrapped in furs, were carried to one of the largest +houses, and hung to the numerous cross poles which, rafterlike, supported +the roof. The concourse of mourners seated themselves at a funeral feast, +the squaws of the household distributed the food, and a chief harangued +the assembly, lamenting the loss of the deceased and praising their +virtues. This over, the mourners began their march for Ossonane, the scene +of the final rite. The bodies remaining entire were borne on litters, +while the bundles of bones were slung at the shoulders of the relatives, +like fagots. The procession thus defiled slowly through the forest +pathways, and as they passed beneath the shadow of the pines, the mourners +uttered at intervals and in unison a wailing cry, meant to imitate the +voices of disembodied souls, ... and believed to have a peculiarly +soothing effect on the conscious relics that each man carried. The place +prepared for the last rite was a cleared area in the forest, many acres in +extent. Around it was a high and strong scaffolding of upright poles, with +cross-poles extended between, for hanging the funeral gifts and the +remains of the dead. The fathers lodged in a house where over a hundred of +these bundles of mortality hung from the rafters. Some were mere shapeless +rolls, others were made up into clumsy effigies, adorned with feathers, +beads, etc. In the morning (the procession having arrived over night at +Ossonane) the relics were taken down, opened again, and the bones fondled +anew by the women, amid paroxysms of grief. When the procession bearing +the dead reached the ground prepared for the last solemnity, the bundles +were laid on the ground, and the funeral gifts outspread for the +admiration of the beholders. Among them were many robes of beaver and +other rich furs, collected and preserved for years with a view to this +festival. Fires were lighted and kettles slung, and the scene became like +a fair or _caravanserai_. This continued till three o'clock in the +afternoon, when the gifts were repacked, and the bones shouldered afresh. +Suddenly, at a signal from the chiefs, the crowd ran forward from every +side towards the scaffolding, like soldiers to the assault of a town, +scaled it by the rude ladders with which it was furnished, and hung their +relics and their gifts to the forest of poles which surmounted it. The +chiefs then again harangued the people in praise of the departed, while +other functionaries lined the grave throughout with rich robes of beaver +skin. Three large copper kettles were next placed in the middle, and then +ensued a scene of hideous confusion. The bodies which had been left entire +were brought to the edge of the grave, flung in, and arranged in order at +the bottom by ten or twelve Indians, stationed there for the purpose, amid +the wildest excitement and the uproar of many hundred mingled voices. +Night was now fast closing in, and the concourse bivouacked around the +clearing.... One of the bundles of bones, tied to a pole on the scaffold, +chanced to fall into the grave. This accident precipitated the closing +act, and perhaps increased its frenzy. All around blazed countless fires, +and the air resounded with discordant cries. The naked multitude, on, +under, and around the scaffolding, were flinging the remains of their +dead, relieved from their wrappings of skins, pell-mell into the pit, +where were discovered men who, as the ghastly shower fell around them, +arranged the bones in their places with long poles. All was soon over; +earth, logs, and stones were cast upon the grave, and the clamor subsided +into a funereal chant, so dreary and lugubrious that it seemed like the +wail of despairing souls from the abyss of perdition." + +These processions and ceremonies relating to the bones of the dead remind +us of the singular custom observed at the Capuchin Convent of the Piazza +Barberini in Rome. The skeletons of the dead monks are robed in the habit +of the order and seated in choir-stalls round the crypt, until they fall +to pieces, or are displaced by a silent new-comer to their ghostly +brotherhood. The bones which are thus yearly accumulating are formed into +patterns of stars and crosses on the walls of the crypt and surrounding +corridors, while the skulls are often heaped up in small mounds against +the partitions. The convent is strictly enclosed, and is only accessible +to men during the rest of the year, but on All Souls' day and during the +octave, the public, men and women alike, are allowed to visit this strange +place of entombment. Crowds flock to see it, especially foreigners. +Hawthorne, in his _Marble Faun_, has described it in terms that make one +feel as if _his_ impression were vivid enough to supply the place of a +personal one on the part of each of his readers. + +The ancient Roman customs and beliefs concerning the dead are well worth +noticing, as embodying the essence of the utmost civilization a heathen +land could boast. It is said that the Romans chose the cypress as +emblematic of death because that tree, when once cut, never grows again. +The facts of natural history are sometimes disregarded by the ancient +poets, but it is not with that that we now have to deal, but with the +false idea symbolized by this choice. The Romans, nevertheless, fully +believed in an after-life, though one modelled much on the same principle +as their life on earth. The unburied and those whose bodies could not be +found were supposed to wander about, unable to cross the river Styx, and +their friends therefore generally built them an empty tomb, which they +believed served as a retreat to their restless spirits. Pliny ascribes the +Roman custom of burning the dead to the belief that was current amongst +the people, that their enemies dug up and insulted the bodies of their +soldiers killed in distant wars. During the earlier part of the Republic, +the dead were mostly buried in the natural way, in graves or vaults. Some +very strange ceremonies are recorded in Adams' _Roman Antiquities_ +concerning the funeral processions, which usually took place at night by +torch-light. (This was chiefly done to avoid any chance of meeting a +priest or magistrate, who was supposed to be polluted by the sight of a +corpse, as in the Jewish dispensation.) After the musicians, who sang the +praises of the deceased to the accompaniment of flutes, came "players and +buffoons, one of whom, called _archimimus_ (the chief mimic), sustained +the character of the deceased, imitating his words or actions while alive. +These players sometimes introduced apt sayings from dramatic writers." +Actors were also employed to personate the individual ancestors, and +Adams' commentator adds in a foot-note: "A Roman funeral must therefore +have presented a singular appearance, with a long line of ancestors +stalking gravely through the streets of the capital." Pliny, Plautus, +Polybius, Suetonius, and others are the authorities quoted on this curious +point. It is said by some authors that, in very ancient times, the dead +were buried in their own houses; hence the origin of idolatry, the worship +of household gods, the fear of goblins, etc. Relations also consecrated +temples to the dead, which Pliny calls a very ancient custom, which had +its share in contributing to the establishment of idol-worship. In the +Book of Wisdom(115) we find a reference to this in these words: "For a +father, being afflicted with bitter grief, made to himself the image of +his son, who was quickly taken away, and him who then had died as a man, +he began now to worship as a god, and appointed him rites and sacrifices +among his servants. Then in process of time, wicked custom prevailing, +this error was kept as a law." Adams tells us that "the private places of +burial of the Romans were in fields or gardens, usually near the highway +(such as the Via Appia near Rome, the Via Campana near Pozzuoli, the +Street of Tombs at Pompeii), to be conspicuous and remind those who passed +of mortality. Hence the frequent inscriptions--_Siste, viator_,(116) +_Aspice, viator_."(117) Games of gladiators were frequently held both on +the day and the anniversaries of great funerals; and on the pyre slaves +and clients were sometimes burnt with the body of their deceased master, +as also all manner of clothes and ornaments, and, "in short, whatever was +supposed to have been agreeable to him when alive." As the funeral cortege +left the place where the body had been burnt, they "used to take a last +farewell, repeating several times _Vale_, or _Salve aeternum_,"(118) also +wishing that the earth might lie light on the person buried, as Juvenal +relates, and which was found marked on several ancient monuments in these +letters, S.T.T.L.(119) "This is a very remarkable instance of the dead +being considered, in one sense, as conscious, sentient beings, and +evidently has an origin which can hardly be disconnected from some remote +or indistinct recollection of the true religion." + +Adams goes on to say that "oblations or sacrifices to the dead were +afterwards made at various times, both occasionally and at stated periods, +consisting of liquors, victims, and garlands, as Virgil, Tacitus, and +Suetonius tell us, and sometimes to appease their _manes_, or atone for +some injury offered them in life. The sepulchre was bespread with flowers, +and covered with crowns and fillets. Before it there was a little altar, +on which libations were made and incense burnt. A keeper was appointed to +watch the tomb, which was frequently illuminated with lamps. A feast was +generally added, both for the dead and the living. Certain things were +laid on the tomb, commonly beans, lettuce, bread, and eggs, or the like, +which it was supposed the ghosts would come and eat. What remained was +burnt. After the funeral of great men,... a distribution of raw meat was +made to the people." + +"Immoderate grief was thought to be offensive to the manes, according to +Tibullus, but during the shortened mourning that was customary, the +relations of the deceased abstained from entertainments or feasts of any +sort, wore no badge of rank or nobility, were not shaved, and dressed in +black, a custom borrowed (as was supposed) from the Egyptians. 'No fire +was ever lighted, as it was considered an ornament to the house.' " + +The common places of burial were called _columbaria_, from the likeness of +their arrangement to that of a pigeon-house, each little niche scooped out +in the walls holding the small urn in which the ashes of the dead were +deposited. These _columbaria_, Adams tells us, were often below ground, +like a vault, but private tombs belonging to wealthy citizens were in +groves and gardens; as, for instance, that of Augustus, mentioned by +Strabo, who calls it a hanging garden supported on marble arches, with +shrubs planted round the base, and the Egyptian obelisks at the entrance. +The tomb of Adrian, now the Castel S. Angelo, was a perfect palace of +wealth and art, and supplied many a later building with ready-made +adornment before it became what it now is, a fortress. The tomb of Cecilia +Metella, on the Via Appia, was also used as a mediaeval stronghold, and +looks more fit for such a use than for its former funereal distinction. + +From ancient and imperial, we now pass to modern and Christian Rome, so +undistinguishable in the chronology of their first blending, so widely +apart in the moral order of their succession. + +The subject of the catacombs and the early inscriptions on Christian +graves is one so widely known and so copiously illustrated by many learned +works, both English and foreign, that it would be superfluous to say much +about it. Yet Cardinal Wiseman is so popular an author, and _Fabiola_ so +standard a novel, that we may be forgiven for drawing a little on +treasures so temptingly ready to our hand. There is in the first chapter +of the second part of _Fabiola_ an interesting reference to the old +established craft of the _fossores_, or excavators of the Christian +cemeteries. Cardinal Wiseman says that some modern antiquarians have based +upon the assertion of an anonymous writer, contemporary with S. Jerome, an +erroneous theory of the _fossores_ having formed a lesser ecclesiastical +order in the primitive church, like a _lector_ or reader. "But," he adds, +"although this opinion is untenable, it is extremely probable that the +duties of this office were in the hands of persons appointed and +recognized by ecclesiastical authority.... It was not a cemetery or +necropolis company which made a speculation of burying the dead, but +rather a pious and recognized confraternity, which was associated for the +purpose." Father Marchi, the great Jesuit authority on ancient +subterranean Rome, says that a series of interesting inscriptions, found +in the cemetery of S. Agnes, proves that this occupation was continued in +particular families, grandfather, father, and sons having carried it on in +the same place. The _fossores_ also transacted such rare bargains as were +known in those days of simplicity and brotherly love, when wealthy +Christians willingly made compensation for the privilege of being buried +near a martyr's tomb. Such an arrangement is commemorated in an early +Christian inscription preserved in the Capitol. The translation runs thus: +"This is the grave for two bodies, bought by Artemisius, and the price was +given to the _fossor_ Hilarus--that is ... (the number, being in cipher, is +unintelligible.) In the presence of Severus the _fossor_, and Laurentius." + +Cardinal Wiseman, jealous of Christian traditions, particularly notes that +the theory of the subterranean crypts, now called catacombs, ever having +been heathen excavations for the extraction of sand, has been disproved by +Marchi's careful and scientific examination. He then describes the manner +of entombment used in these underground cemeteries: "Their walls as well +as the sides of the staircases are honeycombed with graves, that is, rows +of excavations, large and small, of sufficient length to admit a human +body, from a child to a full-grown man.... They are evidently made to +measure, and it is probable that the body was lying by the side of the +grave while this was being dug. When the corpse was laid in its narrow +cell, the front was hermetically closed either by a marble-slab, or more +frequently by several broad tiles put edgeways in a groove or mortise, cut +for them in the rock, and cemented all round. The inscription was cut upon +the marble, or scratched in the wet mortar.... Two principles, as old as +Christianity, regulate this mode of burial. The first is the manner of +Christ's entombment; he was laid in a grave in a cavern, wrapped up in +linen, embalmed with spices, and a stone, sealed up, closed his sepulchre. +As S. Paul so often proposes him for the model of our resurrection, and +speaks of our being buried with him in baptism, it was natural for his +disciples to wish to be buried after his example, so as to be ready to +rise with him. This lying in wait for the resurrection was the second +thought that regulated the formation of these cemeteries. Every expression +connected with them alluded to the rising again. The word to _bury_ is +unknown in Christian inscriptions: '_deposited_ in peace,' 'the +_deposition_ of ...' are the expressions used; that is, the dead are left +there for a time, till called for again, as a pledge or precious thing, +entrusted to faithful but temporary keeping. The very name of cemetery +suggests that it is only a place where many lie, as in a dormitory, +slumbering for a while, till dawn come and the trumpet's sound awake them. +Hence the grave is only called the 'place,' or more technically 'the small +home,'(120) of the dead in Christ." + +The old Teutonic _Gottes-Acker_, the acre or field of God, denotes the +same eminently Christian idea; the dead are thus likened to the seed +hidden in the ground for a while, to ripen into a glorious spiritual +harvest when the last call shall be heard. We have read somewhere, in an +English novel whose name has escaped our memory, the same beautiful idea +most poetically expressed. It was something to this effect: "We put up a +stone at the head of a grave, just as we write labels in the spring-time +for the seeds we put into the earth, that we may remember what glorious +flower is to spring from the little gray, hidden handful that seems so +insignificant just now"--a Catholic thought found astray in a book that had +nothing Catholic about it save its beauty and poetry; for beauty is a ray +of truth, and truth is one and Catholic. One other remark is worth +remembering about the early Christian inscriptions on the tombs of the +departed. There is generally some anxiety to preserve a record of the +exact date of a person's death, and, in modern days, if it happened that +there was no room for both the day and the year, no doubt the _day_, would +be left unnoticed, and the year carefully chronicled. "Yet," says Cardinal +Wiseman, "while so few ancient Christian inscriptions supply the year of +people's deaths, thousands give us the very day of it on which they died, +whether in the hopefulness of believers or in the assurance of martyrs. Of +both classes annual commemoration had to be made on the very day of their +departure, and accurate knowledge of this was necessary. Therefore it +alone was recorded." + +O ages of faith! when it was the ambition of Christians to be inscribed in +the Book of Life, instead of leaving names blazoned in gold in the annals +of an earthly empire! + +Prayers for the dead were in use among the primitive Christians, and in +one of the inscriptions mentioned by Cardinal Wiseman the following +reference to these prayers is found: "Christ God Almighty refresh thy +spirit in Christ." That this hallowed custom is akin to the natural +feelings of a loving heart is self-evident; the coldness of an "age of +philosophy" alone could doubt it. Well might it be called the age of +disorganization and not of philosophy (which is "love of wisdom"), for the +wisdom that seeks to pull down instead of building up is but questionable. +The disorganization of political society which we see at work through the +International and the Commune; the disorganization of moral society which +we behold every day increasing through the ease with which the marriage- +tie is dissolved, and the hold the state is claiming on children and even +infants; the disorganization of religious society which we find in the +ever-multiplying feuds of sects, like gangrene gradually eating away an +unsound body; these are all fitting companions to that most ruthless +severing of this world from the next which pretends to isolate the dead +from the spiritual help and sympathy of the living, and to dwarf in the +souls of men what even human laws commanded, or at least protected, +concerning their bodies. The want of our age is a want of heart; +heartlessness and callousness to the most sacred, the most _natural_ +feelings, is shown to a fearful extent among our modern mind-emancipators +and reformers. On the one hand, nature is held up as a god to which all +moral laws are to be subject, or, rather, before whose _fiat_ they are to +cease to exist, while, on the other, nature (in everything lawful, +touching, noble, generous) is told that she is a fool, and must learn to +subdue "childish" aspirations and outgrow "childish" beliefs! + +But the belief of a communication between the living and the departed is +not only a _natural_ one; it is also Biblical. S. Matthew speaks of the +middle state of souls when he mentions the strict account that will have +to be rendered of "every idle word."(121) S. Paul says that "every man's +work ... shall be tried in _fire_: and the fire shall try every man's work +_of what sort it is_. If any man's work burn, he shall suffer loss, but he +himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire."(122) S. Peter makes mention of +"the spirits in prison,"(123) and S. John, in the Apocalypse, implies a +state of probation when he says that "there shall not enter into it [the +New Jerusalem] anything defiled or that worketh abomination, or maketh a +lie."(124) In the Second Book of Machabees, one of the most national of +the Jewish records, and the most favorite and consolatory of the religious +books held by the Jews as infallible oracles, the whole doctrine of +purgatory and prayers for the departed is most plainly adverted to. + +After a great battle and victory, Judas Machabeus searches the bodies of +his slain warriors, and finds that some of them had appropriated heathen +votive offerings made to the idols whose temples they had burnt at Jamnia +a short time before. Upon this discovery, according to the sacred text, +which is here too precious a testimony to be condensed, he, "making a +gathering, sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for +sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and +religiously concerning the resurrection. (For if he had not hoped that +they that were slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous +and vain to pray for the dead.) And because he considered that they who +had fallen asleep with godliness, had great grace laid up for them. It is +therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may +be loosed from their sins."(125) + +It may not perhaps be generally known that, among the Jews, the custom of +praying for the dead exists, and has always existed uninterruptedly. Some +of the supplications are very beautiful, and we do not hesitate to give +them here, as an interesting corroboration of the assertions we have made +throughout. + +The chief prayers for the dead are contained in the "Kaddisch" for +mourners, which forms part of the evening as well as the morning service +for the Jewish Sabbath. Although the dead are not mentioned by name, it is +to them alone that the prayers apply, as we understand from persons of +that persuasion. The text is the following: + +"May our prayers be accepted with mercy and kindness; may the prayers and +supplications of the whole house of Israel be accepted in the presence of +their Father who is in heaven, and say ye Amen. [The congregation here +answer Amen.] May the fulness of peace from heaven with life be granted +unto us and to all Israel, and say ye Amen." "My help is from the Lord, +who made heaven and earth. May he who maketh peace in his high heavens +bestow peace on us and on all Israel. And say ye Amen." + +During these prayers, the mourners stand up and answer. Other invocations +mention "the soul of my father" or "mother," etc., as the case may be. In +the service for the dead read over the corpse, these words occur: "O Lord +our God, cause us to lie down in peace, and raise us up, O our King, to a +happy life. I laid me down fearless and slept; I awoke, for the Lord +sustained me." All through the Old Testament we constantly find "sleep" +used as a synonym for death. Scattered through the morning and evening +services of the Hebrew liturgy there are invocations, frequently repeated, +referring to the dead, such as these: "Thou, O Lord, art for ever +powerful; thou restorest life to the dead, and art mighty to save. Thou +art also faithful to revive the dead: blessed art thou, O Lord, who +revivest the dead." God is also said "to hold in his hands the souls of +the living and the dead," thus giving at least equal prominence to the +departed and those they have left in their place. The Jews believe and +hope that their prayers on earth benefit and refresh their lost brethren, +and pray daily for them. The bodies of the departed are plainly dressed in +a linen shroud without superfluous ornamentation, but many of the old +ceremonies and purifications enjoined in the old law are now dispensed +with. The old manner of burial was in a cave or spacious sepulchre in a +field or garden, and the body was wrapped in spices, which were often +burnt around it. The double cave of Mambre, bought for Sarah by Abraham, +stood at the end of a field, and the sepulchres of the kings were also in +a field. The garden where Our Lord was laid is another instance of the +universality of this custom. In the Second Book of Chronicles(126) we read +of King Asa that "they buried him in his own sepulchre which he had made +for himself in the city of David: and they laid him on his bed full of +spices and odoriferous ointments, which were made by the art of the +perfumers, and they burnt them over him with great pomp." This burning (of +spices) is often mentioned throughout Holy Writ. Rachel, says the Book of +Genesis,(127) was buried "in the highway" that led to Bethlehem, and Jacob +erected a pillar over her sepulchre; Samuel, "in his own house at +Ramatha"; and Saul, beneath an oak near the city of Jabes Galaad, the +inhabitants of which place provided for his burial, and fasted seven days +in sign of mourning for their sovereign. Joram, king of Juda, was punished +for his misdeeds by exclusion from the sepulchre of his fathers, "and the +people did not make a funeral for him according to the manner of burning +[spices], as they had done for his ancestors."(128) Ozias, being a leper, +a disease which came upon him in punishment for having usurped sacerdotal +functions, was buried "in the field" only "of the royal sepulchre." Thus +we see the immense importance attached to the place of burial under the +old Jewish dispensation, and how it was an eternal disgrace to be expelled +in death from the neighborhood of one's family and their hereditary place +of entombment. This feeling has continued very strong in most civilized +and in all savage races; the graves of their forefathers are even more +symbolical of home and fatherland to the wandering desert tribes of +different nations, than what we should call their hearths and firesides. +In later times, how often have we not seen gorgeous and imposing +buildings, especially cathedrals and abbeys, built over the shrine of a +dead king or bishop, canonized by that popular veneration whose last +expression was the public honor decreed them by the Roman Pontiff? In +places where these monuments are not dedicated to the sainted dead whose +shrines they guard, we often find them burdened with the condition of +Masses being perpetually offered within their walls for the soul of the +dead founder; others are memorial churches to friends or relations of the +founder. Public charities, doles of bread and money, annual distributions +of clothing, hospitals, schools, or municipal institutions, etc., spring +chiefly from the desire of the survivors to have their loved ones +remembered to all future ages, while sometimes a generous testator himself +will take this simple and practical means of recommending himself to the +prayers of unborn generations. Family names are perpetuated in remembrance +of the departed; family records are valuable only in proportion as they +embody a proof of longer or shorter descent from the distinguished dead. +There is no test of success or popularity so sure as that of death, and no +one can tell which of our living friends will be known to and loved by +future nations, and which other will be passed by in obscurity and +silence, until long after our exit and their own from this present life- +scene. _Real_ life is centred in the dead, it revolves around them, it +depends on them. They are the root of which we are the leaves and flowers. +The life of fame is theirs, while only the life of struggle is ours; they +are victors calmly bearing their palms, umpires gently encouraging their +successors, but we are only striving competitors, who know not and never +will know our fate till we have gone with them beyond the veil. + +Germany is, above all, the home of these beautiful traditions of an +unbroken communion between the souls who have left earth and those who +remain behind. _There_ are the churchyards most loved, and the +anniversaries of deaths most remembered, even among Protestants. It is a +custom in Germany to wear black and to keep the day holy every recurring +anniversary, were it twenty, forty, fifty years after the death of a +relative or beloved friend. The cemeteries are always blooming with every +flower of the season, the crosses or headstones always hung with wreaths +of immortelles. In Catholic German countries, such as Bavaria, the +festival of All Souls' is one of the most interesting, because the most +individual of the ecclesiastical year. We happened to be in Munich on one +of these occasions, and had been there for a week previous, visiting the +galleries and inspecting the art-manufactures for which that city is +world-famous. But rich as it is in such treasures, the hand of its old +King Louis--the grandfather of the present sovereign, and whom in his +retirement we have met at Nice some few years before his death--has effaced +much of its mediaeval stamp, and attempted to varnish it over with a +Renaissance coating very uncongenial to the northern character of its +people and the northern mistiness of its atmosphere. Here we have again +the wretched imitation in plaster of the marble Parthenon and Acropolis; +the cold stuccoed pillars looming like huge bleached skeletons through a +November fog, and yet supposed to represent the sun-tinted columns of +exquisite workmanship that rear themselves against the purple sky of +Greece; the vast desert-looking streets which, bordered by "Haussmann" +palaces, seem intended for _future_ rather than present habitation, and +each of which, if cut into a dozen equal parts, would furnish any capital +with twelve good-sized public squares; above all, a stuccoed church, +dazzlingly, painfully white, the _Theatiner-Kirche_, a sort of S. Paul's +(London) without the smoky coat thrown over it by the chimneys of the busy +city. Then, turning with relief to the little that is left of the old +town, we find a few quaint streets leading to the cathedral, a plain but +grand building, very fairly "restored" and adorned with the distinctive +Munich statues of angels and saints, which are now sold all over the +world, as the worthy substitutes of plaster-of-Paris images of the Bernini +type of sculpture. A very interesting old triptych stands over the altar, +with its strange medley of figures forming a striking and novel reredos. A +procession was slowing winding its way down the aisles as we entered the +cathedral one afternoon, and though the congregation was not numerous it +was very devout. A few comfortable-looking old houses and quiet streets +surround the cathedral, and form quite an oasis in the midst of the +modernized city. Indeed, the monotonous stretch of apparently uninhabited +mansions was really wearying to look at, and we began to think that King +Louis had built his town as if he expected its population to increase at a +_Chicagoan_ rate! It is true the season of fetes had not come, and, +according to the recognized phrase, "all the world" had left Munich for +the country villas and hunting-boxes in its neighborhood, but on the day +of All Saints, the vigil of All Souls, how magically the scene changed! +After Mass in the Royal Chapel, which, by the way, is beautifully +decorated with frescoes of mediaeval saints on a gilt background, we +started for the great "Gottes-Acker" (churchyard.) We had been told that +this was worth seeing, and so it proved. The desert seemed to have +blossomed like the rose. The road leading to the cemetery was crowded with +carriages, carts, horsemen, and foot passengers. Every one, especially +those on foot, carried wreaths of immortelles and small lanterns. The +carriages were mostly laden with wreaths. Every one looked cheerful, but +great quiet prevailed throughout the crowd. It seemed to us that until the +dead called for a visit, the living in Munich must have been well hidden, +so great were now the numbers that incumbered the hitherto lonely road. +All were going in the same direction, and once there the scene was almost +festive. Military bands (the best, we believe, next to the Austrian) were +stationed near the cemetery gates. The "Gottes-Acker" itself is an immense +square, the length being about twice the breadth of the inclosure. Round +the four sides runs a covered cloister, under which are all the graves, +monuments, and vaults of the more wealthy part of the Munich population. +Each of these was a perfect forest of evergreens and hot-house plants, +artistically heaped up around a vessel of holy water, from which any pious +passer-by was free to sprinkle the grave while repeating a prayer for its +occupant. The large square in the centre was crossed and recrossed by +narrow paths between the serried files of graves. Nearly all were +distinguished by a cross, of stone, marble, wood, or metal. To these the +wreaths and lamps were hung, and here and there a kneeling figure might be +seen. Within the covered cloister a dense crowd promenaded slowly, while +the bands played unceasingly, not always, however, appropriately. It was a +striking scene, the like of which we do not remember to have ever +witnessed elsewhere. At Innsbruck, in the Tyrol, the cemetery is similar +to this in construction and arrangement, though it is, of course, smaller +in size. Night fell gradually as we were admiring this peculiar expression +of national idiosyncrasy, but the crowd did not seem to grow less dense. +It was a remembrance worth carrying away from that old Munich whose +spirit, though outwardly imprisoned in a pseudo-classic shape, lives yet +in the simple Christian instincts of its laboring classes. At this time, +when it threatens to become another Wittenberg, have we not also seen the +unconscious and magnificent protest of its inveterately Catholic feelings +in the unique Passion Play, that worthily kept relic of the heroic ages of +faith and chivalry? Kings and philosophers cannot change the world as long +as peasants like those of Ammergau, and artisans such as work in the +Munich manufactories--that should not be degraded to comparison with the +materialistic establishments of Manchester or Sheffield--are yet to be +found bearing through the present times the banner of their forefathers' +undying traditions. There is more simple faith among the German people, +including also the Slavic and Hungarian races, than among some other +modern Christian nations, and no doubt there must be a hidden law of +gracious compensation in this fact, since the same country has been the +cradle and the teacher of almost every modern heresy and philosophical +(_sic_) aberration. No doubt the faith of the masses is intimately +connected with their wonderful love of home and fatherland, their domestic +instincts, their love of quiet family gatherings. All this easily leads to +great love and tenderness for the departed, and it reads almost more like +a German than a French saying, that "the dead are not the forgotten, but +only the absent."(129) Love for the dead and a reverent, prayerful +remembrance of them are as much bulwarks to the morality of the living, as +they are spiritual boons to the departed themselves. We would not speak +ill of an absent friend, or break our word with one who had gone on a long +journey; even a short earthly distance seems to make a pledge more sacred. +How much more when the distance is the immeasurable breadth of the valley +of the shadow of death! We all of us remember promises once made to those +who have fallen asleep in Christ: those promises will be guardian angels +to us, if we keep them; they will be so many drops of refreshing dew to +those who are perhaps suffering at this moment for the unfulfilled +promises once made by them in life. Shall we whose faith includes the +communion of saints as a vital dogma, and whose humble hope it must ever +be to become one of the church suffering after having done our weak share +in the cause of the church militant--shall we be no better for this belief +than are those who have it not? Let the dead be guides to us, while we are +helps to them; let us each remember that besides the angel we have at our +side, there is another spirit who rejoices or grieves for and with us--a +company of spirits perhaps, but seldom less than one. + +Mother or father, sister, brother, husband, wife, or child, that spirit +from its prison looks sadly and lovingly earthward, marking our every step +from its own patient haven of suffering sinlessness. No longer racked by +the personal fear of falling away, no longer haunted by the possibility of +temptation, it concentrates its loving anxiety on the soul whom it will +perchance precede to heaven, but on whom it is yet dependent; let us not +grieve it, let us not willingly or knowingly wound it, but rather let us +take heed that we fit ourselves to go and bear it company in the new and +glorious God's-Acre to which we hope to be called when that "which was +sown in mortality shall be raised in immortality, and that which was sown +in dishonor and weakness shall be raised in glory and in power." + + + + +Personal Recollections Of The Late President Juarez Of Mexico. + + + +I. The President In The Reception-Room. + + +We saw President Juarez for the first time in the fall of 1865. He was +then temporarily established with his government in the town of El Paso, +on the northern frontier of Chihuahua, and within almost a stone's throw +of American soil. Fort Bliss, Texas, then recently reoccupied by the Union +troops, was not more than ten minutes' distance from the Plaza of El Paso. + +The prospects of the Mexican Republic were not then very bright; the +treasury was almost exhausted, the government was barely on Mexican soil, +and on the American side of the Rio Grande it was generally looked upon as +a question of time when President Juarez would have to seek safety on our +own side of the boundary. It is needless to say that he would have been +received by the Americans of that region with right royal hospitality. + +American sympathy and material aid were looked for, and Americans were +very popular with all the followers of the Mexican president. + +Shortly after the arrival of President Juarez and his cabinet in El Paso, +we joined a party of American gentlemen who paid him a visit. The party +comprised, we think, nearly all the Americans of any standing about El +Paso. There were the American consul, the collector of customs, three or +four army officers from Fort Bliss, some local civil officials, and one or +two leading business men. + +President Juarez and his cabinet occupied a house on the Plaza--a large +building constructed in the usual Mexican fashion. On announcing ourselves +as a party of American citizens desirous of paying their respects to the +chief of a sister republic, we were immediately ushered into a room where +we found President Juarez with most of the members of his cabinet--notably +his successor Senor Lerdo de Tejada, then Secretary of State, and Senor +Yglesias, Secretary of the Treasury--now also named for the +presidency--rather a sinecure office at the time. + +We were presented in turn to the president by Senor Yglesias, the only +person present attached to the president who spoke English. President +Juarez spoke neither English nor French. He shook hands cordially with +each of us, and expressed through Senor Yglesias the very great pleasure +it gave him to receive our visit. We were sufficiently familiar with the +Pueblo type to recognize Juarez immediately on entering. + +President Juarez was low in stature, rather stout, but dignified, and at +the same time easy in his manners. The Pueblo Indian was marked in every +lineament of his face--the aquiline nose, the small bright black eyes, the +straight cut mouth showing no trace of redness in the lips, the coal-black +hair, the swarthy complexion. Yet he was, as it were, an Indian idealized; +his forehead was high, capacious, and the light of intellectual +cultivation illuminated his face. He was dressed in plain black. + +The secretary of state, Senor Lerdo de Tejada, is evidently, judged merely +from externals, a man of great intellectual ability. His skin is as white +as that of the fairest daughter of the Anglo-Saxon. A forehead, so high as +to seem almost a monstrosity, and of a marble whiteness, towered above a +face that gleamed with the glance of the eagle. + +Senor Yglesias was of a darker complexion than his colleague in the +cabinet. He seemed to be in rather indifferent health. The expression of +his face was remarkably gentle and pleasing. We have already said that he +acted as interpreter. He spoke English with a very marked accent, but with +great care and correctness. We happened to be seated next him on a sofa, +President Juarez being on his right. He told us that he learned to speak +English in the city of Chihuahua, and that he had never been a day in an +English-speaking country. + +Notwithstanding that President Juarez did not speak English, and the +necessity of an interpreter naturally causes some embarrassment, yet his +manners were so pleasant and affable that he placed us at our ease at +once. He spoke about our war, and asked with much interest about our great +military leaders, Generals Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan. He seemed to feel +some sympathy with Gen. McClellan. A very pleasant half-hour was spent in +conversation on these and kindred subjects. It was at length interrupted +by the entrance of a _peon_ bearing a tray with quite a generous number of +bottles of champagne on it. + +We were invited to partake of the Green Seal. We stood around the table, +President Juarez standing at the head. Toasts were drunk to the lasting +friendship of the two North American republics, to the independence of +Mexico, etc. The peon, who was not a very bright specimen of his tribe, +exerted himself to his utmost to open the bottles sufficiently fast. In +his tremulous hurry he got within point-blank range of the president, and +a peculiarly excited bottle going off prematurely, discharged about half +its contents into the president's shirt-bosom. Juarez looked at the poor +_peon_--whose swarthy face grew sickly pale, and who seemed about to sink +to the ground with terror and confusion--neither in sorrow nor in anger. He +took no notice whatever of the incident, but went on talking cheerfully as +before. Such an accident happening to most men would have been laughable +in the extreme. It did not seem to us to place Juarez in a ludicrous +position at all, his self-command was so perfect, his dignity so +thoroughly preserved. + +After all the patriotic toasts proper to the occasion had been drunk, we +took our leave. The president again shook hands with us, again expressed, +through Senor Yglesias, his gratification at meeting American citizens and +officers, and hoped that he should receive further visits from us. + +We departed very greatly prepossessed in favor of the Mexican president. +We agreed in thinking that there was a simplicity and honesty of purpose +about him which made him the best man for the difficult position of chief +magistrate of the struggling republic in her great hour of trial. + + + +II. The President In The Ball-Room. + + +Some time after the visit just described, President Juarez gave a ball in +honor of the anniversary of Mexican independence. We had the honor, in +common with some other Americans, of receiving an invitation to the ball, +which, of course, we accepted. + +There were four American ladies in our party--two the wives of infantry +officers stationed at Fort Bliss, the post surgeon's wife, and the wife of +one of the leading citizens of Franklin. We were all invited to pass the +night--or such portion of it as would remain after the close of the ball--at +the mansion of a lady, a native of El Paso, of American descent. + +We were bestowed in three or four vehicles, and forded the Rio Grande +successfully a little before dark. We found El Paso in festal array. The +cathedral was covered with shining lamps from foundation to steeple. The +Plaza was brilliantly illuminated, and crowds of both sexes were already +assembling for the grand open-air _baile_ of the _profanum vulgus_. Class +lines of demarcation are very sharply drawn in El Paso, and the _gente +fina_ alone were admissible to the president's ball. + +We dined at the Senora L----'s, where we had the pleasure of meeting several +Mexican officers of high rank. Among them were General Ruiz, the +Postmaster-General (another sinecurist just then), and other staff +officers, whose names we have forgotten. A little son of one of the +officers at Fort Bliss--a child of five or six, who spoke Spanish very +well, having passed nearly all his little life in New Mexico, only +remaining sufficiently long in New York to set all doubts at rest as to +his being born in the Empire State--became a very great favorite with the +Mexican officers. + +Between ten and eleven P.M. our vehicles were again in requisition, and +away we went to the ball. It was given in the spacious house of a wealthy +citizen, the front of which was brilliantly illuminated. A guard of +Mexican soldiers was posted in front of the house, and lined the long hall +leading to the ball-room. Their pieces were at order, and they saluted the +chief officers by striking the butt of their muskets against the ground. +They were dressed in gray jackets, like the undress of the New York +National Guard, white cross belts, white trousers, and a leather cap, +somewhat Hussar shape. + +We had the honor of giving an arm to one of the four American ladies on +entering. Arrived at the door of the ball-room, four white-vested and kid- +gloved Mexican gentlemen offered an arm each to the four American ladies, +bowing at and smiling most sweetly on us the while. At first, we were +disposed to resist "the deep damnation of this taking off." The ladies +hesitated and drew back. The situation would have become remarkably comic; +but Don Juan Z----, well-known to all Americans who visit El Paso, seeing +the critical state of affairs, came to us and whispered that it was the +_costumbre del pais_--the custom of the country. We submitted, but, we +fear, not with a good grace. By the way, we only saw our American ladies +at a distance for the rest of the evening. The Mexican gentlemen took +entire charge of them. Don Juan informed us that we were expected to take +our revenge among the senoras and senoritas. + +The ball-room was very tastefully arranged. The _placeta_, or open square +in the centre of all Mexican houses, on which all the rooms in the +building open, was roofed and floored for the ball-room. The window- +curtains were hung outside the window of the house; mirrors, paintings, +etc., were hung on the outer walls, making the illusion that you were +inside the house instead of outside of it, complete. American and Mexican +flags were festooned around the walls. The music, softly and sweetly +played, was placed in a side room, entirely out of sight. No braying +cornet flayed your ears, and no howling fiddler, calling out the figures +from a position dominating everything and everybody, gave you an _attaque +de nerfs_. The fiddlers would be heard, not seen. The waltz, the national +dance of Mexico, was, of course, the terpsichorean _piece de resistance_; +but a fair number of quadrilles were sprinkled through the programme, in +compliment to the Americans. + +We have seen many balls in the Empire City--some given under "most +fashionable auspices"--but we must in justice declare that we have seen +none which surpassed the Mexican President's ball. There may have been +more glare, more glitter, more diamonds, if you will, but there certainly +was not more good taste, more elegance and refinement, more genuine good- +breeding and gentlemanly and ladylike good-humor. There was no rushing, +steam-engine fashion, the length of the ball-room; knocking couples to the +right and left, and tearing dresses, without even an apology. The ladies +were richly but not gaudily dressed, and made no barbaric display of +golden ornaments, as their New Mexican sisters are wont to do on _baile_ +occasions. The gentlemen--except the army officers--wore the traditional +black dress-coat and pantaloons, with white vest and gloves, clothes and +gloves fitting admirably, for the _gente fina_ of El Paso got both from +Paris. The army officers were, of course, in full uniform, the American +uniform looking rather sombre compared with the red-leg top trousers, with +broad gold or silver stripes, and the magnificent gold-embroidered sashes +of the Mexican general and field officers. By the way, the lowest officer +in rank of the Mexicans in the ball-room was a colonel. The only captains +and lieutenants admitted were the Americans. Juarez' son--"the image of his +father"--though somewhat shorter in stature, in the undress uniform of a +second lieutenant of artillery was in the vestibule with the guard. + +The president, with his cabinet and staff, was already in the ball-room +when we arrived. After being dispossessed of our fair companions, we were +ushered to the portion of the room in which the president sat. We paid our +respects in turn, and were kindly and cordially welcomed. Juarez was +dressed in plain black, except his gloves, which, of course, were white. + +The male portion of the American party then broke ranks, and spread +themselves through the ball-room, enjoying themselves each after his +fashion; some in the fascinating "see-saw" of the Spanish dance, others in +the apartments off the ball-room where exhilaration of a different kind +was provided. + +We passed a very agreeable hour with Signor Prieto, a Mexican poet and +orator of distinction. Signor Prieto was then known as the "Henry Clay" of +Mexico. He spoke French very well. He told us with just pride that he +considered the highest recognition his efforts had received was the +translation of one of his poetical pieces by our American patriarch-poet, +William Cullen Bryant. + +Just before supper-time, an official came with President Juarez' +compliments, to say that President Juarez and the members of his cabinet +would take the American ladies in to supper, and requesting the American +gentlemen to take in Mexican ladies. We immediately sought our friend Don +Juan T----, and begged him to find us some Mexican lady who could talk +either English or French. He found compliance with our request impossible, +but gave into our charge the Senora S----, a magnificent beauty of the +Spanish type, with coal-black hair and large lustrous black Juno-like +eyes--_fendus en amande_. The other gentlemen of the American party were +soon provided with supper partners, and we began our march for the supper- +table, President Juarez taking in Mrs. Capt. O----; the secretary of state, +Senor Lerdo de Tejada, Mrs. Capt. B----; the secretary of the treasury, Mrs. +Dr. S----; and the secretary of war, Mrs. W----, of Texas. The first table was +for the president and cabinet, with the American party. The supper was +rather a solemn affair. It consisted of nine courses, though the courses +seemed as like each other as railway stations on the plains. All seemed to +be desiccated, and reminded us somewhat of what we had read about Chinese +feasts. When a course was served to every guest, the President looked down +the table to his right and bowed; he then looked to his left and bowed. +Then, and not before, knives and forks were observed, and the guests +attacked the viands. This repeated nine times was not calculated to impart +gaiety to the repast. It was slow, but ended at last, and we retired in +the same order in which we entered, making way for the ladies and +gentlemen of the second table. + +After the supper, President Juarez sat for over an hour with the American +ladies, chatting pleasantly with them in the simplest Spanish phrases he +could devise. Seeing him chatting away and laughing gaily, no one could +have imagined that he had the cares of a tottering government with an +empty treasury upon his shoulders. + +Capt. O---- asked us to go out with him and have a look at the great +_bronco_, the public fandango, on the Plaza. As we passed out through the +hall, the Mexican guard--now lying on their arms--jumped up and brought +their muskets to the ground with a crash to salute our companion, much to +his discomposure, as he wished to go out without attracting attention. + +The great fandango was a sight worth seeing. A leviathan Spanish dance +wound its way around and through the Plaza, filling to overflowing the +market-place, the sidewalks, and the arcades. Swarthy Mexicans with +immense sombreros, with cigarettes of corn-husks in their mouths, +abandoned themselves to the swaying movements of the slow waltz, their +dark-eyed partners--often partners in the cigarette as well as the +dance--now moving with a graceful languor, now dashing out with wild and +unrepressed vigor to the clattering of a thousand castanets. + +Unusual gambling facilities were to be found everywhere, of course. Cake +merchants, fried hot cakes in the open air, lemonade, _vino del pais_, +fresh _queso_, fruits, _puros_, were to be had for the paying. + +Having seen sufficient of the great unwashed fandango, we returned to the +ball-room. Our companion was again the object of another demonstration of +respect on the part of the guard. "I wish," said he, "those fellows would +go to sleep; this begins to be unpleasant." + +A waltz was in full gyration when we returned to the ball-room. We took +chairs and sat near the door chatting. Suddenly we became aware that some +one stood behind us, placing a hand on either chair. Looking round, we saw +that it was President Juarez. We immediately arose, but he insisted on our +being seated, and resumed his former attitude. He talked with us for half +an hour, in Spanish well adapted to our limited knowledge of the language, +and which we had no difficulty in understanding. + +During the evening, from time to time, we had received invitations from +the president to drink wine with him--invitations which, of course, we did +not refuse. Many patriotic toasts and sentiments were offered on both +sides. It must have been in one of those festive moments that an +enthusiastic gentleman of our party slapped the president on the back, +called him "Ben" (Juarez' Christian name was Benito), said he was "a +brick," and bade him "never say die" till he was dead! We were not a +witness to this scene. It was described to us by members of our party. + +Between two and three P.M. the president's party left the ball-room. +Shortly after, the American clans were gathered, we got our fair ones back +again, and set out for the hospitable dwelling of the Senora L----. + +There was plenty of bustle and activity there. It seemed to us that half +the people at the ball must have been guests of this house. All the rooms +opening on the large _placeta_ were turned into lodging-rooms. There was +hurrying to and fro with lights in hand, putting every one in his place. +Some people put themselves in other people's places. Notably our +enthusiastic friend, who had taken up his quarters in a room intended for +F---- and his new Spanish bride. He was found by the happy pair, just as +happy as they were, sleeping the sleep of the just. In the meantime, the +partner of his joys and sorrows sat solitary and alone in the room +intended for her and her spouse, on the other side of the _placeta_, +wondering at his absence and anxiously awaiting his return. This +complication, however, was settled by transferring the lady to the room in +which lay her sleeping lord, and bestowing the F----s in the room she had +occupied. + +After a good breakfast, we set out on our return to the Land of the Free, +forded the Rio Grande at about noon, under a September sun--no contemptible +luminary about latitude 32 deg., let us assure the reader. We sought our +_casas_, darkened up our respective rooms, and shut the venetian blinds to +keep out the flies, and having turned night into day, proceeded to turn +day into night. + + + + +New Publications. + + + ELEMENTS OF LOGIC. Designed as a Manual of Instruction. By Henry + Coppee, LL.D., President of the Lehigh University. Revised + edition. Philadelphia: E. H. Butler & Co. 1872. + + +President Coppee has carefully excluded from this edition of his Logic +everything which could give offence to a Catholic. The main part of the +work, treating of formal logic, is of course substantially the same with +other treatises of this kind, and is written in a clear, simple style, +well adapted to an elementary text-book. But here our approbation must +cease. The history of logic is altogether defective. The author advocates +the doctrine derived by Hamilton from Kant, that our rational knowledge is +merely "conditioned," which is pure scepticism, and confounds Christian +philosophy with theology, which is effectually to subvert both sciences. +Teachers may find some useful assistance from this book in explaining the +laws of thought; but it is altogether unfit to be placed in the hands of +Catholic pupils. We reiterate the desire we have so often expressed, that +some competent person would translate one of our standard Latin text-books +of logic, for the use of pupils and teachers who cannot read them in the +original language. + + + THE POCKET PRAYER-BOOK. Compiled from approved sources. New York: + The Catholic Publication Society. 1872. + + +This is certainly the most complete little manual we have seen, and, +although it contains 650 pages, is small enough for the pocket; and gives, +among other things, the three indulgenced litanies, the entire Mass in +Latin and English, Vespers, and the Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays +throughout the year. The type, moreover, is singularly large and good. +Thus the book supplies a long-felt want; and ought to become very popular +amongst Catholic men, for whose especial benefit it was compiled. There is +another edition without the Epistles and Gospels, which fits the vest +pocket, and can therefore be made emphatically a daily companion. + + + ENGLAND AND ROME. By the Rev. W. Waterworth, S.J. London: Burns & + Lambert. 1854. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication + Society.) + + A COMMENTARY BY WRITERS OF THE FIRST FIVE CENTURIES ON THE PLACE + OF S. PETER IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, AND THAT OF S. PETER'S + SUCCESSORS IN THE CHURCH. By the Very Rev. J. Waterworth, D.D., + Provost of Nottingham. London: Richardson. 1871. (New York: Sold + by The Catholic Publication Society.) + + +The reader will perceive, if he takes notice of the titles of these two +books, that they are by two different authors, both bearing the name of +Waterworth. They are brothers, and one of the two is a Jesuit, the other +being a dignitary of the Catholic Church in England. The work whose title +stands first in order at the head of this notice, is not a recent +publication, having been issued as long ago as 1854. We think it, however, +not unsuitable to recall attention to it as a work specially useful at the +present time. About one-third of the volume is taken up with a very solid +and scholarly disquisition on the general topic of the Papal supremacy. +Its principal and special topic is, however, the relation of the church in +England to the Holy See from the year 179 to the epoch of the schism of +Henry VIII. It is handled with great learning and ability, and the +sophisms and perversions of those disingenuous or ill-informed +controversialists who pretend to establish the original independence of +the British Church are scattered to the winds. + +The work of Dr. Waterworth, the Provost of Nottingham, was published last +year. This learned divine is the author of the celebrated treatise +entitled _The Faith of Catholics_, and is well known as a most profound +and accurate patristic scholar. The present volume was prepared by him for +the press before the publication of the Decrees of the Vatican Council; +but its issue having been delayed by an accident, the author took the +opportunity of making a re-examination of its contents, with special +reference to the objections raised by Dr. Doellinger, and of adding some +new prefatory remarks. The result of his revision did not suggest to him +the necessity of any alteration whatever, or show anything in the cavils +of the petulant old gentleman, who has so completely stultified himself by +retracting the deliberate convictions of his better days, worthy of any +special refutation. + +As for Dr. Waterworth's work itself, it is quite unique in English +Catholic literature, and different from the other works on the Papal +supremacy, able and learned as these are, which we have hitherto +possessed. It is literally an exhaustive collection of all the sayings of +fathers and councils on the two topics discussed, during the first five +centuries of the Christian era, by one who has mastered the whole of this +vast body of literature. One hundred and seven fathers and councils are +quoted, and copious tables at the end of the volume place the whole array +of authorities in a convenient order for reference under the eye of the +reader. It is needless for us to expatiate on the value of such a work, or +to say anything more to recommend it to the attention of all who wish to +study this great subject of the Papal supremacy. + + + THE TROUBLES OF OUR CATHOLIC FOREFATHERS, RELATED BY THEMSELVES. + First Series. Edited by John Morris, Priest of the Society of + Jesus. London: Burns & Oates. 1872. (New York: Sold by The + Catholic Publication Society.) + + +One of the outward and by no means the least significant signs of the +revival of religion in England is the appearance in rapid succession of a +most useful class of books, having for their main object the vindication +of the character and constancy of the Catholics of that country during and +subsequent to the so-called Reformation. We have had occasion elsewhere to +refer to Father Morris' work on the _Condition of Catholics under James +I._ The book before us may be considered a continuation of that +exceedingly interesting contribution to history, and, as it is the first +of a series, we may expect at an early day others equally valuable from +the same painstaking and indefatigable student. + +Until lately, with very few exceptions, historical works relating to Great +Britain have been the composition of prejudiced, anti-Catholic writers, +each in his turn guilty of the same omissions while servilely copying the +misrepresentations of his predecessors; so that the public mind has at +length become impressed with the conviction that, when the tocsin of +rebellion against God's law was sounded by Henry Tudor, the people of the +whole of his dominions arose in hostile opposition to the authority of the +church. None but a critical few, familiar with foreign contemporary +authorities, were aware that, while the nobles who hungered for the spoils +of convents and monasteries, and the suppliant courtiers, lay and +ecclesiastical, whose fortunes depended upon the smiles of the sovereign, +basely bowed down before the brutal passions of Henry and Elizabeth, the +mass of the people, particularly the educated and moral middle class, held +firmly to the faith, braving persecution, poverty, imprisonment, and even +death, in defence of Catholicity. England, in fact, can count her +thousands of uncanonized martyrs, priests and laity, men and women, who, +in common with their co-religionists of the Continent, fell victims to the +lust, cupidity, and inhumanity of the "Reformers." Some of their most +glorious achievements will probably never be recorded in this world, but +there is every hope that, through the exertions of such conscientious +searchers as this learned Jesuit, a flood of light will be thrown ere long +on the darkest, but not least edifying, days of the Christian Church in +England. Heretofore this noble work has been delayed for various reasons. +Contemporary documents were either in the hands of the Government, or were +scattered among many convents and private libraries, and from long neglect +had become almost forgotten; and it required so much industry as well as +knowledge to search for and utilize them, that until lately no one was +found equal to the task. Besides, the English Catholics of the last +generation were so few and so lukewarm that it was difficult to find a +publisher willing to risk his money and his reputation in bringing out +books that were considered neither profitable nor politic. A change has +come over the spirit of their dream, as the appearance of late of so many +Catholic works, well printed and handsomely bound, from some of the first +publishing houses in Europe, amply testifies; and the ancient faith is +fast regaining its power in what, for three centuries, has been considered +the stronghold of dissent. While of primary interest to English readers, +works of this character will also have peculiar attractions for Americans, +many of whom by blood and affinity are as much heirs to the virtues and +courage of the British Catholics of the XVIth and XVIIth centuries as +those born on that soil. No historical library in our language would be +complete without such works as those of F. Morris, containing as they do +original, authentic documents which hitherto have never appeared in print, +in whole or in part. Such documents, carefully annotated, and modernized +only as regards their obsolete orthography, are the true materials of +history, worth an infinity of commentaries and second and third hand +statements filtrated through the minds of ignorant or partial writers. + +The present volume contains the memoirs of Mother Margaret Clement; a +sketch of the history of the Monasteries of SS. Ursula and Monica at +Louvain; an account of the dissolution of the Carthusian Monastery of the +Charter House, London, and the execution of several of its monks, in the +reign of Henry VIII.; a detailed narrative of the imprisonment of Francis +Tregian for sixteen years; some additional particulars relating to the +missions of Fathers Tesimond and Blount; the trial of the Rev. Cuthbert +Clapton, chaplain to the Venetian ambassador, as related by himself, and +the correspondence of that official with his government from A.D. 1638 to +1643; with several interesting details of the sufferings and persecution +of some noble Catholic families. These documents were procured in various +places--in the Public Record Office; S. Mary's College, Ascott; Stonyhurst; +the Archives de l'Etat, Brussels; S. Augustine's Priory, Abbotsleigh; +Archives of the Archbishop of Westminster, and in numerous private MS. +collections; each original being preceded by a short but comprehensive +introduction from the pen of the learned editor. + + + PETERS' CATHOLIC CLASS BOOK: A Collection of copyright Songs, + Duets, Trios, and Choruses, etc., etc. Compiled and arranged by + William Dressler. New York: J. L. Peters. + + +The first half of this work is a reproduction of ballads of sentiment of +no special merit, issued, as the foot-notes ingeniously advertise to the +purchaser, "in sheet-music form, with lithograph title-page," by the +publisher. The latter half is chiefly a reprint of so-called religious +songs which persistently return to us under one or another guise in +publications of this class, like poor relations, and with as hearty a +welcome as such visitors proverbially receive. + +THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY has fixed upon the 5th of November as the +publication day of _The Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac_ for 1873: +over 35,000 copies have already been ordered by the different booksellers. +The Society has just published an edition of _The Little Manual of +Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and Spiritual Bouquet_, formerly +published by John P. Walsh, of Cincinnati; and will soon issue in book- +form _Fleurange_, by Mrs. Craven; Col. Meline's translation of _Hubner's +Life of Sixtus V.; Myrrha Lake, or Into the Light of Catholicity. All- +Hallow Eve and Unconvicted_ will appear early in November. Canon Oakeley's +work on _Catholic Worship_ is in press, and will be published uniform with +his excellent treatise on _The Mass_. + + + + + +THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XVI., NO. 93.--DECEMBER, 1872. + + + + +The Spirit Of Protestantism. + + +Recent events in Europe, particularly in Prussia and Italy, have done much +to awaken the attention of thinking men in this country to the true spirit +of what is known as Protestantism. While they have once more presented to +our view humiliating spectacles of human weakness, injustice and downright +tyranny under the guise and in the sacred names of religion and liberty, +they have confirmed with remarkable force all that has been alleged +against the spirit that actuates and has always governed the enemies of +the Catholic Church. + +When the revolt against Catholic doctrine and the spiritual authority of +the See of Rome was first inaugurated in the XVIth century under the +banner of liberty of conscience and freedom of thought, it was asserted by +those who then upheld the ancient faith that these were specious pretexts +invented to cover ulterior designs, which, by giving full scope to the +worst passions of our nature, would inevitably fix in the minds and in the +hearts of mankind a moral slavery more debasing, and a servitude more +irradicable, than even the most astute pagans of ancient times ever +dreamed of; that dissent from the dogmas and discipline of the universal +church did not in itself constitute a creed, but simply the negation of +all Christian truth, and that the right of private judgment in matters of +faith meant in reality the right, when seconded by the power, to pull down +and destroy, to persecute and proscribe, to desecrate and desolate the +Christian temples and charitable institutions which pious hands had reared +and richly endowed throughout Europe. How sadly prophetic were the +sagacious champions of true liberty and divine authority, the history of +the last three centuries fully attests. + +Whoever has studied the career of modern civilization, either in the +detached records of nations and dynasties, or by following the course of +the church herself from her foundation to the present day, cannot fail to +discover that the advance of Europe from the epoch of the disruption of +the Roman Empire until the commencement of the XVIth century was a steady, +constant, and rapid march towards true civil polity and enlightenment; +frequently checked, it is true, by wars and local schisms, but ever +flowing onward in an irresistible and majestic flood. + +From the barbarism and chaos incident to the disappearance of the central +authority of the empire, Europe emerged into the preparatory condition of +feudalism, at that time another name for order; and, through this state of +order, the first necessity of freedom, she was fast acquiring that second +essential element of political excellence--liberty. Already the humble +peasants of Helvetia were as free as the air of their romantic mountains; +Italy was dotted with republics; the Spanish peninsula was ruled more by +its cortes than by its sovereigns; France had her several "estates"; +Poland her elective monarchy; and Germany and the North were fast becoming +imbued with liberal and constitutional ideas; England, the last to adopt +the feudal system, had by degrees abrogated its slavish restraints and +commercial restrictions, and, with justice, boasted of her great charters +and independent parliaments; while over all a species of international law +was established, the chief executive of which sat in the chair of S. +Peter, before whose moral power warriors sheathed their swords and crowned +kings bowed their heads in submission. Municipalities, the germs of which +had first clustered around the monasteries, had become numerous and +powerful enough to defy and, on occasion, to curb the power of the feudal +nobles, and, under the protection of the guilds, the mechanical arts had +acquired a degree of perfection fully equal if not superior to that of our +own time. Those workers in wool, cotton, and silk, stone, metal, and wood, +have left us lasting monuments of their skill not only in the productions +of the looms of Flanders and Italy, and the forges of Spain and England, +but, better still, in the multiplicity of magnificent cathedrals and +basilicas, in the contemplation of which the artisan of this generation, +with all his supposed advantages, is lost in silent admiration. Poetry, +painting, architecture, and sculpture, the four highest developments of +creative genius, may be said to have reached, at the period immediately +anterior to the Reformation, the acme of glory and greatness, never before +nor since excelled or even equalled by man; while the discovery of the art +of printing had given a new impetus to literature, and commerce spread her +white wings in the Indian Ocean and along the shores of the New World. + +Now, all these beneficent results were directly and indirectly the work of +the Catholic Church. From the details of ordinary life to the more +profound schemes of state policy, her animating presence was felt, and her +influence cheerfully recognized and obeyed, for it was always exercised +for the benefit of humanity and the greater glory of God. From the forging +of the Toledo blade that flashed in the dazzled eyes of the Saracen, to +the rearing aloft of that wonder of the Christian and pagan world, S. +Peter's; from the humble Mechlin girl meshing a robe for a statue of the +Virgin, to Columbus exploring unknown seas in search of treasure to ransom +the holy shrines; from the poor friar teaching the child of the degraded +_villein_, to Archbishop Langdon framing _Magna Charta_; from the +enfranchisement of a serf, to the organization of the crusades, there was +no step in human progress that was not inspired and directed by the church +for the wisest and most exalted purposes. Guided by the spirit of +religion, the amount of solid happiness, simple virtue, and rational +liberty enjoyed by the people of Europe at the opening of the XVIth +century was greater, far greater, than their descendants possess at the +present time, after nearly four hundred years' experience, and countless +attempts at religious, social, and political revolutions. + +Yet, under the name of Reformation and greater liberty, this grand march +towards human perfection and eternal bliss was to be stayed, and even for +a time turned backwards, so that morally and politically Christendom has +not yet, nor is it likely for a long time, to recover from the shock which +it experienced at the hands of the Protestant reformers, their aiders and +abettors. The motives which actuated these reactionists were neither new +nor doubtful. Under various names and pretences, bodies of fanatics or +knaves swayed by the same inducements had appeared from time to time in +different parts of the world, generally causing much local disturbance, +but always suppressed by the authority of the church or the strong arm of +the state. They were simply detached efforts on the part of the worst +portion of the population to throw off all spiritual restraint as well as +temporal authority, and, by being thus freed both from moral and civil +law, to give full scope to their passions, undeterred by either religious +or social considerations. The history of fanaticism, of the Albigenses, +the Fratricelli, and the Lollards, proves that the leaders in such +movements were invariably the enemies of existing civil authority, and +that profligacy and plunder were the lures by which they drew around them +their deluded followers. The "Reformation," as the last and greatest +rebellion is called, forms no exception to the rule. + +In the early part of the XVIth century it broke out in Germany under the +auspices of three or four Saxon ecclesiastics, principal among whom were +Luther and Melanchthon. The former schismatic, who was a preacher of some +eminence, commenced by inveighing against the abuse of indulgences, and by +rapid transitions ended by totally denying the authority of the church in +every point of doctrine and discipline. He bases man's salvation on faith +alone regardless of works, proclaimed the right of every individual to +make his own religion according as it seemed best to himself, and boldly +advocated the massacre of priests and bishops and the pillage of churches +and religious homes--the existence of all of which he declared to be +contrary to Holy Writ. "Now is the time," he wrote, at the commencement of +his crusade, "to destroy convents, abbeys, priories, and monasteries"; to +which advice he added a little later, "These priests, these Mass-mumblers, +deserve death as truly as a blasphemer who should curse God and his saints +in the public streets." A system of belief at once so convenient and so +conformable with the greatest license, so free from all moral +responsibility and so suggestive of rapine and spoliation, could not but +attract followers, and Luther became so popular with the more debased of +his countrymen and with the rapacious among the nobles, that rivals soon +sprang up, who, accepting his premises, quickly outstripped him in the +race of fanaticism. The Anabaptists under Muenzer, thinking that they also +had a right to private judgment, declared against infant baptism, demanded +a reorganization of society on what would now be called a socialistic +basis, and proceeded to put the heresiarch's theory into practice by +overrunning the fairest provinces of Germany with fire and sword, +destroying alike feudal castles and Catholic churches, and slaughtering +with unheard-of barbarity every one who opposed them, whether layman or +cleric. + +This practical commentary on the new doctrine affrighted even its founder, +so he hastened to implore the interposition of his friends among the +German nobility. Accordingly, Philip of Hesse, in 1625, marched an army +against them, and, meeting their main body under Muenzer, a quondam friend +and pupil of Luther, at Muelhausen, cut them to pieces and subsequently +hanged their leader. About thirty thousand peasants are stated to have +been slaughtered on this occasion, when the new Reformation may be said to +have been baptized, and the right of private judgment according to Luther +fully vindicated. Nearly at the same time another scene of even greater +barbarity was enacted at the other extremity of the Continent. Attracted +by reports of rich spoil to be obtained in Italy during the wars of the +emperor and the French king for the possession of that lovely but +unfortunate country, sixteen thousand German Lutheran mercenaries crossed +the Alps and joined the forces of Constable de Bourbon, himself a traitor +in arms against his country. Under the command of that gifted apostate, +they marched on Rome, and, though their leader fell in the attack, the +city was captured. Had he survived, the fate of the Eternal City might +have been sad enough, but, unrestrained by superior authority, the conduct +of the victors was simply diabolical. For weeks and months the city was +given over to plunder, and the inhabitants to every species of outrage by +those wretches, who, true to their master and his teachings, even went to +the extent, in mockery of the church, to formally suspend Clement VII., +and elect in his stead their new apostle. How Luther must have chuckled at +the news! + + + "Never perhaps, in the history of the world," says a distinguished + historian, "had a greater capital been given up to a more + atrocious abuse of victory; never had a powerful army been made up + of more barbarous elements; never had the restraints of discipline + been more fearfully cast aside. It was not enough for these + rapacious plunderers to seize upon the rich stores of sacred and + profane wealth which the piety or industry of the people had + gathered into the capital of the Christian world; the wretched + inhabitants themselves became the victims of the fierce and brutal + soldiery; those who were suspected of having hidden their wealth + were put to the torture. Some were forced by these tortures to + sign promissory notes, and to drain the purses of their friends in + other countries. A great number of prelates fell under these + sufferings. Many others, having paid their ransom, and while + rejoicing to think themselves free from further attacks, were + obliged to redeem themselves again and died from grief or terror + caused by these acts of violence. The German troops were seen, + drunk at once with wine and blood, leading about bishops in full + pontifical attire, seated upon mules, or dragging cardinals + through the streets, loading them with blows and outrages. In + their eagerness for plunder, they broke in the doors of the + tabernacles and destroyed masterpieces of art. The Vatican library + was sacked; the public squares and churches of Rome were converted + into market-places, where the conquerors sold, as promiscuous + booty, the Roman ladies and horses; and these brutal excesses were + committed even in the basilicas of S. Peter and S. Paul, held by + Alaric as sacred asylums; the pillage which, under Genseric, had + lasted fourteen days, lasted now two months without + interruption."(130) + + +Having disposed of his rivals the Anabaptists and set afloat his anathemas +against the church, Luther proceeded systematically to disorganize society +and obstruct the efforts of the sovereign pontiff and the Catholic princes +to save Europe from the horrors of a Mahometan invasion, at that time most +imminent. He formed a league among the semi-independent German princes +favorable to his views, particularly on the matter of confiscation, and +the power he had denied to the pope and bishops of the church he assumed +to himself by forthwith creating a number of evangelical ministers to +preach the new gospel. In 1529, the members of this league, with other +nobles of the empire, were summoned by the Emperor Charles V. to a diet at +Spires to concert means for the general defence of Christendom against the +Turks, then threatening it by the way of Hungary. The Lutherans, taking +advantage of the critical condition of affairs, and not being particularly +adverse to the success of any movement that would destroy Christianity, +demanded the most unreasonable terms as the price of their active co- +operation. On the part of the emperor, it was proposed that all questions +of a religious nature should remain _in statu quo_ pending the struggle +against the infidels, and be submitted as soon as practicable thereafter +to a general or oecumenical council of the church, at which all parties +were to be represented. "The edict of Worms," they proposed, "shall be +observed in the states in which it has already been received. The others +shall be free to continue in the new doctrines until the meeting of the +next general council. However, to prevent all domestic troubles, no one +shall preach against the sacrament of the altar; the Mass shall not be +abolished; and no one shall be hindered from celebrating or hearing it." +But these concessions to heresy for the general good, this weak +recognition of an unlawful assumption of ecclesiastical and political +authority, were not what the reformers desired. Not even toleration or +equality would satisfy them. They wanted the right to persecute, to +eradicate by forcible means and as far as their power extended, every +vestige of Catholicity. They declared that in their opinion "the Mass is +an act of idolatry, condemned by a thousand passages of Sacred Scripture. +It is our duty and our right to overthrow the altars of Baal." Thus +_protesting_ their duty and right to persecute, they retired from the +diet, left the Mahometans, as far as they were concerned, free scope to +destroy Christianity wherever they pleased, and Lutheranism, or rebellion, +was henceforth known by the generic title of Protestantism. + +So far from Protestantism being, as popularly represented, the assertion +of liberty of conscience in religion, it originated in the denial of that +liberty, by asserting the right to persecute those who differed from them +in religion. + +From this time the Reformation under its new and more comprehensive name +made vast strides on the Continent, its path being everywhere marked by +the same spirit of fanaticism, sacrilege, and destruction of property +devoted to religion, learning, and charity; the insane dissensions of the +Catholic rulers granting it immunity, if not positive encouragement. +Geneva and part of Switzerland first embraced the gloomy doctrines of +Calvin, and made active war on the church; spreading into France, the +Netherlands, and the northern countries, their adoption by the ignorant +and venal was invariably followed by the greatest atrocities and the +wildest anarchy. Europe was shaken to its centre, and wars, the worst of +wars, because waged in the name of religion, desolated the entire +Continent for over a century with but pause enough to enable the +combatants to rest and recruit their strength. The destruction of life +during this period must have been immense, morals degenerated, industry +languished, and the principles of rational freedom, which had been +steadily gaining ground, were lost sight of in the clash of arms and the +angry conflict of contending systems. From this epoch we may date the rise +of modern Caesarism and revolutionary ferocity which at the present moment +are contending for supremacy in the Old World. + +But it was not continental nations alone that suffered from the blight of +this stupendous curse. Great Britain and Ireland soon experienced its +baleful influence. Henry VIII., in order to be able to divorce his lawful +wife and marry a mistress, cut himself loose from the See of Rome, and +became, by act of parliament, head of the church in his own dominions. +Henry was no mean reformer, as the record of his life testifies. He +married in succession six wives, two of whom he repudiated, two beheaded, +and his sudden demise alone prevented the execution of his surviving +consort, whose death-warrant had been signed by his royal and loving hand. +"For the glory of Almighty God and the honor of the realm," he seized upon +all the churches in England, as well as nearly four hundred religious +houses, and confiscated their property "for the benefit of the crown"--that +is, for his own use and that of his facile courtiers and parliament. With +the same pious purpose, we suppose, he ordered for execution, at different +times, besides his wives, a cardinal, two archbishops, eighteen bishops, +thirteen abbots, five hundred priors and monks, thirty-eight doctors, +twelve dukes and counts, one hundred and sixty-four noblemen of various +ranks, one hundred and twenty-four private citizens, and one hundred and +ten females. If all of those did not suffer the fate of the Charter-house +monks, Sir Thomas More, Bishop Fisher, and the Countess of Salisbury, it +was not his fault, but theirs who were ungrateful enough to fly their +country and perish in poverty and exile, thus robbing the Reformation in +England of half its glory. + +Under his daughter Elizabeth, nearly two hundred ecclesiastics are known +to have suffered for their faith on the scaffold, besides laymen, and the +multitude who died in prison: and if her successor, James I., does not +present as striking a record of his zeal, it was because there were very +few priests left to be hunted down, and very little Catholic property to +be confiscated. To do that light of the Reformation justice, wherever he +could catch a priest he hanged him, and, with a keenness eminently +national, wherever a penny could be squeezed out of a recusant Papist he +or his friends were sure to have it. Still he was only a gleaner in the +field so cleanly reaped by his predecessors; for even in unhappy Ireland +Elizabeth's captains had done their work so thoroughly that he had nothing +to seize upon or give away but the uninhabited and desolated lands. + +However, lest the traditions of the early fathers of his church--Luther, +Calvin, and the royal Henry--should be forgotten, and having no longer any +Catholics to persecute, he turned his attention to the Presbyterians, +Covenanters, and Puritans with some effect. The humanizing custom of +cropping the ears and slitting the noses of those dissenters became +greatly the fashion in this reign; for, though James acknowledged the +right of private judgment in the abstract, the exercise of the right was +found by his subjects to be a very dangerous pastime. The Puritans, who +also based their religion on the same right, improved on the lessons thus +taught; for, when in the next reign it became their turn to persecute and +punish, instead of cutting off the ears or the nose of his son and +successor, they took off the entire head, and gave to the English Church +its first and only martyr. Oliver Cromwell and the Long Parliament +interpreted "King James' Version" too literally, and of course, believing +in freedom of conscience, swept away episcopacy, kings, bishops, and all. +After the Restoration, the English Church was again in the ascendant. Then +they dug up the bones of the Puritan regicides, scattered them to the +winds, and ever since the followers of John Knox and the believers in the +_Westminster Catechism_ have held a very subordinate place under the feet +of "the church as by law established." + +If the fell spirit of Protestantism, which, as we have seen, was bloody +and cruel in its inception and growth, had been confined to the eastern +hemisphere, we, as Americans, feeling grateful to Providence for the +exemption, might have less cause of complaint against it. But +unfortunately it was not so. The virgin soil of the New World, from the +first consecrated to freedom, we are often told, was destined to be +polluted by the evil genius evoked by the apostate monk of Wittenberg. +Every breeze from the east that wafted hither an immigrant-ship bore on +its wings the deadly moral pestilence of intolerance and persecution. It +accompanied the Huguenots to the Carolinas, landed at Jamestown with the +royalists, went up the Delaware with the Swedes and Quakers, up the Hudson +with the Hollanders, and pervaded the hold of the _Mayflower_ from stem to +stern. Whatever physical, mental, and moral qualities those early +adventurers, of many lands and divers creeds, may have possessed, +Christian charity was certainly not of the number, and though they each +and all proclaimed the right of every one to be his own judge in matters +of religion--and most of them claimed to have suffered for conscience's +sake--not one had the consistency or the courage to tolerate, much less +protect, the expression of an opinion or the observance of a form of +worship differing from his own. So completely had the rancor of the +founders of Protestantism eaten up whatever of Christianity it retained of +the church's teaching, that each of the sects, having no common enemy to +prey upon, turned round, and, like hungry wolves, were ready to tear and +rend each other. With the exception of one small settlement, there were no +Catholics in the early colonies; but still, the Puritan found it as unsafe +to live in Virginia as the Episcopalian did in New England, while the non- +combatant Friend dared not risk his life in either locality. There was one +little bright spot in the darkened firmament that hung over the infant +settlements, and that was near the mouth of the St. Mary's, on the +Potomac. Here Lord Baltimore had planted a colony of Catholics which soon +showed signs of life and vigor, worshipping according to the old faith, +and proclaiming the doctrine of charity and religious toleration to all +Christians. But it was not long allowed to enjoy its honors in peace. Its +very existence was a reproach to its bigoted neighbors. Taking advantage +of its humane and equitable laws, Protestants of the various +denominations, persecuted in the other colonies, flocked to it as to a +city of refuge, abused its hospitality, when strong enough in numbers +changed its statutes, and actually commenced to persecute the very people +who had sheltered them. + +As the colonies grew in population and extent, we do not find that they +increased in equity or liberality. Many of them were even at the pains of +passing laws prohibiting the settlement of Catholics within their limits; +and now and then we hear of some solitary priest being executed or a group +of humble Catholics driven into further exile. The dawn of our Revolution +created some change in religious sentiment, but it was more on the surface +than in the heart. England, the oppressor, was the champion of +Protestantism; France, the ally, was as essentially Catholic; so it was +not considered politic to manifest too openly that bigotry of soul which +pervaded all classes of society in those days, though even in the +continental congress there were found some candid enough to object to +asking the assistance of Catholic Frenchmen to help them to wrest their +liberties from their Protestant enemy. These patriots preferred the +Hessians and their Lutheranism to Lafayette and Rochambaud. + +Our independence once gained by the efficient aid of the troops of the +eldest son of the church, a pause appears to have occurred in the +persecuting progress of the sects. Common decency required as much, but +commercial interest demanded it. Our finances were in a ruinous condition, +and it was only among the Catholic nations of Europe that we could look +for sympathy and support. Then the new states very generally repealed the +colonial penal laws, and finally the amended constitution prohibited the +interference of the general government in matters of religion. Still, +though we owe much to French sympathy and influence in placing us, as +Catholics, free and equal before the law, we owe more to those of our own +countrymen who actually had no religion at all. We would rather, for the +honor of human nature, that the benefits thus received had been derived +from another source; but it is an historical fact that the minds of many +of the leaders of the Revolution, before and during that struggle, had +become deeply imbued with the false philosophy then prevalent among the +intellectual classes in Europe, and, believing in no particular +revelation, dogma, or religion, they could see no reason why one party +calling itself Christian should ostracise another claiming the same +distinction. To their credit, be it said, our countrymen never carried +their theories to the same extent as their fellow-philosophers across the +Atlantic, and their impartiality, which we would fain hope to have been +sincere, took a direction in accord with the spirit of justice and +impartial legislation. + +If, then, our young Republic has not been disgraced by such penal +enactments against Catholics as have long disfigured the statute-books of +England, and which are yet in force in Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and +Norway, the Protestant sects, as such, deserve neither credit nor +gratitude. The active Protestants of that day--the ministers, deacons, and +politicians--were just as narrow-minded and as bigoted as were their +ancestors, and as would be their descendants if it were not for certain +good reasons best known to themselves. Witness the periodical outbursts of +Nativism or Know-Nothingism which have from time to time disgraced our +national character. These have been directed invariably against +Catholics--not against foreigners as such, for with a Protestant or even +infidel foreigner their promoters have never professed to find fault. The +occasional destruction of a convent, the burning of a church--and we have +had many so dealt with--or the mobbing of a priest may only show that +depravity exists in certain sections of the country, but the news of such +atrocities has been received with such ill-concealed +satisfaction--certainly with nothing like hearty condemnation--by the +clerical demagogues and the so-called religious press, that we are forced +into the conviction that to the absence of opportunity and power on their +part we alone owe our exemption from such villanies on a larger and better +organized system. + +We are told, in a tone of patronage, if not menace, that we ought to be +content as long as the Catholics of America are free and enjoy equality +under the law. We grant the freedom and equality, but only so far as the +letter, not the spirit, of the law is concerned. Let any one look at the +way our Catholic missions in the far West have been defrauded for the +benefit of Methodist and Baptist preachers of the Word and cheaters of the +Indians, and tell us are they free and equal? How many Catholic chaplains +are there in the army and navy, the bone and sinew of which are mainly +Catholics? For how many foreign consuls are we paying merely to act as +agents for the Board of Foreign Missions, Bible Societies, and Book +Concerns? How are our numerous state institutions--penitentiary, +reformatory, and eleemosynary--attended to in the interests of their +Catholic inmates? When these questions are satisfactorily answered, we +will be able to estimate the extent of the legal equality we possess. For +so much of freedom and equality as we actually enjoy, we are thankful. +Grateful not, however, to the Protestant sects, but to a benevolent +Providence who has vouchsafed it to us; and, under him, to our Catholic +predecessors who helped to found, and our co-religionists who have bravely +defended, our institutions, and who now stand ready to oppose with might +and main any attempt to infringe upon our liberties. + +But even as to the letter of the law we are not without just cause of +complaint. For instance, we object most emphatically to the present school +law of this state as unjust and inequitable in its provisions and method +of administration. The state has no right to prescribe how or what our +children shall be taught, and then make us pay for its so doing. We +Catholics are unanimously in favor of educating our own offspring +according to our conception of the demands of religion and morality, and, +as the artificial body called the state is a judge of neither, it is +manifestly incompetent to direct the training of our children. We are also +willing to pay, and are actually expending, large sums of money in this +good work; and while we are doing so, we hold it not just to tax us for +the support of schools we do not require. Our duty to the state and +society is performed when we teach our children to obey the laws of one +and respect the usages of the other, and, if parents and the ministers of +religion are unable to do this, mere officials and strangers certainly +cannot. However, if the state will insist on levying a school-tax, let it +in justice give us a pro rata share of the money, and let the Evangelical +Alliance of the sects take theirs and bring up their children in their own +way. We ask nothing for ourselves that we would not willingly see granted +to others, but, until one or other of these measures be adopted, we +maintain that a large class of the citizens of the United States is +deprived of one of its most vital and dearest religious rights. + +Then, again, look at the treatment meted out by the legislative +authorities to Catholic institutions, to our hospitals, foundling-asylums, +reformatories, and orphanages, which save annually to the state hundreds +of thousands of dollars, and are daily conferring on society incalculable +advantages. What begging, petitioning, and beseeching must we not resort +to, to get the least legislative favor for them, even to a bare act of +incorporation! For a quarter of a century or more, irresponsible bodies +under the names of the sects, or even in no names but their own, have been +fattening on the public money, our money, and no word of remonstrance has +been uttered; but, as soon as anything is asked for our institutions, the +cry of "sectarian appropriations" and "Romish designs" is immediately +raised and repeated along the line. Every petty bigot who misuses a pen +gets up a howl about the "Papists," and "Romanism the Rock Ahead," etc.; +the pigeon-holes of the _religious_ newspaper offices, and of newspapers +the contrary of religious, are ransacked for stale calumnies against the +church, and slanders over and over refuted are launched at the most gifted +and reputable of our citizens. This must all be changed before we can +consider that, as Catholics, we stand on an equality with non-Catholic +Americans, and before we are prepared to admit that Protestantism, +mollified by time and distance, has lost any of its pristine love of +persecution and proscription. We would prefer to live at peace with every +shade of Christians, but, if they will not let us, they must take the +responsibility. + +In stating our grievance in this manner, we do not address ourselves +specially to the sense of justice or fair play of the leaders of +Protestant opinion, but rather to the manhood and intelligence of our co- +religionists who, by a more determined effort, might easily remove the +evils of which we complain. We are more confirmed in this view by a recent +event which happened at the national capital. The force of well-regulated +public opinion will always be very powerful in this Republic, and we are +satisfied that the opposition very generally expressed by the Catholics of +the country to the scheme of compulsory education by the general +government, some time ago introduced into Congress by some distinguished +members, had a powerful effect in defeating, for a time at least, a +measure fraught with the greatest danger to our rights, and to the general +liberties of all the states.(131) + +We expect little from the Protestant press or pulpits. The manner in which +the revival of religious persecutions in Europe has been looked upon by +them precludes the faintest hope that they will listen to the appeals of +humanity or justice where their passions, prejudices, or interests are +concerned. Not very long since, the schismatic king of Sardinia wantonly +levied war on the most defenceless and venerable sovereign in the world, +and despoiled him of the larger half of his small dominions; yet there was +not a single Protestant voice heard among us in reprobation of the foul +act. Two years ago the same royal _filibustero_, with, if possible, less +pretence, and without any warning, stealthily advanced his army on the +Eternal City, took possession of its churches and their sacred furniture; +its convents, and turned them into barracks and stables; its treasures of +art and literature, and sold them to the highest bidder; its colleges and +schools, and drove out the students and poor children to wander on the +face of the earth. Then the Protestant churches and meeting-houses rang +with acclamations; and public assemblies were held by freedom-loving +American citizens to congratulate the modern vandal on his "victory" +over--justice, religion, and civilization. + +Rome has again been sacked, this time not by the rude Lutheran +_Landsknechte_, but by a more ruthless and more insidious foe, the +Garibaldini, the enemies of all forms of revealed religion, the men who +swear on the dagger and the bowl because they have no God to swear by. The +sovereign pontiff is virtually a prisoner in his Vatican; monks and +priests, passing along the streets to comfort the afflicted or administer +the sacraments to the dying, are set upon and slain at noon-day; weak and +delicately nurtured ladies are turned out of their peaceful retreats into +the highways, to be insulted and derided by a crowd of vagabonds gathered +from every quarter of Europe; the libraries, statuary, paintings, +castings, and all the treasures which made Rome the centre of Christian +art, and the depository of the world's store of classic literature, lie at +the mercy of a horde of ruffians, the very offscourings of Italian +society, called together to that devoted city by the hope of plunder and +the certainty of immunity for their crimes. All this and more is matter of +public notoriety, yet no word of execration, no wail of sorrow, at this +worse than vandalism rises up from a country that boasts its love of +civilization, its chivalry to women, its respect for sacred things, and +its patronage of the arts and letters. Why? They are only priests that are +assassinated, only helpless nuns that are jeered at, only Catholic +treasures that are stolen, shattered, or destroyed; right, justice, +liberty, and even ordinary humanity, can afford to suffer and be +forgotten, so that Catholicity be thereby weakened and checked in its +onward course. The force of bigotry can go no further. + +Late European mails bring us an account of a general election throughout +"United Italy" on the universal suffrage plan--that supposed panacea for +all political ills. The Catholics in certain portions of the country, it +seems, who had hitherto abstained from voting, resolved this time to take +part in the contest. As soon as this became known to the ministry, a +circular was sent to even the local government officials, mayors of +cities, magistrates, police captains, poll-clerks, returning officers, +etc., warning them of the danger, and threatening the severest penalties +if steps were not immediately taken to prevent the Catholics from electing +their candidates. The result was what might have been expected. The +officials have done their duty to the government, and now feel secure in +their places. The Catholics of one city, and that the largest, Naples, +did, however, despite of all official precautions to the contrary, carry +their election by an overwhelming majority; but, being only Catholic +voters, the election has been set aside without even the mockery of an +investigation or the least show of reason. Now, if such a thing had +occurred in France, or any other country governed under Catholic auspices, +we would be treated by nine-tenths of the press of this country to a +dissertation on the inability of the Latin nations to understand free +institutions, and the folly of expecting an ignorant and slavish multitude +to be able to appreciate the right of suffrage; but, as this gigantic +fraud was perpetrated by a government in direct hostility to the head of +the church, it is passed over in dignified silence. Not a syllable of +remonstrance is uttered by our freedom-shrieking friends--our Beechers, +Fultons, and Bellowses--who are so fond of interlarding their sermons with +political appeals against ballot-stuffing and intimidation at the polls. + +Let us turn for a moment to the present sad condition of Germany, the +cradle and the victim of religious dissent and doubt. Prussia emerged from +the late war not only the victor of France, but the conqueror of the +several independent states and cities of the late Germanic Confederation. +Her capacious maw has engulfed them all. Prince Bismarck, whose absolutist +tendencies have long been recognized, not content with his success in +creating an empire one and indivisible, desires to found a German church, +to be conducted on strictly military and autocratic principles. Having +disposed of a good many of the bodies, and taken possession of a large +share of the property of the subjects of the new empire, he is now anxious +to take care of their souls, and, whether they will or not, guide them in +the way of salvation and the Gospel--according to Bismarck. Obedience to +the central civil head in Berlin is to be the leading feature in his new +religious system, and the emperor, like his brother of Russia and the +Grand Lama, is to unite in himself absolute political and spiritual power, +tempered by Bismarck. + +A large portion of the Germans, having great doubts as to whether or not +they have such things as souls to be saved, feel philosophically +indifferent; the sects, being weak and without popular support, can make +little resistance to the encroachments of the state; but the Catholic +body, powerful not less from its intelligence and independence than from +its numbers, utterly refuses to recognize the right or the authority of +the chancellor to interfere in their spiritual affairs. That astute +statesman first tried to frighten them by abolishing the denominational +schools, then by patronizing a few dissatisfied professors who call +themselves "Old Catholics," but without avail; and now, like a genuine +follower of the teachings of Luther, he is resorting to expatriation and +persecution. He has already attacked the religious orders, and, as is +generally known, has procured a law to be passed expelling the Jesuits and +all religious in affiliation with them from the empire. It is not +pretended that the members of that illustrious body, individually or +collectively, have committed any offence against the state, nor is it even +proposed that a semblance of a trial should be granted them before +condemnation; but they have been guilty of opposing the designs of a +confirmed despot, and their removal from home, country, and the sphere of +their duties is forthwith decreed, and effected with all that mean +malignity which subordinates who hope for future favor so well know how to +exercise towards the victims of official oppression. The summary expulsion +of so many learned and studious men from their schools and colleges has +filled Europe with disgust and amazement; and even the more enlightened +class of German non-Catholics, who at least know the value of their +acquirements and wonderful skill in training youth, have denounced, in the +most forcible terms, an act so detrimental to the true interests of their +country. + +In England, a meeting of prominent Catholics was lately held, to protest, +in the name of religion and learning, against this exhibition of high- +handed authority; but Protestantism, true to its instincts, took the +alarm, and, lest the Prussian Government might in the slightest degree be +influenced, hastened to send an address to Berlin to assure Bismarck of +English sympathy and support. This precious document was signed by fifty- +seven persons, including the Marquis of Cholmondeley, the Bishops of +Worcester and Ripon, Lord Lawrence, Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Arthur Kinnaird, +the Archbishop of Armagh, the Moderators of the Established Church of +Scotland, of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, of the English +and Irish Presbyterian Churches, and the President and Secretary of the +Wesleyan Conference. The reply of Bismarck, who is not remarkable for his +"religiosity," is full of sanctimonious cant and what, under the +circumstances, seems to us very like grim irony: + + + "Most warmly do I thank you and the gentlemen who were co- + signatories of the address you were good enough to present to me + for this encouraging mark of approval. Your communication, sir, + possesses a greater value, coming as it does from a _country which + Europe has learnt for centuries to regard as the bulwark of civil + and religious liberty_. Rightly does the address estimate the + difficulties of the struggle which has been forced upon us + contrary both to the desire and expectation of the German + governments. It would be no light task for the state to preserve + religious peace and freedom of conscience, even were it not made + more difficult by the misuse of legitimate authority and by the + artificial disturbance of the minds of believers. I rejoice that I + agree with you on the fundamental principle that in a well-ordered + community every person and every creed should enjoy that measure + of liberty which is compatible both with the freedom of the + remainder, and also with the independence and safety of the + country. God will protect the German Empire in the struggle for + this principle, even against those enemies who falsely use his + holy name as a pretext for their hostility against our internal + peace; but it will be a source of rejoicing to every one of my + countrymen that in this contest Germany has met with the approval + of so numerous and influential a body of Englishmen." + + +Now, all this simply means that the man who controls the affairs of +Germany for the present is determined to destroy or to subject the +spiritual order to the state; to enforce compulsory education, and +prescribe forms of faith according to his ideas of what the "independence +and safety of the country" demand; the penalty of resistance, as in the +case of the Jesuits, being banishment, persecution, and perhaps worse, +should the necessities of the case, in his individual judgment, require +it. In this as in every other respect his word is all-powerful in the +empire. Still, we have yet to learn that one advocate of the higher law in +America, one enemy of the union of church and state, one stickler for the +rights of conscience, one believer in private judgment and religious +freedom, has raised his voice against this violation of every right said +to be so dear to the Protestants of the United States. Not one Protestant +has _protested_ against this assumption of absolute power over the minds +and consciences of forty millions of people. Why? The answer is simple: +the blow, in this instance, is aimed at Catholicity. Yes, the Republic is +silent when even monarchical England feels herself constrained to speak. +In a late number of the _Manchester Examiner_, a paper, we believe, +anything but favorable to Catholics on general grounds, we noticed a very +pertinent article on the address alluded to, of which the following is an +extract, and we recommend it to the serious consideration of the +conductors of the sectarian newspapers: + + + "We cannot understand why bishops and deans of the English Church + should go into ecstasies over a united Germany, or why it should + furnish a theme for the pious applause of Wesleyan presidents and + Presbyterian moderators. Political changes concern politicians and + political societies. When the kingdoms of this world adopt a + different principle of grouping, all who take an interest in the + political concerns of mankind may find in the altered arrangements + abundant reason for gratulation or for dismay, but theological + creeds and spiritual interests have no direct concern in the + matter. If the unity of Germany were likely to give a great + impetus to Roman Catholic doctrine, and aid the extension of Papal + authority, Mr. Kinnaird would hardly have found in it a subject of + thanksgiving, though, as a political change, it might have been + equally desirable. Is it Prince Bismarck's assumed hostility to + the dogma of papal infallibility, and the trenchant steps he has + taken with the Jesuits, that constitute the real merit of his + policy in Protestant eyes? Well, then, to begin with, it is not at + all clear that Prince Bismarck has any absolute aversion either to + papal infallibility or to the Jesuits. If the pope had only thrown + his influence into the scale of German unity, and employed it to + further the new political policy in Fatherland, he might have made + himself as infallible as he pleased without provoking any + hostility from Prince Bismarck. If the Jesuits, instead of + fighting against him, had fought for him, he would have made them + welcome to as much power as they liked to grasp. At present, he + finds them in his way, and he sends them off about their business; + but our Protestant friends must not make too sure of him. He has + fourteen millions of Catholics to govern, and he has no wish + whatever to be at variance with the Pope. Besides, the necessity + for getting rid of the Jesuits by depriving them of their civil + rights is a thing to be deplored; since, so far as it does not + spring from political considerations, the acts to which it leads + are acts of persecution, and entitled to our regret, if not to our + reprehension. We like the Jesuits just as little as the Germans + do, but we allow them to settle amongst us, feeling sure that the + law is strong enough to keep them in order. The thing really to be + deplored is that Germany cannot afford to do the same, and it is a + proper subject for commiseration rather than for eulogy." + + +We have said more than enough to convince the most supine Catholic that +Protestantism in this country has lost little if any of its anti-Christian +renown, and, if it cannot persecute here, it is in full sympathy with +those in Europe who can; that, while it has lost much of its capacity, it +has given up none of its desire for proscription. Split, as it is, into so +many antagonistic sects, and constantly losing large numbers who are +following out its teachings logically and gliding into indifferentism and +infidelity, it is comparatively powerless to work us new injuries; but it +is for us, by continued harmony, labor, and self-sacrifice, to put beyond +peradventure the question of our right to full and unqualified religious +liberty and perfect impartiality in the administration of the laws. + + + + +Fleurange. + + +By Mrs. Craven, Author Of "A Sister's Story." + +Translated From The French, With Permission. + + + +Part Third. The Banks Of The Neckar. + + +XLV. + + +Fleurange, as we have said, generally returned to Rosenheim in the +evening, but that day she left the princess several hours earlier than +usual, and it was not yet night when Clement, who was alone in a room on +the ground floor, absorbed in a large volume open before him, saw her +suddenly appear at an hour when he expected her the least. Perhaps, +instead of reading, he had really been dreaming over his cousin's gayety +which made him so sad the night before. At all events, when she appeared +so suddenly before him at this unusual hour, the same sensation contracted +his heart. There was, however, nothing in her appearance to justify his +presentiment. He feared in seeing Fleurange again he might behold traces +of the tears on her face which had probably succeeded her feverish and +causeless gayety. But now, if not smiling and gay as the evening before, +if, on the contrary, she looked serious and grave, her brow nevertheless +was radiant, and in her brilliant eyes it was easy to read an expression +of almost triumphant joy. All this by no means resembled the dejection +that usually follows a fit of factitious gayety. + +"You are alone!" said she immediately. "So much the better, Clement. I +have something to tell you--you first, before any one else. You will see," +she continued, throwing off her cloak, "that I am faithful to my promise. +I come to you now as to my brother and my best friend." + +As Clement looked at her and listened to this preamble, his heart +instinctively warned him more and more strongly a great trial was at hand +and he must prepare to suffer. But when, without much circumlocution, she +came to the point; when she clearly laid before him her design; when, with +a simplicity fearful from the strength of affection and devotedness it +revealed, she unfolded the plan of her projected immolation--an immolation +longed for, embraced, and decided upon--Clement literally felt his hair +stand on end and it seemed to him as if his reason was deserting him. + +What! lose one so dear, so precious, so adored!--lose her forever!--and in +what way?--To see her voluntarily embrace a destiny too horrible for the +imagination to contemplate. And wherefore?--wherefore?--Ah! the cry of +Othello now resounded in Clement's soul: "The cause--the cause!" Yes, the +cause of this sacrifice was what added so much bitterness to his pain--and +stung him so sharply, so cruelly, so intolerably, that, overpowered by the +unexpected disclosure, overcome by an emotion impossible to master, +Clement for a moment lost all control over himself. A smothered cry +escaped him, and, leaning his head on his clasped hands, the tears he +could not repress fell on the floor at his feet. + +Clement's firmness was so habitual that Fleurange was surprised at its +failing him now, and perhaps at the moment the hidden cause of this fit of +despair came over her like a momentary flash! But it was no time to dwell +on such a thought, and, besides, Clement did not give her the opportunity. +He rose and walked around the room in silence. His manly and courageous +heart sought to regain self-control, by an interior appeal to Him who +alone could save it from bursting and renew its failing strength. He soon +approached her, having triumphed over his emotion, and his first words +gave an explanation quiet natural. + +"Pardon me, Gabrielle," said he, "I beg you, for my inconceivable +weakness. But I could not indeed have any--any friendship whatever for you, +to consider calmly the frightful perspective you so abruptly unfolded to +me! You understand that, I imagine?" + +"Yes, I expected to see all the rest greatly terrified. But you, Clement--I +thought you capable of listening coolly to anything?" + +"Well, my dear cousin, you had, you see, too high an opinion of my +courage. However, I will endeavor to behave better in the future. Do not +deprive me of your confidence, that is all I ask." + +"Oh! no, far from that, for it is on you I rely to inform the rest of the +family of my resolution, and especially, and before any one else, your +mother. You may imagine, Clement, that I must have her consent, and her +blessing likewise. And you will plead my cause with her." + +Clement was silent for some moments. He was trying to command his voice, +but it still trembled as he said: "And when do you think of starting?" + +"In a week, if I can." + +"In a week!--That will be before the end of January! And have you thought +of the means of making such a journey at this season?" + +Fleurange hesitated. "I am quite well aware," said she, "that it will be +difficult for me to go alone." + +Clement hastily interrupted her in a terrified tone: "Alone!--I declare, +Gabrielle, it is impossible to listen to you coolly, though I know your +rash words must be taken seriously." + +"You must, however, take them so," said she, in the same tone of energetic +tenderness which had struck the Princess Catherine. "You must resign +yourself to see me set out alone, if there is no other means of joining +him." + +Oh! how willingly Clement would that moment have changed places with the +prisoner! He was looking at Fleurange with sorrowful admiration when she +resumed: "I thought it would not be difficult to find some one travelling +to Russia with whom I could make the journey." + +"Go with strangers on so long and tedious a journey! That is impossible, +Gabrielle, more impossible than the rest." + +"Ah!" cried Fleurange then, "with what confidence I would have had +recourse to the kind friend Heaven once sent me. I feel his loss more now +than ever." + +"You mean Doctor Leblanc?--Yes, I render justice to his memory. I am sure +his devotedness would not have failed you under these circumstances. But +you try my patience indeed, Gabrielle; you are too cruel." + +"Clement!--" + +"What! you need a friend who has the unpretending merit of being faithful, +devoted, capable of protecting you in so difficult a journey, and ready to +remain with you till--till he can follow you no longer! And at such a time +you do not deign even to remember you have a brother! And do you not see +that, in thinking of others, you overlook what is at once his privilege +and his duty?" + +"Clement! my dear Clement!" said Fleurange, with tearful surprise, "what +do you say? and what answer can I make? Assuredly I relied, and do rely, +on you as a brother, and yet I confess I should not have ventured to ask +you to make such a journey with me." + +Clement smiled bitterly. He could not help comparing what she was ready to +do for another with what she thought him incapable of doing for her. + +"Well, my cousin," said he coldly, "you were wrong; it seems to me it was +the very time to remember the promise you made me. As to me, I am merely +faithful to the engagement I made the same day, that is all." + +"God bless you, Clement!--bless and reward you!" said she, much affected. +"Yes, I acknowledge I was wrong. I should have known there was no kindness +on earth equal to yours." + +She held out her hand. He pressed it in his without saying a word, and +without looking at her; then they separated. Fleurange longed to be alone. +Clement went to fulfil her commission to his mother. + + +XLVI. + + +It was the professor's regular hour of repose in the latter part of the +morning. Everything was quiet around him. His wife was seated at her wheel +in the next room ready to answer the slightest call; for Madame Dornthal +knew how to handle the spindle, and, in accordance with a custom kept up +longer in Germany than anywhere else, had spun with her own hands the two +finest pieces of linen for her daughter's trousseau. She looked up as her +son entered, and saw by his face that something agitated him. She gave him +an inquiring look. + +"I wish to speak to you, mother," said he, in a low tone. "Let us go where +we can talk freely." + +Madame Dornthal stopped spinning, immediately rose, and, ordering a young +servant to take her place and call her if needed, she followed her son, +softly closing the door behind her. + +The opposite door, on the same corridor, opened into Clement's chamber. +They went there. Clement began to relate the conversation he had just had. +His first words were met by an exclamation of surprise, after which Madame +Dornthal listened without interrupting him. Her face by turns expressed +interest, pity, and admiration, as he spoke; and it was with tearful eyes +and a faltering voice she finally replied: + +"My consent and blessing, do you say? You ask them for her? Poor child! +how can I refuse my blessing to such devotedness! But my consent," she +continued gravely--"I cannot give that unconditionally." + +"What! mother," said Clement earnestly, "can you think of refusing to let +her go?" + +"No, dear Clement; but I can refuse to let you accompany her." + +Clement started. "Mother!" cried he with surprise. + +Madame Dornthal brushed back Clement's hair with her hand, and looked him +in the face, as we know she loved to do when moved to unusual tenderness +towards him, then slowly said: + +"Alone to St. Petersburg with Gabrielle! Have you reflected on this, +Clement?" + +Clement's face slightly flushed, but his eyes met his mother's with a +beautiful expression of candor and purity. "Mother," said he, "Gabrielle +looks upon me as a brother. As for me"--he hesitated a moment and turned +pale, but continued in a firm tone--"as for me, I regard her now as the +wife of another. I hope you do not think it possible I can ever forget +it!" + +Madame Dornthal's eyes filled with tears, and for a moment she looked at +her son silently. Never had she loved him so much! Never had she so fully +comprehended how worthy of affection he was! But the hour had come--perhaps +the only period in life when the most passionate maternal love is +powerless, and can do nothing, absolutely nothing, to comfort her +suffering child! + +She realized this; she felt she must respect her son's secret sorrow, and +repress the impulse of her own affection. Neither compassion nor sympathy +could be of any avail at such a time. She therefore refrained with the +sure instinct of a responsive heart, and Clement's agitation soon +subsided. He resumed in a calm tone: + +"If you think it indispensable on her account, or on account of others, +that a third person should go with us, then, mother, we will try to find +some one." + +"Ah!" said Madame Dornthal, "if a cherished and paramount obligation did +not retain me here, you would not have far to go for some one." + +Clement took his mother's hand and kissed it. "I thought so," said he, +smiling. Then he continued: "We shall find some one, you may be sure, if +necessary. For the moment we will leave it; we have something else to do." +And so to one after another the astonishing news was announced by him and +his mother: first to the professor, and then to all the other members of +the family. We will not describe their feelings individually, we will not +tell how many tears were shed, what a succession of emotions poor +Fleurange had to pass through that day. We will only say that, on the +whole, they were all much more affected than surprised. So pure an +atmosphere pervaded this unpretending household that everything beautiful +and noble was at once perceived and comprehended without difficulty. To +lose this charming sister, who had grown dearer and dearer, was too +painful to be concealed, but Madame Dornthal's daughters, like her, were +ready for any sacrifice. Therefore the young girl felt that they entered +into her feelings, and would regret, without blaming her. This sympathy +not only increased her affection for those she was to leave, but gave +great support to her courage. + +The only person who did not at first participate in this general heroism +was Mademoiselle Josephine. The knowledge of Fleurange's resolution threw +her into a state of stupefaction that would have been comical under any +other circumstances. Her eyes wandered from one to another with a +perplexed expression of consternation, as if imploring an explanation +which would enable her to comprehend so extraordinary a fact. When, at her +usual time, she joined the family circle in the evening, she was still +speechless. She took her place among them, knitting-work in hand, without +saying a word or looking at any one. + +The professor, cautiously informed of this new separation, heard it with +resignation--a feeling that had grown upon him with respect to everything, +in consequence of the increasing conviction that he had a long time to +suffer and should never be well. Fleurange was now sitting near him. +Madame Dornthal and her daughters were at work beside the table where sat +the silent Josephine. Clement alone sat apart, talking in a low tone with +his little sister on his knee. She was in her turn asking an explanation +which no one had thought of giving her. While he was replying in a +whisper, Frida's large eyes opened to their utmost extent, her little +mouth contracted, and a flood of tears inundated her face; then she threw +both her arms around her brother's neck, and said in broken accents: + +"O Clement! how can I do without her?--I love her so much!--I love her so +much!--" + +Clement hid his face in the child's long curls, pressed her in his arms, +and kissed her affectionately, but he could not succeed in calming her +till he promised that Gabrielle should return, and that he would bring her +back. At this assurance, the child's tears ceased to flow, she became +quiet, and remained serious and thoughtful in her brother's arms. + +All at once Mademoiselle Josephine broke her long silence: "Siberia is a +great way off, is it not?" said she. + +A general smile accompanied the reply to this question, which was the +first-fruit of the elderly maiden's prolonged deliberations. + +"And is Clement going to Siberia, also?" + +"No; he is going to St. Petersburg." + +"And how far is to St. Petersburg?" + +They replied by giving her a full account of the way Fleurange would take +to reach the end of her first journey. Being enlightened on this point, +mademoiselle relapsed into her former silence, but not for a long time. A +new idea suddenly occurred to her. She snatched off her glasses hastily. + +"But those two children cannot travel all alone!" she exclaimed. + +Madame Dornthal and Fleurange looked up, and Clement gave a start which +disturbed the sleep into which Frida had fallen: every one became +attentive. + +"No, certainly not," said the old lady earnestly. "How would that look, I +beg to know?--Excuse me, Clement, you know how I esteem and love you; but +then, my good friend, how old are you, pray? And as to Gabrielle, besides +her age (which is equally objectionable), she has, as I have told her a +thousand times, a dangerous face--a face which will not allow her to do a +great many things permissible to others not older than she--I tell you the +truth, and defy any one to deny it." + +No one attempted it, for the thought just expressed so characteristically +was the opinion of all. + +"Therefore," continued mademoiselle, "Gabrielle must be accompanied by +some respectable person. Once more pardon, Clement; this does not imply +you can be dispensed with (you are a protector not to be easily replaced); +but, my dear friend, _les convenances_ require she should have at the same +time an elderly and reliable companion. Now, I propose that this reliable +and elderly person be--myself!--" + +There was a general exclamation at these unexpected words. Every one spoke +at once, and for some moments no one could be heard. The good Mademoiselle +Josephine, however, comprehended at once that her proposition was +generally approved. But before any one uttered a word, before Clement even +had time to go and grasp her hand, Fleurange sprang forward, and, throwing +her arms around her old friend's neck, exclaimed: "Oh! how shall I thank +you?--May God reward you for all it is his will I should owe you!" + +This signified that she accepted her generous offer without any formality. +A few hours previous, her aunt, we know, had attached a condition to her +consent, and this was preoccupying Fleurange when her excellent old friend +suddenly decided the matter in so unexpected a way. + +From this moment, everything was plain to Mademoiselle Josephine. The +opportunity she so greatly desired had not been long delayed. In this +extraordinary phase of Gabrielle's life she found an opportunity of +manifesting the greatest devotedness, and of retarding still longer the +hour of separation from her beloved _protegee_. She felt comforted, and +was at once restored to her usual placid good humor. There remained, +however, more than one misconception about the whole arrangement which she +could not seem to clear up. + +"Why," said she an hour after, when, following her servant, who had come +for her with a lantern, she took Clement's arm to go home--"why cannot we +also go to Siberia with her, if not disagreeable to this M. le Comte, +whose name I can never pronounce?" + +Clement could not repress a smile at this, but there was too much +bitterness in it for him to wish to reply. She did not perceive it. She +was only thinking aloud without regard to him, and, following the course +of her reflections, she soon made another, which, far from exciting the +least temptation to smile, made Clement shudder from head to foot. + +"If," she said, after a few moments' silence--"if this Monsieur George is +only worthy of the sacrifice she is going to make for him!--If after +leaving us all--us who love her so much--she does not hereafter discover he +does not love her as much as we!" + + +XLVII. + + +Clement left Mademoiselle Josephine at her door, and hastened back, +struggling against the new tempest excited in his breast by the words he +had just heard. Hitherto, in consequence of the impressions left by his +meeting with Count George, and the prestige he had acquired in his eyes +from the very attachment of his cousin, Clement had always regarded him as +a superior being, to whom it merely seemed right, in the unpretending +simplicity of his heart, that his humble affection should be sacrificed. +To doubt him worthy of her--to fear that, beloved by her, he could cease to +love in return, had never occurred to him, and mademoiselle had quite +unwittingly thrust a warm blade into his bleeding heart. To admit such a +thought would absolutely shake the foundations of his devotion and add +despair to abnegation. He therefore repelled the thought with a kind of +terror, and by way of reassuring himself he began to recall all the +remembrances that once were so torturing. He took pleasure in dreaming of +the devotion of which his rival was the object, the better to persuade +himself it was absolutely contrary to the nature of things he could ever +be ungrateful. + +Fleurange's reflections at the same hour were of a different nature. +Somewhat recovered from the successive emotions of the day, she could now +freely indulge in the secret joy with which her heart overflowed. She was +at last free!--free to think of George--at liberty to love him and to +confess it! The feeling so long repressed, fought against, and concealed, +could now be indulged in without restraint! A few weeks more, and she +would be with him!--She would be his!--All horror of the fate she was going +to participate in was lost in the thought of bestowing on him, in the hour +of abandonment and misfortune, all the treasures of her devotion and love, +and this appeared a sweeter realization of her dreams than if united to +him in the midst of all the _eclat_ that rank and fortune surrounded him +with!-- + +Ah! Madre Maddalena was right in thinking hers was not a heart called to +the supreme honor of loving God alone, of bestowing on him that ineffable +love which does not suffer the contact of any other affection, that unique +love which, if it has not always been supreme, blots out, as soon as it +springs up, all other love, as the sun causes the darkness to flee away +and return no more to its presence!... "Whosoever loveth, knoweth the cry +of this voice."(132) + +It was this voice which spoke directly to Madre Maddalena's heart. +Fleurange did not hear it so distinctly, even while silently listening to +it apart from the noise of the world, though by no means deaf to the +divine inspirations. She was pure: she was pious and steadfast: she had a +fervent and courageous heart--a heart shut against evil, which preferred +nothing to God, but which was ardently susceptible to affection when she +could yield to it without remorse. This is doubtless the appointed way for +nearly all, even among the best, and it is the ordinary path of virtue. +But we would observe here that it is not the path of exquisite and +inexpressible happiness already referred to, and we moreover add that, +when a soul is inclined to make an idol of the object of its love, and +place it on too frail a foundation, it is not rare that +suffering--suffering whose severity is in proportion to the beauty and +purity of the soul--leads it back sooner or later to that point where it +sees the true centre to which, even unknown to ourselves, we all aspire, +and which all human passion, even the most noble and most legitimate in +the world, makes us lose sight of. + +Fleurange perhaps had a confused intuition of this, and it made her look +upon the frightful conditions on which happiness was vouchsafed her as a +kind of expiation, which she accepted with joy, hoping thereby to assure +the permanence of the love that overruled all other sentiments. + +After Gabrielle's conversation with Princess Catherine, the state of the +latter underwent a salutary change. Her physical sufferings, and her grief +itself, seemed suspended. A fresh activity was aroused as soon as she +perceived a way of exerting herself for her son, and entering into almost +direct communication with him. Let us add to these motives the princess' +natural taste for the extraordinary, and we shall comprehend that +Fleurange's heroic resolution afforded her an interesting distraction, +and, at the same time, a source of activity which was useful and +beneficial. + +She made every arrangement herself. They were forced to allow her to +direct all the preparations for the long journey the young girl was going +to undertake. She and her elderly companion were to go as far as St. +Petersburg in one of the princess' best carriages, and everything that +would enable Fleurange to bear the severe cold on the way was anxiously +prepared. At St. Petersburg, it was decided she should take up her +residence in the princess' house until the day--the terrible day of the +departure that must follow. + +All this was transmitted by the princess to the Marquis Adelardi, whom she +charged to receive and protect Gabrielle. Moreover, he must find means of +announcing to George the unexpected alleviation Heaven granted to his +misfortunes. + +As to the steps to be taken in order to obtain the necessary permission +for the accomplishment of this strange lugubrious marriage, and for the +newly-made wife to accompany her condemned husband, the princess thought +the most successful course would be to obtain for Gabrielle an audience of +the empress. + +"Either I am very much deceived," wrote the princess, "or her heart will +be touched by such heroic devotion, by Gabrielle's appearance, and the +charm there is about her, and perhaps even by a remnant of pity for my +poor George. Something tells me this pity still survives the favor he +showed himself unworthy of, and that the day will perchance come when I +can appeal to her with success. Obtain my son's pardon!--behold him +again!--Yes, in spite of everything, I hope, I believe, I may say I feel +sure, that sooner or later this happiness will be granted me, unless so +much sorrow shortens my life. Nevertheless, the effect of this terrible +sentence, should he incur its penalty only for a day, will never be +effaced. I feel it. My hopes for him have all vanished, never to return. +How, then, could I hesitate to accept Gabrielle's generous sacrifice--to +accept it at first with a transport of enthusiasm which, I confess, I was +seized with when, with indescribable words and accents, she so +unexpectedly begged my consent on her knees, but afterwards deliberately, +and, in consideration of the strange and painful circumstances in which we +are situated, with sincere gratitude?" + +"No doubt," she added, with an instinctive and natural feeling, never +wholly or for a long time dormant--"no doubt, when the time comes which I +look forward to with hope--the time when he will be restored to me, other +regrets will revive. But then, his condemnation, only too certain, puts an +end to all hope in that direction. The conspirator acquitted, or even +pardoned, might win a heart in which love perhaps still pleads his cause; +but the haughty Vera will never bestow a thought on the returned exile +from Siberia. I resign myself, therefore--and, after all, Gabrielle is +charming, and, as far as I know, he never loved any one else as well. You +will perhaps say that a quick fire is soon extinguished in George's heart. +I know that well, but it is very certain that this young girl's devotion +is calculated to foster the love she has inspired, and even to revive it +if deadened by the revolutionary tempest he has passed through. As for me, +I know, if anything can make me endure this fearful separation, it is the +thought that this beautiful and noble creature, who is better fitted than +any one else to preserve him from despair, will be with him in his exile." + +In the princess' eyes, Gabrielle was, in spite of the pure generosity of +her love, only a _pis-aller_, or rather she was only something relatively +to herself. She overwhelmed her to-day with attentions and caresses as +before she abruptly dismissed her, and as she would be quite ready to do +again if a sudden turn of fortune brought about chances more favorable to +her wishes. But, even if all these sentiments were evident, they could not +change Gabrielle's determination or diminish her courage. Her fate was +already united in heart to George's. Everything but this thought, and the +anticipated joys and sacrifices connected with it, became indifferent to +her. Calm and serene, she made all the preparations for her departure +without haste or anxiety, and was equally mindful of her dear old friend, +for whom she reserved the rich furs and all the other things which the +princess had been careful to provide for herself as a protection against +the cold. + +The days, however, passed rapidly away, and as the time of separation +approached, more courage was required for those she was to leave behind +than for herself. + +And when the farewell hour at length arrived, and she knelt in church with +Clement, to utter a last prayer, the All-Seeing Eye saw to which of the +two belonged at that moment the palm of devotedness and sacrifice. + + + +Part Fourth. The Immolation. + + + L'amour vrai, c'est l'oubli de soi. + + +XLVIII. + + +Our travellers were already far away, having pursued their journey for +more than twelve days without stopping. In spite of the increasing +severity of the weather, Fleurange and her companion went as far as +Berlin, and even beyond, without suffering from the cold--thanks to the +numerous precautions taken by the princess to protect them from it. But at +Koenigsberg they were obliged to leave the comfortable carriage in which +they had travelled thus far, for they wished, above all things, to travel +fast, and they had the Strand to cross (the only way to St. Petersburgh at +that season), that is to say, the narrow tongue of sandy soil that extends +along the Baltic as far as the arm of the sea which separates Prussia from +Courland like a wide canal, and then forms the basin or inland lake of +Kurishe Haff. This bounds the Strand at the right, whereas at the left its +dreary coast is shut in between the sea and the high dunes of sand which +ward off the winds from the scattered habitations of this desolate region, +all situated so as to face the lake and turn their backs on the sea. + +The princess' carriage remained, therefore, at Koenigsberg, to await the +return of Fleurange's travelling companions. She took with her, however, +the rich furs, so warm and light, with which she had been provided, to +wrap around Mademoiselle Josephine, in spite of her resistance. As for +herself, she reserved a cloak of sufficiently thick material to protect +her from the cold, not wishing to accustom herself to comforts she must +afterwards be deprived of. + +The change from one carriage to another was promptly effected, and the +small caleche in which they were closely seated was soon on its way over +the Strand towards Memel, which they hoped to reach the same evening. +Clement, in front, gazed with secret horror on the desolate aspect of +nature. Everything around him seemed a fitting prelude to that Inferno of +ice towards which he was escorting her whom he would gladly have sheltered +from too rude a summer breeze. + +The weather was not as cold as on the previous day. The gray clouds +charged with rain seemed to indicate a sudden thaw, and through them the +sun, veiled as before a coming storm, cast a pale light over the dark +waves and the sandy shore. The postilion, to favor his horses, rode so +close to the water that the waves broke over their pathway. To the right +rose the dismal sand-hills, and on that side, as well as before them, +nothing was to be seen but sand as far as the eye could reach; to the +left, nothing but the tumultuous and threatening waves. Not a house far or +near, not a tree, not a blade of grass, not a living creature, save now +and then some sea-birds skimming wildly over the waves, adding another +melancholy feature to the dreariness of the scene, which with the storm +was a sufficiently exact image of the mental condition of him who was +regarding it. + +As to Fleurange, instead of looking around, she closed her eyes, the +better to wander in imagination among the cherished scenes of the past and +those she looked forward to. She beheld again the blue waters of the +Mediterranean, and the radiant sky whose azure they reflect, and the +graceful undulations of the mountains veiled in a pearly mist; then +Florence, sparkling and poetical in the golden rays of departing light, +and beside her she heard a voice murmuring words once dangerous to hear, +but now delicious to recall and repeat to herself. How much she then +suffered in struggling against her own impulses! Recalling those +sufferings, how could she fear those she was about to brave?--sufferings +repaid by the immense happiness of loving!--of loving without fear!--loving +without remorse!--Besides, they were both young.--His mother's hopes might +be realized.--Yes, perhaps some day they would again behold, and together, +that charming region, and then in the restored brilliancy of his former +position, with her beside him, he would be convinced, convinced beyond +doubt, that that was not the attraction which had won her, but really +himself, and only him, whom she loved! + +Yes, she was now happy; no fears troubled her; she was full of hope; and, +as it is said of the only great and true love that it "believes it may and +can do all things,"(133) so earthly love which is its pale but faithful +reflection, made every earthly happiness appear possible and certain to +Fleurange, inasmuch as the greatest of all was in store for her. + +Clement was still absorbed in silent contemplation, and Fleurange in her +sweet dreams, when Mademoiselle Josephine awoke from the drowsiness +favored by the ample furs in which she was wrapped, which not only +excluded the air but the sight of outward objects. She looked up and +around for the first time that morning, and gave a sudden start of +surprise. + +"Ah! mon Dieu! mon Dieu!--" she cried with alarm. "Gabrielle, what is +that?" + +Fleurange, suddenly recalled from the land of dreams to what was passing +around her, replied: "It is the sea. Did you not notice it before?" + +"The sea!--the sea!--" repeated Mademoiselle Josephine, as if stupefied. +"No, I had not seen it, and never imagined we should go on the sea in a +carriage.--What a country! What a journey!" murmured she to herself, +endeavoring to conceal the terror she had not ceased to feel as they +proceeded on their way and found everything so different from France, and +consequently the more alarming. But in her way she made an act of heroism +in trying to overcome the surprise and fear caused by so many strange +sights. She was especially desirous of not being troublesome to her +companions. "Besides," thought she, "if these two children are not afraid, +I must at least appear as brave as they." Nevertheless, she could not help +repeating with astonishment: "Going on the sea in a carriage--it is really +very singular!" + +Fleurange laughed. "Here, dear mademoiselle, look on this side, and you +will see we are not on the sea, but only on the shore." + +"Very near it, however, for we are riding through the water." + +"It is only the waves that break on the shore and then recede. There, you +see the land, now." + +Mademoiselle felt somewhat reassured. She looked to the right, she looked +to the left, she looked before her, then turned her eyes towards the +gloomy immensity of the sea beside which they were riding. + +"Oh! how dismal, how repulsive it is," she exclaimed, at last. + +Fleurange now gazed around. Her thoughts were no longer wandering. "The +scene is indeed singularly gloomy," said she. "The leaden sky--that mock +sun--the dark waters of that melancholy sea, and the interminable sand. +Yes, the whole region is frightful!" And she slightly shuddered. + +"I have always been told," said mademoiselle, "that the sea was glorious; +but it seems it was a traveller's tale for the benefit of those who never +go from home." + +"No, no," cried Fleurange, "do not say so. The sea is really beautiful +where it is as blue as the heavens above, and where its shores are +luxuriant with trees, plants, and flowers; but not here, I acknowledge." + +And, in spite of herself, the sweet impression of her recent dreams, +caused by the contrast, entirely vanished. Her heart sank. She became +silent, and for a long time none of the three travellers spoke. + +The Strand, about twelve or fourteen leagues in length, was divided into +several stages by post-stations on the other side of the sand-hills, +whence were brought fresh horses. A carriage could not approach the +stations on account of the deep sand, and when they paused a few moments +to exchange horses, the travellers were only made aware of a neighboring +habitation by a peal of the horn which responded afar off to that of the +postilion as he announced his approach. While they were thus halting at +the last stage, Fleurange noticed Clement's anxious look towards the sea +and the threatening sky. The wind grew stronger and stronger, and the +waves mounted higher. A violent storm was evidently at hand. She beckoned +to him, and said in a tone inaudible to her companion: "We are going to +have bad weather, are we not?" + +"Yes," replied he, in the same tone. "It will be dark in about an hour, +and I fear we may find the crossing rough and difficult. I do not say this +on your account," added he, with a somewhat forced smile. "I know well I +am not allowed to tremble for you, however great the danger, but I fear +you may find it difficult by-and-by to reassure your poor friend." + +He mounted to his seat again, ordered the postilion to hurry, and the +little caleche set off as speedily as possible to avoid the enormous waves +which threatened to upset them. In spite of their haste, night came on, +and the storm set in before they arrived at the ferry across the arm of +the sea which connects the Kurische Haff with the Baltic. The passage was +short but dangerous. They could not stop an instant, for, though well +sheltered here, the sea rose higher and higher, and the large boat that +was to take the carriage across was difficult to manage in bad weather. +They therefore rapidly descended the bank to the boat, and Mademoiselle +Josephine was roused from the drowsiness produced by the motion of the +carriage, by a sudden and violent shock, accompanied by cries and +vociferations mingled with the roar of the sea and the frightful howling +of the wind. + +"O Jesus, my Saviour!" prayed the poor demoiselle, clasping her hands with +terror: "the time, then, has come for us to die!" + +The rain fell in torrents. The waves broke over the boat. Darkness added +its horrors to the danger, which, to her inexperienced eyes, appeared to +be extreme. The sweet voice of her young companion vainly sought to +encourage her. By the light of the lanterns carried from side to side to +light the boatman, she soon distinguished Clement standing beside the +carriage, holding up a sail with a firm hand to screen them on the side +most exposed to the waves. + +"Poor Clement," she exclaimed, "it is all over with us, then." + +"No, not quite, unfortunately," replied Clement. "It will be at least half +an hour before we reach the shore." + +"The shore!--the shore!--He imagines, then, we shall reach it alive?" said +mademoiselle, hiding her face on Fleurange's shoulder. + +"Yes, yes," replied the latter, pressing her in her arms. "Dear friend, +there is no danger, I assure you. Believe me, I am only alarmed to see you +so terrified." + +"Pardon me, child," said the other, raising her head. "I resolved you +should know nothing about it. But this time, Gabrielle, you cannot say we +are not crossing the sea in a carriage," continued she, with renewed alarm +as she felt the increased motion of the waves. + +Fleurange embraced her, repeating the same reassuring words. The poor old +lady made no reply, she was trying to overcome her terror by a genuine act +of heroism. "Danger or not, it is like what I have always imagined a +terrible tempest, destructive of human life. But then," murmured she still +lower, "God overrules all, and nothing happens without his consent." + +Her physical nature was weak, but her soul was strong, and piety, a +support in every trial, served now to calm her. She began to pray +mentally, and did not utter another word till they reached the shore. + + +XLIX. + + +But a far greater danger awaited our travellers beyond Memel, whence they +continued their journey the following day in sledges. The first, +containing their baggage, preceded them several hours in advance to +announce their arrival at the post-stations; the second somewhat resembled +a clumsy boat on runners, surmounted by a hood, and protected by a boot of +thick fur. It was in this sledge Fleurange and her companion were stowed +away. They were obliged to lie nearly down to avoid the piercing wind. The +third vehicle, entirely uncovered, was very light, and so small that it +barely contained Clement, in front of whom sat a young fellow wrapped in a +caftan, strong and vigorous, but with a slender form quite adapted to the +seat he occupied and the sledge he drove. With this light equipage Clement +went like the wind, sometimes preceding the other sledge as a guide, and +then returning to accompany it and watch over its safety. + +The cold had become as intense as ever within a few hours. The pouring +rain of the previous night after several days of thawing weather, alarming +at that season, caused great gullies in the road, and endangered the +passage over the rivers, at that time of the year, on the ice. Though +scarcely four o'clock, the short day was nearly ended, and daylight was +declining when our travellers came to the river they were obliged to cross +in order to reach the small town of Y----. It was a deep, rapid stream, +which at the beginning of every winter was encumbered with thick cakes of +floating ice before the surface of its waters was congealed, and which, at +the approach of spring, was also the first to resume its course and break +the icy fetters that confined its current. This river was therefore almost +always difficult to pass over, and very often dangerous, and, when the +travellers came to the only place where it could be crossed, they felt +they had reason to be anxious about the thaw. As soon as Clement cast his +eyes on the river, he thought there were really some alarming indications. +He at once saw there was no time to be lost, and drove directly on to the +ice. Then he stopped, and hurriedly said to the young guide: "I think we +should let the heaviest sledge go first: we will follow, if we can." + +"Yes, if we can," said the other. + +The order was instantly given, and the sledge that contained Fleurange and +her companion passed rapidly on. But it had scarcely gone ten or twelve +feet from the shore before an ominous cracking was heard. The frightened +driver stopped. Clement imperiously ordered him to proceed without a +second's delay. But, instead of obeying, the driver, seized with fear, +jumped out on the ice and sprang back to the shore he had just left. This +jar increased the breaking of the ice which had already commenced. That +next the shore gave way and began to move with the current, leaving an +open gulf between the land and the still solid ice where our travellers +remained. Great promptness of decision was necessary at a moment of such +sudden and extreme danger, and orders as prompt as the judgment. + +"Descend, Gabrielle," said Clement, with authority. + +The young girl instantly sprang from the sledge. Clement took Mademoiselle +Josephine in his arms and placed her beside Fleurange. + +"Get into my sledge, Gabrielle," said he calmly, but very quickly. "As +soon as you are safe, the sledge shall return for your friend. There is +time, but you must not hesitate." + +"I do not hesitate," said Fleurange. "I shall remain myself: she shall be +saved first." + +Clement shuddered. But there was not time to contest the point. Besides, +he knew from the tone of Fleurange's voice that her decision was +irrevocable, and he yielded without another word. He placed poor +mademoiselle, who was incapable of comprehending what was transpiring, in +the light sledge, gave the order--obeyed at once--and it darted off. The +sound of the bells on the horses' necks was heard for a few moments, and +then died away. + +Fleurange and Clement were left alone. Night was gathering around them. +Not far off could be heard the slow cracking of the ice beneath the heavy +weight of the sledge at the edge of the first opening. The noise +increased, and the ice broke away the second time. The huge mass, thus +detached, quivered, then, like the first, slowly descended the river, +carrying the sledge with it. The opening became frightfully large. Clement +looked before him to see if he could venture, by taking Fleurange in his +arms, to cross on foot the long interval that separated them from the +opposite shore. But it was too dark to distinguish the path, and, if they +left that, death was inevitable. They might lose the only chance of being +saved--by awaiting the return of the sledge. And yet they could not remain +long where they were. The ice was already loosening around them. In a few +moments there was another cracking, and it gave way before them. The +fragment on which they stood became a kind of floating island. Clement saw +at a glance the only course to be taken. He did not hesitate. He seized +Fleurange in his arms, and, by the uncertain light of the snow, sprang +boldly across the opening before them. They were once more on the solid +ice, but who could tell how long it would be so? Who knew whether the +sledge would succeed in reaching them again? Perhaps it was swallowed up +in the impenetrable darkness, or left on the ice broken up around it. +Otherwise it should have returned. + +These thoughts crowded into Clement's mind faster than they can be +written. Fleurange, silent but courageous, was equally sensible of their +danger. She bent down her head and silently prayed. Leaning thus against +Clement, her hair brushing his very face, she might have heard the rapid +pulsations of his heart and felt the trembling of the arm that supported +her, and the hand that pressed her own. But he did not utter a word. His +sensations were strange. A desire to save her doubled his strength and +courage, and quickened all his faculties. At the same time, he was +conscious of a transport he could not control--that she was there alone +with him, that they were to die together, and she would never be able to +fulfil the odious design of her journey! + +But this moment of selfish love and despair was short. His thoughts +returned to her--her alone. He must save her--save her at whatever cost. But +how? It seemed as if an hour had passed away. It was useless to hope for +the return of the sledge.--He thought he felt the ice quiver anew beneath +his feet.--He looked at the dark current behind. Should he jump into the +water, and endeavor to regain the shore they had left, but now no longer +visible?--He hesitated a moment--no, that would expose her to certain death, +and a more speedy one than now threatened them. It would be better to +remain where they were, and endure the fearful suspense to the end. + +They therefore remained motionless for some minutes more of silent agony. +Notwithstanding her courage, the young girl's strength began to fail. Her +sight grew dim. There was a strange hum in her ears. Then her head fell on +her cousin's shoulder. + +"Oh! I am dying," murmured she. "May God restore you to your mother, +Clement!" + +At this moment of supreme anguish, Clement raised his eyes to heaven, and +the cry of love and despair that rose from his heart was a prayer as +ardent and pure as was ever uttered by childlike faith. He felt he was +heard. Yes, almost at the same instant.--Was he mistaken? Afar off, so far +he could hardly catch the sound, he thought he heard the jingle of bells. +He listened without breathing.--O Divine Goodness! is it true?--Yes, yes, +there is no longer any doubt. The sound becomes more distinct. It +approaches.--It is really the sledge.--It is coming rapidly; it reaches +them; it stops; it is really there! + +"Blessed be God! she is saved!" was Clement's cry. But Fleurange, overcome +by weakness and terror, was already senseless in his arms. + +He bore her to the sledge, and as he placed her within, but half conscious +of what was occurring, he pressed her once more to his heart with +unrestrained tenderness, and said: "Adieu, dear Gabrielle. Regret not that +I die here. God is good. He spares me the sorrow of living without you." +And he added, in a lower tone: "Gabrielle, I have loved you more than +anything else in the world. I can acknowledge it now, for death is at +hand." Then he stepped back, and ordered the young guide to hurry away. + +His first words had only been indistinctly heard by Fleurange, as in a +dream; but she clearly understood this precise order. It brought her at +once to herself. + +"Away!" she exclaimed. "Away without you! What do you mean?" + +"It must be so," said Clement. "The sledge can only hold you and the +guide. Any additional weight would be dangerous. Go, without an instant's +delay." + +"Never!" said Fleurange resolutely. "Clement, we will all three die here, +rather than leave you!" + +"You must go!" repeated Clement energetically. "Go, I tell you! The sledge +will return for me." + +"It will be impossible to cross a third time," said the young conductor. + +Clement knew it. He only replied by imperiously ordering him to start. + +Fleurange, no less firm than Clement, rose and checked the hand that held +the reins. The driver at once jumped down from his seat. "Do you know how +to drive?" said he. + +"Yes." + +"Well, I know how to swim. Here, get in quick.--Keep that for me," +continued he, hastily taking off his caftan and throwing it into the +sledge. "Do not be uneasy. I shall get it again to-morrow. I know the way +and am familiar with the river." + +And without hesitating he plunged into the dark current, while Clement +sprang to his seat in the sledge. + +With a boldness that is the only chance of safety in such a case, he +forced the horses into a gallop. They thus traversed with giddy rapidity +the considerable distance that separated them from the other shore. The +ice, jarred by the two former trips, cracked beneath the horse's feet. To +slacken their course an instant would have submerged them in the river, +but the sledge flew rather than ran on the ice, and the hand that guided +it was firm. They arrived at the goal in less than half an hour, and +Fleurange, pale, exhausted, and chilled, fell into the arms of her dear +old friend. + +The latter was quietly awaiting them in a warm, well-lighted room at the +post-station, and supper had been ordered, but Fleurange was neither able +to talk nor eat. Mademoiselle saw that instant repose was absolutely +necessary. She only persuaded her to take some hot mulled wine before +going to sleep, and then went to join Clement in another room, where she +learned, for the first time, all the danger she, as well as the rest, had +escaped. + +After the experience of the past day, Mademoiselle Josephine resolved +never to manifest any astonishment at whatever might occur in this strange +journey. She would go in a balloon without wincing, as readily as in a +sledge, at Clement's slightest injunction, for he seemed more and more to +merit boundless confidence. + +Perhaps, at the end of this terrible day, Clement did not give himself so +much credit. He recalled what he had dared say to Fleurange in the height +of their danger, and anxiously wondered if she heard and understood the +words that rose from his heart at the moment death seemed so inevitable. +Was she conscious when he uttered that last farewell? He did not know, and +it was natural he should await the following day with anxiety. + +But he was then reassured by finding his cousin as calm and frank as ever. +She evidently had not understood, and probably not heard his words, or +thought them sufficiently explained by the intensity of emotion naturally +irrepressible at such a moment of extreme danger. The young girl was +forced to rest a whole day to recover from her exhaustion. But it was +their last halting-place, and, when they resumed their journey, it was not +to stop again till they arrived at its end. + +To Be Continued. + + + + +Sayings Of John Climacus. + + +If any one has conceived a real hatred of the world, he is emancipated by +this very hatred from all sadness. But if he shall cherish an attachment +to things that are visible, he carries about with him a source of sadness +and melancholy. + +It is impossible that they who apply their whole mind to the science of +salvation, should not make advancement. Some are permitted to perceive +their progress, whilst from others, by a particular dispensation of +Providence, it is altogether concealed. + +He who strenuously labors to conquer his passions, and to draw nearer and +nearer to God, believes that every day in which he has to suffer no +humiliation is to him a grievous loss. + +Repentance is the daughter of hope, and the enemy of despair. + +Before the commission of sin, the devil represents God as infinitely +merciful; but after its perpetration, as inexorable and without pity. + +A mother will sometimes hide herself from her child, to watch its +eagerness in seeking her, and she is exceedingly pleased to observe it +seeking for her with sorrow and anxiety. By this means she wins its love, +and binds it inseparably to her heart, that it may never be alienated from +her in affection. "He that hath ears to hear," saith our Lord, "let him +hear." + +Meekness is an immutability of soul, which ever continues the same, +whether amidst the injuries or the applaudits of men. + + + + +Dante's Purgatorio. Canto Fifth. + + + [NOTE.--In this Canto, Dante introduces three other spirits, who + relate the manner of their departure from the body, and recommend + themselves to his prayers, that their penal sufferings may be + alleviated. + + The first of these penitents is Jacopo del Cassero, a townsman of + Fano in Romagna, who, flying towards Padua from the vengeance of + one of the tyrannous Este family, was waylaid and murdered in the + marshes near Oriago. + + The second is Buonconte, son of Guido di Montefeltro. He was a + fellow-soldier with Dante in the battle of Campaldino, and there + slain; but what became of his body was never known until this + imaginary narration. + + The third is the noble lady of Sienna, Pia de' Tolommei, whose + story, told by Dante in three lines, has formed the subject of a + five-act tragedy, recently illustrated in this country by the + genius of Ristori.--TRANS.] + + Already parted from those shades, I went + Following the footsteps of my Guide, when one + Behind me towards my form his finger bent, + Exclaiming--"See! no ray falls from the sun + To the left hand of him that walks below! + And sure! he moveth like a living man." + Mine eyes I turned, at hearing him say so, + And saw them with a gaze all wonder scan + Now me, still me, and now the broken light + My body caused. The Master then to me: + "Why let thy wonder keep thee from the height + To drag so slowly? what concerns it thee + What here is whispered? only follow thou + After my steps, and let the crowd talk on: + Stand like a tower, firm-based, that will not bow + Its head to breath of winds that soon are gone. + The man o'er whose thought second thought hath sway, + Wide of his mark, is ever sure to miss, + Because one force the other wears away." + What could I answer but--"I come"--to this? + I said it something sprinkled with the hue + Which, in less faults, excuseth one from blame; + Meanwhile across the mountain-side there drew, + Just in our front, a train that as they came + Sang _Miserere_, verse by verse. When they + Observed my form, and noticed that I gave + No passage through me to the solar ray, + Into a long, hoarse "O!" they changed their stave. + And two, as envoys, ran up with demand, + "In what condition is it that ye go?" + + And my Lord said--"Return ye to the band + Who sent you towards us, and give them to know + This body is true flesh. If they delayed + At sight,--I deem so, of the shadow here + Thereby sufficient answer shall be made: + Him let them reverence,--it may prove dear." + + I never saw a meteor dart so quick + Through the serene at midnight, or a gleam + Of lightning flash at sunset, through a thick + Piled August cloud, but these would faster seem + As they retreated; having joined the rest, + Back like an unreined troop towards us they sped. + "This throng is large by whom we thus are pressed, + And come to implore of thee," the Poet said-- + "Therefore keep on, and as thou mov'st attend." + + "O soul who travellest, with the very frame + Which thou wert born with, to thy blessed end, + Stay thy step somewhat!"--crying thus they came. + "Look if among us any thou dost know, + That thou of him to earth mayst tidings bear. + Stay--wilt thou not? ah! wherefore must thou go? + We to our dying hour were sinners there: + And all were slain: but at the murderous blow, + Warned us an instant light that flashed from heaven, + And all from life did peacefully depart, + Contrite, forgiving, and by Him forgiven + To look on Whom such longing yearns our heart." + "None do I recognize," I answered, "even + Scanning your faces with mine utmost art; + But whatsoe'er, ye blessed souls! I may + To give you comfort, speak, and I will do; + Yea, by that peace which leads me on my way + From world to world such guidance to pursue." + + JACOPO DI FANO. + + "Without such protestation," one replied, + "Unless thy will a want of power defeat, + In thy kind offices we all confide; + Whence I, sole speaking before these, entreat + If thou mayst e'er the territory see + That lies betwixt Romagna and the seat(134) + Where Charles hath sway, that thou so courteous be + As to implore the men in Fano's town + To put up prayers there earnestly for me + That I may purge the sins that weigh me down. + There I was born; but those deep wounds of mine + Through which my life-blood issued, I received + Among the children of Antenor's line,(135) + Where most secure my person I believed: + 'Twas through that lord of Este I was sped + Who past all justice had me in his hate. + O'ertook at Oriaco, had I fled + Towards Mira, still where breath is I might wait. + But to the marsh I made my way instead, + And there, entangled in the cany brake + And mire, I fell, and on the ground saw spread, + From mine own veins outpoured, a living lake." + + BUONCONTE DI MONTEFELTRO. + + Here spake another: "O may that desire + So be fulfilled which to the lofty Mount + Conducts thy feet as thou shalt bring me nigher + To mine by thy good prayers. I am the Count + Buonconte: Montefeltro's lord was I. + Giovanna cares not, no one cares for me; + Therefore with these I go dejectedly." + And I to him: "What violence took thee, + Or chance of war, from Campaldino then + So far that none e'er knew thy burial-place?" + "O," answered he, "above the hermit's glen(136) + A stream whose course is Casentino's base, + Springs in the Apennine, Archiano called. + There, where that name is lost in Arno's flood, + Exhausted I arrived, footsore and galled, + Pierced in my throat, painting the plain with blood. + Here my sight failed me and I fell: the last + Word that I spake was Mary's name, and then + From my deserted flesh the spirit passed. + The truth I tell now, tell to living men; + God's Angel took me, but that fiend of Hell + Screamed out: 'Ha! thou from heaven, why robb'st thou me? + His soul thou get'st for one small tear that fell, + But of this offal other work I'll see.' + Thou know'st how vapors gathering in the air + Mount to the cold and there condensed distil + Back into water. That Bad Will which ne'er + Seeks aught but evil joined his evil will, + With intellect, and, from the great force given + By his fell nature, moved the mist and wind + And o'er the valley drew the darkened heaven, + Covering it with clouds as day declined + From Pratomagno far as the great chain,(137) + So that the o'erburdened air to water turned: + Then the floods fell, and every rivulet's vein + Swelled with the superflux the soaked earth spurned. + When to large streams the mingling torrents grew + Down to the royal river with such force + They rushed that no restraint their fury knew. + Here fierce Archiano found my frozen corse + Stretched at its mouth, and into Arno's wave + Dashed it and loosened from my breast the sign, + Which when mine anguish mastered me I gave, + Of holy cross with my crossed arms: in fine, + O'er bed and bank my form the streamlet drave + Whirling, and with its own clay covered mine." + + PIA DE' TOLOMEI. + + "O stay! when thou shalt walk the world once more, + And have repose from that long way of thine,"-- + Said the third spirit, following those before, + "Remember Pia! for that name was mine: + Sienna gave me birth: Maremma's fen + Was my undoing: he knows that full well + Who ringed my finger with his gem and then, + After espousal,--_took me there to dwell_." + + + + +Sanskrit And The Vedas.(138) + + + "But in justice, I am bound to say that Rome has the merit of + having first seriously attended to the study of Indian + literature."--CARDINAL WISEMAN: _Connection between Science and + Revealed Religion_. + + "The first missionaries who succeeded in rousing the attention of + European scholars to the extraordinary discovery (Sanskrit + literature) that had been made were the French Jesuit + missionaries."--MAX MUeLLER: _Lectures on the Science of Language_. + + +What manner of language is the Sanskrit? + +By what people or nation was it spoken? + +When? and where? + +What are its literary monuments? + +Whence comes it--granting it to be as ancient a tongue as is +represented--that neither in Greek, Roman, nor, indeed, in any ancient +literature, is it ever mentioned, and that we only read of it in modern +works, scarce a century old? + +Such questions as these are frequently asked, even at the present day. +Forty years ago, it is doubtful if there were ten persons in this country +able to reply to them satisfactorily, and more than doubtful if a single +scholar could have been found capable of translating the simplest Sanskrit +sentence. Within that period, however, philological science in general, +and Sanskrit in particular, have made long and rapid strides among us, and +we now have scores of scholars fully awake to the importance of +cultivating the resources of this wonderful tongue, as the origin or +common source of the European family of languages, in which our own +English is included. + +At the head of these scholars stands, without dispute, Prof. William +Dwight Whitney, whose, linguistic acquirements and philosophical treatment +of difficult philological problems have earned for him a very high and +well-merited reputation. Nor is this opinion a merely patriotic and +partial estimate. Prof. Whitney's merits as a Sanskrit scholar and +comparative philologist are fully acknowledged, not only in this country, +but by the eminent Orientalists of Europe. The first periodical of Germany +and of the world for the comparative study of languages (_Zeitschrift fuer +vergleichende Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete des Deutschen, Griechischen +und Lateinischen_, Berlin, 1872), in a late number recognizes, in the most +flattering manner, Prof. Whitney's high rank in the philological republic +of letters, and refers in complimentary terms to the fact that he is well +known in Germany as the editor of the Sanskrit text of the _Atharva Veda_. + +We may here incidentally note, in the same number of the _Zeitschrift_, +another gratifying recognition of advanced American scholarship. We refer +to a review of Prof. March's _Comparative Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon_, +from the pen of Moritz Heyne, the well-known author of the _Brief +Comparative Grammar of the Old German Dialects_, and editor of the +celebrated editions of the Moeso-Gothic Bible of Ulphilas, and of the +Anglo-Saxon poem of Beowulf. The German reviewer credits Prof. March's +work with extensive and original investigation, great erudition in the +Anglo-Saxon texts, and valuable contributions to the grammar of the +language. He adds, that the study of Anglo-Saxon is pursued with more zeal +and success in the United States than in England. Solid commendation like +this, from such a source, speaks well for American progress in the field +of philological science. + +During the past twenty years, Prof. Whitney has published numerous essays +on Sanskrit literature which, limited to the special circulation of +scientific or literary periodicals, have not fallen under the notice of +the general reading public. Many of these articles he has now collected +and published in a volume,(139) edited by himself. Four of the essays are +on the Vedas and Vedic literature, one on the Avesta (commonly called the +Zend-Avesta), and seven upon various philological topics, including two +reviews of Max Mueller's _Lectures on Language_, which are admirable +specimens of temperate and careful criticism, guided by sound scholarship. + +Prof. Whitney's first paper on the Vedas (originally published in the +_Journal of the American Oriental Society_, vol. iii., 1853) opens thus: + + + "It is a truth now well established, that the Vedas furnish the + only sure foundation on which a knowledge of ancient and modern + India can be built up. They are therefore at present engrossing + the larger share of the attention of those who pursue this branch + of Oriental study. Only recently, however, has their paramount + importance been fully recognized: it was by slow degrees that they + made their way up to the consideration in which they are now held. + Once it was questioned whether any such books as the Vedas really + existed, or whether, if they did exist, the jealous care of the + Brahmans would ever allow them to be laid open to European eyes. + This doubt dispelled, they were first introduced to the near + acquaintance of scholars in the West by Colebrooke." + + +Not stopping to raise a question as to just reclamation in favor of Sir +William Jones for a portion at least of the credit of the introduction of +the Vedas to the "acquaintance of scholars in the West," which, perhaps +Professor Whitney means to solve in advance by a distinction between +acquaintance and "near acquaintance," we would observe that this +comprehensive statement as to the introduction of the Vedas to European +scholars takes for granted the previous interesting history of the modern +discovery of the existence of the Sanskrit and of Vedic literature. We use +the expression "takes for granted" in no invidious sense. + +The author was writing for scholars who, he had a right to assume, were +already acquainted with the objective history of his subject-matter, and +were probably informed as to the details of the gradual steps by which the +certainty of the existence of a great language and a rich literature long +buried in darkness was at length brought to light. His concern was with +the internal, not the external, history of Sanskrit. Now, it is upon this +external history that we propose to say something, returning to Prof. +Whitney's work when we reach the subject of the Vedas. + +It is not necessary that our readers should, to any extent, be linguists +or philologists in order to become deeply interested in the relation of +the modern discovery of a language so old that it had ceased to be spoken +and was a dead language hundreds of years before the Christian era--a +language to which cannot with any certainty be assigned the name of the +nation or people who spoke it, and which is at once the most ancient of +all known tongues, living or dead, and, despite all modern research, still +prehistoric. + +To our Catholic readers, the narration of this discovery is full of +interest; for in it they will recognize an additional version of the +familiar story of the enlightened intelligence, piety, and self-sacrifice +of our devoted missionaries who, combining active zeal for knowledge with +apostolic zeal for souls, amid privation and suffering, even in distant +and savage lands, with one hand built up the walls of Zion, while with the +other they erected temples to science. + +In order fully to appreciate the bearing and importance of the revelation +of Sanskrit to Europe, it is essential that we should first look a moment +upon the condition of European comparative philology at the end of the +XVIth and commencement of the XVIIth centuries. A short digression will +suffice for this. + +The Hebrew language was, from the earliest period of Christianity, settled +upon by almost common consent of the learned as the primitive tongue. It +was generally admitted by scholars that the sole great and essential +linguistic problem to be solved was this: + + + "As Hebrew is undoubtedly the mother of all languages, how are we + to explain the process by which Hebrew became split into so many + dialects, and how can these numerous dialects, such as Greek and + Latin, Coptic, Persian, Turkish, be traced back to their common + source, the Hebrew?" + + +Upon this hopelessly insoluble problem an amazing amount of remarkable +ingenuity and solid erudition were, for hundreds of years, hopelessly +wasted, for, at this day, instead of Hebrew, Sanskrit is recognized as +being the oldest of all known languages. How came this about? Reply to +this inquiry will at the same time answer the questions proposed at the +outset of this article. + +The result of labor on the problem, "How could all languages be traced +back to the Hebrew?" was of course unsatisfactory. No solution could be +obtained. None indeed was possible. + +At last it was suggested, why _should_ all languages be derived from the +Hebrew? and with investigation thus taken off its false route, the +question was in a fair way to be successfully treated. Leibnitz vigorously +denied the claims set up for Hebrew, and said: "There is as much reason +for supposing Hebrew to have been the primitive language of mankind, as +there is for adopting the view of Goropius, who published a work at +Antwerp in 1580 to prove that Dutch was the language spoken in Paradise." +More than this, he indicated the necessity of applying to language as well +as to any other science the principle of a sound inductive process, and in +this he was greatly aided by the Jesuit missionaries in China. + + + "It stands to reason," he said, "that we ought to begin with + studying the modern languages which are within our reach, in order + to compare them with one another, to discover their differences + and affinities, and then to proceed to those which have preceded + them in former ages, in order to show their filiation and their + origin, and then to ascend step by step to the most ancient + tongues, the analysis of which must lead to the only trustworthy + conclusions." + + +But Leibnitz, while properly disputing the justice of the claims of Hebrew +as the mother-tongue, knew of none other for which a similar claim might +be advanced. It is doubtful if he ever heard of Sanskrit, although he +lived until 1716, a full century after one, at least, of our missionaries +had mastered Sanskrit and all the Vedas. + + + +Sanskrit + + +is the ancient language of the Hindus, and had ceased to be a spoken +language three centuries before the Christian era. The sacred Vedas, the +oldest literary productions of the Hindus, and even the laws of Manu and +the Puranas, later works, are written in a dialect still older than the +Sanskrit, of which it is the parent, and are assigned by different +scholars to periods varying from twelve hundred to two thousand years B.C. +Thus, the dialects of Sanskrit spoken by the people of India three hundred +years B.C. may be said to have been to the Vedic Sanskrit what Italian now +is to the Latin. These dialects, modified by admixture with the languages +of the various conquerors of India, the Arabic, Persian, Mongolic, and +Turkish, and changed also by grammatical corruption, yet survive in the +modern Hindi, Hindustani, Mahratta, and Bengalee. + +Specimens of the dialects spoken by the people of the northern, eastern, +and southwestern regions of India have come down to us in the inscriptions +of the Buddhist King Piyadasi (third century B.C.), and in the account of +the victory over Antiochus which King Asoka (206 B.C.) had graven on the +rocks of Dhauli, Girnar, and Kapurdigiri. These inscriptions have been +deciphered by Burnouf, Norris, Wilson, and others, and are found to be in +the Prakrit (common), not the Sanskrit (perfect) or exclusive dialect. +From these facts the best Oriental scholars draw the conclusion that, at +the periods of Piyadasi and Asoka, the Sanskrit, if spoken at all, was +then already confined to the educated caste of Brahmans, having been a +living language at some remote previous period (most probably between the +VIIIth and IVth centuries B.C.), spoken by all classes of that race which +emigrated from Central India into Asia, and the language so spoken is that +to which modern Orientalists give the name of Aryan. For it will be borne +in mind that the term Sanskrit is no indication of the people or race who +originally spoke the language so called: it merely indicates the +estimation in which it is held by their successors, and signifies "the +perfect language." + +Meantime, during all these centuries, Sanskrit continued to be preserved +as the classic tongue and literary vehicle of Brahmanic thought and study, +and we are told on good authority that, "even at the present day, an +educated Brahman would write with greater fluency in Sanskrit than in +Bengalee." It is now well established that Sanskrit is certainly not the +parent, but the eldest brother or _chef de famille_ of the large groups of +Greek, Latin, Celtic, Slavonic, Teutonic, and Scandinavian families from +which all the modern European tongues (Basque excepted) are derived (we +omit mention of the Oriental branches). When we write the Sanskrit words +_mader_, _pader_, _dokhter_, _sunu_, _bruder_, _mand_, _lib_, _nasa_, +_vidhuva_, _stara_, we very nearly write the corresponding English terms, +and see in them their English descendants through Moeso-Gothic and German. +The Sanskrit and Greek equivalents of _I am_, _thou art_, _he is_, are +almost identical: + + + _Sanskrit_: asmi, asi, asti. + _Greek_: esmi, eis, esti. + + +We find the Sanskrit _dinara_ in the Latin _denarius_; _ayas_ in +Sanskrit--passing through the Gothic _ais_ to English _iron_; and _plava_, +in Sanskrit, a ship appearing in the Greek _ploion_ (ship), Slavonic +_ploug_, and English _plough_; for the Aryans said the ship ploughed the +sea, and the plough sailed across the field. In like manner, similar +illustrations might be multiplied indefinitely to the extent of volumes, +showing not hazardous and doubtful etymological similarities, but clear, +distinct, and sharp-cut affinities by clearly traceable descent. + +"Who was the first European that knew of Sanskrit, or that acquired a +knowledge of Sanskrit, is difficult to say," remarks Prof. Max Mueller. +Very true. But it is not at all difficult to reach the certainty that that +European, whatever might have been his name, was a Catholic missionary. + +Soon after S. Francis Xavier began to preach the Gospel in India (1542), +we hear of our missionaries acquiring not only the current dialects of the +country, but also the classical Sanskrit language; of their successfully +studying the theological and philosophical literature of the exclusive +priestly class; and of their challenging the Brahmans to public +disputations. If the example of their labors, humility, sufferings, and +piety were not sufficient to win souls, they always, where it was needed, +had science at their command, and were at once scholars, linguists, +mathematicians, and astronomers as well as lowly messengers of the glad +tidings of salvation. + +Prominent among the most remarkable of these men stands + + + +Robert De' Nobili. + + +A nephew of Cardinal de' Nobili and a relative of Pope Julius the Third +and of the great Bellarmine, he was nobly born and tenderly reared. He +went a missionary to the Indies in 1603, and began his public labors at +Madura in 1606. Being a man of superior education, cultivation, and +refinement, he soon perceived the reasons which kept all the natives of +high caste--especially the Brahmans--from joining the communities of +Christian converts formed by the common people of the country. He saw that +the Brahmans could be successfully met and argued with only by a Brahman, +and he at once resolved on the heroic project of fitting himself by long +study and almost incredible labor to become a Brahman in outward +appearance, language, and accomplishments, and thus obtain access to the +noblest, most learned, and most accomplished men in India. The task was +full of difficulty. For years he devoted himself to his silent work, +acquiring in secret the dialects of Tamil and Telugu, and the language and +literature of Sanskrit and the Vedas. When in time he felt himself strong +enough in Brahmanic learning and accomplishments to meet them in argument +and debate, he publicly appeared arrayed in their costume, wearing the +cord, bearing the exclusive frontal mark, and submitting to the rigid +observance of their diet (eating nothing but rice and vegetables) and +their complicated requirements of caste. So exhaustive had been his +studies, so thorough was his preparation, and so admirable his talent, +that his success was perfect. The Brahmans whom he met found in him their +master even in their own exclusive field of literature, philosophy, and +religion. Muellbauer (_Geschichte der katholischen Missionen Ostindiens_) +says they were afraid of him. As a devoted and successful missionary, his +life is full of interest; but we have to do with him here only as the +first known European Sanskrit scholar. After forty-two years of missionary +labor in that exhausting climate, worn out, infirm, and blind, Robert de' +Nobili died, aged eighty years, at Melapour, on the coast of Coromandel. +The distinguished Professor of Sanskrit at the English university of +Oxford, Max Mueller, pays the following earnest tribute to the acquirements +of this admirable missionary and scholar: + + + "A man who could quote from Manu, from the Puranas, and even from + such works as the Apastamba-sutras, which are known even at + present to only those few Sanskrit scholars who can read Sanskrit + MSS., must have been far advanced in a knowledge of the sacred + language and literature of the Brahmans; and the very idea that he + came, as he said, to preach a new or a fourth Veda, which had been + lost, shows how well he knew the strong and weak points of the + theological system which he came to conquer." + + +Religious bigotry has sought to fix upon de' Nobili the forgery of the +Ezour-Veda; but the examination of the charge by distinguished English +(Protestant) Orientalists has only resulted in bringing out into brighter +relief that devoted missionary's remarkable acquirements and admirable +virtues. Francis Ellis, Esq., a distinguished Orientalist, discovered the +Sanskrit original of the Ezour at Pondicherry, and made an elaborate +report upon it, which was published at the time, in the _Asiatick_ (_sic_) +_Researches_ (vol. xiv., Calcutta, 1822), from which we cite the following +short extract: + + + "Robertus de Nobilibus is well known both to Hindus and + Christians, under the Sanskrit title of Tatwa-Bodha Swami, as the + author of many excellent works in Tamil, on polemical theology. In + one of these, the _Atma-Nirnaya-vivecam_, he contrasts the + opinions of the various Indian sects on the nature of the soul, + and exposes the fables with which the Puranas abound relative to + the state of future existence, and in another, _Punergeuma + Acshepa_, he confutes the doctrine of the metempsychosis. Both + these works, in style and substance, greatly resemble the + controversial part of the Pseudo Vedas; but these are open attacks + on what the author considered false doctrines and superstitions, + and no attempt is made to veil their manifest tendency, or to + insinuate the tenets they maintain under a borrowed name or in an + ambiguous form. The style adopted by Robertus de Nobilibus is + remarkable for a profuse admixture of Sanskrit terms; those to + express doctrinal notions and abstract ideas he compounds and + recompounds with a facility of invention that indicates an + intimate knowledge of the language whence they are derived; and + there can be no doubt, therefore, that he was fully qualified to + be the author of those writings. If this should be the fact, + considering the high character he bears among all acquainted with + his name and the nature of his known works, I am inclined to + attribute to him the composition only, not the forgery, of the + Pseudo Vedas." + + +But the result of further examination has decided that the Ezour-Veda was +not even written by de' Nobili, but by one of his native converts. It is +plain, from the testimony of Mr. Ellis, that he was not a man to seek the +cover of the anonymous or the ambiguous, in order to attack the +superstitions of Buddhism. This he did openly and boldly. Max Mueller +decides that "there is no evidence for ascribing the work to Robert." + +The example of Robert de' Nobili was sedulously followed up by other +members of his Order. + +Roth, another Jesuit, appeared in 1664, master of Sanskrit, and +successfully disputed with the Brahmans. Yet another, Hanxleder, who went +to India in 1669, labored for more than thirty years in the Malabar +mission, composed works of instruction, compiled dictionaries, and wrote +works in prose and verse. Many of his writings are preserved at Rome. +Among the most prominent of the Jesuit missionaries in the field of modern +Oriental and Sanskrit literature was Father Constant Beschi, who went out +to India in 1700. He made himself master of Sanskrit, Tamil, and Telugu, +and wrote moral works in Sanskrit which are still preserved and highly +prized by the Brahmans. The natives called him the great Viramamouni. +Scores of other missionaries might be named, equally devoted, equally +learned. But they acquired science, Sanskrit, and Oriental erudition as a +means, not an end. They sought no worldly distinction, no literary +reputation. They had but one engrossing object and thought here +below--their mission of charity and of love. + +Nevertheless, the day of + + + +Sanskrit For Europe, + + +long delayed, was now fast approaching. Its revelation to the West is +generally ascribed to Sir William Jones. This assumption may be stated to +be incorrect without in the slightest degree detracting from the merits of +that distinguished English scholar. For more than a century before Sir +William Jones went to India, the published letters of the Jesuit +missionaries had established the existence and general characteristics of +that remarkable tongue, the Sanskrit; and in 1740 (November 23), Father +Pons, then at Karikal [Madura], addressed a letter to Father Duhalde, +giving what Professor Max Mueller describes as "a most interesting and, in +general, a very accurate description of the various branches of Sanskrit +literature; of the four Vedas, the grammatical treatises, the six systems +of philosophy, and the astronomy of the Hindus. _He anticipated, on +several points, the researches of Sir William Jones._" + +The letter in question was, in fact, an essay; and Father Pons so speaks +of it. It fills sixteen closely printed octavo pages, and refers to the +fact, not mentioned by Prof. Mueller, that it is one of a succession of +communications upon the same subject, inasmuch as he mentions a treatise +written by himself on Sanskrit versification, transmitted to Europe the +previous year, and specifies a Sanskrit grammar (_Kramadisvar_) which he +sent two years before. Although Adelung, in his _Mithridates_, mildly +censures both Father Pons and Sir W. Jones for exaggerating the value of +Sanskrit, the exposition made by the former of the wealth of the Sanskrit +language and literature is, to this day, held by distinguished scholars to +be "very accurate." + +The Pons-Duhalde letter is often referred to, but seldom quoted. We will +therefore here cite a few short passages from it, which may give the +reader some idea of the nature of the communication and an early estimate +of the value of Sanskrit. We translate: "The Brahmans have always been, +and still are, the only class who devote themselves to the cultivation of +the sciences as a matter of hereditary descent. They originally descend +from seven illustrious penitents, whose progeny, in course of time, was +multiplied infinitely, etc. They are exclusively consecrated to learning, +and a Brahman who strictly adheres to the rule of his order should devote +himself solely to religion and study; but, in course of time, many have +fallen into a very lax life. + +"These sciences are inaccessible to all the other castes of people, to +whom it is permitted to communicate certain compositions, grammar, poetry, +and moral sayings." + +"The grammar of the Brahmans may fairly be classed in the rank of works of +science. Never were analysis and synthesis more happily employed than in +their grammatical works on the Sanskrit language. I am satisfied that this +language, so admirable in its harmony, its wealth, and its energy, was at +some remote period the spoken tongue of the country inhabited by the first +Brahmans." + +Parenthetically, and also by way of comparison, let us look for a moment +at the impression made by Sanskrit upon two other distinguished scholars +from among those who were earliest in the field--Sir William Jones and +Frederick von Schlegel. + +At the outset of his researches, the first declared that, whatever its +antiquity, it was a language of most wonderful structure, more perfect +than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined +than either, yet bearing to both of them a strong affinity. "No +philologer," he adds, "could examine the Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, +without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, +perhaps, no longer exists. There is a similar reason, though not quite so +forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and Celtic had the same +origin with the Sanskrit. The old Persian may be added to the same +family." And Frederick von Schlegel (_Essay on the Language and Philosophy +of the Indians_) says: "The similarity between Sanskrit, on the one hand, +and Latin and Greek, Teutonic and Persian, on the other, is found not only +in a great number of roots possessed by them in common, but it also +extends to the inner structure and grammar. The remarkable coincidence is +not merely such an accidental one as may be explained by an admixture of +language, but an essential one which points distinctly to a common +descent. Comparison further shows that the Indian (Sanskrit) tongue is the +more ancient, the others younger and derived from it." + +But to return to our missionaries. The interest excited in Europe by the +remarkable letter of Father Pons was purely one of surprise and +speculation, inasmuch as Western scholars were without the means of +testing the value of the great linguistic discovery. Sanskrit grammars, +dictionaries, and even vocabularies were then unknown in any European +tongue. This want, however, was soon supplied by another missionary, John +Philip Wesdin, more widely known as Father Paulinus a Santo-Bartolomeo. He +spent thirteen years in India, and subsequently published (1790) at Rome, +under the auspices of the Propaganda, several works on Sanskrit grammar +and upon the history, theology, and religion of the Hindus. + +Referring to his numerous publications (_vielen Schriften_), no less an +authority than Adelung qualifies them as indispensable to a knowledge of +Sanskrit as also to the other languages of India (welche zur Kentniss +sowohl dieser Sprache als auch Indiens ueberhaupt unentbehrlich sind); and +he adds (writing in 1806): "Peradventure has no European up to this time +so deeply penetrated into this language as he."(140) Of his first Sanskrit +grammar, published at Rome in 1790,(141) Prof. Max Mueller says: "Although +this grammar has been severely criticised, and is now hardly ever +consulted, it is but fair to bear in mind that the first grammar of any +language is a work of infinitely greater difficulty than any later +grammar." + +In this connection we must not omit some mention of that prodigy of +linguistic industry and erudition, the Spanish Jesuit, Don Lorenzo Hervas +y Pandura, who, in the midst of his missionary labors, collected specimens +of more than three hundred languages.(142) This of itself was a gigantic +work, and its rich results furnished to Adelung an important portion of +the material of his _Mithridates_. Hervas, moreover, prepared grammars for +more than forty languages, and is the founder of the true method of +ascertaining lingual affinity by grammatical analysis, rather than by +etymology, always more or less deceptive. Klaproth's enunciation of this +principle established by Hervas is so felicitous that we cannot refrain +from citing it here: "Words are the stuff or matter of language, and +grammar its fashioning or form." + +Concerning Hervas we need say no more than to add the noble tribute to his +memory and his merits to be found in the pages of Max Mueller's _Lectures +on the Science of Language_, p. 140: + + + "He proved by a comparative list of declensions and conjugations + that Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, and Amharic are + all but dialects of one original language, and constitute one + family of speech, the Semitic. He scouted the idea of deriving all + the languages of mankind from Hebrew. He had perceived clear + traces of affinity in Hungarian, Lapponian, and Finnish--three + dialects now classed as members of the Turanian family. He had + proved that Basque was not, as was commonly supposed, a Celtic + dialect, but an independent language, spoken by the earliest + inhabitants of Spain, as proved by the names of the Spanish + mountains and rivers. Nay, one of the most brilliant discoveries + in the history of the science of language, the establishment of + the Malay and Polynesian family of speech, extending from the + Island of Madagascar east of Africa, over 208 deg. of longitude, to + the Easter Islands west of America, _was made __ by Hervas long + before it was announced to the world by Humboldt_." + + +English literature has made us familiar with the name of Sir William Jones +as the European originator of the cultivation of Sanskrit. The merits of +Sir William Jones are not a subject of doubt or contest. Full justice has +been done them. But when we come to settle the question of priority of +successful and distinguished labor in the field of Sanskrit, the names and +transcendent services of the humble and self-sacrificing missionaries, +Robert de' Nobili, Roth, Hanxleder, Beschi, Pons, Paulinus a Santo- +Bartolomeo, Hervas, and scores of others, their predecessors and +companions, must ever be gratefully remembered. + + + +The Triumph Of Sanskrit. + + +Through the publications of the Asiatic Society at Calcutta, European +scholars were now furnished with facilities for the study of Sanskrit, and +it would be difficult to say which of the two, the language or the +literature, excited the deeper or more lasting interest. + +The absolute identity of grammatical forms of Greek and Latin with +Sanskrit was at once recognized, and it was evident that these three +languages sprang from one common source. The revelation created one of the +greatest literary sensations ever known in Europe. The theory that upheld +Hebrew as the mother tongue--already seriously damaged--now received its +death-blow. Classical scholars shook their heads sceptically. Theologians +were troubled. Ethnographers were all at sea. Etymologists and +lexicographers were dumfounded. The philosophers of the day, each one of +whom had his own little system of the universe to take care of, saw their +theories ruthlessly upset; and Lord Monboddo, who had just finished his +great work in which he derives mankind from a couple of apes, and all the +dialects of the world from the language of the Egyptian gods, was +petrified with astonishment. His Egyptian theory, his men with tails, and +his monkeys without tails, were all equally doomed to destruction. To his +credit, though, it must be said that he soon afterward accepted the +situation with commendable intelligence and alacrity. + +Other pet theories and other deeply ingrained prejudices of many scholars +of the best education were shocked and scandalized at the claims set up +for Sanskrit. The idea that the classical languages of Greece and Rome +could be intimately related to a jargon of mere savages--as they supposed +the natives of India to be--was to the last degree repugnant to these +gentlemen, and they went great lengths in assertion, absurd argument, +irony, and ridicule, to escape the, alas! too inevitable and horribly +unpleasant conclusion that Greek and Latin were of the same linguistic +kith and kin as the language of the black inhabitants of India. The +distinguished Scotch philosopher, Dugald Stewart, by way of protest +against the claims set up for Sanskrit, even went so far as to deny that +any such language existed or ever had existed, and wrote his famous essay +to prove that those arch forgers and liars, the Brahmans, had manufactured +the dialect on the model of the Greek and the Latin, and that the whole +thing, language, literature, and all, was a piece of daring invention and +bold imposture. + +How deeply rooted were the prejudices, and how stubborn the ignorance, +even among scholars and men of literary pursuits, in favor of the Hebrew +and against the reception of Sanskrit in its place, may be judged from the +representative fact, that so late as the ninth day of August, 1832, we +find no less a man than Coleridge making this entry in his note-book: "The +claims of the Sanskrit for priority to the Hebrew as a language are +ridiculous." + +The first European scholar of distinction who dared boldly accept the +facts and conclusions of Sanskrit scholarship was Frederick von Schlegel. +He began his study of the language with verbal tuition from Sir Alexander +Hamilton, continued it at Paris with the aid of M. Langles, custodian of +Oriental MSS. in the Imperial Library at Paris, and subsequently had the +advantage of the rich collection in the British Museum. The result was his +_Language and Wisdom of the Indians_, published in 1808. It embraced in +one glance the languages of India, Persia, Greece, Italy, and Germany, +riveted them together by the name of Indo-Germanic (by common consent of +scholars since changed to Indo-European), and became the foundation of the +science of language. Appearing only two years after the publication of the +first volume of Adelung's _Mithridates_, "it is separated from that work," +says Prof. Mueller, "by the same distance which separates the Copernican +from the Ptolemaean system," and this work of Schlegel, he adds, "has truly +been called the discovery of a new world." + +Omitting mention of the labors of many distinguished French and German +laborers in the same field, we may close our record of the services +rendered by Catholic scholars to the cause of Sanskrit literature by +reference to the remarkable course of lectures on "Science and Revealed +Religion," delivered by the Reverend (afterwards Cardinal) Wiseman, at +Rome, in 1835,(143) only two years and six months after the memorable +entry of Coleridge in his note-book. + + + +Sanskrit Literature And The Vedas. + + +It was perfectly natural that the fresh enthusiasm of the earliest +Sanskrit scholars should have carried them into what is now looked upon as +an undue estimate and hyperbolic praise of their new discovery and +acquisition. And this early enthusiasm was neither short in duration nor +limited in extent. + +A tidal wave of admiration swept over European scholarship with the +appearance of _Sacontala, or The Fatal Ring_ (Calcutta, 1789), certainly a +beautiful specimen of dramatic art and admirable poetry by Kalidasa, the +Indian Shakespeare, who is assigned to the period of Vikrama the Great +(B.C. 56). Sir William Jones very judiciously selected this masterpiece of +Indian literature for translation as a first specimen, and, although in +prose, it so delighted a French scholar, Chezy, that it induced him first +to learn Sanskrit and then to publish a French version of it. This was +followed by no less than four German translations, prose and verse, a +Danish translation, and an additional English translation (the best) in a +mingling of verse and prose (following the original) by Monier Williams. +Goethe was enraptured with the _Sacontala_, and it drew from him the +celebrated verse: + + + "Willt Du die Bluethe des Fruehen, die Fruechte des Spaeteren Jahres, + Willt Du, was reizt und entzueckt, willt Du was saettigt und + naehrt, + Willt Du den Himmel, die Erde mit einem Namen begreifen, + Nenn ich, Sacontala, Dich, und so ist Alles gesagt."(144) + + +A. W. von Schlegel finds in it so striking a resemblance to our romantic +drama that we might, he says, be inclined to suspect we owe this +resemblance to the predilection for Shakespeare entertained by Sir William +Jones, if the fidelity of his translation were not confirmed by other +learned Orientalists. And Alex. von Humboldt says of Kalidasa that +"tenderness in the expression of feeling, and richness of creative fancy, +have assigned to him his lofty place amongst the poets of all nations." + +Voltaire went into ecstasies over a French translation of the Ezour-Veda, +a Sanskrit poem in the style of the Puranas, quite an inferior production, +written in the XVIIth century by a native convert of Robert de' Nobili. +This French translation was published by Voltaire under the title, +"L'Ezour-Vedam, traduit du Sanscritam par un Brame," and he stated his +belief that the original was four centuries older than Alexander, and that +it was the most precious gift for which the West had been indebted to the +East. + +Adelung, as we have seen, found fault with Sir William Jones and Father +Pons for overrating the claims of Sanskrit, and subsequent critics have +gone so far as to assert that its literary and scientific value is very +slight. Among the latest of these are M. Jules Oppert(145) and Prof. Key +of University College, London. Their objections and arguments are met and +discussed by Prof. Whitney in the seventh essay of his volume, in a tone +so moderate and a treatment so thorough as to present a more than +satisfactory vindication of the claims of Indo-European philology and +ethnology to the serious attention and close study of every scholar. We +are not aware that either Prof. Key or M. Oppert has cited the fact that, +when the Indian rajah Rammohun Roy found the distinguished Sanskrit +scholar Rosen at work in the British Museum upon an edition of the hymns +of the Veda, he expressed his surprise at so useless an undertaking. It +was not that the Indian philosopher looked upon all Vedic literature as +worthless. On the contrary, he was of the opinion that the Upanishads were +worthy of becoming the foundation of a new religion. The rajah most +probably did not also consider the fact that, whatever might be the +intrinsic literary merit of the Vedic hymns, they were none the less +valuable to the comparative grammarian and philologist. For the purposes +of grammatical construction, it is perfectly immaterial whether or not a +text has the fire of genius or the inspiration of poetry. + +And here it may be mentioned that Rammohun Roy, the descendant on both the +paternal and maternal side of the highest caste Brahmans, and familiar +with the whole body of Vedic and Sanskrit literature, indirectly bears +high testimony to one of the grandest results obtained by European study +of Sanskrit literature. _That result is the exposure of Brahmanism as a +gross imposture._ Against any attack on its social and religious errors, +the Brahmans formerly entrenched themselves in the pretended warrant of +high antiquity and the authority of the sacred works. "Thus say the Vedas" +was a sufficient justification for any claim, and "That is not in the +Vedas" an unanswerable argument against any objection. Although they threw +every possible obstacle in the way of Europeans who strove to obtain a +knowledge of Sanskrit and access to the Vedas, by refusing to teach them +and by withholding the sacred books, these difficulties were finally +overcome, and when the Vedas were read and understood it became apparent +that fully one-half of the social and religious institutions of +Brahmanism, as it existed down to the commencement of the present century, +were not only without a shadow of authority in the Vedas, but absolutely +opposed to the spirit and letter of its law. Thus, it is certain that +nothing of the great characteristic feature of Brahmanism--the system of +castes--can be found in the Vedas. The belief in the transmigration of +souls and in the doctrines flowing from it has no existence there. And the +Suttee, or system of widow immolation, the singular mingling of +pantheistic philosophy with gross superstition, and the worship of the +triad Brahma, Vishnu, and Civa, are all equally without Vedic foundation. + +Robert de' Nobili discovered all this at an early period, and it was only +when he first fought the Brahmans with their own weapons--the Vedas--that +they were, for the first time, silenced. Rammohun Roy had his eyes opened +at an early age to the idolatrous system of the Hindus, came out from +among them, and openly attacked its pretensions. "I endeavored to show," +he says, "that the idolatry of the Brahmans was contrary to the practice +of their ancestors, and to the principles of the ancient works and +authorities which they profess to revere and obey." + +Prof. Whitney, referring to the same subject, says: "Each new phase of +belief has sought in them (the sacred texts) its authority, has claimed to +found itself upon them, and to be consistent with their teachings; and the +result is that the sum of doctrine accepted and regarded as orthodox in +modern India is incongruous beyond measure, a mass of inconsistencies": a +summing up that might, we regret to say, be truthfully made of a Christian +country of far higher civilization than that of India. + +Not stopping to discuss what has been called the "standing reproach" +against Indian literature, that it is barren of historical and +geographical results, nor to point out much that is of high value and +interest to every scholar, we will close by an inquiring comment as to the +following statement made by Prof. Whitney at p. 22. He is speaking of the +Vedic texts, and says: "So thorough and religious was the care bestowed +upon their preservation that, notwithstanding their mass and the thousands +of years which have elapsed since their collection, _hardly a single +various reading, so far as yet known, has been suffered to make its way +into them after their definite and final settlement_." + +We have italicized the passage which we wish to make the subject of our +inquiry, for, unless we are mistaken, two instances may be pointed out in +which the texts in question have been garbled or seriously tampered with. + +We find the first instance in the developments growing out of the +discussion as to whether there are three Vedas or four Vedas (Goverdhan +Caul on the "Literature of the Hindus," _Asiatic Researches_, Calcutta, +1788, vol. i., p. 340, and Sir William Jones' _Works_, vol. iv. p. 93 +(edition of 1807)). Even down to the present day, Indian scholars +sometimes speak of three Vedas, sometimes of four. According to Indian +tradition, Brahma has four mouths, each of which uttered a Veda. Yet most +ancient writers speak of but three Vedas, Rig, Yajush, and Sama, from +which it is inferred that the Atharva was written after the three first. +The Atharva is spoken of and called the Veda of Vedas in the eleventh book +of Manu, and the designation affirms the assertion of Dara Shecuh, in the +preface to his Upanishad, that the first three Vedas are named separately, +because the Atharvan is a corollary from them all, and contains the +quintessence of them all. But this verse of Manu, which occurs in a modern +copy of the work brought from Benares, is entirely omitted in the best +copies, so that, as Manu himself in other places names only three Vedas, +_we must believe this line to be an interpolation_ by some admirer of the +Atharva. + +The second instance to be specified is furnished by Prof. Whitney himself, +at pages 53, 54, and 55, where he gives a translation of a hymn from the +concluding book of the Rig-Veda (x. 18), describing the early Vedic +funeral services. When the attendants leave the bier, the men go first, +while the director of the ceremony says: + + + "Ascend to life, old age your portion making, each after each, + advancing in due order; + May Twashtar, skilful fashioner, propitious, cause that you here + enjoy a long existence." + + +The women next follow, the wives at their head: + + + "These women here, not widows, blessed with husbands, + May deck themselves with ointment and perfume; + Unstained by tears, adorned, untouched with sorrow, + The wives may first ascend unto the altar." + + +The wife of the deceased is then summoned away the last: + + + "Go up unto the world of life, O woman! + Thou liest by one whose soul is fled; come hither! + To him who grasps thy hand, a second husband, + Thou art as wife to spouse become related." + + +In commenting upon this hymn, Prof. Whitney notes its "discordance with +the modern Hindu practice of immolating the widow at the grave of her +husband," and adds: "Nothing could be more explicit than the testimony of +this hymn against the antiquity of the practice. It finds, indeed, no +support anywhere in the Vedic scriptures." And now we come to the "various +reading," for Prof. Whitney concludes the passage with this statement: +"Authority has been sought, however, for the practice, in a fragment of +this very hymn, rent from its natural connection, and a little altered; by +the change of a single letter, the line which is translated above, 'The +wives may first ascend unto the altar,' has been made to read, 'The wives +shall go up into the place of the fire.' " + +We heartily welcome this work of Prof. Whitney, and thank him for it as a +solid contribution to literature and to philological science, honorable to +himself, and reflecting credit on American scholarship. + + + + +The House That Jack Built. + + +By The Author Of "The House Of Yorke." + +In Two Parts. + +Part II. + +It was late before Aunt Nancy felt the approach of sleep that night. She +turned restlessly from side to side, thinking over Bessie's strange +behavior, and trying to find a solution for it. The appearance of a +mystery disturbed all calculations based upon her plain and outspoken +experience. + +But the habits of years are not easily broken, and sleep, that for more +than six decades had been wont to settle over this woman's head as +regularly as darkness settled on the earth, began now to dim her senses. +She was about losing consciousness, when the vague sense of pain and +perplexity which still clung to her mind strengthened and took a new form. +It was no longer a woman who laughed bitterly when she should have wept, +but a woman sobbing violently, she knew not why. + +The sound continued, and before its dreary persistence Aunt Nancy's +hovering sleep took flight. She started up and listened, not yet quite +recalled to recollection. It was indeed a woman's voice sobbing +uncontrollably. For one moment, the listener's blood chilled with a +superstitious fear; the next, she recollected that she was not alone in +the house. It was Bessie who mourned. "_Rachel weeping for her children, +because they were not_," the old woman thought pityingly. + +Poor Bessie had forgotten how thin the walls were in her old home, and, +when the door opened and a tall figure clad in white entered her room, she +uttered a cry of affright. + +"You poor child! I couldn't stand it to hear you cry so," Aunt Nancy said, +going to her bedside and bending down to put a caressing arm around her. +"Don't cry! Try to remember that you have not lost everything." + +"I'm sorry I disturbed you, Aunt Nancy," Bessie said faintly, sinking back +on the pillow. "You had better leave me to have it out alone. I don't +often get a chance to have a good cry, and you have no idea what a relief +it is." + +"I know all about it!" Aunt Nancy replied, and her voice, low and deep, +had a sound like a tolling bell. "I have seen 'em all go and leave me, one +after another, father and mother, brothers and sisters, husband and +children, till every earthly hope was covered over with dust, and it +seemed as though there was dust on the very bread I ate. Yes, I know what +it is better than you, for you have your husband and one child left yet, +and I have nothing on earth!" + +"I have not!" Bessie cried out passionately, with the jealousy of one +whose grief is underestimated. "John and the boy are further away from me +than my dead children are!" + +The barrier was down. She had betrayed herself, and must tell the whole, +though she might be sorry afterward for having spoken. Concealment and +self-control were no longer possible. + +It was a tale too often true, though not so often told. The husband, +engrossed in business, and missing no home care which the love and duty of +his wife could bestow, had forgotten, or did not care, or did not believe, +that any return was due from him save a pecuniary support, or that he +could be guilty of any sin of omission toward his wife, save the omission +to provide her with food and shelter. + +Perhaps no woman ever saw the heart she had once possessed slipping away +from her, without making a mistake in her efforts to retain it. +Indifference is her surest means of success, but indifference the loving +heart can never affect. As well might flame hope to hide itself, living, +in ashes. + +The reserve and gravity of wounded feeling, when at length the husband +noticed them, he named sulkiness, and the meanness of the causes to which +he ascribed that were felt as an insult. The few timid reproaches and +petitions the wife had brought herself to utter he listened to with +surprise and annoyance, or with ridicule. Why, what in the world did she +want?--to begin their courting days over again? In order to do that, they +must first be divorced. What had he done? Had he beaten, or scolded, or +starved her? Had he gone gallivanting about with other women? Nonsense! He +had his business to attend to. Of course he loved her, but she mustn't +bother him. + +What reply is possible to such arguments? How small seem all our sweetest +human needs when they are put into words, simply because words can never +express them! In such a controversy, hard natures have always the +advantage over sensitive ones, and seem to triumph by their very +inferiority. + +Bessie was silent, and her husband thought that she was convinced, and +dismissed the subject from his mind. If he observed that she grew pale, he +supposed that city air did not agree with her. He missed no home comfort, +heard no complaint, and therefore took for granted that all was right. He +frequently absented himself from home on business, never asking his wife +to accompany him, women being in the way on such occasions, and she seemed +satisfied to see nothing beyond her own fireside. He brought home his +plans and studies at evening, and, when the children's play and caresses +disturbed him, their mother took them away and amused them elsewhere. +When, later, her little ones asleep, as she sat by her husband silently +working, he found that the snip of her scissors and the rattle of her +spools fretted him, Bessie said not a word, but went off to bed, and wet +her pillow with bitter and unavailing tears, finding no comfort. + +The thought of seeking comfort and help in her religion had not once +entered her mind. She was dead to its obligations. They had never been +impressed on her, and her heart had been engrossed by other interests. Her +children had been baptized, and she usually went to an early Mass on +Sunday, but never heard a sermon, and never read a religious book. She +prayed often, but it was the outcry of pain, the petition for an earthly +good, not the prayer for resignation and wisdom. + +Of his wife's real life John Maynard knew no more than he did of life at +the antipodes. His profession engrossed his heart. His happiness was to +work and study over polished metals, to fit cylinder, crank, and valve +with nicety into their places; and at last, when that exquisite but +irresistible power of steam, so delicate in its fineness, yet so terrible +in its strength, began to steal into his work, to see the creature of +brass and iron grow alive, and become more mighty than an army of giants, +how tenderly could he handle, how carefully arrange, how patiently study +out, the parts of his work! For the problem of that infinitely more +exquisite mechanism--his wife's heart--he had no time. + +The boy, as boys will, followed in the footsteps of his father. He +emulated the slighting of which the father was himself unconscious, and +treated his mother with that intolerable mixture of patronizing kindness +and impatient superiority so often witnessed in the presumptuous children +of our time. + +When Bessie Maynard had poured out her complaint, with many an +illustration of which a woman could well understand the bitterness, Aunt +Nancy was silent a moment. + +"It's pretty hard, dear," she said then, embarrassed what to say. "Some +men have that way of not caring anything about their wives, as soon as +they have got them; but I never thought John would act so. And you know, +Bessie, that, if it is hard, still he is your husband, and you can't leave +him for that. Try to be patient, and don't lose courage. I'm sure he loves +you, though he doesn't show it; and he'll come round by-and-by." + +The reply almost broke in on this trite advice: "I did not mean to leave +him. I came down here to think. I can't think there. I wanted to see again +this place where I was a child, and where I was so happy. I thought that +perhaps some of the old feelings might come back. I have been afraid of +some things. Aunt Nancy, I was afraid I should grow to hate John!" + +"Oh! no, Bessie," the old woman exclaimed. "Never let yourself hate your +own husband! It would be a dreadful sin; and, besides, it wouldn't mend +matters. It is better for a woman to love one who cares nothing for her +than not to love anybody. I don't believe but John is fond of you still, +if he'd only stop to think of it." + +There was no reply. + +"What else were you afraid of?" Aunt Nancy asked presently. "You said you +were afraid of some things?" + +Bessie did not answer. + +That other fear that, shunned at first, then glanced upon, then brooded +over silently till it had grown almost a probability, flashed out again on +her in all its original hatefulness when she found herself about to +explain it to a listener like this. + +"If you don't want to tell, I won't ask you," Aunt Nancy said, with almost +childlike timidity. "But, may be, since you have begun, you would feel +better not to keep anything back. You know, Bessie, I am on your side, +though I am John's own aunt." + +The younger woman crept nearer into the arm that half held her, and said, +in a hurried whisper, "Every one is not so indifferent to me as John is!" + +"I'm glad of it, child," was the calm reply. "I don't like to praise +people to their faces, but you always had a sweet, winning way. I am glad +that other people are good to you." She waited again for the explanation, +not dreaming that it had been given. + +Bessie Maynard drew a breath, like one who plunges into water. "There's +some one who thinks me worth watching and sympathizing with, if John +doesn't," she said. + +"You don't mean a man!" exclaimed Aunt Nancy. + +"Of course I do," answered Bessie almost pettishly. + +The words were scarcely out of her mouth, before she was flung back on to +the pillow by the arms that had held her so tenderly, and Aunt Nancy stood +erect by the bedside. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Bessie Maynard?" +she cried out indignantly. + +"No, I am not!" was the dogged answer. "I have nothing to be ashamed of." + +The flash of the old woman's eyes could be seen in the dim light. "What! +you, a married woman, not ashamed to let a man who is not your husband +talk love to you!" + +"He never spoke a word of love to me," said Bessie, still sulky. + +Aunt Nancy was utterly puzzled. "How do you know, then?" she asked. + +Neither by nature nor education was this woman fitted to understand that +subtile manner by which impressions and assurances are conveyed without a +word having been spoken. A man would have been obliged to use plain +language indeed, if he would have had her, a wife, understand that he +loved her. + +While Bessie described some of the delicate kindnesses of this dangerous +friend of hers, Aunt Nancy listened attentively, and presently resumed her +seat by the bed. She really could not see that the child had done, or +meant, or wished any real harm. + +"But, still, you must look out for the fellow, dear," she said. "He +wouldn't hang round you so if he was what he ought to be. You never know +what these city gentlemen are." + +"He isn't a bad man!" Bessie exclaimed. "I won't have him called so. I'm +afraid; but, for all that, I respect him. I wish John were half as good." + +The story was ended; but with the feeling of relief which followed the +disburdening of her heart came also the uneasiness and half regret we +always experience when we have been led unawares to confide a secret to +one whom we have not deliberately chosen as a confidant. Conscious of this +new uneasiness, Bessie wished to close the conversation. + +"Don't let me keep you any longer," she said. "Go to bed now, and forget +all the nonsense I have been talking. I am sorry I disturbed you." + +Aunt Nancy paid no attention to this request. She sat a few moments in +deep thought, then spoke abruptly: "Bessie, did you ever go to any of your +priests about this business?" + +"To a priest!" repeated Bessie, astonished at such a question from a rigid +Puritan like her aunt, and doubtful in what spirit it was asked. "What +made you think of that?" + +"I am not a Catholic," the old woman said, "but you are. And I like to see +people live up to their religion, whatever it is. A religion that won't +help you in a strait like this isn't worth having." + +Bessie was silent, knowing not what to say. Her faith was sleeping. That +religion would help as really as the trials of earth can hurt she had not +thought. Like many others, she invoked the aid of the church on the great +events, the births, the marriages, and the deaths, but let the rest of +life fight its own battles. + +"Now, you listen to me," Aunt Nancy said earnestly. "I'm not very wise, +but I'm going to give you the best advice that you can get anywhere. Just +you write to old Father Conners, the priest that married you and John, and +tell him what a trouble you are in. I've seen him, and I believe he's a +good Christian, if he is a priest, and a sensible man, too. He comes three +or four times a year up to a Mr. Blake's, over on the railroad, and says +Mass in his house. There are a good many Catholics round there now. It's +about time for him to come again. You write to him, and you won't be sorry +for it. There's nothing else for you to do. Will you write, Bessie? I want +you to promise." + +The promise was given hesitatingly, doubtingly, more to get rid of the +subject than from any conviction of its wisdom. + +But a promise is a promise, and next morning Bessie wrote the letter, not +because she wished to, but because she must; and a very dry, cold letter +it was. She was a little helped to the writing of it by the pleasant +prospect of carrying it to mail. That would give her a long, solitary walk +and a whole afternoon quite to herself; for the post-office was in a desk, +in a corner of the sitting-room of a farm-house four miles distant. This +house was at the end of postal and stage accommodations in that direction. +Three times a week a double-seated open wagon was driven there from a +seaport town thirty miles to the southward, passing through several small +villages on its way. This stage had brought Bessie up, and was to return +the next morning. + +She set out on her walk soon after their early dinner, and reached the +post-office just at the high tide of that country afternoon leisure, when, +their noon dinner quite cleared away, the women of the house are +ordinarily free from everything that they would call labor. At this time +the housewife smooths her hair and ties on a clean apron. One hears the +snap of knitting-needles through the silence, or the drowsy hum of the +spinning-wheel, or the sound of the loom where the deep-blue woollen web +grows, thread by thread, while the weaver tosses her shuttle to and fro. + +Bessie had dreaded the gossip which she must expect to encounter; but, as +she approached, the sight of blue and pink sun-bonnets out in the field, +where the women were raking, hay, relieved her fear. Not a soul was in the +house. The watch-dog, recollecting her, gave no alarm, only walked gravely +by her side, and looked on while she slipped her letter into the bag left +to receive the mail. All the doors and windows stood open, and the +sunshine lay bright and clear on the white bare floors. Large, stupid +flies bumped their heads against the panes of glass, and a bumble-bee flew +in at the front door, wandered noisily about the rooms, and out again by +the back door. The painted wooden chairs stood straightly against the +yellow-washed walls, and a large rocking-chair, with a chintz cushion, +occupied one corner. A braided cloth mat covered the hearth, and the +fireplace was filled with cedar boughs, through which glittered the brass +andirons. On the high mantel-piece stood a pair of brass candlesticks, and +a tumbler filled with wild roses. + +Bessie glanced hurriedly about, then stole out, trembling lest she should +be discovered and pounced upon by some loud-voiced man or woman from whom +escape would be impossible. But no one appeared, and in a few minutes she +was out of sight of the house. + +Loud would be their exclamations of wonder and regret when they should +discover that letter, knowing who must have brought it. How curiously +would they handle it over, and examine it, and try to peep into it while +they speculated and guessed concerning its contents! + +"One comfort," said Bessie to herself, as she glanced over her shoulder, +and saw the last sun-bonnet disappear, "I sealed it so that not even a +particle of air could get in; and they can't see a word without committing +felony." + +The June day was passing away in a soft glory. All the world was green, +all the sky was blue, and all the air was golden. But the green was so +various, from a verdant blackness, through many tints, to a vivid green +that was almost yellow, it seemed many-colored as it was many-shaped. +There was every shape and size, from the graceful plume of ferns to the +square-topped oak with its sturdy, horizontal branches. Through it all +wound the narrow brown road, with a line of grass in the middle between +the wagon-wheels where the horses feet spared it. The birds were singing +their evening song, and a brook at the roadside lisped faintly here and +there, then lay still and shone, then suddenly laughed outright. + +On such an evening one does long to be happy; and, if happy, then one +feels that it is not enough. Bessie walked on slowly, taking long breaths +of the clear, perfumed air that had now an evening coolness. She would +fain have stayed out till night fell. The house was near, so she stepped +aside, sat down on a mossy rock, and looked at the sunset. The last, thin, +shining cloud there melted in the fervid light, grew faint, and +disappeared. Bessie's eyes, so tearful that all this universe of green and +gold swam before them, were fixed on the sky, and she thought over, with a +clearer mind now, the last feverish, miserable years of her life. + +It seemed to her that, if she had been less exclusively devoted to her +husband, and had interested herself in other people and in the events of +the day, she would have been wiser and happier. She had made herself as a +slave, and had received a slave's portion. It would be better to stand on +a more equal footing, and, since works of supererogation, instead of +winning his gratitude and affection, only fostered his selfishness and +lowered her, to confine herself to the duties she was bound to perform. + +"But it is my nature to love something with my whole strength, so that all +else seems small in comparison," she said, sighing. "How can I help it?" + +While she gazed fixedly at the sky, at first without seeing, she presently +became aware of a red-gold crescent moon that had grown visible under her +eyes, curved like a bow when the arrow is just singing from the string, +like the new moon whereon Our Lady stands, a tower of ivory. + +The tears in Bessie's eyes made the shining curve tremble in the sky as +though a hand held it; and, as though it were a bent bow, an arrowy +thought flew from it, and struck quivering into her heart: + +"Love God, and all will be well!" + +She sat a minute longer, then rose and went quietly homeward. Aunt Nancy +would be anxious about her; and the desire for solitude was gone. She was +glad now that she had written to Father Conners, though the letter might +have shown a gentler spirit. It was a comfort to have done something that +was right, though it was not much. + +One does not ordinarily become pious in a moment. We may recognize the +voice of God, and be startled at the clearness and suddenness of the +summons, but our sluggish faith has ever an excuse for a little more +folding of the hands to sleep. But though not obedient at once, Bessie +Maynard felt, rather than saw, that there was a refuge which made it no +longer possible for her to despair. + +Within a few days she received an answer to her letter. The priest was +coming to that neighborhood by the last of the week, and would see her. +The letter was brief and to the point, and contained not one word of +sympathy or exhortation; but the tremulous characters, that told of age or +infirmity touched the heart of the reader. This old man gave her no soft +words, but he was hastening to her relief. For the first time, she +anxiously asked herself if it had not been possible for her to avoid all +her trouble, and if there was any element in her story which could +reasonably be expected to call forth anything but reproof for herself from +a man whose whole life had been one of charity and self-denial. She wished +to see him indeed, but she awaited his coming with a feeling little short +of terror. + +Bessie had not written to her husband. She could not bring herself to do +that, for she did not wish to write coldly to him, and she would not use +expressions of affection which had no echo in her heart. But she wrote to +her son a gentle and tender letter, of which he was neither old nor +sensitive enough to feel the pathos. Only one reproach found a place +there: "I thought you might like to hear from me, though you cared more +for your play than you did to say good-by to me when I came here, and left +me to go to the depot alone." She did not intimate, though she thought, +that the business which had called her husband away at the same time might +as easily have been postponed. + +Father Conners came. His open buggy was driven to the door one morning, +and the boy who sat with him held the horse while the priest slowly +alighted. He was a large, powerful-looking man, still vigorous, though +slightly bent and stiff with age. Snow-white hair framed his expressive +face, in which sternness and benevolence were strangely mingled. His color +was fresh, perfect teeth gave a brilliancy to his infrequent smile, and +his pale-blue eyes were almost too penetrating to be met with ease. He +walked with his head slightly bent down and his gaze fixed upon the ground +till he reached the door, then looked up to see Bessie standing on the +threshold. + +She was a pretty creature still, in spite of troubled years, and her +manner and expression would have propitiated a sterner judge. Blushes +overspread her face, and she trembled; yet an impulse of joyful welcome +broke through and brightened her, as a sunbeam brightens the cloud. + +The priest stopped short, with no ceremony of greeting, and regarded her a +moment, while she waited for him to speak. + +The scrutiny satisfied him apparently. + +"You did well to come back here," he said then, and made a motion to +enter. She stood aside for him to pass, and followed him into the little +parlor which she had spent all the morning in preparing for him. An arm- +chair had been improvised out of a barrel, some pillows, and a shawl, the +rude fireplace was filled with green, and there were dishes of flowers +about. + +Her visitor did not appear to notice these simple efforts to do him honor. +Almost before seating himself, he began to speak of what had brought him +there. + +"Now, my child, though I have time enough to say and hear all that is +necessary, though it should take a week, I have no time to waste. Tell me +the meaning of your letter?" + +No time for gradual approach, for timid intimations, or delicate reserves +till, warming with the subject, she could show plainly all that was in her +heart. She must make the "epic plunge" without delay. Stimulated by the +necessity, Bessie called up her wits and her courage, and, without being +aware of it, told everything in a few words. + +When she paused and expected him to question her, to her surprise he +seemed already to know the whole. And, to her still greater pleasure, +those points on which she had touched lightly, fearing that they might +seem trivial in his eyes, he spoke of with sympathy. + +"It is those little attentions and kindnesses which sweeten human life, my +child, and help to sustain us under its heavier trials," he said. + +Bessie lifted her grateful, tearful eyes, and thanked him with a sad +smile. + +"And now," he continued, "I want you to go to confession." + +Her eyes dilated with astonishment. She was confused and distressed, and a +painful blush rose to her face. + +"I have not confessed for years," she stammered. "I am not prepared. When +I have time to think, I will go to confession in a church. It seems +strange to confess here." + +The priest was by nature and habits peremptory, and he knew that this was +the proper time to exercise that quality. "Any place is proper for +confession, if a better one is not to be had," he said. "As to being +prepared, let us see. You tell me that you have been thinking this all +over this week, to see wherein you may have done wrong. There, then, is an +examen of your conscience as to your duties toward your husband and, +indirectly, toward God. You say that you have not practised your religion, +but mean to do so in future. There is attrition, at least, and a purpose +of amendment. You say that you know all you have committed of serious +wrong in these years, don't you?" + +"Yes," was the answer. + +"You know humanly, as far as you can know, without the illumination of the +Holy Spirit?" the priest corrected. + +"Yes," said Bessie again. "But I want to think it over, and make sure of +my sorrow and good resolutions." + +"In short, you wish to reform and convert yourself, then go to God," said +Father Conners. "That is not the way. It is God who is to convert you. You +need not stay to try to conquer your feelings, and hesitate for fear you +may not be able to. Your reason is convinced. It is enough. Go to God, and +ask him to help you to do the rest. While you are thinking the subject +over in the woods here, you may die, or the devil may come and tempt you +in the shape of this friend of yours. I will give you half an hour. While +I have gone out to read my office under the trees, you kneel down here, +and first ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten you, and reveal all your sins. +Then say, and mean, that you are sorry, and plan how you may do better +with God's help in the future." + +He had risen while speaking, and was going toward the door. Refusal was +impossible. Bessie carried her shawl-covered arm-chair out, and set it +under a thick old pine-tree on the slippery brown pine-needles, through +which tiny ants were running in every direction, very busy about some +buildings of their own, carrying sticks larger than themselves. + +Father Conners seated himself, set his hat on the ground by his side, +spread a red silk handkerchief over his head, and took out his Breviary. +He had but little time to attend to the beauties of nature, but the +situation brought an expression of pleasure to his face. He gave one +glance up into the overshadowing branches that spread their fragrant +screen between him and the sun, then a kindlier glance to the young woman +who stood looking wistfully at him. + +"Come here for your confession when you are ready, child," he said, "and +don't be afraid. See how peaceful the skies are. Is God less gentle? And +here! take my watch, and come back in twenty-five minutes. You have lost +five minutes already." + +Bessie took the large silver watch on its black ribbon, and hastened to +shut herself in her room, and Father Conners became absorbed in his +office. So much absorbed was he, he did not observe that the silk +handkerchief slipped slowly from his head, and that a large spider let +itself down by a thread from the tree above, stopped within a few inches +of that silvery hair, which it contemplated curiously, then ran up its +silken ladder again as a young woman came out of the house, walked with +faltering steps across the sward, and sank on her knees by the priest's +side. + +An hour later, Father Conners climbed laboriously into his carriage, and +drove away, and Bessie leaned on the bars, and watched him as long as he +was in sight. She felt strong and peaceful. She counted over the promises +she had made him, and resolved anew that they should be kept. + +She stood there so long that Aunt Nancy, after having kept her dinner +waiting out of all reason, came down to speak to her. She came with +anxiety and hesitation, not knowing whether her niece was better or worse +for this visit. + +"You gave me good advice, Aunt Nancy," Bessie said, turning at the sound +of her step. + +The old lady was delighted. "So you're all right?" she said. + +"I have got into the right track, at least," Bessie answered, as they +walked up toward the house. "I have been to confession." + +Aunt Nancy's face clouded again on hearing this avowal. That was all the +priest's visit had amounted to, then--that John's wife had been induced to +go to confession! How could people be so superstitious, so subjected, to +their priests? She had hoped that Bessie might have received some good +sound advice and instruction. + +This she thought, but said nothing. + +How was she to know that in that one word confession was included advice, +instruction, good resolution, and sorrow for sin, as well as the mystical +rite which she abhorred? + +To Be Continued. + + + + +S. Peter's Roman Pontificate. + + +The history of mankind presents us innumerable facts that strike the +reader with astonishment, and tax his ingenuity to its utmost to explain. +The sudden fall of nations from the height of prosperity to misery and +subjection, the invasion of hordes of barbarians to substitute their +uncouthness and ferocity for the polish and civilization of centuries, the +apparent vocation of some one nation, at different epochs, to assume a +preponderance over all others in the government of the world, the +appearance of some one great mind that shone like a sun amid the galaxy of +intellect, revolutionizing his time, and then setting, without leaving any +one to continue his work; all these facts confuse the mind, and, when man +has lost the light that was sent into this world to guide him, seem to him +but the bitter irony of destiny. Not so, however, are they viewed by him +to whom revelation has imparted its illumining rays. He sees Providence +everywhere, and, knowing some wise end has been intended by the Creator +whose power conserves and directs the evolutions of the planets and the +vicissitudes of human life, he is encouraged to inquire into the end for +which such wonderful events have been brought about. 'Twas by this light +the great Bishop of Hippo saw the providential disposition of the changes +that took place in the world; looked on all history but as the preparation +and continuation of the master-work of God--his church. 'Twas by this light +that, following in the footsteps of S. Augustine, Bossuet understood the +relations of such different facts, and showed their connection in his +_Universal History_. These men, and those who, like them, have studied the +history of the nations of the earth, had no difficulty in realizing the +relation of all these facts, and in looking on them as so many +confirmations of the truth of Christianity; but those who are without +faith stand aghast at the inexplicable phenomena they see before them, and +of all none so sets at naught their judgment and defies their explanation +as the greatest, the most persistent, the most important of all historical +facts--the existence of the Catholic Church. They see it everywhere; +modifying everything; setting at defiance all calculation; and when, +according to human judgment, it should cease to exist, coming forth from +the ordeal purer, stronger, more brilliant and powerful than before. Yet, +they are not willing to learn by experience, but look forward to a future +day when an expedient or a means will be discovered to destroy in its turn +this gigantic fabric that appears to scorn the ravages of time and the +fury of tempest, just as the Jews look forward to the Messiah who is to +deliver them from captivity among the nations. In their useless hope, they +leave nothing untried, and often scruple not at what in their private +capacity they might scorn--distortion of history and downright calumny. No +human institution could ever have withstood the array of powerful enemies +the church of Christ has had since she first went forth from Mount Sion. +No age has ever seen her without them; sometimes fierce persecutors, +sometimes insidious plotters, sometimes open impugners of her dogmas; at +other times dangerous foes, cloaking their hostility under the garb of +devotion that they might better strike deep into her bosom the poison with +which, in their foolish hate, they fancied they were to deprive her of +life. But the spouse of Christ has always cast them from her, and walked +majestically over the ruins they themselves had brought about, and this +she will ever do. And why? Because she does not lean on a broken reed nor +put her trust in an arm of flesh. She bears about her a charm that defies +all attack--the protection of the Most High--and presents to all the proof +of her holy character, those motives of credibility, that as they were +intended for all time, so now as on the day of Pentecost, accompany her +wherever she goes, invincibly proving to the mind of man her own divine +origin and her claim to his obedience. As she was one, in the union of all +her children in one faith and in one baptism; as she was holy in the lives +of those that obeyed her; as she was catholic and universal, embracing +peoples of _all_ climes and of _all_ ages; as she was apostolic in her +origin and in the succession of her ministry, so is she now, one, holy, +catholic, and apostolic in the succession of her priesthood and in the +infallibility of her head. As she was able to point to the wonders wrought +by the apostle in the name of her divine founder, so now can she point to +the miracles of her chosen servants: an Alphonsus de Liguori, a Paul of +the Cross, a Ven. Pallotta, a Maria Taigi, a Maria Moerl, and a host of +others, down to the martyred victims of communistic fury. She can show in +the XIXth century, as she did in the first, a host of martyrs; old men and +youths, matrons and tender virgins, who, when arraigned for their faith +before the Chinese mandarin, fulfilled the promise of Christ, and gave +inspired answers, as did the glorious children of the early church, and +sealed, too, with their blood the belief they held dearer than life. + +We can understand, then, how the church can look fearlessly at the storms +that ever and anon burst upon her, because, built on the solidity of her +belief, she knows the waves can but break harmless at her feet. She has no +need of human means to secure her existence, for that has a promise of +perennial duration. The condition, too, of her being is one of struggle +and warfare, and, when it comes upon her, her only act is to oppose the +shield of faith and the sword of the word of God--her only arms the truth. +And as it is written that truth will prevail, so in every battle in which +she has been engaged she has come forth at last with victory inscribed on +her banner--victory through the truth. + +We have said that the condition of her being is struggle and warfare. +This, therefore, is never wanting; as all the world knows, she is called +on to defend herself just now against the fiercest attacks she has perhaps +ever suffered--perhaps even beyond what she underwent in that fearful +persecution, in which her enemies directed against her every engine of +destruction, and in their mad rejoicing recorded the inscription, +_Christiano nomine deleto_. To-day the openly declared foes of her faith +are seated in triumph in her stronghold, and strain every nerve to uproot +from the mind and heart of her children the faith of their fathers. Not +content with attacking the dogmas she teaches, they assail every fact +which in any way may favor her, no matter how clearly the history of past +ages may proclaim its truth. An instance of this we have had but recently, +but a few months ago, when an attempt was made to prove that the fact upon +which the whole jurisdiction of the church is grounded never occurred--that +S. Peter forsooth never came to Rome, and never founded the church there! +With what success the champions of this assertion advocated their cause is +known; and it may still further be judged of from the fact that a person +who came to the discussion, doubting of the fact of S. Peter's having been +in Rome, left the hall after hearing the Catholic speakers, convinced that +such an historical personage as S. Peter had lived and been in Rome, and +he recorded his belief in one of the leading journals of Italy not +favorable to the Catholic cause. + +It may be said to be a strange phenomenon that a fact of history so +notorious, and for which so great an amount of proof exists, which has at +its command every fount of human certitude, as that of the coming of S. +Peter to Rome, ever should have been called in question. But what will not +party spirit attempt? It is not the first time nor will it be the last +that partisans will seek to rid themselves of troublesome facts by +downright denial of them. This spirit, however, is a dangerous one, and +especially unbecoming the sincere student of history. We know what Bacon +has said about the _idola_, and it is incumbent on every one who is +searching after historic truth to lay aside prejudice or even the desire +that facts may favor him. He must look at them merely as they are, take +them on their proof, without, striving to lessen them or give them other +proportions than are inherent in them. If the scope of all research is to +find out the truth, it is our duty to seek it only, and not mar its beauty +by adding to or detracting from it. In the present case the remark is +highly applicable. Catholics have nothing to fear in examining the +historic proofs on which the coming of S. Peter to Rome rests; while those +who differ from them, in so far as they love truth, should be equally glad +to look well into the claims to truth which this same fact puts forward. +We propose to go briefly over the ground. We say briefly because it seems +almost presumptuous, since so many able pens have dedicated themselves to +this task, that we should undertake it anew. There seems to us, however, a +want to be supplied, on this subject, something succinct and not too +learned or too lengthy for the ordinary reader, engrossed in pursuits that +do not allow time for more extended studies. This must be our excuse as +well as our reason for the present undertaking. + +In the discussion that took place in Rome on the 9th and 10th February, +1872, the chief speaker on the negative side ended his discourse by saying +that, no matter what weight of testimony could be brought to sustain S. +Peter's coming to Rome, the silence of Scripture was for him an +unanswerable argument; the Scripture should have spoken of the fact had it +existed; it said nothing about it, therefore it had never existed. Were it +not that the subject is too serious for such quotations, we should say +with Gratiano, "We thank thee for teaching us that word!" This was the +feeling that came over us as we heard the expression from the lips of the +speaker, and now, after so much has been written, we have it still. It is +needless to say that such an expression betrays anxiety with regard to +positive argument, if not a suspicion of weakness in one's own cause. We +shall endeavor to show that there was reason both for this suspicion and +this anxiety. + +And, first, the opinion which is least probable concerning the death of S. +Peter satisfactorily accounts for the silence of the Acts and of the +Epistle to the Romans, the portions of Scripture on which our adversaries +lay most stress in this matter. According to this opinion, S. Peter was +martyred in Rome, _Nerone et Vetere Consulibus_, _i.e._, according to the +Bucherian Catalogue, in the second year of Nero, the year 54 of the +Christian era, this leaving S. Peter twenty-five years of pontificate, +from the year 29 to the year 54. S. Linus succeeded him, and ruled the +church twelve years, dying after S. Paul, who was put to death before Nero +went into Greece. S. Peter was therefore, according to this chronology, +dead before S. Paul reached Rome. It is not strange, then, the Acts does +not speak of his being there. As for the Epistle to the Romans, if it was +written in the year 53, or two years before S. Paul came to Rome according +to Eusebius, the reasons we adduce further on will explain the silence +with regard to S. Peter. If, as the ordinary opinion has it, the Epistle +was written from Corinth, in the year 58, S. Peter being already four +years dead, the omission of his name is easily accounted for. + +We say, secondly, that, in the belief that S. Peter and S. Paul died at +the same time in Rome, sufficient reason can be found for the silence both +of the Acts and of the Epistle to the Romans. + +We beg particular attention to what we are going to say. Those portions of +Scripture do not prove by their silence that S. Peter _never_ came to +Rome, first, because the Acts and the Epistle to the Romans are not +adequate witnesses in the case; secondly, because neither the Acts nor the +Epistle to the Romans was called on by circumstances to allude to S. +Peter's being in Rome. + +And, first, the Acts and Epistle to the Romans are not adequate witnesses +that S. Peter _never_ came to Rome. We call attention to the fact that the +Epistle to the Romans was written two years before S. Paul came to Rome. +What therefore we are going to say under this first head regarding the +Acts applies with greater force to the Epistle to the Romans. We shall +then confine our remarks wholly to the Acts in this connection. We say, +then, that, in order that the Acts should be received as an adequate +witness, it should cover the whole period from the time S. Peter first +left Judaea to that of his death as fixed by received historical data, for +we cannot arbitrarily determine the period of his death. Now, it is well +known that history indicates the date of S. Peter's death as that of S. +Paul's. They are represented as dying on the same day and in the same +year, one by the sword, the other on the cross; such are the words of the +Roman Martyrology. This being so, we call attention to the fact that the +chief disputant on the negative side of the question fixed on the year 61, +from the _Fasti Consulares--atti consolari_, as that in which S. Paul came +to Rome, this being the year in which Portius Festus went to take +possession of his province.(146) The Acts tells us that after S. Paul came +to Rome he dwelt for two years in his own hired house. Here the narration +ceases, leaving Paul alive and in the year 63 of the Christian era. From +that time to his death, according to historical data, occurs a period, +according to different computations, of from two to four years. About this +period of time no mention is made in the Acts for the simple reason that +it is not embraced there; the narrative breaks off just as it begins. What +was to prevent S. Peter's coming to Rome during this period of from two to +four years? If he had, the Acts could have said nothing about it, nor +could it if he had not. The conclusion is simple, the Acts, and, _a +fortiori_, the Epistle to the Romans, written prior to it, are no +competent or adequate witnesses to prove S. Peter _never_ came to Rome, +nor died there. + +We come to the second head: neither the Acts nor the Epistle to the Romans +was called on to mention the fact of S. Peter's being in Rome. With regard +to the Acts, any one who will carefully read it will see that S. Luke +narrates the acts of S. Paul. It was necessary to begin with some account +of the commencement of the church to show S. Paul's connection with it. +This S. Luke does, speaking of the descent of the Holy Ghost, of the +instantaneous and marvellous results of the preaching of S. Peter, of his +admission of the Gentiles after the vision of the cloth containing all +manner of animals, and then passes on to speak of S. Paul, of his +persecution of the church, of the martyrdom of S. Stephen, of the +wonderful conversion of S. Paul. Here S. Paul is brought into contact with +S. Peter; but after the Council of Jerusalem, when S. Paul sets out to +evangelize the heathen, S. Peter is no more heard of, not even when S. +Paul returns to Jerusalem, as narrated in chapter xxi. Was he dead? Had +this been so ere S. Paul left Judaea, from his intimate contact with S. +Peter, it is probable S. Luke would have mentioned a fact so important as +the death of the first of the apostles. He was not dead. He and the other +apostles no longer appear in the narration of S. Luke, if we except S. +James, Bishop of Jerusalem, whom S. Paul saw (chapter xxi.), because S. +Luke did not propose to give a complete history of the church at that +time, or of the apostles, but only of S. Paul and his acts. The Acts are +contained in twenty-eight chapters. In chapter vii., v. 57, Saul the +persecutor is spoken of for the first time; in the next four chapters he +is frequently mentioned. In the xv., S. Peter is mentioned for the last +time; and from this to the xxviii. S. Paul is the theme of the inspired +writer. In the 15th verse of chapter xxviii. the Christians go out to meet +Paul at Forum Appii, and in verse 16 he is in Rome a prisoner; verse 7 +shows him to us calling together not the Christians, but the chief men of +the Jews, to explain that he has not appealed to Caesar because he had +anything against his people. After these words, at verse 21, the Jews +reply to him, and he instructs or upbraids them as far as verse 29, which +represents the Jews going away incredulous. Verse 30 says: "He remained +two years in his own hired house, and received all who came unto him; 31, +Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching with all confidence, and +without prohibition, the things that are of the Lord Jesus Christ." Here +the Acts ends. Does there seem to the reader any place in these two verses +for a mention of Peter? Ought the inspired writer to have added more to +his account? It seems to us not, for the end he had in view was gained. He +had been a companion of S. Paul, he had told those who knew it not what +had happened in their travels, and now S. Paul was in Rome, and dwelling +there, in the centre of the world, he did not deem it needful to say any +more, otherwise he would have told us some of the actions of S. Paul, for +wonders and conversions he certainly wrought in those two years. But as S. +Luke says nothing about these, nor about the flourishing Church of Rome to +which S. Paul two years before had addressed his Epistle from Corinth, it +is not strange he says nothing about S. Peter. + +The silence of S. Paul in regard to S. Peter, in his Epistle to the +Romans, is not only of no avail to our adversaries, but the Epistle itself +contains matter for strong argument that S. Peter was permanently in Rome, +and in fact founded the church there. + +First, with respect to the silence of S. Paul in regard to S. Peter. It is +a received canon of criticism that the silence of authors does not affect +the existence of a fact, when that fact is proven from documents of +weight; and this all the more when no valid reason can be put forward to +show the author or authors should have mentioned the fact in question. +Now, this is precisely the case with regard to S. Paul's silence about S. +Peter. We have documentary and monumental evidence, as we shall see +hereafter, that S. Peter did come to Rome, while there was no practical +reason why S. Paul should mention S. Peter:--not for the sake of commending +him, for that was neither becoming, as S. Peter was head of the apostolic +college, nor necessary, as S. Peter's works bore the stamp of divine +sanction; not for the purpose of asking permission to labor in Rome, as +the apostles were equal in the ministry, and united in a bond of perfect +harmony and mutual understanding, though with subjection to the centre of +unity, S. Peter, without, however, the distinctions of the various rights +and duties afterwards introduced by ecclesiastical custom; not for the +purpose of salutation, for he could not address S. Peter as head of the +church in a tone of authoritative teaching; and salutations, if, contrary +to what is generally held, Peter were in Rome at the time the letter was +written, could be made privately by the messenger who carried the letter, +and thus the duty of urbanity or charity, the only one that could require +express notice of S. Peter, may have been fulfilled. In fact, propriety +itself required this latter mode of salutation, lest it should be said +that S. Paul, instead of having directly addressed S. Peter, had saluted +him publicly through those to whom he wrote--the Christians of Rome, the +spiritual subjects of S. Peter. The silence, then, of S. Paul is of no +weight to prove S. Peter never was in Rome. + +The argument of silence, therefore, falls to the ground. + +We said the Epistle to the Romans contains matter to show S. Peter was in +Rome, and founded the church there. + +Let us bear in mind who S. Peter was--the Apostle of the Gentiles. Why was +it he did not go at once to the centre of the Gentile world? Could any +more potent means have been adopted to spread Christianity? There centred +the civilization of the known world; there the Ethiopian met the Scythian, +the swarthy men from the banks of the Ganges were face to face with those +who first saw light by the waters of the Tagus, and the Numidian horseman +and the German warrior strolled through the Forum, admiring the temples of +the gods of Rome. Nowhere was there more certainty of success in spreading +abroad novelty of any kind than in this Babylon, receiving into its vast +enclosure men of all the nations over which it ruled, and sending them +forth again filled with wonder at what they saw, and eager to impart to +their less fortunate countrymen what they had learned in their sojourn in +the great city. Thither, however, S. Paul did not go, and why? Because +some one was there already--some one of power and authority; some one whose +labors had been crowned with success, and who had built up a church, the +faith of which at the time this epistle was written was known throughout +the whole world. S. Peter tells us himself he desired to go to the Romans +to impart to them something of spiritual grace to strengthen them, that +is, to be comforted in them "by that which is mutual--your faith and mine." +The mode of expression of S. Paul in this place, vv. 11 and 12, is worthy +of notice. He says to the Romans he longs to see them to _strengthen +them_, and, as if he might be misunderstood, he adds immediately, "_that +is to say_, that I may be comforted together in you." Evidently he speaks +here as one who is careful lest he seem to usurp the place of another, or +assume a right of teaching with authority which belonged to another. He +would not have the Romans think he considers that the one who rules them +is inferior to himself or stands in need of his support. In verse 18 he +says: "I do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, that I have often +proposed to come unto you (and I have been prevented hitherto) that I may +have some fruit among you as among other peoples." It is manifest here +that S. Paul's duties with the Greeks kept him from going to Rome, and +this, as we said before, because, the Romans being already provided with +one who could teach them, there was not the pressing need of him that +would make him leave those who had none to preach to them. + +What we have said with regard to the tone of the first chapter of the +Epistle is confirmed by the words of the apostle in chapter xv. 19-26. +Here S. Paul says why he had not gone to Rome--because he was preaching to +those _who had no one to preach to them_. Had the Romans had no apostle +preaching to them, this would not have been a reason to put forward, +because the superiority of an apostle over any other preacher of the word +was such as to do away with the necessity of any comparison, and to make +all desirous in an eminent degree of seeing and hearing the chosen men the +sound of whose voice was to be heard throughout the whole world. S. Paul +then continues: "When I shall begin to take my journey into Spain, I hope +_that as I pass_, I shall see you, and be brought on my way thither by +you, if first, in part, I shall have enjoyed you." From this it results, +first, that S. Paul had no intention of remaining in Rome; and, secondly, +that what he desired was to enjoy, in meeting the Romans, the consolation +of seeing their faith, and of sharing with them the spiritual gifts he +himself had received, which should serve to make them yet more steadfast +in their fidelity to the Gospel, precisely as, to use an example, the +preaching of the same doctrine they have heard from their own bishop, by a +bishop who is his guest, strengthens the faithful in their religious +belief. + +The fact, then, stands that a flourishing church existed in Rome at the +time S. Paul wrote his Epistle, and this is still further shown by the +salutations in the last chapter. Who founded it? History is silent +regarding any one but S. Peter. As Alexandria claims S. Peter and S. Mark; +as Ephesus, S. John; as innumerable other cities and countries their +respective apostles, so does Rome claim S. Peter as its first evangelizer. +It would be absurd to say that all these other cities and nations could +retain the memory of him who first preached to them the word of God, and +Rome--the greatest of all, where so notorious a fact as the preaching of +Jesus Christ could not pass by unnoticed, especially when its effects were +so luminously conspicuous as S. Paul tells us they were--this Rome should +alone be ungratefully forgetful of her best benefactor. The thing is +absurd on the face of it. But history is silent about any other founder +except S. Peter; therefore we are justified in concluding that S. Peter, +and S. Peter alone, was the original founder of the Church of Rome, and +that Rome is right in holding her tradition that such was the fact. + +This tradition of S. Peter's having been in Rome, having founded the +church there, and having died there, gives strength to the conclusion +which Scripture has aided us to form. To any one who is at all conversant +with Rome, it must always have appeared a very remarkable fact that the +discoveries made by the zeal of her archaeologists have, as a rule, +confirmed the traditions existing among the people both with regard to +localities and facts. It would seem as if Providence, in these days of +widespread scepticism, were unearthing the long-hid monuments of the past +to put to confusion those who would fain treat the history of early ages +as a myth. The monuments stare them in the face, while their value is +understood by men of sound practical sense. This is the reason of the +reaction that is taking place against the sceptical style of writing +history which Niebuehr and Dr. Arnold adopted, and made to a certain extent +fashionable. The words of a well-informed writer, whose works have been +deservedly well received--Mr. Dyer--are an excellent reply to authors of +that stamp, based, as they are, on sound sense and the experience of +mankind--the safest guides we can possibly follow; for it is folly to think +that those who have gone before us blindly received everything that was +told them. Whatever may have happened with regard to individuals, such +certainly never was the case with regard to all. As well might we say +that, because some writers of to-day speak in a spirit of scepticism, all +writers adopt the same style. Men in general never were sceptical, and +never will be; they will use their senses and their intellect, and judge +of things on their merits, and not according to the extravagant ideas of +any one, however brilliant he be. Mr. Dyer, though speaking of ancient +Roman history, makes remarks that are applicable in our case. He says, in +the Introduction to the _History of the City of Rome_, p. xvi.: "It would, +of course, be impossible to discuss in the compass of this Introduction +the general question of the credibility of early Roman history. We can +only state the reasons which have led us to doubt a few of the conclusions +of modern critics about some of the more prominent facts of that history, +and about the existence or the value of the sources on which it professes +to be founded. If it can be shown that the attempts to eliminate or to +depreciate some of these sources can hardly be regarded as successful, and +that the general spirit of modern criticism has been unreasonably +sceptical and unduly captious with respect to the principal Roman +historian, then the author will at least have established what, at all +events, may serve as an apology for the course he has pursued." And at +page lxii.: "There is little motive to falsify the origin and dates of +public buildings; and, indeed, their falsification would be much more +difficult than that of events transmitted by oral tradition, or even +recorded in writing. In fact, we consider the remains of some of the +monuments of the Regal and Republican periods to be the best proofs of the +fundamental truth of early Roman history." If this author could justly +speak in this manner of a period regarding which there is certainly not a +little obscurity, what are we to say when we are speaking of so well-known +an epoch as that of the Roman Empire under Claudius and Nero, and of a +fact so luminous as that of the foundation of Christianity in the capital +of the world? The certainty of the traditions concerning this fact +undoubtedly acquires a strength proportionally greater, and this all the +more because we have the monuments around which these traditions centre, +and the existence of these monuments in the IId century is attested by the +Roman priest Caius writing against Proclus, apud Eusebium, _Hist. Eccl._, +c. xxv.: "I can," he writes, "show you the trophies (tropaea) of the +apostles. For, whether you go to the Vatican or to the Ostian Way, the +trophies of those who founded the church will present themselves to your +view." These monuments are the place of imprisonment of S. Peter, the +place of his crucifixion, that of the martyrdom of S. Paul, the place of +their burial, that in which their remains were deposited for a time, and +their final resting-place, over which the grandest temple of the earth +rises in its majesty--a witness of the belief of all ages. + +The tradition of S. Peter having founded the church in Rome receives +additional force from the fact that but a short period elapsed before +writers whose genuine works have come down to us recorded them, and thus +transmitted them to us. Not to speak of S. Clement of Rome, of S. Ignatius +of Antioch, of Papias, we take the words of S. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, +who was martyred in the year 202 of the Christian era. We omit speaking of +the other Fathers, not because we consider their testimony without great +value, for it is impossible, in our judgment, for any one who takes up +their works with an unprejudiced mind, and reads them in connection with +later and more precise writers on this subject, not to feel that they +refer to a matter so universally and thoroughly known as not to need any +further dwelling on than would a fact well known to a correspondent, +demand details from the person who writes him the letter. S. Irenaeus, we +said, died in the year 202. He had been for a long time Bishop of Lyons, +whence he wrote to S. Victor, Pope, on the subject of the controversy +regarding the celebration of Easter, dissuading him from harsh measures +with respect to the Christians of the East. S. Victor was Pope from the +year 193 to 202, and succeeded Eleutherius, who became pope in the year +177. To this latter Irenaeus was sent by the clergy of Lyons in the case of +the Montanist heresy, he having been received and ordained priest of the +diocese of Lyons by the Bishop Photinus, and it was during the pontificate +of the same pope that he wrote his celebrated work against heresies. He +was at this time not a young man, and we shall not be wide of the mark if +we put his birth some years before the middle of the second century, and +this all the more because he himself in the above-mentioned book speaks of +his early studies as gone by. According to the best authorities, S. John +the Apostle was ninety years old when he was thrown into the caldron of +boiling oil, under Domitian, in Rome. He lived several years longer at +Patmos, and at Ephesus, where he died in the year 101, during the reign of +Trajan. We have thus a period of from thirty to forty years between the +death of S. John--the witness of what SS. Peter and Paul did, and who was +fully acquainted with all that had occurred at Rome--and Irenaeus. +Independent of the means of information this proximity to the apostles +gave him, both because in his youth he must have known many who had in +their own youth seen and heard S. Peter, and because he had himself +visited Rome, the interval between him and S. John is filled up by the +link that unites them in an unbroken tradition, by the celebrated martyr +and Bishop of Smyrna, S. Polycarp, the disciple of S. John and the master +of S. Irenaeus. We ask the reader to say, in all candor, whether this link +be not all that can be desired to secure belief in the testimony handed +down through it, from the apostles, especially with regard to such a thing +as the chief theatre of the life, labors, and death of the head of the +apostolic college. Anticipating a favorable answer, we proceed to give the +words of S. Irenaeus--of undoubted authenticity. In his work, _Contra +Haereses_, l. iii. c. i., he writes: "Matthew among the Hebrews composed +his Gospel in their tongue, while Peter and Paul were evangelizing at Rome +and founding the church. After their decease, Mark, the disciple and +interpreter of Peter, committed to writing what had been preached by +Peter." In the same book, c. iii. § 3, S. Irenaeus says: "But since it is +too long to enumerate in a volume of this kind the successions of all the +churches, pointing to the tradition of the greatest, most ancient and +universally known, founded and constituted at Rome, by the two most +glorious Apostles Peter and Paul, to that which it has from the apostles, +and to the faith announced to men, through the succession of bishops +coming down to our time, we put to confusion all who in any manner, by +their own self-will, or through empty glory, or through blindness, or from +malice, gather otherwise than they should. For to this church, by reason +of its more powerful headship (principalitatem), it behooves every church +to come, that is, those who are faithful everywhere, in which (in qua) has +always been preserved by men of every region the tradition which is from +the apostles." He goes on to say: "The holy apostles, founding and +building up the church, gave to Linus the episcopate of administration of +the church. Paul makes mention of this Linus in his letters to Timothy. To +him succeeded Anacletus; after him, in the third place from the apostles, +Clement (who also saw the apostles, and conferred with them) obtained the +episcopate, while he yet had the preaching of the apostles sounding in his +ears and tradition before his eyes; not he alone, for there were many then +living who had been taught by the apostles. Under this Clement, therefore, +a not trifling dissension having arisen among the brethren who were at +Corinth, the church which is at Rome wrote a very strong letter etc.... To +this Clement succeeded Evaristus, and to Evaristus Alexander, and +afterwards the sixth from the apostles was Sixtus, and after him +Telesphorus, who also gloriously suffered martyrdom; and then Hyginus, +next Pius, after whom Anicetus. When Soter had succeeded Anicetus, now +Eleutherius has the episcopate in the twelfth place from the apostles. By +this order and succession, that tradition which is from the apostles in +the church, and the heralding of the truth, have come down to us. And this +is a most full showing that one and the same is the life-giving faith +which from the time of the apostles down to the present has been preserved +and delivered in truth. And Polycarp, not only taught by the apostles, and +conversing with many of those who saw our Lord, but also constituted by +the apostles bishop in Asia, in the church which is at Smyrna, _whom we +also saw in our early youth_, taught always the things he had learned from +the apostles, which also he delivered to the church, and which are alone +true. To these things all the churches, which are in Asia, and those who +up to to-day have succeeded to Polycarp, bear witness." And in his letter +to Florinus, S. Irenaeus says more explicitly that he was a disciple of +Polycarp, that he had a most vivid recollection of his master, of his ways +and words, which he cherished more in his heart even than in his +memory.(147) Eusebius, in the _Chronicon_, says that Polycarp was martyred +in the year 169, the seventh of Lucius Verus. + +Nothing clearer, more explicit, or of greater value than a tradition with +such links as S. John the Evangelist, S. Polycarp, and S. Irenaeus could be +desired to establish beyond a doubt that S. Peter came to Rome and founded +the church there. + +This fact having been shown to rest on a solid basis, we have now to say a +word with regard to the time at which S. Peter came to Rome. On this point +there is a difference of opinion; but this very difference of opinion as +regards the epoch is a new proof of the fact. The most probable opinion, +that which seems to have found most favor, fixes it at the year 42 of the +Christian era, the second year of Claudius. This is what S. Jerome, +following Eusebius, records. The learned Jesuit Zaccaria puts it at the +year 41, in the month of April, the 25th of which was kept as a holyday, +in the time of S. Leo the Great, in honor of S. Peter. This writer bears +witness to the very remarkable unanimity among the Fathers with respect to +the twenty-five years' duration of the pontificate of S. Peter in Rome, +which according to S. Jerome would fix the date of his death as the +fourteenth year of Nero, the 67th of the present era. The words of S. +Jerome are: "Simon Peter went to Rome to overthrow Simon Magus, and had +there his sacerdotal chair for twenty-five years, up to the last year of +Nero, that is, the fourteenth; by whom also he was crowned with martyrdom +by being affixed to the cross."(148) S. Jerome, we know, was well versed +in the history of the church, had dwelt for a long time at Rome, and may +consequently be presumed to have been excellently well informed with +regard to the general belief and tradition of the people of Rome. The +manner of the death of both apostles is mentioned by Tertullian, in his +book _De Praescriptionibus_, c. 126, where, after bidding those he +addresses have recourse to the apostolic churches, he says: "If you be +near to Italy, you have Rome, whence also we have authority. How happy is +this church, for which the apostles poured forth all their doctrine with +their blood, where Peter equals his Lord's Passion, where Paul is crowned +with the end of John (the Baptist), where the Apostle John, after +suffering no harm from his immersion in the fiery oil, is banished to an +island." Origen, too, says: "Peter is thought to have preached to the Jews +throughout Pontus, Galatia, Bythinia, Cappadocia, and Asia; who, when he +came to Rome, was finally affixed to the cross with his head down."(149) + +Before concluding what we have undertaken to say on the subject of S. +Peter's coming to Rome, we wish to notice the objection against this fact, +and the duration of his pontificate, which must naturally appear to those +not well acquainted with antiquity one of not a little strength. How could +S. Peter hold the primacy at Rome, when the Acts represents him +continually as in Judaea, among those of his nation to whom he had, as S. +Paul says, a peculiar mission, the apostleship of circumcision? We reply, +first: that the apostleship of S. Peter to the Jews did not exclude his +labors with the Gentiles; in fact, we know from the Acts that S. Peter had +a vision which led him to work for the latter, and that vision was +immediately followed by the admission, by S. Peter himself, of the +centurion Cornelius. Moreover, it is well known that there were Jews +dispersed throughout the world, to whom S. Peter is said to have gone, as +we have shown--in Pontus and the other countries of Asia Minor; and also in +Rome they were numerous. Duty therefore, both to the Jew and Gentile, +could and did lead S. Peter to Rome. + +We say, secondly: there is no difficulty in the fact of S. Peter having +been often in Judaea. The apostles, from their very charge, were obliged to +travel much; and the sound of their voice was heard in every land. As is +narrated of them, they divided the nations among them; and, burning with +the fire of zeal sent down upon them on the day of Pentecost, they went +about, everywhere kindling in others the flame that burned within +themselves. As for the difficulties or facilities of travel, especially in +the case of S. Peter, we cannot do better than to cite the words of the +learned Canon Fabiani in his _Discussion_ with those who impugned the +coming of S. Peter to Rome. In the authentic report of this discussion, +page 52, he says: "How many days were required for a journey from Caesarea +to Rome? Little more than fifteen days.... Lately very learned men among +Protestants, and at the same time men thoroughly skilled in what regards +the seafaring art, Smith and Penrose, have calculated from the very voyage +of S. Paul, and from the narrations in the Acts, the time that vessels +took to come from Caesarea to Rome. They went at the rate of seven knots an +hour, so that it took one hundred and seventy-seven hours, or seven days +and a third, to came from Caesarea to Pozzuoli; and Pliny himself assures +us that vessels came from Alexandria to Pozzuoli in nine days, from +Alexandria in Egypt in nine days, and from Alexandria to Messina in seven +days. Caesarea and Jerusalem, you know, differ but little in distance to +Rome, from Alexandria in Egypt. The journey from Messina and Pozzuoli to +Rome was made in about two or three days, so that the whole time required +to go from Rome to Jerusalem was not more than half a month." It is easy, +then, to understand how S. Peter could be often in Judaea, though he had +fixed his permanent residence in Rome. + +To sum up what we have been saying, no argument can be had from the +silence of Scripture to prove S. Peter never came to Rome, because the +Acts and Epistle to the Romans do not cover the whole epoch of S. Peter's +apostleship. Moreover, the silence of Scripture does not prove that S. +Peter did not rule the Church of Rome twenty-five years, because, as we +have shown, there was no reason why either the Acts or the Epistle to the +Romans should speak of S. Peter's going to Rome and being there. What we +have here asserted is all the more true because we have positive testimony +not only with regard to S. Peter's coming to Rome, but also respecting the +date of his coming, the period of his ruling the church there, the time +and the manner of his death there, and because we have the monuments +recording the memory of the Apostles Peter and Paul, the trophies of the +apostles, as Caius calls them, _tropaea apostolorum_, which exist to this +day, surrounded by the marks of veneration and the pious traditions of the +people of Rome. Against all these proofs difficulties of history and +chronology are of no avail; for, in the first place, the very difficulties +and discussions only serve to confirm the fact, especially since these +difficulties and discussions have lasted for fifteen centuries without +bringing about the rejection of the main fact; in the next place, we know +there are many well-established facts regarding which there exist +difficulties to clear up, and this nowhere more than in past history. When +we have proved by one solid, unanswerable argument a fact, we should not +trouble ourselves much regarding what may be brought against it. The +elucidation of knotty points may delight us and reward the labors of the +erudite; for common practical use the matter is settled; and any one who +rises up against it must not wonder if he be looked on as either not well +informed, or, to say the least, eccentric. + + + + +Sayings. + + +"Rejoice not in riches or other transient gifts, for thou shalt be +deprived of them like the actor, who, after finishing his part, lays aside +his costume,"--_S. Chrysostom._ + +"God has implanted in us conscience, and by this he acts in a manner more +loving than our natural father; for this latter, after he has warned his +son ten and a hundred times, expels him from his home; but God ceases not +to warn us by conscience even to the latest breath."--_Ibid._ + +"To restrain anger assimilates man to his Creator."--_Ibid._ + +"The man who forgives his enemy is like God."--_S. Augustine._ + +"He is a true Christian who carries with him the whole belief of Christ, +who acts virtuously through the spirit of Christ, and who dies to sin +through the following of Christ."--_S. Thomas._ + +"No one is lost without knowing it; and no one is deceived without wishing +to be deceived."--_S. Thomas._ + + + + +The Progressionists. + + +From The German Of Conrad Von Bolanden. + + + +Chapter VII. An Ultramontane Son. + + +Greifmann and Gerlach had driven to the railway station. The express train +thundered along. As the doors of the carriages flew open, Seraphin peered +through them with eyes full of eager joy. He thought no more of the fate +that threatened him as the sequel of his father's arrival; his youthful +heart exulted solely in the anticipation of the meeting. A tall, broad- +shouldered gentleman, with severe features and tanned complexion, alighted +from a _coupe_. It was Mr. Conrad Gerlach. Seraphin threw his arms around +his father's neck and kissed him. The banker made a polite bow to the +wealthiest landed proprietor of the country, in return for which Mr. +Conrad bestowed on him a cordial shake of the hand. + +"Has your father returned?" + +"He cannot possibly reach home before September," answered the banker. The +traveller stepped for a moment into the luggage-room. The gentlemen then +drove away to the Palais Greifmann. During the ride, the conversation was +not very animated. Conrad's curt, grave manner and keen look, indicative +of a mind always hard at work, imposed reserve, and rapidly dampened his +son's ingenuous burst of joy. Seraphin cast a searching glance upon that +severe countenance, saw no change from its stern look of authority, and +his heart sank before the appalling alternative of either sacrificing the +happiness of his life to his father's favorite project, or of opposing his +will and braving the consequences of such daring. Yet he wavered but an +instant in the resolution to which he had been driven by necessity, and +which, it was plain from the lines of his countenance, he had manhood +enough to abide by. + +Mr. Conrad maintained his reserve, and asked but few questions. Even Carl, +habitually profuse, studied brevity in his answers, as he knew from +experience that Gerlach, Senior, was singularly averse to the use of many +words. + +"How is business?" + +"Very dull, sir; the times are hard." + +"Did you sustain any losses through the failures that have recently taken +place in town?" + +"Not a farthing. We had several thousands with Wendel, but fortunately +drew them out before he failed." + +"Very prudent. Has your father entered into any new connections in the +course of his travels?" + +"Several, that promise fairly." + +"Is Louise well?" + +"Her health is as good as could be wished." + +"General prosperity, then, I see, for you both look cheerful, and Seraphin +is as blooming as a clover field." + +"How is dear mother?" + +"Quite well. She misses her only child. She sends much love." + +The carriage drew up at the gate. The young lady was awaiting the +millionaire at the bottom of the steps. While greetings were exchanged +between them, a faint tinge of warmth could be noticed on the cold +features of the land-owner. A smile formed about his mouth, his piercing +eyes glanced for an instant at Seraphin, and instantly the smile was +eclipsed under the cloud of an unwelcome discovery. + +"I am on my way to the industrial exhibition," said he, "and I thought I +would pay you a visit in passing. I wish you not to put yourself to any +inconvenience, my dear Louise. You will have the goodness to make me a +little tea, this evening, which we shall sip together." + +"I am overjoyed at your visit, and yet I am sorry, too." + +"Sorry! Why so?" + +"Because you are in such a hurry." + +"It cannot be helped, my child. I am overwhelmed with work. Harvest has +commenced; no less than six hundred hands are in the fields, and I am +obliged to go to the exhibition. I must see and test some new machinery +which is said to be of wonderful power." + +"Well, then, you will at least spare us a few days on your return?" + +"A few days! You city people place no value on time. We of the country +economize seconds. Without a thought you squander in idleness what cannot +be recalled." + +"You are a greater rigorist than ever," chided she, smiling. + +"Because, my child, I am getting older. Seraphin, I wish to speak a word +with you before tea." + +The two retired to the apartments which for years Mr. Conrad was +accustomed to occupy whenever he visited the Palais Greifmann. + +"The old man still maintains his characteristic vigor," said Louise. "His +face is at all times like a problem in arithmetic, and in place of a heart +he carries an accurate estimate of the yield of his farms. His is a cold, +repelling nature." + +"But strictly honest, and alive to gain," added Carl. "In ten years more +he will have completed his third million. I am glad he came; the marriage +project is progressing towards a final arrangement. He is now having a +talk with Seraphin; tomorrow, as you will see, the bashful young +gentleman, in obedience to the command of his father, will present himself +to offer you his heart, and ask yours in return." + +"A free heart for an enslaved one," said she jestingly. "Were there no +hope of ennobling that heart, of freeing it from the absurdities with +which it is encrusted, I declare solemnly I would not accept it for three +millions. But Seraphin is capable of being improved. His eye will not +close itself against modern enlightenment. Servility of conscience and a +baneful fear of God cannot have entirely extinguished his sense of +liberty." + +"I have never set a very high estimate on the pluck and moral force of +religious people," declared Greifmann. "They are a craven set, who are +pious merely because they are afraid of hell. When a passion gets +possession of them, the impotence of their religious frenzy at once +becomes manifest. They fall an easy prey to the impulses of nature, and +the supernatural fails to come to the rescue. It would be vain for +Seraphin to try to give up the unbelieving Louise, whom his strait-laced +faith makes it his duty to avoid. He has fallen a victim to your +fascinations; all the Gospel of the Jew of Nazareth, together with all the +sacraments and unctions of the church, could not loose the coils with +which you have encircled him." + +In this scornful tone did Carl Greifmann speak of the heroism of virtue +and of the energy of faith, like a blind man discoursing about colors. He +little suspected that it is just the power of religion that produces +characters, and that, on this very account, in an irreligious age, +characters of a noble type are so rarely met with; the warmth of faith is +not in them. + +"Mr. Schwefel desires to speak a word with you," said a servant who +appeared at the door. + +The banker nodded assent. + +"I ask your pardon for troubling you at so unseasonable an hour," began +the leader, after bowing lowly several times. "The subject is urgent, and +must be settled without delay. But, by the way, I must first give you the +good news: Mr. Shund is elected by an overwhelming majority, and Progress +is victorious in every ward." + +"That is what I looked for," answered the banker, with an air of +satisfaction. "I told you whatever Caesar, Antony, and Lepidus command, +must be done." + +"I am just from a meeting at which some important resolutions have been +offered and adopted," continued the leader. "The strongest prop of +ultramontanism is the present system of educating youth. Education must, +therefore, be taken out of the hands of the priests. But the change will +have to be brought about gradually and with caution. We have decided to +make a beginning by introducing common schools. A vote of the people is to +be taken on the measure, and, on the last day of voting, a grand barbecue +is to be given to celebrate our triumph over the accursed slavery of +religious symbols. The ground chosen by the chief-magistrate for the +celebration is the common near the Red Tower, but the space is not large +enough, and we will need your meadow adjoining it to accommodate the +crowd. I am commissioned by the magistrate to request you to throw open +the meadow for the occasion." + +The banker, believing the request prejudicial to his private interests, +looked rather unenthusiastic. Louise, who had been busy with the teapot, +had heard every word of the conversation, and the new educational scheme +had won her cordial approval. Seeing her brother hesitated, she flew to +the rescue: + +"We are ready and happy to make any sacrifice in the interest of education +and progress." + +"I am not sure that it is competent for me in the present instance to +grant the desired permission," replied Greifmann. "The grass would be +destroyed, and perhaps the sod ruined for years. My father is away from +home, and I would not like to take the responsibility of complying with +his honor's wish." + +"The city will hold itself liable for all damages," said Schwefel. + +"Not at all!" interposed the young lady hastily. "Make use of the meadow +without paying damages. If my brother refuses to assume the +responsibility, I will take it upon my self. By wresting education from +the clergy, who only cripple the intellect of youth, progress aims a +death-blow at mental degradation. It is a glorious work, and one full of +inestimable results that you gentlemen are beginning in the cause of +humanity against ignorance and superstition. My father so heartily concurs +in every undertaking that responds to the wants of the times, that I not +only feel encouraged to make myself responsible for this concession, but +am even sure that he would be angry if we refused. Do not hesitate to make +use of the meadow, and from its flowers bind garlands about the temples of +the goddess of liberty!" + +The leader bowed reverently to the beautiful advocate of progress. + +"In this case, there remains nothing else for me to do than to confirm my +sister's decision," said Greifmann. "When is the celebration to take +place?" + +"On the 10th of August, the day of the deputy elections. It has been +intentionally set for that day to impress on the delegates how genuine and +right is the sentiment of our people." + +"Very good," approved Greifmann. + +"In the name of the chief-magistrate, I thank you for the offering you +have so generously laid upon the shrine of humanity, and I shall hasten to +inform the gentlemen before they adjourn that you have granted our +request." And Schwefel withdrew from the gorgeously furnished apartment. + +Meanwhile a fiery struggle was going on between Seraphin and his father. +He had briefly related his experience at the Palais Greifmann; had even +confessed his preference for Louise, and had, for the first time in his +life, incurred his father's displeasure by mentioning the wager. And when +he concluded by protesting that he could not marry Louise, Conrad's +suppressed anger burst forth. + +"Have you lost your senses, foolish boy? This marriage has been in +contemplation for years; it has been coolly weighed and calculated. In all +the country around, it is the only equal match possible. Louise's dower +amounts to one million florins, the exact value of the noble estate of +Hatzfurth, adjoining our possessions. You young people can occupy the +chateau, I shall add another hundred acres to the land, together with a +complete outfit of farming implements, and then you will have such a start +as no ten proprietors in Germany can boast of." + +Seraphin knew his father. All the old gentleman's thought and effort was +concentrated on the management of his extensive possessions. For other +subjects there was no room in the head and heart of the landholder. He +barely complied with his religious duties. It is true, on Sundays Mr. +Conrad attended church, but surrounded invariably by a motley swarm of +worldly cares and speculations connected with farming. At Easter, he went +to the sacraments, but usually among the last, and after being repeatedly +reminded by his wife. He took no interest in progress, humanity, +ultramontanism, and such other questions as vex the age, because to +trouble himself about them would have interfered with his main purpose. He +knew only his fields and woodlands--and God, in so far as his providence +blessed him with bountiful harvests. + +"What is the good of millions, father, if the very fundamental conditions +of matrimonial peace are wanting?" + +"What fundamental conditions?" + +"Louise believes neither in God nor in revelation. She is an infidel." + +"And you are a fanatic--a fanatic because of your one-sided education. Your +mother has trained you as priests and monks are trained. During your +childhood piety was very useful; it served as the prop to the young tree, +causing it to grow up straight and develop itself into a vigorous stem. +But you are now full-grown, and life makes other demands on the man than +on the boy; away, therefore, with your fanaticism." + +"To my dying hour I shall thank my mother for the care she has bestowed on +the child, the boy, and the young man. If her pious spirit has given a +right direction to my career, and watched faithfully over my steps, the +untarnished record of the son cannot but rejoice the heart of the father--a +record which is the undoubted product of religious training." + +"You are a good son, and I am proud of you," accorded Mr. Conrad with +candor. "Your mother, too, is a woman whose equal is not to be found. All +this is very well. But, if Louise's city manners and free way of thinking +scandalize you, you are sheerly narrow-minded. I have been noticing her +for years, and have learned to value her industry and domestic virtues. +She has not a particle of extravagance; on the contrary, she has a decided +leaning towards economy and thrift. She will make an unexceptionable wife. +Do you imagine, my son, my choice could be a blind one when I fixed upon +Louise to share the property which, through years of toil, I have amassed +by untiring energy?" + +"I do not deny the lady has the qualities you mention, my dear father." + +"Moreover, she is a millionaire, and handsome, very handsome, and you are +in love with her--what more do you want?" + +"The most important thing of all, father. The very soul of conjugal +felicity is wanting, which is oneness of faith in supernatural truth. What +I adore, Louise denies; what I revere, she hates; what I practise, she +scorns. Louise never prays, never goes to church, never receives the +sacraments, in a word, she has not a spark of religion." + +"That will all come right," returned Mr. Conrad. "Louise will learn to +pray. You must not, simpleton, expect a banker's daughter to be for ever +counting her beads like a nun. Take my word for it, the weight of a wife's +responsibilities will make her serious enough." + +"Serious perhaps, but not religious, for she is totally devoid of faith." + +"Enough; you shall marry her nevertheless," broke in the father. "It is my +wish that you shall marry her. I will not suffer opposition." + +For a moment the young man sat silent, struggling painfully with the +violence of his own feelings. + +"Father," said he, then, "you command what I cannot fulfil, because it +goes against my conscience. I beg you not to do violence to my conscience; +violence is opposed to your own and my Christian principles. An atheist or +a progressionist who does not recognize a higher moral order, might insist +upon his son's marrying an infidel for the sake of a million. But you +cannot do so, for it is not millions of money that you and I look upon as +the highest good. Do not, therefore, dear father, interfere with my moral +freedom; do not force me into a union which my religion prohibits." + +"What does this mean?" And a dark frown gathered on the old gentleman's +forehead. "Defiance disguised in religious twaddle? Open rebellion? Is +this the manner in which my son fulfils the duty of filial obedience?" + +"Pardon me, father," said the youth with deferential firmness, "there is +no divine law making it obligatory upon a father to select a wife for his +son. Consequently, also, the duty of obedience on this point does not rest +upon the son. Did I, beguiled by passion or driven by recklessness, wish +to marry a creature whose depravity would imperil my temporal and eternal +welfare, your duty, as a father, would be to oppose my rashness, and my +duty, as a son, would be to obey you. Louise is just such a creature; she +is artfully plotting against my religious principles, against my loyalty +to God and the church. She has put upon herself as a task to lead me from +the darkness of superstition into the light of modern advancement. I +overheard her when she said to her brother, 'Did I for an instant doubt +that Seraphin may be reclaimed from superstition, I would renounce my +union with him, I would forego all the gratifications of wealth, so much +do I detest stupid credulity.' Hence I should have to look forward to +being constantly annoyed by my wife's fanatical hostility to my religion. +There never would be an end of discord and wrangling. And what kind of +children would such a mother rear? She would corrupt the little ones, +instil into their innocent souls the poison of her own godlessness, and +make me the most wretched of fathers. For these reasons Miss Greifmann +shall not become my wife--no, never! I implore you, dear father, do not +require from me what my conscience will not permit, and what I shall on no +condition consent to," concluded the young man with a tone of decision. + +Mr. Conrad had observed a solemn silence, like a man who suddenly beholds +an unsuspected phenomenon exhibited before him. Seraphin's words produced, +as it were, a burst of vivid light upon his mind, dispelling the +multitudinous schemes and speculations that nestled in every nook and +depth. The effect of this sudden illumination became perceptible at once, +for Mr. Gerlach lost the points of view which had invariably brought +before his vision the million of the Greifmanns, and he began to feel a +growing esteem for the stand taken by his son. + +"Your language sounds fabulous," said he. + +"Here, father, is my diary. In it you will find a detailed account of what +I have briefly stated." + +Gerlach took the book and shoved it into the breast-pocket of his coat. In +an instant, however, his imagination conjured up to him a picture of the +Count of Hatzfurth's splendid estate, and he went on coldly and +deliberately: "Hear me, Seraphin! Your marriage with Louise is a favorite +project upon which I have based not a few expectations. The observations +you have made shall not induce me to renounce this project +unconditionally, for you may have been mistaken. I shall take notes myself +and test this matter. If your view is confirmed, our project will have +been an air castle. You shall be left entirely unmolested in your +convictions." + +Seraphin embraced his father. + +"Let us have no scene; hear me out. Should it turn out, on the other hand, +that your judgment is erroneous, should Louise not belong to yon crazy +progressionist mob who aim to dethrone God and subvert the order of +society, should her hatred against religion be merely a silly conforming +to the fashionable impiety of the age, which good influences may +correct--then I shall insist upon your marrying her. Meanwhile I want you +to maintain a strict neutrality--not a step backward nor a step in advance. +Now to tea, and let your countenance betray nothing of what has passed." +He drew his son to his bosom and imprinted a kiss on his forehead. + +The millionaires were seated around the tea-table. Mr. Conrad playfully +commended Louise's talent for cooking. Apparently without design he turned +the conversation upon the elections, and, to Seraphin's utter +astonishment, eulogized the beneficent power of liberal doctrines. + +"Our age," said he, "can no longer bear the hampering notions of the past. +In the material world, steam and machinery have brought about changes +which call for corresponding changes in the world of intellect. Great +revolutions have already commenced. In France, Renan has written a _Life +of Christ_, and in our own country Protestant convocations are proclaiming +an historical Christ who was not God, but only an extraordinary man. You +hardly need to be assured that I too take a deep interest in the +intellectual struggles of my countrymen, but an excess of business does +not permit me to watch them closely. I am obliged to content myself with +such reports as the newspapers furnish. I should like to read Renan's +work, which seems to have created a great sensation. They say it suits our +times admirably." + +The brother and sister were not a little astonished at the old gentleman's +unusual communicativeness. + +"It is a splendid book," exclaimed Louise--"charming as to style, and +remarkably liberal and considerate towards the worshippers of Christ." + +"So I have everywhere been told," said Mr. Conrad. + +"Have you read the book, Louise?" + +"Not less than four times, three times in French and once in German." + +"Do you think a farmer whose moments are precious as gold could forgive +himself the reading of Renan's book in view of the multitude of his urgent +occupations?" asked he, smiling. + +"The reading of a book that originates a new intellectual era is also a +serious occupation," maintained the beautiful lady. + +"Very true; yet I apprehend Renan's attempt to disprove to me the divinity +of Christ would remain unsuccessful, and it would only cause me the loss +of some hours of valuable time." + +"Read it, Mr. Gerlach, do read it. Renan's arguments are unanswerable." + +"So you have been convinced, Louise?" + +"Yes, indeed, quite." + +"Well, now, Renan is a living author, he is the lion of the day, and +nothing could be more natural than that the fair sex should grow +enthusiastic over him. But, of course, at your next confession you will +sorrowfully declare and retract your belief in Renan." + +The young lady cast a quick glance at Seraphin, and the brim of her teacup +concealed a proud, triumphant smile. + +"Our city is about taking a bold step," said Carl, breaking the silence. +"We are to have common schools, in order to take education from the +control of the clergy." And he went on to relate what Schwefel had +reported. + +"When is the barbecue to come off?" inquired Mr. Conrad. + +"On the 10th of August." + +"Perhaps I shall have time to attend this demonstration," said Gerlach. +"Hearts reveal themselves at such festivities. One gets a clear insight +into the mind of the multitude. You, Louise, have put progress under +obligations by so cheerfully advancing to meet it." + +After these words the landholder rose and went to his room. The next +morning he proceeded on his journey, taking with him Seraphin's diary. The +author himself he left at the Palais Greifmann in anxious uncertainty +about future events. + + + +Chapter VIII. Faith And Science Of Progress. + + +Seraphin usually took an early ride with Carl. The banker was overjoyed at +the wager, about the winning of which he now felt absolute certainty. He +expressed himself confident that before long he would have the pleasure of +going over the road on the back of the best racer in the country. "The +noble animals," said he, "shall not be brought by the railway; it might +injure them. I shall send my groom for them to Chateau Hallberg. He can +ride the distance in two days." + +Seraphin could not help smiling at his friend's solicitude for the horses. + +"Do not sell the bear's skin before killing the bear," answered he. "I may +not lose the horses, but may, on the contrary, acquire a pleasant claim to +twenty thousand florins." + +"That is beyond all possibility," returned the banker. "Hans Shund is now +chief-magistrate, has been nominated to the legislature, and in a few days +will be elected. Mr. Hans will appear as a shining light to-morrow, when +he is to state his political creed in a speech to his constituents. Of +course, you and I shall go to hear him. Next will follow his election, +then my groom will hasten to Chateau Hallberg to fetch the horses. Are you +sorry you made the bet?" + +"Not at all! I should regret very much to lose my span of bays. Still, the +bet will be of incalculable benefit to me. I will have learned concerning +men and manners what otherwise I could never have dreamed of. In any +event, the experience gained will be of vast service to me during life." + +"I am exceedingly glad to know it, my dear fellow," assured Greifmann. +"Your acquaintance with the present has been very superficial. You have +learned a great deal in a few days, and it is gratifying to hear you +acknowledge the fact." + +The banker had not, however, caught Gerlach's meaning. + +But for the wager, Seraphin would not have become acquainted with Louise's +intellectual standpoint. He would probably have married her for the sake +of her beauty, would have discovered his mistake when it could not be +corrected, and would have found himself condemned to spend his life with a +woman whose principles and character could only annoy and give him pain. +As it was, he was tormented by the fear that his father might not coincide +in his opinion of the young lady. What if the old gentleman considered her +hostility to religion as a mere fashionable mania unsupported by inner +conviction, a girlish whim changeable like the wind, which with little +effort might be made to veer round to the point of the most unimpeachable +orthodoxy? He had not uttered a word condemning Louise's infatuation about +Renan. On taking leave he had parted with her in a friendly, almost +hearty, manner, proof sufficient that the young lady's doubtful utterances +at tea had not deceived him. + +Upon reaching home, Gerlach sat in his room with his eyes thoughtfully +fixed upon a luminous square cast by the sun upon the floor. Quite +naturally his thoughts ran upon the marriage, and to the prospect of +having to maintain his liberty by a hard contest with his inflexible +parent. He was unshaken in his resolution not to accede to the projected +alliance, and, when a will morally severe conceives resolutions of this +sort, they usually stand the hardest tests. So absorbing were his +reflections that he did not hear John announcing a visitor. He nodded +mechanically in reply to the words that seemed to come out of the +distance, and the servant disappeared. + +Soon after a country girl appeared in the entrance of the room. In both +hands she was carrying a small basket made of peeled willows, quite new. A +snow-white napkin was spread over the basket. The girl's dress was neat, +her figure was slender and graceful. Her hair, which was wound about the +head in heavy plaits, was golden and encircled her forehead as with a +_nimbus_. Her features were delicate and beautiful, and she looked upon +the young gentleman with a pair of deep-blue eyes. Thus stood she for an +instant in the door of the apartment. There was a smile about her mouth +and a faint flush upon her cheeks. + +"Good-morning, Mr. Seraphin!" said a sweet voice. + +The youth started at this salutation and looked at the stranger with +surprise. She was just then standing on the sunlit square, her hair +gleamed like purest gold, and a flood of light streamed upon her youthful +form. He did not return the greeting. He looked at her as if frightened, +rose slowly, and bowed in silence. + +"My father sends some early grapes which he begs you to have the goodness +to accept." + +She drew nearer, and he received the basket from her hands. + +"I am very thankful!" said he. And, raising the napkin, the delicious +fruit smiled in his face. "These are a rarity at this season. To whom am I +indebted for this friendly attention?" + +"The obligation is all on our side, Mr. Seraphin," she replied trustfully +to the generous benefactor of her family. "Father is sorry that he cannot +offer you something better." + +"Ah! you are Holt's daughter?" + +"Yes, Mr. Seraphin." + +"Your name is Johanna, is it not?" + +"Mechtild, Mr. Seraphin." + +"Will you be so good as to sit down?" And he pointed her to a sofa. + +Mechtild, however, drew a chair and seated herself. + +He had noted her deportment, and could not but marvel at the graceful +action, the confiding simplicity, and well-bred self-possession of the +extraordinary country girl. As she sat opposite to him, she looked so +pure, so trusting and sincere, that his astonishment went on increasing. +He acknowledged to himself never to have beheld eyes whose expression came +so directly from the heart--a heart whose interior must be equally as sunny +and pure. + +"How are your good parents?" + +"They are very well, Mr. Seraphin. Father has gone to work with renewed +confidence. The sad--ah! the terrible period is past. You cannot imagine, +Mr. Seraphin, how many tears you have dried, how much misery you have +relieved!" + +The recollection of the ruin that had been hanging over her home affected +her painfully; her eyes glistened, and tears began to roll down her +cheeks. But she instantly repressed the emotion, and exhibited a beautiful +smile on her face. Seraphin's quick eye had observed both the momentary +feeling, and that she had resolutely checked it in order not to annoy him +by touching sorrowful chords. This trait of delicacy also excited the +admiration of the gentleman. + +"Your father is not in want of employment?" he inquired with interest. + +"No, sir! Father is much sought on account of his knowledge of farming. +Persons who have ground, but no team of their own, employ him to put in +crops for them." + +"No doubt the good man has to toil hard?" + +"That is true, sir; but father seems to like working, and we children +strive to help him as much as we can." + +"And do you like working?" + +"I do, indeed, Mr. Seraphin. Life would be worthless if one did not labor. +Man's life on earth is so ordered as to show him that he must labor. Doing +nothing is abominable, and idleness is the parent of many vices." + +Another cause of astonishment for the millionaire. She did not converse +like an uneducated girl from the country. Her accurate, almost choice use +of words indicated some culture, and her concise observations revealed +both mind and reflection. He felt a strong desire to fathom the mystery--to +cast a glance into Mechtild's past history. + +"Have you always lived at home, or have you ever been away at school?" + +She must have detected something ludicrous in the question, for suddenly a +degree of archness might be observed in her amiable smile. + +"You mean, whether I have received a city education? No, sir! Father used +to speak highly of the clearness of my mind, and thought I might even be +made a teacher. But he had not the means to give me the necessary amount +of schooling. Until I was fourteen years old, I went to school to the nuns +here in town. I used to come in of mornings and go back in the evening. I +studied hard, and father and mother always had the satisfaction of seeing +me rewarded with a prize at the examinations. I am very fond of books, and +make good use of the convent library. On Sundays, after vespers, I wait +till the door of the book-room is opened. I still spend my leisure time in +reading, and on Sundays and holidays I know no greater pleasure than to +read nice instructive books. At my work I think over what I have read, and +I continue practising composition according to the directions of the good +ladies of the convent." + +"And were you always head at school?" + +"Yes," she admitted, with a blush. + +"You have profited immensely by your opportunities," he said approvingly. +"And the desire for learning has not yet left you?" + +"This inordinate craving still continues to torment me," she acknowledged +frankly. + +"Inordinate--why inordinate?" + +"Because, my station and calling do not require a high degree of culture. +But it is so nice to know, and it is so nice to have refined intercourse +with each others. For seven years I admired the elegant manners of the +convent ladies, and I learned many a lesson from them." + +"How old are you now?" + +"Seventeen, Mr. Seraphin." + +"What a pity you did not enter some higher educational institution!" said +he. + +A pause followed. He looked with reverence upon the artless girl whom God +had so richly endowed, both in body and mind. Mechtild rose. + +"Please accept, also, my most heartfelt thanks for your generous aid," she +said, with emotion. "All my life long I shall remember you before God, Mr. +Seraphin. The Almighty will surely repay you what alas! we cannot." + +She made a courtesy, and he accompanied her through all the apartments as +far as the front door. Here the girl, turning, bowed to him once more and +went away. + +Returning to his room, Seraphin stood and contemplated the grapes. +Strongly did the delicious fruit tempt him, but he touched not one. He +then pulled out a drawer, and hid the gifts as though it were a costly +treasure. For the rest of the day, Mechtild's bright form hovered near +him, and the sweet charm of her eyes, so full of soul, continually worked +on his imagination. When he again went into Louise's company, the grace +and innocence of the country girl gained ground in his esteem. Compared +with Mechtild's charming naturalness, Louise's manner appeared affected, +spoiled; through evil influences. The difference in the expression of +their eyes struck him especially. In Louise's eyes there burned a fierce +glow at times, which roused passion and stirred the senses. Mechtild's +neither glowed nor flashed; but from their limpid depths beamed goodness +so genuine and serenity so unclouded, that Seraphin could compare them to +nothing but two heralds of peace and innocence. Louise's eyes, thought he, +flash like two meteors of the night; Mechtild's beam like two mild suns in +a cloudless sky of spring. As often as he entered the room where the +grapes lay concealed, he would unlock the drawer, examine the fragrant +fruit, and handle the basket which had been carried by her hands. He could +not himself help smiling at this childish action, and yet both great +delicacy and deep earnestness are manifested in honoring objects that have +been touched by pure hands, and in revering places hallowed by the +presence of the good. + +Next morning the banker asked his guest to accompany him to the church of +S. Peter, where Hans Shund was to address a large gathering. + +"In a church?" Gerlach exclaimed, with amazement. + +"Don't get frightened, my good fellow. The church is no longer in the +service of religion. It has been _secularized_ by the state, and is +customarily used as a hall for dancing. There will be quite a crowd, for +several able speakers are to discuss the question of common schools. The +church has been chosen for the meeting on account of the crowd." + +The millionaires drove to the desecrated church. A tumultuous mass swarmed +about the portal. "Let us permit them to push us; we shall get in most +easily by letting them do so," said the banker merrily. Two officious +progressionists, recognizing the banker, opened a passage for them through +the throng. They reached the interior of the church, which was now an +empty space, stripped of every ornament proper to a house of God. In the +sanctuary could yet be seen, as if in mournful abandonment, a large +quadrangular slab, that had been the altar, and attached to one of the +side walls was an exquisite Gothic pulpit, which on occasions like the +present was used for a rostrum. Everywhere else reigned silence and +desolation. + +The nave was filled by a motley mass. The chieftains of progress, some +elegantly dressed, others exhibiting frivolous miens and huge beards, +crowded upon the elevation of the chancel. All the candidates for the +legislature were present, not for the purpose of proving their +qualifications for the office--progress never troubled itself about +those--but to air their views on the subject of education. There were +speakers on hand of acknowledged ability in the discussion of the +doctrines of progress, who were to lay the result of their investigations +before the people. + +Seraphin also noted some anxious faces in the crowd. They were citizens, +whose sons were alarmed at the thought of yielding up the training of +their children into the hands of infidelity. And near the pulpit stood two +priests, irreverently crowded against the wall, targets for the scornful +pleasantries of the wits of the mob. Leader Schwefel was voted into the +chair by acclamation. He thanked the assembly in a short speech for the +honor conferred, and then announced that Mr. Till, member of the former +assembly, would address the meeting. Amid murmurs of expectation a short, +fat gentleman climbed into the pulpit. First a red face with a copper- +tipped nose bobbed above the ledge of the pulpit, next came a pair of +broad shoulders, upon which a huge head rested without the intermediary of +a neck, two puffy hands were laid upon the desk, and the commencement of a +well-rounded paunch could just be detected by the eye. Mr. Till, taking +two handfuls of his shaggy beard, drew them slowly through his fingers, +looked composedly upon the audience, and breathed hotly through mouth and +nostrils. + +"Gentlemen," he began, with a voice that struggled out from a mass of +flesh and fat, "I am not given to many words, you know. What need is there +of many words and long speeches? We know what we want, and what we want we +will have in spite of the machinations of Jesuits and the whinings of an +ultramontane horde. You all know how I acquitted myself at the last +legislature, and if you will again favor me with your suffrages, I will +endeavor once more to give satisfaction. You know my record, and I shall +remain staunch to the last." + +Cries of "Good!" from various directions. + +"Gentlemen! if you know my record, you must also be aware that I am +passionately fond of the chase. I even follow this amusement in the +legislative hall. Our country abounds in a sort of black game, and for me +it is rare sport to pursue this, species of game in the assembly." + +A wild tumult of applause burst forth. Jeers and coarse witticisms were +bandied about on every side of the two clergymen, who looked meekly upon +these orgies of progress. + +"Gentlemen!" Till continued, "the _blacks_ are a dangerous kind of wild +beast. They have heretofore been ranging in a preserve, feeding on the fat +of the land. That is an abuse that challenges the wrath of heaven. It must +be done away with. The beasts of prey that in the dark ages dwelt in +castles have long since been exterminated, and their rocky lairs have been +reduced to ruins. Well, now, let us keep up the chase in both houses of +the legislature until the last of these _black_ beasts is destroyed. +Should you entrust to me again your interests, I shall return to the seat +of government to aid with renewed energy in ridding the land of these +creatures that are enemies both of education and liberty." + +Amid prolonged applause the fat man descended. The chieftains shook him +warmly by the hand, assuring him that the cause absolutely demanded his +being reelected. + +Gerlach was aghast at Till's speech. He hardly knew which deserved most +scorn, the vulgarity of the speaker or the abjectness of those who had +applauded him. Their wild enthusiasm was still surging through the +building, when Hans Shund mounted the pulpit. The chairman rang for order; +the tumult ceased. In mute suspense the multitude awaited the great speech +of the notorious usurer, thief, and debauchee. And indeed, progress might +well entertain great expectations, for Hans Shund had read a pile of +progressionist pamphlets, had extracted the strong passages, and out of +them had concocted a right racy speech. His speech might with propriety +have been designated the Gospel of Progress, for Hans Shund had made +capital of whatever freethinkers had lucubrated in behalf of so-called +enlightenment, and in opposition to Christianity. The very appearance of +the speaker gave great promise. His were not coarse features and goggle +eyes like Till's; his piercing feline eyes looked intellectual. His face +was rather pale, the result, no doubt, of unusual application, and he had +skilfully dyed his sandy hair. His position as mayor of the city seemed +also to entitle him to special attention, and these several claims were +enhanced by a white necktie, white vest, and black cloth swallow-tail +coat. + +"Gentlemen," began the mayor with solemnity, "my honorable predecessor in +this place has told you with admirable sagacity that the kernel of every +political question is of a religious character. Indeed, religion is linked +with every important question of the day, it is the _ratio ultima_ of the +intellectual movement of our times. Men of thought and of learning are all +agreed as to the condition to which our social life should be and must be +brought. The friends of the people are actively and earnestly at work +trying to further a healthy development of our social and political +status. Nor have their efforts been utterly fruitless. Progress has made +great conquests; yet, gentlemen, these conquests are far from being +complete. What is it that is most hostile to liberalism in morals, to +enlightenment, and to humanity? It is the antiquated faith of departed +days. Have we not heard the language of the Holy Father in the Syllabus? +But the Holy Father at Rome, gentlemen, is no father of ours--happily he is +the father only of stupid and credulous men." + +"Bravo! Well said!" resounded from the audience. Flaschen nudged +Spitzkopf, who sat next to him. "Shund is no mean speaker. Even that +fellow Voelk, of Bavaria, cannot compete with Shund." + +"Gentlemen, our good sense teaches us to smile with pity at the infallible +declarations of yon Holy Father. We are firmly convinced that papal +decrees can no more stop the onward march of civilization than they can +arrest the heavenly bodies in their journeys about the sun. 'Tis true, an +oecumenical council is lowering like a black storm-cloud. But let the +council meet; let it declare the Syllabus an article of faith; it will +never succeed in destroying the treasures of independent thought which +creative intellects have been hoarding up for centuries among every +people. Since men of culture have ceased to yield unquestioning +submission, like dumb sheep, to the church, they have begun to discover +that nowhere are so many falsehoods uttered as in pulpits." + +Tremendous applause, clapping, and swinging of hats, followed this +eloquent period. A distinguished gentleman, laying his hand upon Till's +shoulder, asked: "What calibre of ammunition do you use in hunting _black_ +game?" + +"Conical balls of two centimetres," replied Till, with no great wit. + +"Yon fellow in the pulpit fires shells of a hundredweight, I should say. +And if in the legislative assembly his shells all explode, not a man of +them will be left alive." + +Till thought this witticism so good that he set up a loud roar of +laughter, that could be heard above the general uproar. + +Stimulated by these marks of appreciation, Shund waxed still more +eloquent. "Gentlemen," cried he, "no body of men is more savagely opposed +to science and culture than a conventicle of so-called servants of God. +Were you to repeat the multiplication table several times over, there +would be as much prayer and sense in it as in what is designated the +Apostles' Creed." + +More cheering and boundless enthusiasm. "Gentlemen!" exclaimed the +speaker, with thundering emphasis and a hideous expression of hatred on +his face, "the significance of religious dogmas is simply a sort of +homoeopathic concoction to which every succeeding age contributes some +drops of fanaticism. Subjected to the microscope of science, the whole +basis of the Christian church evaporates into thin mist. We must shield +our children against religious fables. Away with dogmas and saws from the +Bible; away with the Trinity; the divinity and humanity of Jesus, and +other such stuff! Away with apothegms such as this: _Christ is my life, my +death, and my gain_. Such things are opposed to nature. Children's minds +are thereby warped to untruthfulness and hypocrisy. In this manner the +child is deprived of the power of thinking; loses all interest in +intellectual pursuits, and ceases to feel the need of further culture. The +times are favorable for a reformation. Our imperial and royal rulers have +at length realized that minds must be set free. For this end it was as +unavoidable for them to break with the church and priesthood as it is +necessary for us. If we cherish our fatherland and the people, we must +take the initiative. We are not striving to effect a revolution; we want +intellectual development, profounder knowledge, and healthier morality. + + + "Shall peace be seen beneath our skies, + The spirit's freedom first must rise," + + +concluded the orator poetically, and he came down amidst a very hurricane +of applause. + +There followed a lull. In the audience, heads protruded and necks were +stretched that their possessors might obtain a glimpse of the great Shund. +In the chancel, the chiefs and leaders crowded around him, smiling, +bowing, and shaking his hand in admiration. + +"You have won the laurels," smirked a fellow from amidst a wilderness of +beard. + +"Your election to the Assembly is a certainty," declared another. + +"You carry deadly weapons against Christ," said a professor. + +Mr. Hans smiled, and nodded so often that he was seized with a pain in the +muscles of the face and neck. At length, the chairman's bell came to the +rescue. + +"The Rev. Mr. Morgenroth will now address the meeting." + +The clergyman mounted the rostrum, but scarcely had he appeared there, +when the crowd became possessed by a legion of hissing demons. + +"Gentlemen," began the fearless priest, "the duty of my calling as well as +personal conviction demands that I should enter a solemn protest against +the sundering of school and church." + +Further the priest was not allowed to proceed. Loud howling, hissing, and +whistling drowned his voice. The president called for order. + +"In the name of good-breeding, I beg this most honorable assembly to hear +the speaker out in patience," cried Mr. Schwefel. + +The mob relaxed into unwilling silence like a growling beast. + +"Not all the citizens of this town are infected with infidelity," the +reverend gentleman went on to say. "Many honorable gentlemen believe in +Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and in his church. These citizens wish their +children to receive a religious education; it would, therefore, be +unmitigated terrorism, tyrannical constraint of conscience, to force +Christian parents to bring up their children in the spirit of unbelief." + +This palpable truth progress could not bear to listen to. A mad yell was +set up. Clenched fists were shaken at the clergyman, and fierce threats +thundered from all sides of the church. "Down with the priest!" "Down with +the accursed black-coat!" "Down with the dog of a Jesuit!" and similar +exclamations, resounded from all sides. The chairman rang his bell in +vain. The mob grew still more furious and noisy. The clergyman was +compelled to come down. + +"Such is the liberty, the education, the tolerance, the humanity of +progress," said he sadly to his colleague. + +To Be Continued. + + + + +Christian Art Of The Catacombs. + + +By An Anglican. + + + "I do love those ancient ruins: + We never tread upon them but we set + Our foot upon some reverend history."--_Webster_ (1620). + + "Quamlibet ancipites texant hinc inde recessus, + Arcta sub umbrosis atria porticibus; + Attamen excisi subter cava viscera montis + Crebra terebrato fornice lux penetrat; + Sic datur absentis per subterranea solis + Cernere fulgorem luminibusque frui." + + --_Prudentius, Peristephanon_, Hymn iv. + + +The Catacombs of Rome were the birthplace of Christian art as well as the +sepulchre of the children of the early church. It is only within a few +years that the modern traveller has been induced, through the careful +study which the Catacombs have received, to visit these subterranean homes +of the persecuted Christian, so filled with the symbolism of his faith. +From 1567, the year in which Father Bosio began his investigations in the +Catacombs, till the present century, some minds of kindred interest in +these burial-places of the martyrs have been fascinated with their +Christian archaeology, and from time to time have appeared works upon +subjects connected with the Catacombs. F. Bosio spent thirty years in +making explorations, and left for posthumous publication his _Roma __ +Sotterranea_, which F. Severano issued from the press in Rome in 1632. +Seventy years later came _Inscriptionum antiquarum explicatio_ by the +learned Fabretti, and eighteen years later still, F. Boldetti, who had +devoted the greater part of his life to the examination of the monuments, +inscriptions, and paintings of the Catacombs, embodied the results of his +patience and industry in the great work _Osservazioni sopra i Cimiterii +dei Santi Martiri, etc., di Roma_. Then came Bottari's wonderful studies +on the Christian art of the Catacombs entitled _Sculture e pitture sagre, +estratte dai Cimiteri di Roma_. Following in the paths opened by these +zealous Italian students, M. D'Agincourt, M. Raoul Rochette, Abbe Gaume, +and the eminent artist M. Perret, have contributed to the archaeological +literature of France several important works on the Roman Catacombs. + +To the pontificate of Pius IX. belongs the honor of producing the two +greatest antiquarian scholars of our age. The one, the Cavaliere Canina, +has treated with remarkable acuteness and judgment of the Appian Way from +the Capenian Gate to Bovillae;(150) the other, the Cavaliere de Rossi, of +the Catacombs,(151) and it is of the latter that we propose to speak. It +is impossible, in the brief space that is allotted to us, to do more than +select one of the interesting subjects with which his works on the +Catacombs abound, and as an Anglican student of the Catholic Church, its +doctrines, its discipline, and its literature, there is none which so +enkindles our enthusiasm as the Christian art of the early ages, and the +symbolism with which it is clothed. We approach these pictures in the dark +crypts and amid the countless tombs of the first martyrs of the faith with +no little reverence. We lay aside our shoes, for the ground consecrated to +the early dead is sacred, and the earnest wish of our heart is to put away +the prejudice of ecclesiastical education and association. With this view +before us, we make the noble words of Montesquieu our own: "Ceux qui nous +avertissent sont les compagnons de nos travaux. Si le critique et l'auteur +cherchent la verite, ils out le meme interet; car la verite est le bien de +tous les hommes: ils seront des confederes, et non pas des ennemis."(152) + +From the early ages of the church till the close of the Vth century, the +Christians of Rome were driven by the sword of persecution to seek a +hiding-place wherein to exercise the holy mysteries of their religion, and +to inter the remains of their dead. The vast subterranean caverns, now +known as Catacombs, but more anciently called _Areae_, _Cryptae_, and +_Coemeteria_, afforded a shelter for the living and sepulture for the +faithful departed. These Catacombs doubtless had their origin in the sand- +pits, or _arenariae_, _arenifodinae_, which the pagans had excavated to +procure materials for building purposes.(153) Suetonius(154) describes how +Phaon exhorted Nero to enter one of these caverns made by excavations of +sand, and Cicero alludes to the _arenariae_, outside of the Porta +Esquilina.(155) In the admirable essay by Michele Stefano de Rossi, +entitled _Analisi Geologica ed Architettonica_, and annexed to the work of +his brother, it is stated that the Catacombs, with perhaps the exception +of two that are Jewish, are the work of the early Christians.(156) + +By singular perseverance and careful discrimination in the study of +documents running far back into the centuries, the Cavaliere de Rossi +transferred the situation of the Catacombs of S. Callistus from the church +of S. Sebastian, where they had erroneously been located, to a place a +half mile nearer Rome, between the Via Appia and the Via Ardeatina; on the +left of the road was the cemetery of S. Praetextatus, and on the right that +of S. Callistus. The discovery of these hallowed crypts and sarcophagi of +the early saints and popes, is of inestimable value in elucidating +intricate questions of doctrine and practice, of history and tradition, +which have vexed the theological world for centuries. We can scarcely +resist the temptation to follow M. de Rossi through these dim cathedrals +of our Christian ancestors, and reproduce a part, at least, of his +masterly elucidation of their general topography, together with the +history of heroic suffering and Christlike courage which the sites and +names of those dark ages of danger suggest. But we must forbear, and +proceed to the pictures and emblems in order to draw from them some +lessons of that early fortitude, which the child of the church of the +first centuries learned, as he knelt by the tomb of his companion in the +faith, and looked up to the ceilings of crypts and semicircular +compartments to catch by the glimmering light of smoking lamps the +lineaments of some design of the religion which he professed. + +The paintings of the Catacombs represent the cardinal truths of +Christianity, and their types are taken from both the Old and New +Testament Scriptures, as also, in rare instances, from heathen mythology. +The picture, perhaps most common to the eye of the worshipper at those +shrines of the martyred dead, was the representation of the Saviour in +that character which exhibits the tenderest attributes of his sacred +humanity, and appeals to the sympathetic element in man. Christ as the +Good Shepherd conveys in its fulness of meaning what perhaps no other type +of our Lord does. It is variously represented, and under different forms +may refer to the foreshadowing of the Messiah's coming in the Old +Testament and its fulfilment in the New. King David had been a shepherd, +and understood the needs and labors of the shepherd life, and it may be +that in the days of his pastoral innocence, when the lion and the bear +were the destroyers of his flock, he wrote that psalm whose tone is one of +quiet and trustfulness: "The Lord is my shepherd; therefore can I lack +nothing. He shall feed me in a green pasture, and lead me forth beside the +waters of comfort. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of +death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff +comfort me."(157) Thus, in the days of persecution, the Christian of the +Catacombs might read the sacred legend of our Lord under the figure of a +shepherd--bearing the sheep upon his shoulders. The Good Shepherd was +pictured again as bearing a goat, and in the Catacombs of S. Callistus he +stands between a goat and a sheep; the former occupies the more honorable +place, the right hand, and the latter the left. Often the Good Shepherd +leans on his pastoral crook, and bears in his hand a pipe. All these +typical allusions refer to his character as exhibited in the Gospels. They +teach the merciful watchfulness of our Lord, and the readiness with which +he takes back into his fold, the church, yea, to the more honorable place +by his side, the wayward and the erring. "I am the good shepherd, and know +my sheep, and am known of mine. And other sheep I have which are not of +this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there +shall be one fold and one shepherd."(158) Protestant critics have not been +wanting in an attempt to trace the symbolism of this figure of the Good +Shepherd to a heathen origin, and adduce as an argument in behalf of their +theory that its prototype is in the Tombs of the Nasones. Even in +questions of Christian archaeology is exhibited the same polemical spirit +which animated the accomplished English scholar, Conyers Middleton, who +lent all the resources of his vast learning in classical history to prove +the resemblance and identity of pagan and Catholic rites. But a more +learned and reverent critic in the field of antiquities is the +incomparable Marangoni, whose splendid work, _Cose Gentilesche trasportate +ad Uso delle Chiese_, sets at rest for ever many problems which Mr. +Poynder, a shallow pretender to scholarship, revived in the _Alliance of +Popery and Heathenism_. + +While the ancient heathen lived in the atmosphere of a religion which +incited to cheerfulness and pleasure in the present life, it portrayed but +faintly any idea of immortality. The world around him was peopled with +unseen spirits. They inhabited woods and streams, and he was ever watchful +to interpret the slightest signs or omens which might yield him some token +to enlighten the spiritual darkness of his soul. The mythological system +of the pagan was a vital reality. It accompanied him not only to the +solemn festival in the temple, but on the march, in the camp, and in the +market-place. It was with him in hours of joy and of sorrow; but it +penetrated not beyond the boundaries of this world. It offered no _cross_ +here, and knew nothing of the _crown_ hereafter. There were no bright +pictures of the rewards of eternity. This life was the narrow limit of his +hope and his labor. Hades or the grave was dreaded because of its +sunlessness. Iphigenia entreats her father for life in an impassioned +appeal, which sums up the heathen's belief: + + + "To view the light of life, + To mortals most sweet; in death there is + Nor light nor joys; and crazed is he who seeks + To die; for life, though full of ills, has more + Of good than death." + + +Occasionally the ancient philosophers and poets give intimation of a +belief in immortality, but not in resurrection, as Cicero in that eloquent +longing for the day when he shall meet his illustrious friend Cato.(159) +But, as we have said, of the great doctrine of the resurrection, which +solved the dark enigmas of humanity, they were ignorant. The hold which +classical mythology had upon the human mind was relaxed before this august +mystery of the Catholic faith. Pagan temples were deserted, and the +sacrificial fires on their altars extinguished. + + + "The intelligible forms of ancient poets, + The fair humanities of old religion, + The power, the beauty, and the majesty, + That had her haunts in dale, or piny mountain, + Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring, + Or chasms and wat'ry depths; all these have vanished. + They live no longer in the faith of reason!"(160) + + +It is not remarkable, therefore, that delineations of the doctrine of the +resurrection should not have been unusual in the church of the Catacombs. +Two such representations, one from the Old Testament, and the other from +the New, will exhibit the forms under which it was presented. Jonas as a +type of the resurrection of our Lord has its authority from S. +Matthew.(161) "For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's +belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart +of the earth." Four scenes from the history of Jonas are found in the +chapels and on the tombs of the Catacombs, sometimes represented singly, +sometimes all compressed under one type. The first is the prophet being +thrown into the deep, the second as swallowed by the great fish which "the +Lord had prepared," the third as "vomited out upon dry land," the fourth +as lying under the shadow of a gourd. As we have seen, according to the +Gospel of S. Matthew, the swallowing of Jonas by the whale, and being cast +forth in safety after three days, was typical of the burial and the +resurrection of our Lord himself; and may not the pictures of the fourth +series denote not only the sufferings of the individual Christian, and the +care which his risen Master bestows upon him, but also the vicissitudes of +the Church Catholic in every age of the world? "Sometimes she gains, +sometimes she loses; and more often she is at once gaining and losing in +different parts of her history.... Scarcely are we singing Te Deums, when +we have to turn to our Misereres; scarcely are we in peace, when we are in +persecution; scarcely have we gained a triumph, when we are visited by a +scandal. Nay, we make progress by means of reverses; our griefs are our +consolations; we lose Stephen to gain Paul, and Matthias replaced the +traitor Judas."(162) When the eye of the early Christian rested upon this +fourth representation from the prophet's life, it caught another and a +more subtle signification, which is read perhaps oftener in the night of +affliction and persecution than in the day of joy and prosperity. Our +century, Catholic and Protestant alike, needs to study its outlines as +much as the first century and the worshippers in the Catacombs. "Should +not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore +thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their +left?"(163) Here is a beautiful symbolism of the tender mercy of our God +for all who are in error and in sin. It opposes the spiritual Pharisaism +of our day, and exacts meekness and charity from all men. It is the +destroyer of malevolence and anger and strife.(164) + +Another picture, taken from the New Testament, and of frequent +representation, is the "man sick of the palsy." It is generally regarded +by Protestant writers as belonging to that series of symbolical +illustrations which embody the doctrine of the resurrection; and, to give +greater force to their interpretation of the painting, they place much +stress upon the words of the sacred text: "Arise, take up thy bed, and go +unto thine house." So far as we have examined copies of this picture, we +are inclined to believe that it is connected with these which refer to the +resurrection, except in one remarkable instance, in which it clearly +symbolizes the sacrament of penance as it is taught in the Roman +communion. In the Catacombs of S. Hermes is a representation of a +Christian kneeling before another, which seems from its close proximity to +the series of pictures of the Paralytic to point more directly to that +other passage of the Gospel narrative: "Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be +forgiven thee." If our Lord delegated "such power unto men"--and the only +logical and intelligent interpretation of the words of S. John(165) +conveys this doctrine or it conveys nothing--here is a clear illustration +of the power of the priesthood, which admits of no evasive contradiction, +of no complicated and artificial hypothesis for the sake of escaping the +recognition of the belief of the early Christians in the doctrine of +sacerdotal absolution. + +As resurrection is the portal of the church triumphant, so is baptism to +the church militant. The former is but the complement and fulfilment of +the latter. "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus +Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by +baptism into death."(166) The blessedness of the final consummation of the +faithful departed was pictured in the symbols of the resurrection, and, as +baptism is the foreshadowing of that glorious change which shall come over +our vile bodies, it became a common subject of Christian art in the +Catacombs. Its types are somewhat complex, and often susceptible of a +twofold explanation. From the four scenes in the life of Moses, which are +constantly repeated in the different Catacombs, we select _that_ which +prefigures Christian baptism--the miraculous supply of water in Kadesh. Art +critics who have bestowed any attention upon the sacred pictures of the +early ages place the representation of this miracle of Moses in the +Catacombs of S. Agnes among the finest specimens of primitive delineation. +Moses is pictured as bearing a rod, the emblem of power, with which "he +smote the rock twice, and the water came out abundantly." It is worthy of +remark in passing that on vases found in the Catacombs, and on the +sarcophagi as early, perhaps, as the IVth century, this same scene is +depicted, and the rod, instead of being in the hand of Moses, is in that +of S. Peter, and, in a few instances, the two are represented together, +but the person who smites with the rod has inscribed over his head the +name of S. Peter. Catholic writers on subterranean symbolism draw from it +an artistic argument, which, coupled with the historical, seems an +unanswerable statement of the question of the primacy of S. Peter. _Quando +Christus ad unum loquitur, unitas commendatur; et Petro primitus, quia in +Apostolis Petrus est primus._(167) S. Peter bears the same relation to the +Christian church that Moses did to the Israelitish. The one received from +God the decalogue, which was to govern the actions of the Jews; the other, +the keys, which were to open the kingdom of heaven. _Nam et si adhuc +clausum putas coelum, memento claves ejus hic Dominum Petro, et per eum +Ecclesiae reliquisse._(168) Another type of baptism taken from the Old +Testament, and capable of two expositions, is Noah in the ark. Here again, +on the authority of an apostle, the church in the early ages read the +history of Noah by the light of the new revelation made through the +institutions founded by Christ. S. Peter, speaking of the small number +saved by water at the deluge, adds: "The like figure whereunto, even +baptism, doth now also save us,... by the resurrection of Jesus +Christ,"(169) The ark is generally represented by a small box in which +Noah sits or stands, receiving from the dove the olive branch of peace. +Some writers on Christian archaeology find in it a secondary meaning, +regarding it as typical of the church, and the danger of those who are +without the ark of safety. + +Among favorite Old Testament subjects familiar to art students of the +Catacombs are--Daniel in the lions' den, and the three children of Israel +in the fiery furnace at Babylon. Both are types of persecution, and of +final deliverance through the miraculous interposition of God. In the +cemetery of S. Priscilla, each of these pictures is to be seen, varying +but slightly in the details of the portraiture. The three children appear +clothed, and standing on the furnace. In a compartment beneath, the figure +of a man is represented as feeding the fire with fresh fuel. Daniel, in +the same cemetery, stands with outstretched arms between lions. The +attitude in both these scenes from Jewish history appears to exhibit the +ancient posture of the suppliant when in the act of prayer. A late writer +on the Roman catacombs, the Rev. J. Spencer Northcote, D.D., formerly of +Corpus Christi College, Oxford, spent much time, in company with the +Cavaliere de Rossi and M. Perret, the French artist, in collecting +materials for his small work on the burial-places of the early Christians +in Rome. He is so trustworthy a guide in everything that appertains to +their archaeology, that we gladly accept the explanation which he suggests +of the position of Daniel and the three children of Israel. Speaking of +the ancient attitude of Christian prayer--the hands extended in the form of +a cross--he says:(170) "This form, which, as we learn from the Fathers, was +universal among the early Christians, is still retained in some measure by +the priests of the present day in the celebration of Mass, by Capuchins +and others in serving Mass, and by numbers among the poor everywhere; it +is worth noticing that S. Gregory Nazianzen expressly speaks of Daniel +overcoming the wild beasts by stretching out his hands, meaning, of course +by the power of prayer; but the explanation might almost seem to show that +S. Gregory himself was familiar with this usual way of representing him." + +The publication of the Cavaliere de Rossi, which has so greatly alarmed +the Protestant controversialist, is _Immagine Scelte della B. Vergine +Maria, tratte dalle Catacombe Romane_. It is most beautifully illustrated +with chromo-lithographic engravings, and reflects great honor on the +present state of art in Rome. The purpose of the work is to exhibit the +veneration with which the Christians of the Catacombs esteem the Mother of +our Lord. At a period of time in the history of the church, almost +apostolic, that purest of human feelings, maternal love, subdued the soul +of the artist, and kindled his imagination to trace with the brush or +carve with the chisel the Blessed Virgin and her Divine Son. + +The Virgin Mother, + + + "Who so above + All mothers shone, + The Mother of + The Blessed One," + + +is depicted by the artist with a tender and devout affection. The scenes +are taken from the sacred narrative of the Evangelists, and an examination +of them, simply from an aesthetical point of view, will more than repay the +connoisseur of art. But to the conscientious archaeologist and the sober +inquirer, they occupy a grave relation. They throw additional light on the +writings of S. Justin, S. Irenaeus, S. Cyril, S. Jerome, and Tertullian, in +regard to that dogma which, of all others, has perplexed the minds of +earnest men outside the Roman communion. The honor paid to the Blessed +Virgin is to-day the especial "crux" of Dr. Pusey,(171) as it is, perhaps, +of many not so learned as he, but as thoroughly dispassionate in the +temper of their souls toward the attainment of divine truth. The poet of +_The Christian Year_ reached a lofty strain in behalf of a long-forgotten +doctrine in the Anglican Church when he gave in his verses for the +Annunciation: + + + "Ave Maria! blessed Maid! + Lily of Eden's fragrant shade, + Who can express the love + That nurtured thee so pure and sweet, + Making thy heart a shelter meet + For Jesus' holy dove? + + "Ave Maria! Mother blest! + To whom, caressing and caress'd, + Clings the Eternal Child; + Favor'd beyond Archangel's dream, + When first on thee with tenderest gleam + Thy new-born Saviour smil'd."(172) + + +But Keble caught from an excursion to Ben Nevis, as his biographer +conjectures, the hints of that beautiful poem, "Mother out of Sight," +which was intended for the _Lyra Innocentium_, but through the influence +of two friends, Dyson and Sir John Coleridge, was withheld by the author, +and only saw the light as one of his posthumous pieces. It has a clearer +doctrinal ring than the stanzas for the Feast of the Annunciation, which +foreshadow something of the intercessory power of the Mother of God. It +merits the high praise which Keble's ever-faithful friend and, for years, +his gifted ally bestows upon him. We more than regret that space forbids +us giving the entire poem. It loses much of its beauty and continuity by +fragmentary quotation, yet, from the fourteen stanzas, we are only able to +reproduce four: + + + "Yearly since then with bitterer cry + Man hath assailed the throne on high, + And sin and hate more fiercely striven + To mar the league 'twixt earth and heaven. + But the dread tie that pardoning hour, + Made fast in Mary's awful bower, + Hath mightier prov'd to bind than we to break; + None may that work undo, that Flesh unmake. + + "Thenceforth, whom thousand worlds adore, + He calls thee Mother evermore; + Angel nor saint his face may see + Apart from what he took of thee; + How may we choose but name thy name, + Echoing below their high acclaim + In holy creeds? since earthly song and prayer + Must keep faint time to the dread Anthems there. + + "Therefore, as kneeling day by day, + We to our Father duteous pray, + So unforbidden we may speak + An Ave to Christ's Mother meek + (As children with 'good morrow' come + To elders, in some happy home), + Inviting so the saintly host above + With our unworthiness to pray in love. + + "To pray with us, and gently bear + Our falterings in the pure, bright air. + But strive we pure and bright to be + In spirit. Else how vain of thee + Our earnest dreamings, awful Bride! + Feel we the sword that pierced thy side; + Thy spotless lily-flower, so clear of hue, + Shrinks from the breath impure, the tongue untrue."(173) + + +Another poet, once an Anglican, then a Catholic priest, and now passed +into the land where the mists of controversy are cleared away, attained a +higher plane of truth in regard to the Mother of our Lord: + + + "But scornful men have boldly said + Thy love was leading me from God; + And yet in this I did but tread + The very path my Saviour trod. + + "They know but little of thy worth + Who speak these heartless words to me; + For what did Jesus love on earth + One-half so tenderly as thee? + + "Get me the grace to love thee more; + Jesus will give, if thou wilt plead; + And, Mother, when life's cares are o'er, + Oh! I shall love thee then indeed. + + "Jesus, when his three hours were run, + Bequeathed thee from the cross to me; + And oh! how can I love thy Son, + Sweet Mother, if I love not thee?" + + +We return to these pictures of the Catacombs, and we will content +ourselves with an allusion only, preferring that the reader who is +interested in them should examine them through his own, rather than +through another's eyes. From a lunette in an _arcosolio_ in the cemetery +of S. Agnes is a picture which of late years has been frequently copied. +It represents the Blessed Virgin with uplifted hands, seemingly in the act +of intercession, with the Infant Jesus in her lap. In the cemetery of +Domitilla is a picture of the Mother and Son, and four Magi offering their +oblations. It may be well to remark that the Gospel history of the +Adoration of the Wise Men from the East does not limit their number. We +have somewhere seen it suggested that the restriction to three had its +rise from the offerings presented--gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Another +scene of the Adoration of the Magi is given with some difference of +detail. The Virgin Mother is seated holding the Divine Son in her lap, +above her head appears the star which guided the wise men to where the +Infant lay. To the left is a somewhat youthful person, supposed to be S. +Joseph. He holds in his hand a book, which the Cavaliere de Rossi very +wisely and ingeniously interprets to be the writings of the evangelical +prophet Isaiah, whose prophecies concerning the Messiah had now their +fulfilment in the Infant Jesus. + +Such are some of the many beautiful pictures which Roman art, through the +indefatigable industry of de Rossi, has given us of the Blessed Virgin as +represented in early ages. To other than jaundiced eyes, calmly and +candidly studying them, they reveal the light in which they were so often +viewed by the suffering children of the church amid the persecutions which +attended the conflict between paganism and Christianity. In teaching us to +honor the Mother of our Lord--{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}--they impress us with more distinct +and more tangible thoughts of the incarnation of her Son.(174) With his +usual discrimination and mastery of style, Dr. John Henry Newman has well +said: "The Virgin and Child is _not_ a mere modern idea; on the contrary, +it is represented again and again, as every visitor to Rome is aware, in +the paintings of the Catacombs. Mary is there drawn with the Divine Infant +in her lap, she with hands extended in prayer, he with his hand in the +attitude of blessing. No representation can more forcibly convey the +doctrine of the high dignity of the Mother, and, I will add, of her power +over her Son. Why should the memory of his time of subjection be so dear +to Christians and so carefully preserved? The only question to be +determined is the precise date of these remarkable monuments of the first +age of Christianity. That they belong to the centuries of what Anglicans +call the 'undivided church' is certain, but lately investigations have +been pursued which place some of them at an earlier date than any one +anticipated as possible."(175) + +One other topic remains to be considered before we pass on to some general +reflections which early Christian art suggests. It was not uncommon for +the artist in the first ages of the church to take subjects of heathen +mythology, and invest them by his art with a Christian symbolism. The +genius of Michael Angelo, so truly Catholic in taste and devout in +expression, transplanted pagan forms from the broken temples of the elder +civilization to the Christian churches of the new. He retouched them under +the aureate light shed upon them by the reverent imagination of the +Fathers. On the magnificent ceiling of the Sistine Chapel are painted by +this master-hand the Sibyls, who in early times were regarded as the +unconscious prophets of divine truth, uttering in their blindness crude +intimations of the glory of him who was to be the fulfilment and +completion of all shadows and of all types.(176) In the Catacombs may be +seen a representation of Orpheus playing upon his lyre, and subduing by +his melodious strains the ferocity of man and beast, and drawing even from +inanimate creation by the power of music the subjects of his sway. Rocks +and trees yielded to his lyric sweetness, the region of Plato opened to +the sound of his "golden shell," the wheel of Ixion ceased its +revolutions, and Tityus forgot for the nonce the vulture that preyed on +his vitals. The Thracian bard was the representative of the civilizer of +savage men. + + + "Silvestres homines sacer interpresque Deorum + Caedibus et victu foedo deterruit Orpheus; + Dictus ob hoc lenire tigres, rabidosque leones."(177) + + +The symbolism of the picture seems to be this, that as Orpheus drew the +whole creation to him by the music of his lyre, and called from the realms +of Hades his beloved Eurydice to the regions of light, so Christ by his +compassion commanded the love of all men, as well by his divine power the +hidden forces of nature. Hades, or the grave, opened to him on that first +Easter morning, as it will open to us on the last. + + + "Prisoner of Hope thou art--look up and sing + In hope of promised spring. + As in the pit his father's darling lay + Beside the desert way, + And knew not how, but knew his God would save + Even from that living grave; + So, buried with our Lord, we'll close our eyes + To the decaying world, till angels bid us rise."(178) + + +The late Dean of S. Paul's, Dr. Milman, remarks, with an air of triumph, +in his _Ecclesiastical History_,(179) that "the Catacombs of Rome, +faithful to their general character, offer no instance of a crucifixion." +For the absence of the crucifix in the Catacombs, we as a Protestant can +conceive of two causes, either of which would to our mind be sufficient to +account for it. First, in the early ages it was highly important for the +growth of the church, especially in the Roman Empire, to guard against the +introduction of any symbol which would suggest pain or repugnance to +Jewish converts; secondly, it was essential to clothe truth under a type +which would not inspire mockery on the part of pagans, and so assist in +keeping alive the persecuting spirit of the times. This in a measure no +doubt led the early artists to use the heathen symbol of Orpheus as +typical of Christ. A beautiful passage in the work of D'Agincourt affords +still another general cause: "Entirely occupied with the celestial +recompense which awaited them after the trials of their troubled life, and +often of so dreadful a death, the Christians saw in death, and even in +execution, only a way by which they arrived at this everlasting happiness; +and, so far from associating with this image that of the tortures or +privations which opened heaven before them, they took pleasure in +enlivening it with smiling colors, or presenting it under agreeable +symbols, adorning it with flowers and vine-leaves; for it is thus that the +asylum of death appears to us in the Christian Catacombs. There is no sign +of mourning, no token of resentment, no expression of vengeance; all +breathes softness, benevolence, charity."(180) + +Many emblems denoting the cardinal virtues are sculptured on the walls of +the chapels and on the tombs of the Catacombs. Flowers, garlands, and +grapes intertwine each other and embellish these ancient crypts. The +laurel speaks of victory, the olive of peace and reconciliation, and the +palm of final triumph. The lyre is significant of the aesthetical element +of religion, and the anchor of hope for the heavenly port. The dove +represents the Holy Spirit, the lamb the adorable Saviour--the Agnus +Dei--the stag the thirsting of the soul for the paradise of God, and the +peacock the belief in immortality. Among these general symbols so familiar +to the saints of old, none is more prominent than the fish. Its history is +ingenious, and, therefore, we will tarry for a moment ere we conclude. It +naturally calls to mind the solemn parting of our Lord with the apostles +by the Sea of Tiberias, when their nets were filled with fish, and Jesus +"taketh bread and giveth them, and fish likewise." In the church of the +Catacombs this tender scene from the Evangelic record is always associated +with the Holy Eucharist. As {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}, the Greek word for a fish, contains the +initial letters of the name and title of Christ--{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} +{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}--Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour--the figure was constantly +used as a symbol of the divinity of Christ. In his _Iconographie +Chretienne_, M. Didron assumes that this emblem on the sarcophagi of the +Catacombs is simply indicative of the fact that the person buried beneath +was by trade a fisherman. Certainly the numberless instances proving the +falsity of this position render the opinion utterly worthless. + +We must take leave of the Cavaliere de Rossi and the Christian art of the +Roman Catacombs. Feeble as may be the execution of these pictures, crude +in conception, and often colorless through the lapse of time, yet they +speak of the ardor of the early Christian artists, and of the devotion and +doctrine of the children of that church which is the mother of us all. In +parting with the Cavaliere de Rossi, we say with all sincerity, that we +have found nothing in his volumes unworthy of the reverential regard of +honest and candid minds. Passages there are, which the timidity of +Anglican churchmen would regard as dealing too freely with the symbolism +of the Catacombs. Without accepting his conclusions in detail, we +gratefully acknowledge that the Cavaliere de Rossi has shown English +writers in what spirit all the grave questions of theology connected with +subterranean art should be treated. His has been a great subject, and he +has written with humility and ripeness of learning and clearness of +apprehension, which well become the Christian scholar and the sacred +theme. In closing his masterly work, we seem again bidding adieu to Rome, +the reflection of whose classic greatness and Christian glory mellows hill +and plain, pagan ruin and Catholic shrine. + + + "Gran Latina + Citta di cui quanto il sol aureo gira + Ne altera piu, ne piu onorata mira." + + +And because of the house of the Lord our God, we utter from the depths of +our heart the wish of the Psalmist of old: "_Fiat pax in virtute tua: et +abundantia in turribus tuis. Propter fratres meos, et proximos meos, +loquebar pacem de te_." + + + + +Beating The Air. + + +"I can call spirits from the vasty deep," says Owen Glendower, the great +magician. + +"So can I," replies the sturdy, incredulous Hotspur. "But will they come?" + +We are living in a sterner age than that in which Hotspur is supposed to +have put this poser to the Welshman. Great declamations and fine promises +will not do for any length of time, at least. We are hard, and prosy, and +practical. We must have facts, and figures, and something clear before we +are asked to choose a policy, or a system, or take a stand on a platform. +Love of country, homes and altars, and all the old watchwords, serve no +longer; they come down to a vulgar question of taxes, of custom-house +duties, of imports and exports, of pauperism, and the increase of crime. +This hard, practical spirit has been carried with all the keenness of, if +not an intellectual, at least a very intelligent age, into the sanctuary +of religion, and men and women are no longer content to follow a sect or a +creed because they happened to be born in it, or because their friends +belong to it, or because as Giles has it, "Payrson says so, and Payrson's +daughter be married to Squoire." They will have the why and wherefore: why +they must take this creed and reject that; why they must take a part and +not the whole; why it is necessary to be bothered with any form of belief +at all, when, as they say, and many of them truthfully, they can get on +well enough without it, and live happily, and play their part, and die out +of the world without having committed any special faults against society, +leaving behind them children whose rule in life shall be the truth and +honor which they have bequeathed them as a last legacy. They have saved +themselves infinite trouble by not mingling in the clashing of the sects, +where each one claims to be _the_ one, the only one, the church of Christ. +One would imagine that Christ came only to set the world on fire and all +good people by the ears; that, in fact, it would be better had he not come +at all if this is to be the result, this wrangling and jangling and +eternal jargon about what one must do to be saved, as though good people, +who do no earthly harm must join one or other of these conflicting +parties, who can never agree among themselves, and use the name of the God +of peace as a firebrand to stir up dissension and the worst of strife. +Influenced by thoughts such as these, we find so many of the most +intelligent people, what we might call Nothingarians, believing in nothing +but the law of the land, that is, of expediency--a class that is growing +wider every day in proportion as the sects are loosening and parting +asunder; which embraces the ablest writers on the ablest secular journals; +which sees only one religious body in the world endowed with a +consistency, and a uniqueness, and years, and a glorious history, and a +strange unity that will not be broken; a church which takes to-day, as it +has always taken, the bold stand before the world--we are the one church +founded by Jesus Christ, in this church and in this church alone is +salvation, not because we say it, but because he has said it: a stand in +their eyes outrageous, so utterly opposed, as it is, to the dictates of +human reason, with its doctrines of infallibility and what not; yet, after +all, logical and strangely consistent throughout; so bold, so logical, so +strangely consistent and united, that if there were a church at all it +would be this, for all else is uncertainty. And as the _Nation_ said the +other day in an article on the Old Catholics, written evidently by one of +the class we have been describing: "The great strength of the Church of +Rome lies now in the fact that he who quits her knows not whither he is +going, and can find no man to tell him." Schism and heresy and persecution +have tried her in turn, and exhausted their efforts in vain; she stands +today as she stood on the morning of the Christian era, full and fair in +the light of God, not a dint in the rock, not a loosening in the edifice, +though the ages have washed over her, and washed all other landmarks away; +and the dove that leaves the ark finds no resting-place over the barren +waters; and the olive branch of peace is not yet found to tell us that the +waters have subsided, and the earth is again as God made it. + +Religious unity has been the dream of earnest seekers ever since Jesus +Christ gave the final mandate to the apostle to go forth and convert the +world; and it would seem that the dream is as far from fulfilment to-day +as it ever was; that it is likely to be so till the end of time. The +Catholic Church is denounced as the great stumbling-block in the way of +the much-desired unity. The sects say to her each in turn: You will not +come to us; you will not join us. We are ready to make some sacrifices, +but you will not budge an inch. You are false; you are absurd; you are +mysterious; you are superstitious; you are everything that is bad--but only +give up infallibility, says one, and we are with you; surrender the +doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God, says another, +and we will join you; only let your priests marry, says a third; give up +the sacraments, says a fourth. To these, and all and many more, the church +replies now as always: "_Non possumus_." We cannot; God gave the laws to +his church. They are his laws; they are irrevocable; more fixed than those +of nature; it is not for us to change them. There again, say her +adversaries: the old cry. You will not change; you will not concede; you +are perverse and implacable. How can we ever have unity? They forget that +they ask the church to dismember herself; to destroy her own identity; to +break up, and come down to their level. Suppose she were to do so, what +would the result be? She would be lost and absorbed in the sea of +sectarianism. The one object to which all eyes look, whether faithfully or +maliciously, as at least fixed and united to-day as to-morrow, as +yesterday, would be blotted out of the sight of man. Even humanly +speaking, much would be lost; nothing would be gained; and union would be +farther off than ever. + +The best example of the truth of this is given in the history of the last +great departure from the Catholic Church--the Protestant Reformation. +Though this movement never reached to the proportions of Arianism, yet it +was a movement that captivated nations, and was eminently adapted to favor +the revolutionary spirit then breaking out among men, to throw off all +constraint of whatever nature, and stand upon the false notion of +unbridled liberty of thought and action. The new doctrine of private +interpretation spread rapidly, because it pandered to the age. Nations +broke away from the church; a new faith, a new creed, grander, larger, +fuller, purer than the old, was to be built up. And what was the result? +What is the result? A multiplication of sect upon sect; a fresh departure; +a new interpretation of the Gospel of God day after day; a breaking out +into the wildest and most erratic courses of belief and conduct, +oftentimes so utterly subversive to all government that it was obliged to +be forcibly repressed by the law of the lands which at first favored it +for its own purposes. This tower of faith that men would build from earth +to heaven, like the old tower of pride, ended in nothing--crumbled away and +caused a Babel--a confusion of beliefs. Such is the inevitable end of all +religions that men make for themselves; vain efforts; uncertainty; good +perverted or rendered useless; disagreement and religious anarchy. + +No wonder that men cry out for something fixed. No wonder that so many +turn infidel. Protestantism has proved an utter failure as a guidance and +a religion to men. So much so that, if one asked for a definition of the +Protestant _religion_ today, it could not be given him; and the only right +answer would be not a faith or a system, but the opposition of non- +Catholic Christians to the Roman Catholic Church. Perhaps the most +striking proof of this is exemplified in the late meeting at Cologne. +There were assembled delegates from several rival sects and churches, in +the endeavor to bring order out of chaos, to plant a new church and a new +faith which all men might accept. If the Protestant bishops who attended +there were satisfied that their religion or form of religion was true and +all-sufficient, why not stay at home? Why did they go at all? While +Doellinger and the rest, satisfied of the failure of Protestantism, cling +fast to the torn shred of the Roman Catholic faith, and proclaim loudly +and absurdly that they are Catholic still, it is a deep and bitter lesson +to Protestants of the hopelessness of their efforts to create a unity such +as they see alone in the Catholic Church. + +In the midst of this general and growing dissatisfaction, a pamphlet has +been put into our hands which promises to settle the vexed question once +for all. It is written by a Baptist minister, the Rev. James W. Wilmarth, +pastor at Pemberton, N. J. Who he is, beyond the fact stated on the cover, +we do not know. His pamphlet has no claim to our attention beyond the +thousand-and-one such thrust upon our notice day after day. But as it is +somewhat pretentious, and has received the sanction of no less +distinguished a body than the West New Jersey Baptist Association, which +body, by vote, requested its publication (the substance of it having been +delivered in the "doctrinal sermon" preached September 13, 1871), it may +be taken to represent the orthodox Baptist doctrine, and may, therefore, +be glanced at just to see what that doctrine is, or is supposed to be, for +we have no doubt many Baptists would disagree with it. The author takes a +bold line, "The True Idea of the Church: Baptist _vs._ Catholic," for he +recognizes(181) no logical middle position between Baptist and Catholic +ground, and, therefore, salvation lies in one of the two bodies, as it +cannot lie in both. What Methodists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and the +rest may think of this high-handed mode of dealing with their several +pretensions to truth, we may imagine. But they can scarcely complain, as +all in turn adopt precisely the same line of argument: the haven of +salvation resting not between Presbyterian and Baptist or Methodist and +Episcopalian, but between each of these sects and Rome. They slide by each +other, and confront us. The only similar example we can call to mind at +present of such union out of disunion, is that of the fallen spirits. + +It is unnecessary to observe that, in a contest of this nature between an +individual Baptist minister and the whole Catholic Church, the church, +notwithstanding her rather formidable array of theologians and +philosophers, gets decidedly the worst of the battle. And, though the +author, as he tells us in his preface, "has endeavored to 'speak the truth +in love,' " perhaps it was only natural to find, particularly towards the +end, his temper proving a little too much for his "love," so that we must +not be astonished, though "in no partisan spirit has he discussed his +theme," at meeting little phrases scattered here and there of a decidedly +unlovable nature. Thus, the Holy Father is mentioned as "the bigoted Pope +of Rome" who "sits cursing modern civilization and freedom, and sighing +for the return of the dark ages and the inquisition"; the whole Catholic +system "a diabolical imposture," italicized; "Catholics appeal chiefly to +sentiment," "undervalue the importance of Scriptures," "may be good +Catholics, and yet profane, immoral, untruthful, and regardless of the +will of God, and that millions notoriously are so." If this be our +author's mode of asking for his views "the candid consideration of every +reader of whatever religious persuasion," we should strongly recommend him +for the future to alter his tone; if it be "speaking the truth in love," +we wonder what his notions of speaking the truth in wrath would be. +Catholic writers are habitually accused of intolerance in tone and +controversy: we humbly submit that, when we have to encounter--as we are +compelled to do every day--adversaries of this stamp, we may be reasonably +pardoned for not using studious phrases with men on whom politeness is +thrown away. + +A year has now flown by since this "discourse was prepared and delivered +under a profound conviction of the importance and timeliness of the vital +truths therein set forth, and it is now given to the public with the same +conviction." As to its timeliness, we have nothing to object, it was +probably meant for Baptists rather than Catholics, and with an eye to the +dissensions that seem racking and threatening to rend that body at +present. In fact, from its whole tone and the round rating he gives +members of his community who "would give up their vantage-ground by +concealment or compromise of truth," and his insisting on their +"maintaining their Baptist attitude" (whatever that may be precisely he +fails to explain), the pamphlet sounds very much like a warning-note--like +the weak cry of "No surrender!" when surrender follows immediately, like +Mr. Winkle's "all right" when Mr. Winkle felt satisfied that it was all +wrong. With regard to its "importance," notwithstanding the writer's +"conviction" on the point, we may be permitted to entertain some slight +doubt. Authors are sometimes apt to overrate the importance of their +productions. At all events, after a year of trial, we have heard of no +very wonderful result following the launching of this pamphlet on the +troubled waters of controversy. Catholics are Catholics still. The church +stands precisely at its first starting-point of some nineteen centuries +ago, while the Baptists stand at theirs--a point involved still in a region +of mist, and apparently rapidly dissolving into it. So that, with regard +to this closing of the controversy generally, we are compelled to arrive +at the painful conclusion that it has either been very greatly undervalued +by the public at large, or is absolutely good for nothing. + +The author proposed to himself to place the only two ideas of the church, +Baptist and Catholic, which he acknowledges, in such juxtaposition, in so +clear a light, that all who read must be compelled to adopt either the one +or the other. In other words, be purposed ending forever all the +controversies that have ever raged between church and church, in a +pamphlet of forty-two pages. And his mode of setting about it is at least +original. + +"I do not propose to discuss this question of 'true church' after the +common method. I shall not raise questions of apostolic or of historic +succession, of 'legality' or 'validity' or 'regularity.' I propose to go +deeper than that into the heart of the subject." + +Now, with all due respect to the reverend author, these little items, +which he finds it so convenient to throw overboard in such an arbitrary +fashion, constitute, for his readers at least, the heart of the subject. +He tells us that "all the Christian ages with one consent acknowledge the +church to be a divine society"--human-divine, Catholics would say--"governed +by divine law, established by Jesus Christ." + +Here we have, then, according to the author's own words, a society, +established by a person, at a certain date, which has come down from that +person to to-day. Men say that it has altered from its original. Two +societies claim to be the original, the Baptist and the Catholic. It lies +in one or the other, not between. We want to find out which it is. In this +inquiry, history is nothing, legality is nothing, succession is nothing, +validity is nothing. That is not the true method of going to work to find +out what this society is; whether it has ever been broken, whether it +contains and carries out what Christ its founder gave it, whether its +members practise to-day what they practised at the beginning--all that is +nothing. The question is "the idea which underlies it all. What then is +the true idea of the church? This is the great question." + +If the author proposed to argue in this style, he should have stated at +starting his definition of the true idea of the church. He should have +defined the term in order to explain clearly what he was seeking. But he +does nothing of the kind. In fact, he soon loses the very word "idea," and +substitutes for it in one place "view," in another "theories." So that +after all it comes down in plain English to what is your opinion on the +subject, or what is your notion about it, despite his trite "challenges of +the Catholic idea of the church at the bar of reason," and so forth. + +In fact, there is just that show of shallow learning sprinkled throughout +the whole pamphlet which a preacher endowed with more words than weight +generally uses to a thick-headed congregation, who take his words for +wisdom from the very fact that they cannot understand them. There are the +divisions and subdivisions: the 1, 2, 3, in large and small figures, and +occasionally in Roman characters; the appeals to this, that, and the +other; the citing of "well-known facts" and "notorious things" without +substantiating them by any references, as in p. 17. "Witness the Baptist +originators of the British and Foreign Bible Society; Carey, Judson, and +their successors" in support of the view that with Baptists originated the +desire for the revision of the Bible. Again, speaking of Catholic +doctrine: "If men leave the church, they part from grace and are lost." +_Apropos_ of which telling fact he informs us in the next sentence that +"the history of Augustinianism is an instructive illustration. Augustine, +Bishop of Hippo, was, in many respects, what would now be termed a high +Calvinist. His fervid eloquence and mental power made a deep impression +upon the theology of the Catholic (not then _Roman_ Catholic) Church of +the Latin world." And that is all he says about him. As far as any +evidence he furnishes to support it goes, he might just as well have +substituted the name of S. Thomas Aquinas for S. Augustine, or Pius IX., +or, as far as the majority of his readers know to the contrary, Tippoo +Sahib. And in the very opening of the pamphlet the same shallowness is +strikingly exemplified. He chooses the text, Acts ii. 47, "And the Lord +added to the church daily those who are saved," which, as he observes, +reads in the version of King James, "Such as should be saved." This +text--his own rendering--"is one of those passages in which an incidental +statement, as by a flash of lightning, reveals a whole body of doctrine." +In what it involves we find the true idea of the church, that is, the +Baptist doctrine that we are regenerated in Christ by his death, and that +baptism is, as it were, only a symbol, a sort of mark, by which we are +known as belonging to the church, but not necessary for salvation, +inasmuch as we are _saved_ before we receive it. He alleges, with +reference to the Greek version, that "should be saved" is wrong and "are +saved" is right. And there the matter rests. Now, while on this very +important point, whereon indeed rests his theory, he might as well have +been a little more exact and explicit. A Greek reference is such a vague +thing to build on. We agree with him that "should be saved" is a wrong +rendering; as "are saved" happens also to be. The verse runs: {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} +{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ZETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK KORONIS~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}. The present participle +{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ZETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} means being saved; but a present participle following a verb in +the imperfect or aorist tense must be rendered imperfect, and therefore +the passage should run, "And the Lord added daily to the church such as +_were being_ saved," that is, such as were in the act or state of coming +into the church through the merit of the death of Christ and the movements +of his divine grace; a fact which throws altogether another light on the +author's fixed starting point. These things we mention to show how little +trust can be placed on men who talk so loudly and pretentiously in this +loose style. It shows also how very weak and treacherous is this absolute +dependence on the private interpretation of the word of the Bible, whereon +the Baptists stake their doctrine and salvation; and how insufficient the +absolute creed which hangs for life or death on the possibly dubious +rendering of a passage in a dead language. + +But let us examine this doctrine, which all, whether Catholic or Anglican, +Methodist or Jew, are bound to accept if they would be saved. We Catholics +are asked to surrender for it the faith which we have held through the +centuries of the Christian era, in defence of which we have poured out our +blood so lavishly, tracing the martyr stream down through the long vista +of ages, from the death on the cross to the stoning of Stephen, to the +massacre of the nuns in China but yesterday. We are told to-day that all +our history, our sacraments, our doctrine, the faith on which we are +built, our succession of pontiffs, the sacred orders of our priests, the +church itself, which we define as the union of all the faithful under one +head, which head is Jesus Christ, whose successor is the pope, are one and +all "a diabolical imposture," and that if we hope for salvation we must +surrender them for the true doctrine as explained by this author. + +"The Baptist holds that men receive salvation directly from Christ, and by +virtue of an independent transaction with him; that a believer's salvation +is secured by a personal union with Christ; and that he is divinely +commanded, after being thus saved, to unite with the church for the sake +of personal profit and of usefulness; and that the church so constituted +is to be governed by the law of Christ. He makes doctrine and conversion +come first. Out of doctrine and out of conversion proceeds the church. And +the saved man, already saved, comes into the church for training, for +work," etc. + +Now, this passage is the author's exposition of the true idea of a church, +and on this everything else hangs. We may be obtuse, but we confess the +exposition is somewhat misty to us; at all events, it does not captivate +our intellect so completely as we would wish in a matter all- +important--eternal salvation. We are told here that salvation is a personal +matter between the individual and Christ; that there is no person or +nothing intermediate. In plain English, that a man's own conscience is his +rule and guidance; that it instructs and satisfies him on all points of +doctrine and conduct as a Christian. Now, it is Catholic doctrine that +salvation is an entirely personal affair between the individual soul and +Jesus Christ. The individual is not saved or condemned on the merits or +demerits of the society, the church of which he is a member: in exactly +the same way that a prisoner at the bar is held answerable to the law of +the land for his wrong actions, and judged on them, and it avails him +nothing to speak of the respectability of his relations, or of their evil +behavior which may have partly led him into crime; such evidence may +constitute to an extent extenuating circumstances, but a man is condemned +finally on his own act. If the prisoner, on the verdict being given +against him, pleads: But you condemn me; you do not take into +consideration my relations; you tell me that all that has nothing to do +with it; that I knew myself what was right and what was wrong; that, in +fact, I was the best and only judge in the matter; well, I acknowledge it, +I am the only judge, and if I am the only judge, and I make a mistake, you +cannot punish me, there is nothing between you and my conscience. The +court would respond: There is the law written plain for all men to read. +The government made the law, you are judged by that. And this is precisely +the Catholic doctrine of salvation. Though it be a final question between +the individual soul and Jesus Christ, the law of Christ comes between +them, as the law of Moses came between God and his people, and that law +being made for the whole world, for the universal society of human beings, +rests in the hands of the government duly constituted and appointed from +that society by Jesus Christ himself, who no longer abides among us +visibly, and is only known to us by faith. + +Well, then, faith is enough; faith saves us, say the Baptists. If this be +true, then, are the devils saved since they must have a far more vivid +faith--belief in God--than the generality of human beings? If faith is +enough to save a man, why not stop there? Why be baptized? Why join a +church at all? "For the sake of personal profit" (a phrase apt to be +misunderstood), "and of usefulness," replies our author. After all, this +idea of the church reduces itself to that of Mr. Beecher, which the author +stigmatizes--a church of "expediency." Later, on page 22, in "challenging +the Catholic idea of a church at the bar of reason," he says: "Now, in the +case before us, what is the effect? Salvation." Well, here we have it; the +effect; the thing that the whole world is looking for--salvation. Why, that +is everything; that is all we want, no matter how it comes. You are saved +before entering the church. Then, what more is necessary? There is no need +to go beyond that. Stay outside; live and let live; our safety is +attained; let people wrangle as they may, there is no further fear. There +is no need of a _church_ at all, of communion, and the rest, if we are +saved before entering it. That is all God asks of us, to save ourselves. +It is already accomplished by regeneration and faith in him. There we +stop, happy and contented, without any more quarrelling with our +neighbors. + +Then comes the further and final question: After all, who is Christ? How +do we know him? Where do we find him? When and how does he speak to us? Of +course, to "regenerate persons," it is unnecessary to put these questions: +But our author proposed going deeper into the matter than the common +method, and, if the world is to become Baptist, it must know why. The +regenerate enjoy "a personal union" with him, says the Baptist, and know +when he speaks; when the Spirit impels them. This will never do for human +nature. We must have something stronger than assertion, however strong. +Christians can believe and understand S. Paul, when he tells them that he +was caught up into paradise, and heard secret words which it is not +granted to men to utter. The great apostle excuses himself for bringing +this to the knowledge of the faithful, and only mentions it as a single +act in his life, and one that affected his salvation in no wise. If the +Baptists hold that they are continually in the third heavens, well and +good. That at least has the merit of a clear, defined ground to stand on; +but they will scarcely win many converts. Who is Christ, then, with whom +you have this personal union? He is the founder of the Baptist Church, our +author would respond; of what is known as Christianity? That is to say, of +the system or systems of religion held by all people of the present day +who call themselves Christians, but among whom the Baptists only hold the +true church. Then we will work backwards to the foundation of your society +and the others, and see which reaches to Jesus Christ. Oh! no, says our +author; that is one of the common methods; they are poor. "Read the New +Testament. You will find the Baptist doctrine of salvation, and the +resulting Baptist idea of the church, taught or implied on every +page,(182) and you will not find a trace of the Catholic doctrine of +salvation, or of the Catholic idea of the church. If you doubt, search for +yourselves the Scriptures, like the noble Bereans, and see whether these +things are so." + +In support of this loose, sweeping assertion, this author contorts his +text into a puny quibble, which any well-instructed child might see +through at once. He says: "We do not read the priests or the apostles +added sinners to the church in order to save them," but we do read: "The +_Lord_ added to the church daily those who are saved." _Ergo_, "salvation +was dealt with as a personal matter." + +If the Baptist Church rests on no better foundation than this, and if its +teachers can only support its truth and doctrine on distorted meanings and +texts of this description, we fear it will not hold together much longer, +and we feel half inclined to apply to it a few of the "truths spoken in +love" of which our author is so lavish in dealing with the Catholics. This +very use of the word "Lord" is eminently Catholic. When we speak of a +conversion, of a mercy gained, or a favor bestowed from heaven, though all +these things happen through the hands and sometimes ministry of +individuals, we always say, "The Lord did it; God Almighty wrought it; No +man converted me, but the grace of God; No medicine saved my sick child, +but the favor of God which accompanied its workings," as the child answers +to the first question of the catechism, Who made you? God. But for all +this God works through human instruments. His priests are an ordination of +his own for the government of his church, and by a worthy probation and +preparation receive certain graces of God necessary for their state +involved in the reception of what the church calls the sacrament of Holy +Orders: a certain form to be gone through which Christ ordained for the +reception of the special powers and graces conferred on that particular +office, as in human governments a judge receives his insignia, a minister +his portfolio, a doctor his diploma, in order to prevent everybody taking +the administration of the law into his own hands, or every quack +practising as he pleases. And so with the other sacraments. + +But apart from appeals to texts, which we are almost weary of producing in +favor of Catholic doctrine, and of the church who watched over and +preserved those texts from destruction, the mutilation of which was +wrought, as our author himself complains, not by us, but by the +Protestants in the version of King James, and because we know that version +to be mutilated, we appeal against its use in the schools which our +children frequent: let us look at the broad Christian system, how it would +stand as built up by this writer. + +People who believe in Christ at all, and indeed all who acknowledge, as +they must, Christianity to be a fact, a vast social system, existing under +our eyes, looking back, see a time when it did not exist. A man came into +the world at the point of time in its history which we fix upon as the +beginning of the Christian era. At that time religion, speaking largely, +consisted of the Hebrew and the pagan. The Hebrews were the chosen of God, +and preserved the only true system which corresponds to the rational idea +of the foundation and aim of humanity. This it kept to itself and did not +seek to spread. Christ came, the man-God, and founded a new order, +enlarging upon the old, which was to embrace in its bosom the universe, +and lead all nations back and up to God. The change contemplated was the +vastest that could possibly be conceived, the union of the discordant +elements of human nature in a system entirely above the capabilities of +that nature. Men were to be chaste, to be humble, to love poverty, to +speak no evil, to obey, to mortify themselves always, to pray always, to +acknowledge the nothingness of their nature. This man, Jesus Christ, came, +and, before he had converted people enough to form a single city even, was +crucified, rose from his grave, and ascended into heaven, leaving twelve +poor ignorant, timid men, and a few others to spread this new doctrine, +this new and all-absorbing social system, throughout the world and through +all time. What did he leave to guide them in this tremendous work; a +system, an order perfect in all its details, and capable of spreading with +the contemplated growth of the church? or did he leave each to follow his +own will and do what he could, by means of what is called personal union +with himself, a being who no longer was present, visibly and palpably, +before the eyes of men? As he chose men to do his work, to build up +Christianity, he let them accomplish it after a human fashion, assisted by +the saving fact that he would allow them never to err in the doctrines +which he bade them preach: and to this end he gave them an order which was +to be handed down forever: the apostleship. That was his government, and +at this government was a head, Peter. And Peter, like all other human +governors, at his departure handed his authority down to the next chosen +to fill his place, the promise of the abiding Spirit passing to all, or +the system must have broken down; and so to-day Catholics recognize in +infallibility nothing more than the apostles recognized in the decisions +of Peter at Antioch. And so this author is correct in saying that the +church with Catholics comes first, and not the Bible; for the church +embraces the Bible, which is only the written document of the laws and +ordinances of God to man, the letter of the law resting in the hands of +the government which has charge of it, but that government itself subject +to the law. The government existed among the Hebrews before the law was +ever written. This system which we have endeavored faintly to sketch here +is denied by the Baptist. He says: Christianity comes this wise: Christ +came, died, and thus regenerated us. All who believed in him were saved. +"The apostles preached the Gospel. Men were pierced to the heart and asked +what they must do." They must be immersed, not as a necessity, for they +were saved by the fact of believing; but this act of immersion gave them +the entry to the church of Christ. Then the New Testament was written, not +by Christ, though inspired by him, and left in the hands of everybody to +interpret the law as he pleased. + +Now, we ask, can this system commend itself to the human reason as rounded +and complete enough to fulfil the Christian idea of a church, which should +receive and embrace the whole world in one union of religious harmony? A +book thrown into the world--for so it must look to human eyes who knew +nothing of its divinity--which each one was to take up and interpret as he +pleased; a book subject to more or less of change in transmission from +language to language, and in the absolute loss of the living tongue in +which it was originally written, and the verdict of its genuineness, the +verdict for or against the teachings of a living God, resting upon the +dictum of a grammarian. + +If Christianity hangs on this, for we have not misrepresented the +writer--then we refuse to be Christian at all; for such a system does not +and cannot, as he alleges, "sustain the test of sound reason, of stern +experience, and of infallible Scripture, which ordeal the Baptist idea of +the church endures." + +We need trouble ourselves with this writer no further. There is a great +deal more in the pamphlet that might be touched on as showing the either +absolute or wilful ignorance under which writers of this stamp labor when +speaking of Catholics. He speaks of the Catholic doctrine with regard to +sacraments in this loose way: "They are useful to infants and the dying. +Men come to them for grace apart from the state of their own hearts." Now, +Catholics will perceive the utter absurdity of such a statement at once. +The sacrament of baptism is necessary to infants, who of course are +unconscious recipients of it, as they are unconscious of the sin in which +they are born. This stain which they inherit, but do not incur by any act +of their own, is washed away by the sacrament ordained by Christ, which +admits them into the society of the church at the same time that their +birth admits them to human society, its privileges as well as its trials. +Extreme unction is administered to the dying person, even though he be +unconscious, and is the most touching token of the love of the universal +Mother for her children, who at the last moment will, although the dying +man cannot ask it, administer the sacrament which God has ordained for +that occasion, because she _knows_ that his heart desires such aid at its +passage from the world. But all sacraments given to adults give grace only +in proportion as the recipient receives them worthily. + +"If the priest refuses to come, then the sufferer, infant or adult, must +die unbaptized and unsaved." + +If this gentleman had only taken the trouble to consult a Catholic +catechism, he would have been spared the trouble of putting this further +absurdity into print. He would have found little children taught at school +that "in a case of necessity, when a priest cannot be had, any one may +baptize," and the instructions for administering the sacrament; and +furthermore, that, if a person were placed in such a position that even +this means could not reach him, the very desire is sufficient, as +sometimes happens in the case of sudden conversions and martyrdoms. + +As for Catholicity necessitating a ritual, all religions must more or +less. Do men object to the old law because of its glorious ritual? Is not +the very Baptist-act of immersion a ritual, and their singing in common? +So much so that, for neglect of this observance, Baptists cut off the +whole Christian body from community with them. Which is harder to +believe--the Catholic doctrine which teaches that we must obey the church +which we believe to be the only church of Christ, and in support of which +teaching we bring forward some very substantial proofs, or this? You may +interpret God's Word as you please; that alone is sufficient; but you are +not in communion with his church unless you are immersed; a fact which it +is very difficult to twist out of the Scriptures. + +Again, he shows his weakness in saying that "Francis Xavier, working on +the Catholic idea, baptized millions of Asiatics, and believed that in so +doing he had saved their souls. But the heathen remained heathen still. +There is no evidence, so far as I am aware, that under his labors one +solitary soul was transformed into the image of Jesus Christ." Not one, +but millions, so that Sir James Stephens, a Protestant lecturer on history +in a Protestant university, calls him a saint, not only of the Catholic +Church, but of the world. Colleges were founded by him, and thousands of +Christians suffered martyrdom for the faith. But "Judson" is the apostle +after our author's heart. Judson "lived to see thousands of civilized and +christianized disciples in that dark Burman land; and the work still goes +on, self-sustained by the power of a true hidden life." This latter is a +very saving clause; so truly hidden is the work that our author can point +to no fruit resulting from it. And as for those "thousands of civilized +and christianized disciples," we took the trouble to look for them, and we +regret to say, for our author's veracity, found them all "wanting." Judson +did not succeed in converting one either in Burmah or anywhere else; and +his own sufferings seem to have been reduced to the martyrdom of marrying +successively three wives. + +If then, as our author says, "Logically there is no middle position +between the high rock ground of Baptist truth and the low marsh ground of +Catholic error; all things follow their tendencies, and it is easier to go +down an inclined plane than to go up," we fear that, for all he can do to +prevent them, people will follow their natural tendencies. As a last word, +we would strongly recommend him, before undertaking to set a church in its +true colors before the eyes of men, to consider a little whether he knows +anything of the subject he is writing about, and not stultify himself by +an ignorance which looks like malice, though he calls it truth spoken in +love. + + + + +A Retrospect. + + +And it fell out, says the chronicle, that Childebert, hunting one day in +the forest of Compiegne in company with his wife Ultragade, was suddenly +accosted by S. Marcoul, a holy man who stood in great repute of sanctity +even during his lifetime; he seized the king's bridle, and boldly +petitioned alms for his poor and his church of Nanteuil, which was in a +state of shameful unrepair. While he was yet speaking, a hare, pursued by +the hounds, flew to the spot and took refuge under his mantle. S. Marcoul, +letting go the bridle to place his hand protectingly on the trembling +refugee, the king's horse broke away, seeing which his piqueur rushed +forward, and in tone of arrogance exclaimed: + +"Miserable cleric! how durst thou interrupt the king's chase? Give back +that hare, or I will strike thee for thine insolence!" + +The saint, humbly unfolding his cloak, set free the hare; it bounded away, +and the dogs dashed after it. But lo! they had not made three strides, +when they were struck motionless, rooted to the ground as if turned to +stone. The piqueur, infuriated, flew after the hare, but he had not taken +many strides, when he fell fearfully wounded by a large stone that had +been hurled at him, no one saw whence, and laid his head open. The +huntsmen, seized with terror, fell upon their knees, and implored the holy +man to forgive them and intercede for the life of their companion. S. +Marcoul forgave them, and then, going towards the prostrate body of the +piqueur, he touched it and prayed over it, and presently the stricken man +rose up healed. Childebert, being quickly informed of the two miracles, +hastened after the man of God and knelt for his blessing, and took him +home that night to the shelter of the castle, and dismissed him the +following day loaded with presents for his church and rich alms for his +poor. So stands the legend. + +A witty Frenchman once said to a sceptic who sneered at the story of +Mucius Scaevola: "My friend, I would not put my hand in the fire that +Mucius Scaevola ever put his in it, but I should be desolated not to +believe it." How much wiser was that Frenchman than the dull criticism of +our XIXth century, that goes about with a broomstick sweeping away all the +lovely fabrics that less prosaic ages have raised to mark their passage on +the road of history--a vicious old fairy, demolishing with her Haussmann +wand the storied, moss-grown monuments of the past, giving us naught in +their stead but ugly, rectangular blocks built with those stubborn bricks +called facts, statistics, and such like! Why try to prove to us that +Francois I.'s heroic _Tout est perdu fors l'honneur!_ was only the +poetized essence of a rigmarole letter written not even from the field of +Pavia, but from Pissighittone? Why insist that Philip Augustus never said +to his barons, gathered with him round the altar, before the battle of +Bouvines, "If there be one among you who feels that he is worthier than I +to wear the crown of France, let him stand forth and take it"? True, +Guillaume le Breton, who wrote the history of the campaign and never left +Philip throughout, makes no mention of it, but what of that? The story is +far too beautiful not to be true. Let us turn a deaf ear, then, to this +old hag called Criticism, or deal with her and her bricks and mortar as +the Senate of Berne did with a man who wrote a book to prove that William +Tell never shot the apple, and, in fact, that it was doubtful whether he +and the apple were not both a myth. The Senate burnt the book by the hand +of the hangman publicly in the market-place. We will deal in like manner +with any profane mortal who questions the authenticity of the legend of S. +Marcoul's hare, which furnishes the first mention we find in history of +the chateau of Compiegne. + +The forest was its chief attraction to the kings of old Gaul, as it has +been in later days to their successors. Clotaire I. met with an accident +while hunting there in 561, and died of it; he was interred at Soissons, +whither his fourteen sons accompanied him, bearing torches and singing +psalms all the way. Fredegonda made the merry hunting-lodge the scene of +atrocities never surpassed even by her, fertile as she was in inventive +cruelties. Her infant son fell ill of a fever at Compiegne and died, while +the son of the prefect, Mumondle, who was taken ill with the same illness +at the same time, recovered. The courtiers, thinking to allay the despair +of the terrible mother by giving it an outlet in revenge, whispered to her +certain stories that were current in the village about a witch who had +sacrificed the royal infant to secure the potency of her charms in favor +of the life of the other. Fredegonda caught at the bait like a tiger at +the taste of blood. She scoured the country for decrepit old women, and, +afraid of missing the right one, caused the entire lot to be seized and +put to death before her eyes. The details of the tortures inflicted on +them by the ruthless mother are too terrible to be described. + +Clotaire II. lived many years at Compiegne, much beloved for his gentle +and benevolent disposition, but nothing particular marks that period. King +Dagobert made it likewise his principal residence, and enriched the +surrounding country with many fine churches and noble monasteries. The +most celebrated of these was the Abbey of S. Ouen's Cross. The king was +out hunting, one hot summer's day in the year of grace 631, and emerging +from the forest to the open road, he suddenly saw before him a gigantic +cross of snow. Marvelling much at the unseasonable apparition, he sent for +S. Ouen, who dwelt in the wood hard by, and bade him interpret its meaning +to him. The saint replied that he saw in the sign a command to the king to +build a church on the site of the miraculous cross. No sooner had he said +this, than the cross began to melt, and presently vanished like a shadow. +Dagobert at once set about obeying the mandate uttered in the peaceful +symbol, and raised on the road from Compiegne to Verberie the stately pile +called the Abbaye de la Croix de S. Ouen. + +Many other foundations followed, but no event of note took place at +Compiegne till Louis le Debonnaire appeared on the scene in 757--unless, +indeed, we may record as such the arrival there of the first organ ever +seen in France. It was sent as a present to Pepin by the Emperor +Constantine, and the first time it was played a woman is said to have +swooned, and awoke only to die. Louis le Debonnaire lived chiefly at +Verberie, the magnificent palace of Charlemagne, a right royal abode, +befitting the greatest monarch of France. Bronze, and marble, and precious +stones, and stained glass, and all costly and beautiful materials were +lavished with oriental prodigality on this wonderful Verberie, whose +colossal towers and frowning battlements and elaborately wrought gates and +gables were the marvel of the age and the theme of many a troubadour's +song. But what monument built by the hand of man can withstand the ravages +of man's ruthless passions? The palace of the Gallic Caesar was not proof +against the successive wars and sieges that battered its massive walls, +till not even a vestige of the wonderful pile remains to mark where it +stood. + +The sons of Louis le Debonnaire, Louis, Pepin, and Lothair, rebelled +against their father; Lothair got possession of his person, stripped him +of all the ornaments of royalty, clothed him in sackcloth, and in this +unseemly plight exhibited the old king to the insults and mockeries of the +people. After this he compelled him to lay his sword upon the altar, and +sign his abdication in favor of the unnatural son, who presided in cold- +blooded triumph at the impious ceremony. As soon as this was done he sent +his father, bound hand and foot, to Compiegne, where he was kept a close +prisoner. Lothair's brothers, however, hearing of this, were moved to +indignation, and, stimulated perhaps not a little by jealousy of the +successful rival who had started with them, but secured all the winnings +for himself, they set out for Compiegne, stormed the fortress, and set +free the king. But the unhappy father was not to enjoy long the freedom he +owed to these filial deliverers. Louis again rose up in arms against him, +and the king was forced to take the field once more in defence of his +crown; he fell fighting against his three sons on the frontiers of the +Rhine, and expired with words of mercy and forgiveness on his lips. + +In 866, Charles the Bald held a splendid court at Compiegne to receive the +ambassadors whom he had sent on a mission to Mahomet at Cordova, and who +returned laden with costly presents from the Turkish prince to their +master. Charles did a great deal to improve Compiegne; the old chateau of +Clovis, which was no better than a hunting-lodge grown into a fortress, he +threw down and rebuilt, not on its old site, in the centre of the town, +but on the banks of the Oise. Louis III. and Charles the Simple spent the +greater part of their respective reigns at Compiegne, and added to the +number of its institutions--primitive enough some of them--for the +instruction of the people. "Good King Robert" comes next in the progress +of royal tenants (1017): his name was long a household word among the +people to whom his goodness and liberality had endeared him. One day at a +banquet, where he was dispensing food to a multitude of poor and rich, a +robber stole unobserved close up to him, and, under pretence of doing +homage to the king, clung to his knees, and began diligently cutting away +the gold fringe of his cloak. Robert let him go on till he was about +halfway round, and then, stooping down, he whispered discreetly: "Go, now, +my friend, and leave the rest for some other poor fellow." Like many +another wise and good man, Robert was harassed by his wife; she was a hard +and haughty woman, who, while professing great love for him, made his home +wretched to him by her quarrels and her domineering temper. The people +knew it, and hated Constance; but, like the king, they bore it rather than +quarrel with the shrew. "Let us have peace, though it cost a little high!" +the henpecked husband was for ever repeating; and his people seemed to +have been of one mind with him, for Constance ruled both him and them with +her rod of nettles to the end, and had her own way in everything. + +Philip II.'s occupation of Compiegne, which in those days of simple faith, +when religious fervor ran high, had a significance that can hardly be +appreciated in our own chill twilight days, so slow to see beyond the +material world, so reluctant to recognize the supernatural as an aim or a +motive power in the great movements that enlist men's energies and direct +them, changing the face of nations. This was the translation of the holy +winding-sheet from the casket of carved ivory--in which it had been given +to Charlemagne, along with many other relics of the same date,(183) by +Constantine II. and the King of Persia, as a reward for his services in +expelling the Saracens from the Holy Land--into a reliquary of pure gold, +inlaid with jewels. The holy shroud, when it was taken by Charles the Bald +to the Abbey of S. Corneille at Compiegne, is thus described in the +_proces-verbal_ of the translation, given at full length in the _Grandes +Chroniques_: "It was a cloth so ancient that one could with difficulty +discern the original quality of the stuff, being two yards (_aunes_) in +length and a little more than one yard in width.... The liquors and +aromatic ointments used in the embalmment had rendered it thicker than +ordinary linen, and prevent one from discerning the color of the stuff, +esteemed by the greater number of the spectators to be of pure flax, woven +after the manner of the cloth of Damascus." There are old pictures still +extant, representing Charles amidst a vast concourse of prelates and +nobles, accompanying the relic with prayer and solemn ceremonial. + +In 1093, Matilda of England, on rising from an illness which had been +considered mortal, sent as a thank-offering for her recovery a costly +shrine of gold and precious stones to Philip II., with a request that the +holy shroud might be placed in it. Philip, in a charter drawn up and +signed by himself, thus testifies to the gift and the translation: "It has +pleased us to place in a shrine (_chasse_) of gold, enriched with precious +stones, and given to this church by the Queen of England, the relics of +our Saviour; we have beheld this cloth (_linge_), in which the body of our +Lord reposed, and which we call shroud (_suaire_), according to the holy +evangelist, and which has been withdrawn from the ivory vase." We cannot +realize, we say, how an event like this would stir the hearts of men in +those days. Peter the Hermit was preaching the first crusade; his burning +eloquence, like a lever, uplifting the arm of Christendom, and compelling +every man who could draw a sword to shoulder the cross and go forth to +fight and die for the deliverance of the tomb, where for three days their +Lord had lain wrapped in this winding-sheet. The union of mystical +devotion and enthusiastic service which characterized the crusaders was +fed by every circumstance that tended to embody to their senses those +mysteries which had their birth in that remote eastern land towards which +they were hastening, and the transfer of this sacred memento of the +Passion from its simple ivory casket to a sumptuous one of gold and gems, +the offering of a powerful sovereign, occurring at such a moment, was +calculated to arouse a more than ordinary interest. They hailed the honors +so apportioned paid to the holy shroud as a symbol and a promise; their +faith, already quickened by the renunciation of all that made life dear, +home, kindred, nay, life itself, for the deliverance of the Sepulchre, was +stimulated to more heroic sacrifice; their hope was intensified to +prophecy, by what appeared like a typical coincidence, a manifestation of +divine approval that must ensure beyond all doubt the success of their +enterprise. We should not be astonished, then, at the paramount importance +assigned by the historians of that time to this event, but recognize +therein the sign of our own condemnation, and of a spirit that is no +longer of our day, but belongs, like those glorious relics, to a bright +and glowing past.(184) + +Philip's son, Louis le Gros, like his father, lived principally at +Compiegne; while he was away carrying on the second crusade, his +incomparable minister, Suger, took up his abode there, and, dividing his +time between prayer and the business of the state, governed wisely during +the king's absence. + +When another crusading hero, Philip Augustus, offered his hand and his +crown to the fair Agnes de Meranie, destined to expiate in tears and exile +the ill-fated love of the king and her own short-lived happiness, it was +at Compiegne that he presented her to the court and the people; it was +here that amidst pomp and popular rejoicing the marriage was celebrated. + +But the most curious episode in the whole range of the annals of Compiegne +is perhaps that of a claimant whose story opens at this date. Baldwin IX., +Count of Flanders and Hainaut, usually called Baldwin of Constantinople, +before starting for the Holy Land came to Compiegne to swear fealty to the +King of France, who invested him with knighthood on the same day that +Agnes, like a softly shining star of peace and love, rose upon the +troubled horizon of the kingdom. At Constantinople Baldwin was proclaimed +emperor, and solemnly crowned by the pope's legate at S. Sophia (1204). He +immediately sent off his crown of gold to his beloved young wife, Marie de +Champagne, desiring her to hasten to rejoin him, and share his new-found +honors. The countess obeyed the command and set sail for Constantinople, +but, overcome by the unexpected news of her husband's election to the +throne, she died upon the journey. Baldwin's grief was inconsolable; he +laid her to rest in S. Sophia, the scene of his recent honors, and swore +upon her tomb never to marry again, but to devote himself henceforth to +the sole business of war: he kept his vow, and began that series of +brilliant feats which culminated in his triumphant entry to Adrianople. +Such was the fame of his prowess that powerful chiefs trembled at his very +name: Joanice, the formidable king of the Bulgarians, sent a message to +"the great French warrior," humbly praying for his friendship. But the +warrior mistrusted these overtures, and haughtily repulsed them. Whereupon +Joanice, full of wrath, vowed vengeance, and in due time kept his vow. He +raised an army, made war on Baldwin, whom he took prisoner after a fearful +slaughter of his army at the battle of Adrianople. When the news of the +disaster reached Flanders, Henri of Hainaut, brother of Baldwin, was at +once proclaimed regent; he continued the war against Joanice, but without +success, nor could he by bribes, concessions, or threats obtain the +emperor's release; Joanice would not even vouchsafe to reply to any of his +overtures on the subject. All else failing, the pope interfered, and +besought the conqueror not to sully his triumph by revenge, worthy only of +a savage, but to treat magnanimously, or at least according to the rules +of civilized warfare, for the ransom of his captive. To this appeal +Joanice condescended to reply that, alas! it was no longer in his power, +or any man's, to comply with the desires of his holiness. The answer was +taken for an announcement of Baldwin's death, and universally accepted as +such. Stories soon began to eke out concerning the horrible tortures +practised on the unfortunate prince by his cruel captor; some accredited +eye-witness declared that he had been barbarously mutilated, his hands and +arms cut off, and in this state thrown to the wild beasts, his skull being +afterwards made into a drinking-cup for the brutal Joanice, who had stood +by gloating over the spectacle of his victim's agony. Years went by and +nothing transpired to throw the least doubt on the fact of Baldwin's +death, though the accounts as to the manner of it were somewhat +conflicting. Henri of Hainaut was proclaimed sovereign of Flanders; after +reigning ten years he died, and was succeeded by Jeanne, eldest daughter +of Baldwin. She was not long in possession of the throne when the report +was bruited about that her father was alive; he had been seen by some +pilgrims journeying through Servia, who having lost their way in the +forest of Glaucon came upon the grotto of a hermit, and were taken in and +restored by him and sheltered for the night. This hermit, they recognized +as their former prince, Baldwin; he was much altered by suffering, and his +long white beard and uncouth garb were calculated to disguise him from any +eyes but such as had known him well, but the pilgrims recognized him at +once; they, however, discreetly forebore announcing the fact till they +brought other witnesses to corroborate their own assurance. They returned +soon with several trustworthy persons who had known Baldwin too well to +mistake his identity after any lapse of years, and these declared +unhesitatingly that the hermit was no other than the hero of Adrianople. + +Baldwin, finding his secret discovered, fled to a distant and more +inaccessible part of the forest; he was tracked thither, and again fled; +but the pursuers finally got possession of him, and dragged him by main +force into the neighboring town; the people flocked eagerly to see him, +and with one voice they proclaimed him their long-lost Baldwin, welcoming +him with joyful acclamations as a father returned from the dead. Whether +this popular welcome merely emboldened the real Baldwin to confess his +identity and, as a necessary consequence, claim his rights, or whether it +suggested to the false one the idea of simulating the person whom he +resembled and was taken for, it is impossible to say, but at any rate from +this period we no longer see him dragged, but marching forth, of his own +free-will, from town to town, and surrounded by all the paraphernalia of +an injured claimant. His march was not, however, one of unbroken triumph; +the town of Flanders refused to believe in him, and indignantly scouted +himself and his followers as a band of impostors. The daughters of the +dead man, Jeanne and Marguerite, refused to believe in him, and denounced +him as a malefactor whose aim was to stir up disorder in the state for his +own ambitious purposes. But Jeanne's government was odious to the people; +to escape from her harsh and cruel rule they would have willingly adopted +any claimant who came with a fair show of right to enlist their credulity. +Jeanne knew this, and at once took strong measures to put down the +movement. It proved more difficult than she anticipated. Before many +months the country was in a blaze, divided into two camps, one of +believers, the other disbelievers, but both ready to devour each other to +prove and disprove their special theories. A witness whose testimony went +hard against the claimant was that of the old bailiff of Quesnoy; he had +known Baldwin from a child, and mourned over him like a father, and, when +he now appeared at the castle gates and demanded admittance, the old man +refused to open to him, and vowed solemnly that he was not his master, but +a base impostor. The conduct of this stubborn sceptic drew forth a +pathetic appeal from the claimant. "I find," he says, "more cruel enemies +in my own house than in the land of strangers. Flanders, my mother, dost +thou repulse thy son whom Greece and Macedonia received with open arms! I +escaped from Adrianople through the carelessness of my guards; I fell into +the hands of barbarians, who dragged me to the distant plains of Asia; +there, like a vile slave, I, who had wielded the sceptre, was condemned to +dig the earth; I dug until some German merchants, to whom I confided my +story, ransomed me, and sent me back to my country, and lo! I arrive and +show myself, and you repulse me! My daughter Jeanne refuses to own me in +order not to resign her rank and subside into the subject of a court!" +Unmoved by this touching denunciation, Jeanne persisted in disowning him, +but, failing to prove her case, she referred it to Louis VII. of France. +Louis, much interested in the extraordinary story, willingly undertook the +arbitration. The claimant, on his side, testified great satisfaction on +hearing that his fate was placed in the hands of a wise and powerful +monarch, who was sure to prove a just and discerning judge; he set out in +high spirits to Compiegne, where the king was then residing. Attired in +the violet robes of a hermit, and bearing a white wand in his hand, he +entered the august assembly with a countenance full of unblushing +assurance, saluted the King of France with an air of proud equality, and +noticed the barons and knights by a courtly inclination of the head. +Louis, who had carefully studied the case, conducted the examination +himself; he put many subtle and perplexing questions to the supposed +Baldwin concerning events which had passed in his youth, and which it was +thought impossible he could have learned from any one he had seen since +his return, and the claimant answered accurately with an assurance that +carried conviction with it. The examination lasted several hours, and, the +closer it pressed him, the more triumphantly it established his identity. +The witnesses who boasted of being able to confound the imposture in the +twinkling of an eye were themselves confounded; they withdrew covered with +confusion, and vowing inwardly that "this man was sold to the devil," as +only the father of lies could have told him so many hidden things, and +borne him to success through such a quagmire of difficulties. There was, +indeed, much conflicting evidence forthcoming. Henri, his brother, was +dead, but the Dukes of Brabant and Limbourg, cousins and contemporaries of +Baldwin's, swore that the claimant was the real man; on the other hand, +sixteen knights of unimpeachable honor swore to having seen the real man +dead on the field of Adrianople. The king, after hearing with great +patience, and weighing most impartially what was said on both sides, +declared in favor of the claimant. The excitement was indescribable when +he rose to pronounce the verdict; but at this point the Bishop of Beauvais +stepped from his seat, and, holding up his right hand, adjured Louis to +suspend for one moment the final words while he put a few short questions +to the hermit. The king consented; a deathlike silence fell upon the +assembly, and the bishop, going close up to the hermit, who was seated on +a chair in the centre of the great hall, addressed him thus in a loud +voice: + +"Answer me three questions: 1st, In what place did you render homage to +King Philip Augustus? 2d, By whom were you invested with the order of +knighthood? 3d, Where did you marry Marie de Champagne?" + +The claimant stammered, grew pale, and, after a vain attempt to fence with +the questions, broke down. Extraordinary as it may seem, he had never +given a thought to these prominent events in the life of Baldwin of +Constantinople, or foreseen that he would be questioned concerning them. +The enthusiastic sympathy of the court was changed in an instant to rage +and scorn. Sentence of death was pronounced on the hermit of Glaucon on a +charge of high treason, conspiring, fraud, perjury, and the long list of +iniquities that make up the sum of a claimant's budget. But having thus +far acquitted himself of his office, the king handed over the criminal to +Jeanne to be dealt with as she thought fit. In those rough and ready days +there were no back-stairs for a plucky claimant to escape by, no counsel +to save him with a nonsuit, or such like modern convenience; the make- +believe Baldwin was without more ado hung up between two dogs on the +market-place of Flanders. Some chroniclers throw uncomfortable doubts on +the justice of the execution; a few maintain that this was the true man, +and anathematize Jeanne as a parricide who sacrificed her own father to +the love of power. Pere Cahour, who is certainly a conscientious writer, +speaks of her, on the other hand, as a just and upright woman, utterly +incapable of so diabolical a crime, and stoutly vindicates the evidence of +the sixteen knights, though how he adapts it to the belief in Baldwin's +capture by Joanice, which appears to have been general after the battle of +Adrianople, it is difficult to see. The _Chronique de Meyer_, again, +denounces Jeanne as an execrable monster, and declares that the man who +was hanged was the real Baldwin. Clearly claimants have been always a +troublesome race to deal with; even hanging does not seem to make an end +of them, for their claims outlive them, and leave to historians a legacy +of doubt and discord that is exceedingly difficult to settle. + +The passage of S. Louis at Compiegne is marked by an event characteristic +of him and of his time. He had ransomed from the Venetians at at an +enormous price the crown of thorns of our Saviour. To do it public honor +he carried it bare-headed and bare-footed from the wood of Vincennes to +the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and thence to the Sainte Chapelle, that +gemlike little shrine which had been raised expressly to receive the +priceless relic, and whose beauty is invested with a fresh interest since +it escaped the fire of the Communists; the Conciergerie and the Palais de +Justice were burning so close to it that the flames might have licked its +walls, yet not even one of its wonderful stained-glass windows was +injured. + +Other monuments S. Louis left behind him, not built of stone or precious +metals, but which have nevertheless endured and come down to us unimpaired +by the lapse of ages, while houses and castles of stony granite have +crumbled away, leaving no record on the hearts of men. Compiegne in the +days of the saintly king was the refuge of God's poor, of the sick and the +sorrowing; S. Louis gave up to them all the rooms he could spare from his +household, and devoted to tending and serving them with his own hands what +time he could steal from the affairs of state. + +To Be Continued. + + + + +The Russian Clergy. + + +We have heard nothing new of late about the project of certain zealous +Anglicans and members of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United +States to establish communion between their churches and the schismatic +Oriental Christians in the empire of Russia. It seemed fitting enough at +first glance that the special variety of Christianity introduced by Henry +VIII. should agree with the methods of ecclesiastical discipline +prescribed by an equally autocratic sovereign at the opposite extremity of +Europe; and there were, of course, abundant reasons why the Anglicans and +their American descendants should covet a recognition from a branch of the +church which, whatever its corruptions and irregularities, can at least +make good its connection with the parent stem. Our readers have not +forgotten, however, how coldly the overtures of these ambitious +Protestants were received. The Russian clergy ridiculed the hierarchical +pretensions of their English and American friends. They denied their +apostolical succession. They questioned their right to call themselves +churchmen at all; and, in short, looked upon them as no better than +heretics, and not very consistent heretics either. The movement for union +was a foolish one, begun in utter misconception of the radical differences +between the two parties, and sure from the first to end in discomfiture +and irritation. + +Indeed, it was even more foolish than most of us still suppose. Not only +was it impossible for the Russian Church to make the concessions required +of it, but there is no reason to believe that the Episcopalians would have +been very well satisfied with their new brethren had the alliance been +effected. The Russian Church is an organization which stands far apart +from every other in the world, presenting some monstrous features which +even Protestantism cannot parallel. The Jesuit Father Gagarin has +published a very curious work on the condition and prospects of the +Russian clergy,(185) which would perhaps have modified the zeal of the +English and American petitioners for union and recognition if they could +have read it before making their recent overtures. We see here the +rottenness and uselessness into which a national church falls when it is +cut off from the centre of Christian unity and the source of Christian +life. + +The Russian priests are divided into two classes, the white and the black +clergy, or seculars and monks. The great difference between them is, the +white clergy are married, and the black are celibates. Whatever learning +there is in the ecclesiastical order is found among the monks. The bishops +are always chosen from the monastic class; and the two classes hate each +other with remarkable heartiness. The marriage of priests is an old custom +in the East, which antedates the organization of the Russian schism. It +prevails in some of the united Oriental churches to this day. But in +Russia it exists in a peculiarly aggravated form. Peter I. and his +successors, by a multitude of despotic ukases, succeeded in erecting the +white clergy into a strict caste, making the clerical profession +practically hereditary, and marriage a necessary condition of the secular +clerical state. The candidate for orders has his choice between matrimony +and the monastery; one of the two he must embrace before he can be +ordained. + +The rule seems to have originated in an attempt to improve the education +of the white clergy. The deplorable ignorance of the order led the +government to establish ecclesiastical schools. But the schools remained +deserted. The clergy were then _ordered_ to send their children to them, +and sometimes the pupils were arrested by the police and taken to school +in chains. The Czar Alexander I. ordered, in 1808 and 1814, that all +clerks' children between six and eight years of age should be at the +disposal of the ecclesiastical schools; and, that there might be no lack +of children, the candidate for the priesthood was compelled to take a wife +before he could take orders. Once in the seminary, the scholar has no +prospect before him except an ecclesiastical life. He cannot embrace any +other career without special permission, which is almost invariably +refused. At the same time, the seminaries are closed against all except +the sons of the clergy. The son of a nobleman, a merchant, a citizen, a +peasant, who wanted to enter, would meet with insurmountable obstacles, +unless he chose to become a monk. + +Thus the paternal government of the czar secures first an unfailing supply +of pastors for the Russian Church, which otherwise might be insufficiently +served; and, secondly, a career for the children of the clergy, free from +the competition of outside candidates. And, indeed, the priests might very +well say: Since you compel us to marry, you are bound, at least, to +furnish a support for our offspring. But the system does not stop here. +What shall be done with the priests' daughters? In the degraded condition +of the Russian Church, where the white clergy or popes are popularly +ranked lower in the social scale than petty shopkeepers or noblemen's +servants, these young women could not expect to find husbands except among +the peasantry, and they might not readily find them there. The obvious +course is to make them marry in their own order. The seminarian, +therefore, by a further regulation of the paternal government, is not only +obliged to marry, whether he will or no, but he must marry a priest's +daughter, and some bishops are so careful of the welfare of their subjects +that they will not suffer a clerk to marry out of his own diocese. Special +schools are established for these daughters of the church; and we could +imagine a curious course of instruction at such institutions, if the +Russian ecclesiastical schools really attempted to fit their pupils for +the life before them; but, as we shall see further on, they do nothing of +the kind. + +Sometimes it happens that a priest has built a house on land belonging to +the church. He dies, leaving a son or a daughter. His successor in the +parish has a right to the use of the land, but what shall be done with the +house? The law solves this difficulty by providing that the living shall +either be saved for the son (who may be a babe in arms), or given to any +young Levite who will marry the daughter. Thus the clerical caste is made +in every way as compact and comfortable as possible, and, for a man of +mean extraction, moderate ambition, and small learning, becomes a +tolerable, if not a brilliant career. + +The clergy of a fully supplied parish consists of a priest, a deacon, and +two clerics, who perform the duties of lector, sacristan, beadle, bell- +ringer, etc. The deacon has little to do, except to share on Sunday in the +recitation of the liturgy, which, being inordinately long, is sometimes +divided into sections and read or chanted by several persons concurrently, +each going at the top of his speed. The clerks of the lower ranks, +however, may pursue a trade, but they are all enrolled in the same caste, +out of which they must not marry. The number of parish priests in Russia +is about 36,000; of deacons, 12,444; of inferior clerics, 63,421. One-half +the revenue of the parish belongs to the priest, one-quarter to the +deacon, and one-eighth to each of the two clerics. The prizes of the +profession are the chaplaincies to schools, colleges, prisons, hospitals, +in the army, in the navy, about the court, etc., most of which are +liberally paid. The parochial clergy are supported by: 1. Property +belonging to the parish, chiefly in the towns, yielding about $500,000 per +annum; 2. A government allowance of $3,000,000 per annum; 3. About +$20,000,000 per annum contributed by parishioners; 4. Perpetual +foundations, with obligation to pray for the departed, invested in +government funds at four per cent., say $1,075,000. The average income of +a priest is thus about $341. In addition to this, however, each parish has +a glebe, of which the usufruct belongs to the clergy. The minimum extent +of this church domain is about eighty acres, and it is divided after the +same rule as the revenues, namely, one-half to the priest, one-quarter to +the deacon, and the remainder to the inferior clerks. When there is no +deacon, the priest's share is, of course, proportionately larger. In many +parishes, the glebe is much more extensive than eighty acres. In Central +Russia, it amounts sometimes to 250, 500, even 2,500 acres; and, in those +fertile provinces known as the Black Lands, the share of the priest alone +is sometimes as much as 150 acres. At St. Petersburg, the church provides +the parish priest a comfortable and elegant home. "The furniture is from +the first shops in Petersburg. Rich carpets cover the floors of the +drawing-room, study, and chamber; the windows display fine hangings; the +walls, valuable pictures. Footmen in livery are not rarely seen in the +anteroom. The dinners given by these cures are highly appreciated by the +most delicate epicures. Occasionally their salons are open for a soiree or +a ball; ordinarily it is on the occasion of a wedding, or the birthday of +the cure, or on the patron saint's day. The apartments are then +magnificently lighted up; the toilettes of the ladies dazzling; the +dancing is to the music of an orchestra of from seven to ten musicians. At +supper the table is spread with delicacies, and champagne flows in +streams. A Petersburg cure, recently deceased, loved to relate that at his +daughter's nuptials champagne was drunk to the value of 300 roubles +(L48)." + +Considering the education and social standing of a Russian priest, this is +not bad. In the rural districts there is much less clerical luxury; there +is even a great deal of poverty and hardship. But we must not forget that +the rustic clergy is but a little higher in culture than the rudest of the +peasantry, and a life which would seem intolerable to an American laborer +is elysium to a Russian hind. Most, even of country priests, have +comfortable houses, well furnished with mahogany and walnut; and, though +they do not eat meat every day that the church allows it, they have their +balls and dancing parties, at which their daughters dance with the young +men from the neighboring theological seminaries. The wives and daughters +of the reverend gentlemen, to be sure, have to labor sometimes in the +fields; but "they are dressed by the milliner of the place; you will +always see them attired with elegance; they do not discard crinoline, and +never go out without a parasol"--except, of course, when they are going to +hoe corn and dig potatoes. + +The voluntary contributions of the parishioners are collected, or +enforced, in a variety of ways, and paid in a variety of forms. Towards +the feast of S. Peter each house gives from three to five eggs and a +little milk. After the harvest, each house gives a certain quantity of +wheat. When a child is born, the priest is called in to say a few prayers +over the mother, and give a name to the baby; the fee for this is a loaf +and from 4 to 8 cents. Baptism brings from 8 to 24 cents more. For a +second visitation and prayers at the end of six weeks there is a fee of a +dozen eggs. At betrothals the priest gets a loaf, some brandy, and +sometimes a goose or a sucking-pig. For a marriage he is paid from $1 60 +to $3 20; for a burial, from 80 cents to $1 60; for a Mass for the dead, +from 28 to 64 cents; for prayers for the dead, which are often repeated, 4 +or 8 cents each time; for prayers read at the cemetery on certain days +every year, some rice, a cake, or some pastry. The peasants often have a +Te Deum chanted either on birthday or name-day, or to obtain some special +favor; the fee for that is from 8 to 16 cents. The penitent always pays +something when he receives absolution; but as confession is not frequent +in the Russian Church, the income from this source must be small. In the +towns the fee is often as high as $1, $2, $4, and even more. Among the +peasantry it sometimes does not exceed a kopec (one cent); but if the +penitent wishes to receive communion, he must renew his offering several +times. At Easter, Christmas, the Epiphany, the beginning and end of Lent, +and on the patron saint's day, which sometimes occurs two or three times a +year, it is customary to have prayers chanted in every house in the +parish, for which the charge varies in the rural districts from 4 cents to +60 cents each visit, according to the importance of the occasion. In the +large cities the fees are much more considerable. Father Gagarin cites the +case of a parishioner in St. Petersburg to whom the clergy presented +themselves in this manner twenty-seven times in a single year, and at each +call he had to give them something. This, however, was an exception. +Generally the visits are only fifteen a year. "Sometimes it happens," +continues our author, "that the peasant cannot or will not give what the +priest asks. Hence arise angry disputes. One priest--so runs the +story--unable to overcome the obstinacy of a peasant refusing to pay for +the prayers read in his house, declared that he would reverse them. He had +just before chanted, '_Benedictus Deus noster_'; he now intoned, 'NON +_Benedictus_, NON _Deus_, NON _noster_' thus intercalating a _non_ before +each word. The affrighted peasant, the chronicle says, instantly complied. +Often enough, too, in spite of all the prohibitions of the synod, the +wives and children of the priests, deacons, and clerks accompany their +husbands and fathers, and stretch out _their_ hands also. The worst of all +this is that the Russian peasant, while long disputing merely about a few +centimes, will think himself insulted unless the priest accept a glass of +brandy. And when the circuit of all the houses in the village has to be +made, though he stay only a few minutes in each, this last gift is not +without its inconveniences." It must be an edifying round certainly. But +then the reverend gentleman has a wife to help him home. + +The black clergy is not in a much better condition than the white. All the +monasteries are supposed to be under the rule of S. Basil; but they are +not united in congregations, each establishment being independent of all +the rest. Most of them do not observe the great religious rule of poverty +and community of goods, but each monk has own purse, and the superiors are +often wealthy. One hundred years ago, the number of convents, not +reckoning those in Little and White Russia, was 954. The ukase of +Catharine II., which confiscated the property of the clergy, suppressed +all but 400. Since then the number has increased. + +The great increase in the number of monks between 1836 and 1838 is +accounted for by the forcible incorporation of the United Greeks. This was +not formally effected until 1839, but the United Greeks were reckoned as +part of the Russian Church in 1838, and many of their monks were +transferred from their own to the non-united monasteries earlier than +that. It will be seen, however, that the increase thus obtained was not +permanent. + +The curious discrepancy between the number of monks and the number of nuns +has an equally curious explanation. Women are forbidden, by a decree of +Peter the Great, to take the vows under forty years of age. Hence the +convents are crowded with postulants who must wait sometimes twenty years +before they can take the veil. Some persevere, some return to the world, +and many continue to live in the convent without becoming professed. If we +reckon the whole population of the convents--monks, nuns, novices, and +aspirants--we shall find the number of the two sexes more nearly agree. + +It is interesting to see from which classes of society these monks and +nuns are drawn. F. Gagarin distinguishes five classes: I. The clergy, +including priests, deacons, and clerks, with their wives and children; II. +The nobility, embracing not only the titled nobility, but government +functionaries and members of the learned professions; III. The urban +population, comprising merchants, artisans, citizens, etc.; IV. The rural +population, consisting of peasants of all conditions; V. The military. The +monks are recruited from these five classes in the following ratio: + +Clergy: 54.3 per cent. +Urban population: 22.3 " +Rural population: 16.3 " +Military: 3.4 " +Nobility: 3 " + +The immense preponderance of the clerical element is owing primarily, of +course, to the regulation of caste, which virtually compels the children +of the clergy to follow the profession of their fathers. For the +ambitious, the monastery alone offers an alluring prospect, since it is +from the black clergy that the bishops are taken. The religious calling, +therefore, in Russia is not so much a vocation as a career. If there were +really an unselfish devout tendency towards the monastic life among the +children of the clergy, we should expect to find it stronger with the +daughters than with the sons. But the case is far otherwise. There are no +bishoprics for the women; their career is to marry priests, go with them +from house to house collecting alms, and help them home when they have +taken too much brandy. Hence we find the following ratio among the +population of the nunneries: + +Urban population: 38.8 per cent. +Rural population: 31 " +Clergy: 13 " +Nobility: 12 " +Military: 4 " + +The number of recruits supplied to monasteries by the clerical profession +averages 140 a year. These comprise a curious variety of persons. First, +there are priests or deacons who have committed grave crimes; they are +sentenced to the convent, as lay convicts are sentenced to the galleys. +Next there are seminarists who have failed in their studies; if they quit +the ranks of the clergy altogether, they are forced into the army; if they +remain among the white clergy, they have no prospect of becoming anything +better than sacristans or beadles; by entering a convent they will at +least live more comfortably and may aspire to become deacons or priests. +Then there are deacons and priests who have lost their wives; they cannot +marry again; the Russian government hesitates to entrust a parish to a +wifeless priest; the wife indeed, as we have just seen, has some very +important functions to perform in the administration of parochial rites; +so the unfortunate widower is not only advised but sometimes compelled to +go to a convent. Again, there are seminarists who after completing their +studies act as professors for some time before they are ordained. Suppose +such a man has been married and his wife dies. He cannot be ordained if he +marry again. He cannot be ordained a secular priest without a wife. He +must either go to the convent or seek some career outside the clerical +profession, and that, as we have seen, it is almost impossible to find. +Ambition draws many to the monastery. A student of any one of the four +great academies of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kasan, and Kieff, who embraces +the monastic life during his academical course, is morally certain on +quitting the academy of being named inspector or prefect of studies in a +seminary; at the end of a few years he becomes rector; and if he do not +impede his own advancement he can hardly fail to be a bishop after a +while. Still there is difficulty in obtaining from the academies a +sufficient number of educated monks, and according to F. Gagarin some +extraordinary devices are resorted to in order to supply the demand. When +persuasion has failed, the student whom the convent wishes to capture is +invited to pass the evening with one of the monks. Brandy is produced and +it is not difficult to make the young man drunk. While he is insensible +the ceremony of taking the habit and receiving the tonsure is performed on +him, and he is then put to bed. When he awakes, he finds by his side, +instead of the lay garments he wore the night before, a monastic gown. All +resistance is useless. He is told that what is done cannot be undone, and +after a while he submits angrily to his fate. This at any rate was the +method of impressment into the religious state adopted fifty years ago. +Now, says our author, it is unnecessary, inasmuch as a shorter way has +been found of reaching the same result. The students of the academies +(these are students of theology, be it remembered--equivalent to our +seminarians) are in the habit of frequenting public-houses and getting +drunk. They are carried home on hand-barrows, and this proceeding is known +as the "Translation of the Relics." When a young man has been fixed upon +as a desirable recruit for the monastery, the superior has only to watch +until he is brought home on a barrow; the next morning, while his head and +his stomach are rebuking him, he is informed that he has been expelled for +his disgraceful conduct; but, if he will give a proof of his sincere +repentance by making a written request to be received as a monk, he may be +forgiven. + +There is no novitiate in the Russian convents. The neophyte makes his vows +at once--provided he has reached the age prescribed by the law--and +instances are not wanting of monks who have even attained the episcopate +without ever having lived in a convent. According to the Russian law, +academy pupils may make the religious profession at 25; other men at 30. +It often happens that a youth has finished his studies before reaching 25; +in that case, instead of applying for a dispensation, he makes a false +statement of his age. Others who fail at their books wait for their +thirtieth year, and are placed meanwhile each one under the care of some +monk, who is supposed to form him for the monastic state. But he receives +no religious training. He does not learn to pray, to meditate, to examine +his conscience. He waits upon his master; he joins in the long service in +the church; and the rest of the time he spends in amusement within or +without the convent. His pleasures are not always of the most edifying +character, and his excursions are not confined to the day. + +What sort of monks can be formed by such training? The asceticism +prescribed by S. Basil is rarely observed. Meat is forbidden, but it is a +common dish on the convent tables. Drunkenness is so prevalent that it +hardly causes surprise. "After that," says our author, "one can imagine +what becomes of the vow of chastity." There is, as we have already said, +no pretence of observing holy poverty. Every monk has a certain share of +the convent revenues, proportioned to his rank, and this share is +sometimes large. The average income of the black clergy is not easily +ascertained. There are two sorts of convents--those which receive aid from +the state, as compensation for confiscated estates, and those which depend +entirely upon private resources. Those of the first kind are divided into +monasteries of the first, second, and third classes, receiving from the +government respectively 2,000, 1,600, and 670 roubles a year ($1,680, +$1,344, $563). There are 278 of these convents, receiving 259,200 roubles, +or about $217,728 from this source. In former years, each convent was +entitled to the compulsory services of a certain number of peasants. Since +the emancipation of the serfs the government has commuted this privilege +by paying an annual sum of 307,850 silver roubles, or $258,594. Endowments +with an obligation to pray for the departed yield in addition $2,150,400 +to white and black clergy together. Let us suppose that the monks get one- +half; that would be $1,075,200 per annum. Then the convents possess large +properties in arable lands, woodlands, meadows, fisheries, mills, etc. One +convent is mentioned which has derived an income of $10,000 merely from +the resin collected in its forests. The greater part of the revenues, +however, are derived from the voluntary contributions of the people. These +seem to be enormous. Russians prefer to be buried within the precincts of +the monasteries, and the monks not only ask an exorbitant price for the +grave, but make the deceased a permanent source of profit by charging for +prayers over his remains. Images famous for miracles, churches enriched +with the relics of saints, have multitudes of visitors who never come +empty-handed. How much can be made from this concourse of the faithful may +be imagined when it is remembered that a single laura, that of S. Sergius +at Moscow, is visited every year by a million pilgrims. Begging brothers +traverse all Russia, gathering alms. A very pretty trade is driven in wax +tapers. The various arts resorted to by the white clergy to collect money +are well known to the monks also. The Laura of S. Sergius is said to have +a revenue all told of at least 2,000,000 roubles ($1,680,000), and a +single chapel in Moscow yields to the convent to which it is attached an +annual income of about $80,000. These princely revenues are not devoted to +learning, education, charity, religion. A large part is misappropriated by +the persons appointed to gather them. A third is the property of the +superiors. The rest is divided among the monks. The annual income of the +superior of one of the great lauras is from $33,600 to $50,400; of the +superior of a monastery of the first class, from $8,400 to $25,200; second +class, $4,200 to $8,400; third class, $840 to $4,200. All this is for +their personal use; the monastery gives them lodging, food, and fuel, and +they have to buy nothing but their clothing. + +The seminaries, governed by the state, teach successfully neither piety +nor learning. The tendency of the courses of instruction is to become +secular rather than ecclesiastical. A proposal has recently been made that +each bishop shall choose for his diocesan seminary a learned and pious +priest to hear the confessions of the pupils, and excite them to devout +practices; but it is objected that no secular priest can be found who is +fit to discharge such important functions, while those monks who are fit +are already employed in more important duties; besides, if one could +discover among the white clergy the right sort of man, so much virtue +would come very expensive, and the bishops could not or would not pay the +salary he would be in a condition to demand. The seminarians are required +to confess twice a year, namely, during the first week of Lent and during +Holy Week. In reality, most of them omit the second confession; they go +home to their families at Holy Week, and rarely approach the sacraments, +though they always bring back a certificate from the parish priest that +they have done so. A new regulation prescribes two additional confessions +and communions, namely, at Christmas and the Assumption, and attempts +another reform by ordaining that seminarians shall say their prayers +morning and evening, and grace before and after meat. + +The bishops are appointed by the czar, and transferred, promoted, +degraded, imprisoned, knouted, or put to death at the imperial pleasure. +Until very recently, no bishop could leave his diocese without the +permission of the synod, so that consultations among the episcopacy were, +of course, impossible. Now, however, a bishop may absent himself for eight +days, on giving notice to the synod. It is the synod at St. Petersburg +that exercises, under the czar, the whole ecclesiastical authority of the +empire. The bishop has no power, and nothing to do but to sign reports. +All the business of his diocese is really transacted by a lay secretary, +appointed not by the bishop, but by the synod. Under the secretary is a +chancery of six or seven chief clerks, with assistant clerks and writers. +This office superintends all the affairs of the clergy, and transacts no +business without drink-money. It is the most venal and rapacious of all +Russian bureaus, and such a mine of wealth to the officials that recently, +when the chancery of a certain town was abolished on account of the +destruction of its buildings by fire, the employees petitioned to be +allowed to restore them at their own expense. The secretary is the one +all-powerful person of the diocese. From 12,000 to 15,000 files of +documents are referred to the chancery every year for decision, and it is +he who passes upon them, asking nothing of the bishop except his +signature. He is almost invariably corrupt, and as he possesses, through +his relations with the synod, the power to ruin the bishop if he chooses, +there is no one to interfere with him. + +The synod consists of the metropolitan of St. Petersburg and a number of +other bishops chosen by the czar and changed every now and then, and of +two or three secular priests, one of whom is the czar's chaplain, and +another the chief chaplain of the army and navy. But in reality, the whole +power of the synod is held by an imperial procurator, who sits in the +assembly, watches all its proceedings, stops deliberations whenever he +sees fit, is the intermediary between the church and the state, and +formulates decisions for the signature of the synod. Most of these +decisions are signed without reading, and sometimes they are made to +express the direct contrary of the sense of the assembly. The procurator, +in a word, is to the synod what the secretary is to the bishop--the +representative of the civil power ruling the enslaved and submissive +church. The czar speaks through the procurator, the procurator speaks +through the lay secretaries of the bishop, and so the church is governed +practically without troubling the clergy at all. + +The "Old Catholics" of Germany, and the new and improved Catholics who are +(perhaps) going to be made under the patent of Father Hyacinthe and wife, +are understood to be looking eagerly for connections in various parts of +the world. Let them by all means go to Russia. They will see there how +much liberty a church gains when it cuts itself off from its obedience to +the See of Peter, and what kind of a clergy is constructed when men try to +improve upon the models of Almighty God. + + + + +The Cross Through Love, And Love Through The Cross. + + +Maheleth Cristalar was the daughter of a Spanish Jew. Her father had once +been very wealthy, and indeed until the age of sixteen she had lived in +princely splendor. The beauties of her Spanish home were very dear to her; +she had many friends, and as much time as she chose to spend in study. + +But one day, her mother, a stately, handsome matron, came into her little +sitting-room, looking pale and worn. + +"Maheleth, my child," she began, in faltering tones, "we have had some bad +news this morning. I am afraid we are in danger of being totally ruined." + +The young girl looked up; she was very beautiful, and the spiritual +expression on her face intensified and heightened her beauty in a singular +degree. + +"Ruined, dear mother? Is my father very unhappy about it?" + +"He is more angry than unhappy; it has happened through the dishonesty of +persons he trusted." + +"Shall we have to leave home?" asked Maheleth. + +"I fear we shall; it is a heavy trial." + +"It will be for our good in the end, mother darling. I am so sorry for you +and my father, because you have always been used to riches." + +"So have you, my poor child." + +"But not for so long a time; and it is easier to root up a sapling than a +full-grown tree." + +"Ah! you hardly know what may be before you, Maheleth; your sisters are +mere children; we have but few relations; with fortune, so also friends +will forsake us; the shock will be very sudden, and we shall have to bear +it alone." + +"You forget our God," said the girl gently. + +A shade of impatience passed over the elder woman's face. + +"We do not hope for miracles now, child," she answered; "your father has +worked hard for his wealth, but God will not treat him as he treated Job." + +"Depend upon it, if he does not, mother mine, it is because he knows what +is best for us. You would not have us lose our hopes of the hereafter for +the sake of more or less comfort in the earthly present?" + +"My child, you should have been a boy; such sayings would tell well in a +sermon, but in practical business matters they are but cold comfort." + +"Oh! they _are_ comfort sufficient, believe me; besides, they do not debar +us from prudent measures and precautions in a temporal point of view." + +"Well, child, you are a visionary, I always knew that; it remains to be +seen if you can be a stoic." + +"What need of that, dear mother? Stoicism is not obedience nor +resignation." + +Here a light step was heard, and the half-open door was pushed quickly +back. A little girl, about nine years old, ran in with flushed face, and, +holding in her hands a velvet casket, cried out in gleeful voice: + +"O mother! sister! see! I got leave to bring this in myself. It has just +come from the jeweller's, just as my father ordered it!" + +And she opened the casket, displaying a wonderful _parure_ of opals and +diamonds, exquisitely and artistically wrought. Senora Cristalar turned +away impatiently, saying to the child: + +"Thamar, I am engaged; don't come fooling here about these jewels; put +them down, and go into the next room." + +The child, hurt and astonished, looked blankly at her sister. Maheleth +reached out her hand for the casket, and half rose from her seat. + +"I will come to you presently, little sister, if you wait in there; never +mind the pretty gems just now." + +And so saying, she kissed the little eyes that were ready to overflow with +childish tears, and, setting the jewels on a table out of sight of her +mother, resumed her seat. + +"There are the first-fruits of our circumstances," said the mother +bitterly. "The man expects to be paid for those to-day, and I shall have +to tell him to take them back!" + +"Come! if there were nothing worse than that! Now, mother, we will both go +to my father, and pray together, and then consult among ourselves." + +Maheleth's father was very fond and very proud of his eldest daughter, and +this indeed was his best trait. Shrewd and clever in worldly affairs, yet +strictly honest in his dealings, he was not devoid of that hardness that +too often accompanies mercantile success, and as often turns to weakness +when that success disappears. + +One thing seemed to sustain him, but it was only a hollow prop after +all--his pride of race. For generations his family had been well known and +honored: he could trace his ancestry back in an unbroken line of descent +from one of the exiles from devastated Jerusalem. Rabbis and learned men +had borne his name, and though in later times no opening save that of +trade and banking had been available to those of his race, yet his blood +yielded it in nothing to that of the proverbially haughty nobles of Spain. +It mattered little that by some he was shunned as of an inferior +extraction or lower social status; his own wealth, his wife's beauty, his +lavish hospitality, his daughter's charms, were strong enough, he knew, to +break the barriers of prejudice, at least as far as appearances went. As +to marriages, he did not covet for his children the alliance of a poor +foreigner, and poor most of the proud families were whom he daily +entertained at his splendid house--poor in brains, poor in beauty, poor in +energy and strong will. + +And yet, though he almost despised his neighbors, this shock was very +galling to him. _They_ now would turn from him, would forget his open- +handedness, and remember only his race and creed; would pity him perhaps, +but with the pity that is almost contempt. And this seemed to paralyze +him, for all his fiercely expressed consciousness of superiority to his +friends. + +Maheleth tried to persuade him to take the trial calmly; for even in a +temporal aspect calmness would sooner show him how to retrieve his +fortunes. + +"For," she said, "you know that, with your abilities, you can, if you +will, gain enough for my little sisters' dowry by the time they will be +grown up; and that is the first thing to be considered, and after that we +shall even have enough to live in comfort." + +"And what is to become of you, Maheleth?" asked her father fondly. + +"Oh! you and I will be co-workers. I will look after those two until you +can marry them well, and so we will both have a definite object in life. +We can keep my mother in some degree of comfort from the very beginning, +if we only look things in the face." + +The opals and diamonds had to be returned to the jeweller's; the pleasant +home was broken up, and what with the sale of his property, and various +other legal arrangements, Ephraim Cristaler was able to pay all his +creditors, with a few trifling exceptions, for which he bound himself by +solemn promise to provide shortly. + +Then the banker and merchant disappeared, and the nine days' wonder was +forgotten by his former circle of acquaintances. + +One day, a young Englishman, travelling or rather sauntering about Europe +in a way unlike the usual useless rush of tourists from one point to +another of Murray's _Guide-Book_, arrived at Frankfort and settled +there--for how long, he, least of all, could have told. + +At the hotel, nothing was known of him but his name, Henry Holcombe, and +that he had come with a black portmanteau containing a number of books. He +went slowly to see the sights, one by one, as if he had plenty of leisure +and wanted to enjoy it; and, when he _did_ go, he never measured the +length and breadth of saloons, the height of towers, the number of statues +in the cathedral-niches; nor did he ever disgrace his name by carving it +side by side with the ambitious Joneses or the heaven-soaring Smiths on +the pinnacle of a temple, or the bark supports of a summer-house; when he +went out with a book in his hand, it was neither the obtrusive _Murray_ +nor the ostentatious _Byron_; and, in fact, he departed altogether from +the standard of the regulation British tourist. + +He was walking one day down the _Juden-Strasse_, the picturesqueness of +whose mediaeval-looking houses had a special attraction for him, when it +came on to rain very suddenly, and the sky seemed to threaten a storm in +good earnest; the street was soon deserted, and the narrow roadway became +a miniature stream. Presently he heard a step behind him, and a slight +figure, half-hidden by a large umbrella, pressed quickly past him. It was +a woman, and, he thought, a very young one, but more than that he could +not tell, because she was veiled and muffled, and held the dripping +umbrella very close down upon her head. She had not gone a dozen paces +beyond him before she dropped something white like a roll of music, and +stooped slowly to pick it up. The cloak and long skirt she was holding +fast to keep them from the mud embarrassed her, and the young Englishman +had time to spring forward and restore the white roll of paper to her hand +before she had grasped it. + +"Oh! thank you, _mein Herr_!" said a low, rich voice, in very soft German. +And, as Henry took off his hat in silence, the girl made a pretty sweeping +inclination, and left him, walking as quickly as before. + +But he had seen more this time, and he knew she was beautiful, and had a +dainty, graceful hand. Curious and interested, he watched the dark-clad +figure down the street, quickened his own steps as it hastened on, +slackened them as it paused to clear a crossing without splashing the long +and rather inconvenient garments. He saw it stop at last, and ring a bell +at an old forlorn-looking door, where he might have expected to see the +face of a gnome appear, as guardian of unsuspected treasures within. + +He was dreadfully romantic, this young Englishman, but in a subdued, quiet +way that seldom showed itself in words, and was specially repelled by the +_gushing_ style too much followed just then by some of his fair +countrywomen. + +The door was opened and shut, and, except through his notice of the number +over it, 25, his relation with the beautiful stranger was cut off. + +He thought of it day after day, got a directory, and found out that in the +house No. 25 there lived three families of the names of Zimmermann, +Krummacher, and Loewenberg. The occupations of the heads of the families +were given thus: "money-lender," "banking-clerk," and "lace-merchant," +respectively; no clue whatsoever, of course; and, unless in a regular and +received manner, Mr. Holcombe could not think of entering the house. +Still, the face he had seen veiled under the prosaic tent of a wet +umbrella kept between him and his thoughts, and would not be driven away. +Then, too, what business was it of his to go and throw himself in the way +of a girl who most likely was a Jewess? Yet, reason as he might, the +mysterious face _would_ visit him, and it seemed to him as the face of an +angel. Very often he passed the house, and once or twice even made a +pretence of sketching it; but he never saw the figure again. Once a young +face looked out over the flowers in the window of the ground-floor room, a +merry face full of health and mischief--not _his_ dream. The blinds were +always drawn on the first floor, even when the windows were open, and he +began to fancy _she_ must be hidden behind those discreet shrouders of +privacy. A friend of his met him at his hotel one day when he came home +from the _Juden-Strasse_, and surprised him by telling him he was going +home in a fortnight to get married. + +"I've been half over the world, my dear fellow," he said, "and enjoyed +myself immensely. And I've got such a pile of things going home to my +_fiancee_, for our house. She _will_ be delighted, she is so fond of +queer, foreign things, not like what other people have, you know. I'll +show you some, but most are gone in packing cases through agents from the +different parts of the world I've been in." + +And the two young men went upstairs to examine the bridal gifts. + +"Look here," said Ellice to his quieter friend, "it was a pasha's wife +sent me these," dragging out a handful of Eastern jewelry, golden fillets, +and embroidered jackets and slippers. "A cousin of mine is the wife of the +consul at Smyrna, and she got them for me, for of course I was not allowed +to go near the Eastern lady! And look here, these are carved shells, and +mother-of-pearl crucifixes from Jerusalem, and boxes made from Olivet +trees and cedars of Lebanon; you should value those." + +"I hope your future wife will," gravely said young Holcombe; "the wood of +the olives of Gethsemani is almost a relic in itself." + +"Oh! Miss Kenneth will appreciate them just as much as you do, Holcombe, +she is very reverential. See, here is some alabaster, Naples coral, and +Byzantine manuscripts, and marble ornaments from the Parthenon. Ah! here +is the filigree silver of Genoa; that is one of my last purchases, except +these pictures on china from Geneva; see the frames, too, they are Swiss." + +Then he turned out a huge tiger-skin, and said: "All my Indian things +except this were sent from Bombay, and a year ago I sent home all kinds of +jolly things from North America--furs and skins, antlers, and other +curiosities. By the bye, I have some old _point_ from Venice, but some +people had been there before me and cleaned the shop out pretty nearly, so +I shall have to get some more. Belgium is a good place, isn't it?" + +Holcombe looked thoughtful; his truant mind was at No. 25 again, and he +did not answer. His friend went on: + +"I'll just ask the landlady, she'll be likely to know if there is any +place here, just for a souvenir of Frankfort." + +"Yes," said Holcombe, "I suppose she knows." And, as he spoke, the phantom +face was directly in his mind's eye, and he could not drive the vision +away. + +"And now, old fellow, suppose you show me the lions here," said Ellice; +"you have been here longer than I have." + +So they walked out, and of course in due time came to the high, irregular +houses bordering the curious _Juden-Strasse_. It was Friday evening, and +the street was full of people hurrying to one spot; the air was balmy, and +told of summer; the scene was very striking. The stream of people +disappeared under the archway of a splendid Moorish-looking building, with +Hebrew characters carved above the portal. It was the new synagogue. The +two friends followed the men; the women were lost to view in the stair- +cases leading to the galleries. A gorgeous lattice-work defended these +galleries, and the assemblage in the main part of the temple were men with +their hats on and light veils or shawls across their shoulders. + +The service began; low, plaintive chants resounded through the building; +sometimes the congregation joined. It was very solemn, and Henry Holcombe +seemed fascinated. Some one passed him a book and found the place for him. +And now came the prayer for the mourners, the mourner's _Kaddisch_, as he +saw it printed before his eyes. There was a stir among the people, and he +could hear the women's clothes rustling in the gallery. Those who had +recently lost friends and relations stood up during the intercession, and +then another prayer was offered up in German. Holcombe thought the sound +of the old Hebrew was like the passing of water through a narrow rocky +channel; it was soothing and flowing, sad and majestic, and he wondered if +the girl he had seen once thought and felt about it as he did. + +When the crowd dispersed, he tried to linger at the entrance, watching the +women as they passed out. His friend was hardly so patient, and reminded +him of the _table d'hote_ they had most likely already missed. + +"I am afraid," he said, "your people would scarcely approve your +admiration of the pretty Jewesses." + +Holcombe blushed and moved away, and, just as he came out on the sidewalk, +a girl in black passed him slowly, with an anxious, absent look. + +"By jove! that _is_ a pretty face!" exclaimed Ellice; but the other said +nothing. For the second time, he had seen the face he was always dreaming +of, "She looks like an angel," he thought, "and yet she is not even a +Christian." + +"I never saw a German Jewess like that," his friend went on to say. "She +looks like a Spaniard." + +The next day, Ellice had got an address written down, and said to +Holcombe: + +"If you care to go with me, we will go and look after this lace-merchant +this morning." + +Holcombe's heart gave a great throb as he asked carelessly to see the +address: "Jacob Zimmermann, 25 _Juden-Strasse_." + +"I don't know much about laces," he answered, "but I will go with +pleasure." + +"It feels like going on an adventure, like something you read of in a +book," said Ellice, "this penetrating into the privacy of those tumble- +down dens of the _Juden-Strasse_." + +"Well," returned Holcombe quietly, "it does give one the idea." + +They rang at the door No. 25, and the merry, mischievous face he had seen +once at the window greeted Henry as he entered. They inquired for Herr +Zimmermann. + +"Oh!" said the girl, laughing and looking astonished, "he is up on the +third floor. Shall I show you the way? But he is ill, and, as he lives all +alone, he has got into very queer ways." + +They went up, guided by the laughing girl, who rattled on as she preceded +them. + +"Gentlemen like you most often inquire for _us_, for my father, I mean, +and no one ever comes to see old Zimmermann except some wrinkled old +ladies, and heaven knows how they find him out; and as to Herr Loewenberg, +he is a stranger and has no friends." + +The two young men then knew that she was the money-lender's daughter, and +Holcombe thought his dream companion must bear the name of Loewenberg. + +"But is not Zimmermann a rich old merchant, and is he not well-known in +the town?" asked Ellice. "My landlady named him at once when I asked for +laces." + +"Oh! yes; _rich_ he is; so rich he won't sell generally; but then an +Englishman is another thing! He lives like a rat in a hole, and starves +himself." + +By this time, they had reached the door of the miser's room; a low, +subdued voice was heard within reading. + +Their knock was answered by a noise of light footsteps, and the door was +drawn ajar by some one inside. + +"Rachel, what is it? You know Herr Zimmermann is ill." + +Holcombe knew that voice _must_ belong to the girl he had never forgotten. +Just then the light from the door fell upon the men in the darkened, +narrow passage, and the slight figure drew back a little. + +"They are English gentlemen," said Rachel. "They want to buy." + +"_To-day_, Rachel? It is the Sabbath." + +Rachel shrugged her shoulders, and Ellice stepped forward. + +"I beg your pardon. I forgot that. But since we are here, perhaps you will +let us _see_ the laces, and we can come back and choose on Monday." + +The girl looked uneasily back into the room, and then said, in a very low +voice: + +"No; please do not ask to come in to-day; he is hardly conscious, and he +might forget it was the Sabbath in his excitement." + +"Very well," said Ellice politely, and Holcombe whispered to him: "Come +away; don't you understand?" + +The door was closed gently, and Henry said: + +"She was afraid he could not resist the temptation of a good offer, if it +were made to him, and she wanted to prevent his doing anything wrong." + +"How stupid I am!" said Ellice. "Of course that's it. But, I say, is she +not pretty?" + +"Beautiful!" answered Holcombe very quietly. + +"Is that Fraulein Zimmermann?" asked Ellice of Rachel. + +"No; Fraulein Loewenberg," said the girl. "She is very kind to the old man. +Her own father is ill and can't work, and she is very good to him. She +reads to old Zimmermann, and looks after him, too, when he is ill. She has +two little sisters also." + +"And how do they live?" asked Ellice. + +"_She_ keeps them, I think. The father used to be clerk in Hauptmann's +bank; but he has been laid up six months now, and the mother died two +months after they came here." + +"Are they Germans?" said Ellice, really interested. + +"Their name is, but I fancy they are foreigners. Maheleth speaks like a +foreigner." + +"Maheleth! A curious name." + +"Yes, an unusual one; so is her sister's--Thamar." + +They were at the street-door now, and Ellice bade the girl good-morning, +saying they would come again on Monday. + +"What a curious chance!" he went on. "It is the same girl we saw coming +out of the synagogue last night. Did you notice?" + +"Yes," said Holcombe. + +"You don't seem very much interested, anyhow." + +"My dear fellow, I never could get up an ecstasy!" + +"Still waters run deep, Holcombe. I suspect that is the case with you, you +sly fellow." + +Monday came, and the two friends were again at No. 25. Rachel admitted +them as before, and showed them into the old lace-merchant's den. He was +alone, and looked very eager; but his wasted, wrinkled hands and dried-up +face spoke his miserly character, and froze the sympathy he so little +cared to receive. He laid out his precious wares with trembling fingers, +and it was curious to see these cobweb treasures drawn from common drawers +and boxes, and heaped on a rickety deal table near the stove that was just +lighted, because he was still so ill. Everything about the room looked +cold and hungry; the floor was bare; the paint on the walls dirty and +discolored; and an untidy assortment of tin pans and cheap crockery +littered the neighborhood of the stove. The window looked into a back- +yard, and what panes were not broken were obscured by dirt. In strange +contrast to all this was a bouquet of fresh flowers on a chair. + +While Ellice and the old man were bargaining, Holcombe fastened his eye on +the flowers, conjecturing well whose present they were. + +The old Jew asked enormous prices for his laces, and gave marvellous +accounts of the difficulties he had sustained in procuring them as an +excuse for his exorbitant demands. So the time seemed long to Henry, who +knew little or nothing about such things, when suddenly Rachel appeared at +the door with a basin of soup. "Fraulein Loewenberg sent you this," she +said to the old man, and then to the strangers: "You must excuse us; he is +too weak to do without this at the accustomed time, and the fraulein is +gone out." + +"Gone out!" querulously said the miser. "Gone out without coming to see +me!" + +"She knew you were engaged," retorted Rachel. "You will see her again to- +night." She spoke as to a spoiled child. + +"Well, well, business must be first, and she has business as well as I +have." And he went on with his flourishing declamations over his lovely +laces. + +Holcombe understood why she had omitted her morning's visit to her old +_protege_, and, indeed, it would have been unlike his ideal of her had she +acted otherwise. + +"Have you nearly done, Ellice?" he said, coming up to the table. + +"Yes; all right. See, I have chosen the nicest things I could find, as far +as I know; but the fellow asks such confounded prices." + +"Well, you had only that to expect," was the smiling answer, and then the +young man turned to the lace-merchant. + +"Have you been ill long?" + +"Only a month, and I should be dead if it were not for Maheleth. I cannot +do without her." + +"But she is poor herself; she cannot bring you what you want, can she?" + +"No, she cannot; she is poor, and her father is poor, and so am I. I sell +nothing now; I have no customers." + +Holcombe smiled slightly, but he went on: + +"Are you fond of flowers?" + +"Yes, but I cannot afford them." + +"Then it would be cruel of me to ask a violet hearts-ease of you; but, if +you would give me that, I will send you more flowers, and bring you +something you will like to-morrow." + +"Yes, you may take one; but, if you want flowers, Maheleth can give you +some; she has some growing in her room." + +"No, this one is enough. Good-by, and I will try and see you again." + +As they left the house, Ellice said to his friend: + +"Well, Holcombe, you _are_ green! You don't mean to say you believe he is +poor?" + +"No, I don't believe it; but he will be none the worse off for a few +flowers and some good food, if he won't get them for himself." + +"I suppose you remember that there is another invalid in the house, and +the same person nurses both?" + +"I know what you mean, Ellice, and I wish you wouldn't joke; it is not +fair." + +"Very well, old fellow; but, if you were anybody but yourself, I should +say 'take care.' You always were the steadiest old chap going." + +A day or two afterwards, Holcombe was left alone again; he had sent things +to Zimmermann as he had promised; but as yet he had not revisited the +_Juden-Strasse_. On Friday, there was a special service at the Catholic +cathedral, at eight o'clock, and the young man, hardly knowing why, +determined to go. + +The church was only partially lighted, except the chancel, which was +dazzling. The music was good, the congregation devout, and the German +sermon as interesting as could be expected. The whole effect was very +beautiful, and seemed to Henry a peace-giving and heart-soothing one. A +rush of voices came breaking in upon his reverie at the _Tantum Ergo_, and +the surging sound was like a mighty utterance of his own feelings. As the +priest raised the Host, he bowed his head low, and prayed for peace and +guidance; and when he lifted it again the first object his eye fixed on +was a slight, dark-robed figure, standing aside in the aisle, drooping her +head against one of the columns. He knew the figure well; but, with a +strange thrill, he asked himself why was she here? For the music? For the +beauty of the sight? For love of a creed she was half ashamed to embrace? +Or from the curiosity of a chance passer-by? + +He watched her as she moved behind the shadow of the pillar, and waited +till she was enticed from her hiding-place by the quick desertion of the +once crowded church. Now the light from a lamp streamed down on her; the +face was anxious and troubled, as if weary with thought. + +"Friday, too!" he said to himself. "And she has come here on the very +Sabbath. Perhaps she has been to her own service first. But what can it +mean, if she only were what this would point to?" + +To Be Continued. + + + + +Odd Stories. IV. The White Shah. + + +If thou wouldst hear a choice history of princes, go into the garden of +the shah's pleasure-house, and hearken to what the humming-birds tell thee +in sleep. How else could thy servant have learned the memory of Shah +Mizfiz, the forgotten? Was it not he who built the palace of a hundred +towers in the valley of groves? Beautiful beyond compare was that valley's +lake which presented itself like a mirror before the pavilion of the shah; +and magnificent as a house in the sky were the hundred delicate towers +that rose one above the other, amid gardens and fountains, and half lost +in groves of venerable height and shade. High hills whose sides were +covered with woods and flowers, and watered with streams and fountains, +shut out the valley from the world save where it was entered through a +great gate crowned with towers; and a long colonnade of loftiest trees +pranked with beds of tulips, hyacinths, and roses, and intertwined with +flowering vines that here and there made curious arbors. From the windows, +or from the balconies, or from the pavilions of his palace, the shah could +see the lords and ladies who, dressed in gold-broidered silks of all +colors, shook their plumes as they rode up to his gate, or, listening to +the song of minstrels, sailed upon the bosom of the lake. + +Naught now could the shah do but dream. Surrounded by hills that fenced +him from mankind, by waters that mirrored the skies or leaped into the +sunlight, by flowers whose odors inspired the sense, by trees which +everywhere made repose for him, and by towers, the intricacies and +ingenuities of which rendered his palace ever new to him, he forgot all +common things. The cares of state he left to his ministers at the gate of +the valley; while in one or other of the innumerable courts of his palace, +or among its unknown and invisible gardens, he retired from the intrusion +of mortals. "I went to seek the rose-king," said or sang a poet of the +court; "so I stripped a great rose of all its leaves, one by one, and in +its heart of hearts I found the Shah Mizfiz." Now, having captured the +tenth of a number of white elephants, the like of which was never seen, +except in the woods and by the lake of the imperial valley, where they +roamed in romantic innocence and tameness, the Shah Mizfiz betook himself +to his dreams as others do to their books. + +At times, seated high on his favorite white elephant, the old shah rode in +state through his grounds. Thence it came to pass that, seeing his beard +like almond-blossoms, and the milky color of his throne-bearer, they who +visited the gardens of the lake remembered him as the White Shah. Leaning +on the cushions of his vine-encircled pavilion, his silken beard and +silvery locks floating in the breath of the zephyr, how often have the +minstrels passed by beneath him over the mirror of the lake, singing under +their gorgeous sails or to the time-beat of their oars those songs which, +with a tinkling and rippling melody, lingered in his ear. Less was it +known how looked and fared the shah when he retired to the inmost bowers +of the interior gardens of the hundred towers. But what wonder if in one +of those fine day-dreams so celebrated by the poet Bulghasel the flower- +fairies themselves did him veritable honor, and, circling gardens of +roses, tulips, and lilies, danced at his feet and round about him, an +illusion of humor and beauty? + +Ah! the deep-eyed, far-gazing White Shah! What dreams he dreamed of green +ages in the youth of the world, of far-off golden centuries to come, of +ships navigating the air of sunset, of adventures in the stars, and of +nights with the great moon-shah! They were not to be told or counted; the +number and wonder of them would have tasked a hundred scribes, and put as +many dreamers to sleep. Howbeit, the shah's visions persuaded him to +become an oracle for all his empire. Statesmen consulted his dreams, and +poets made themes of them, and doubtless the humane spirit of his visions +found its way into the laws. Thanks to them, the people had abundant +feast-days, and, if a mine of precious stones were discovered, or the +caravans were richer than usual, or the lords were moved to more than +wonted bounty, or new fountains were built on the dry roads, or new +temples set up here and there, the shah's dreams were praised. When he had +completed the thousandth of a line of dreams, the smallest of which would +have made a paradise on earth again, he dreamed that his people were +prosperous like none other under the sun; for his prime minister had +artfully omitted to report that his eastern provinces were suffering the +horrors of a famine, and those of the west were threatened by war. But on +neither of these facts did the White Shah lay the blame for that final +eclipse which ruined his dreams. In a fatal hour, having too long slept +among the poppies, and drunk too much wine and coffee, he dreamt that the +demon Sakreh had caught him up in a storm on the desert of Lop, out of +which he let him drop into the Lake of Limbo, whence, fishing him up by +the hair of his head, he banged him against the Caucasus and set him down +to cool on the Himalaya, ere, taking him to the topmost height of the +palace of the hundred towers, he allowed him to fall through the many- +colored glasses of the dome of delights. His displeasure with the effects +of this dream was heightened and consummated when the poet Bulghasel, in a +moment of malediction, trod on his particular corn. From that moment, +peace forsook the couch of the White Shah, and dreams of glory visited not +his slumbers. + +Henceforward what had been dreamland to the too happy shah became the +saddest reality. In a white age he had lost his visions as old men lose +their teeth. He wandered about the valley--no longer seated high on the +pride of his white elephant, but crownless and on foot--murmuring from hour +to hour: "I have lost my dream--I have lost my dream." One day, leaving +palace and throne, he passed out of his gate liked one crazed, to seek, as +he said, his dream. Far away among the Parsees the poet Bulghasel found +him after many pilgrimages: "And O my white-haired sire," cried the +affectionate poet, "hast thou found the object of thy search?" "Yea, son," +rejoiced the White Shah, "I have found that which I never lost, but would +that I had possessed; for then my dream was a fiction, and now truth is a +sufficient dream for me. If the new shah would sleep well, let him have +this dream." + + + + +Signs Of The Times. + + +In Europe, of late, meetings have been the order of the day. There have +been meetings of emperors and Internationalists; of "Old Catholics" and +Catholics; of church congresses and congresses to disestablish the church; +of "Home-Rulers" and Dilkites. The voluntary expatriation of the Alsace- +Lorraine population has followed close on the heels of the violent +expulsion of the Jesuits, both influenced by the same motive power; +trades-unions have called together a society of German professors, who, by +dint of powerful speeches of an explosive nature, succeeded finally in +showing, in a very conclusive manner, that they knew little or nothing of +what they were talking about. Gambetta has found his voice again; Russia +has mildly but decidedly objected to its inflammable utterances, and in +the midst of all the hubbub the eyes of the world have been attracted to +the strange spectacle in these days of a nation, by a sudden and +spontaneous movement, turning its steps to an humble shrine of the Blessed +Virgin. + +As for the meeting of the emperors, we were _not_ present at the council, +and had no secret emissary concealed in the cup-board. What was effected, +or what was intended to be effected, is an utter mystery to us. We very +much doubt if anything were effected at all; that is, anything real, +lasting, and permanent. The composing elements were in themselves as +incapable of mingling as oil and water. If people looked to permanent +peace or peace for any length of time from it, we fear they will be sadly +mistaken in view of what we have since seen. The effective forces of +Austria are fixed at 800,000 men. The government, actuated doubtless by +peaceful motives; finds it necessary to keep on hand a peace effective of +250,000; and, that this force may be in fighting order at any moment, the +recruits must be kept for three years under colors. To supply this +contingency, 30,000 more men are required, which draws a sum of $1,850,000 +out of the national chest, a chest neither very deep nor very safe. The +measure was objected to, whereupon Count Andrassy spurred them up by +informing the astonished members that, notwithstanding the imperial +exhibition of brotherly love at Berlin, the speeches, manoeuvrings, +fireworks, and the rest, he would not venture to answer for the +continuance of peace even to the end of the present year. As an echo of +the truth of this, Prussia has just given an order for 3,000,000 rifles of +a new pattern, on the strength, doubtless, of the discharge of the French +debt. Russia is increasing her already vast army steadily and surely, +while France hopes by her new scheme of raising forces to show at the end +of five years an active army of 715,000, and a territorial force of +720,000 men. So much for the effects of the imperial conference as regards +peace. + +The _Internationale_, true to the discordant elements of which it was +composed, adjourned without effecting anything or coming to any +conclusion. This was only to be expected; but we should not judge from +this that it is dead, as has been too hastily done by many journals. Its +life is disorder, and, if it can catch the trades-unions, its influence +would be paramount. + +As for the meeting of the "Old Catholics"--we presume they call themselves +"Old" Catholics as the Greeks called the furies _Eumenides_--it will soon +have passed out of memory. We rejoice that it did occur, in order to show +the "movement" in its true light. Luther himself had not half the chance +which Doellinger and the rest enjoyed. The strongest of governments at +their back, the whole anti-Catholic world looking with eager eyes on this +mountain in travail--_parturiet_; and not even the _ridiculus mus_ is born +in recompense for all this labor, storm, fuss, and anxiety. We forget; +there issued a long string of resolutions, which one or two newspapers +published, the generality very sensibly finding them of too great length +and of too little importance to burden their leaders with them. The whole +affair was utterly ridiculous even to the _menu_, which, as became a solid +dinner, composed for the most part of German professors with a few +Episcopal waifs and strays from England and America, was in Latin, and +commenced thus: + +Symposium. _Gustatio_: Pisciculi oleo perfusi et salmones fumo siccati ad +cibi appetentiam excitandam. Mensa prima, etc. + +And this is the way in which the "Old Catholics" meet to found or reform a +church! The effect of it all is shown in the comments of the secular +press. The cleverest journals in England and America, those who expected +much from it, generally express themselves to the effect that, though far +from saying that the meeting was without significance, it did not succeed +in erecting a platform whereon a body could stand. The fact is this: We +are far from denying to the majority of the men there assembled abundance +of intellect and that sort of talent that can make a fine speech or +perhaps compose a readable book, but the world, if it must be changed, +wants something more solid than this. + +Prince Bismarck's measures are what Strafford would call "thorough"; and +he is carrying out this "thorough" policy with far greater effect than the +vacillating Stuart. The latter lost his head for too much heart; the +German chancellor is not likely to imitate him in that. The Jesuits had +small respite. We presume they are all out of Germany by this time. How +much the country at large will gain in peace, solidity, and security by +their expulsion it is impossible for us to say. Oddly enough, in Prince +Bismarck's stronghold, Prussia itself, we find that the new order is not +destined to run quite smoothly. The diet is dissolved because the Upper +House refused to pass the country reform bill in the face of the emperor +and an official intimation from the minister of the interior that if the +measure were defeated the government would dissolve the diet and convoke a +new one. Whether the members of the Upper House will continue the fight, +and come into direct collision with the power which they so helped to make +supreme, we do not know yet, but we expect not. + +Meanwhile, the Jesuits have not gone out of their fatherland alone. The +sympathy of the whole Catholic world has gone out with them, and its +expression is gaining volume daily. Addresses of condolence and +protestations against the legal violence which expelled them are rising up +day after day from the hearth-stones of the land they have quitted, as +well as from lands and multitudes to whom they as individuals are utterly +unknown. Perhaps the most noticeable of the many which are continually +appearing in their own land is that of the society of German Catholics +recently assembled at Cologne, which passed a series of resolutions +protesting strongly: + +1. Against the assertion that the Catholic population is indifferent to +the interests of fatherland, and hostile to the empire. 2. Against the +laic laws which would control the affairs of the churches. 3. Against the +state direction of the schools. 4. Against the expulsion of the Jesuits. +5. Against the encroachment of the state on the jurisdiction of the +bishops. 6. Against the suppression of the temporal power of the Pope. + +Such is the Catholic voice all the world over. If rulers can respect this +voice, they will have no more faithful, earnest, or devoted children than +the children of the Catholic Church. If they cannot respect it, they have +only to expect an unfailing legal opposition until they are compelled to +respect it, as Ireland, speaking in O'Connell, compelled England to do; as +Germany, by lawful agitation and peaceful though unceasing and determined +protest, will compel Prince Bismarck to do, until we see again restored to +the country which they love and which loves them the sons who, by peaceful +counsel and wise guidance, and religious instruction, will bring more +glory, solid prosperity, enlightenment, and peace to the nation than a +cycle of Bismarcks. + +The Bishop of Ermeland still survives the terrible threats of the +chancellor which have been gathering over his head in deepening thunder +this long while for excommunicating heretic priests; the bolt has not yet +fallen. Perhaps Jove finds himself a little puzzled how to fulminate it to +a nicety. To show the justice of the Bismarck government, and how equally +it deals with all classes, the Consistory of Magdeburg has quite recently +decreed the excommunication of all Protestants who by mixed marriages +shall educate their children as Catholics; the decree has been carried +into execution at Lippspring; the case brought before the civil courts, +and of course the pastor, one Schneider, who wrought the excommunication +publicly and openly in the church, was supported by the just weight of the +law. Now, excommunication is excommunication whether you call it Catholic +or Protestant. Why, then, threaten with impeachment? Why stop the salary +which the government for the country bestows in the one case, and let the +other go entirely free? And yet this is all according to law! + +Another anomaly according to law is displayed in the seizing of the +schools by the government. We have not space here to go into the whole +question, instructive though it would be, as showing the determination of +this government to uproot the Catholic faith by every means in its power. +But we will mention one instance. A ministerial circular accompanied the +notice of the new arrangements, informing the teachers that it was +desirable that their scholars should belong to no religious +confraternities--of the Rosary, Blessed Virgin, and such like--and that if +they persisted in belonging to them they should be dismissed. We find it +necessary to endorse this statement by informing our readers that it is +plain, unvarnished fact. Civil marriage is now in full sway; that is to +say, it is no longer a sacrament according to law. What wonder that the +German bishops assembled at Fulda gave utterance to their solemn protest, +an extract of which we cull? It reads as though it had been penned in the +days of Diocletian, or Julian the Apostate, or Henry VIII. But in these +days, when mere human society has come to know its power, and dream that +it possesses freedom, the protest jars on our ears as something out of +tune, out of time, out of date altogether: + +"We demand, as a right which no one can dispute to us, that the bishops, +the parish priests of the cathedral churches, and the directors of souls, +be only appointed in accordance with the laws of the church and the +agreement existing between the church and state. + +"In accordance with these laws and agreements, the Catholic people and +ourselves cannot consider as legal a director of souls or a teacher of +religion one who has not been so named by his bishop; and we, the Catholic +people and ourselves, cannot consider as legally recognized a bishop who +has not been named by the Pope. + +"We claim equally for ourselves and for all Catholics the right of +professing throughout Germany our holy Catholic faith in all its +integrity, at all times and in all freedom, and to rest upon the principle +that we are in no wise constrained to suffer within the bosom of our +religious community those who do not profess the Catholic faith, and who +do not submit entirely to the authority of the church. + +"We consider as a violation of our church and of the rights which are +guaranteed to it every attack made against the liberty of religious +orders. We regard and vindicate, also, as an essential and inalienable +right of the Catholic Church, the full and entire liberty which it +possesses of elevating its servants in accordance with ecclesiastical +laws, and we demand not only that the church exercise over the Catholic +schools (primary, secondary, and higher) the influence which alone can +guarantee to the Catholic people that its children shall receive in the +schools a Catholic education and instruction, but we claim also for the +church the freedom to found and direct in an independent manner, certain +private establishments ordained for the teaching of the sciences in +accordance with Catholic principles. In fine, we maintain and defend the +sacred character of Christian marriage as that of a sacrament of the +Catholic Church, as well as the right which the divine will has given to +the church in connection with this sacrament." + +The signatures of the bishops are affixed to this document, which is +addressed to all the German governments, and produced a commotion and +irritation among all the national liberal journals which were unexampled. +We have given this extract here in order to bring home to the minds of our +readers how hard the church is driven in Germany. When the bishops and the +laity combined feel themselves called upon to protest in this style, the +government which for no reason whatever can give rise to such a +protest--signed by the saintly chiefs of a body of 14,000,000, and endorsed +in meeting after meeting by those 14,000,000 and the countless numbers of +their co-religionists outside of Germany scattered through the broad +world--must be one which does not govern, but tyrannizes. + +The same "thorough" policy prevailed in Alsace and Lorraine. On the very +day, October 1, when the option of declaring for France or Germany +arrived, all the men who remained in the countries named were enrolled in +the Prussian service from that date. This, beyond what Mr. Disraeli would +call a "sentimental grievance," drove them from the country, as it must +have been intended to do. Service under the power that annexed them, which +they but yesterday fought against, and a service the most rigorous and +exacting that exists, as it must be in order to retain its supremacy, was +something that seems to have been ingeniously invented in order to drive +the people out. The provinces are more than decimated; the Prussian army, +if increased at all, is increased in the event of a renewed war by +untrustworthy men, and a new drop of gall is thrown into the already +overbitter cup which France is compelled to swallow. And yet the +_Provinzial Correspondenz_ (official) of Berlin, in view of October 1, +said: "The government has not hesitated an instant in calling without +delay on the inhabitants of Alsace and Lorraine to serve in the German +army, as the best and surest means to evoke and develop speedily among the +population newly reunited to Germany the sentiment of an intimate +community with the German people." + +This smacks of excess of credibility. If Bismarck wanted really to annex +the provinces in heart and soul, he adopted the very surest means of +emptying them in the speediest manner, and letting in the Germans, who +now, sick of war and of the rumors of war, wish to emigrate in such +formidable numbers. Probably the chancellor proposes using the deserted +provinces as a safety-valve for these recreant spirits. One of the most +significant signs of the instability of the new empire is the desire of so +many earnest workers to leave it just when it has been established in all +its glory and power. But glory and power do not last long in the eyes of +men who look to a peaceful life and to which side, in a popular phrase, +their bread is buttered. Instead of peace, they find the service more +rigorous than ever; the money which was won by the blood of their kin and +countrymen going to the pockets of the generals, to carry out emperors' +fetes, and purchase millions of rifles of a new pattern. Evidently _the_ +business of the German Empire wears a very martial look. But the artisan +and clerk have fought well, and find no returns. Your German is of a +logical bent, so he determines on going elsewhere, where he may live at +peace, and let Bismarck look after his own empire. + +In France, we have had and are having the pilgrimages to Lourdes. Not +alone to Lourdes, and not alone in France, but in Belgium and Germany also +there have been numerous pilgrimages to various shrines. Of course the +wits of the secular journals, with a few honorable exceptions, have had a +fine time of it, and have twisted the stories of the miracles of Lourdes +and La Salette into every possible shape in which they might squeeze a +laugh out of it. They are at great pains to show what we were long ago +convinced of--that they do not know what faith means. + +Mgr. Mermillod, after a residence of seven years in full enjoyment and +exercise of his ecclesiastical functions, has suddenly come to be non- +recognized by the Swiss government, or, more properly, by the Grand +Council of Geneva, and his pension stopped. The Grand Council of Geneva +had already expelled the Sisters of Charity and the Christian Brothers. It +essays the role of Bismarck, and where it purposes stopping we do not yet +see. But as the population of Geneva is composed of 47,000 Catholics +against 43,000 Protestants, we may presume that the Grand Council of +Geneva will very speedily be brought to its senses. Its miserable pension +of 10,000 francs was raised to 23,000 in two days by a voluntary +contribution set on foot by M. Veuillot of the _Univers_. The Grand +Council has incurred the contempt of all rational minds, while Mgr. +Mermillod is supported in his action by all his fellow-bishops, by his +Holiness, and by the Catholic world. It may be as well to remember that +the Protestant party in the Swiss cantons voted, but were happily +outvoted, for union with Prussia. It is not difficult to see whence the +persecution of Mgr. Mermillod starts. + +Gentlemen who have visited the Alhambra in London, or any one almost of +the Parisian theatres, or Niblo's in New York, are not apt to be squeamish +on the score of the decent and moral in theatrical representations. Things +must therefore be at a very bad pass when we find the correspondents of +the London _Times_ and the other English newspapers, in common with those +of our own and the Parisian press, uniting in condemning in the most +unsparing terms the pieces which are now in vogue on the boards of the +Roman theatres. Cardinal Patrizi addressed an official letter to Minister +Lanza on the subject. That gentleman, who is extremely active in +suppressing a Catholic paper which dares to caricature his majesty's +government, sends back an answer which, divested of its diplomatic wool, +is cowardly, stupid, and insulting. We have been astonished to find +"religious" newspapers in this city gleeful over these representations +which the good sense, if nothing more, of the secular correspondents of +all journals in all countries condemns as odious, detestable, and utterly +unfit to be presented in any civilized, or for that matter uncivilized, +community. These journals which are religious see in them "a new means of +evangelizing Italy." Another feature in "united Italy" is the utter +insecurity of life and property in Rome, Naples, and Ravenna principally, +though, in fact, through the length and breadth of the land. Victor +Emanuel has held the country long enough now to give some account of his +stewardship. The government of the Pope and of the Bourbons, we were told, +favored brigandage and every other atrocity; yet the correspondents of the +London _Times_, the London _Spectator_, and by this time most of the other +anti-Catholic journals, are furnishing articles which must rather astonish +the upholders of the blessings which were to flow from "Italy united." +They picture scenes of rapine and blood before which the graphic Arkansas +letters of the _Herald_ pale, while the doers of these deeds, the thieves +and murderers, are "well known to the police," in fact, on excellent terms +with them, and walk about in the open day with any man's life in their +hands who dares frown on them. The government is simply afraid of them, +afraid to use the only remedy now in its hands by proclaiming martial law, +a proceeding which the English journals strongly advise. If such a state +of things continues much longer, we fear the inevitable verdict must come +to Victor Emanuel, "Now thou shalt be steward no longer." Of his ill- +gotten power, indeed, it may be said, "blood hath bought blood, and blows +have answered blows." People are apt to be logical; if a government robs +and kills and calls it law, why should not they do the same? Italy will +continue in a state of chronic anarchy until religion is restored to it; +then order will follow as it is following in France to-day. + +In England, though Parliament has not been sitting, questions of moment +have been rife. Mr. Miall has again raised the war-cry against the +Established Church, ably seconded by Mr. Jacob Bright. The _Times_ and +_Saturday Review_ and other journals affect to laugh at Mr. Miall, as they +and such as they laughed at the Reform Bill, the Act of Catholic +Emancipation, and the disestablishment of the Irish Church. We believe Mr. +Miall's measure to be the logical sequence of the last of these measures, +a fact which Mr. Disraeli in opposing it foretold. It is an anomaly--a +church supported by a majority which does not believe in it. Mr. Miall's +measure is only a growth of time; in fact, it only requires the conversion +of such organs as the _Times_ and _Saturday Review_ to bring it to pass +to-day. + +As a corollary to Mr. Miall's movement comes the annual Church Congress +held this year at Leeds under the presidency of the Bishop of Ripon. This +annual congress is a curious thing; it is a meeting of everybody, high and +low, church and lay, to compare notes and see how the church is getting +on--a very useful proceeding, no doubt, if there were only something +faintly approaching unanimity among its members. As it happened, unanimity +was the one thing wanting, and certain stages of the proceedings were as +warm as those of the "Old Catholics" at Cologne. In fact, the account of +the whole proceedings reads like an extract from _The Comedy of +Convocation_. + + + + +New Publications. + + + THE HISTORY OF THE SACRED PASSION. From the Spanish of Father Luis + de la Palma, of the Society of Jesus. The Translation revised and + edited by Henry James Coleridge, of the same Society. London: + Burns & Oates. 1872. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication + Society.) + + +This is the third volume of the Quarterly Series which the Jesuit Fathers +are bringing out in London. The series is beautifully got up, and we wish +it every success. + +The present work on the Passion has a prologue by the author, in which he +sets forth the end he has had in view. The prologue is followed by a brief +treatise on the method of meditation on the Passion, together with four +sections suggestive of aids to the memory, the understanding, the will, +and the colloquy. The whole is prefaced by the editor, from whose remarks +we transcribe the following: "That he (the author) was a man of sound and +deep theological learning is sufficiently proved by the work which is now +presented to the English reader.... Everything he has written is of the +most sterling value, and has always been very highly esteemed, especially +by those who have labored in illustrating and explaining the _Spiritual +Exercises of S. Ignatius_.... He tells us (in the prologue) that the book +is designed both for simple reading and also for the purpose of furnishing +matter to those who are in the habit of practising meditation and of +preparing their meditation for themselves. Those who use the book for the +first-named purpose will hardly discover that it is intended also to serve +the other; while those who practise meditation, and refer to these pages +for matter pregnant with such considerations and suggestive of copious +affections and practical resolutions, will not find it easy to exhaust the +stores which are here so unostentatiously collected. It may be worth while +to point out that the design of the author, that his book should thus +serve the purpose of a storehouse for meditation on the Passion, accounts +for the only kind of amplification which he has allowed himself. This is +the paraphrastic commentary which he generally substitutes for or subjoins +to the words of our blessed Lord in the various scenes of the Passion. The +meaning of these sacred words is often very fully and lovingly brought +out, although the narrative form in which the whole work is cast might +less naturally suggest this method of treatment, so valuable to those who +desire to feed on the sayings of our blessed Saviour in all their rich +fertility and meaning." + +The editor expresses a fear "that the translation will be found to be, at +least in parts, rugged and unpolished"; but says he has "tried, on the +other hand, to make it as faithful as possible; and to that object has +been well content to sacrifice smoothness of style, though the original +deserves the most careful rendering in matter and in form." "Palma +belongs," he adds, "to what I believe is the best age of Spanish religious +literature--the age of Louis of Grenada, John of Avila, Louis of Leon, S. +Teresa; S. John of the Cross, Louis da Ponte, and other famous writers. In +point of style he is, perhaps, not equal to them; but he shares with many +of these writers the characteristic of masculine common sense, theological +culture alike exquisite and solid, and the tenderest and simplest piety. +Happily, these are qualities which do not easily evaporate in a +translation." + +He then goes on to say that he has "thought it better not to attempt in +any way to edit Father Palma as to points on which he would perhaps write +differently were he living in the present century." We quite agree with +his decision; and shall here close our notice of the book, since, after +what we have borrowed from the preface, any comments of our own would be +superfluous. + + + ALL-HALLOW EVE; OR, THE TEST OF FUTURITY, AND OTHER STORIES. New + York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1872. + + +This book, containing three tales, _All-Hallow Eve_, _Unconvicted_, and +_Jenifer's Prayer_, while it will doubtless afford much amusement to many +readers during the long winter evenings, will, we trust, have other and +more decided effects. By contrast, it shows that fiction of the very +highest order may be successfully written without the extraneous aid of +bad taste and more than doubtful morality, and by example it will +encourage our aspiring writers who, now overawed by the shadow of departed +genius, are unwilling or afraid to risk their reputations in endeavoring +to rival the efforts of those who formerly delighted and instructed us by +their compositions. When the Star of the North, Scott, set, it was feared +that this species of literature had suffered an irreparable loss; but soon +a host of writers sprang up in England, Ireland, and, we may say, America, +who not only compensated for the loss, but more than repaid us for the +decadence of the historico-romantic school. When those in turn +disappeared, it was confidently predicted that the present generation, +barren of imagination and powers of observation and description, could not +produce anything equal to what adorned the pages of men like Griffin, +Dickens, and Hawthorne. Daily experience teaches us that this was a +fallacy. New buds of promise are constantly springing up around us which +need but the encouraging voice of the press and the smiles of a +discriminating public patronage to warm into full-blown vigor and +loveliness. + +The three tales before us are an earnest of this. The story entitled _All- +Hallow Eve_, the first in this collection, as it is, we think, the first +in merit, is a tale of singular beauty, power and truthfulness. In +construction artistic without the appearance of art, in verisimilitude it +is all that would be required by the most orthodox French dramatist. The +characters are few and clearly defined, the plot simple, the scene +scarcely changes, the time from beginning to end is short, and the +_denoument_, though tragic, offends neither our sensibilities nor our +sense of justice. Ned Cavana and Michael Murdock are two aged well-to-do +Ulster farmers whose lands lie contiguous. The former has a daughter +Winifred or Winny, and the latter a son Thomas; and the natural desire of +the fond parents is to form a matrimonial alliance between their children, +and thus unite the families and the farms. Tom Murdock is handsome, +attractive, cunning, mercenary, and unscrupulous, while Winny, who is +limned with more than a painter's art, adds to her natural graces a noble +heart and keen perception. Edmond Lennon, a young peasant rich in +everything but money, falls in love with her, and, besides encountering +the secret or open hostility of the Murdocks, he finds an almost +insurmountable barrier in the caste pride of the father of his lady-love. +Aided, however, by the gentle and astute Winny, he partially succeeds in +overcoming this difficulty, when the machinations of his rival are +employed against him, and the result is--but we will not destroy the +pleasure of our fair and necessarily curious readers by unfolding the +catastrophe. The contrasts of character of the two old men, each in his +way aiming at the best, and also between the suitors, are excellently +drawn; the interludes, such as the All-Hallow Eve festival and the +"hurling" match, are accurate and lifelike, and the bits of pathos which +here and there dot the course of the story are so touching in their very +simplicity that we venture to say many an eye unused to the melting mood +will be none the less moistened on their perusal. The style adopted by the +author is easy and familiar, a little too much so, we imagine, to suit the +tastes of the more exacting reader; and herein lies the only defect, if it +can be called one, that we can perceive in this story. + +_Unconvicted; or, Old Thorneley's Heirs_, is a tale of an altogether +different character, illustrating what may be called a more advanced state +of civilization. The scene is laid in London, and the principal personages +occupy a high social position. It is a story of suffering and affection, +of deep, dark, and unruly passion, and undying love and friendship. It +would be vain to attempt to epitomize the plot, which is woven so closely +and so dexterously that our interest in the actors is kept constantly on +the _qui vive_, and it is only at the very last chapter that we are +relieved from all anxiety on their account. The tale opens with the death +of old Gilbert Thorneley, it is supposed by poison, and the discovery of +his murderer forms the principal theme of the entire narrative. This +involves a great deal of legal discussion and analysis, and, for the first +time in the history of fiction, as far as our knowledge goes, we have a +clear and accurate description of the niceties, quibbles, and profundity +of English law. Though more curious and instructive than amusing, this +does not, however detract from the interest of the novel as such, but +rather acts as an offset to the numerous scenes of connubial and filial +affection with which it is replete. The moral is of course unexceptionable +and easily drawn. + +_Jennifer's Prayer_, a shorter but no less meritorious story of English +life, completes the volume, which, appearing at this season when good +books become more a necessity than a luxury in the household, will no +doubt be warmly welcomed by those who, from taste or inclination, prefer +the attractions of the novel to the more serious study of science and +history. + + + THE ILLUSTRATED CATHOLIC FAMILY ALMANAC FOR THE UNITED STATES, FOR + THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1873, calculated for different parallels of + latitude, and adapted for use throughout the country. New York: + The Catholic Publication Society. + + +There are something over five million Catholics in the United States, +representing over five hundred thousand families. This little Catholic +Family Almanac, then, should have a circulation of five hundred thousand. +If it has not, the fault is not with the Publication Society, but in the +Catholics themselves neglecting to diffuse it each in his own circle. A +few years ago such a little annual would have been regarded as an +impossibility. Beautiful in typography, with woodcut illustrations which +in design and execution rival those of any work issued in the country, it +is something that a Catholic can view with pride, and can never blush to +open before any one. This is merely taking it at its mechanical value. Its +scope is to give the yearly calendar of the church with what is locally +interesting to us as Catholics in America, or associated with the trials +and triumphs of the church in that Old World to which by some degrees more +or less we must all trace our origin. + +In this year's little volume, we find portraits of various ages, with +original sketches, telling us of great prelates among ourselves, +Archbishop Spalding and Bishop McGill, representative men who knew the +necessity of diffusing information among our people; bishops of the last +generation like Milner, whose works are familiar to all, yet whose +counterfeit presentment few have ever met; or Bishop Doyle, J.K.L., whom +Ireland can never forget; or like De Haro, who extended his kindness to +American Catholics in their early struggles; or like the illustrious +Hughes, whose large mind gave us a national life and position. The +Venerable Gregory Lopez will be new to many, great as was his fame in +Mexico. Crespel represents the French pioneer clergy at the frontiers in +colonial times--a man who saw rough life by sea and land in his missionary +career. Father Mathew needs no comment. The likeness is speaking and fine. +What part Catholics bore in the days of the Revolution we see in the +sketch of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, illustrated with a portrait and a +view of the old mansion. With his cousin, a priest, he was laboring to +make our cause continental before the Declaration of Independence was +debated in Congress. + +Mrs. Seton, as the lady of wealth and influence in New York society, while +Washington as President resided there, shows the wonderful hand of +Providence. Who that saw that young wife then could have said that she +would be the foundress of a Catholic sisterhood, and not be deemed insane? +Mother Julia, foundress of the Sisters of Notre Dame, whom some people may +have heard of, and whose schools in this country alone contain sixty +thousand pupils. + +Next comes the Venerable de la Salle, founder of the Christian Brothers, +whose pupils in our land, one might say, "no man can number for +multitude." The portrait and sketch of this servant of God will be read in +thousands of American families which owe the Christian training of their +boys to his devoted community of Brothers; and, happily in the same work, +we have a portrait and sketch of the brilliant Gerald Griffin, who closed +his days as a Christian Brother. + +The view of old S. Mary's, the cradle of Maryland, the Catholic settlement +founded by the Ark and Dove, is alone worth all the _Almanac_ costs. And +this is but a portion of its contents. We have a stirring incident of the +early missions, the Rock of Cashel, the Church of Icolmkill, the +Cathedrals of Sienna and Chartres. + +Every Catholic of means should feel it a bounden duty to order a number of +copies of this _Almanac_, and distribute them among the families less +likely to hear of its merits. In this way much is yet to be done in the +diffusion of popular Catholic literature. Our laity have to feel that +there is an apostolate incumbent upon them. _Fas est et ab hoste doceri._ + + + TRADITION. Principally with reference to Mythology and the Law of + Nations. By Lord Arundell of Wardour. London: Burns, Oates & Co. + (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.) + + +This is a work in which the chronologies, mythologies, and fragmentary +traditions of many nations are gathered together and made to do service in +the cause of Revelation. + +The opponents of revealed truth not unfrequently assume this department of +knowledge to be their exclusive possession--they have been foremost in +working this mine, all it contains is theirs, and must be made to sustain +their theories. Lord Arundell's book shows how utterly groundless is this +assumption. Here we have facts and figures, arguments and inferences, +taken from their own writings, which go to establish the truthfulness of +the sacred Scriptures from the very standpoint whence it has been sought +to convict them of falsehood. The first chapter in Genesis is a key to +every cosmogony. The rudest code of barbaric laws bears some impress of +the Almighty Finger of Sinai. Traditions, however distant and vague, point +in one general direction. These facts have long since been established. +Lord Arundell proves them anew, and brings forth much new matter in his +proofs. Indeed, while in many books we often have occasion to note the +absence of data and ideas, this, we may say, is crowded with both. + +We doubt not that this book will forward greatly the interests of truth, +and thus the zeal and devotion of its noble author will be fully requited. + + + GOD AND MAN. Conferences delivered at Notre Dame in Paris. By the + Rev. Pere Lacordaire, of the Order of Friar-Preachers. Translated + from the French by a Tertiary of the same Order. London: + Rivingtons. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.) + + +The translator has already given us two volumes of the great Dominican's +Conferences, and promises more in the same readable form. Persons as yet +unacquainted with Lacordaire will find his papers kindle their enthusiasm +beyond, perhaps, those of any other author--that is, if they can at all +appreciate the originality of his argument, together with his giant grasp +of thought and diction. And especially do we commend these conferences to +earnest thinkers outside the church, with whom the supernatural is the +question of questions. + +Indebted as we are to the translator, he must not think us hypercritical +if we complain of bad punctuation, a comma being sometimes found where a +colon or even a full stop ought to be; or if we take leave to remind him +that, to render French idiomatically, it will not do to preserve the +sudden changes of tense which are forcible in that language, as in Latin, +but sound very strangely in English. + + + THE HYMNARY, WITH TUNES: A Collection of Music for Sunday-Schools. + By S. Lasar. New York and Chicago: Biglow & Main. + + +We could recommend this hymn-book to Catholic schools, and, on account of +its intrinsic worth, would have been glad to do so, if the compiler had +excluded the few hymns, of no special merit in themselves or in the tunes +adapted to them, which are anti-Catholic in doctrine. Poison is dangerous, +and we cannot offer it even in the smallest quantities to our children. + + + THE ISSUES OF AMERICAN POLITICS. By Orrin Skinner, Philadelphia: + J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1873. + + +Attracted by the title of this book, the fact of its dedication to a +distinguished citizen of New York, and by its comprehensive table of +contents, we took it up and read it from cover to cover. In all candor, we +must say a more confused, ungrammatical, and shallower book it has seldom +fallen to our lot to peruse; and why any respectable publishing house +should have been induced to bring it out in such good style, or in any +form at all, passes our comprehension. To grapple with the great issues of +our American politics, to state each leading question clearly and fairly, +and to draw deductions therefrom that will stand the test of justice and +reason is a task requiring infinitely more experience, judicial ability, +and knowledge of our language than the author displays or evidently ever +will possess. Judging from this production, Mr. Skinner has not the +faintest conception of the principles upon which rests the framework of +our government. Though a lawyer, he is sadly ignorant of law as a science; +and, though ambitious of authorship, he seems unable to write a paragraph +intelligibly. For instance, take the following, snatched at random: + +"The deduction from this criticism constitutes, of course, an advocacy of +intelligent suffrage. The plea is here urged that an unrestricted suffrage +is its own incentive to the education of those who exercise it. The +assertion betrays an unpardonable ignorance of one of the most prominent +characteristics of human nature. Frail humanity is so constituted that, +when it has presented to it two ways of effecting its purposes, one with +effort and the other without, it invariably chooses the latter. Equality +as a fundamental element of republican institutions is also urged, Let +such a sciolist read his conviction in the quotations from Burke already +cited." + +It were, however, useless to further attempt to criticise this most +pretentious and least readable of books, and the best wish we can afford +the author, and one that we have no doubt will be gratified, is that it +will be read by few and soon forgotten. + + + A MANUAL OF AMERICAN LITERATURE: A Text-Book for Schools and + Colleges. By John S. Hart, LL.D. Philadelphia: Eldridge & Bro. + 1873. + + +Mr. Hart has gathered considerable fresh material on American literature +in this volume. There is still much which he has omitted. With the same +industry and care which he has already bestowed on this manual, he may +render it complete. There is a personality in some of his remarks which is +uncalled for. In spite of these defects, this is the best work of the kind +with which we are acquainted. + + + THE MARBLE PROPHECY, AND OTHER POEMS. By J. G. Holland. New York: + Scribner, Armstrong & Co. + + +When our holy church, with its venerated head, its divine sacraments and +sacred ceremonies, is chosen by a writer of merit as the object upon which +he feels himself moved to pour forth his scathing abuse or stinging +ridicule, we bear his ponderous strokes or parry his keen thrusts as best +we may, confessing to the pardonable weakness of feeling complimented at +being called to the lists by an adversary of some strength of arm or +sharpness of weapon; but, when one from the common crowd of chance- +assembled knights, like our quondam _Timothy Titcomb_, presumes +unchallenged to invite the attention of that respectable audience--the +American public--to _his_ little tilt against the giant of centuries, and, +in his overeagerness to take a share in the fray, disports himself upon +such a sorry steed as the "Marble Prophecy," laden with "other poems" as a +makeweight, we at once look about us to see if we have not a serviceable +cane at hand for the use of the same discriminating public, _et voila!_ + + + ROUNDABOUT RAMBLES IN LANDS OF FACT AND FANCY. By Frank R. + Stockton. 1 vol. small 4to. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. + + +This is an instructive work, compiled with much judgment and good taste +from various authors, and is beautifully illustrated, making it a very +desirable holiday present for the young folk. + + + NIAGARA: Its History and Geology, Incidents and Poetry. With + illustrations. By George W. Holley. New York: Sheldon & Co. 1872. + + +This is something more than a mere _Murray_, or guide-book, at the same +time that it serves as a valuable reference to the intelligent tourist. +Besides some historical and topographical descriptions, for which he draws +on the works of Shea, Parkman, Marshall, the Relations of the Early Jesuit +Missionaries, and State Documents, in addition to his own observations, he +indulges in some geological speculations which will attract the attention +of scientific readers. The whole is interspersed with anecdotes, +incidents, and poetical scraps which will serve to relieve the tedium of +travel, and hotel life. + + + A HIDDEN LIFE, AND OTHER POEMS. By George Macdonald, LL.D., Author + of "Within and Without," "Wilfred Cumbermede," etc. New York: + Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1872. + + +There is true poetry in this volume. The author possesses, in our +judgment, powers of a high order. His mind, too, is of a deeply religious +cast; and we wonder how he can remain a Protestant after his struggles +with doubt on the one hand, as shown in the poem of "The Disciple," and +his attractions to Catholicity on the other, as evinced especially in his +poem on "The Gospel Woman," and most in the opening one, "The Mother +Mary." But then he has a laudatory sonnet "To Garibaldi." + +The "Catholic Publication Society" has in press, and will publish +simultaneously with its appearance in England, from advance sheets +furnished by the author, a new work, entitled, _My Clerical Friends_, by +the author of _The Comedy of Convocation_. This will be the only +authorized edition published in this country. + + + +Books and Pamphlets Received. + + +From KREUZER BROTHERS, Baltimore: The Catholic Priest. By Michael Mueller, +C.SS.R. 18mo, pp. 163.--The "Our Father." By the same. 18mo, pp. 221. + +From J. A. MCGEE, New York: Sister Mary Francis' (the Nun of Kenmare) +Advice to Irish Girls in America. 12mo, pp. 201. + +From BURNS, OATES & CO., London: Reflections and Prayers for Holy +Communion. From the French. With a preface by Archbishop Manning. (New +York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.) 18mo, pp. xii., 498. + +From R. WASHBURNE, London: A Dogmatic Catechism. From the Italian of +Frassinetti. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.) 18mo, +pp. xix., 244. + +From JAMES DUFFY, Dublin: Sermons on Ecclesiastical Subjects. By Henry +Edward Manning, D.D. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.) +pp. viii., 456. + +From GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, New York: The Moral of Accidents, and other +Discourses. By the late Thomas T. Lynch. 12mo, pp. xviii., 415. + +From T. & T. CLARK, Edinburgh, and SCRIBNER, WELFORD & ARMSTRONG, New +York: Biblical Commentary on the Books of the Kings. By C. F. Keil. 8vo, +pp. viii., 523--Sermons from 1828 to 1860. By the late Wm. Cunningham, D.D. +8vo, pp. xxxvi, 416.--The Old Catholic Church. By W. D. Killen, D.D. 8vo, +pp. xx., 411.--Biblical Commentary on the Book of Psalms. By F. Deleutzsch, +D.D. Vol. III. 8vo, pp. 420. + +From HOLT & WILLIAMS, New York: Fly Leaves by C. S. C. 12mo, pp. vi., 233. + +From the AUTHOR: Key to the Massoretic Notes, Titles, and Index generally +found in the margin of the Hebrew Bible. Translated from the Latin of A. +Hahn. With many additions and corrections. By Alex. Merowitz, A.M., +Professor of the Hebrew language and literature in the University of New +York. New York: J. Wiley & Son. 8vo, paper, pp. 22. + +From ELDREDGE & BROTHER, Philadelphia: A French Verb Book. By E. Lagarde, +A.M. 12mo, pp. 130. + +From P. O'SHEA, New York: Month of the Holy Rosary. By Rev. P. M. Chery, +O.P. 18mo, pp. iv., 200--The Scapular of Mount Carmel. By Rev. P. Tissot, +S.J. 24mo, pp. 105. + +From the AUTHOR: The Irish Republic. A Historical Memoir of Ireland and +her Oppressors. By P. Cudmore, Counsellor-at-Law. St. Paul: Pioneer +Printing Company, 1871. + + + + + +THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XVI., NO. 94.--JANUARY, 1873. + + + + +A Son Of The Crusaders. + + + ... "On his breast a bloodie crosse he bore, + The deare remembrance of his dying Lord, + For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore, + And dead, as living, ever him ador'd: + Upon his shield the like was also scor'd. + For soveraine hope which in his helpe he had, + Right faithful true he was in deede and word."--SPENSER. + + +One day in the month of November, 1833, a stranger descended from the +lumbering _Schnellpost_ at the little town of Marburg (Electoral Hesse), +on the pleasant banks of the Lahn. Looking around him, he discovered but a +single object of interest--the old cathedral of the place, a noble Gothic +edifice, which, although stripped and cold in its modern dedication to the +Lutheran service, still preserved the salient features of its inalienable +beauty and majesty of form. + +The traveller, a young man of twenty-three, a Catholic, and an enthusiast +in his intelligent and cultivated admiration of the grand architecture of +his church, recognized in the building a monument celebrated at once for +its pure and perfect beauty, and the first in Germany in which the pointed +arch prevailed over the round in the great renovation of art in the XIIIth +century. + +Contrary to Lutheran observance, the church happened on that day to be +open, in compliance with a traditional custom, for the cathedral bore the +name of S. Elizabeth, and this was S. Elizabeth's Day. The stranger +entered. There was no religious service. There were no worshippers, and +children were at play among the old tombs. He wandered through the vast +and desolate aisles, which not even the devastation and neglect of +centuries had robbed of their marvellous elegance. Naked altars from which +no ministering hand now wiped the dust, pillars, defaced statues, nearly +obliterated paintings, broken and defaced wood carvings, successively +struck his eye and attracted his attention. All these remains of Christian +art, even in their ruin telling the story of their origin in days of fresh +and fervent faith, appeared also to picture in a certain sequence the +events of some devout life. Here was the statue of a young woman in the +dress of a widow; further on, in painting, a frightened girl showing to a +crowned warrior her robe filled with roses; yet further, these two, the +young woman and the warrior, tearing themselves in anguish from a parting +embrace. Again, the lady is seen stretched on her bed of death amidst +weeping attendants, and, later, an emperor lays his crown on her freshly +exhumed coffin. + +It was explained to the traveller that these pictured incidents were +events in the life of S. Elizabeth, queen of that country, who, that very +day six hundred years ago, had died in Marburg and lay buried in the +church. A silver shrine, richly sculptured, was shown to him. It had once +enclosed the relics of the saint, but one of her descendants, turned +Protestant, had torn them from it, and scattered them to the winds. The +stone steps approaching the shrine were deeply hollowed by the countless +pilgrims who, more than three centuries agone, had come here to kneel in +prayer. "Alas!" thought the stranger, "the faith which left its impress on +the cold stone has left none upon human hearts!" + +He desired to know more of the saintly patroness of Marburg's cathedral, +and leaving the church sought out a bookseller, and asked for a life of S. +Elizabeth. The man stared at him, bethought himself a moment, and then +went up into a garret, from which he presently emerged with a dust-covered +pamphlet. "Here it is," he said, "the only copy I have: no one ever asked +for it before." + +The traveller resumed his journey, reading his pamphlet to beguile the +tedium of his way. Although written by a Protestant in a cold, +unsympathizing, matter-of-fact way, the essential charm of its mere record +of youthful self-devotion laid a powerful spell upon him. His artistic +enthusiasm, his heart, his piety, were all touched and aroused. Just +emerging in sorrow from one of the most trying ordeals of the battle of +life, with repelled longings and disappointed hopes, his pent-up youthful +energies were now seeking some outlet for escape, some fresh field of +action. Uncertain what this field, this outlet, might be, he had vowed +that, with the choice before him of several different objects to pursue, +he would decide for that which was the most Catholic. He had found it. "To +S. Elizabeth he would," in his own words, "sacrifice his fatigue and his +hopes." He would write her life, and strive to place on record its +touching story--at once a tender love-legend, a page of mediaeval romance, +and the hallowed tradition of a saintly career. At the first stopping- +place he left the diligence, and, taking a return carriage, went +immediately back to Marburg. + +This traveller, this young stranger, was Charles, Count de Montalembert, +peer of France. His sudden impulse, his enthusiastic vow, were not as +words written in water. To what would at this day seem to many an +inconsiderate, quixotic rashness, succeeded the deliberate realization of +an undertaking full of labor and difficulty. He ransacked libraries, +sought out chronicles, legends, and popular traditions, read old books and +long-forgotten manuscripts, and travelled far and wide throughout Germany, +wherever a locality offered the attraction of the slightest association +with the name of S. Elizabeth. The charm and fascination of his theme grew +upon him with every additional fact he learned regarding her. Beginning at +the famous old castle of Wartburg, where Elizabeth came a child, the +daughter of a race of kings, from distant Hungary, he made a veritable +pilgrimage, taking for his route the itinerary of his heroine's life--to +Kreuzburg; to Reinhartsbruenn, where, a young wife and mother of twenty, +she parted in anguish from her husband, a crusader setting out for +Palestine; to Bamberg, where she was driven by persecution; to Andechs, to +Erfurth, and finally to Marburg, "whither," as he says, "he returned to +pray by her desecrated tomb, and to gather with pain and difficulty some +remembrance of her from the mouths of a people who have renounced with the +faith of their fathers the regard due to their benefactress." + +Bow down your heads, O generation of stockbrokers and speculators in +provisions and railway shares, to the memory of this Montalembert, who, in +the flower of his youthful manhood, for years went up and down the world +with an idea in his head and heart! + +But this book, this life of S. Elizabeth. you object, was, after all, a +mere pious legend of dubious trustworthiness? On the contrary, it was a +work of the highest value, even judged by the severest canons of +historical criticism. Its introduction alone is sufficient to make the +work classic. Sainte-Beuve, high academic and critical authority, calls it +majestic,(186) and reviewers of all nations have contributed their +verdicts of approval. + +This was Montalembert's first literary production--a success, as it +deserved to be, worthy forerunner of his yet greater work, _The Monks of +the West_, and the first-fruit of a splendid literary and oratorical +career, whose main inspiration was always drawn from the sources of +Catholic truth and Catholic faith. + +Montalembert died in March, 1870, leaving a name and a reputation which +for all time to come will remain one of the proudest illustrations of +France. + +We are fortunate in already having an admirable memoir of his life,(187) +written by one of the most distinguished women of England. It cannot but +be gratifying to all who cherish the memory of Montalembert that the task +should have fallen into the hands of one so eminently capable as Mrs. +Oliphant. Personally intimate with his family and on terms of friendship +with his wife (_nee_ Comtesse de Merode), thoroughly familiar with the +language, modern history, and politics of France, and the successful +translator of _The Monks of the West_, it would have been difficult to +find a writer better fitted, in knowledge and in sympathy, to record the +life of Charles de Montalembert. Let us add here that, for reasons which +the intelligent reader may easily divine, we are glad that the biography +has been written by a Protestant. Although to a Catholic reader it would +be more pleasant to read a life in which nothing could be found which is +not in perfect harmony with the spirit of faith and loyalty toward the +church, yet, for the public generally, the testimony of a fair and candid +Protestant in respect to certain very important events in the career of +Montalembert will be more free from the suspicion of bias, and therefore +of more value in establishing the fact of his essential devotion to the +Holy See to the end of his life. + +We trust that the ladies of Sorosis and of the various wings and vanguards +of the grand army of "The Rights of Women" will not take offence if we +endeavor to compliment Mrs. Oliphant by saying that we especially admire +the style in which her memoir is written, for a tone and quality +which--turn whither we may--we cannot otherwise describe than as "manly." +Making due allowance for the almost inevitable partiality of the +biographer for his hero, there is a directness, a solidity, a sound +common-sense view of practical questions, and an absence of mere +sentimentality, all eminently to her credit and in admirable keeping with +the dignity of her subject. Mrs. Oliphant's modesty, too, equals her +ability. Referring to her translation of _The Monks of the West_, she +tells us: "We are sorry to add, to our personal humiliation, that +Montalembert was by no means so much satisfied with at least the first +part of the translation. He acknowledged that the meaning was faithfully +rendered; 'but,' he wrote, 'I cannot admire the constant use of French or +Latin words instead of your own vernacular. My Anglo-Saxon feelings are +wounded to the quick by the useless admission of the article _the_ or _a_; +and by such words as _chagrin_ instead of _grief_, _malediction_ instead +of _curse_, etc.' The proofs of the translation came back from him laden +with corrections in red ink--a circumstance which communicated to them a +certain additional sharpness, at least to the troubled imagination of the +translator; and the present writer may be perhaps allowed here to avow in +her own person that up to this present moment, when she happens to have +the smallest French phrase to translate, she pauses with instinctive +alarm, hastily substituting _freedom_ for _liberty_ when the word occurs; +and will cast about in her mind, with a certain sensation of fright, how +to find words for _authority_, _corruption_, _intelligence_, etc., in +other than the French form." + +Charles Forbes Rene de Montalembert was born in London on the 15th of May, +1810. His father was a noble French _emigre_; his mother, the daughter of +James Forbes, an Englishman of distinction. The first nine years of his +life were spent principally in England under the immediate care and in the +personal companionship of his maternal grandfather, and, dating from this +period, the English language was always to him a second mother tongue. At +the age of fourteen we find him at the college of S. Barbe in Paris. The +fact may be discouraging to many young gentlemen of the present day now at +school and in sad possession of a class of ideas too generally accepted, +to the effect that men become useful and distinguished by reason of the +possession of some unaided special gift rather than by study and the +laborious acquisition of knowledge--we say the fact may be discouraging to +them, but nevertheless it remains a fact that the young Montalembert laid +the foundation of his future distinction as a man of letters, an +archaeologist, a great orator, a great writer, an eminent political leader, +and the ornament of the Chamber of Peers, in close, unremitting, laborious +application to his studies while at school. After he had completed his +college course and entered society, we find him writing to a friend: "It +is usual to say that youth is the time for the pleasures of society. I +look upon this opinion as a complete paradox. It seems to me, on the +contrary, that youth should be given up with ardor to study, or to +preparation for a profession. When a young man has paid his tribute to his +country; when he can appear in society crowned with the laurels of debate +or of the battle-field, or at least of universal esteem; when he feels +entitled to command respect, if not admiration--then is the time to enter +society with satisfaction." + +Soon there came for him the period of _illusions perdues_, which, +commencing with the entrance into life of every intelligent and ambitious +young man, accompanies him with more or less persistence to the edge of +the grave. Young Montalembert spent some time in Sweden, at whose court +his father was the ambassador of Charles X. On his return to France, he +wrote an article upon that country which M. Guizot, the editor of the +_Revue Francaise_, advised him to cut down to half its length. He +complied, sent in his abbreviated article, and the editor suppressed the +best portion of what remained! + +About this time he met Lamartine, became intimate with Victor Hugo, "then +the poet of all sweet and virtuous things," and numbered among his friends +Sainte-Beuve, who then shared Montalembert's religious enthusiasm and his +belief that Europe was to be regenerated by the church. Ireland, too, came +in for a full share of his sympathy. He wrote an article on that country +which Guizot allowed to go in entire. A friend tells him that his article +on Sweden is dull, and that on Ireland commonplace. "Disappointing," +writes the young author in his diary, "but better than if my friend had +praised me insincerely." O'Connell, then in the fulness of his powers and +his popularity, greatly attracted him. He would go all the way to Ireland +to see him. And he did. Crossing the two channels, and traversing England, +he made the journey over the mountains of Kerry on horseback, with a +little Irish boy for his guide. He visited O'Connell at Derrynane, +prepared and anxious to discuss with him the great subjects which filled +his mind. The Liberator received him kindly, and after dinner--looking at +the ingenuous face of twenty before him--did what he thought precisely the +proper thing to do--ushered him at once into the drawing-room, where the +young count was thrown on the tender mercies of a crowd of pretty and gay +young Irish women. _Encore une illusion perdue!_ He had crossed seas and +mountains to discuss freedom, the church, English rule and Irish +emancipation, with Ireland's greatest man, who, without listening to a +word from him, thrust him into another room amid a bevy of laughing girls! + +After Montalembert's return from Ireland came his intimacy with Lacordaire +and Lamennais, and the joint literary enterprise of the three in the +establishment of the _Avenir_, whose motto was "God and Liberty." Its +first number was issued Oct. 15, 1830. We will not dwell on its history, +so familiar to all Catholics, except to refer to the holy war waged by it +and its friends against the monopoly of education by the government. Under +the law, every private school, every educational institution not licensed +and regulated by the University of Paris, was absolutely forbidden. Utter +irreligiousness then pervaded the colleges and schools of France. The +generation which passed through those schools bears witness to their evil +influences, and confirms Lacordaire's own record, who says that he left +college "with religion destroyed in his soul," and that he, like almost +all the youths of his period, "lost his faith at school." + +Montalembert's picture of these evil influences was everywhere recognized +as truthful. "Is there a single establishment of the university where a +Christian child can live in the exercise of faith? Does not a contagious +doubt, a cold and tenacious impiety, reign over all these young souls whom +she pretends to instruct? Are they not too often either polluted, or +petrified, or frozen? Is not the most flagrant, the most monstrous, the +most unnatural immorality inscribed in the records of every college, and +in the recollections of every child who has passed as much as eight days +there?" + +To test the law forbidding freedom in education, Lacordaire and +Montalembert opened a free school for poor children at Paris in the Rue +des Arts. They were indicted for the offence, and tried at the bar of the +Chamber of Peers. The audience, as may well be imagined, was made up from +the nobility and intelligence of the land. The prisoners defended their +cause in person. Lacordaire, who spoke first, referred to the fact that +the government had lately impeached the previous ministers by virtue of +power in the charter not reduced to a special law. "If they could do it, +so could I," said the brave priest, "with this difference, that they asked +blood, while I desired to give a free education to the children of the +poor." He ended by recalling to his judges the example of Socrates "in the +first struggle for freedom to preach." "In that _cause celebre_ by which +Socrates fell," said Lacordaire, "he was evidently culpable against the +gods, and in consequence against the laws of his country. Nevertheless, +posterity, both pagan and Christian, has stigmatized his judges and +accusers; and of all concerned have absolved only the culprit and the +executioner--the culprit, because he had failed to keep the laws of Athens +only in obedience to a higher law; and the executioner, because he +presented the cup to the victim with tears." + +With this proud and plain warning ringing in their ears, the judges next +heard Montalembert. He was just twenty-one, and by the recent death of his +father but a few weeks in his place as a peer of France. Sainte-Beuve saw +that his youth, his ease and grace, the elegant precision of his style and +diction, veiled the fact that it was a prisoner--not a peer--who spoke, and +his judges were the first to forget it. + +"The entire chamber listened with a surprise which was not without +pleasure to the young man's bold self-justification. From that day M. de +Montalembert, though formally condemned, was borne in the very heart of +the peerage--he was its Benjamin." The sentence was a gentle reprimand and +a mild fine of a hundred francs. + +The _Avenir_, it will be remembered, had incurred no censure from Rome. +Nevertheless, it had not prospered, and it was resolved by its founders +that they would appeal to the head of the church for his explicit +approval. Accordingly, the publication of the paper was suspended, and its +last number announced "with pomp," as Lacordaire says, that "the purpose +of its editors was to suspend it until they had gone to Rome to seek +sanction and authority for its continuation." The biographer well remarks +that "neither from primitive Ireland nor romantic Poland had such an +expedition set forth." They asked the head of the church "to commit +himself, to sanction a new and revolutionary movement, to bless the very +banners of revolt, and acknowledge as pioneers of his army the +ecclesiastical Ishmaels who had carried fire and flame everywhere during +their brief career." There could, of course, be but one result--failure. +The _Avenir_ was condemned. Lacordaire and Montalembert at once submitted +to the decision. Poor de Lamennais did not, and unhappily persisted in his +sad mistake. In connection with this subject, we cannot here refrain from +repeating at length some reflections which, coming as they do from an +intelligent Protestant, have a peculiar force and value. + +They are from the pen of Montalembert's biographer, and present so +admirable, so eloquent a _resume_ of the question of apostasy, that we +have not the heart to curtail the passage containing them by so much as +the omission of a single word: + + + "Except at the Reformation, when the great overflow of spiritual + rebellion was favored by such a combination of circumstances as + has never occurred since, no man or group of men have succeeded in + rebelling against Rome, and yet continued to keep up a religious + character and influence. No man has been able to do it, whatever + the excellence of his beginning might be, or the purity of the + motives with which he started. Even in the Church of England the + career of a man who separates himself from her communion is + generally a painful one. He makes a commotion and excitement in + the world for a time before he has fully made up his mind; and at + the moment of his withdrawal he is sure of remark and notice, at + all events, from certain classes. But after that brief moment he + sinks flat as the spirits do in the _Inferno_, and the dark wave + pours over him, and he is heard of no more. All that sustained and + strengthened and gave him a fictitious importance as the member of + a great corporation has fallen away from him. He has dropped like + a stone into the water--like a foundered ship into the sea. In + England, however, after all has been done, there is a sea of + dissent to drop into, and though his new surroundings may please + him little, yet he will come out of the giddiness of his downfall + to take some comfort in them--will accustom himself by degrees to + the lower social level, the different spiritual atmosphere. But he + who dissents from the Church of Rome has no such refuge. The + moment he steps outside her fold he finds himself in outer + darkness, through which awful salutations are shrieked to him by + the enemies of religion, by those whom he has avoided and + condemned all his life, and with whom he can agree only on the one + sole article of rebellion. If he ventures to hold up his head at + all after what all his friends will call his apostasy, the best + that he can hope for is to be courted by heretics, professed + enemies of the church which he has been born in, and which + probably he loves most dearly still, notwithstanding his + disobedience. To quarrel with your home is one thing--to find its + domestic laws hard, and its prejudices insupportable; but to + plunge into the midst of the enemies of that home, and to hear it + assailed with the virulence of ignorance--to join in gibes against + your mother, and mockery of her life and motives--is a totally + different matter. Yet this is almost all that a contumacious + priest has to look forward to. A recent and striking example, to + which we need not refer more plainly, will occur to every one who + has watched the contemporary history of the Roman Catholic Church. + In this case a brilliant and remarkable preacher--a man supposed + the other day to be one of the most eminent and promising sons of + Rome--after wavering and falling away in some points from + ecclesiastical obedience, suddenly appeared in an admiring circle + of gentle Anglicanism, surrounded by a fair crowd of worshipping + Protestants, ready to extend to him all that broad and universal + sympathy which he had no doubt been trained to regard as vilest + latitudinarianism, or the readiness of Pilate to make friends with + Herod. This prospect must chill the very soul of a man who has + received the true priestly training, and who has been educated in + that love of his church which is of itself a noble and generous + sentiment. The best thing that can happen to him is to fall among + heretics; the other alternative, and the only one, so far as + events have yet made it apparent, to fall among infidels: and as + his education has taught him to make but small distinction between + them, and the infidels are nearer at hand, and his own countrymen, + what wonder if it is into their hands that the miserable man, torn + from all his ancient foundations, ejected from his natural place, + heart-weary with the madness which is wrought by anger against + those we love, should fall--what wonder if he should rush to the + furthest extremity, hiding what he feels to be his shame, and + endeavoring to take some dismal comfort in utter negation of that + past from which he has been torn! Whether there are new + developments in the future for the new Protesters whom a recent + decision has raised up, we cannot tell. But such has been the case + in the past. Life is over for the rebellious priest who breaks + with his church; his possibility of service in his vocation has + come to an end; even the most careless peasant in his parish will + turn from him. He is a deserter from his regiment in the face of + the enemy, false to his colors, a man no longer of any human use." + + +It was during Montalembert's sojourn in Italy, on his remarkable _Avenir_ +pilgrimage, that he became the intimate friend of Albert de la Ferronays, +the hero of Mrs. Craven's beautiful _Recit d'une Soeur_. He appears in the +book designated under the name of Montal. From the same period, also, +dates his intimacy with Rio, the future historian of Christian art. The +young peer's taste for art, always strong, and his enthusiastic admiration +of the glorious remains of mediaeval architecture, were both developed and +strengthened under the teaching and influence of Rio. In March, 1833, he +published an article in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, in which he +energetically denounced the desecration and ruin of the grand old +architectural monuments of France. It was addressed in the form of a +letter to Victor Hugo, then leader of the Romantic school, who strongly +sympathized with him on this subject, and whose _Notre Dame de Paris_ had +been reviewed in the _Avenir_ by Montalembert with enthusiastic praise for +the grand historical framework of the story. During the autumn of that +year, Montalembert went to Germany, and, as we have seen, accidentally +stopped at Marburg. Travel, research, and the collection of materials for +the life of Elizabeth now engrossed all his time, until, attaining the +legal age, twenty-five, he took his seat in the Chamber of Peers. His +first appearance at the bar of this chamber had been in defence of the +liberty of teaching, and his first speech was in defence of the liberty of +the press. These two discourses prefigured his parliamentary career. He +was always the ardent advocate of liberty; rarely heard on the side of the +government; and generally the leader of a conscientious and loyal +opposition: which, well considered, would have been found the most prudent +adviser of the administration in power. + +Strongly imbued with English ideas, he fully appreciated the conservative +power of an energetic opposition, ever ready to criticise, to question, to +challenge, or to expose whatever might seem arbitrary or unconstitutional +in the acts of the government. But this idea of an opposition at once +loyal and law-loving, was unfamiliar to his countrymen. To them, as a +general thing, opposition meant revolution, and to many the spectacle of a +peer of France, a Catholic, and a _proprietaire_, who was at once the +friend of the proletaire, the dissenter, the oppressor, and the slave, was +a paradox. And yet paradox there was none, for his declaration of +principles was always clear and bold. Thus, in striving to cull from the +Chamber of Peers a public expression of sympathy for the Poles, he +insisted that it was their right and their duty to make an avowal of +national sentiments, an expression of national opinion, that it was an +obligation imposed by humanity and required by wise policy. "What is it," +he asked, "that has raised the British parliament to so high a degree of +popularity and moral influence in Europe? Is it not because for more than +a century no grave event has happened in any country without finding an +echo there? Is it not because no right has been oppressed, no treaty +broken anywhere, without a discussion on both sides of the question before +the peers and commons of England, whose assemblies have thus become, in +the silence of the world, a sort of tribunal where all the great causes of +humanity are pleaded, and where opinion pronounces those formidable +judgments which, sooner or later, are always executed?" + +And his independence was that of the man as well as of the orator. He was +committed to no policy, sought no party ends, but always, and at all cost, +maintained the good, the just, the honorable. A lost or desperate cause, +if equitable, was always sure of his support. The three oppressed nations +of the earth, Poland under Russia, Ireland under England, and Greece under +Turkey, were his most cherished clients. The weaker side ever strongly +attracted him. "Penetrated by the conviction that just causes are +everlasting," says M. Cochin, "and that every protest against injustice +ends by moving heaven and convincing men, he sought out, so to speak, +every oppressed cause when at its last breath, to take its burden upon +himself, and to become its champion. There is a suffering race, a race +lost in distant isles, the race of black slaves, which has been oppressed +for centuries. He took its cause in hand, and from the year 1837 labored +for its emancipation. There are in all manufacturing places a crowd of +hollow-cheeked children, with pale faces and worn eyes, and the sight of +them made a profound impression upon him; he took their cause also in +hand. If you run over the mere index of his speeches, you will find all +generous efforts contained in it." + +The year 1836 brought two notable events in the life of Montalembert--the +publication of his first work, his _Life of S. Elizabeth_, and his +marriage to a daughter of the noble house of de Merode in Belgium. +Meantime, he continued his attacks on vandalism in art and his +parliamentary labors, and was mainly instrumental in the creation of the +committee of historical art and the commission on historical monuments, +from both of which he was excluded under the Empire, which no more +sympathized with his pure conceptions of Christian art than it did with +his conception of Christian morals. + +Rio has recorded the result of the impression made by Montalembert upon +the English poet Rogers, which admirably illustrates the fact that +Montalembert's religion was not a sort of moral "Sunday suit" to be put +off and on as occasion might require, and at the same time reveals to us +the old poet in an entirely new aspect. The Montalemberts had spent the +evening with Rogers, "and after their departure," Rio relates, "when I +found myself alone with Rogers, the expression of his countenance, which +up to that moment had been smiling and animated, changed so suddenly that +I feared I had offended him by some word of doubtful meaning which I might +not altogether have understood. He paced about the room without saying +anything, and I did not know whether I might venture to break this +incomprehensible silence. At last he broke it himself, and said to me +that, if he had the power of putting himself in the place of another, he +would choose that of Montalembert, not on account of his youth and his +beautiful wife, but because he possessed that immovable and cloudless +faith that seemed to himself the most enviable of all gifts." + +Mr. Neale advised Montalembert that he had been elected an honorary member +of the Cambridge Camden Society. On receipt of the news of this +"unsolicited and unmerited honor," Montalembert replied in a letter +protesting against the usurpation of the title "Catholic" by the Camden +Society. Here are some of its trenchant passages: + + + "The attempt to steal away from us, and appropriate to the use of + a fraction of the Church of England, the glorious title of + Catholic, is proved to be an usurpation by every monument of the + past and present, by the coronation oath of your sovereigns, by + all the laws that have _established_ your church. The name itself + is spurned with indignation by the greater half at least of those + who belong to the Church of England, just as the Church of England + itself is rejected with scorn and detestation by the greater half + of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom. The judgment of the + whole indifferent world, the common sense of humanity, agrees with + the judgment of the Church of Rome, and with the sense of her 150 + millions of children, to dispossess you of this name. The Church + of England, who has denied her mother, is rightly without a + sister. She has chosen to break the bonds of unity and obedience. + Let her therefore stand alone before the judgment-seat of God and + man. Even the debased Russian Church--that church where lay- + despotism has closed the church's mouth and turned her into a + slave--disdains to recognize the Anglicans as Catholics. Even the + Eastern heretics, although so sweetly courted by Puseyite + missionaries, sneer at this new and fictitious Catholicism. That + the so-called Anglo-Catholics, whose very name betrays their + usurpation and their contradiction, whose doctrinal articles, + whose liturgy, whose whole history, are such as to disconnect them + from all mankind except those who are born English and speak + English--that they should pretend on the strength of their private + judgment alone to be what the rest of mankind deny them to be, + will assuredly be ranked among the first follies of the XIXth + century.... You may turn aside for three hundred years to come, as + you have done for three hundred years past, from the fountain of + living waters; but to dig out a small channel of your own, for + your own private insular use, wherein the living truth will run + apart from its own docile and ever obedient children--_that_ will + no more be granted to you than it has been to the Arians, the + Nestorians, the Donatists, or any other triumphant heresy. I + protest, therefore, against the usurpation of a sacred name by the + Camden Society as iniquitous; and I next protest against the + object of this society, and all such efforts in the Anglican + Church, as absurd." + + +We now have before us a period of seven years in the life of Montalembert, +the record of which may be said to be the history of the great public +questions which then agitated France; so intimately was his entire +parliamentary career bound up with their development. The first and most +important of these questions was that of education. Then, as now, the +examination for the degree of A.B. (_baccalaureat_) was the key to all +public occupations. + +But at that time, from 1830 to 1848, no one had a right to present himself +for this examination unless he had been educated in one of the public +_lycees_, or some school licensed by the university, into whose hands the +government had placed the monopoly of education. A wealthy parent might +educate a boy under his own supervision in the best universities of +England or Germany, or by private tutors, yet the youth would not be +permitted to present himself for examination, although able to pass it +with ease. And the degree resulting from this examination was the +essential condition upon which the possibility of a public career was +opened to every young Frenchman. Without it he could by no possibility be +admitted to any public employment, the bench or the bar. Ability, +accomplishments, acquirements, had nothing to do with the question. The +young man must pass through a state school, or he was for ever debarred +from a public career in his own country. But to pass through a state +school, as all Christian parents, both Catholic and Protestant, then well +knew in France, was to leave it with the loss of his religious principles. +The biographer may well find it "equally incredible that such restrictions +should have been borne by any people, and that a government founded upon +liberal principles and erected by revolution should have dared to maintain +them; but so it was." + +The parliamentary campaign on the educational question opened in 1844. +Discussion soon reached a point of warmth. "There is one result given +under the auspices of the university," said Montalembert, "which governs +every other, and which is as clear as daylight. It is that children who +leave their family with the seed of faith in them, to enter the +university, come out of it infidels." The contradictions and _mouvement_ +incited by this statement pushed the orator to more emphatic statement. "I +appeal," he said, "to the testimony of all fathers and mothers. Let us +take any ten children out of the schools regulated by the university, at +the end of their studies, and find one Christian among them if you can. +One in ten! and that would be a prodigy. I address myself not to such or +such a religious belief, but to all. Catholics, Protestants, Jews, all who +believe humbly and sincerely in the religion which they possess, it is to +them I appeal, whom I recognize as my brethren. And all those who have a +sincere belief, and practise it, will confirm what I have said of the +religious results of the education of the university. Let us hear the +testimony of the young and eloquent defender of French Protestantism, the +son of our colleague M. Agenor de Gasparin.... 'Religious education,' he +says, 'has no existence in the colleges.... I bethink myself with terror +what I was when I issued forth from this national education. I recollect +what all my companions were. Were we very good citizens? I know not, but +certainly we were not Christians; we did not possess even the weakest +beginnings of evangelical faith.' " + +The results of the French compulsory anti-Christian education may be read +in current history. "The men it has brought up are the men who allowed +France to be bound for eighteen years in the humiliating bondage of the +Second Empire; who have furnished excuses to all the world for calling her +the most socially depraved of nations; who have filled her light +literature with abominations, and her graver works with blasphemy; and who +have finally procured for her national downfall and humiliation." + +Montalembert planted his little band in battle array against the compact +and overwhelming forces of the government, under the inspiration and +trumpet-tongued tones of his admirable _fils des croises_ speech in the +Chamber of Peers. Here, with its memorable termination, are a few passages +from it. We regret we cannot give it entire. "Allow me to tell you, +gentlemen, a generation has arisen among you of men whom you know not. Let +them call us Neo-Catholics, sacristans, ultramontanes, as you will; the +name is nothing; the thing exists. We take for our motto that with which +the generous Poles in the last century headed their manifesto of +resistance to the Empress Catherine: 'We, who love freedom more than all +the world, and the Catholic religion more than freedom,' ... are we to +acknowledge ourselves so degenerated from the condition of our fathers, +that we must give up our reason to rationalism, deliver our conscience to +the university, our dignity and our freedom into the hands of law-makers +whose hatred for the freedom of the church is equalled only by their +profound ignorance of her rights and her doctrines?... You are told to be +_implacable_. Be so; do all that you will and can against us. The church +will answer you by the mouth of Tertullian and the gentle Fenelon. 'You +have nothing to fear from us; but we do not fear you.' And I add in the +name of Catholic laymen like myself, Catholics of the XIXth century: We +will not be helots in the midst of a free people. WE ARE THE SUCCESSORS OF +THE MARTYRS, AND WE DO NOT TREMBLE BEFORE THE SUCCESSORS OF JULIAN THE +APOSTATE. WE ARE THE SONS OF THE CRUSADERS, AND WE WILL NEVER YIELD TO THE +PROGENY OF VOLTAIRE!" + +"_Mouvements divers_" might well--according to the reported proceedings of +the day--follow this burst of indignant eloquence. The words made the very +air of France tingle; they defined at once the two sides with one of those +happy strokes which make the fortune of a party, and which are doubly dear +to all who speak the language of epigram--the most brilliantly clear, +incisive, and distinct of tongues. Henceforward the _fils des croises_ +were a recognized power, but they were only known and heard by and through +Montalembert, and, so far as the public struggle was concerned, might be +said to exist in him alone. Montalembert fought almost single-handed. "The +attitude of this one man between that phalanx of resolute opponents and +the shifty mass of irresolute followers, is as curious and interesting as +any political position ever was. He stands before us turning from one to +the other, never wearied, never flagging, maintaining an endless brilliant +debate, now with one set of objectors, now with another, prompt with his +answers to every man's argument, rapid as lightning in his sweep upon +every man's fallacy: now proclaiming himself the representative of the +Catholics in France, and pouring forth his claim for them as warm, as +urgent, as vehement as though a million of men were at his back: and now +turning upon these very Catholics with keen reproaches, with fiery +ridicule, with stinging darts of contempt for their weakness. Thus he +fought single-handed, confronting the entire world. Nothing daunted him, +neither failure nor abuse, neither the resentment of his enemies, nor the +languor of his friends, ... not always parliamentary in his language, bold +enough to say everything, as his adversaries reproached him, yet never +making a false accusation or imputing a mean motive. No one hotter in +assault, none more tremendous in the onslaught; but he did not know what +it was to strike a stealthy or back-handed blow." + +Time has strange revenges. In April, 1849, came up the important question +of the _inamovibilite de la magistrature_--the appointment for life of +magistrates. His old enemies were delighted to find that Montalembert +declared himself unreservedly in the affirmative, and none more than M. +Dupin, the very man who uttered the memorable "_Soyez implacables_." Again +he had the government to contend with, for under the law magistrates were +no longer irremovable. Montalembert proposed, as an amendment, that all +magistrates in office should be reappointed, and that all new appointments +should be made for life. He pointed out the evils of a system which made +judgeships tenable only from one revolution to another, and made a noble +office the object of a "hunt" for promotion dishonoring to all parties. He +spoke of the magistracy as the priesthood (_sacerdoce_) of justice, and +added: "Allow me to pause a moment upon the word priesthood, which I have +just employed. Of all the weaknesses and follies of the times in which we +live, there is none more hateful to me than the conjunction of expressions +and images borrowed from religion with the most profane facts and ideas. +But I acknowledge that our old and beautiful French language, the immortal +and intelligent interpreter of the national good sense, has, by a +marvellous instinct, assimilated religion and justice. It has always said: +_The temples of the law, the sanctuary of justice, the priesthood of the +magistracy_." The cause was won by his eloquence, and thus the first +political success he ever gained was not for himself or his friends, but +for his enemies. Truly a fitting triumph for a son of the crusaders. + +The peerage now being abolished, Montalembert was returned as deputy to +the National Assembly by the Department of Doubs. Here his career was, if +possible, yet more brilliant than in the Chamber of Peers. It would +require a volume fitly to record them. Soon came the presidency of Louis +Bonaparte. Himself the soul of honor, with an eye single to the welfare of +France, deceived by solemn assurances which he unfortunately credited, +unsuspicious of a depth of treachery which he could not conceive, and +alarmed by the horrible spectre of socialism, just arising from its native +blood and mire, Montalembert became the dupe and the victim of Louis +Napoleon. When power had been fully secured, the new president offered him +the position of senator, along with the _dotation_ of 30,000 francs, which +was refused without hesitation. A second and a third time the offer was +renewed, the last offer being urged by De Morny in person. The only +position he held under the government of Louis Napoleon was the nominal +one of a member of the Consultative Commission, which he resigned on the +publication of the decree for the confiscation of the property of the +House of Orleans. He had already begun to suffer from the attacks of the +disease to which he finally succumbed; and it was from his sick-bed that +he went to receive at the hands of the French Academy the highest and most +dearly prized reward of French talent and genius. Montalembert was elected +to the seat in the Academy vacated by the death of M. Droz, and his +reception was an event. Being now freed from the absorbing engagements of +life, he made several journeys to England, and travelled into Hungary, +Poland, and Spain. His work entitled _L'Avenir Politique de l'Angleterre_ +was the fruit of his English visits; and was well received both in France +and England. In October, 1858, the Paris _Correspondant_ published a +remarkable letter from Montalembert, describing a debate in the English +Parliament. Its every paragraph was so full of a subtle and powerful +contrast between political liberty in England and the absence of it in +France that the Imperial government and its adherents were stung to the +quick. He speaks of leaving "an atmosphere foul with servile and +corrupting miasma (_chargee de miasmes serviles et corrupteurs_) to +breathe a purer air and to take a bath of free life in England." Referring +to a former French colony, he says: "In Canada, a noble race of Frenchmen +and Catholics, unhappily torn from our country, but remaining French in +heart and habits, owes to England the privilege of having retained or +acquired, along with perfect religious freedom, all the political and +municipal liberties which France herself has repudiated." A criminal +prosecution was immediately begun against the count for this letter. Four +separate accusations were brought. Among them were "exciting the people to +hate and despise the government of the emperor, and of attempting to +disturb the public peace." The legal penalties were imprisonment from +three months to five years, fine from 500 to 6,000 francs, and expulsion +from France. According to French custom, the prisoner on trial was +interrogated concerning the obnoxious passages, and, when Montalembert +answered, it was discovered that the emperor and his government, not the +prisoner at the bar, was on trial. With calm gravity he acknowledged each +damning implication as an historical fact not to be denied, "enjoying, +there can be no doubt," says his biographer, "to the bottom of his heart, +this unlooked-for chance of adding a double point to every arrow he had +launched, and planting his darts deliberately and effectually in the +joints of his adversaries' armor." + +The foundation of Montalembert's great work, _The Monks of the West_, was +laid in his studies for the life of S. Elizabeth, and the remainder of his +active life was now devoted to its completion. It is sufficient to refer +to it. We need not dwell upon this greatest production of his literary +genius. Besides this, two other remarkable productions came from his pen +toward the close of his career. These were the long and eloquent +addresses, _L'Eglise libre dans l'Etat libre_, delivered before the +Congress of Malines, and his _Victoire du Nord aux Etats-Unis_, which, +says his biographer, "is little else than a hymn of triumph in honor of +that success which to him was a pure success of right over wrong, of +freedom over slavery." + +It is well known that Montalembert was one of those who opposed the +proclamation of the dogma of infallibility. On this point, his biographer +gives us this interesting information. + +One of his visitors said to him, while lying on what proved to be his +death-bed: "If the Infallibility is proclaimed, what will you do?" "I will +struggle against it as long as I can," he said; but when the question was +repeated, the sufferer raised himself quickly, with something of his old +animation, and turned to his questioner. "What should I do?" he said. "We +are always told that the pope is a father. _Eh bien!_--there are many +fathers who demand our adherence to things very far from our inclination, +and contrary to our ideas. In such a case, the son struggles while he can; +he tries hard to persuade his father; discusses and talks the matter over +with him; but when all is done, when he sees no possibility of succeeding, +but receives a distinct refusal, he submits. I shall do the same." + +"You will submit so far as form goes," said the visitor. "You will submit +externally. But how will you reconcile that submission with your ideas and +convictions?" + +Still more distinctly and clearly he replied: "I will make no attempt to +reconcile them. I will submit my will, as has to be done in respect to all +the other questions of faith. I am not a theologian; it is not my part to +decide on such matters. And God does not ask me to understand. He asks me +to submit my will and intelligence, and I will do so." "After having made +this solemn though abrupt confession of faith," says the witness whom we +have quoted, "he added, with a smile, 'It is simple enough; there is +nothing extraordinary in it.' " + +The last years of the life of this distinguished man were one long +protracted agony of physical suffering. The symptoms of disease that first +manifested themselves in 1852 had gone on increasing in severity until in +1869, more than a year before his death, he speaks of himself as _vivens +sepulcrum_. "I am fully warranted in saying that the death of M. de +Montalembert was part of his glory," writes M. Cochin, in describing his +constancy and resignation. He died on the 13th of March, 1870. + + + + +At The Shrine. + + + +I. + + + The sunset's dying radiance falls + On chancel-gloom and sculptured shrine, + A splendor wraps the pictured walls, + Where painted saints in glory shine! + And blent with sweet-tongued vesper-bells, + Through echoing aisles and arches dim + The organ's solemn music swells, + The sweetly chanted evening hymn. + + + +II. + + + Low at Our Lady's spotless feet + A white-robed woman kneels in prayer: + The _Deus Meus_ murmurs sweet, + While _Glorias_ throb on perfumed air; + Before the circling altar-rail + She breathes her _Aves_ soft and low-- + The golden hair beneath her veil + Wreathed like a glory on her brow. + + + +III. + + + The sunset's purple splendors fade, + The dark'ning shades of twilight fall, + The moonbeam's silver touch is laid + On sculptur'd saint and pictur'd wall; + And while the weeping watcher kneels, + And silence weaves her magic spells, + The gray dawn thro' the oriel steals, + And morning wakes the matin-bells. + + +ADVENT, 1872. + + + + +A Christmas Recognition. + + +We were old-fashioned people at Aldred, and Christmas was our special +holiday. The house was always filled with guests, not such as many of our +grander neighbors asked to their houses, but such as cared for good old- +fashioned cheer and antiquated habits. Not all were relations, for we +never asked relations merely on account of their kinship, according to the +regulation mixing of a conventional Christmas party, but among our own +people were many whose presence at our Christmas gatherings was as certain +as the recurrence of the festival itself. Among them was a great-aunt, a +soft, mild old lady, always dressed in widow's weeds, but with a face as +fresh as a girl's, and hair white as the snowy cap she wore to conceal it. +She had not come alone, for her adopted son was with her, the promised +husband of her only child, dead years ago. He had left his own home and +people, like Ruth, for the lonely, childless woman whom he was to have +called mother, and remained her inseparable companion through her +beautiful and resigned old age. There were, besides these, a young girl +whose aspect was peculiar and attractive, and whose manner had in its +mixture of modesty and self-reliance a piquancy that added to the +fascination of her person. She had come with a distant cousin of hers, a +widow of a different type from our dear old relative, and whose object in +chaperoning Miss Houghton must have been mixed. She was small, blonde, +coquettish, and thirty-two, though no one would have taken her for more +than twenty-five. She looked soft, pliable, irresolute, and tender, and +men often found in her a repose which was a soothing contrast to her +cousin's energetic, peculiar, somewhat eccentric ways; only it was the +repose yielded by a downy cushion, and people wearied of it after a while. +The secret of the apparent partnership between these two opposite natures +was perhaps this: the widow had a rich jointure, and was an excellent +_parti_, while her cousin was portionless. Miss Houghton was thus doubly a +foil to Mrs. Burtleigh. + +I shall not speak of the other guests in detail, with the exception of one +whom it would be impossible to overlook. He was a man nearer forty than +thirty-five, good-humored and careless to all appearance, a hard worker in +the battle of life, a cosmopolitan philosopher, and one of those handy, +useful men who can sew on a button, cook an omelet, and kiss a bride as +easily and unconcernedly as they gallop across country or horsewhip a +villain. He had been in Mexico, surveying and engineering for an English +railroad company, and he had spent some years in the East as the land- +agent of a progress-loving pacha. Europe he knew as well as we knew +Aldred, while the year he had been absent from us had been filled by new +and stirring experiences in Upper Egypt. But I forget; we have yet to +speak of many little details of Christmas-tide which preceded the +gathering in of the whole party. + +The kitchen department was, of course, conspicuous on this occasion. This +included the village poor, who were regularly assembled every day for soup +until Christmas eve, when each household received a joint of beef and a +fine plum-pudding. Some of us went round the village in a sleigh, and +distributed tea and sugar as supplementary items. It was a traditional +Yule-tide, for the snow lay soft, even, and thick over the roads, as it +but seldom does in England; then, the school was visited and solidly +provisioned, the children were invited to a monster tea with accompaniment +of a magic-lantern show, after which the prizes were to be distributed, as +well as warm clothing for the winter season. Nothing was said of the +Christmas-tree, as that was kept as a surprise. + +The decoration of house and chapel was a wonderful and prolonged business, +and afforded great amusement. Holly grew in profusion at Aldred, and a +cart-load of the bright-berried evergreen was brought to the house the day +preceding Christmas eve. The people we have made acquaintance with were +already with us, and vigorously helped us on with the preparations. Such +fun as there was when Miss Houghton insisted upon crowning the marble bust +of the Indian grandee, Rammohun Roy, with a holly wreath, and when Mrs. +Burtleigh gave a pretty, ladylike little cry as she pricked her fingers +with the glossy leaves! The children of the house and those of another +house in the neighborhood (orphan children whose gloomy home made them a +perpetual source of pity to us) were helping as unhelpfully as ever, but +what of that? It was a joyous, animated scene, and, still more, a romantic +one; for the traveller, who had claimed a former acquaintance with Miss +Houghton, now seemed to become her very shadow--or knight, let us say; it +is more appropriate to the spirit of a festival so highly honored in +mediaeval times. The chapel, a beautiful Gothic building, small but +perfect, was decorated with mottoes wrought in leaves, such as "Unto us a +Son is born, unto us a Child is given," and _Gloria in excelsis Deo_, +etc., while festoons of evergreens hung from pillar to pillar, and draped +the stone-carved tribune at the western end with a living tapestry. Round +the altar were heaped in rows, placed one higher than another, evergreens +of every size and kind, mingled with islands of bright camellias, the +pride of the renowned hothouses of Aldred. White, red, and streaked, the +flowers seemed like stars among dark masses of clouds; and, when we lit a +few of the tall candles to see the effect, it was so solemn that we longed +for the time to pass quickly, till the midnight Mass should call forth all +the beauty of which we had seen but a part. + +These decorations had been mainly the work of the traveller (whom, in our +traditional familiarity, we called "Cousin Jim") and of our other friend, +the adopted son of our old aunt; but, though their brains had conceived, +it was Miss Houghton's deft fingers that executed the work best. The last +touch had just been put to an immense cross of holly which was to be swung +from the ceiling, to supply the place of the rood that in old times +guarded the choir-screen. A star of snow-white camellias was to be poised +just above it, and a tall ladder had been put in readiness to facilitate +the delicate task. Miss Houghton stood at the foot, one arm leaning on the +ladder, the other holding aloft the white star. Her friend was halfway up, +bearing the great cross, when he suddenly heard a low voice, swelling +gradually, intoning the words of the Christmas hymn: + + + Adeste fideles, + Laeti triumphantes; + Venite, venite in Bethlehem: + Natum videte + Regem angelorum: + Venite adoremus, + Venite adoremus, + Venite adoremus Dominum. + + +Startled and touched, he began the repeating words of the chorus, pausing +with his green cross held high in his arms. The others who, scattered +about the chapel, heard his deep tones, answering, took up the chorus, and +chanted it slowly to the end, Miss Houghton looking round with tears in +her eyes, at this unexpected response to the suppressed and undefinable +feelings of her heart. It was an impressive scene, the guests, servants, +gardeners, and a few of the choir-boys, all mingling in the impromptu +worship so well befitting the beautiful work they had in hand. At the end +of the verse, the traveller hastily gained the top of the ladder, and, +having fastened the holly cross in its place, intoned a second verse, in +which Miss Houghton immediately joined, and the harmonious blending of +their voices had, if possible, a still more beautiful effect than the +unaccompanied chant of the first verse. Again the chorus chimed in, + + + Venite adoremus, + Venite adoremus, + Venite adoremus Dominum. + + +in full, solemn tones, and all sang from their places, their festoons in +their hands, so that at the end of the hymn the traveller said +thoughtfully to his companion: "_Laborare est orare_ should be our motto +henceforth. I wish all our work were as holy as this." + +"And why not?" she answered quickly; "only _will_ it so, and so it shall +be. We are our own creators." + +"What a rash saying!" he exclaimed, with a smile; "but I know what you +mean. God gives us the tools and the marble; it is ours to carve it _into_ +an angel or a fiend." + +At last the chapel decoration was over, and a few of the more venturesome +among us went out in the snow for a walk. + +Meanwhile, in the corridor (so we called our favorite sitting-room), the +Yule-logs were crackling cheerfully on the wide hearth, and the fitful +tongues of flame shot a red glimmer over the old-fashioned furniture. One +of the chairs was said to have belonged to Cardinal Wolsey, and there was +another, a circular arm-chair, that looked as if it also should have had a +history connected with the great and learned. Full-length portraits of the +old possessors of Aldred covered the walls, and on the stained-glass upper +compartments of the deep bay-window at one end were depicted the arms and +quarterings of the family. The Yule-logs were oak, cut from our own trees, +and perforated all over with large holes through which the flames shot up +like fire-sprites. + +The Christmas-tree and magic-lantern also had to be put in order to save +time and trouble, and a stage for tableaux occupied the rapt attention of +the amateur mechanician (our great-aunt's son) and of "Jim," the traveller +and practised factotum. Miss Houghton was never very far from the scene of +these proceedings, and, when she was not quite so near, "Cousin Jim" was +not quite so eager. Almost all our guests had brought contributions for +the Christmas-tree, of which our children had the nominal charge, and with +these gifts and our own it turned out quite a royal success. Presents of +useful garments, flannels, boots, mittens, woollen shirts, petticoats, and +comforters, were stowed away beneath the lower branches, while all visible +parts were hung with the toys and fruits, lights and ribbons, that so +delight children. Gilt walnut-shells were a prominent decoration, and +right at the apex of the tree was fixed a "Christ-child," that thoroughly +German development, an image of the Infant Saviour, holding a starred +globe in one hand and a standard in the other. A _creche_ had also been +prepared in the Lady-chapel, a lifelike representation of those beautiful +Christmas pictures seen to such perfection in the large churches of Italy. +Munich figures supplied the place of wax models, however, and were a +decided improvement. + +Many people from the village had asked leave to come in and look at these +peculiar decorations; but, as few of them were Catholics, it had been +thought better to wait till the third Mass on Christmas day to open the +chapel to the public. Christmas eve was a very busy day, and towards five +o'clock began the great task of welcoming the rest of the expected guests. +This was done in no modern and languid fashion; the servants, clad in fur +caps and frieze greatcoats, stood near the door with resinous torches +flaring in the still night air--it was quite dark at that early hour--and +the host and hostess welcomed them at the very threshold. The children +helped them to take off their wraps, and held mistletoe sprigs over their +bended heads as they reached up to kiss them. Indeed, mistletoe was so +plentifully strewn about the house that it was impossible to avoid it, but +we had so far eschewed the freedom of the past as to consider this custom +more honored in the breach than in the observance. The children and the +servants, however, made up for our carelessness. + +Very little toilet was expected for a seven o'clock dinner (we were not +fashionable people), but we found that our well-meant injunctions had +hardly been obeyed. For the sake of the picturesque, so much the better, I +thought. One of our friends had actually donned a claret-colored velvet +suit, with slippers to match, embroidered with gold; and, when we looked +at each other in silent amusement, the wearer himself smiled round the +circle, saying pleasantly: + +"Oh! I do not mind being noticed. In fact, I rather like it--this was a +lady's fancy, you see." + +"How, how?" we asked eagerly. + +"Well," answered the Londoner, a regular drawing-room pet, and a very +clever society jester, "I was challenged to a game of billiards by a fair +lady, the Duchess of ----. She said to me, 'And pray _do_ wear something +picturesque.' I bowed and said, 'Your grace shall be obeyed.' I happened +to have some loose cash about me. I could not wear uniform, because I did +not belong even to the most insignificant of volunteer regiments, and I +went to my tailor. His genius was equal to the occasion, and this was the +result. I played with the duchess, and she won,"--the hero of the velvet +coat was an invincible billiard champion.--"As I have the dress by me, I +take the liberty of wearing it occasionally in the country. It is too good +to be hidden, isn't it?" + +So he rattled on till dinner was announced. It was a merry but frugal +meal. The mince-pies and plum-pudding crowned with blue flame, the holly- +wreathed boar's head of romance, were not there; they were reserved for +to-morrow. So with the "wassail-bowl," the fragrant, spirituous beverage +of which each one was to partake, his two neighbors standing up on each +side of him, according to the old custom intended as a defence against +treachery; for once it had happened that a guest whose hands were engaged +holding the two-handled bowl to his lips was stabbed from behind by a +lurking enemy, and ever after it became _de rigueur_ that protection +should be afforded to the drinker by his neighbor on either side. + +The fare to-night was still Advent fare, but, after dinner, Christmas +insisted upon beginning. We were told that the "mummers" from the village +were come, and waited for leave to begin their play. They were brought +into the hall, and the whole company stood on the steps leading up to the +drawing-rooms. The scenery was not characteristic--a broad oaken staircase, +a Chinese gong, the polished oak flooring, the massive hall-door. The +actors themselves, seven or eight in number, dressed in the most fantastic +and extemporized costume, now began the performance; and but for the +venerable antiquity of the farce, it was absurd and obscure enough to +excite laughter rather than interest. The children were wild with delight, +and were with difficulty restrained from leaping the "pit" and mingling +with the actors on the "stage." Indeed, for many days after nothing was +heard among them but imitations of the "mummers." There was a grave +dialogue about "King George," then a scuffle ensued, and one man fell down +either wounded or in a fit. The doctor is called; the people believe the +man dead, the doctor denies this, and says, "I will give him a cordial, +mark the effect." The resuscitated man afterwards has a tooth drawn by the +same quack, who then holds up the tooth (a huge, unshapely equine one +provided for the occasion), and exclaims: "Why, this is more like a +horse's tooth than a man's!" I never could make out the full meaning of +the "mummers'" play; but, whether it was a corruption of some older and +more complete dramatic form, or the crude beginning of an undeveloped one, +it certainly was the characteristic feature of our Christmas at Aldred. It +took place regularly every year, without the slightest deviation in +detail, and always ended in a mournful chorus, "The Old Folks at Home." +After the actors had been heartily cheered, and the host had addressed to +them a few kind words of thanks and recognition, they were dismissed to +the kitchen, to their much coveted entertainment of unlimited beer. There +they enacted their performance once more for the servants, who then +fraternized with them on the most amiable terms. + +Meanwhile, our party were gradually collecting round the wood-fire in the +corridor. It was a bitter cold night, the snow was falling noiselessly and +fast, and the wind howled weirdly through the bare branches of the distant +trees. Our old aunt remarked, in her gentle way: + +"One almost feels as if those poor owls were human beings crying with +cold." + +"We look like a picture, mother," somewhat irrelevantly answered her son +after a slight pause; "the antique dresses of many of us are quite worth +an artist's study." + +Mrs. Burtleigh, whose blonde beauty was coquettishly set off by a slight +touch of powder on the hair, and a becoming Marie Antoinette style of +_neglige_, here pointedly addressed the traveller. + +"Sir Pilgrim," she said, "did you ever think of home when you had to spend +a Christmas in outlandish countries?" + +"Sometimes," answered "Jim" absently, his eyes wandering towards Miss +Houghton, who stood resting her head against a carved griffin on the tall +mantel-piece. + +She caught his glance, and said half saucily: + +"Now, if it was not too commonplace, I should claim a story--Christmas eve +is not complete without a story, at least so the books say." + +"If it were required, I know one that is not quite so hackneyed as the +grandmothers' ghosts and wicked ancestors we are often surfeited with at +Christmas," replied her friend quickly. The whole circle drew closer +around the fire, and imperiously demanded an explanation. + +"But that will be descending to commonplace," pleaded the traveller. + +"Who knows? It may turn out the reverse, when you have done," heedlessly +said Mrs. Burtleigh. + +"Well, if you will have it, here it is. Mind, now, I am not going to give +you a three-volume novel, full of padding, but just tell you one incident, +plain and unadorned. So do not look forward to anything thrilling or +sensational. + +"Some years ago, I was in Belgium, hastening home for Christmas, and spent +three or four days in Bruges. I will spare you a description of the grand +old city, and come to facts. I was just on the point of leaving, and had +got to the railway station in order to catch the tidal train for Ostend, +when a man suddenly and hurriedly came up to me, an old servant in faded +livery, who, without breathing a word, placed a note in my hand, and was +immediately lost to sight in the crowd. The waiting-room was dimly +lighted, but I could make out my own name, initials and all, on the +envelope. In my confusion, I hurried out of the station, and, stepping +into a small _hotellerie_, I opened the mysterious note. It was very +short: 'Come at once to No. 20 Rue Neuve.' The signature was in initials +only. The handwriting was small and undecided. I could hardly tell if it +were a man's or a woman's. I knew my way to the Rue Neuve, not a really +new street, but one of Bruges' most interesting old thoroughfares. No gas, +a narrow street, great gaunt _portes-cocheres_, and projecting windows on +both sides, the pavement uneven, and a young moon just showing her +crescent over the crazy-looking houses--such was the scene. I soon got to +No. 20. It was a large, dilapidated house, with every sign about it of +decayed grandeur and diminished wealth. Two large doors, heavily barred, +occupied the lower part of the wall; above were oriels and dormers whose +stone frames were tortured into weird half-human faces and impossible +foliage. No light anywhere, and for bell a long, hanging, ponderous weight +of iron. I pulled it, and a sepulchral sound answered the motion. I +waited, no one came; I thought I must have mistaken the number. Taking out +the letter, however, I made sure I was right. I pulled the bell again a +little louder, and heard footsteps slowly echoing on the stone flags of +the court within. _Sabots_ evidently; they made a rattle like dead men's +bones, I thought. A little _grille_, or tiny wicket, was opened, and an +old dame, shading her candle with one brown hand, peered suspiciously out. +Apparently dissatisfied, she closed the opening with a bang, muttering to +herself in Flemish. It was cold standing in the street, and, as the +portress of this mysterious No. 20 made no sign of opening the door for +me, I was very nearly getting angry, and going away in no amiable mood at +the unknown who had played me this too practical joke. Suddenly I heard +the _grille_ open again, very briskly this time, and a voice said in +tolerably good French: + +" 'Monsieur's name is--?' + +" 'Yes,' I replied rather impatiently. + +" 'Then will monsieur wait an instant, till I undo the bars?' A great +drawing of chains and bolts on the inside followed her speech, and a +little gate, three-quarters of a man's height, was opened in the massive +and immovable _porte-cochere_. I stepped quickly in, nearly overturning +the old dame's candlestick. She wore a full short petticoat of bright yet +not gaudy blue, and over it a large black circular cloak which covered all +but her clumsy sabots. Her cap was a miracle of neatness, and her brown +face, wrinkled but cheery, reminded me of S. Elizabeth in Raphael's +pictures. She said glibly and politely: + +" 'Will monsieur give himself the trouble to wait a moment?' + +"She disappeared with her candle, leaving me to peer round the courtyard, +where the moon's feeble rays were playing at hide-and-seek behind the many +projections. Almost as soon as she had left, she was with me again, +bidding me follow her up-stairs. 'My master is bed-ridden,' she explained. +'Since he got a wound in the war of independence against Holland, he has +not been able to move. Monsieur will take care, I hope, not to excite him; +he is nervous and irritable since his illness,' she added apologetically. + +"I confess I was rather disappointed. I had expected that everything would +happen as it does in a play--it had looked so like one hitherto. I thought +I was going to meet a woman--young, beautiful, in distress, perhaps in want +of a champion--but it was only a bed-ridden old man after all! Well, it +might lead to an act of charity, that true chivalry of the soul, higher +far than mere personal homage to accidental beauty. I entered a darkened +room, scantily and shabbily furnished, and the old woman laid the +candlestick on the table. The bed was in a corner near the fire; the +uneven _parquet_ floor was covered here and there with faded rugs, and +books and papers lay on a desk on the old man's bed. At first I could +hardly distinguish his features, but, as my eyes grew accustomed to the +gloom, I saw that he was a martial-looking man, with eyes so keen that +sickness could hardly dull them, and a bearing that indicated the stern +will, the clear intellect, and the lofty _bonhomie_ of an old Flemish +_gentilhomme_. He looked at me with curious and prolonged interest, then +said, in a voice full of bygone courtesy: + +" 'Will monsieur be seated? I have made no mistake in the name?' + +" 'No,' I answered, wondering what the question meant. + +" 'Then, monsieur, I have important news for you. The daughter of your +brother--' + +"I was already bewildered, and looked up. He continued, taking my surprise +for interest: 'The daughter of your poor brother is now a great heiress, +and I hold her fortune in trust for her--do not interrupt me,' he said, +eagerly preventing me from speaking, 'it tires me, and I must say all this +at once. I do not know if you knew of her being taken from her parents +when a child; of course you recollect that, after her mother's marriage +with your brother, there was a great fracas, and poor Marie's father +disinherited her at once. When the child was born--I was her god-father, by +the bye--her parents being in great poverty, I begged of the grandfather to +help and forgive them, the more so as your brother was making his poor +wife very unhappy. He refused, and, though he generally took my advice (he +was an an old college friend of mine), he was obstinate on this point. The +child grew, and the parents were on worse terms every year. Marie's father +held out against every inducement; your poor brother--forgive me, +monsieur!--fell into bad company, and made his home a perfect hell; his +wife was broken-hearted, but would not hear of a separation, and her only +anxiety was for her child. I proposed to her to take the responsibility +myself of putting the little one out of reach of this dreadful example of +a divided household, and she consented. The father stormed and raved when +he found the child was gone, but for once his wife opposed him, and +refused to let him know her whereabouts. Every year I interceded with the +grandfather, who consented to support the little girl, but would never +promise to leave her a competency at his death. One day, suddenly, your +poor brother died.' + +"I could not help starting; he saw my surprise. + +" 'Oh!' he resumed, 'did you not know how he died? Pardon me, monsieur, I +remember now that none of his English kin followed him to the grave, but I +had heard your name before.' + +" 'Monsieur,' I began, fearing that he might be led on to talk of family +secrets such as he might not wish to share with a stranger, 'you have told +me a strange tale; but allow me to undeceive you--' + +" 'How did you deceive me?' he asked impatiently, and I, remembering the +old dame's warning not to excite him, was puzzled how to act. In the +meanwhile, he went on. + +" '_Eh bien!_ The mother then went to England, to the school where her +child was, and saw her, but she did not long survive the wear and tear of +her wretched life, and the grief her husband's death caused her--for, poor +woman, she loved him, you see.' + +" 'Just like a woman, God bless her!' I murmured involuntarily. The old +man bent his head in cordial assent, but immediately resumed: 'Her father +blessed her before she died, and promised to care for the little girl. He +then drew up this will'--here he laid his hand on a thick packet on the +desk--'and entrusted it me. The child was nine years old then, and that was +fifteen years ago. She was to be told nothing till her twenty-first +birthday, and to be brought up in England, unconscious of anything save +that she was the child of honest parents. This went on for some years, and +then my old friend died. I continued to send regular remittances to the +little girl's temporary guardians; the bulk of the fortune I kept in the +house--there in that chest; perhaps it was a foolish fancy, but I did not +care to have it in a common bank. The war came and passed over the flower +of our land, and you see, monsieur, what it has left of my former self. +Well, after a time, five or six years ago, I ceased hearing from my little +ward; I was unable to get up and search for her; all that advertisements +and correspondence could do I did, and my chief endeavor was to find you. +I thought, if anything were likely, this was; she would go to you, her +father's step-brother, a different man, as I always heard her mother say, +from what her own unhappy parent had been.' + +" 'But,' I said, 'allow me to correct a mistake, monsieur; I never had a +step-brother, or a brother either.' + +" 'What!' the old man exclaimed nervously--'what do you mean? Do not joke +about such things. Your name is ----. Your hair is fair and wavy, your +figure tall and stalwart--that was the portrait of my poor little ward's +uncle, a different man, of different blood, as well as different name, +from her father.' + +" 'Do not tell me any names, monsieur,' I here insisted, 'until I have +told you who I am.' + +"He looked at me, still agitated, his brows knitted, and his lips +quivered. I told him my name, birth, country, profession, and assured him +that I, an only son, had never heard of any story like his. He seemed +thunderstruck, and could hardly take in the idea; but, recollecting +himself, said: 'Pardon me, monsieur, but I have, then, caused you great +inconvenience.' + +"His politeness now seemed overwhelming; he was in despair; he was +_desole_. What could he do? How could he apologize? I quieted him as best +I could by professing the utmost indifference about the delay, and begged +him, though I would solicit no further confidence, to consider my lips as +sealed, and, if he wished it, my services as entirely at his disposal. + +"He smiled curiously, then said: 'The best apology I can make is to tell +you the whole. Your name and initials misled me. Having heard that you +were in Bruges, I sent my messenger, who, it seems, only reached you as +you were on the point of starting for Ostend. I thought it was my ward's +uncle I had found, and, never having seen him, I could not tell if you +were the wrong man. I must continue to try and find him; if I fail--never +mind, I want to tell you her name. She is Philippa Duncombe, and, when I +saw her last, she was a dark child, quick, peculiar, and resolute. It is +so long ago that I could give you no idea of her exterior as she is now. I +think she must have suspected her dependence upon a supposed charity, and +have left school without the knowledge of any one. Anyhow, I must still +try to find your namesake; as for you, monsieur, I cannot thank you enough +for your forbearance.' + +"I left Bruges the next day, but, as you may suppose, the story of the +Baron Van Muyden never ceased to haunt me, and a few months after I was +glad and flattered to receive a letter from the old veteran saying that he +had now ascertained that my namesake, the child's half-uncle, had been +dead some years, and that he felt that to none other but myself would he +now wish to transfer the task of searching for the lost heiress. Of course +I accepted." + +Our friend paused here, and looked thoughtfully at the fire. The Yule-logs +were burning so merrily that a ruin seemed imminent, and while the silence +was yet unbroken a sound of distant singing came towards the house. It was +the gay company of Christmas carollers, singing their old, old ditties +through the frosty night, in commemoration of the Angel-songs heard by the +watching shepherds so many long centuries ago on the hills of Judaea. But +the company was too much absorbed in the traveller's tale to heed the +faint echo. Miss Houghton sat with her dark eyes fixed on the speaker, and +every vestige of color gone in the intensity of her excitement; Mrs. +Burtleigh, tapping the fender with her tiny gray satin slipper, seemed +strangely excited, and glanced uneasily at her cousin; the rest of us were +clasping our hands in our unrestrainable curiosity, and the provoking +narrator actually had the coolness to hold his peace! + +At last some one spoke, unable to control his goaded curiosity. + +"Well?" + +"Well?" repeated the artful "Jim." + +"Did you find her?" was the question that now broke from all lips, in a +gamut of increasing impatience. + +"I told you a story, as we agreed," he answered; "but, if I tell you the +_denoument_, we shall fall into what we wish to avoid--the commonplace." + +"Never mind, go on," was shouted on all sides. Miss Houghton was silent, +but she seemed to hang on his words. He had calculated on this emotion, +the wretch, and was making the most of his points! + +At last he resumed in a slow, absent way: + +"Yes, I accepted the search; I made it; I did all I could think of--but I +failed." + +The bomb had burst, but we all felt disappointed. This was _not_ +commonplace, not even enough to our minds. "He had cheated us," we cried. + +"I can only tell you the truth; remember this was all real, no got-up +Christmas tale, to end in a wedding, bell-ringing, and carol-singing. +Hark! do you hear the carollers outside?" + +No one spoke, and he went on, still meditatively: "I do not mean to give +it up, though." + +Miss Houghton, who, till now, had said nothing, opened a small locket +attached to one of her bracelets, and, keeping her eyes fixed on "Cousin +Jim," passed it to him, saying: + +"Did you ever see this face before?" + +He took it up, and looked puzzled. "No," he said; "why do you ask?" + +We all looked at her as if she had been a young lunatic, her interest in +the story being apparently of no very lasting nature. She then unfastened +a companion bracelet, the hanging locket of which she opened and handed to +her friend again. + +"This face you have seen?" she asked confidently. + +He started, and a rush of color came over his bronzed cheeks. + +"Yes, yes, that is the Baron Van Muyden--younger, but the same. And here is +his writing, 'To Marie Duncombe, her sincere and faithful friend.' Miss +Houghton?" + +"Yes," she answered calmly, as if he had asked her a question. + +"Then what I have been looking for for three years I have found tonight?" +he said, looking up at her, while we were all stupefied and silent. + +"And what I have never dreamt of," she answered in a low voice, "I have +suddenly learned to-night." + +The carollers were now close under the windows, and the words of a simple +chorus came clearly to our hearing-- + + + The snow lay on the ground, + The stars shone bright, + When Christ our Lord was born + On Christmas night. + + +After a few moments' silence, our curiosity, like water that has broken +through thin ice, flowed into words again. Many questions and a storm of +exclamations rang through the room, and the concussion was such that the +Yule-logs crashed in two, and broke into a race across the wide hearth, +splinters flying to the side, and sparks flying up the chimney. Then Miss +Houghton spoke with the marvellous self-possession of her nature. + +"I knew my own name and my mother's from the beginning," she said, "and +Monsieur Van Muyden, and the old house, and the Flemish _bonne_ in the Rue +Neuve. I remember them all when a child. I used often to sleep there, and +the night before I left Bruges I still remember playing with the baron's +old sword. I remember my mother coming to see me at school in England, a +convent-school, where I was very happy, and giving me these bracelets. She +told me never to part with them; she said she would not be with me long. +They told me of her death some months afterwards. The other portrait is +that of my grandfather, given by him to my mother on her _fete_ day, just +before her marriage, with a lock of his hair hidden behind. She always +wore it. M. Van Muyden's was done for her when I was born, and was meant +to be mine some day, as he was my god-father. The remittances he spoke of +used to come regularly; but, when I grew older, my pride rebelled (just as +he guessed, you say), and I hated to be dependent on those who, kind as +they were, were not my blood-relations. I ran away from school, and lived +by myself for a long time in poverty, yet not in absolute need, for I +worked for my bread, and worked hard. I had a great deal to go through +because I dared not refer any one to the school where I had lived. Mrs. +Burtleigh was very kind to me; I told her my story, as far as I knew it, +and somehow she found out that we were cousins through my father; so she +made me take her maiden name, Houghton, instead of the one I had adopted +before. She, of course, thought as I did, that the child of the +disinherited Marie Duncombe and the unhappy Englishman, my poor father, +could be naught but a beggar. She was kindness itself to me, and, though I +was too proud to accept all she offered me, I _did_ accept her +companionship and her home. Many little industries of my own, pleasant now +because no longer imperatively necessary, help me to support myself, as +far as pecuniary support can be called such; my _home_ has been a generous +gift--the gift I prize most." + +She stopped, and Mrs. Burtleigh looked up in impatient confusion, perhaps +conscious that her feelings and motives had been too mixed to warrant such +frank, unbounded gratitude. "Jim" said nothing, and Miss Houghton seemed +so calm that it was almost difficult to congratulate her. She was asked if +she had recognized herself from the first in the story. + +"Yes," she said; "I knew it must be me." + +"You took it coolly," some one ventured to observe. + +"I have seen too much of the _revers de la medaille_ to be much excited +about this," she said; but, if she was outwardly calm, her feelings were +certainly aroused, for her strange eyes had a far-away look, and the color +came and went in her cheek. + +Our friend seemed almost crestfallen; we thought he would have been +elated. Presently she said to him, giving him the bracelets: + +"You must take these to Bruges, and I think you had better take me, too." + +He stared silently at her. Just then the bell began to ring for the +midnight Mass. What followed Miss Houghton told us herself. + +The guests hurried to the chapel, rather glad to get rid of their +involuntary embarrassment. Those two remained behind alone. She was the +first to speak. + +"I think you are sorry you have found me." + +"Yes," he answered slowly, "sorry to find it is you: Miss Houghton was +poor, and Miss Duncombe is an heiress." + +"What matter! If you like, Miss Duncombe will give up the fortune, or, if +you want it, she will give it to you." + +He looked offended and puzzled. + +"You do not understand me," she said, half laughing: "Miss Duncombe will +let you settle everything for her, and say anything you like to Miss +Houghton." + +"You do not mean--" he began excitedly. + +"I do," she answered composedly. + +And they were engaged then and there. He wanted to be married before they +left England, but she refused, saying their wedding must be in a Flemish +cathedral, and their wedding breakfast in a Flemish house. And so it was; +and No. 20 Rue Neuve is now their headquarters, while the household of the +Belgian heiress is under the control of the old Flemish woman who once +shut that door in the face of the heiress' husband. + +M. Van Muyden is happy and contented, and a merrier Christmas day was +never spent at Aldred than the day of this unexpected recognition. + +Midnight Mass, Christmas-tree, school-feast, and all succeeded each other +to our perfect satisfaction; the health of the heroine of "Cousin Jim's" +tale was drunk in the "wassail-bowl" on Christmas night, and, as the +happy, excited, and tired Christmas party separated on the day following +New Year's day, every one agreed that it was a pity such things so very +seldom happened in real life. + + + + +Fleurange. + + +By Mrs. Craven, Author Of "A Sister's Story." + +Translated From The French, With Permission. + + + +Part IV.--The Immolation. + + +L. + + +While our travellers are completing the last stage of their journey, we +will precede them to St. Petersburg, and transport our readers for a short +time among scenes very different from those in which the incidents of our +story have hitherto occurred. + +The sentence of condemnation has been pronounced, and for some days the +names of the five persons who were to suffer death have been known and +privately circulated; privately, for the trials which excited universal +interest were seldom discussed in society. At that epoch (different in +this respect from a subsequent one, when liberty to say anything was +allowed in Russia before anywhere else), whether through prudence, +servility, or a fear resulting from the reign of the Emperor Paul, rather +than the one just ended, every one refrained with common accord from any +public expression of opinion whatever respecting the acts of the +government. Flattery itself was cautious not to excite discussions that +might give rise to criticism. The sovereign authority did not require +approval, but only to be obeyed, not judged. This was generally +understood, and the consequence was a general silence respecting forbidden +topics; whereas, on every other subject, as if by way of indemnification, +Russian wit was unrestrained, and so keen that the nation which prides +itself on being the most _spirituelle_ in the world found a rival, and +only consoled itself by saying Russian wit was borrowed. It is +incontestably certain that, though there were still some survivors of the +time of Catherine's reign, the French language was now so universally used +in society at St. Petersburg, that people of the highest rank, of both +sexes, spoke it to the exclusion of their own tongue, and wrote it with +such uncommon perfection as to enrich French literature; whereas they +would have been very much embarrassed if required to write the most +insignificant note, or even a mere business letter, in the Russian +language. + +There is no intention of discussing here the causes that led to this +engrafting of foreign habits, or of examining whether the Russians at that +period, in imitating the French, were always mindful that when others are +copied it should be from their best side. Still less would it be suitable +to consider whether the people who possess the faculty of assimilation to +such a degree are the most noble, the most energetic, and the most +sincere. This would lead us far beyond our modest limits, to which we +return by observing that, in spite of a splendor and magnificence almost +beyond conception, in spite of a tone of good taste and a courtesy now +almost extinct in France, in spite of hospitality on a grand scale, +characteristic of Slavonic countries, an indefinable restraint, felt by +all, prevailed in this attractive and brilliant circle, insinuating itself +everywhere like an invisible spectre, modifying and directing the current +of conversation--even the most trifling--and affecting not only the +intercourse of fashionable life, but the freedom of friendly converse and +the very outpourings of affectionate confidence. + +The Marquis Adelardi had had several opportunities of mingling in this +society, and found it congenial. It was a society in which he was +specially adapted to shine, for he, too, as we are aware, had passed his +life in a school of enforced silence; and, if he was formerly numbered +among those who revolt under such restrictions, he had now renounced all +efforts to break through them, and learned to turn his attention +elsewhere. He understood, better than any other foreigner at St. +Petersburg, how to navigate amid the shoals of conversation; to be +entertaining, agreeable, interesting, and even apparently bold without +ever causing embarrassment by an inadvertent remark; and if, in the ardor +of discourse, he approached a dangerous limit, the promptness with which +he read an unexpressed thought sufficed to make him change, with easy +nonchalance, the direction of a conversation in which he seemed to be the +most interested. + +He was not, however, disposed to talk with any one the day, or rather the +evening, we meet him again--this time at the Countess de G----'s, a woman of +superior intellect, already advanced in years, whose salon was one of the +most brilliant and most justly popular in St. Petersburg. Everything, +indeed, was calculated to facilitate social intercourse of every degree, +and, if there was a place where the bounds we have just referred to were +invisible, though never forgotten, it was here. What could not be said +aloud here, more than elsewhere, had a thousand facilities for private +utterance. On the other hand, for the benefit of prudent people who +preferred to say nothing at all, there were tables where they could play +whist or a game of chess. A piano at one end of the spacious salon was +always open to attract amateur performers, then more numerous than now, +when no one ventures, even in the family circle, to play without unusual +ability. + +In this friendly atmosphere, our marquis, generally so social, was silent +and preoccupied. Seated in a corner on a sofa where no one else was +sitting, he took no part in the general conversation. And yet, as the room +filled, and various groups were formed, here and there foreigners, and +especially the members of the diplomatic corps who frequented the house, +broached the great topic, and by degrees were heard on various sides the +names of Mouravieff, Ryleieff, Pestel, and two others likewise condemned +to death, as well as the names of those who were to be exiled--a punishment +almost as terrible. + +A young German attache, perceiving Adelardi, approached, and took a seat +beside him. "And Walden," said he in a low voice, "have you not had +permission to see him twice?" + +"Yes." + +"Have you seen him since he was informed of his fate?" + +"No; but I have reason to hope I shall obtain that favor." + +"He is not sorry, I imagine, to escape the gibbet." + +"Not the gibbet; but as to death, I am sure he thinks it preferable to the +fate that awaits him." + +"Poor fellow! but then, _qu'allait-il faire_?"-- + +"_Dans cette galere?_" interrupted the marquis with displeasure. "The +question is certainly apropos, and I would ask him if I could obtain a +reply that would avail him anything." + +"By the way," said the other, "I suppose you know who has just arrived at +St. Petersburg?" + +The marquis questioned him with a look of uncertainty, for he was +expecting more than one arrival that day. + +"Why, the fair Vera, who has returned to her post." + +"Really!" exclaimed Adelardi eagerly. "In that case perhaps we shall see +her here, for I am told she comes every evening when in the city." + +"Yes, but not till the empress dispenses with her services. It is nearly +ten o'clock. She will probably be here soon. Our agreeable hostess is one +of her relatives." + +"I was not aware of it. I know the Countess Vera but little. She was not +at court when I was here three years ago. I only saw her two or three +times at the Princess Lamianoff's, who was then here, but was not +presented to her." + +"At the Princess Catherine's? I believe you. It is said she wished Vera to +marry her son, who was indeed very assiduous in his attentions. The young +countess did not appear wholly insensible to them at that time. Do you +suppose she is still attached to him?" + +"I do not know." + +"Poor girl! I pity her, in that case, but it is not very probable she will +long be infatuated about a convict. Besides, she will find others to +console her, if she makes the effort." + +At that moment the piano was heard. The young diplomatist was requested to +take a part in a trio, and the music put an end to the conversation that +was becoming too ardent on every side, through the interest caused, not by +the offence, but by the misfortunes of the criminals. Every one knew them, +and several of them belonged to the same coterie which now scarcely dared +utter their names aloud. + +Adelardi remained in the same place, his head resting on his hand, more +absorbed than ever. He pretended to be listening to the music, and was +mechanically beating time. But he was thinking of something very +different, and only started from his reverie whenever the bell announced a +new arrival. Then he eagerly raised his head and looked towards the door, +but only to resume his former position at the entrance of each new +visitor--as if not the one whom he desired to see. + + +LI. + + +At the beginning of the same evening a different scene was occurring, not +far distant, in a salon still more elegant and magnificent than the one we +have just visited. It was not, however, intended, like that, for the +reception of visitors, but solely for the pleasure and comfort of her who +occupied it--a lady, as was evident, though there was no profusion of +useless trifles or superfluous ornaments. But it seemed as if her hands +could only touch what was rare and costly. Gold, silver, and precious +stones gleamed from every object destined to her constant use, from the +open _cassette_ that contained her work to the sumptuous bindings of the +books scattered over the embroidered covering of the table, or lying on a +small _etagere_ of malachite near a large arm-chair. This chair, intended +for reading, was also adapted to repose by the soft cushion covered with +the finest lace for the head of the reader to rest upon in an attitude at +once convenient and graceful. On all sides were flowers of every season in +as great abundance as if they grew in the open air at the usual time. They +gave out an exquisite odor, which, with perfumes more artificial but not +less sweet, embalmed the apartment. + +If, as some think, and we have already remarked, places resemble those who +inhabit them, the reader may be eager to know the owner of this. We will +endeavor to describe her as she appeared to those who knew her at the time +of our story: a woman of that age when beauty is in all its freshness; who +was truly said to have the dignity of a goddess and the form of a nymph; a +face sweet and pale, but with noble, delicate features; a complexion of +charming purity; a look and smile that were captivating; and the whole +picture was framed by hair floating in long curls over graceful white +shoulders. + +Such was the person who, at the sound of a manly and sonorous voice, +entered the salon just described, and threw herself into the arms of him +who had called her by name. Their first words were expressive of joy at +seeing each other again after a long separation of some hours, and for a +time they seemed only to think of each other. Their glances, their smiles +met, and it might have been supposed they had nothing in the world to do +but love each other and tell each other so. + +But the tone of conversation gradually changed. She grew earnest and he +became uneasy. He made an effort to reply to the questions she addressed +him and sometimes persistently repeated, but he appeared to do so +unwillingly, as if he yielded out of condescension, and with difficulty +resisted a desire of imposing silence on her. Once he rose and left her, +but she followed him, softly placed her arm within his, and, drawing +herself up to her utmost height (for, though she was quite tall, he was a +whole head taller) whispered in his ear. He bent down to listen, but while +she was talking a frightful change suddenly came over his face. She +perceived it, and looked at him with surprise and an anxiety she had never +felt before, as he leaned against the mantel-piece and remained there +grave and silent with folded arms. + +He was then twenty-nine years old, and in the brilliancy of that manly +beauty which suffering, care, the violent passions of a later age, and +time itself, scarcely altered. Besides his lofty, noble stature, and +features so regular that no sculptor could idealize them, there was a +charm in the expression of his face and the tone of his voice which +inspired attachment as well as admiration. Hitherto resentment or anger +had seldom been known to flash from his eyes or cause his voice to +tremble, and perhaps this was the first time she had ever seen his blue +eyes light up with so threatening a gleam. She did not dare persist in her +request, but waited for him to break the silence. By degrees his ominous +aspect gave place to profound and bitter melancholy. "Ah!" said he at +length, "this is a sad beginning!" Then after a short silence, he looked +around as he continued: "Cherished home! we shall perhaps often regret the +happy days passed here!"-- + +"We will not leave it," replied she with a quickness that betrayed how +unused she was to contradiction. "We will keep it as it is, and always +come back to it. Our _grand_ days shall be passed, if need be, in the +gloomy Winter Palace, but our _happiest_ days shall be spent here, and +they shall be in the future what they have been in the past." + +He shook his head: "The past was ours: the future does not belong to us. +We must henceforth devote ourselves to our great country, and sacrifice +all--all! God requires it of us." + +"All!" repeated she with alarm. "What! even happiness and mutual +confidence? Oh! no, that portion of the past nothing shall infringe upon! +And there is still another right I shall never renounce--that of imploring +favor and pardon for the guilty." She hesitated, and then went on, +clasping her hands and fixing her eyes on him with a supplicating +expression: "Will you no longer listen to me?" + +"Always in favor of the unfortunate, but never for the ungrateful!" + +He frowned as he said these words, and turned towards the door, but she +stopped him. + +She felt it would not do to persist, and with the _adresse_ which is the +lawful diplomacy of love, she at once changed the subject, and obliged him +to listen while she discussed projects she knew he had at heart. She spoke +of herself, of him, of the happy past, their brilliant future, of a +thousand things, and indeed of everything except her whispered petition +which she now wished him to forget. + +The reader has already discovered himself to be in the presence of the +young emperor and empress, whose unexpected accession took place in the +midst of a storm. They were in the habit of meeting thus in the palace +where they lived during the happy days of their early married life, when +no thought of the throne disturbed their youthful love!(188) Both +hesitated a long time about leaving this charming palace for the sovereign +residence, and, when constrained to do so by the necessity of their +position, they kept it as it was, without allowing anything to be changed, +as a witness of the days that, in spite of the imperial purple, they +continued to call the happiest of their life. + +After the empress was left alone, she remained thoughtful a moment, then, +approaching the malachite _etagere_, hastily rang a small gold bell. A +door concealed beneath the hangings instantly opened, and a young girl +appeared. She stopped without speaking, awaiting an order or some +observation. But there was nothing in her attitude to indicate the +timidity that might have been expected in a maid of honor answering the +bell of her sovereign. On the contrary, there was a majestic beauty and an +air about her which might have seemed haughty had it not been modified +when she spoke. Then, there was a caressing glance in her eyes, though +they sometimes sparkled as if betraying more passion than tenderness; but +her fine form, her black eyes, her thick fair hair, and the delicacy of +her complexion, rendered her at once striking and imposing. She waited +some moments in silence--then, seeing her mistress did not address her, she +advanced and spoke first: "Did your majesty venture to plead his cause?" +said she. + +The empress started from her reverie and sadly shook her head. "My poor +Vera," she replied, "you must renounce all hope." + +The young girl turned pale. "Renounce all hope!" exclaimed she. "O madame! +can that be your advice? Can it be there is no hope?" + +The empress, without replying, seated herself in her arm-chair, took a +book from the _etagere_, and began turning over the leaves as if she +wished to put an end to the conversation. Vera's eyes flashed for an +instant, and it was with difficulty she repressed an explosion of grief or +irritation. She remained silent, however, and stood beside the table +absently plucking the petals from the flowers in a crystal vase before +her. + +The empress meanwhile kept her eyes fastened on her book, but presently +she raised them and looked at the clock. "I do not need you any longer, +Vera. It is ten o'clock. You are going to the Countess G----'s this evening, +I think." + +"Yes, madame, if your majesty has no further orders to give me." + +"No, I have nothing more.--Ah! I forgot. Open that drawer," pointing to the +other end of the apartment. "You will find a letter there." + +Vera obeyed, and brought the letter to her mistress. + +"Be sure to forward it to the address," said the latter. "It is the +permission for the Princess ---- to accompany her husband to Siberia. I am +happy to be able to render that heroic woman this sad service. But she is +not the only one." + +"What a fate those women are bringing on themselves!" said Vera, +shuddering with horror. + +"Yes, it is indeed fearful," said the empress; "but I admire them, and +will serve them every way in my power." + +Vera was silent, and after a moment, seeing the empress had nothing more +to say, she gravely approached to take leave of her. As she bent down to +kiss her hand, the empress pressed her lips to her forehead. + +"Come, Vera," said she, "look a little more cheerful, I beg you. To +satisfy you, I promise to make one more effort. But I think, my dear, you +are very generous to express so much anxiety about him, for it is not the +emperor alone who has reason to call him ungrateful!" + +At this, Vera's face crimsoned, and she drew herself up at once. "Your +majesty has a right to say anything to me," said she in a trembling voice, +"but this right has generally been used with kindness." + +"Whereas you now find me cruel. Well, be it so; we will let the subject +drop. Good-night, and without any ill-feeling, my dear." + +She dismissed her maid of honor with a motion of the head. Vera bowed, and +without another word left the room. + + +LII. + + +"The Countess Vera de Liningen!" + +At this name the Marquis Adelardi looked up, but this time he did not +resume his former attitude, for the person he had so impatiently awaited +at last appeared. It was she! The cause of this impatience, if we would +know it, was a resolution to make an effort that evening in behalf of his +friend through the Countess Vera, but it was first indispensable to be +sure of her feelings towards him. He wondered if he should discover any +traces of the ill-concealed passion she once manifested for George, or if +time and indignation, aided by the influence of the court, had done their +work? Or had his inconstancy inspired an indifference which had not been +disarmed by his misfortunes? All this Adelardi flattered himself he should +discover in a single conversation, provided she consented to an interview. +As to any fear of her eluding his penetration, he had too good an opinion +of himself in that respect. + +As soon as she appeared, he looked at her with lively interest, and an +attention which he indulged in without scruple. Having seen her only twice +some years before, without speaking to her, he thought she would not +recognize him till he was formally presented. + +Vera crossed the salon without embarrassment, and with the ease and grace +of a person accustomed to high life and the sensation she produced. She +was dressed in black, the court, and even the citizens, still wearing +mourning for the Emperor Alexander. This made the dazzling whiteness of +her complexion and her golden hair the more striking, and suited her form +of perfect symmetry, though noble rather than slender. The only ornament +she wore was a knot of blue ribbon on her left shoulder, to which was +attached the _chiffre_ of diamonds (her badge as maid of honor), in which +were woven together the initials of the three empresses: Alexandrine, then +reigning; Mary, the empress-mother; and Elizabeth, Alexander's +inconsolable widow, who was so soon to follow him to the tomb. + +Recent emotion still flushed the young girl's cheeks, and the tears of +wounded pride, hastily wiped away, gave her a mingled expression of +melancholy and haughtiness which at once inspired a desire to pity and a +fear of offending her. + +She first approached the table where the lady of the house was playing +whist. The latter raised her eyes, and merely smiled as she gave her a +friendly nod of the head. Vera, without offering her hand, bowed, and made +a salutation at once graceful and respectful, which was customary in that +country when one lady is much younger than the other; she pressed her lips +to the edge of the black lace shawl which the elderly lady wore; then she +remained standing a moment near the card-table, looking around the room. +There was in this look neither eagerness, nor curiosity, nor coquetry: it +was a mere survey of the room and its occupants, and it was easy to see +she was seeking no one and expecting no one. She only replied to the +salutations addressed her by a slight inclination of the head, sometimes +by a smile. + +Presently, seeing a vacant seat, she went to take possession of it, and +thus found herself near the _canape_ occupied by the Marquis Adelardi. She +was scarcely seated when the young diplomatist who had so recently spoken +of her approached with lively eagerness, to which she only responded by a +look of indifference and giving him two fingers of her gloved hand. + +The Marquis Adelardi took advantage of this favorable opportunity to +approach the young German and beg to be presented to the Countess Vera. +Adelardi's name was no sooner pronounced than it awoke a remembrance, at +first vague, then distinct enough to make her blush. This lively +embarrassment was quite evident for a moment. She bowed without speaking +as he was presented, and, turning her face immediately away, continued for +some moments to converse with the other, but only long enough to recover +from her confusion. She speedily put an end to this trifling conversation, +and, suddenly turning towards Adelardi, she said, without any trace of her +recent embarrassment: "I remember very well, Monsieur le Marquis, your +visit at St. Petersburg three years ago, but I was so young then you had +probably forgotten me." + +Adelardi replied, as he would have done in any case, but in this instance +with truth, that such a supposition was inadmissible. + +"And as for me," he continued, "never having had the honor of a personal +acquaintance, I necessarily thought myself wholly unknown to you." + +"Your friends have so often spoken of you that your name was familiar, but +your features, I acknowledge, were somewhat effaced from my memory." + +"Yours naturally clung to mine. Besides, I also heard you constantly +spoken of." + +There was a moment's silence. + +"Have you seen the Princess Catherine lately?" said she. + +"No, I left Florence at the beginning of December." + +"For St. Petersburg?" + +"Yes." + +"And have you been here ever since?" + +"Yes. You were absent at my arrival, otherwise I should not have waited +till the present time to solicit the favor I have just obtained." + +There was another momentary pause. The young girl looked around, and +continued, in a lower tone: "You were here, then, the twenty-fourth of +December?" + +"I was." + +She hesitated an instant, then, lowering her voice still more, said: "And +have you seen your friend since that fatal day?" + +"Yes, and I hope to see him once more--alas! for the last time." + +Vera bit her lips, quivering with agitation, but soon resumed, with a +coolness that surprised and, for a moment, disconcerted the marquis: + +"I formerly knew Count George de Walden, but for some time had lost sight +of him. Nevertheless, his sentence fills me with horror, and I would do +anything in the world to deliver him from it--him and the rest." + +"Him and the rest? One as soon as the other?" + +"One as soon as the other; they all excite my pity. I wish the emperor +would pardon them all." Her voice by no means accorded with her words; but +Adelardi continued as if he did not perceive it: + +"Pardon them all! That would be chimerical. But there are some who are +deserving of clemency." + +"The emperor is more lenient towards inferior criminals than to those who, +after being loaded with favors, forget his kindness." + +"And yet there may be extenuating circumstances even in some cases of that +number." + +"Do you know of any that would be of any avail to Count George?" said she +eagerly. + +"Not quite so loud; we may be overheard." + +"Yes; you are right," she said, resuming her former tone. "Let us change +our seats; we look as if we were plotting something here, and should avoid +attracting attention. Let us examine the albums on yonder table. There we +can continue our conversation with less restraint." + +"Well," continued she, as soon as they had effected the change proposed, +and were seated before the albums, which they pretended to be examining +carefully. + +"Well," replied Adelardi, "what I mean is that many things of no avail in +the eye of the law might not be without influence over him who is head of +the law." + +And while she was listening with interest, unintentionally betrayed by her +eager, agitated expression, her glowing cheeks, and parted lips, Adelardi +pleaded his friend's cause, relating what we have already learned +respecting his apparent, rather than real, complicity, his ignorance of +the actual designs of the conspirators, and the circumstances that led to +his presence among the insurgents on the twenty-fourth of December. In +short, he gave her all the details of which she had been totally ignorant, +having only heard, during her absence, of George's offence and the +sentence he had incurred. + +"And the emperor," said she eagerly, "does he know it was he who saved his +brother's life that dreadful day?" + +"I doubt it; there were only two witnesses who could attest it. One of +these did not come forward, for fear of compromising himself; the other +was exceptionable." + +"Who was the other?" + +"A man named Fabiano Dini, George's secretary; but a great culprit, not +considered worthy of credit. He told the truth, however, ardently hoping +his testimony might save his master." + +"He is doubtless condemned to the same fate?" + +"Yes, but to a more severe one; his sentence is for life, whereas George's +is only for twenty-five years." + +"Only twenty-five years!" repeated she, with a shudder. + +"Yes, it is horrible; it is worse than death! And George will envy the +wretch who was the prime cause of his misfortune, for Dini, seriously +wounded on the twenty-fourth of December, will probably die before the sad +day fixed for their departure." + +They were now interrupted by something not foreign to the subject of their +discourse. A lady, unpretendingly clad, who till now had remained aloof, +approached the young maid of honor, and, with a faltering, respectful +tone, asked if the petition addressed his imperial majesty had been +granted. + +"Yes," said Vera eagerly. "Permission has been accorded. The Princess ---- +received it this very hour. I left it myself at her door, on my way here." + +She kindly extended her hand to the person who addressed her. The latter +bent down as if to kiss it, but Vera prevented it by cordially embracing +her. + +"Behold a true, faithful friend in misfortune," said she, as the other +left them. "She herself is capable of going to Siberia with her whose +_dame de compagnie_ she was in happier days. But then, the Princess ---- has +in her misfortunes the happiness of feeling herself beloved and respected +by all." + +"Assuredly," said Adelardi. "She is really an admirable woman." + +"So admirable that she is beyond my comprehension." + +"How so?" + +"I do not understand how a person can resolve on the course she wishes to +pursue--she and the others." + +"What!" said Adelardi, looking at her with surprise. "You do not +understand how a woman can thus wholly devote herself to the man--the +husband whom she loves." + +Vera shook her head. "No," said she. "I do not wish to appear better than +I am. If I were in such a position, if I had the misfortune of loving one +of those convicts, he might rely on my exertions to obtain his pardon, and +to use every means in my power to that end. But, as to sharing his lot and +following him to Siberia, no, my dear marquis, I frankly acknowledge that +is a proof of devoted affection I feel wholly incapable of." + +Another form at this moment passed before the marquis' mental vision, +beside which the beauty actually before him paled, and slightly modified +the lively admiration with which he regarded her. + +"Well," said he, after a moment's reflection, "I know one of these +convicts for whom a woman--a young lady of about your age--is ready to give +a still greater proof of devotion than the Princess ----, for she is not his +wife. She is only--his betrothed, and wishes to marry him on purpose to +share his fate." + +"That is something entirely original," said Vera. + +"To do that," pursued Adelardi, "she has a double favor to obtain, and is +coming to St. Petersburg for that purpose. She will be here to-morrow, or, +at the latest, in a few days. I have been commissioned to solicit for her +an audience of the empress. Can I do so through your instrumentality?" + +"Certainly. All these requests pass through my hands, and none have been +rejected. But this is really the most singular case that has occurred." +She drew her tablets and a pencil from her pocket. "The name of your +_protegee_?" said she. + +Adelardi hesitated an instant, then, noting a little anxiously the effect +produced, said: + +"Her name is--Fleurange d'Yves." He was relieved to hear the maid of honor +say, after carefully writing down the name: + +"Fleurange! that is a very singular name, and one I never heard before. +To-morrow," continued she, rising, and returning the tablets to her +pocket, "before noon you shall have a reply. _Au revoir_, Monsieur le +Marquis." + +As she gave him her hand, she added in a low tone: "I thank you for all +your information, and will endeavor to avail myself of it. If you see +Count George, tell him--but no, tell him nothing. If by the merest chance I +succeed, it will be time enough then to tell him what he owes to my +efforts. If I do not--it will be better for him to remain ignorant of my +failure." + +The Marquis Adelardi returned home greatly preoccupied, and absently took +up two letters lying on the table. But after opening them, he successively +read them with equal interest. First, he looked at one of the signatures: +"Clement Dornthal? He is the cousin who accompanies the fair traveller. +They have arrived, then.--Well, the end of the drama is approaching: we +must all endeavor to play our parts with prudence. Mine is not the +easiest!" + +He opened the other note, and hastily ran over it. "Thursday! I shall see +him on Thursday at two o'clock. Poor George! it will be a sad meeting, in +spite of the news I have to surprise and console him." + +He had the satisfaction of learning by this note that, thanks to the +powerful influence brought to bear on the occasion, he would be permitted +to pass an hour with the prisoner every day during the week that yet +remained before the sad train of exiles would set forth. + +"Poor George!" he again repeated. "Can it be he has really come to +this?--But who knows what may yet take place? If the proverb, 'What woman +wills, God wills,' is true, all hope is not lost, for here are two women +evidently with the will to aid him, and energetic enough to overrule the +most adverse destiny. Two--doubtless one too many, and I have been rather +bold to risk a fearful collision. But things have come to such a point +that they can hardly be worse. If the fair Vera succeeds, it is George's +affair to get out of the complication of gratitude to her who has saved +him, and the one ready to follow him. But if she fails, as seems only too +probable, then the case will be very simple: our charming heroine will +have no rival to fear." + + +LIV. + + +After the succession of disagreeable surprises Mademoiselle Josephine had +experienced during her painful journey, another of a different nature, but +the greatest of all, awaited her at the end. Her imagination, we are +aware, never furnished her with anything beyond the strictest necessity. +It was only with difficulty she succeeded in comprehending that her dear +Gabrielle had decided to marry a stranger condemned to the galleys, and +this inconceivable idea seemed to have penetrated her mind to the +exclusion of all others. She was going to join a prisoner, and from the +day of her departure from Heidelberg she looked upon herself as on the way +to a dungeon. When therefore she heard the words, "We have arrived!" and +their sledge passed under the arch of an immense _porte cochere_, she +shivered with fear. It was, consequently, with a sort of stupefaction she +found herself in a brilliantly lighted vestibule, whence a broad staircase +led to a fine long gallery opening into one salon after another, at the +end of which our travellers were ushered into a dining-room, where supper +was awaiting them of a quality to which mademoiselle was quite as +unaccustomed as to the splendor with which it was served. She looked +around with mute surprise, hardly daring touch the dishes before her, and +looking at her two companions with an interrogative expression of the +greatest perplexity. But they both seemed affected and preoccupied to such +a degree as not to notice what was passing around them, and mademoiselle, +faithful to her habits, forbore questioning them for the moment. + +The repast was made in silence; after which Clement wrote a note which she +heard him ask a valet to send to _M. le Marquis_. Then the two ladies were +conducted to the apartments prepared for them. Fleurange embraced her +companion and wished her good-night, and Mademoiselle Josephine was left +alone in a chamber surpassing any she had ever seen, with large mirrors +around her, in which for the first time in her life she saw herself from +head to foot. There was also a bed _a baldaquin_, which she scarcely dared +think destined for her modest person, but in which at length she extended +herself with a respect that for a long time troubled her repose. Never had +the excellent Josephine found herself so completely out of her element. +She wondered if it was really herself beneath those curtains of silk, and, +when at last she fell asleep, it was to dream that Gabrielle, splendidly +apparelled, was mounting a throne, and she, Mademoiselle Josephine, +arrayed in a similar manner, was at her side. Her disturbed slumbers were +not of long duration. Before day she was up, and impatiently waiting for +the hour when she could leave her fine chamber and sally forth to explore +this strange dwelling which the night before seemed so much like a fairy +palace. + +This impression was not lessened by the light of day. The rooms were +really splendid, and furnished with the taste the Princess Catherine +everywhere displayed, and which was as carefully consulted in the house +where she only spent three months of the year, as in her palace at +Florence, which she made her home. Mademoiselle went from one room to +another in a state of continually increasing admiration, and, while thus +walking about, she found everywhere the same mild temperature, which +seemed something marvellous, for all the doors were open, and not only +were there no fires to be seen, but no glass or even sashes in the +windows. Apparently there was nothing to screen her from the frosty air +without--freezing indeed, for on their arrival at St. Petersburg the +thermometer was down to fifteen or sixteen degrees, and yet--what was the +secret of this wonderful fact? She was not cold in the least, though the +sight of the large windows made her shiver, and she only ventured to stand +at a distance and look at the view without. + +She beheld a vast plain covered with snow, with carriage-ways in every +direction, bordered with branches of fir. Vehicles of all kinds were +crossing to and fro. Yonder was a succession of vast buildings, and +farther off were the gloomy walls of a fortress flanked by a church whose +gilded spire glittered in the winter sun--a sun radiant, but without +warmth; which imparted a dazzling brilliancy to the snow, but whose +deceptive light, far from alleviating the severity of the season, was, on +the contrary, the surest sign of its merciless rigor. + +While thus admiring and wondering at everything, Mademoiselle came to the +last salon of the _enfilade_, where, before one of the large windows, she +perceived Fleurange motionless and absorbed in such profound reverie that +she did not notice her approach. + +"Ah! Gabrielle, here you are! God be praised! I was lost, but no longer +feel so, now I have found you. But, for pity's sake! what are you doing at +that open window?" + +At this, Fleurange turned around with a smile. "Open! my dear +mademoiselle? We should not be alive long, clad as we are." + +"I really do not understand why I do not feel the cold, and yet--" + +Fleurange motioned for her to approach (for the old lady still kept at a +respectful distance from the dangerous openings), and made her touch the +thick glass, one pane of which composed the window--a luxury at that time +peculiar to St. Petersburg, and which often deceived eyes more experienced +than those of the simple Josephine. Reassured, but more and more amazed, +she remained beside Fleurange at the window, profiting by the occasion to +ask all the questions hitherto repressed. Everything was gradually +explained to her, and she comprehended that this magnificent house +belonged to Count George's mother. + +"And he?" she ventured to say when Fleurange had answered all the +questions,--"he, Gabrielle, where is he?" + +"He!" repeated Fleurange, as a flush rose to her cheeks and her eyes +filled with tears--"he is there: there, mademoiselle, within the walls of +the fortress before us!" + +Poor Josephine started with surprise. "Pardon me!" said she. "If I had +known that, I should not have mentioned him." + +"Why, mademoiselle?--The sight of those walls does not make me afraid! On +the contrary, I long to enter them. I long to leave all this splendor +which separates me from him as it did before! O my dear friend! you must +not pity me the day I am united to him!" + +The language of passion always had a strange effect on this elderly +maiden, but she only allowed herself to reply meekly: + +"Well, my dear child, we will not pity you! It is Clement and I who will +need pity when that day comes, and you must not be vexed if--" And in spite +of herself, great tears filled her eyes, which she promptly wiped away. + +She remained silent for some moments, then spoke of something else, +feeling if she resumed the subject it would speedily lead to an explosion +of grief which she resolved to restrain that she might not afflict her +young friend. + +"What wide plain is that between the quay and the fortress?" she soon +continued. + +"That is the Neva," replied Fleurange, smiling. + +"The Neva?" + +"Yes, the river that runs through the city." + +"The river?" repeated Mademoiselle Josephine. "Come, Gabrielle, I know I +am very ignorant of everything relating to foreign countries, but still, +not to such a degree as to believe that. A river!--when I see with my own +eyes hundreds of carriages on it, sledges and chariots of all kinds, going +in every direction, and houses and sheds!--And what are those two great +mountains I see yonder?" + +"They are ice-hills, such as they have in Russia, mademoiselle, and which +were imitated in wood three years ago at Paris. Do you remember? I am told +these are only erected temporarily during the carnival." + +"Very well; but what you have said does not prove that to be the river, +and that you are right." + +"It seems incredible, I know, but everything we see there now will +disappear in the spring, leaving only a broad stream between that fine +granite quay and the fortress. But I confess I can scarcely realize it +myself, never having seen it." + +Clement now appeared. He looked pale and disposed to be silent, and gave +every indication of having passed a no less restless night than +Mademoiselle Josephine, though for a different reason. After exchanging +some words with his companions, his eyes glanced over the broad river, +and, like those of Fleurange, fastened on the gloomy walls of the +fortress. It was a strange chance that led them all there precisely +opposite. Clement gazed at the place with despair, jealousy, and horror, +but still was unable to turn his eyes away. + +"There, then, is the end," thought he; "for her, the end desired: for me, +the grave of my youth! Yes, when she once enters those walls, all will be +at an end for me, were I to live beyond the usual period. My life will be +ended at twenty years of age!"-- + +These reflections and others of the same nature were not calculated to +make Clement very agreeable that morning. He was not only serious, which +often happened, but, contrary to his habit, he was gloomy and taciturn. +Their breakfast was despatched in silence, after which it was only by a +great effort he gradually succeeded in regaining his usual manner. + +"Cousin Gabrielle," said he then, "I appear morose this morning, I am +aware, and I beg your pardon. But I am only sad, I assure you--sad in view +of what is approaching. This is pardonable, I hope," continued he, taking +Mademoiselle Josephine's hand; "you will not require us, will you, to +leave you without regret?" + +"That is what I said to her a moment ago," said poor Josephine, wiping +away her tears. "She says she is happy; that she longs to be there," +casting a glance across the river. "We only desire her happiness, I am +sure; but then for us--" + +"Yes," said Clement, with a sad smile of bitterness, "for us the few days +to come will not be very happy, and we really have reason to be sad. As +for me, Gabrielle, I also regret those just ended; for in this new sphere +my _role_ is at an end. I am now to be for ever deprived of the pleasure +of being useful to you in any way." + +He was still speaking when the Marquis Adelardi was announced; and he +hastily rose. + +"Stay, Clement," said Fleurange eagerly--"stay. I wish this excellent +friend to become acquainted with you." + +"I also wish to make his acquaintance, but not now. Tell him that to- +morrow, yes, to-morrow morning--or even this evening, if he will receive +me, I will call at his residence. Do not detain me now." + +And before the marquis appeared he was gone. He felt he should be _de +trop_ at this interview of such deep import to Fleurange, for such it was. +To see George's friend once more, his confidential friend--him who at this +solemn period had become the intermediary authorized by his mother!--There +was great reason to be agitated at such a thought. Besides, Adelardi had +always inspired her with sympathy and confidence, and in this new sphere +she realized how beneficial his experience would be, for Clement was right +in saying he could no longer be of any use. He was as ignorant as she of +the habits and usages of the court. And yet, to obey the Princess +Catherine's instructions, her first object must be to obtain an audience +of the empress--a formidable prospect, which frightened her a thousand +times more than all that afterwards awaited her. She therefore received +the marquis with such childlike confidence as to redouble the regard he +had always felt for her. There was the same beauty, the same simplicity +about her, and, above all, the charm most attractive to eyes as _blases_ +as his--of resembling no one else in the world! The extraordinary courage +she showed herself capable of made him appreciate the more that which she +manifested in separating from George, and revealed to him the whole extent +of the sacrifice then made with so much firmness. + +The mission confided to Adelardi assumed, therefore, a graver aspect in +his eyes than before, and he was for an instant tempted to reproach +himself for having, the night previous, invoked the aid of a rival in +George's behalf, who might prove an enemy to the charming girl before him. +On all accounts, however, he could not regret this last effort for his +friend's welfare. In case Vera failed, and by chance was afterwards +tempted to display any ill-will at another's performing an act of +devotedness she declared herself incapable of, he had taken some +precautions to defeat her, and flattered himself the favor would be +obtained before she discovered by whom it was implored. + +Meanwhile, the maid of honor was punctual. The marquis had already +received her reply, and now placed it in his young friend's hands. + +"Your request is granted: Mademoiselle Fleurange d'Yves will be received +by her majesty on Thursday, at two o'clock. + +V. L." + +"The day after to-morrow!" said Fleurange with emotion. Then, blushing as +she continued: "But how happens it that the name which I have not borne +for so long occurs in this note?" + +"It is yours, is it not?" replied the marquis evasively. + +"Yes, it is mine, but--" she stopped. A particular remembrance was now +associated with the name of Fleurange. No one had called her so but George +for more than three years. And the day for ever graven on her memory, he +told her he should keep that name for himself--himself alone. She regretted +to find it here written by a strange hand, and felt an involuntary +contraction of the heart. + +"I should have preferred the request made in the name I generally bear." + +"Pardon me. I am to blame in this," said Adelardi. "I supposed it a matter +of indifference. I thought the name of Fleurange would particularly +attract the attention of her whose favor you seek, and remain more surely +in her memory." + +This was merely an excuse which occurred to him in reply to a question he +had not anticipated. His real motive was to conceal from the maid of honor +another name perhaps more familiar, and which might be connected in her +mind with some prejudice injurious to the success of the petition of which +she was the intermediary. + +To Be Continued. + + + + +Sayings. + + +"We serve God by climbing up to heaven from virtue to virtue; we serve +Satan by descending into hell from vice to vice."--_S. Bonaventura._ + +He who reflects upon death has already cut short the evil habit of +talkativeness; and he who has received the gift of inward and spiritual +tears, shuns it as he would fire.--_S. John Climacus._ + +Spiritual blessings attained by much prayer and labor are solid and +durable.--_Ibid._ + +The first degree of interior peace is to banish from us all the noise and +commotion created by the passions, which disturb the profound tranquillity +of the heart. The last and most excellent degree is to stand in no fear of +this disturbance, and to be perfectly insensible to its +excitement.--_Ibid._ + +The heart of the meek is the throne on which the Lord reposes.--_Ibid._ + +The day will belong to him who is first in possession.--_Ibid._ + + + + +Prince Von Bismarck And The Interview Of The Three Emperors. + + +By M. Adolphe Dechamps, Min. D'etat + +From La Revue Generale De Bruxelles. + + + +MY DEAR FRIEND: You question me about the events which during the past two +years have been subverting Europe, and you in particular ask me what I +think of the meeting of the three emperors at Berlin, and of the policy of +von Bismarck. + +Your first inquiry is too general for me to take up in a letter which I +wish to avoid making too long, but in a work which I am writing at present +I will endeavor to do so to the extent of my ability. About the year 1849, +I went to work on an _Etude sur la France_, out of which, during the +second Empire, I put forth three separate publications.(189) In these I +followed the course of Napoleon III., both in the successes and in the +blunders which brought about his fall; and now in the midst of the +obscurity of general politics which thickens more and more from day to +day, and wherein the attentive observer perceives more sinister flashes +than gleams of sunshine, I am about to complete the main work which I +began more than twenty years ago. + +In 1859, I sent my first publication on the _Second Empire_ to the aged +Prince von Metternich, who honored me with his friendship, and asked him +for his views about the condition of Europe, which was then on the eve of +being profoundly changed by the war in Italy. + +The following is an extract from the interesting reply which I received +from him only a short time before his death: "After having been a witness +and spectator of the catastrophes which burst forth between the years 1789 +and 1795, in the latter one I made my first entry into the higher walks of +the political world, and 1801 was the first year of my diplomatic career. +I consequently cannot be in ignorance of anything that has taken place +since the two remote epochs above mentioned. Now, am I thereby in advance +of other living men? Can I consider myself capable of drawing up a +prognostication of what will happen even so far only as regards the most +immediate future? Certainly not! But, nevertheless, one thing I know I can +do, I can venture to affirm that not during the course of the last seven +decades has there been a single moment when the elements which make up +_social existence_ have found themselves plunged in so general a struggle +as they are now." + +Since the prince thus wrote me, we have had the campaign of Italy against +Austria in 1859; the war in Germany which ended in Sadowa; the civil war +in the United States of N. A.; the colossal war of 1870; the astounding +fall of the second French Empire; the rule of the Commune, and the +conflagration in Paris; a Republican government in France; the setting up +of the Empire of Germany; the Italian Revolution in Rome, which keeps the +Pope a captive in the Vatican and all the church in mourning; we have had +Spain contended for by three dynasties and a prey to anarchy and civil +war; and we have a socialistic revolution stirring up everywhere the +laboring masses and unsettling the deepest foundations of the society of +our day! + +What would old Prince von Metternich say if, having before him the immense +upheaving of which we are witnesses, he could be now called upon to reply +to the general inquiry which you have put to me? He would decline giving +an opinion; he would refuse to make any predictions; he would confine +himself to the expression of deeper fears, because of the general and +formidable struggle now raging between all the elements which make up the +very life of society. I will do just as he would, and for a hundredfold +more reasons than he could have. I feel, as do all those who have any +political instinct, that decisive and dreadful events are drawing nigh; +though I cannot yet distinctly perceive them, I feel them, as one does the +approach of a storm, from the heaviness of the air before seeing the +lightning flash or hearing the thunder roll. + +I lay aside, then, your general inquiry, and take up the second one, which +is more precise, and which relates to the meeting at Berlin and to the +policy of von Bismarck. + +It is almost needless for me to mention that, retired as I have been for a +long time from politics, any opinions which I may express are merely +individual ones, that I alone am responsible for them, and that nobody can +claim a right to extend that responsibility to my friends, and still less +to the political party which I have had the honor of serving. I make this +express reservation. + +What is, then, the meaning, the character, and the bearing of the meeting +of the three emperors? Is it a congress? Is it an alliance? + +It is neither one nor the other, and this has been carefully proclaimed. +It is not an _European_ congress, since England and France were not +present at it, the one having been left aside, and the other naturally +excluded. It is not a _congress_, since no treaty will sanction its views +and results. But, besides, Prince von Bismarck wants neither congress nor +treaty. He attached great importance to signing the treaty of Prague alone +with Austria and the treaty of Frankfort alone with France; he refused, +with a certain _hauteur_, to allow any interference of the other European +powers in those treaties, although they brought about a fundamental change +in the status and equilibrium of Europe. + +In times past, after a great war, Europe has always intervened through a +solemn congress in which it dictated the terms of a general peace, thereby +securing for it solidity and duration. Thus the treaty of Westphalia +brought with it its consequent peace, the treaty of Vienna the peace of +1815, and more recently the treaty of the Congress of Paris in 1856 +followed upon the war in the Crimea. Heretofore Europe has been subject to +a system of equilibrium: Bismarck has done away with the latter, and +broken up the former. + +But he perceived the danger of this attitude and this situation. Germany +had vanquished Austria, crushed France, and had won European supremacy, +but she stood alone. Austria, forced out first from Italy, afterwards from +Germany, could not, without feeling a deep and natural jealousy, see the +German Empire rise to the first rank while she sank to the second. Russia +cannot see the German Empire extend from the Danube to the Baltic, and +overtop the Slavic Empire, without becoming also jealous. England cannot +look upon this state of things, which leaves her nothing to do but to keep +quiet and silent, without feeling somewhat as Austria and Russia do. There +is felt, then, at St. Petersburg, as at Vienna, and perhaps at London, an +invincible distrust of the predominance of Germany and of the rupture, for +her benefit, of the equilibrium of Europe. There are deep and opposing +interests which are incompatible with a true alliance between the three +emperors, and, albeit they have at Berlin shaken hands, toasted, and +fraternally embraced one another and exchanged certain general ideas, they +have not allied themselves on settled political views. + +M. von Bismarck has himself pretty accurately defined the meeting at +Berlin: "It is of importance that no one should suppose that the meeting +of the three emperors has for its object any special political projects. +Beyond a doubt, this meeting amounts to a signal recognition of the new +German Empire, but no political design has directed it." + +It amounts to this or very nearly this: M. von Bismarck wanted neither a +congress nor a treaty, nor did he seek an alliance which was impossible of +attainment just now; but he was determined to put an end to his present +isolation, and he sought in particular to cut short the dream of +retaliation in which France might indulge from a hoped-for alliance with +Russia or with Austria. + +The government of Berlin has in the meeting of the three emperors sought +two and perhaps three ends: I. To bring about the recognition of the +German Empire by the two great military powers of the North, and in that +way deprive France of all hope of finding an ally, with a view to war, +either at St. Petersburg or at Vienna. II. To discourage at the same time +the _particularism_(190) of Bavaria and of South Germany, which has always +looked for a support in the direction of Vienna. The third end may be to +disarm the resistance of Catholics to the absurd and odious persecutions +organized against them, by intimating to them that their cause has been +abandoned by the Apostolic Emperor, the head of the House of Hapsburg. + +The remarkable letter published in _Der Wanderer_ of Vienna, under the +heading of "The Order of Battle," sets forth very cleverly each of these +two hopes aforesaid of the Berlin diplomats. + +"Those diplomats," says _Der Wanderer_, "are rather barefacedly making +game of Austria's good-nature. They calculate that this good-nature will +have the effect of paralyzing two (as M. von Bismarck considers them) +implacable enemies of the empire, but heretofore friends of the Hapsburg +dynasty; I mean the particularism of the minor states and the Catholic +opposition. 'Thanks to the house of Austria,' say they, 'we are going to +disarm those reptiles, and pull out their venomous fangs.' At the same +time, those diplomats do not conceal their joy (premature, I hope) at what +they call the _Canossa_(191) of Berlin and the retaliation of Olmutz. 'We +will get the old seal of the empire' (I quote their words textually) +'affixed to our heritage by the House of Austria.' " + +It would seem, then, that the Emperor of Austria, by appearing at Berlin, +meant to say to particularism and perhaps to the Catholic body: You need +no longer count on me. And the Emperor of Russia went there to offer a +toast to the German army and to signify to France: Do not count on any +alliance with me for a war hereafter. + +This would indeed be the crowning of M. von Bismarck's policy. Since the +two great wars against Austria and against France which by their +prodigious results assuredly far surpassed his hopes and previsions, he +has but one solicitude and one thought--to isolate France, to secure her +military and political impotence, to file down the old lion's teeth and to +muzzle him. + +To this end, he needed strong and impenetrable frontiers, which he got by +the acquisition of Alsace and Lorraine. Prince von Bismarck cannot fail to +perceive that the annexation of these two provinces to Germany constitutes +for it, in a political point of view, a source of weakness rather than of +strength; that it is an additional embarrassment to the difficulties +following the organization of German unity; that Alsace and Lorraine will +be, for a long time to come, another bleeding Poland on the flanks of the +new empire; nevertheless, the conquest of these two provinces seemed to +him, in a military point of view, indispensable as a first material +guarantee against the possibility of retaliation on the part of France. By +the possession of those provinces, he turns against France the formidable +triple line of defence of the Meuse, the Moselle, and the Vosges; at +Strasbourg and at Metz he holds the strategical keys of France; these two +strongholds are, so to speak, iron gates of which the bolts are kept at +Berlin. The other Rhenish frontiers are defended by the armed neutrality +of Holland, Belgium, Luxemburg, and Switzerland. Seated behind its +impassable frontiers, and relying upon its powerful military organization +and the remembrance of its recent triumphs, the German Empire appears +perfectly secure from attack. + +But even all this was not enough for Prince von Bismarck. He has just been +repeating the policy which turned out so well for him in the war of 1866 +against Austria. Then, through the guilty and senseless connivance of +Napoleon III., he allied himself to Italy; he compelled Austria to divide +her forces, to have two armies, one at Verona, the other in Bohemia--which +was making sure beforehand of the defeat of Austria. M. von Bismarck has +just begun a second time this skilful manoeuvre. He has formed an offensive +and defensive alliance with Italy which owes its political life to France, +and repays the boon by treachery. By means of this alliance he would +compel France, in the event of a war, to have an army of the Alps and an +army of the Rhine, which would be equivalent to certain defeat. + +Any war of retaliation is consequently for a long time to come rendered +impossible. + +There would be left to France only one resource, and that a distant one, +viz., an alliance with a great military power, such as Austria, or, in +particular, Russia, whose secret jealousies she would turn to her account. + +But such an alliance presupposes France raised up, in a political, +military, and moral sense, from her present ruin, and in possession of a +settled government, stable within and influential without. Can a republic, +even a conservative one, and even if it always had at its head as capable +a statesman as M. Thiers, so raise France? Can a republic which is a good +enough raft to take refuge on for a while, a so to speak narrow bed, which +will do for France, wounded and ailing, to lie on during the period of +convalescence--can it, in a country which lacks manly habits and historical +institutions, unite enough solidity, security, wise liberty, strength, and +grandeur to become the ally of so great an empire as Russia? To my mind, +the idea of an alliance between a French republic and one of the two +empires of the North against the German Empire is one of those +impossibilities which need but to be asserted, not to be argued. If France +could succeed in reuniting the separated links of her history, in +reconciling her present with her past, if she were to again become a +traditional, representative, and free monarchy, one holding itself +equidistant from the abuses of the old _regime_ and the errors of the +Revolution--oh! then her situation would indeed be changed, and great +alliances at present impossible might become possible soon thereafter. But +such alliances would not have for their object never-ending retaliations +and new wars; they would bear their fruits through social peace, through +the restoration of authority and order, and through that true, prudent, +and measured liberty which, now that they have it not, they talk so much +about. The greatness of France depends less on the extent of her frontiers +than on her political, social, and religious renovation. + +It is because M. von Bismarck understands perfectly that an alliance +between one of the great military empires of the North and republican +France is a chimerical project, that he encourages the adherents of the +republic at Versailles to sustain their work. + +Anyhow, M. von Bismarck, having in view the nature of contingencies, has +sought to shut France out from hopes or temptations in this direction; +after, having in her folly dreamt of getting a frontier on the Rhine, she +has wretchedly lost, through the folly of her emperor, her eastern +frontier; after, having sworn to tear in pieces the treaty of 1815, to +which she had submitted with detestation, she has had to sign at Frankfort +the treaty in virtue of which she was invaded and dismembered. + +The new Empire of Germany, resting on its formidable army, protected by +impenetrable frontiers, certain of an alliance with Italy which renders +the undertaking of war against it almost impossible for France, sustained +by the official friendship of Austria and of Russia, compels France to be +resigned and peaceful; condemns her to political and military impotence, +or, what may sound better, to walk in the ways of prudence. M. Thiers, in +words which the French press has published, has recently made a resolute +profession of this policy of prudence, by proclaiming that he desires +peace--peace to build up and fructify; and that France, at all events, will +not seek to break it. + +When, from the balcony of the Imperial Palace at Berlin, it is proclaimed +that the object and result of the meeting of three emperors is to sanction +the _statu quo_ of Europe, and to consolidate a general peace, we believe +that they mean what they proclaim; but what is the signification of the +proclamation? Why, that they have thereby accepted the actual state of +things which has grown out of the recent wars; that is to say, the +European supremacy of the German Empire, founded on the powerlessness or +the cautious prudence of France; and that they think to have extinguished +the centre of combustion from which the firebrand of war might be again +hurled over Europe. + +This is assuredly a clever policy, one in which Prince von Bismarck might +allow himself to take a certain pride. + +But in this serene sky there is one dark cloud, and we may well suppose +that this cloud has disturbed the optimism of the diplomats assembled at +Berlin. This cloud is that dreaded unknown future when France will be no +longer governed by M. Thiers. + +Salvation is not to come to France from the republic; in France there is +neither a republic nor a monarchy; the forces which tend to a monarchy are +disunited, and consequently powerless, and those which tend to a republic +are still more divided; the nation is living under an administration _ad +interim_; there is an absence of settled government and settled +institutions, and an impossibility of establishing either, because of the +wide divisions of irreconcilable parties, of anarchy in principles and +ideas. The salvation of France for the time being is one man, a leader +whose hand is pliable, firm, and commanding enough to hold political +parties in submission and keep down the rivalries which would give France +over to another civil war. M. Thiers believes that any present attempt to +set up a monarchy would light up a civil war; while the conviction of the +majority of the Assembly at Versailles is just as strong that, if the +republic lasts, this civil war will break out on the morrow of the day +when France will have lost M. Thiers. Probably both are right; it is +rather to the condition itself of France than to the men that lead her +that this lamentable state of affairs is to be attributed which finds its +expression in the government of a provisional republic having nothing to +look forward to in the future but unfathomable darkness and mystery. + +M. Thiers is the embodiment of the conservative republic, which will last +just so long as he lives, and I desire that his needed dictatorship be +prolonged for a long while yet; but can we reasonably entertain such a +hope? He has undertaken the admirable work of saving France; he has in +Paris fought and won the great battle against anarchy; he has carried the +loans through, reorganized the army and finances of France; he is pushing +forward the evacuation of her territory; he maintains order. All this is +very fine and grand; he is indeed acting the part of the saviour of his +country; but let him not seek to do more; let him not be ambitious to +become the founder of a government; let him rather be content with merely +playing the first part at the head of affairs. + +I thoroughly appreciate the work M. Thiers is engaged in; he directs his +policy by the light of present events, the only ones he can control; he is +going through the reparative period, _but what is he preparing_? What is +he founding for the future? What heritage will he leave after him, and who +will be his heir? Such are the questions which must come up to every +reflecting mind, and in particular to his, so remarkably clear, +perspicacious, and penetrating. + +The weak side of his policy is that it leaves France on a political _terra +incognita_. The creation of a few additional institutions will not suffice +to raise France out of the provisional status in which she lies since her +fall; I mean such as a vice-presidency, the establishing of a lower house, +all which would be adding shadows to shadows. It would never amount to +anything more than an administration _ad interim_, and a period of +expectation of a definite, stable, regular government having influence +abroad, such an one as France feels that she does not but should possess. +The question for M. Thiers, as well as for France and for Europe, remains +the same: What is being prepared, what will the future bring? + +As we know the tree by its fruits, so do we judge a policy by its results, +and so will M. Thiers be judged. + +If he leaves after him the heritage of a traditional and representative +monarchy, or if, like a second Washington, he leaves as his successor to +France a second John Adams or Thomas Jefferson who will enter upon the +work of consolidating a republic really conservative, free, Christian, and +powerful, he will indeed be a great man; but, if he is to be followed in +power by a Gambetta who will be the predecessor of the socialist _commune_ +of Paris, he will, notwithstanding the immense services he has rendered, +be severely judged by history. No one assuredly ought to understand this +better than he. + +Is the second President of the fourth or fifth French Republic to be a now +unforeseen Jefferson or a Gambetta? + +Such is the dreaded question now before us. These threatening +eventualities have doubtless been attentively considered at the conference +in Berlin. M. von Bismarck may have developed thereat the political plan +which I have endeavored to analyze, and which has for its object the +founding of the peace of Europe on France's inability to undertake another +war; but revolutionary and demagogical France, bearing incendiarism from +Paris to Madrid, to Rome, and perhaps elsewhere, must be opposed in some +other way than by the establishment of impenetrable frontiers and the +formation of alliances; and on these other means of opposition the three +emperors must have seriously conferred at Berlin, and I doubt much whether +waging war against the Catholic Church has seemed to them the best way to +avert the danger aforesaid. + + + +II. + + +I have sought in this letter to set forth the character and import of the +meeting at Berlin, and to show the policy which Prince von Bismarck has +endeavored to inaugurate there. I have not been eaves-dropping at the +doors of the chambers in which the three emperors and their chancellors +held their deliberations; but there is no difficulty in conjecturing what +was talked about, and, I may add, what was thought therein. + +We must not overestimate the importance of these conversations; the +meeting at Berlin will no more bring about positive results for the +solution of pending questions in Europe than did the numerous interviews +which Napoleon III. had with the Emperor of Austria, the ministers of +Great Britain, and the czar. As we have stated before, it is not a +congress; it forms no alliances, and no treaty determining the new +European equilibrium will come out of it. What M. von Bismarck wished +particularly to bring about was the presence of the two emperors with +their counsellors in the capital of the new empire. Their mere presence +signified, in the eyes of the prince chancellor: + +The recognition of the German Empire; the sanction of the treaties of +Prague and Frankfort, which were to form the basis of the new equilibrium +of Europe. + +The impossibility for France to find a powerful ally that would enable her +to attempt a war of retaliation. + +On the part of Austria, the abandonment of all idea of returning to her +old German policy, and the repudiation of all connivance with the +_particularistic_ resistance of the lesser states of Germany. + +I will presently examine whether the presence at Berlin of the head of the +dynasty of Hapsburg signifies also the repudiation of the Catholic +movement which the persecutions directed against the church have stirred +up throughout entire Germany. + +Assuredly this policy of M. von Bismarck shows, I will not say grandeur, +but skill and audacity; and it has been crowned by wonderful success. When +I saw Prince von Bismarck raise Prussia, that a few years ago could hardly +rank among the great powers, to the height of the Empire of Germany +through the victories of 1866 and 1871--when I contemplated these +astounding results, I was for a moment tempted to consider him as a great +minister, as one of the rare successors of Richelieu or of Stein. + +I was the more inclined to this judgment because, as a Belgian, I was +grateful for the honest and upright policy which he had followed as +regards Napoleon III. before the last war. There is no longer any room for +doubt, now that the diplomatic documents are known, that Napoleon III., in +order to redeem the unpardonable blunder which he had committed by +favoring the war of 1861 between Prussia and Austria, endeavored to obtain +in Luxemburg and in Belgium the compensations which he considered needful +for him in view of the aggrandizement of Prussia. We know about the rough +draft of the Benedetti treaty, which no amount of equivocation and timid +denial can do away with. + +I had, in my work published in 1865, clearly denounced the plot; and from +the Belgian tribune, because I had pointed out these perils to its +government, I have been called a political visionary and almost a traitor +to my country. Subsequent events have justified my allegations, and now +every one knows that the dangers which we ran for a time were more real, +nearer at hand, and greater than even I imagined them to be. + +The war of 1870 was the consequence of the refusal of the government of +Berlin to yield to the guilty covetousness of Napoleon III. I ascribe the +honor of the former to M. von Bismarck and to the integrity of William IV. +I had proclaimed the existence of two eminent perils: a diplomatic peril, +viz., an alliance of France with Prussia, of which Belgium would have been +the stakes and the victim; the chance of a war between those two nations, +in which France might have been victorious. We have, almost by a miracle, +escaped those two perils; through the war of 1870, Belgium has been +preserved from diplomatic conspiracies, and as a Belgian I can never +forget it.(192) + +Belgium, since the late war, finds herself in a new position which has not +attracted the attention it deserves. + +Belgium, for a long time back coveted by France, particularly by France +under the Empire and under the Republic, had, above all, to fear an +alliance between France and Prussia, which latter might sacrifice her to +the political combinations growing out of such an alliance. That is what +Napoleon III. attempted in the Benedetti negotiation, and it was this +peril which before the recent war alarmed my patriotism. + +Now this peril has vanished. An alliance between the German Empire and +France is now put off for a long time. But there is another motive still +more powerful, and which constitutes our complete security, which is this: +that the existence of a _neutral_ and _strong_ Belgium has become +henceforward for the German Empire a necessity of the highest order. Since +the government of Berlin has thought it indispensable for strategic +purposes to hold Metz and the lines of the Meuse and of the Vosges, it +cannot allow, under any consideration, independent Belgium to disappear +and France to occupy that territory of Belgium which is watered by the +Meuse and the Scheldt. Our neutrality protects the Rhine on the side of +the gap between the Sambre and the Meuse, but can afford this protection +only provided our neutrality is politically and militarily strong to such +an extent as our financial resources will warrant. + +Our neutrality, in order to be one of the supports of the peace of Europe, +must be ever an honest one; it must stand as a barrier against aggression +whether from the east or from the south; it must be hostile to no power. +On the other hand, it is plain that, in order to fill this position of +barrier and guarantee, Belgium must remain always armed and able to repel +an attack at the outset; otherwise, she would become politically useless, +and, in the event of a war, the occupation of her territory would follow +as the fatal result of such omission. + +This was true before the late war, and on this point my views have not +changed; but, since the new European situation created by the war, this +truth is twice as plain, and our duties to Europe have increased twofold. +It is important that all our political men, without distinction of party, +and that the entire nation, understand well the position to which we have +been brought by recent events. + +Far from being hostile to the German Empire, I find in it a new guarantee +for the independence of my country. Our neutrality now rests on all the +powers and on all the treaties that have been made: it had become a habit, +after the advent of the Napoleonic Empire, to consider England as the +special protector of our national independence, but now that Germany has a +particular and powerful interest in that independence, instead of one +special support only, we now have two. + +It is proper that I should make this statement, as I am about to submit M. +von Bismarck's policy to a severe criticism. In this page of history which +I have been rapidly writing, I have not been wanting in praise; and, if +these lines are ever read by M. von Bismarck, he cannot complain of the +appreciation which I have so far expressed of his policy. In the pages +that follow, I shall not spare criticism. Much as I have admired the +policy which prepared the war, in equal degree does my mind fail to +comprehend the policy followed at Berlin since the peace, and which +appears to me to be a perfect antithesis of the former one. + +This latter policy appears to me so incomprehensible that I ask myself +whether Prince von Bismarck, instead of being a political genius like +Stein, is not entering upon the path of error in which Napoleon III. came +to his ruin. + +Napoleon III. has also been the ruler of Europe; the second Empire for +many years enjoyed preponderance in Europe, and might have retained it +much longer but for the accumulated blunders of imperial policy. Napoleon +III., who had begun his reign isolated from other monarchs, and to whom +the appellation of _my cousin_ had been disdainfully denied, found +himself, immediately after the war in the Crimea and after the Congress of +Paris, at the head of a great Western alliance formed with England and +Austria and by isolating Russia and annulling Prussia. He had reached the +zenith of power in Europe; he had a star in which he and every one besides +believed; kings and emperors came to Fontainebleau and to the Tuileries to +pay their court to the _parvenu_ sovereign who had been transformed into a +Louis XIV., just as has happened at Berlin. + +When I saw Napoleon III., at the summit of such a situation, break with +his own hands, like a hot-brained child, this magnificent Western alliance +to which he was indebted for his high fortune; conspire at the Congress of +Paris with M. de Cavour to bring about that fatal war in Italy against +Austria which was the first cause of his disasters; turn out of the +straight path of conservative principles which he had sworn to follow, and +then lose himself in the tortuous and obscure ways of revolution, my +judgment of him was definitively made. A man who could commit such a folly +was neither a statesman nor a political genius; he was merely a lucky +adventurer who had been helped on and spoiled by events, but who did not +know enough to turn them to account. + +It was just then, in 1859, on the eve of the war in Italy, that I wrote my +first work on _Le Second Empire_, in which I did not hesitate to predict +that this war, no matter how much glory it might make for the emperor, +would nevertheless amount to a political defeat which would lead to the +fall of the Empire. "The heads of even the wisest men," I said, "are +liable to turn when they have reached such an elevation as he has arrived +at." And I selected as the epigraph of my work, the words which old Prince +von Metternich had uttered when speaking of the extreme good-fortune of +the Emperor of the French: "He is successful," said the prince to me; "he +has excellent cards in his hands, and he plays his game well, but he will +be lost as a revolutionary emperor on the Italian reef." This remarkable +prediction, made long before the war in Italy, has been verified to the +letter, and my book, written in 1859, was merely a commentary upon it +which subsequent events have confirmed. + +M. von Bismarck is also at the acme of his triumph; he is presiding at his +Congress of Paris. Behold Prussia, which but a few years ago had hardly +any voice in the councils of Europe, now become the German Empire, and +behold the Emperor of Germany getting the czar and the Emperor Francis +Joseph to sanction at Berlin his victories, his conquests, and his +political supremacy, by leaving France isolated, and making of no account +England, which had kept herself aloof in her policy of forbearance. + +Well, I do not hesitate to select this hour of triumph, when M. von +Bismarck's policy has been crowned at Berlin, in the midst of festivities +the splendor of which is talked of far and wide, to predict its failure in +the end if he does not change it. My reason for asserting this in presence +of a state of things so contrary to my prediction is that M. von Bismarck +is committing one of those blunders, I dare not say one of those political +follies, which astonish reason, and which form the premises of a syllogism +having for its conclusion an inevitable failure. The blunder is precisely +similar to that perpetrated by Napoleon III., who, in consequence of +having allied himself with revolutionary Italy, was led from Mexico to +Sadowa, and from Sedan to Chiselhurst. This blunder on the part of M. von +Bismarck, and of which he will yet repent, is his alliance with +revolutionary Italy, which drags him into a war against the Catholic +Church, which has always proved fatal to those who have attempted it, and +which destroys the work of German unity which he had associated with his +name. The epigraph of my work on _Le Second Empire_, borrowed from Prince +von Metternich, might serve for this letter as well, if applied to the +Emperor of Germany and his chancellor; if the head of the dynasty of the +Hohenzollerns continues in the path of revolution in which M. von Bismarck +has led him, "he will also perish, like the revolutionary emperor on the +Italian reef." + +Is it rashness on my part to point out to Prince von Bismarck and to the +German Emperor the Tarpeian rock so nigh to the capitol to which they have +ascended? Am I unjust towards the prince chancellor? + +No one had a higher opinion of his political merit than I, and in +appreciating, as I have done in this letter, his astounding successes, I +have not been sparing of praise nor indeed of admiration. If, then, I am +compelled to draw a comparison between Napoleon III. and him, and to +measure by the blunder committed by the Emperor of the French in 1859 that +which he is now committing, I must ask his pardon, for I make a great +difference between those two contemporary personages. In the same degree +that Napoleon III. was irresolute, beset by somnolent indolence and +continual hesitation, so does, on the other hand, Prince von Bismarck know +how to show a tenacious persistence and audacity in the carrying out of +his designs; but this very tenacity may be a source of additional danger, +if he enters upon a road which leads to an abyss; he will go forward in it +quicker and more irremediably than another would, because he knows neither +how to stop nor to draw back. + +Let us, then, study the policy of M. von Bismarck. + +And, in the first place, without wishing in the least to belittle the +share which evidently belongs to him in the triumphs of Prussia, we must, +nevertheless, admit that another important share falls to Count von +Moltke, the greatest warrior of our day; and an equally considerable part +is due to the blunders of his adversaries, Austria and Imperial France. + +If, for example, Napoleon III. had not betrayed Austria in 1866 by +allowing and favoring the alliance between Prussia and Italy, a war +against Austria would have been impossible, and the victory of Sadowa +would not have taken place; the senseless war of 1870, which grew out of +the victory of Sadowa, would have been without either cause or pretext; +France would be now erect, Austria would have maintained its influential +position in Germany, and the German Empire would not have been established +for the profit of Prussian _unitarisme_. + +With the foundation of German unity, of the German Empire, Napoleon has +had almost as much to do as M. von Bismarck. The great chancellor has +found ready for him two instruments which he did not invent: the military +genius of von Moltke, and the folly of Napoleon. To complete the +expression of my thought, I will add that the German Emperor has only +been, as he himself proclaimed after his victories, a mere instrument in +the hands of Divine Providence for the chastisement of France. France has +been unfaithful to her past history, from which she has severed herself; +she has been unfaithful to the monarchical form of government which has +rendered her glorious, and to the church which has made her great; she has +lost, by a twofold apostasy, her political faith and her Catholic faith; +she no longer possesses her institutions, which have been, one after the +other, destroyed either by the old _regime_ or by the Revolution; she no +longer knows how to restore the monarchy, the elements of which have been +scattered in the tempests of revolution; she knows not how to keep up a +republic of which she has neither the habits, the historical conditions, +nor the conditions social and political; she is in that state through +which nations, condemned to perish, fall and decay, and out of which those +nations which God wishes to save can get, only through punishment by fire +or by the sword. M. von Bismarck has been, and may become again, that fire +and that sword; which may perhaps be an honor, but does not justify pride. + +The political work, then, which has produced the German Empire undoubtedly +deserves praise, and assuredly does honor to the political merits of +Prince von Bismarck, but does not facilitate the forming of a definitive +judgment in his regard. It is in the work of peace that the statesman +shows himself, and I must say it, that in this respect I do not find M. +von Bismarck as great as events seemed to have made him out to be; just as +he has been seen to be intelligent, fortunate, almost great during the +period of warfare, so in like degree do I incline to consider him, in the +period of present organization, improvident and blind. + +This work of organization is a difficult one; it requires wisdom and time. +M. von Bismarck has recourse to precipitation, to force, and to wrath. + +German unity, inuring to the benefit of Prussia, could not, before the war +of 1866, have been foreseen. When, in 1863, the Emperor of Austria made +his triumphal entry into Frankfort, bearing in his hand federal reform, he +was surrounded by all the princes of Germany. Prussia stood alone, +abandoned by all Germany; and, if Napoleon had not foolishly thwarted the +plans of the Emperor Francis Joseph, the Emperor of Germany would have +been crowned, not at Berlin, but at Vienna. + +After the war of 1866, Prusso-Germanic unitarism had not yet been +accomplished. Saxony and the states of the South which had fought by the +side of Austria were defeated; they submitted to, rather than accepted, +the terms which Prussia forced on them as the consequence of their defeat. +Northern Germany was bounded by the Main, and the minor states ever felt +themselves drawn towards Vienna, their old centre of attraction. + +It was the war of 1870, declared by Napoleon against the whole of Germany, +notwithstanding the patriotic protest of M. Thiers, which all at once +created this unity; this unity, which brought all the Germans together +under one flag, received thus the baptism of glory and of blood. + +But the Prusso-German unitarism, extemporized and rough-cast by the war, +was not consolidated; many difficulties remained to be overcome. + +M. von Bismarck saw before him two formidable adversaries: the +particularism of the middle states, and socialist democracy, which claims +to abolish unity for its own gain, by substituting the German Republic for +the German Empire. + +Several symptoms go to show that the particularist movement, which had +been stopped by the war, is reviving, and certainly the hostile action +directed against the Catholics assists powerfully towards giving it new +life. The symptoms of the awakening of this movement are numerous; it is +needless that I should enumerate them; they are perfectly known at Berlin, +and have assuredly become aggravated since the religious war undertaken by +M. von Bismarck. + +The particularism of the states, then, is not dead, and red democracy is +full of life. These are the two great difficulties which M. von Bismarck's +policy finds in its way. To these must be added a third one: the +assimilation of the two conquered provinces, Alsace and Lorraine, so +thoroughly French by the ties of history, of religion, of habits, and of +interests. + +To overcome these obstacles, to organize unity, the basis of the new +empire, to accomplish his great work, M. von Bismarck needs prudence, +time, and the hand of a true statesman. + +Now, what does the Prince von Bismarck do? To the three considerable +existing obstacles he adds another one, greater and more dangerous than +the former, a difficulty which did not exist, which he of his own accord +created, which he wantonly got up, and which will crush him; I mean the +religious difficulty, the brutal war, the veritable persecution which he +is organizing against the Catholics. He had to fight against particularist +opposition and radical opposition; he himself, with deliberate purpose, +needlessly and without reason, raises up a third one--the opposition of +sixteen millions of Catholics united with their bishops; that is to say, +almost half of the new empire which he thus unsettles and, so to speak, +dissolves with his own hand. + +Can anything be imagined more incomprehensible or more thoroughly +preposterous? + +What end is M. von Bismarck pursuing? By what thought and what views is he +guided? The prince chancellor is neither mad nor blind; he has given +abundant evidence of this; and yet, is it not folly, is it not blindness, +to thus throw, without any appreciable motive, and with a heart as light +as that of M. Emile Ollivier, sixteen millions of Catholics, including all +their clergy and all their bishops, into a resistance which will be all +the more obstinate and formidable because it will derive its strength from +the oppression of conscience, from the suppression of liberty, the rending +of the constitution, from the violation of justice and of rights? I have +put these questions to eminent Germans of all parties, but have never got +clear and satisfactory answers. + +The Catholic Germans behaved admirably during the war; the Bavarian, +Westphalian, and Rhenish troops were everywhere foremost under fire and in +earning honor and glory. The priests and religious, both men and women, +have shown a heroic devotedness on the battlefields, in the ambulances, +and in the hospitals, so that M. Windthorst was enabled to say in the +parliament at Berlin that many of those religious would go into exile +wearing on their breasts the iron cross which they had earned during the +last campaign.(193) The old antipathies against Prussia which prevailed +along the Rhine and beyond the Main among Catholic populations were dying +out; the establishment of religious liberty in Prussia on a more generous +basis than in the lesser states had won the Catholics over to unity under +Prussian hegemony; and the illustrious Bishop of Mayence, Mgr. de +Ketteler, in an address which made a great noise in Germany and throughout +Europe, raised the standard of rallying and unity. + +The German Empire was consequently very near being established. M. von +Bismarck stirs up a religious war which divides it in two and breaks it +asunder. The war had brought together under the same flag Germans of all +nationalities and all religious beliefs. Should not, then, all manner of +pains have been taken to keep them united in the mutual work of the +organization of the empire? Should not the first thought of a politician, +after having achieved such wonderful success, and having before him the +obstacles which still remained to be overcome, have been to begin by +establishing peace in religious matters? + +But I must repeat the question, What did M. von Bismarck do? He repulses +the Westphalians and people of the Rhine who had become reconciled; he +revives in Bavaria and in the South that particularism which was dying +out; and on the political grievance he grafts a religious one; he doubles +the obstacles of all kinds which lie in the way of his plans for +Germanizing Alsace and Lorraine, so thoroughly French and Catholic; into +their bleeding wounds he, as it were, introduces gangrene, by entering +upon an unheard-of religious persecution, and without any pretext that he +dare avow; he compromises in the most serious manner the work of unity, +towards the founding of which he had aided so much; he acts as would the +greatest adversary of that unity who could not contrive any better means +for its destruction than to do just what Prince von Bismarck is doing--he +drives into the ranks of opposition nearly half of the soundest population +of the empire; he sets against himself the two hundred million Catholics +spread throughout the world, and who are everywhere protesting against his +oppression; he will also turn against him the old conservatives, who have +been deeply hurt by the enactment of the law in regard to schools, as well +as all sincere friends of religious and political liberty, so audaciously +ignored by him. These friends of liberty are becoming scarce; they +maintain, in the face of this odious violation of their principles, a +shameful silence which they will have to break, if they wish to avoid +making liberalism synonymous with hypocrisy. + +Have I erred in comparing the policy of M. von Bismarck with that of +Napoleon III., and his present blunder with that committed by the ex- +emperor when, after the Congress of Paris, he broke up the splendid +Western alliance? + +When I endeavor to interpret M. von Bismarck's conduct, I can find but one +motive which can serve for its explanation, and that is his alliance with +Italy. That alliance, which he conceived necessary in order to keep the +forces of France divided, and to render a war of retaliation impossible, +has drawn him into a fatal hostility against the Catholic Church. + +His ally, Victor Emanuel, has conquered the Roman States by stratagem and +by violence; he has usurped in Rome the throne of the pontiff king, who +among the monarchs of Europe possesses assuredly the most ancient and most +venerated titles to sovereignty; he holds the Pope captive in the Vatican, +until such time as he can compel him to set out on the road to exile; he +deprives the Sovereign Pontiff of the church of that sovereignty on which +his independence rests, and thus throws the universal church into alarm +and mourning. + +This outrage against the church, perpetrated at Rome by the Italian +government, has had its counterpart in Berlin. No doubt the condition +which Victor Emanuel set upon alliance with him has been to make the +German Empire enter into the vast plot got up against the independence and +liberty of Catholicity. + +Well! without being a prophet, it is not difficult to predict that the +Italian alliance will prove as fatal to the German Empire as it has been +to the second Napoleonic Empire, and that on the Italian rock M. von +Bismarck's work will be dashed to pieces, if he allows it to remain in the +evil path in which it is now so deeply sunk. + + + +III. + + +Prince Bismarck considers himself to be the successor of Stein, to whom he +has caused a statue to be erected, and whose great policy he claims that +he is continuing. In this respect, he is profoundly mistaken; and, very +far from following that policy, he abandons and betrays it. + +Stein and all his school have, like Burke and Pitt, combated the +principles of the French Revolution. French ideas had, at the close of the +last century, invaded Germany, and the armies of the first Republic had no +difficulty in conquering by their arms a country which they had before +overrun with their ideas. + +Baron von Stein, that restorer of the German _Vaterland_ and liberty, was +a mortal foe of the French Revolution. His mission and his work were to +withdraw Germany from the fatal path into which, following France, she had +strayed, and to bring her back into the path laid out for her by her +history. + +He could not save Prussia from the defeat at Jena, but he trained her, by +his thorough and excellent reforms, for revenge at Waterloo and Sedan. He +it was who formed Scharnhorst, the organizer of military Prussia, and +whose system Count von Moltke perfected; he, probably, who became the soul +of the patriotic movement in 1813; he it was who, together with +Scharnhorst, Stadion, and Gagern, gave to Germany that powerful impulse +out of which came the great present situation; he it was who stood the +distinguished protector of the German historical school, that real +antithesis of the French revolutionary school, which former had as its +influential organs Niebuhr, Eichhorn, Schlegel, Goerres, the two Grimms, de +Savigny, etc., and which M. de Sybel represents still in our day. + +Stein was a conservative, a patriot, and a Christian. What he fought +against in the French Revolution was that philosophic and abstract method +that France had adopted, destructive of all national tradition; that +spirit of exclusive and narrow equality which influenced her course, and +in the pursuit of which, according to M. de Tocqueville, she has lost +liberty; that absolutism, whether in democracy or in Caesarism, that +obliteration of the individual, that indifference to rights, that worship +of brute force, that extinguishment of all local, provincial, and +autonomous life, that exaggerated idea of the state, that oppression of +religious liberty, of Christian teaching, and of the Catholic Church, all +of which characterized the French Revolution. + +Stein wanted a Germany united, but federal, Christian, liberal, +traditional, and historical; he wanted her, as Burke did England, to be +the reverse of revolutionary France. + +Now, is it not Stein's work, that Germany born of his reforming genius, +that M. von Bismarck is destroying? The _liberal national_ party, on which +he leans, is merely a _doctrinaire_ French party, anti-historic, +ideological, and anti-religious, the harbinger of levelling and radical +democracy; a party which inclines to absolutism and Caesarism, adores +centralization, unconditional unification, and the omnipotence of the +state, and which is the adversary of all proud and free consciences, and +of any independent church. It is not the Protestant idea, but the Masonic +and Hegelian one which this party represents. + +Stein was a Christian, a conservative, and a German; the Prince von +Bismarck is sceptical, revolutionary, and belongs to the French school. +Stein sought to found German unity on federal liberties, in the alliance +of the church with the school, and on peace between religious +denominations; M. von Bismarck overturns that basis, substitutes in its +place absolutist and Prussian unification, secularized teaching, and +religious discord. + +It is surprising that, when in France the ideas which inspired the French +Revolution have been abandoned even by the most intelligent part of the +school of liberalism; by such men as Tocqueville, Thierry, and Guizot, who +are discouraged, and talk more openly of their disappointments than of +their hopes; when M. Renan asserts that the French Revolution "is an +experimental failure"; when the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, through the pen +of M. Montegut, proclaims "that the Revolution is politically bankrupt"; +on the very morrow of the final miscarriage of that Revolution under its +two forms of government, the Empire fallen at Sedan, and the social +Republic fallen under the ruins of the Paris Commune--it is at that very +time that Prince von Bismarck thinks it skilful and profound to import +that French revolutionary system into Germany! M. Renan has cause for +rejoicing; he has given utterance to a wish which M. von Bismarck has set +about to fulfil. "France," he said, "need not be considered lost if we can +believe that Germany will be in her turn drawn into that witches' dance in +which all our virtue has been lost." + +To sum up: German unity, the great German Empire, which such an +extraordinary concurrence of circumstances had created, is being dissolved +and ruined by Prince von Bismarck through the most inconceivable of +political blunders. He throws sixteen millions of Catholics, once friendly +to the Empire, into opposition to it; he gives a new food and new strength +to the particularism of the Southern States, and to the Polonism of Posen; +he makes twofold the difficulties of accomplishing the assimilation of +Alsace and Lorraine; to political grievances he superadds religious +grievances, far more to be dreaded than the former; he enkindles an +implacable religious war upon the ruins of that denominational peace which +King Frederic William III. had happily established, and by aid of which +the present emperor and the empress Augusta had, in the opening period of +their reign, won the hearts of the Catholics of the Rhine. To cover this +blunder, M. von Bismarck enters into the Italian alliance which destroyed +the second Napoleonic Empire, and will destroy the German Empire; and he +abandons the historic German policy restored by Stein, to rush into the +retinue of the _national liberal_ party, into the paths of the French +Revolution, into that _witches' dance_ to which M. Renan refers; and he +inoculates his own country with the poison which has killed France! + + + +IV. + + +But there is one final consequence of the policy of Prince von Bismarck to +which I wish to call attention, and which is not least in gravity. + +Austria, after having lost Italy, had, by the treaty of Prague, been +excluded from Germany. Nevertheless, the German Empire, under the hegemony +of Prussia, had not been set up; there existed only a Northern Germany, +having the Main as its boundary; the Southern States, and even Saxony, +preserved a certain autonomy; and Austria might hope by a wise policy to +draw little by little into the sphere of her influence and attraction +those countries which had been accustomed to look upon Vienna as their +political pole. + +The war of 1871 against France, which had united all the Germans under one +flag, established German unity and the German Empire. The boundaries of +the Empire were moved from the Main to the Danube, and all hope for +Austria to regain her old German position was gone. + +Austria accepted this situation; the Emperor Francis Joseph and his two +counsellors, Count von Beust and Count Andrassy, worked together to bring +about a sincere reconciliation between Austria and the German Empire. + +They gave up the idea of bringing back the Southern States into the circle +of Austrian influence; they feared, on the contrary, lest the German +provinces of Austria, detaching themselves little by little from the +weakened rule of the Hapsburgs, might be irresistibly drawn towards +Berlin, the powerful and glorious centre of the German _Vaterland_. + +Those fears may at present be entirely set at rest. There has been a +complete reversal in the position of things. The people, for the most part +so Catholic, of the Tyrol, of Lower Austria, and of Bohemia, will lose all +inclination to draw nearer to the German Empire, where a bitter +persecution is being waged against their religious faith. The bonds which +unite them to Austria will be drawn the tighter. On the other hand, will +not the Catholics of the Rhine, of Westphalia, of Poland, of Suabia, of +Franconia, of Wuertemberg, of Bavaria, of Alsace, and of Lorraine, driven +from the bosom of the German Empire, in which they are no longer citizens, +but pariahs, be tempted to look again in the direction of Austria, the +centre of their older sympathies? All Austria has to do is not to +interfere; M. von Bismarck is working for her. + +The prince chancellor, notwithstanding the elated confidence which he has +in his strength, has understood the danger of the situation. + +In order to change it, he had but one easy thing to do, and that was to +modify his policy, to give up persecuting the Catholics, to admit that he +had gone astray, and to return to a calmer and wiser policy; but this he +would not do; he has preferred to keep on, and to try to drag Austria into +the same road. + +Last year, at Gastein, he tried to induce Count von Beust to join in the +campaign which he wished to begin against the _internationale rouge_ and +the _internationale noire_, but the Emperor Francis Joseph baffled the +attempt. The prince chancellor renewed it the same year with the emperor +himself at Salzburg, but he failed a second time. + +Has he met with more success at Berlin, upon the occasion of the meeting +of the three emperors? Has he tried to get Russia and Austria to recognize +not only the German Empire, but to sanction by their adhesion to it his +home policy against "Romanism," that is to say, against the Catholic +Church, or has he at least succeeded in inducing the belief that he had +not tried in vain? Has he sought to drag them into the war which he is +carrying on against the Jesuits, against the religious orders, against +denominational liberty, against Catholic teaching, against the clergy and +the bishops, until such time as he can make it break forth at Rome, by +laying, in the next conclave, an audacious and sacrilegious hand on the +pontifical tiara? + +We shall find this out before long. If Austria follows the policy of the +centralist party of the German professors at Vienna and at Prague, to +which Count von Beust has already yielded too much, and which is identical +with the policy of the _national liberal_ party of Berlin, she will have +advanced the interests of Prince von Bismarck, and not her own; she will +have labored for him and against herself; she will have turned aside the +danger imminent to the German Empire through M. von Bismarck's blunders, +and of which the Austro-Hungarian Empire should have profited; she will +have, with her _historical good-nature_, served the views of Prussia to +the detriment of her own; and Francis Joseph, the Apostolic Emperor, +unfaithful to his traditions and to the arms of his house, will have made +his policy subordinate to that of a Lutheran emperor! + +I positively refuse to believe that any such result can come out of the +interview at Berlin, albeit that our generation is accustomed to the +realization of political impossibilities. I would fain persuade myself +that, if the Prince von Bismarck has endeavored to draw Austria into his +war against the Catholics and against Rome, he will have failed at Berlin +as he did at Salzburg through the good sense of the Emperor Francis +Joseph. + + + +V. + + +The more I study M. von Bismarck's policy, the less I understand it. If he +were a sectarian pietist, I could account to myself for the idea of +perfecting the political and military unity of Germany by a religious +unity, of creating a _Protestant state_: it would indeed be a sorry +Utopia, and to attempt it would be to make the mistake of being three +centuries behind his time. + +But M. von Bismarck is neither a sectarian nor a fanatic; he is rather, I +believe, a sceptic who has little care for religious controversies, and +who probably understands very little about the question of the Papal +Infallibility which he is wielding as a warlike weapon against the church. +M. von Bismarck is a politician; politics he aims at and should be busied +in; his mission is to help found an empire and not a schism or a sect. +Now, it is the Empire, the political work, which he gravely compromises by +disturbing so profoundly through a denominational conflict the religious +quiet which that work needed for its consolidation. Instead of the _German +state_ founded on unity and general assent, it is the _Protestant state_ +founded on the deepest and most incurable divisions that he seems to aim +at creating. There is no difficulty in predicting that he will lose the +political unity in the pursuit of a religious unity which is but a +chimerical and impossible anachronism. + +This political course which the prince chancellor has inspired the Emperor +William to follow, whose past one makes such a striking contrast with it, +is to me an insoluble enigma, and raises doubts in my mind of M. von +Bismarck's transcendent ability. + +I will nevertheless try to make out this political enigma, by studying the +pretexts on which the government of Berlin relies to justify itself, the +circumstances by which it has been enticed, and the temptation to which it +has yielded. + +The _pretext_ which it puts forward is the decision of the Vatican Council +in regard to the authority of the Sovereign Pontiff in matters of +doctrine. + +The _circumstances_ by which it was carried away are the Italian alliance +abroad and the alliance with the _national liberal_ party at home. + +The _temptation_ that misleads it is the hope, fortunately disappointed, +which the stand of the _inopportunist_ bishops of Germany and of Austria +caused it to form, which stand the Berlin government had mistaken for a +real dissent from doctrine, and destined to become the foundation of a +national church separated from Rome by that dissent. + +I call the question of Papal Infallibility a pretext, and, in fact, it is +a groundless quarrel without any importance or earnest meaning. + +I am not called upon to enter here into a theological dissertation upon +the dogma of the infallibility of the church and of its sovereign +magistracy, etc. I refer my readers to the excellent works which have been +published on the subject, and I trust to be excused for mentioning in +particular those written by my brother the Archbishop of Mechlin. + +I will say but one word _en passant_ on the question. For every Catholic, +there is no longer any open question. Before the council, discussion was +allowable; since the definition proclaimed by an oecumenical council united +to the Pope, all discussion is closed. + +Every one knows of the conversation between a very intelligent lady of +great faith and the Count de Montalembert, shortly before the death of +that illustrious friend, in which she asked him what he would do if the +council together with the Pope should define infallibility. "Well, I will +quietly believe it," replied the great orator, with the firm accent of the +Christian who knows his catechism, and who recites his act of faith. + +In fact, no father nor doctor of the church, from Origen and S. Cyprian +down to S. Thomas and Bossuet, no council, no theologian, no Catholic, has +ever doubted the doctrinal infallibility of the church. The controversy +lay with the Gallicans, who claimed that the words of the Pope addressed +to the church _ex cathedra_ needed the assent of a council or of the +church throughout the world to acquire the character of infallibility. + +All the old Catholics of all the schools, Gallican even included, were +agreed to accord to the definitions of a council united with the Pope, +that is to say, the church, the divine privilege of infallibility set +forth in Holy Scriptures and in all tradition. On this point Bossuet holds +the same doctrine as Fenelon and Count de Maistre. + +Now, in the present instance we have a council united to the Pope, and no +council, from that of Trent back to that of Nicaea, has been more +numerously attended, more solemn, freer, or more oecumenical, than that of +the Vatican. To deny this is downright nonsense, in which those take +refuge who seek to hide their apostasy from their own eyes. If the Council +of the Vatican has not been oecumenical and free, then manifestly no +council in the past has ever been. + +To reject the doctrinal definition of the Council of the Vatican, in which +the Sovereign Pontiff and the bishops of all the world, whether +opportunist or inopportunist, have agreed, would undoubtedly be to abandon +the church of Christ, and to renounce the Catholic faith; it would be +going beyond Gallicanism, which never thought of calling in question the +decisions of a council united to a pope; even beyond the Jansenism of Port +Royal, which would perhaps have accepted the Bull of Innocent X. if +sanctioned by a council; it would be going beyond 1682, back to Luther; +that is to say, to open heresy, and to the entire abandonment of the +church, our mother. + +How can M. Doellinger not see this? He who in 1832, at Munich, where the +encyclical of Gregory XVI. reached M. de Lamennais, insisted with the +latter, with all his force as a theologian, that he should submit to the +pontifical encyclical, which, in the doctor's eyes, was binding on +conscience, although no council had adhered to it--how can he now, in his +own case, resist the decisions of Pius IX. and the Council of the Vatican? +He who has written so many works of grave learning, and in particular that +one on _The Church and the Churches_, how comes it that he does not see +that he is no longer in the church, and that he is seeking a shelter for +his revolt in the smallest, the poorest, and the most dilapidated of those +churches of a day which, in the name of history, he has so severely +condemned? How can he find himself at ease and his soul tranquil in those +ridiculous conventicles of Munich and of Cologne, by the side of Michelis, +of Reinkens, Friedrich, Schulte, the ex-abbe Michaud, the ex-father +Hyacinthe, and surrounded by Jansenist and Anglican bishops, by Protestant +and schismatic ministers, by rationalists of all colors? How comes it that +his faith and his learning are not shocked when brought into the midst of +that confusion of doctrines and of tongues, and of ignorance of all kinds, +which rendered the Congress of Cologne so notorious; that congress whereat +the question was discussed "of the reunion of the old Catholics with the +other churches having affinity of faith," which means with all the sects +separated from Rome, to the exclusion of the great universal church of S. +Augustine, S. Thomas, Pascal, Descartes, Bossuet, Fenelon, de Maistre, +Lacordaire, of the eight hundred bishops of the council, and of the +sainted Pontiff Pius IX.? How can he, a man of learning, a priest, +advanced in years, on the brink of eternity, prefer to put himself under +the pastoral crook and the jurisdiction of the Jansenist Archbishop of +Utrecht, or of a schismatic Armenian bishop, and fraternize with the +Anglican bishops of Lincoln, Ely, and Maryland, rather than remain an +humble priest, but proud of that Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church whose +admirable unity bursts forth in the midst of the vast persecution which is +being begun and prepared for her, and of which the Provost of Munich +consents to be the guilty instrument? + +This closes my parenthetical remarks on Dr. Doellinger and the Old +Catholics, who are in reality merely old Jansenists and very old +Protestants, and I come back to M. von Bismarck and to his policy. + +Prince von Bismarck and the governments of Germany have no occasion to +trouble themselves about the question of settling whether infallibility +attaches to the Pope speaking _ex cathedra_, or to the Pope united to the +council; these are all dogmatic theses with which they have no concern. +The pretext got up by politics for trespassing on the domain of religious +faith is the following: The politicians allege that the declaration of the +council has conferred upon the Pope a _new authority_, that this authority +is _absolute_ and _unlimited_, and that this state of things affects the +relations between the church and the state, which is thereby thrown upon +its defence against possible usurpation. The Emperor of Germany, in a +conversation which he recently had at Ems with M. Contzen, the courageous +Burgomaster of Aix-la-Chapelle, brought out this singular idea of the +politicians when he alleged "that the church, by proclaiming the dogma of +infallibility, had declared war to the state." + +How can this be? In what respect does the question of the infallibility of +the church touch the relations between the church and the state? + +The declaration of the Vatican Council is not new; it belongs almost +textually to the Council of Florence when it proclaimed the faith which +had existed for centuries; it is ancient; all, or nearly all, the bishops +at the late council were agreed, and are now all agreed, as to the ground +of the doctrine; they were only divided on the question of opportuneness, +and Mgr. the Bishop of Orleans, in his pastoral letter of assent, declared +that he has always professed the doctrine which had been proclaimed. + +Nothing, then, has been changed, and church and state remain in precisely +the same situation of reciprocal independence in their distinct spheres, +and of harmony in their relations, in which they were before the council. + +Some either imagine, through most admirable ignorance, or hypocritically +make show of believing, that the pontifical infallibility is a _personal_ +privilege, in this sense, that it is conferred _on a person who cannot err +in anything_, that the Pope is infallible in all that he says and in +everything; that he could lay upon the faithful the obligation of +believing any decision that he might proclaim whether in the exclusive +domain of science or in the exclusive domain of politics, where faith is +not at all involved. + +The object of infallibility is the doctrine of the faith and of the +revealed law. The church has the deposit of revelation, of the Holy +Scriptures, and of tradition; the Pope is its supreme guardian; the +evangelical promise of infallibility is nothing else than the promise of +_fidelity_ in the custody of this sacred deposit! When the Pope or the +council united to the Pope declares that a truth is contained in the +deposit of revelation, they do not invent matter, they repeat and discern; +they do not create a new truth, they confirm an old one, and cause new +light to beam from it. + +Infallibility is, then, not personal in the absurd sense in which the word +is used; neither is it absolute and without limits; its domain, which is +that of faith and morals, is clearly marked out by the constitution of the +Vatican Council. "According to the perfectly clear text of the decree," +say the Prussian bishops who met at Fulda in 1871, "all allusion to the +domain of politics is completely excluded from the definition of this +dogma." His Eminence Cardinal Antonelli, in his despatch of the 19th of +March, 1870, to the Nuncio at Paris, is even more precise. "Political +affairs belong," he says, "according to the order of God and the teachings +of the church, to the province of the secular authority, _without any +dependence whatever_ on any other." + +But, as between the secular power and the church, relations are necessary, +these are settled by the two authorities through arrangements or +concordats. + +I allow myself to call Prince von Bismarck's attention to this point. +Positive relations between the church and states have been settled by +concordats only; always, at all periods of history, the popes alone have +negotiated concordats with the states; pontifical infallibility has +absolutely no connection with concordats, and the Pope when he signs them +does not speak _ex cathedra_ and as supreme doctor of the church. How, +then, can the declaration of the council have changed the relations +between the church and governments, and how can the church, by proclaiming +the dogma of infallibility, be said to have declared war to the state? + +It is, then, a mere matter of pretext. In point of fact, it is the German +Empire which is laying claim to absolute and unlimited power in the domain +of religion as well as in the domain of politics; it examines and judges +dogmas, intrudes itself into ecclesiastical discipline; it closes the +priest's mouth in his pulpit--by the lex Lutziana; it closes Catholic +colleges and schools; it forbids religious to preach, to hear confessions, +and even to celebrate Mass; it forbids the bishops to canonically exclude +from the bosom of the church those who openly separate themselves +therefrom; it banishes, for no crime, without trial and in bodies, the +religious orders, in the same way that Louis XIV. (though he could give +better reasons) drove the Huguenots from the soil of France; it favors +schism, and aims at establishing a national church. It is, then, the +German state _which is declaring war to the church_, and which is raising +claim to political and religious infallibility by founding a veritable +civil theocracy. + +Let us put aside the pretext, which can in no wise serve either for the +justification or for the explanation of the conduct of the government of +Berlin. Let us examine the real motives which governed that conduct, the +circumstances by which the emperor was carried away, and the fatal +temptations which deluded him. + + + +VI. + + +Foremost among these reasons and temptations has been, as I have said +before, the alliance with Italy. It was the first cause, and was the +signal for the sudden change which took place in the interior policy of +the German Empire. This is evident from the fact that the political storm +burst forth during the last session of Parliament precisely upon the +occasion of a paragraph in the draft of the address got up by the national +liberal party, and which was a stone hurled at the papacy. This was taking +place at Berlin at the very hour when the Italo-German alliance had been +concluded at Rome; the coincidence is striking, and proves that war +against the Catholic Church and her head has been made a condition of this +alliance. + +The next temptation, the second blunder of Prince von Bismarck, has been +his exclusive alliance with the national liberal party, whose character I +have defined above. This alliance with pseudo-liberalism is the corollary +of his alliance with Italy; both rest within and without on the +revolutionary and anti-Christian principle. War on Rome and the papacy has +been the condition of the alliance with Italy; war on the Catholics in +Germany has been the condition of the alliance with the national liberal +party. + +Prince von Bismarck had, for several years, met a keen resistance to his +plans from the national liberal party, while during the same period he +found a support in the conservative section of the Prussian chambers, with +whom were joined the few Catholics of note who happened to be members of +them. + +To-day he turns away from this weakened but still powerful conservative +section, and he wages the bitterest war against the centre section, which +is made up of Catholics. These two sections watch over the deposit of old +German traditions; they wish to preserve the federal and constitutional +character of the Empire, to maintain the Christian and denominational +character of the schools, and throughout the nation, religious peace. +Latterly the conservative section has become weak; it has yielded to M. +von Bismarck's policy; but sooner or later its traditions will bring it to +the side of the section of the centre, in order that both may unite in +sustaining the historic principles of the Germanic race against the +centralizing anti-religious policy of the national liberal party, which +represents above all else the idea of the French Revolution. + +The section of the centre, which, in 1870, in point of numbers amounted in +the parliament to but very little, has seen its power increase +proportionately with the development of the pseudo-liberal party of +centralization, of omnipotence of the state, of political levelling, and +of anti-Christian reaction. The outrage committed on the papacy by the +Italian government gave increased energy to the Catholic movement, and the +section of the centre, which, at the time it was first organized, +consisted of fifty members only, saw its numbers increase after the +elections to more than sixty, all united together by strong convictions; +it can count to-day nearly eighty, and it is safe to predict that, unless +the government sends into the interior, or into exile, or puts in prison +the leaders of the Catholic movement, the party of the centre will, after +the next elections, thanks to the war begun against the church, have +gained a force of more than one hundred votes, which will thus +counterbalance those of the national liberal party. + +It is this growing power of the party of the centre, the fruit of M. von +Bismarck's policy, which has impelled him to his policy of violence and +anger against the Catholic Church; he means to make the clergy, the +Jesuits, the religious orders, and the bishops pay for the political loss +of rest occasioned to him by this phalanx which is growing into a legion, +and at whose head stand such powerful leaders as Reichensperger, +Mallinckrodt, and Windthorst. The eloquent words of these orators, as in +former times those of O'Connell in England, and Montalembert in France, +spread beyond the boundaries of Germany, to arouse and stir up everywhere +all lovers of right, justice, true liberty, and the church of Jesus +Christ. + +The third temptation of the German government has been the stand taken in +the Vatican Council by nearly all the bishops of Germany and of Austria. +These pious and learned prelates were all agreed, along with those of the +entire world, as to the mere ground of the doctrine; all or nearly all +were infallibilists; Josephism, Febronianism, had been for a long time +dying, if not dead; but these same bishops were nearly all inopportunists. +This M. von Bismarck misapprehended, he believed that there was, among the +bishops in council, a real dissent as to doctrine; he imagined that the +majority of the German and Austrian bishops would separate from Rome to +follow M. Doellinger in the path of defection or of schism, through which +he is moving to his ruin. The Italian alliance and the alliance with the +national liberal party carried M. von Bismarck into hostile action against +Rome; the difference of opinion among the bishops on the question of the +opportuneness of the decision by the council led him to hope that he would +find therein the elements for a _Janist_(194) and national church. + +In this he has been entirely mistaken. "He had left the Holy Spirit out of +his reckoning," said recently to me a learned ecclesiastic of Berlin, and +I add that he had also not reckoned on the faith and virtue of the +episcopate. + +Observe what is going on and how the Catholic tide is rising and +resisting. M. von Bismarck met at Sedan a splendid, courageous French +army, which, badly led and crushed by the fire of the German artillery, +was forced to capitulate; he will henceforth find in opposition to him the +Catholic populations, with their clergy and their bishops at their head, +who will rise, in the name of God and of the liberty of the church, who +will resist and never surrender. + +M. von Bismarck is about to have experience of what the Catholic bishops +are and of what they can do. They will not conspire; they will not sow +rebellion and revolution; they will not join themselves to the red +international party, but they will resist and will not yield. "In this +present sad condition of things," said the bishops met together at Fulda +in April, 1872, "we will fulfil our duty by not disturbing the peace +between the church and the state." "As Christians," said the learned +Bishop of Paderborn, in his touching address to the exiled Jesuits--"as +Christians, we can oppose neither force nor overt resistance to the +measures of governmental authority. Albeit such measures seem to us +iniquitous and unjustifiable, we may only meet them by that passive +resistance which our divine Master Jesus Christ has taught us by his words +and example; that silence, calm and full of dignity; that patience, +tranquil and resigned, but abounding in hope; that loving prayer which +heaps burning coals on the heads of our persecutors." + +Such is the admirable language of the German bishops, as it fell from the +lips of the Archbishop of Cologne, Mgr. von Droste-Vischering, on the very +day preceding that on which he was led captive by a guard of soldiers to +the fortress of Minden. The calm and intrepid Bishop of Ermeland is +deprived of his salary and injured in his authority; he is marked out for +punishment, and he awaits the coming of the soldiers with the fetters to +bind him. + +I cannot recall the venerated name of Mgr. Krementz without adding to it +the illustrious one of Mgr. Mermillod, whom all Europe will continue to +address as Bishop of Hebron and Geneva, despite that decision of the +council of state which forbids him to exercise any function whatever, +whether as bishop or as curate, and which cuts him off from all salary. +Here, then, we have this _republican_ and _liberal_ Switzerland +suppressing the Jesuits and all cognate religious orders, the brothers of +the schools, the sisters of charity; closing seminaries, as at Soleure, +because the moral theology of S. Liguori was taught there; unseating +bishops, as at Geneva; and the people that do these things are yet +shameless enough to talk of liberty, while all the speech-makers of +liberalism, whose hair stands erect at the mention of the revocation of +the Edict of Nantes, and who dinned the world with their clamors in the +young Mortara case, cannot find a single word of liberality, not a single +protest, not a single expression of indignation, to stigmatize these +unheard-of outrages against all liberties at once, and against all the +rights of human conscience. + +I have just been adverting to the passive resistance of the bishops in +Germany; but the lay movement, which is kept strictly within the law, is +less passive, less resigned, and is somewhat inflamed by politics. The +reaction against the unwarranted persecution set on foot a year ago is +breaking out everywhere. A committee of direction has been formed at +Mainz, whose business is to centralize the legal resistance of German +Catholics for the defence of religious liberty thus threatened and +assailed. This committee, in their address dated in July last, call upon +the Catholics of Germany to a crusade in opposition to the aggressions of +the government. "We claim," says this address, "for our creed that liberty +and independence guaranteed to it by the constitution; and under the +device, _For God and our Country_, we will fight to the last for the +maintenance of our rights." This address is signed by some of the most +illustrious names of Germany, foremost among which I may mention those of +Count Felix de Loee, of Baron de Frankenberg, of Count C. de Stolberg, and +of the Prince of Isenburg. + +A numerous meeting of Catholics voted to send the Archbishop of Munich an +address praising him for his firmness and encouraging him in the contest +which he is maintaining. At Breslau, a Catholic Congress has just +assembled with great _eclat_. All the Catholic men of note in Germany were +present at it. Vent was therein given to the most energetic complaints and +the most indignant protests, resolutions of great firmness were adopted, a +new impulse was given to all those associations which, like that of S. +Boniface, of S. Charles Borromeo, and of Pius IX., have multiplied on +German soil works of teaching and of charity; powerful preparations were +in this congress made for resistance, while confiding in their rights and +in God. + +While the Catholic laity were thus meeting and organizing at Breslau and +at Mainz, the bishops were quietly deliberating at Fulda, presided over by +the Archbishop of Cologne, who is mindful of his illustrious predecessor, +Clement Augustus. There, as the apostles of old in the _cenaculum_, they +tarry in prayer, and they will come forth with a confidence and a courage +such as have overcome adversaries far more powerful than the Prince von +Bismarck. + + + +VII. + + +The old _regime_, before it died out, made trial of rebellion against the +church. Frederick the Great was certainly as able as M. von Bismarck; he +had the world at his feet, and the church in Germany, infected with the +doctrines of Febronius, was apparently in the pangs of death. The last act +recorded in history of the then three ecclesiastical electors of Mayence, +Cologne, and Treves had been to meet with the Archbishop of Salzburg, +Primate of Germany, for the purpose of drawing up the _Punctuations of +Ems_ (1786), which were a code of rebellion against the Holy See. What a +contrast with the present assembling of the German bishops at Fulda! These +servile _Punctuations of Ems_ were beginning to be carried out, when the +armies of the French Republic came down and inflicted upon the authors of +them the punishment they deserved. + +Every one knows about Pombal, Choiseul, and Charles III., who confined the +Jesuits within certain territorial limits, drove them away, cast them into +prison, or sent them into exile, pretty much in the same way as M. von +Bismarck is doing. + +The power which did all this was swallowed up by the French Revolution. + +This revolution, _satanic_, to use M. de Maistre's term, _out and out +anti-Christian_, as M. de Tocqueville calls it, in its turn drove out, +exiled, put to death, whether in the massacre of September, the drownings +of the Loire, by the axe of the guillotine or the dagger of ruffians, the +priests, Jesuits, and religious whom the old regime had spared. + +But this sanguinary revolution went down in the slough of the Directory, +and Napoleon put an end to it. + +That extraordinary man perceived that persecution wounds the hand which +uses it; he sought to make peace with the church; he reopened the +churches, recalled the priests and the bishops, and signed the concordat. +This was the great epoch of his reign: Ulm, Austerlitz, and Jena. + +But the potent emperor, intoxicated by glory and by pride, having become +master of the world, thought he would be master of the church as well; his +rule was over bodies, he sought to extend it over souls; which is the +dream of all founders of empire. He stretched out his hand to the States +of the Church, and annexed them to the French Empire; for which he was +excommunicated by that gentle Pope Pius VII. He seized the pope, bore him +away from Rome into exile at Savona and at Fontainebleau, and he found +that under the lamb-like exterior of his victim there beat the heart of a +lion. He summoned together the council of 1811, thinking that it would be +an easy matter to form a national church of which he would be Supreme +Pontiff. + +This took place in 1811. The next year brought the campaign of 1812, to be +followed by the events of 1813 and 1814; Leipsic, Elba, Waterloo, and the +rock of St. Helena last of all. + +There is another example nearer to our times, upon which I have looked as +a witness, and which I submit for the meditations of the Emperor of +Germany. + +King William I. of Orange fell into precisely the same blunder which +William IV. is now repeating. He ruled over the beautiful kingdom of the +Netherlands, so easy for him to maintain, and which through his mistakes +was broken up. He, too, sought to constitute national unity through unity +of language and of religion. So he suppressed, in 1825, the Catholic +schools and colleges in Belgium, drove out the Jesuits and the brothers of +the Christian schools, founded at Louvain the Philosophic College in which +the clergy of the future national church were to be trained, violated the +right to teach and of association, prosecuted the Bishop of Ghent, Mgr. de +Broglie, got him condemned, and he was pilloried, in effigy, on a public +square of Ghent, between two felons. This reckless and blind policy +excited in Belgium a movement of resistance similar to that which we +remark at the present moment in Germany. Five years later, in 1830, the +Catholic liberal union was brought about, and every one knows the events +to which it gave birth. + +This much is matter of history. The German persecution is a trial for the +church and for Catholics, but it will also bear with it the salvation +which a trial properly borne always brings. Two results will come out of +this trial: the Catholic Church, which they mean to weaken or prostrate, +will, as always heretofore, come out of the contest more united and more +powerful; Protestantism, in whose name the persecution is set on foot, +will be mortally wounded by it, and will see its dissolution hastened; +pseudo-liberalism, which will have played the part of intolerance and +persecution, will be unmasked, and all the friends of a prudent and +sincere liberty will make their reconciliation with the persecuted, one +with that great Catholic Church, ever militant, ever attacked, sometimes a +martyr, but which ever in the end comes out triumphant over these trials +which temper her anew, purify her, and add to her greatness. The world +will understand that in trials such as she is now going through in Germany +she is fighting for the liberty of the conscience of the human race. + +Governments, and in particular great empires founded on force, look upon +the independence of the universal church with feelings of jealousy and +impatience; the idea of a national church has always been a favorite and a +pleasing one with despotisms, because it promises them a servile +instrument to carry out their designs. But when the church is subject to +the state, there can be no church. The high level of the consciences of +the people sinks as freedom disappears. The true and divine church can be +contained within no boundaries and in no nationality; it is the spiritual +kingdom of consciences and of souls; from the independence of the church, +the independence of consciences and souls derives its life. If the church +is under the yoke of the state, all consciences must suffer like +subjection. The world will at last comprehend that national churches, that +is, churches in subjection, can have only enslaved souls as followers, and +that there can be no freedom for the conscience of man, except upon the +sole condition of the independence of a church, accountable, not to any +human power, but to God. + +Will the persecution which has been begun be kept up with the same +tenacity and violence which the Prince von Bismarck now displays? I fear +less from it for the church than for himself and the German emperor, whose +good sense, uprightness, and religious conscience must feel out of place +in the midst of a policy so _outree_, revolutionary, anti-Christian, and +anti-constitutional, so contrary to his instincts, his natural +disposition, and his antecedents. "It cannot be," said M. A. +Reichensperger, "that a monarch, crowned with the laurels of victory, +after having achieved external peace through the courage and the fidelity +of the _entire_ German nation, will authorize the persecution of millions +of Germans on account of their faith, and consent to destroy internal +peace--that peace which in particular is the work of his royal brother, +whose memory is still blessed by all Catholics." + +I add my prayer and my hope to the prayer and the hope of the great German +patriot and orator, but I confess that his fears, which are greater than +his hopes, are felt by me also, and to like extent. The times are gloomy. +"The deluge is drawing nigh; but on the waters I see the ark of the +church," said Count de Montalembert. "She will ride it out, she will live, +and will preside at the funeral of the very powers that thought to have +prepared her own." + +Let Prince Bismarck not forget the words recently uttered by Pius IX. at +one of those allocutions so sublimely eloquent and touchingly holy in +spirit, which, from his prison in the Vatican he addresses to the world. +He was addressing German Catholics, and he told them: "Be confident, be +united; for a stone will fall from the mountain, and will shatter the feet +of the Colossus. If God wills that other persecutions arise, the church +does not fear them; on the contrary, she becomes stronger thereby, and she +purifies herself, because even in the church there are things that need to +be purified, and nothing contributes more thereto than the persecutions +exercised on her by the great ones of the earth." + +Prince von Bismarck may perhaps have smiled on reading these words fallen +from the lips of the Pontiff Pius IX.; if so, he is sadly mistaken; those +old popes who are imprisoned and exiled, but who, to use the profound +expression of the Count de Maistre, _always come back_, are also gifted +with the command of words which are "as burning coals heaped upon the +heads of their persecutors." The Emperor Napoleon I., too, smiled at the +excommunication hurled at him by Pope Pius VII., then weak and disarmed, +and his complete ruin followed shortly after. I advise the prince +chancellor to bear in mind the stone falling from the mountain and +breaking the feet of the Colossus. I had myself, in my book published in +1860, ventured to refer to that same passage of Scripture: "That splendid +figure," I said, "which Daniel sets before us of kingdoms WITH FEET PART +OF IRON AND PART OF CLAY, and of the church, _that stone, cut out of a +mountain, without hands, which broke in pieces the kingdoms_, and _became +a great mountain_, and filled _the whole earth_--that figure has its +application in every age, and should stand for all Christians as a hope +amid trials and a teaching to all the proud." + + + + +A Christmas Memory. + + + God did anoint thee with his odorous oil + To wrestle, not to reign; and he assigns + All thy tears over like pure crystallines + For younger fellow-workers of the soil + To wear for amulets. + + E. B. BROWNING. + + +No more brilliant party ever assembled for Christmas festivities in +Northern Vermont than that which met on such an occasion, very early in +this century, at the home of a young lawyer in the beautiful little +village of Sheldon, since widely renowned for the efficacy of its healing +waters. + +The host and hostess were from families who came among the first settlers +to Vermont. The company was gathered from all parts of the new and +sparsely settled state, with a sprinkling of students who were completing +their legal course at the famous law-school of Judge Reeves, in +Litchfield, Conn.--of which their host was a graduate--and of young ladies +and gentlemen from different places in Massachusetts and Connecticut. +Several of these young ladies were passing the winter with acquaintances +in Sheldon, and the whole country from the "Province Line" (and even +beyond it) to St. Alban's was made merry with a succession of gay parties, +sleigh-rides, dinners, suppers, and dances given in their honor. Even the +sequestered hamlets of Richford and Montgomery, nestled among their own +green hills, did not escape the general hilarity, but were startled from +their quiet decorum, and resounded with a merriment which awakened +unwonted echoes in their peaceful valleys. + +Among the guests at this Christmas festival was a young lady of Vermont, +Miss Fanny A----, whose fair form rises before us as we write from the dim +mists of childhood's earliest memories--a vision of gentle dignity and +youthful loveliness which time has no power to efface. + +Though some years younger than the lady of the house, she was her very +dear and intimate friend, and was now passing a few weeks with her. Her +queenly manners, the silver ripple of her low, sweet voice in the flow of +a conversation which held her listeners spell-bound, as it were, by its +clear and impressive utterances, bore witness to her familiarity with the +most refined circles of city and country society, and the high culture of +her splendid intellect. + +Other circumstances, as will be seen, combined with her personal charms at +this time to make her the centre of interest and attraction wherever she +appeared. + +She was the youngest daughter of a Green Mountain hero whom Vermont most +delights to honor. Her father died when she was too young to realize her +loss. Some years later, her mother--from whom she inherited her remarkable +beauty and graceful dignity--married a most amiable man, who was capable of +appreciating the rich treasure she committed to his charge in the person +of her young daughter. Every advantage the country offered was secured to +develop and polish the gem of which he was inexpressibly proud, and over +which he watched with a solicitude as tender as her own father could have +exercised. + +At that time, the gay society in New England was strongly tinctured with +the species of infidelity introduced and fostered by the writings of +Thomas Paine and his disciples, among whom Fanny's father had been +conspicuous. Her step-father was not of that school, but he detested the +cant and Puritanism of the only religious people he had ever +known--regarding them as pretensions of which even those who adopted them +were often the unconscious dupes. He had never been drawn within reach of +better influences, then exercised only by the Protestant Episcopal Church +in Vermont, to rescue intelligent thinkers from the grasp of infidelity. +He conducted the education of his gifted daughter, therefore, with the +most scrupulous care to avoid entirely all considerations of religion in +any form. When her active and earnest mind would peer beyond the veil he +had so carefully drawn between its pursuits and the interests of eternity, +and send her to startle him with some question touching those interests +which he could only answer by evasive ridicule, or an emphatic request +that she would refrain from troubling her head about such matters, she +would retire to ponder within herself, even while striving to obey her +earthly father, the higher obligations imposed by One in heaven. Light and +wisdom from above soon illuminated the soul that surrendered itself a +willing victim before the altar of eternal truth. She was led by a divine +hand, through paths she knew not, to a temple of which she had scarcely +heard, and, while still living among those to whom the Catholic religion +was entirely unknown, entered its portals to find herself--scarcely less to +her own astonishment than to the amazement and horror of her devoted +parents--a Catholic, as firmly established and steadfastly resolved as if +she had been born and educated in the faith! + +The grief and indignation of her parents knew no bounds. They looked upon +it as a most disgraceful infatuation. Peremptorily imposing silence upon +her in relation to the subject, they determined to suppress it, if +possible, until every means had been used to divert her mind from the +fatal delusion. + +All the wiles and artifices of the gayest and most fashionable circles in +various American cities to which she was taken, were exhausted in vain to +captivate her youthful fancy and deliver her soul from its mysterious +thraldom. In vain the ardent addresses of devoted admirers--who were +destined in the near future to be the brightest ornaments the bench and +bar of their state could boast--were laid at her feet. In vain were all +those worldly allurements, generally so irresistible to the young, spread +before her. Her soul turned steadfastly away from each bewitching +enticement, to solace itself with thoughts of the humble sanctuary in +Montreal, where the weary bird had found a place in which she might build +her nest, even within the tabernacle of thy house, O Lord of hosts! + +In the autumn preceding the Christmas festival of which I write, the +ramblers had returned from their fruitless wanderings. Fanny's parents, +discouraged and discomfited, resolved at this crisis to enlist the zeal of +a few very intimate friends in their cause, by disclosing to them the +great and unaccountable calamity which had befallen their child. + +Among those whom they earnestly entreated to aid them in efforts to +extricate her from the grasp of the great deceiver, was the lady with whom +she was now passing the weeks of the early winter. A Connecticut +Episcopalian of the High-Church stamp, she occupied what they playfully +called a "half-way house," at which they hoped she would be able to +persuade Fanny to stop. She invited several gay young ladies to meet and +enliven Fanny's visit, but took the greatest pains to conceal from them +the religious tendencies of her beautiful guest. She entered with great +zeal upon every scheme for winter pastimes, in the hope of diverting the +mind of her young friend from its absorbing theme. In their private +conversations, she exhausted every argument to convince Fanny that the +Episcopal Church offered all the consolations for which her soul was +yearning. In vain, in vain! She who had been called to drink from the +fountain-head could not slake her thirst with draughts from scattered +pools, which brought no refreshment to her fainting spirit. Vain also were +the precautions used for concealment. Suspicions soon arose among her +young companions that there was something wrong with Fanny. A rosary had +been partially revealed as she drew her kerchief from her pocket. Worse +still, a crucifix had been discovered under her pillow! Here were proofs +of superstition indeed, of rank idolatry in unmistakable form, and no one +knows to what unimaginable extent! Then it began to be whispered around +the admiring and compassionate circle that she had not only taken the +first step on the downward road, but was even now contemplating the still +more fatal and final one of religious immolation! + +It was their apprehension of this direful result which imparted a new and +melancholy interest in their eyes to all her words and actions. Though she +maintained a modest reserve upon the subjects dearest to her heart, they +thought they could discover some mysterious connection with these in every +expression she uttered. + +On several occasions, the most adventurous of her companions endeavored to +penetrate the silence that sealed her lips in regard to her religious +convictions, by direct questions, and, when these failed, by ridicule of +such "absurd superstitions"; but to no purpose. Her nearest approach to +any satisfactory remark was in reply to one of these questions: "It is +impossible to convey any clear idea to your mind, in its present state, +concerning these matters. Your opinions are founded upon prejudice, and +your prejudices are the result of your entire ignorance in relation to +them. If you really desire to be better informed, you need, first of all, +to pray with humility for light and guidance, and then seek for knowledge. +If you do this with sincerity, you will surely be instructed, and 'know of +the doctrine'; but, if you refuse to take this first step, all the +teaching in the world will be of no avail. 'They have Moses and the +prophets; let them hear them. If they believe not Moses and the prophets, +neither would they believe though one should come to them from the +dead.' " + +She rebuked ridicule with such calm dignity that it was soon abandoned, +one of her assailants, a very lively young lady, remarking one day: "It is +astonishing to see how terribly in earnest Fanny is! She certainly +believes in the Catholic religion with all her heart, though how a person +with her extensive information and splendid talents can receive such +absurdities is a puzzle to common sense!" + +But her severe trials were in her home. Her parents were unutterably +grieved when she persisted in accepting the Catholic faith. This further +determination to forsake those who had so fondly loved and tenderly +cherished her, and who were so justly proud of the use she had made of the +opportunities for improvement which their solicitude had secured for her, +was beyond all human endurance. + +If she had been the victim of adversity or of disappointed hopes, there +might have been some excuse; but that the idol of doting parents should +abandon her elegant home to the desolation in which her departure would +enshroud it, and turn from all the advantages that wealth, position, and +the homage of society could offer--dashing to the ground on the very +threshold of life the brilliant prospects which were opening before +her--was worse than madness! They complained bitterly to her of her +ingratitude and heartless disregard of their feelings and wishes; poured +unmeasured and contemptuous reproaches upon her for stifling the modest +womanly instincts of her refined and delicate nature, to strike out boldly +upon a new road hitherto untrodden by any woman of New England. +Remonstrances, pleading, reproaches, and contempt were alike unavailing. +Listening only to the persuasions of that "invisible Lover" whose voice +had called her to relinquish the seductive charms which surrounded her +worldly course, she turned away from them steadfastly to follow him and +carry his cross up the steep and thorny paths of penance and self- +abnegation, offering herself entirely to him on the Calvary made glorious +to her by his precious blood. + +Not "immediately," however, like those whom he called of old, did she +"leave the ship and her father, to follow him." Weary years of waiting and +yearning, far from the tabernacles where her soul had chosen its home, did +she accord in tender regard for the feelings of those, so truly and deeply +beloved, who could not give her up, and who had no clue by which to trace +the course her spirit was taking, or power even to conjecture the motives +that actuated her. + +When at length the time arrived to which they had consented to limit her +stay with them, who shall describe the pangs that rent her heart in a +parting so full of grief; in severing these nearest and dearest ties, and +in witnessing the anguish which overwhelmed those around whom her +tenderest earthly affections were entwined? + +Alone, but full of peace, "leaning on the arm of her Beloved," did she +tread the painful path. Her parents could not accompany her to witness the +sacrifice which prostrated their fondest hopes, nor could they ever bring +themselves to visit her in the sanctuary she had chosen. + +Her Sheldon friend did so repeatedly, and was amazed to find her radiant +with a joy which her countenance had never before revealed--happy in the +peaceful home that offered only poverty and an unceasing round of labors +in the service of the sick and suffering, with a happiness which the +splendors of her worldly one could never impart. + +Multitudes of New England people visiting Montreal flocked to the convent, +begging to see the lovely young nun of the Hotel Dieu, who was the first +daughter New England had given to the sacred enclosure, and whom they +claimed as belonging especially to them through her connection with their +favorite Revolutionary hero. + +So continual were these interruptions that she was driven at length to +obtain the permission of the mother-superior absolutely to decline +appearing in answer to such calls, except when they were made by the +friends of former days, for whom she still preserved and cherished the +liveliest affection. + +By a singular coincidence--or rather, let us say, through tender memories +of the gentle nun long since departed from the Hotel Dieu, and the +prevailing efficacy of her prayers--a large proportion of those who were +present at the Christmas party at Sheldon, including the mistress of the +feast and many of her family, were, from time to time as years flew by, +received into the bosom of the Holy Catholic Church. + +And so does our gracious and mighty Mother, "ever ancient, ever new," win +her triumphs, one by one, perpetually through all the ages--wins them often +in the face, nay, even perforce, of circumstances apparently the most +directly opposed to her influence; accomplishes them by means so weak and +simple as would seem, according to all human reasoning, utterly +inadequate. In countries far remote from her gentle influence, one is +called--we hardly know how or why--in this place, another in that, as if the +words of our divine Lord found their fulfilment even in this: "Two shall +be in the field: one shall be taken, and one shall be left. Two women +shall be grinding at the mill: one shall be taken, and one shall be left." + +And every soul thus called to launch its eternal interests upon the ocean +of infinite truth must encounter much the same appalling trials, be +haunted by the same startling doubts and dark forebodings. Over the sunken +rocks of heresy and unbelief along this coast the billows break with a +force that affrights the stoutest heart, and many a would-be voyager +shrinks back dismayed before their power; but once pluck up heart of grace +to pass the foaming barrier, in the mid-ocean all is "peace, and joy +unspeakable, and full of glory." + +We cannot more fitly conclude this little sketch of a real event than by a +quotation from Montalembert's closing chapter on the "Anglo-Saxon Nuns": + +"Is this a dream, the page of a romance? Is it only history--the history of +a past for ever ended? No; once more it is what we behold and what happens +amongst us every day.... Who, then, is this invisible Lover, dead upon a +cross eighteen hundred years ago, who thus attracts to him youth, beauty, +and love?--who appears to them clothed with a glory and a charm which they +cannot withstand?--who seizes on the living flesh of our flesh, and drains +the purest blood of our blood? Is it a man? No; it is God. There lies the +secret, there the key of this sublime and sad mystery. God alone could win +such victories and deserve such sacrifices. Jesus, whose godhead is +amongst us daily insulted or denied, proves it daily, with a thousand +other proofs, by those miracles of self-denial and self-devotion which are +called vocations. Young and innocent hearts give themselves to him, to +reward him for the gift he has given us of himself; and this sacrifice by +which we are crucified is but the answer of human love to the love of that +God who was crucified for us." + + + + +The House That Jack Built. + + +By The Author Of "The House Of Yorke." + +In Two Parts. + +PART II. + +Concluded. + +Late in the afternoon, Bessie went down and leaned on the bars again, +looking up and down the road, looking at the tracks left by Father +Conners' carriage-wheels--the smooth curve of their turning; looking to see +the shadows creep across the road as the sun went down. The sadness of a +lonely evening was upon her, and, though she had not lost her morning +resolution, she had lost the joyous hopefulness with which those +resolutions were made. + +At her left, and quite near, a fringe of young cedars made a screen +between the ground that belonged to her house and the farmer next to it, +where her uncle Dennis had lived when John Maynard had wooed and won her. + +Pain came with that recollection, and almost the old bitterness. "I must +go home again, and put my resolutions in practice right away, or I shall +lose them," she said to herself. "It won't do for me to stay here and +brood over my troubles. I cannot bear loneliness; and how terribly lonely +it is here! I wish I had some one to speak to besides poor Aunt Nancy." + +She started, hearing a soft, clear whistling not far away. The strain was +familiar, not to this region, but to her city life. While she listened, +the sound ceased, or rather broke off suddenly. + +Bessie's eyes were wide open, her face flushed. Was there more than one +person who could whistle so marvellously clearly and sweetly? + +Some one began to sing then more sweetly still, and coming nearer while he +sang words written by the most melodious of poets: + + + "Hark! a lover, binding sheaves, + To his maiden sings; + Flutter, flutter go the leaves, + Larks drop their wings. + Little brooks, for all their mirth, + Are not blithe as he! + 'Tell me what the love is worth + That I give thee.' + + "Speech that cannot be forborne + Tells the story through: + 'I sowed my love in with the corn, + And they both grew. + Count the world full wide of girth, + And hived honey sweet; + But count the love of more worth + Laid at thy feet. + + " 'Money's worth is house and land, + Velvet coat and vest! + Work's worth is bread in hand, + Ay, and sweet rest. + Wilt thou learn what love is worth? + Ah! she sits above, + Sighing, 'Weigh me not with earth. + Love's worth is love!' " + + +The singer had come yet more near, and would have been visible to her had +not Bessie Maynard's looks been downcast and her head drooping low. When +the song ended, and the step paused, she lifted her eyes, and saw James +Keene standing before her smiling and waiting for the greeting she was so +slow to give. + +Surprise, and perhaps fear, deprived Bessie for a moment of her self- +possession. "What! you here!" she exclaimed, without the least sign of +courtesy; and with that exclamation broke down the barrier of silence that +had existed between them. + +"Why should I not be here?" he asked quietly. "May not I also have +memories connected with this place? It was here I recovered health, after +an illness that nearly cost me my life. It was here I shot my first bear. +And it was here I first saw you." + +Bessie perceived at once that, if the old reserve was to be maintained, +she must immediately assume an air of decisive politeness. For an instant +she wavered. Silence may be best for those who are doubtful of themselves, +and, not willing to commit any flagrant wrong, are still not resolved to +be absolutely honest. But when we are strong in the determination to be +sincere, and to let the light of day shine not only on our actions, but on +our inmost thoughts, then, perhaps, by speech we may most nobly and +effectually establish our position. + +Bessie Maynard, therefore, waited for the words which would give her an +opportunity to put an end to the tacit and vague understanding existing +between them. + +He read her silence rightly; it was a command for him to speak; and he +obeyed it, though the pale face and large, downcast lids gave little hope +of any such answer as he might wish to receive. + +"In those old days, so long ago, when I came here to try what a half- +savage life would do for me, and was astonished to find a delicate human +flower in the wilderness, I was a prophet." + +He leaned on the cedar bar that separated them, and looked dreamily off +toward the woods. He would not surprise in her face any involuntary +expression she might wish to conceal from him; he would take advantage of +no impulse. If she came to him, she must come deliberately. For, setting +aside Christianity--and he did not pretend to believe in it--James Keene had +an exceptionally honorable nature. He would gladly have taken this woman +away from a husband who, he believed, knew not how to value her, and who +made her miserable by his neglect, but he held that it would be no wrong +for him to do so. + +"Yes, I was a prophet," he continued; "for I believed then, what I am sure +of now, that your marriage was a most unwise one. Give me credit, Bessie, +for having been sincerely pained to see that, as years passed away, you +had reason to come to the same conclusion. Whatever selfish wishes I may +have had, I would at any time have renounced them could I have seen you +happy with the man you chose to marry, knowing no other." + +Bessie lifted her eyes, and looked at him with a steady, tearful gaze. +"People might say that you are wicked to speak so to me," she said; "but I +think that, according to your belief, you are very good; only you have no +faith in religion. I esteem you so highly that I am going to make a +confession which, perhaps, you may think I ought not to make. There have +been times during these last few years when, if I had not had some little +lingering faith, I would have welcomed from you an affection which I have +no right to receive. There have been times when you might have spoken as +lovingly as you could, and I should not have been angry. I tell you this +partly because you must have at least suspected that it was so. And more +than this. If I had seen you here a few days ago, my impulse would have +been to welcome you more ardently than I ever yet welcomed any friend. You +can understand how it all has been, without my explaining. I was so +lonely, so neglected! I was so lonely!" + +She had spoken with a sad earnestness, and there was something touchingly +humble yet dignified in her manner; but, at the last words, her voice +trembled and failed. + +He was looking at her now. Excitement and suspense showed in the sparkling +of his clear blue eyes, in the slight flush that colored his usually pale +face, in the lips firmly compressed. + +"All is changed now," she went on. "I have been recalled to my religion, +to my duty. I do not think that you should any more show me that sympathy +which you have shown, and I do not think that you should see me +frequently. I thank you for your kindness toward me. It has often been a +comfort. But I am a wife"--she lifted herself with a stately gesture, and +for the first time a wave of proud color swept over her face--"and the +sadness which my husband may cause me no other man may ever again soothe." + +There was silence for a moment. The gentleman's face had grown pale. There +was a boundless tenderness in his heart for this fair and sorrowful woman, +and he was about to lose the power to offer her even the slightest +comfort, while at the same time he must still retain the knowledge of her +suffering. + +"I shall respect your wish and your decision," he said, with emotion. +"Forgive me if I have trespassed too much in the past. It seemed to me +very little; for, Bessie, if I had not known that you had a religious +feeling which would have held you back, or would have made you miserable +in yielding, I should long ago have held out my hand to you, and asked you +to come to me. If I had felt sure of being able to convince you beyond the +possibility of subsequent regret, I should not have kept silence so long. +But I respect your conscience. I should esteem myself a criminal if I +could ask you to do what you believe to be wrong." + +Bessie Maynard's face was covered with a blush of shame. Her thought had +never gone consciously beyond the length of tender, brotherly kindness, +and it was cruelly humiliating to see in its true light the position in +which she had really stood. At that moment, too, she first perceived what +a gulf lay between her soul and that of the man who had seemed always so +dangerously harmonious with her. In principle, in all that firmly +underlies the changeful tide of feeling, they were antagonistic; for he +could speak calmly and with dignity of a possibility from which she shrank +with a protesting tremor in every fibre of her being. + +"I am going back to my husband," she said, "and I shall never again forget +that his honor and dignity are mine. I have been weak and childish, and +more wicked than I knew or meant, and it all came because I loved my +husband too much and God too little. But I trust"--she clasped her hands, +and lifted her eyes--"I trust that I shall have strength to begin now a new +life, and correct the mistakes of the past." + +She forgot for a moment that she was not alone, and stood looking away, as +if there stretched before her gaze the new and loftier pathway in which +she was to tread. Her companion gazed at her unchecked, with searching, +melancholy eyes, not more because she was dearer to him in her impregnable +fortress of Christian will than she ever had been in her human weakness, +than because there rose from the depths of his restless soul a cry of +longing for that firm foundation and trust which can hold a man in the +place where conscience sets him, no matter how the tempests of passion may +beat upon his trembling heart. + +"There is, then, nothing left me but to say farewell." + +The poignant regret his voice betrayed recalled her attention. + +"It has come to that," she said gently. "But if you could know all I mean +in saying farewell to you, it would not seem an idle word; for I hope and +pray that you may fare so well as to come before long into the church. It +is a refuge from every danger and every trouble, and I have only just +found it out! Good-by." + +She gave him her hand, and they separated without another word. But Bessie +did not stop to look after this visitor. Whatever regret she might +otherwise have felt was swallowed up in the one thought--it had seemed to +him possible that she might leave, not only her husband, but her sacred, +sainted babes, and go to him! To what a depth had she fallen! + +When she had disappeared in the house, he strolled slowly down the road. +Unless you had looked in his face, you would have taken him for a man who +was calmly enjoying the contemplation of nature in that forest solitude. +But from his face looked forth a spirit weary and hopeless that hastened +not, because it beheld nowhere a place worth making haste to reach. Once +only the gloom of his countenance lifted, and then it was with no cheering +brightness, but as the cloud is momentarily illuminated by angry +lightning. + +A man was coming up the road, not such a man as one usually sees in these +wild places, but one who bore the marks of city training and habits. The +uniform gray clothing, the wide Panama hat, even the unobtrusive necktie, +belonged to the city. This man was taller and broader-shouldered than he +whose eyes flashed out so scornfully at sight of him. His face was dark, +vivid, and clean-shaven, the forehead was wide, the dark-brown hair +closely cut, the gray eyes clear and penetrating. It was a face fitter to +carve in stone than to paint, for its color and expression were less +noticeable than its fine, strong outlines. + +Yet now there shone a soft and eager light over that granite strength. +There was a look of glad surprise, mingled with a certain amused self- +chiding, as though of one who comes back from a long and gloomy +abstraction, and finds a half-forgotten delight still waiting at his side. + +At sight of this man, James Keene's first emotion had been one of anger, +his first impulse to meet him boldly and with scorn. But scarcely had he +taken one quickened step before he stopped, with a revulsion of feeling as +unsuspected as it was confounding. Reason as he might, emancipate himself +as he might from what he considered the superstitions of religion, he +found himself now overwhelmed with confusion. He strove to call up to his +mind all those arguments on which he had founded himself, but they fell +dead. Whether it was the instinct of a noble heart that would not betray +even an enemy, or an irradicable root of that religious faith which had +been implanted in his childhood, or the strangeness of one who for the +first time acts on principles long maintained in theory, or only a +sensitive perception of the esteem in which the faithful world would hold +his action, he could not have told. He only knew that, instead of +standing, lofty and serene, in the dawn of this new light before which +superstition and oppression were to pass away, he felt as if he were +surrounded by a baleful glare from the nether fires. Sudden and scathing, +it caught him, and burned his courage out like chaff. + +In his eagerness and preoccupation, John Maynard had scarcely observed the +person who approached; and, when the stranger turned aside into a wood- +path, he gave him no further thought. + +There was the little crooked house squinting at him out of its two +windows, with the boards he had nailed, the chimney he had built, the door +he had hung; there was the whole wild, rude place, with everything askew, +that had once seemed a paradise--that had been a paradise--to him. With his +hands and eyes educated, as they were now, to the utmost precision of +outline and balance, the sight made him laugh out; and yet the laugh +expressed as much pleasure as mockery. + +He was taking his first holiday since he had left this house, and +everything was delightfully fresh and novel yet familiar to him. He did +not see the beauty that a poet or a painter would have found in that +unpruned rusticity, for he was an artist of the exact; but the wabbly +frame-house, the reeling fences, the road that wound irregularly, the +straggling trees that leaned away from the northwest, made a good +background against which to contemplate the trim and shining creatures of +his hands, regular to a hair's breadth, unvarying and direct. + +Coming to the bars, he threw himself over instead of letting them down, +and found that he had grown heavier and less lithe than he was when last +he performed that feat. He walked up the rocky path, his heart beating +fast as he thought of the old time, and of the slim, bright-faced girl he +had brought there as a bride. If she could stand in the doorway now, as +she was then, and smile at him coming home, he felt that he could be the +old lover again. He had a vague idea that Bessie had grown older, and +sober, and pale. Come to think of it, he hadn't known much of her lately, +and she had been dissatisfied about something. Why had she allowed him to +get his eyes and ears so full of machinery? Surely he had lost and +overlooked much. He had a mind to complain of her, only that he felt so +good-natured. + +At sound of a step, Aunt Nancy went to the door; but at that sound Bessie +took her sewing, and bent over it. Had James Keene repented their hasty +parting? + +"Does Miss Bessie Ware live here?" asked the gentleman, with immense +dignity. + +"Bessie Ware?" repeated Aunt Nancy, in bewilderment; then, as the +recollection of Bessie's confessions flashed into her mind, she stiffened +herself up, and answered severely: "No, sir, she does not!" + +"The idea of his refusing to give her her husband's name!" she thought +indignantly. + +"Why, John!" exclaimed Bessie, over the old lady's shoulder. + +Aunt Nancy gave a cry of delight. She would at any time have welcomed John +rapturously; but his coming now made her twice glad. Of course he and +Bessie would make it all up. + +The exuberance of her welcome covered, at first, the wife's deficiency. +But when the excitement was over, and they had gone into the house, +Bessie's coldness and embarrassment became evident. + +"I am very much surprised to see you here," she said, when her husband +looked at her. She did not pretend to be glad. + +"Are you sorry?" he asked, with a laugh. + +"I am too much astonished to be anything else," she replied quietly. "What +made you come?" + +John Maynard was disappointed and mortified. That for years he had met his +wife's affectionate advances as coldly he did not seem aware. Other things +had occupied his thoughts. He did not recollect, as he had not noticed at +the time, that her manner was now just what it had long been. + +Supper was over, eaten in an absent way by the husband, who glanced every +moment at his wife. He found her very lovely, though different enough from +the glad, girlish bride who had once brightened this humble room for him. +He could not understand her. Had she no recollection of those days? + +She did not seem to have, indeed, for she made no reference to them by +look nor speech, but talked rapidly, and with an air of constraint, of +things nearer in time, and listened with affected interest while he told +the latest city news, and the latest news of his own work; how high the +engine spouted; of the tiny model locomotive he had built, all silver, and +gold, and fine steel; of the money he expected to make by his new patent; +of an accident that had happened in his shop--a German organist, with two +or three others, had come to look at his machinery, and got his hand +crushed in it, which would put a stop to his playing. + +Bessie looked up with an expression of pain. "Poor man!" she murmured. +"How miserable he must be!" + +"Yes; I was sorry for him," the husband replied. "They say he cared for +nothing but music. His name is Verheyden." + +"Poor man!" Bessie sighed again, looking down. "Those machines are always +hurting some one." + +"It was his own fault," the machinist said hastily. "Did he suppose that +the engine was going to stop when he put his forefinger on it? Why, that +machine would grind up an elephant, and never mismake its face. But it is +the first time any one was ever hurt by a machine of mine." + +He did not understand the glance she gave him. It was not pleasant, but +what it meant he knew not. She was thinking: "It is not the first time one +has been hurt so." + +Aunt Nancy found business elsewhere, and left the couple to themselves. + +"I forgot you were coming away that day, Bessie," her husband said +hastily, the moment they were alone. "I never thought of it till I was +five miles off, and then I concluded that you must have changed your mind, +or you would have told me not to go." + +"You know I never tell you not to go anywhere," she replied coldly. + +He colored. "But you know that I didn't mean to have you go to the depot +alone. When I read what you wrote to Jamie, I felt sorry enough." + +In all the long years that were past, how generously would she have met an +apology like this! How quickly would she have disclaimed all sense of +injury, and even have tried to find some fault in herself! But now her +heart, with all its impulses, seemed frozen. She only gave him a glance of +surprise, and a quiet word. "There was no need of company, I knew the +way." + +There was silence. Gradually, through the deep unconsciousness and +abstraction of the man, came out incident after incident of their late +life, slight, but significant. Each had seemed a detached trifle at the +time, but now as he sat there, abashed and ill at ease, they began to show +a connection and to grow in importance. It was as when, in a thick fog, +the sailor sees dimly a black speck that may be only a floating stick, and +another, and another, till, looking sharply, as the mist grows thinner, he +finds himself caught among rocks at low tide. + +John Maynard tried to throw off with a laugh the weight that oppressed +him. "Come, Bessie, let the late past go, and remember only the life we +lived here. Let's be young people again." + +He went to her side, bent down, and would have kissed her, had she not +evaded his touch, not shyly, but with a crimson blush and a quick flash of +the eyes. + +"Don't talk nonsense, John!" she said, in a low voice that did not hide a +haughty aversion. "Let us speak of something sensible. I have been +thinking that some of our ways should be changed at home. I shall begin +with myself, and attend strictly to my religion. Besides, I am not doing +rightly in allowing James to grow up without any discipline, and I think +he should be placed in a Catholic school, where he will be taught his +duty. He is quite beyond my control." + +Her morbid humility and diffidence were gone. The feeling that had made +her give up all rights rather than ask for them did not outlive the moment +of her reconciliation with the church. + +"I am willing he should go to any school you choose," her husband replied +gravely, impressed by the change. "I suppose the boy is going on rather +too much as he likes. Do whatever you think best about it, and I will see +that he obeys." + +She thanked him gently, and continued: "I shall go to High Mass after +this, and I should be glad to have you go with me, if you are willing. It +would be a better example for James than to see you go to the shop on +Sundays. He is becoming quite lawless. We have no right to give our +children a bad example. I would be glad to have you go with me, if you +will." + +John Maynard's face was glowing red. He felt, gently as she spoke, as if +he were having the law read to him. "I am willing to go with you, Bessie," +he said. "I am not a Catholic, but I am not anything else." + +She thanked him again, earnestly this time, for it was a favor he had +granted her, and she knew that he would keep his word. "You are good to +promise that," she said. + +He laughed uneasily. "Have you anything else to ask?" + +"I do not think of anything," she replied, and there was silence. + +The husband got up, and went to the door. The sun was sinking down the +west. He looked at the glow it made, and remembered how he had seen it +there in the days that were past, how quiet and peaceful his life had +been, how much happier, had he but known it, than in the turmoil of later +years. Then the days had been full of healthful employment, the nights of +rest and refreshment, untroubled by the feverish dreams that now swarmed +in his sleeping hours. And what was it that had made his life so happy? +What had been the motive, the delight of everything? Nothing but Bessie, +always Bessie, his help and his reward. + +He turned his face, and saw her still sitting there, her head drooping, +her hands folded in her lap. Those hands caught his glance. They were pale +and thin. They looked as though she had suffered. + +He went to her impulsively as his heart stirred, and put his arm about her +shoulder. "Bessie, forget the last years, and let's be as we were in the +happy old time." + +She did not look angry; but she withdrew herself gently from him. + +"John," she said, "that is too much to expect at once. Years of pain +cannot be forgotten in a moment. When you came to-day, you asked if Bessie +Ware lived here. She does not. The Bessie Ware you married is dead. I +scarcely know yet who or what I am. I only know that I shall try to do my +duty by you, and repair some of the faults and mistakes of the past. But, +John, I must warn you that it is harder to reconcile an estranged wife +than to win a bride." + +One piercing glance, angry and disappointed, shot from his eyes; then he +went to the outer door. He stood a moment on the threshold, then stepped +on to the greensward. Another pause, and he walked slowly back through the +garden, seeming not to know whither he went. + +Aunt Nancy, anxiously awaiting signs of reconciliation, saw him wander +about aimlessly, then go and lean on a fence next the woods, his back to +the house. + +She went into the front room at once. She was on John's side now. + +"Bessie," she said decidedly, "you mustn't stand too much on your dignity +with John. Men are stupid creatures, and do a good many hard things +without meaning or knowing; and, if they come round, it isn't wise to keep +them waiting too long for a kind word." + +Bessie Maynard laid down the work she was pretending to do, and her hands +trembled. "I am not acting a part, Aunt Nancy," she said, "and I cannot be +a hypocrite. I feel cold toward John. And I feel displeased when he comes +and kisses me, as if he were conferring a favor, and expects me to be +happy for that. I could not give up if I would, I ought not if I could. +There is something more required than a little sweet talk." + +A half hour passed, and still John Maynard stood motionless, with his +elbows leaning on the fence, and his head bowed. If Bessie had seen his +face, it would have reminded her of the time when he first studied +mechanics, and became so absorbed in the one subject as to be dead to all +else. But there was the difference that he studied then with a vivid +interest, and now with gloomy intentness. + +An hour passed, and still he stood there; and the sun was down, and the +moon beginning to show its pearly light through the fading richness of the +gloaming. The birds had ceased singing, and there was no voice of wild +creatures in the woods. It was the hour for prayer and peace-making. + +John Maynard started from his abstraction, hearing his name spoken by some +one. "John!" said Bessie. She had been watching him for some time from the +door, and had approached slowly, step by step, unheard by him. + +He turned toward her a pale, unsmiling face. "How late it is!" he said. "I +must make haste." + +She spoke hesitatingly, something doubtful and wistful in her face. "I +have been thinking that I might have received you better, when you came on +this long journey. Won't you come in now and rest? I didn't mean to turn +you out of the house that you made--for me." + +He turned his eyes away. "And I've been thinking, Bessie, that I'd better +go right back again; I can go down to the post-office to-night, and take +the stage to-morrow morning." + +"You will not go!" she said. + +"I should only spoil your visit," he went on. "I don't want you to begin +to 'do your duty' by me just now. I know, Bessie, that you had a good deal +to complain of; but I swear to you that I did not mean to be hard. You +know I had twenty-five years to make up; and I was always looking for +better times. I was so blind that I was fool enough to think you would be +glad to see me here, and that we could begin over again where we began +first." + +She did not answer a word. There is something confounding in the sudden +humiliation of a man who has always been almost contemptuously dominant. + +He looked at his watch. "I must make haste, or they will be in bed," he +said. "Make some sort of an excuse to Aunt Nancy for me. And when you want +to come back, let me know, and I will meet you at the depot or come after +you." + +He started, and she walked beside him down the path to the road. He seemed +hardly able to hold his head up. + +She walked nearer, and slipped her hand in his arm, speaking softly: "I +said a little while ago that the pain of years cannot be forgotten in a +moment. But I was wrong. I think it may." + +He looked at her quickly, but said nothing, and they reached the bars. +Neither made any motion to let down the pole. They leaned on it a minute +in silence. + +"The fact is, Bessie," the husband burst forth, "I've been like a man +possessed by an evil spirit. I'm sorry, and that is all I can say." + +"No matter, Jack! Let it all go!" his wife exclaimed, clasping her hands +on his arm, and holding it close to him. "You weren't to blame!" (Oh! +wonderful feminine consistency!) "Let's forget everything unpleasant, and +remember only the good. How you have had to work and study, poor, dear +Jack! You must rest now, and never get into the old drudging way again." + +Aunt Nancy raked up the fire, and put down the window, looking out now and +then at the couple who leaned on the bar below. Each time she looked, +their forms were less distinct in the twilight. "That's just the way they +used to do fifteen years ago," she muttered contentedly. + +She sat a few minutes waiting, but they did not come in. Aunt Nancy sighed +and laughed too. "It beats all how women do change their minds," she said. +"I did think that Bessie would hold out longer. Well, I may as well go to +bed." + +By-and-by she heard them come into the kitchen. + +"Now, I shut the doors and windows, and you rake up the fire," Bessie +said. "Do you remember it was always so, Jack?" + +"Of course I do, little one," was the answer. "But Aunt Nancy has got the +start of us to-night." + +"Aunt Nancy!" repeated Bessie, in a lower voice. "I declare, Jack, I +forgot all about her." + +"I'll warrant you did!" says Aunt Nancy to herself, rather grimly, +perhaps. + +"We will be sure to keep all our good resolutions, won't we?" Bessie said. + +"All right!" says John. + +The door shut softly behind them, and there were silence, and peace, and +hope in the house that Jack built. + + + + +A Retrospect. + + +Concluded. + +Nothing of interest presented itself during the reign of Philip the Bold, +except the council held there in 1278. In 1383, the unfortunate Charles +VI., wearied with state troubles that he was so ill fitted to cope with, +fled in despair from the Louvre to Compiegne. But he was not to find peace +here more than in the busy turmoil of the city. Soon after his arrival he +was attacked with insanity; at first it was considered of no moment, the +natural consequence of a violent reaction or a weak and nervous +temperament; great pains were taken to conceal the fact from the public, +but after a time the symptoms became alarming, and it was impossible to +keep the secret. After the festivities which followed his ill-starred +marriage with Isabeau de Baviere, the disease broke through all bounds; +everything seemed to conspire to exasperate it: the assassination of +Clisson by the Baron de Craon, the apparition of the phantom in the forest +that seized the king's bridle and uttered the mysterious message as it +disappeared, the bal masque when the Duke of Orleans inadvertently set +fire to the king's Indian costume--a skin smeared with a tarry substance +and stuck all over with feathers--all these shocks, coming at short +intervals, irritated the disordered imagination to fury, and the attacks +became frequent and ungovernable. The king's illness was imputed by +popular superstition to the malefices of Valentina of Milan, Duchess of +Orleans, who, if she lacked the power, no doubt had strong motives for +evoking the powers of darkness to destroy the king's reason, and thereby +his authority. The demon which had taken possession of Charles' brain does +not seem to have invaded his heart or changed the natural goodness of his +disposition. He was removed from Compiegne in one of his fits of madness, +and when some years later he re-entered it, it was by force of arms; the +Bourguignons held the place. Charles laid siege to it; after a desperate +resistance it surrendered, and he entered in triumph; nothing however +could induce him to punish the rebels, he said there was blood enough upon +the ground, and he would take no vengeance on his subjects except by +forgiving them. Compiegne was soon to be the theatre of a more momentous +struggle than these rough skirmishes between Charles and his people. +Shortly after the mock peace signed there by Bedford, it was attacked by +the Duc de Bourgogne and the English with Montgomery at their head. Jeanne +d'Arc on hearing of it evinced great sorrow and alarm, but she flew at +once to the rescue, and appeared suddenly in the midst of the king's +troops, with the oriflamme of S. Denis in one hand, and her "good sword of +liege" in the other. The sight of her whom they looked upon as the angel +of victory raised the drooping spirits of the soldiers and filled them +with new ardor; they raised a cry of victory the moment they beheld +Jeanne. Enguerrand de Monstrelet, who was an eye-witness of the siege, +describes her attitude and the conduct of the troops throughout as +"passing all heroism ever before seen in battle." But, alas! the star of +the maid of Orleans was destined to set in darkness at the hour of its +greatest splendor; her own prediction, so often repeated to Charles and +those around him, "Un homme me vendra" (A man will betray me), was about +to be fulfilled. On the 24th of May, 1429, there was a formidable +engagement between the two armies. Jeanne, at the head of hers, performed +prodigies of valor; after a brilliant sortie in which the enemy were +repulsed, she was re-entering the town by the Boulevard du Pont, and had +almost reached the barrier through which hundreds of her own victorious +soldiers had already passed, when, lo! the gates swing forward on their +hinges, and are closed against her! The maiden's cry of despair as she +raised her sword and stretched both arms towards the gates was echoed by a +yell of fiendish joy from the enemy; in an instant she was surrounded, +disarmed, and taken captive by Montgomery. Guillaume de Flavy, governor of +Compiegne, was accused of having committed this act of treachery, bribed +by Jean de Luxembourg. If the accusation be true, and it has never been +seriously challenged, the traitor's punishment was as fitting as it was +merited; he was immediately destituted of his office and revenues by the +Connetable de Richemont, and driven to hide his base head in private life, +where the Nemesis who was to avenge Jeanne d'Arc awaited him in the shape +of his wife; she was jealous of her husband, who, it would seem, fully +justified the fact; after leading him a miserable life and failing to +convert him by slow torture from his evil ways, she bribed the barber to +cut his throat one morning while shaving him, and finished the operation +herself by smothering him under a pillow. For many years de Flavy's effigy +was burnt regularly at Compiegne on the 24th of May. + +Louis XI. was liberated from the English, and came to Compiegne time +enough to embitter the last days of his father, Charles VIII., who let +himself die of hunger there from terror of being poisoned by his son. +Comines says that his dutiful son and most amiable of men was so irritated +by his courtiers for mocking "his boorish manners, his uncouth dress, and +his taste for low folk," that to spite them he published an edict +forbidding them to hunt or touch the game in the forest of Compiegne, a +prohibition against all precedent, nor did he ever invite them to join him +there in the chase. But the pretty palace open to the four winds of heaven +soon grew distasteful to him, and he forsook it for the more congenial +retreat of Plessis-les-Tours, where, surrounded by spies and quacks and a +moat filled with vipers and venomous snakes, he ended in terror and +suffering a life which presents a strange mixture of shrewdness and +credulity, bonhomie and ferocity, impiety and the grossest superstition. + +Francis I. took kindly to Compiegne, which had been deserted by his two +predecessors. His first act on coming there, as king, was to do public +homage to the Holy Shroud. Louis, Cardinal de Bourbon, grand-uncle to the +king, and abbot of S. Corneille, exposed it to the veneration of the king +and the people amidst great ceremony and prayer of thanksgiving. "He took +the holy relic, and laid it on the grand altar with sentiments of great +devotion and tenderness, which he expressed by abundant tears." Francis +added to the shrine "twenty-two rose-buds of pure gold, enriched with +precious stones and pearls, and attached to twenty _fleurs-de-lys_ of +gold," says Cambry, in his _Description de l'Oise_. There is also a letter +of Francis' giving a naive account of the ceremony, quoted at length in +the _Histoire du Saint Suaire de Compiegne_. Francis passes from the +scene, and we see "the noble burgesses of Compiegne," as he was fond +himself of calling them, making great stir to receive his successor, Henri +II., on his return from Rheims. Two years more, and there is the same +merry hubbub, and the town is in gala dress to welcome Catherine de +Medicis on her marriage. This abnormal type of a woman fell ill not long +after her arrival, and vowed that if she recovered she would send a +pilgrim to Jerusalem to give thanks for her; he was to start from +Compiegne, and perform the journey all the way on foot, making for every +three steps forward one step backward. Cambry says the vicarious +pilgrimage was "faithfully executed according to the queen's vow." + +Charles IX. was only a flying visitor at Compiegne. An odd story is told +by D. Carlier and others as occurring there during his time. A man was +discovered in the forest who had been brought up by the wolves, and taken +so completely to their way of life that he had nearly turned into a wolf +himself. "He was hairy like a wolf, howled, outran the hounds at the hunt, +walked on all fours, strangled dogs, tore and devoured them." For a time +he made sport for the people, who hunted him like other game, but having +shown a propensity to deal with men as he did with dogs, they laid a trap +for him, chained him, and took him before the king. Charles, more humane +than the noble burgesses, refused to have him killed, but ordered him to +be shorn and confined in a monastery. "What reflections," naively exclaims +D. Carlier, "does not this incident suggest on the danger of bad example, +and the pernicious effects of evil society!" It would be interesting to +hear how the novice behaved himself in his new position, whether he +developed any latent dispositions for the mystic life, and quite left +behind him the habits of his early education which had corrupted his good +manners; but of this D. Carlier says nothing. + +Henri III., who lived at St. Cloud making omelets, expressed a wish to be +buried near the Holy Shroud at Compiegne, in the church of S. Corneille; +and as soon as Henri IV. became master of his "good town of Paris" he +faithfully carried out this wish. Owing, however, to the dilapidated state +of the finances, he could not do so with the proper ceremonial. "It was +pitiful," says Cheverny, in his _Memoirs_, "to see the greatest king of +the earth in a _chapelle ardente_ with only one lamp, one chaplain +belonging to the late king, named La Cesnaye, and a few shabby _ecus_ to +keep up a shabby service." Instead of being removed to S. Denis after a +temporary rest near the Holy Shroud, the body remained on in the vaults of +S. Corneille, on account of a prophecy which said that Henri IV. would be +buried eight days after Henri III.; a prediction which was actually +accomplished, "though not," says Bajin, "in a manner apprehended by the +king". When Henri IV. fell by the hand of Ravaillac, the Due d'Epernon +advised Marie de Medicis to have the obsequies of the late king performed +before those of her husband. Henri IV. was therefore kept waiting till his +predecessor's grave was filled. The first ceremony was performed quietly, +almost in secret; and then the "good Bearnias" was taken to S. Denis, all +France weeping and refusing to be comforted. + +Louis XIII. was attracted to Compiegne solely by the pleasures of the +chase. We see him watching the meet from a window giving on the Cour +d'honneur, and whispering to the Marechal de Praslin, "You see that man +down there? He wants to be one of my council, but I cannot make up my mind +to name him." "That man" was Richelieu. The words were repeated to Marie +de Medicis, as all her son's words seem to have been, and she, counting on +the prelate's influence in supporting her against the king and her other +enemies, vowed that he should be named, and so he was. A few days later we +see Louis, equipped in his hunting costume, stride into the room of the +queen-mother, and proclaim in a boistering manner, meant to vindicate the +independence of his choice, that he "had named the Bishop of Lucon member +of his council as secretary of state." Marie de Medicis looks coolly +surprised, and bows her approval. By-and-by we have the Earl of Carlisle +and Lord Holland presenting themselves at Compiegne to solicit the hand of +Henriette of France for the Prince of Wales. They are received with every +mark of cordial good-will on the part of Louis and entertained with great +splendor; but Richelieu looked askance on their mission; it was his way to +begin always by mistrusting an offer, whether it came from friend or foe; +in this case his piety was alarmed for Henriette's faith, and he suspected +England of some sinister design in seeking alliance with France. Louis, +however, overruled his fears and scruples, and the minister contented +himself with taking extraordinary precautions to ensure to the princess by +contract the free exercise of her religion, stipulating that she should +have in all her chateaux a chapel "large enough to hold as many people as +she pleased." The marriage was celebrated by proxy at Notre Dame, +Buckingham representing the Prince of Wales, and from thence the court +escorted the bridal party on their way as far as Compiegne. Louis XIII., +though he made but short sojourns at the palace, kept up close and +friendly intercourse with the inhabitants, writing to them himself when +any important event took place. He announced to them, for instance, the +siege of Rochelle, the war with the Spaniards, the peace with England, and +many other events in which the honor and safety of the state were +interested. + +Louis XIV. was only eight years old when he paid his first visit to +Compiegne, accompanied by his little brother the Duc d'Anjou and the Queen +Regent; they were obliged to seek hospitality from the monks of S. +Corneille, because the Carmelite nuns were at the palace, which had been +lent to them while their monastery was being repaired, and Anne of Austria +would neither intrude upon them nor suffer them to be disturbed. What a +checkered space intervenes between this first appearance of the _grand +monarque_ at Compiegne and his last, when we see him passing the troops in +review for the amusement of Madame de Maintenon! He stands uncovered +beside her _chaise a porteurs_ and stoops down to explain the various +evolutions, while she raises three fingers of the glass to catch the +explanation without letting in the cold; the Duchesse de Bourgogne and the +Princesse de Conti, and all the train of princes and princesses, are +grouped round the poles of the Widow Scarron's chair, listening +respectfully while the king speaks; but he addresses none of them. + +Louis XV. made his entry into Compiegne preceded by a troop of falconers +with birds on their wrists, and accompanied by cannon and music of fife +and drum, and every demonstration of popular joy. He was just eighteen +then; his life was like the beginning of a stream, bright and clear to its +depths; soon it was to grow troubled, darkening and darkening as it +reached its middle course, till at last the waters ceased to flow and +there was nothing but a loathsome swamp. Compiegne was associated with the +brightest and happiest incidents of his life. In 1744, after he had +commanded the army with the Marechal de Saxe, taken Ypres, Furnes, and +Menin, and performed that series of brilliant feats of arms that raised +him to the rank of a demi-god in the eyes of the people, Louis was +marching to Alsace when he was suddenly stricken down with a malignant +fever and obliged to lay up at Metz. The news of his illness was received +as a personal calamity all over France. Never before nor since was such a +spectacle given to the world of a nation wrestling with its agony beside +the death-bed of a king. The churches were filled day and night, the +people weeping as if every man were trembling for a wife, every woman for +a son; unable to control their grief they wept aloud, "filling the streets +with lamentations"; public prayers were everywhere offered up; processions +were formed in every town and village, and a universal concert of +supplication was going up to the divine mercy for the life of the king. +When it was known that their prayers were heard, and that he was restored +to them from the jaws of death, the reaction was like a national frenzy. +"The nation," says Bajin, "thrilled with joy from one end to another." +They christened their new-found prince _le bienaime_ and henceforth he was +called by no other name; he entered Paris like a conqueror bringing home +the spoils of half of the world; at every step his progress was impeded by +the people falling at his horses' feet and struggling to clasp the hand of +their beloved; mothers held up their babes to kiss him, and strong men +clung to his hands and covered them with kisses and tears. Louis, overcome +by this great tide of love that was sweeping round him from his people's +heart, was heard to repeat constantly while the tears streamed down his +cheeks, "O mon Dieu, qu'il est doux d'etre aime ainsi!" (O my God! how +sweet it is to be thus loved!) It was a manifestation the like of which +history has never chronicled. Another not less ardent, though on a smaller +scale, awaited the king at Compiegne. The town, deeming itself entitled to +make a special family rejoicing, invited him to a _Te Deum_ to be sung in +the time-honored abbey of S. Corneille. The king went and joined with deep +emotion in the solemn hymn of thanksgiving. A monster bonfire was lighted +on a hill above the town, a rainbow of colored lamps, stretching over an +enormous space, symbolized the fair promise of delight which had risen +upon France, fountains of red and white wine flowed copiously on the great +Place, and a ball was given at night to which every inhabitant of the town +was invited, and came; gentle and simple, rich and poor, old and young, +all welded by a common joy without distinction of class into one kindred. +The victor of Fontenoy responded nobly to this magnificent testimony of +his people's trust. Alas! that he should have outlived this glorious +morrow, and turned from his brave career into a slough of selfishness and +vice to become a byword to the tongues that blessed him, and accursed of +the nation that had lavished such a wealth of love upon him! The title of +Bienaime, which had been spontaneously bestowed on him by the people, and +been regularly prefixed to his name in the almanac and elsewhere, became a +butt for squibmongers, and was applied to the king only in mockery and +scorn. The following is a specimen: + + + "Le Bien-aime de l'Almanach, + N'est plus le Bien-aime de France, + Il fait tout _ob Loc et ab Lac_. + Le Bien-aime de l'Almanach: + Il met tout dans le meme sac, + La justice et la finance, + Le bien-aime de l'Almanach + N'est plus le bien-aime de France," etc.(195) + + +When Marie Antoinette came to France as the bride of the Dauphin, it was +at Compiegne that their first meeting took place. Louis Quinze greeted her +with the most paternal affection; but his great, his sole preoccupation +was, not how the Dauphin would like his fair young bride, or how she would +take to the timid and rather awkward youth who blushed to the roots of his +hair when the king, after raising her from her knees and embracing her, +desired him to do the same, but how this pure young creature, who was +entrusted to his fatherly care, would receive the Marquise du Barry. He +presented her after all the other ladies of the court, and with a +trepidation of manner that he was not able to conceal; but the incident +had been foreseen and discussed at Vienna as well as at Compiegne. Marie +Antoinette, sustained by her proud but polite mother, proved equal to the +occasion; "she showed neither _hauteur_ nor _empressement_," but met the +difficulty in a manner which put the king at ease, and impressed the court +with a high sense of her tact and discretion. Nor was this first +impression belied by her subsequent conduct; the Dauphine proved, on many +trying occasions, that her good sense and judgment were a match for the +nobility of her spirit and the goodness of her heart; the busybodies who +worked so diligently to embroil her in a quarrel with Madame du Barry were +foiled by her straightforward simplicity and the dignified reserve which +she maintained alike towards them and towards the favorite. An instance of +this occurred a few weeks after her marriage. The son of one of her women +of the bedchamber, a Madame Thibault, killed an officer of the king's +guard in a duel; Madame Thibault threw herself at Marie Antoinette's feet, +and besought her to implore the king for her son's pardon; the Dauphine +promised, and after a whole hour's supplication she obtained it. Full of +gratitude and delight the young princess told everybody how good the king +had been, and how graciously he had granted her request; but one of the +ladies of the court, thinking to spoil her pleasure and excite her +jealousy, informed her that Madame Thibault had also gone on her knees to +Madame du Barry to intercede for her, and that the marquise had done so. +Marie Antoinette, without betraying the slightest vexation, replied very +sweetly: "That confirms the opinion I always had of Madame Thibault, she +is a noble woman, and a brave mother who would stop at nothing to save her +child's life; in her place I would have knelt to Zamore(196) if he could +have helped me." + +Charles V.'s old chateau, which had been patched, and mended, and added to +till there was hardly a stone of the original building left, was thrown +down by Louis Quinze, and rebuilt as we now see it. It was just finished +in time to receive Louis Seize on his accession to the throne. The new +king came here often to hunt, but he seldom stayed at Compiegne, though it +was dear to him as the place where he first beheld Marie Antoinette. When +the Revolution broke out, Compiegne suffered like other towns; some of its +churches were destroyed, others pillaged; the Carmelites, whose convent +had been the prayerful retreat of so many queens of France, were +imprisoned in the Conciergerie, after appearing before Fouquier Tinville +on a charge of having had arms concealed in their cellars. To this +preposterous accusation, Mere Terese de S. Augustin, their superioress, +drawing a crucifix from her breast, answered calmly: "Behold our only +arms! They have never inspired fear but to the wicked." But what did +innocence avail against such judges? The Carmelites were condemned to +death, and executed at the Barriere du Trone. They ascended the scaffold +singing the _Veni Creator_, and had just reached the last verse as the +last victim laid her head on the guillotine. While awaiting in prison the +day of their deliverance, those valiant daughters of S. Teresa amused +themselves composing a parody on the Marseillaise, of which the following +is a couplet: + + + "Livrons nos coeurs a l'allegresse! + Le jour de gloire est arrive; + Le glaive sanglant est leve, + Preparons nous a la victoire; + Sous les drapeaux d'un Dieu mourant + Que chacun marche en conquerant; + Courans et volons a la gloire! + Ranimons notre ardeur, + Nos coeurs sont au Seigneur: + Montons, Montons, + A l'echafaud, et Dieu sera vainqueur!"(197) + + +Napoleon I. furnished Compiegne for his young Austrian bride, Marie +Louise; she was on her way thither when he met the carriage in the forest, +and, jumping in, scared her considerably by the abrupt introduction. + +At Compiegne took place Alexander of Russia's famous interview with Louis +XVIII.; the king entered the dining-room first, and unceremoniously seated +himself; his courtiers, scared at the royal discourtesy, began to murmur +amongst themselves, which, the czar noticing, he observed with a smile: +"What will you? The grandson of Catherine has not quarterings enough to +ride in the king's coach!" + +Charles X. received at Compiegne Francis and Isabella of Naples, and gave +for their entertainment a hunting _fete_, at which 11 wild boars, 9 young +boars, 7 stags, 56 hind, 10 fawns, 11 bucks, 114 deer, and 20 hares fell +victims to the will of the royal sportsmen. Charles, who was on the eve of +losing a more serious and brilliant royalty (1830), was, by common +consent, proclaimed king of the hunt. + +The last circumstance of note connected with Compiegne is the camps held +there by Louis Philippe in 1847, and commanded by the Duc de Nemours. + +Under the Empire the chateau was inhabited for a short time by the court +every autumn, and was the centre of brilliant _fetes_ and hospitalities. + + + + +The Cross Through Love, And Love Through The Cross. + + +Concluded. + +The next morning he went to the _Juden-Strasse_ before the hour of the +synagogue service, and walked up unannounced into old Zimmermann's room. +As he had hoped, so it proved--_she_ was there, reading the Psalms to the +old man. He wondered if she remembered him, if she had noticed him when he +had stood upon the landing last Sabbath morning. Zimmermann greeted him +with a nod that had not much recognition in it, but said: + +"Maheleth, give the stranger a chair. _Mein Herr_, this is my good little +nurse." + +Holcombe bowed, and the girl looked at him in silence for a few seconds. + +"I remember," she then said, "you picked up my music for me in a storm, +nearly a month ago." + +"I thought you would not have known me again," Holcombe stammered. + +"Oh! yes, I am not forgetful. You have been very good to my patient, and I +am very grateful, for he has eaten more this week than he has for a whole +month." + +"I think I heard your father was ill, fraeulein?" + +"Oh! he has been so for many months. Is your English friend gone?" + +"Yes; he has gone home to be married. I wish, fraeulein, if you could +suggest anything, I could be of some use, besides bringing fruit and +flowers to this house. Do you know, since I have been in Frankfort, I have +never found anything to do?" + +"Do you mean," she asked very gravely, "you wish to be of use to _us_?" + +"I mean, if I could come and sit with Herr Loewenberg, and read or write +for him, while you are away; for they tell me you are out all day, and it +must be lonely for him." + +"That is very kind of you," she answered, looking at him in calm wonder; +"it is true he has no society, for the little girls hardly count." + +"Has he any books?" asked Holcombe. "Because _I_ have plenty, and they +might amuse him; and I have English newspapers, too, coming in regularly. +Does he speak English?" + +"He understands and reads it; but you are a stranger, and why should we +place our burdens on your shoulders?" + +"Oh! you must not mind my way; this sort of thing is a mania with me, you +know." + +"It is a mania seldom found," croaked out the old man. + +"I think," put in Maheleth, "it is time for me to leave you. How can I +thank you, Mr. Holcombe? Perhaps, when you leave my friend here, you will +stop at the next landing, and go in and see my father?" + +"I will, and you must not think I am in a hurry." + +The ice thus broken, many visits followed, and at night, when Maheleth was +at home, Henry read to the family in the little plain room that was so +beautiful in his sight. More than once had he again seen the girl in the +cathedral, always standing, and separated from the worshippers, always +with that same sad, anxious look. One night, he noticed a certain +constraint in the father's and daughter's manner, and Loewenberg was less +cordial to him than usual. After that, Maheleth seemed yet more troubled, +and grew paler and thinner. He asked old Zimmermann if he knew of any +fresh trouble in the family, but he could learn nothing from him. Rachel, +who always answered the bell, detained him one evening, and said: + +"I would not go in to-night, if I were you. Don't be offended, _mein +Herr_." + +"Why, Rachel, what is the matter?" + +"Fraeulein Loewenberg went to the Catholic Church last night, and her father +found it out, and he said it was your fault." + +"Well, I _will_ go in all the same; I had nothing to do with it, and my +friend must not be angry with his daughter." + +Loewenberg was alone, and the room had a tossed look about it, very +different from the cosy aspect it usually wore. The invalid lay on a +couch, with a discontented expression on his dark, thin face. + +"Are you worse to-night?" gently asked Holcombe. + +"Ay, worse indeed, and _you_ must add to my troubles after I had treated +you as a son!" + +"_I!_ My friend, do you think that of me? Don't you know me better?" + +"Ah!" said the invalid irritably, "don't try to deceive me. You know I +have nothing left to care for but my daughter, and you have been trying to +convert her. I know _why_, too, but you shall not see her any more." + +"You wrong me, Herr Loewenberg. I have never spoken to your daughter about +religion, because I did not know whether it might be agreeable to her or +not, and she never started the subject." + +"You know she goes to your church?" + +"Yes, I have seen her there several times; she never saw me, however, and +I never hinted to her that I had seen her." + +"You speak very fairly about it; but I know how unscrupulous you +Christians can be in this matter. You would think it a grand thing to +convert her." + +"Undoubtedly, if I could do it by sheer conviction. But you should know me +too well to believe I would do it by any undue or secret influence." + +"You do not know how dear she is to me; you do not know how her defection +from our ancient faith would break my heart; how I should have to renounce +her for my other children's sake!" + +"And how you would stain your soul with the blackest ingratitude, Herr +Loewenberg, if you did!" interrupted Henry excitedly. + +"So you think _that_, do you? You don't know who she is, and how such a +thing would be so unpardonable in her that no consideration could +influence me. I never told you before, but she is of another blood than +you are--she is the descendant of martyred rabbis, and her race is as pure +as that of the old Machabees. We are not Germans. We are Spaniards, and, +though ruined, our family pride is as great as it ever was--as great, too, +as our love for our faith." + +"How long ago was it you were ruined?" + +"Only a year and two months, and I fell ill six months ago; my wife died +almost as soon as we came here, and my Maheleth has earned our daily +bread, and taught her sisters, and managed the housekeeping, all alone. It +is enough to make one curse God!" + +"Hush, hush!" said Holcombe. "You do not mean that--you know you have too +many blessings to thank him for." + +"And the best and only one you are seeking to take from me." + +"I swear to you that much as I should wish and pray for it--for that I will +not conceal from you--yet I have never influenced your child in any way." + +"You have, because you love her." + +Henry was staggered at the suddenness of his words. + +"You cannot deny it," continued the invalid. + +"No," answered the young man; "I have no desire to deny it, but your +daughter never heard it from my lips, and never would." + +"Never would!" echoed Loewenberg, firing up. "And do you, too, despise her +for her race--she that is as far above you as you are above your lowest +peasant!" + +"God forbid!" said Henry solemnly; "for I think of her as of one of whom I +am not worthy. But _my_ faith forbids our union, and, love her though I +shall to my dying day, my love should never cross my lips to stir and +wound her heart." + +"You shall see her no more; you have seen her too much already; if you +love her, as you say, desist at least now." + +"Do you mean that she knows--perhaps returns--my love?" + +"I have said enough, and shall not gratify your vanity. But promise me you +will not see her again, and I will even believe that you did not try to +proselytize her." + +"No; I cannot promise that. Circumstances might arise under which it would +be death to keep that promise, and yet I should have no hope of inducing +you to give it me back." + +"You mean she might become a Christian?" + +"Even so, as I pray she may." + +"And you will marry her then, and she feels it, and yet you pretend you +use no influence!" + +"I would marry her if she would not think me unworthy." + +"I need say no more. You have been my friend, and I thank you for your +kindness; but henceforth our paths are separate. If I lose my child, I +shall know you robbed me of her. I only ask you now to consider what I +told you of our family and fortunes as a sacred confidence." + +"My friend," said Henry sadly, as he rose, "I will obey you, and you may +consider your secret as sacred as if it were my own. But remember this is +your own act, and, if ever you wish to call on my friendship again, my +services will be as willingly yours as though this breach had never been. +God bless you and your daughter Maheleth!" + +He left the room as in a dream; Rachel scanned his face curiously as she +let him out at the crazy door. + +"So," he thought, "thus ends my connection with that house; and yet God +knows how true my intentions were. I dare not seek her, still I know she +may need me. God grant it be true that Maheleth is a Christian at heart!" + +Unconsciously he bent his steps towards the cathedral; a few people were +collected about the confessionals. The stained windows were dark and +blurred in the uncertain light; only a lamp here and there hung from the +pillars. + +Perhaps his prayers were more fervent in intention than full in form, and +mechanically he watched the shrouded confessionals. Suddenly from behind +the green curtain of one of them issued the figure of the Jewish girl, a +calm look lighting up her features, and her deportment altogether unlike +that which he had so often and so painfully noticed. + +Her eye fell upon him instantly, and, far from shunning him, gave him a +long glance of recognition and sympathy. She knelt for some time, then +rose and walked down the nave. He followed her, and at the entrance door +she paused as if to wait for him. + +"I have seen your father, Fraeulein," Holcombe said, "and he told me a +great many things." + +"I hardly think he quite knows how far things have gone," she answered +gently. "I could give up anything for him except my soul, and for some +months I have known that only by becoming a Christian could I save it." + +"I have often seen you in church." + +"Have you, indeed?" + +"Your father accuses _me_ of converting you." + +She blushed, and was silent for a few minutes. + +"You have helped me by your prayers, I am sure," she said at last. + +"Tell me," he asked, "are you a Catholic yet?" + +"No; I only went into the confessional to speak to the priest; in a few +days I shall be baptized." + +"I have a favor to ask you--will you let me be present?" + +"Certainly, it will make me very happy, believe me." + +"Do you know that, when your father hears of it, he will turn you out of +your home?" + +"He said so--did he tell you so?" + +"He did, but he could not have meant it." + +"Oh! yes," she said sadly, "he would do it; he would think it a duty, a +matter of principle." + +"It would be very ungrateful." + +"Ungrateful! Was I not bound to work for him who gave me life? He worked +hard for us, and in the time of trouble we owed it to him." + +"But if he throws you off, what will become of _him_?" + +"That is the saddest part; but I know God will take care of him." + +"Remember, Maheleth, that either for yourself or for him (for your sake) +you must never hesitate to call upon me. Promise me that." + +It was the first time he had called her Maheleth. She blushed and looked +down, saying: + +"You have been very generous and very kind to my father; but surely now +you have parted friendship with him?" + +"No, I have not, as I told even him; but, were it not so, for _your_ sake +it should be." + +"I have God to look after me, Herr Holcombe." + +"But I want to be his instrument." + +"His Raphael, as you have been to us through this desert of want and +poverty." + +"And will you not be my Sarah?" he asked suddenly, but in a soft, low +voice. + +Her whole frame shook; then she looked up in his face, silent. + +"I have loved you since I knew you," he went on to say; "I mean since I +_saw_ you first; but I never meant to tell my secret, for you know I could +not wed a Jewess. But now, thank God! the bar is gone, and I can be happy +without sin." + +She did not answer yet. + +"Have I deceived myself, then?" asked the young man sadly. "And do you not +love me, as I hoped?" + +"I do," she answered, quickly looking up. "God knows I do, but I cannot +marry you." + +"Why, why, Maheleth? You torture me." + +"Because it would break my father's heart, and because it would give him +reason to say I had changed my faith for you." + +"But how could he?" + +"I could not leave him in misery, and my little sisters alone, and go and +live in peace and earthly comfort which they could not share." + +"They are most welcome to share it, Maheleth." + +"You are too good, too noble," she said; "but it cannot be." + +"And you love me, you say?" + +"Must we not love God better, dear, dear friend? Henry, do not be angry +with me. You will be my dear brother in the faith always." + +Holcombe was too overcome to speak. She stopped and entreated him to leave +her. + +"I am paining you beyond necessity," she said; "you will be happier and +calmer if you do not see me till the day of my baptism. All things are +God's will, and, bitter as the trial may be, he gives us strength to bear +it, if we look to him. Farewell, Henry." + +He wrung her hand in silence, and saw the drooping figure pass quickly out +of sight. He felt how much harder her trial was, and how selfish his own +words had been, yet he did not try to see her again until the day of her +baptism. + +The ceremony was to take place at the cathedral, at four in the morning. +The sun had just risen, and the quiet streets were golden with his light. +Holcombe was watching at the door. She came very soon, wrapped in a long +black cloak, looking radiant and calm, as if nothing more could be of any +consequence to her, nor stir her heart confusedly. She held out her hand +to her friend with a "God bless you!" that left him dumb. Her cloak was +laid on a carved bench, and her white robe gleamed under the rainbow from +the great stained-glass window above her. More beautiful than ever she +seemed, and more angel-like. The priest poured the saving waters upon her +head, and performed all the holy mystic ceremonies of the sacrament, and +she, as if in a heavenly trance, followed him throughout with her eyes and +her lips. Mass was said directly after, and she and Henry knelt together +at the altar-rails to receive the Bread of Angels. A long time passed +after Mass, and when at length Maheleth, now Mary, rose from her knees, it +was only to go to the distant Lady-chapel, and there offer up a golden +brooch of Spanish workmanship, one of the few treasures saved from the +wreck of her father's fortune. + +As she left the church, Henry followed her. + +"Are you going _home_?" he asked timidly. + +She turned her dark eyes upon him very softly, but with no sadness in +them. + +"I have no home now," she said slowly. "Last night I bade my father +farewell; I am going to the convent." + +A look of terror came into Henry's face. + +"To stay there always?" he asked. + +"As God wills--I do not know," she replied. + +"But are you not sorry about your father and sisters?" + +"It was a hard trial," she answered, with radiant calmness in her eyes, +"but God has taken the sorrow out of it now." + +"And shall I not see you again, now your faith is mine? I saw you often +when there was a gulf between us!" + +"It is better you should forget me. But that shall be as God wills; I +leave it to him, and will make no arrangements." + +"Thank you for that, anyhow; remember all I told you, dear Maheleth; so +far, at least, you can make me happy." + +"I will _remember_ it always, and bless you for it, but I do not promise +to act up to it." + +"Never mind, you cannot help God protecting you, no matter through what +instrument." + +And with these words he left her. + +For some weeks they did not meet, but Henry was busy at correspondence +with his English agents and bankers. In the meanwhile, regular remittances +arrived at Herr Loewenberg's house, which he at first refused to accept, +not knowing whether they came from his daughter whom he had thrown off, or +his friend whom he had insulted, and not wishing to be beholden to either +for his daily pittance. But starvation was the alternative, and, had not +Rachel kindly shared her meals with his children, and sent him little +inexpensive dishes now and then, hunger would have made him yield long +ago. As it was, he missed his daily sustenance sorely, and at last, under +protest, and promising himself prompt repayment of these _loans_ as soon +as he should be well again, he began to use the money sent to him. Many a +time Holcombe came to the door to inquire after him from the good-natured +Rachel; and every day, in the dusk of the evening, came his daughter, +almost always bearing a basket that held some little delicacy. + +One night it happened that Henry and Maheleth met at the door. She was the +first to speak. + +"You see I am not yet immured in my convent!" she said gayly. "I have to +thank you so much for coming here to look after my dear father. I shall be +leaving Frankfort soon, and then there will be no one to be so good to him +as you." + +"But _I_ shall not leave. Do you really mean you are going?" + +"Yes; the good nuns have got me a governess' situation somewhere in +Bohemia with Catholics. I shall go next week." + +"May I come and bid you good-by?" + +"Oh, yes! come on a visiting day, Thursday. Have you seen my sisters? How +are they looking?" + +"I saw them a week ago; they looked tired, I thought." + +"Oh! they don't know how to nurse him, and he tires them, I am afraid. But +God will see to them and him too." + +"Will you be able to come back here for a vacation?" + +"Perhaps in a year--not before." + +"Your father may be well again by that time." + +"God grant it! But I must not stay any longer now." + +And having made some inquiries of Rachel, she left the house. + +Henry Holcombe longed for Thursday. He wanted to ask leave to write to +Maheleth, to give her news of her father, he would say. When the time +arrived, the parlor at the convent was full, and he hardly relished making +his adieus in a crowd. He was relieved to find a nun come and beckon him +away, and show him into a quiet little room, with a polished floor, a +Munich Madonna, and a few plain chairs round a dark table. + +In a few minutes, a pleasant-looking old religious came in, followed by +Maheleth. + +The girl reached her hand to Henry, saying: + +"Sister Mary Ambrose knows you by name very well." + +The talk was general for a short time, then the old nun got up and walked +to the window. + +"I wanted to ask you if I might write to you, Maheleth," said the young +man, much relieved by the prospect of a comparative _tete-a-tete_. + +"If you wish to do so, by all means." + +"And you don't wish it?" he said, in disappointment. + +"I meant it might be painful to you after all. What I wish is of no +moment." + +"Maheleth, how can you say so, when you know I shall always feel for you +the same love I do now?" + +"Well, my friend, let that pass. Write to me, then; you know your letters +will be welcome." + +"I will always let you know about your father." + +"You will not always stay in Frankfort?" + +"Not quite, but I shall be here again this time next year." + +She smiled and said: + +"I might not be here myself." + +"Then I shall see you wherever you are, and I shall ask you the same +question you have answered once." + +"Ah! Henry, do not trust to accidents! It may never be; forget me, as I +already told you." + +"We'll not argue about it; we will wait and see. Look, I have brought you +something," he added, taking a tiny velvet case from his breast-pocket. +"It is not an engagement-ring, do not be afraid," he said, as she seemed +troubled; "it is only a souvenir, and I want you to promise me to wear it +for one year, till I see you again. After that, you shall do as you like +about keeping it. You know what a rosary-ring is?" he asked, as he showed +her the broad yellow band notched by tiny bubbles of gold. "And here is +the cross laid upon it, and the cross is of pearls, the emblem of +innocence. You read what is inside now." + +She took it and read the device on the interior rim: "Crux per amore; Amor +per cruce." + +"The cross through love; Love through the cross," he explained. + +She replied by kissing the ring and handing it to him, as she said: + +"Put it on my finger, Henry, and only you or God himself shall ever draw +it off." + +"You do not mean--" + +"Hush! how can you question him? But I fear he will not call me in that +way. Who knows, perhaps we shall meet next year? I leave my father to God +and you." + +The old nun came back from the window. + +"My child, I am afraid I cannot stay any longer," she said. + +The girl rose, and took Henry's hand in both her own. + +"God bless and reward you, my dear, dear friend. You know all I would say +and yet cannot." + +He kissed her hand, and, with an ineffable look of holy calm, the Jewish +convert left the room, still glancing back at him. + +Two months passed, and Loewenberg grew better. One morning, a large letter +was brought to him, with the Madrid post-mark. He opened it hastily, and +scanned its contents. The letter fell from his hands as he read, and a +dizziness came over him; he lay back on his couch, deadly pale. + +"Is it anything bad about Maheleth?" timidly asked little Thamar. + +"No," he said, momentarily roused to anger. He took up the letter again +and muttered, "A million dollars!" The children thought he was worse, and +looked on with scared faces. + +The letter was from a banker at Madrid, saying that he was authorized by a +person deeply in Senor Cristalar's debt, but who wished to remain +nameless, to apprise him of a certain sum, a million dollars, lying in +ready money at his command in Hauptmann's bank at Frankfort. The person +had long been wishing to make this restitution, but had not till now been +able to ascertain his hiding-place. The invalid was in a fever; he could +not help thinking of the young Christian he had spurned, yet he tried to +persuade himself it was not he, but the man to whose knavery he had owed +his total ruin. + +Several days passed, and at last he wrote to Holcombe at the hotel he had +been staying at. In ambiguous terms, he spoke of a generous service +undeserved by him, and of his desire to see him, if only once. But the +Englishman was gone and had left no address. He then wrote to his Madrid +correspondent, urging him to try and discover the person from whom the +money had been sent; but the banker wrote word that the whole transaction +had been kept very secret, and that, before it had become known to him, it +had passed through so many hands that it was impossible to find out the +first person concerned. There was a hint of some American bank connected +with it, and the money had been originally paid down in American gold; but +beyond this there was no clue. Cristalar thought the Spanish banker had +been probably bribed to keep silence, and a few more weeks sped by without +his taking any active measures about his newly-found wealth. He received +and acknowledged a letter of advice from Hauptmann's bank, telling him of +the sum at his disposal, and Hauptmann himself came to call upon him and +offer him his congratulations. The Spaniard, who still called himself by +his German name, received the visit of his former employer as a mere +conventional act of courtesy, and seemed in no wise elated by the sudden +good-fortune he was being congratulated upon. He did not change his +lodgings, but he hired a servant, and sent his daughters to the best +Jewish school in the town. As soon as he got well, which was by rapid +degrees, after he had received the letter that once more made him a +millionaire, he left his children in charge of Rachel, and proceeded to +London, where he advertised daily for information of Henry Holcombe. The +weekly supplies in small sums had never discontinued, but he felt assured +that, notwithstanding all these blinds, he could not be mistaken as to the +name of his benefactor. + +Meanwhile, Maheleth in her Bohemian home heard from Rachel of her father's +fortune, his restoration to health, and his journey to England. She, too, +wrote to Henry, and asked him to tell her if it were he that had thus +returned good for evil. He simply said in reply that he was free to do as +he liked with his money, and that he thought Senor Cristalar knew better +how to use it than he did. + +Summer came again, and with it Henry Holcombe; the old _Juden-Strasse_ was +once more before him, and then he learnt that Herr Loewenberg had gone +three months ago to Madrid. He had been travelling in Italy and Greece, +and had never gone home to his old English country-house, which now was +let to good and steady tenants. He went to the convent; _she_ was not +there, but they expected her. So there was nothing for it but to go and +chat with Rachel and old Zimmermann about old times and old friends. + +A week later he called again at the convent, and the portress told him to +wait. In the same little parlor, unchanged and clean, he waited for a +quarter of an hour, hoping and dreading to see Maheleth. She came in this +time alone. He took her hand in his, and looked a hungry look into her +eyes. She said to him, smiling: + +"Do you see I have kept my promise? I have the dear ring on my finger, and +every day I have said the rosary with it for you. And now, you know, I +_must_ thank you." + +"I cannot bear it; don't, for my sake, Maheleth! Have you heard from your +father?" + +"No; he never _will_ write, I knew that; but I have heard _of_ him; he is +in Spain. He will begin again as a banker, I feel sure, and never rest +till he has repaid you." + +"I don't want to be repaid, except _with interest_, and you know it is not +from _him_ I can ask that. Do you remember that I was to ask you the same +question I asked once already?" + +"Yes, Henry, but think what you are doing." + +"I shall ask it first, and then think." + +"Well, Henry, if I should say that, I will answer it as you wish, provided +you can gain my father's consent?" + +The young man looked blank. + +"I believe that is what God would wish me to do, Henry. My father has no +further need of me, and he or I owe you a debt of gratitude we can never +pay; yet I should like his distinct permission, if I could have it, and +you can obtain it more easily than I can." + +"I shall not rest till it be done," said Holcombe excitedly. "Shall I +write to him? Maheleth, you have had 'Crux per amore'; now God will give +us 'Amor per cruce.' " + +He wrote that very day to Madrid, asking the hand of his daughter from the +wealthy Jewish banker, and pleading as hard as though he were some poor +outcast, with never a roof to his head, begging for the favor of a royal +maiden's love. Cristalar was overjoyed at knowing at last where to find +the man he owed health and fortune to, and, instead of a letter, he sent a +telegram to say he would be in Frankfort in a week. + +Henry took the telegram to the convent; Maheleth turned very pale as she +read it. + +"It is all right, surely, darling, is it not?" asked Holcombe. + +"I have never seen him since the eve of my baptism." + +"And," interrupted the young man, "please God, you will see him again the +eve of our marriage." + +She hid her face in her hands. "God grant it!" she murmured, under her +breath. + +Ephraim Cristalar, for he called himself by his own name now, went to the +hotel where Holcombe used to live, and inquired for the young Englishman. +He had not long to wait. + +"Mr. Holcombe!" he exclaimed, as he caught him in his arms, "I cannot +speak to you--you are master of all I am and have; can you but forgive me, +say?" + +"My friend and father!" replied Holcombe, "you must not give way like +this! I only asked you a simple question, a great favor, it is true, but +that is all we have to speak of." + +"Oh! I know better than that, Henry. What have you to _ask_ of me, when +all I have is yours?" + +"There is one thing I want, you know what; and my only other request is +that you will see your daughter." + +Cristalar drew back. "She is yours, Henry Holcombe," he said solemnly, "as +far as she is mine to give; but she is an alien to my faith, and to my +home." + +"No, no, it must not, shall not be. Remember how she fed you, worked for +you, brought up your little ones, and sent you the little she earned, even +though you had cast her off." + +"It is cruel, Holcombe, to remind me of that," said Cristalar +reproachfully. "Perhaps as your _wife_ I may see her--as the wife of my +benefactor, not as my daughter." + +"I want to take her from _your_ hands. And think how she has wearied for +you all this time!" + +"I know--and do you think I have not missed _her_? I have only _half_ lived +since she left me; and I love her beyond description even yet, but that is +an unhallowed love." + +"Say, rather, an unnatural delusion; I mean your refusal to see her. You +will, for my sake, for your son-in-law's sake?" + +"Leave me now, Henry, I must think." + +Need we tell the end? How his better nature triumphed; how prosperity had +softened his heart, and gratitude had bent his pride; how at last his +father's love could stand no longer the knowledge of his child's great +sorrow; and how Henry's prophecy that Maheleth should see her father on +the eve of her marriage was anticipated by many weeks? Her sisters and +Senor Cristalar accompanied her to the cathedral, and, after the ceremony, +the banker put into the hands of the officiating priest a check for +$10,000 for the Catholic poor of Frankfort. + +Holcombe House was made ready soon after for the bride's reception, and +Senor Cristalar established a branch bank in London, of which his son-in- +law was partner and responsible head. In a very few years, the Holcombe +income was the same it had been before the appalling drain the agents had +spoken of, when the young possessor had drawn the L100,000 of ready money +left him by his father, and added to it an equal sum raised on the estate. + +The old Spaniard could never be induced to abandon the faith that was as +much a part of his family pride as of the tradition of his race; but +Thamar and Agar, Maheleth's two sisters, were baptized two years after the +marriage, under the names of Elizabeth and Magdalen, and, when they in +their turn married into noble English houses, their father certainly +showed no sign of disapproval of their change of religion, in the princely +fortunes he allotted to each. + + + + +Europe's Angels. + + +It was night, and the old year was passing away. The angels had sung their +anniversary strains of gladness, and had announced anew the coming of the +Prince of Peace, only a week ago, yet there was a solemn silence now in +their serried ranks, as they pressed around a group of their +representatives. + +I can hardly tell you _where_ this was, or whether it was "in the body or +out of the body" that I fancied I saw the glorious vision; I only know +that it seemed as if infinite space were around them, and an amphitheatre +of angelic faces, like living stones, were making a barrier between them +and space, as the rainbow does between clouds. + +There were many of those whom I have called representatives, and each bore +some strange emblem, which I understood to be the badge of the nation over +which he was set. Around each stood a host similarly distinguished, the +guardian angels of each individual soul composing the nation. There was an +awful stillness on this the last night of the year, as the conclave of +angels sat brooding over the events of the immediate past. A few, more +prominent among their brethren, presently stood forward, while a figure of +marvellous beauty, but calm austerity of aspect, presented a book to them, +which it supported as a deacon against its head. The book was closely +written on one side, while the opposite page was blank. + +An angel, crowned with an iron crown, and robed in a wonderful garment of +deep azure,(198) curiously wrought in gold with stars and signs of lore +and art, such as only one land in Europe can boast of being able to +interpret, taking a pen in his hand, spoke to the assembled multitude. + +"Brethren," he said, in a deep, musical voice whose tones indicated both +gravity and conscious strength, "before I write my brief record of the +year we have now added to our experience, let me speak to you, as fellow- +watchers over our God's earthly treasures. My trust has been a bitter and +a heavy one, yet withal a glorious vindication of faith and truth. We have +risen among nations like a comet that for a moment eclipses the steadier +and more lasting glory of the older planets, but in our course there were +obstacles which have now become almost the monument of martyrs. Unmindful +of the lion-hearted men to whom Wilfrid, and Boniface, and Lioba preached, +and of whom the strongest bulwark of intellectual faith was built by their +later and more national saints, our new rulers have sought to renew the +persecutions of the XVIth century, and the absolutism of a State Church. +But our God, the 'dear God'(199) of our people, knew how to raise up +defenders for himself in the fearless pastors of his flock; knew how to +inspire them with a bravery that scorned imprisonment and laughed at +death, that made them raise their voices against presumptuous and +intrusive authority on the one hand, and barefaced heresy on the other. We +have triumphed in persecution; we have re-echoed the _non possumus_ of our +earthly father and Pontiff; we have shown to our God the will of martyrs +after having displayed before our sovereign the deeds of patriots. He +thought to weld a mighty nation into one empire; he has riven it in twain +in his unblest attempt, and has called up against his puny military power +the anger of that God who, on the shores of the Red Sea, did punish +Pharaoh and his host. 'Who is like to thee, among the strong, O Lord? Who +is like to thee, glorious in holiness, terrible and worthy of praise, +doing wonders?' "(200) + +Those that wore robes like that of the mighty angel who had spoken took up +his last triumphant words, and chanted them forth in two alternate choirs, +and the voice that came from this host of choristers seemed like the voice +of the sea thundering amid caves and rocks. It surged up and died away in +long reverberating echoes, a hymn of strength and defiance, a prophecy of +a magnificent and almost endless future. + +Then the angel who had spoken wrote a few words in the book, and, turning, +presented the pen to one who stood close beside him, tall, stately, and +calm, in white raiment, with the historical _fleur-de-lis_ broidered +thickly over his robe. On his brows shone the same emblem, wrought in gold +and pearls, while in his left hand he held a flame-colored standard, the +oriflamme of the Crusades. + +"My brethren," he began, "this year has been a silent one compared with +its last two predecessors; but none the less a year of sacrifice, of +heroic expiation, of patient humility of spirit. We have lived amid perils +as deep as religious persecutions; amid the perils of a civilization that +is unchristian, and of refinements worse than heathen. The worship of the +false gods has come back, and we are surrounded with a corruption as +terrible as that of imperial Rome or effeminate Byzantium. Our name is no +longer supreme, our escutcheon no longer unstained, our sword is broken in +the hands of others, our missions are unprotected, and our influence no +longer paramount among barbarians and plunderers, and still our corruption +flourishes as unblushingly and undauntedly as ever, and our rivals, nay, +our very captors, come to learn it at our feet. This is now our shameful +supremacy; but, in the midst of these Capuan revels, is there still a hope +for the nation? Yes, my brethren, the same hope that our glorious iron- +crowned compeer has told us was his hope--the church, the faith, the truth. +If our rulers, like those of our whilom foes, forget the Christian heroes +whom we call our forefathers, the men who at the field of Tolbiac vowed +our nation to the God of armies, and in a thousand fields in Palestine, +Syria, and Egypt redeemed that holy vow, _we_ do not and cannot forget it. +Sons and daughters of the Crusaders, heirs and heiresses of the Kings of +Jerusalem and the Knights of Rhodes and Malta, many of our nation are now +in the holier army, the holier knighthood of religion; their habit is +their coat of mail, their swift prayers and their swifter sacrifices are +their battle-axes, their spears, their maces; in every land they are +fighting the battle of their own, in every breach defending the honor of +their fallen country. All eyes are still upon their acts; their land, like +a magnet, compels the glance of Europe and the world. The saviours who are +working hiddenly at the regeneration of 'the eldest daughter of the +church' are of no party, own no secret master, work for no wages, and seek +no reward; they are soldiers of the cross, children of God, who, in the +hospitals, the prisons, the galleys, the schools, the Chinese stations, +the Canadian missions, the cloistered monasteries, under the names of +Sisters of Charity, Order of Preachers, _Missions Etrangeres_, Christian +Brothers, Benedictines of Solesmes, Jesuits, and _Sulpiciens_, work for +God, in God, with God. 'Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and +his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.' "(201) + +The choir of white-robed angels that clustered round the one who had +ceased speaking took up the grave refrain, and chanted it as their +brethren had done before, and the song swelled majestically as it seemed +to reach the uttermost bounds of the living barrier of angel faces round +the central groups. Ere yet it had subsided, the last of the heavenly +speakers wrote his record in the book, and gave the pen into the hand of a +third angel who stood in grave expectancy by his side. + +This one was tall and stalwart-looking, a warrior-angel, one would +involuntarily be sure to think, yet his long trailing robe of crimson was +woven not with dragons or golden leopards, but with miniature cathedrals, +abbeys, and priories. The heaviness of this golden embroidery seemed to +drag the garment into yet more statuesque folds, as the mighty wearer drew +himself slowly up and took the pen, letting go, as he did so, his hold +upon a silver shield bearing a blood-red cross. His fair waving locks were +uncrowned, and he bent his head towards the two who had spoken before. + +"My brethren," he began, and his voice sounded clear and clarionlike, "you +have each of you sought in the continuation of the traditions of the past +a pledge of the regeneration and safety of the future. I, too, looked to +the early past for the golden age I would fain see revived among us, but, +unlike you, it is neither persecution nor bloodshed that I have to record. +Our nation is not eclipsed in power or in influence; and although our +rulers are hardly worthy of their chivalric forerunners, yet there are yet +among them some who are heirs to their fathers' greatness of soul, though +not to the integrity of their faith. Still, our race has kept more +unblemished than others that reverence for authority without which no +faith is sure, no empire stable. Our life flows more calmly on in our +island-home than does the troubled stream of our brethren's days beyond +the sea. Still, amid benefits without number, amid the march of science +and the progress of art, things that in exchange for the ancient gift of +faith our second fatherland every day gives us in return, we have one +fruitful source of dread and danger--the sordid love of gain which makes +our people restless during life, and leaves them hopeless in death. To +strive against this demon of the air--for we seem to breathe his spirit in +the very atmosphere--is the constant endeavor of my being. To knit art to +God as it was joined to him in the olden days, to put honor before wealth, +and conscience before success, to raise principle triumphant over +interest, is my daily, necessary, but most wearisome task. Many voices +erstwhile charmed our nation--that of the warrior, the bard, the monk; the +voice of glory, the voice of learning, the voice of holy love. Now one cry +alone harshly calls our children together--the cry of gain. Our country has +forgotten its ancient fanes of learning, its island monasteries, its +townlike abbeys, its glorious cathedrals, colleges, libraries, and halls, +it has forgotten its tournaments of science, its chants, its liturgies, +even its earthly pageants, and has run after the abject golden calf of +these latter days. Not the poor alone, but the noble and great have with +less excuse come down into the new arena, and lowered themselves to the +level of money-seekers, till the chivalry of our race has become a +forgotten dream, a talisman that has lost its charm, a thing as out of +date as a crowded abbey with its holy pomps of daily service would be +among the darkened, busy streets of a modern gold-coining city. And yet in +many a nook, in many an obscure street of a little town, in many a shady, +peaceful country home, are rising the fair progeny of our statelier fanes +of old, and beneath groined roofs and before carved altars rise prayers as +beautiful and as divers as the trefoils and roses on capital and pillar. +In prayer, whether petrified into fair churches standing for ever, or +moulded into golden altar-plate rich with chasing and with gems, or flying +straight to God's feet in ardent, winged words of love, we place our last +hope, the hope of the only true conversion our land can ever know; for +'there is a success in evil things to a man without discipline, and there +is a finding that turneth to loss.' "(202) + +Here a countless host of angels, as gravely radiant, yet with the same +solemn shade of sadness in their aspect, as the last speaker, took up his +parting words, and chanted them slowly. I thought they caught +unconsciously the ring of the holy words chanted so often through the ages +of faith, in that land of cathedrals and cloisters. Indeed, the angel +choir and their stately leader seemed none other than monastic champions +turned into bright heavenly spirits, so akin is everything in that isle to +the claustral ideal from which sprang its life--civil, collegiate, +ecclesiastical, feudal, and social. + +As the chanted dirge grew less and less distinct, another angel advanced +to take the pen his predecessor had just laid in the folds of the book, +after having written his year's record within. This one had stood so far +in the background as to have escaped my awed notice until now. He wore a +long, loosely-falling robe of black, and bowed his head as if in grief; +his hands were clasped, and a golden and a silver key were held between +his fingers; in his step there was no elasticity, and in his eye no +gladness. All those who followed him seemed equally sorrowful, but soon I +heard why it was, and no longer marvelled at it. + +"Brethren," he said, in mournful tones, "brethren of all climes, who once +envied me my proud position of warden over the land which holds the father +of all Christians, envy me no longer the sad honors I must yet bear. When +I look at my nation, I can see nothing through my tears. Once I saw +treasures of art and beauty; I can take pride in them no longer. I saw +fair landscapes, the envy of the world, the garden of Europe, the +beautiful God's-acre of a past of heroic deeds, buried in honorable +oblivion as the seedlings of a more glorious crop of Christian heroism--I +can take pleasure in these no more. I saw a people mild, inoffensive, +believing, loving; now I see them corrupted, deluded, led away, and turned +into furies. I saw churches gorgeous with the many gifts of fervent piety +and grateful wealth; I see ruins now, sacrilegiously used for godless +purposes, in derision and contempt of their lofty dedication. I saw one +city, the jewel of the universe, the city of sanctuary and refuge, where +faith reigned, and grief was comforted, and weakness was made strength; a +'city of the soul,' where God held court mid thousands of earthly angels, +and where he found again the mingled worship of the mysterious Hebrew +temple and of the holy, silent house of Nazareth. But now, brethren, rude +men have scattered our treasures, profaned our churches, seized our +cloisters, driven away learning and charity to put lewdness and brutality +in their place, and have renewed, with far more blasphemous intention, the +horrors of the barbaric invasions. I see the father of the faithful with +the crown of martyrdom surmounting his tiara, waiting, like the _Ecce +Homo_ eighteen hundred years ago, the final verdict of an infuriate mob, +while other nations, Pilate-like, wash their hands of the sacred, helpless +charge it were their first duty to defend. My brethren, weep with me, weep +for me, and yet rejoice; 'for the Lord will not cast off for ever.'(203) +'And in that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book, and out of +darkness and obscurity the eyes of the blind shall see.' "(204) + +Many were the eager voices that took up the words of hope and sang them +with a fervor which only guardian spirits can know. As the strain swelled +and spread, then fell into a gentle murmur, as if the singers were loth to +leave off the prayer of faith and hope, the angel had written his short +record for the passing year, and looked around to welcome his next +successor. There was a pause, and among the angelic conclave a swaying to +and fro denoted that some suppressed feeling was at work. Those who had +spoken stood apart in a conspicuous group, conferring among themselves; +but I looked with awe and interest at those who had hitherto been silent. + +The old year's span was very short now. On earth the snow was falling, +preparing a fitting shroud for the departing guest, and a fitting cradle +for the coming stranger; there were revellers in many houses, heedless +sleepers in more, and watchers in only a few; there were monastic choirs +filing into silent churches for the coming office of matins; and there +were also miserable outcasts, some voluntary slaves of the world, others +unwilling watchers, poverty-stricken, hunger-smitten, desperately tempted +creatures who might murmur at and even curse their fate, yet would not +begin the year by breaking God's commandments; there were many sinners +doing penance, many happy death-beds, many freed souls rushing on the +wings of long-repressed desire towards the goal that weary years of +purgatory had hardly hidden from their longing gaze; and well might the +angelic host thrill with holy delight as all these sights and sounds +struck upon their consciousness. The good surely outweighed the bad! + +Just then an angel stepped from among the hitherto silent throng--an angel +with a face full of suffering, sweetness, and patience, yet withal a look +of something deeper and stronger than mere patience; and his black robe +was sown with silver stars, while a star glittered also on his forehead. +In quick accents, full of strength, he addressed his companions, holding +the pen in his hand. + +"Brethren!" he said, "the march of events, as the world calls it, has +passed over and by our nation, but in God's eyes we are not so soon +forgotten. The civilizer of Eastern Europe, the bulwark of Christianity +against the Moslem faith, we have nevertheless suffered by the hands of +Christian princess and been annihilated in the name of civilization. A +martyr-nation, a victim to false diplomacy, we stand in Europe with the +chains still about our feet, while empires change hands and dynasties come +and go; exiled and dispersed like the Hebrews of old, we are known, like +them, by our indomitable faith and ever hopeful patriotism. Within this +year, a gigantic empire has manacled us more cruelly, gagged us more +closely, than before, but we are steadfast yet, for 'blessed are they that +suffer persecution for justice' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of +heaven.' "(205) + +The words were caught up and re-echoed by the angel throng around their +star-crowned leader, while he wrote the brief record of another year's +bitter wrongs still so heroically and silently borne. He passed the pen to +another clothed in purple, who looked at him with angelic sympathy before +he spoke. His voice was still and low, but clear as a silver bell. + +"My brethren," he said, "my task is hard and dreary; a mist of prejudice +hangs over those vast steppes which form my dominions; a false +civilization educates our nobles to a pitch of unnatural and seeming +polish in which all truth is killed, and all natural kindness crushed; +like the apples of the Dead Sea, our country is fair to the eye of the +world, but ashes to the taste of God. We have all to hope, it is true, but +much to fear; and, while the desolate semblance of the true faith spreads +its outward and deceptive gorgeousness before the barren and fettered +nation, the souls of our brethren perish of thirst, as it were, within +sight of the Fountain of Life. Brethren, pray for my unhappy charge, and +thou, O God! enlighten my people! 'How incomprehensible are thy judgments, +and how unsearchable thy ways!' "(206) + +The purple-robed choir around him took up the angel's last words, and +slowly chanted them, as if in awe and expectation, while their leader +wrote a few brief words in the book. + +Another came forward, gathering his golden robe together, the hem of which +was broidered with figures of ships and charts, somewhat faded now, but +this was redeemed by the effulgent brightness of the scroll he held on his +outstretched hand a scroll bearing the divine motto, _Ad majorem Dei +gloriam_. Looking swiftly around, he began thus: + +"My brethren, my provinces are narrowed and my nation lessened since her +ships explored the ocean, her fleet sent forth armadas, and her leaders +conquered new continents, but the spirit of the missionary and the martyr +has not followed that of the less successful and less lasting +investigator. Chivalry still lives in the land of the Cid, and fires the +hearts in whose veins flows the blood of the Crusaders of Granada. Saints +took up the warrior's shield, and won their spurs in distant, dangerous +services, till the names of Xavier, Loyola, Gaudia, and Teresa became the +household words of a whole universe. Unbelief has poisoned our present +position, and for our sins we have suffered dire misfortune and perennial +disturbance. Still, our people are unchanged; faithfully the sons of the +Visigoth martyrs keep the trust of their fathers, and, secure amid their +mountain fastnesses, within the last year have raised the standard of the +cross wreathed with the golden lilies of a national and well-beloved +dynasty. We have had triumphs of the soul and heroic deeds of patriotic +daring mingled together in the annals of our peasant soldiers; the spirit +of another Vendee has spoken to our nation; and God has rejoiced to find +at last a human bulwark against human unbelief. 'Judge me, O God, and +distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy; deliver me from the +unjust and deceitful man.' "(207) + +And while the angel wrote his record in the book, his followers echoed his +last words in tones of mingled triumph and supplication, chanting them, as +all the others had done before them, in two alternate choirs. And now +there was again a pause, while the first groups of angels who had spoken +drew closer to the book, and gazed at the last records written in it. One +more representative came forward, an angel robed in softest green, and +bearing a harp in his hand. Turning to the west, he spoke in a voice full +of deep emotion: "My brethren, I look towards the sea, and gaze at the +land of the setting sun. I see my people spreading over the earth, so that +I have more children in far-away lands than on my own soil. I see them, +the pioneer nation of whom Brendan was the first leader, planting the +cross and the shamrock in unfailing union, wherever they go. Long ages of +suffering have not reft them of the gift of faith, the treasure of art, or +the strength of enterprise; their arm hath upreared every throne and +stayed every altar; their women make a Nazareth of every home and a +tabernacle of every hovel; their race links two worlds, that of the past +and that of the future, that of culture and civilization, to that of +enterprise and freedom. I look with pride on the ocean darkened by the +barks of my people, and forget, as I look, to sigh over the ruined fanes +and dismantled castles of old. Children of impulse, they carry their home +in their hearts, and make another Erin round every cross they plant. Sea +kings, but Christians, they take from the Norsemen their daring, and from +their own isle its poetry, and, blending the two, bear the highest gifts +of the Old World to be the heirlooms of the New. To my nation may it well +and fittingly be said, 'They went out from thee on foot, and were led by +the enemies: but the Lord will bring them to thee exalted with honor as +children of the kingdom.' "(208) + +These prophetic words were caught up by the numerous followers of the +green-robed angel, and rang now in grand and now in softened cadence +through the boundless field of space that encircled the heavenly throng. +As the tones died away, the angel wrote his record in the book, and the +bells of earth sounded faintly in the still air. + +The old year was passing away, and the angels in silence gathered round +the book. As the last stroke of midnight was heard, the bearer of it +turned the leaf, presenting a surface fair and smooth as the petal of a +lily, and the whole company of blessed spirits intoned the _Veni Creator_. + +I heard as it were in a dream, and saw forms of light and beauty disperse +like the fleecy clouds of morning, till the singing died away in faraway +corners of our old, prosaic, yet blessed earth. The songs of heaven were +carried into the uttermost recesses where earthly misery was keenest and +earthly revelry loudest on that fateful night; and, as its echoes passed +over them, the misery grew strangely bearable, the revelry was +unaccountably hushed. Everywhere the new-born year came in with a blessing +and a promise, reverently gathering its predecessor's lessons even while +mourning its inevitable shortcomings; and so once more, according to the +patience of God, his ministers went forth to clear for every man a new +field where, past errors being forgotten, he might renew his struggle in +the battle of life, and retrieve himself in the eyes of infinite purity +and infinite justice. + +Such was the beautiful death of the old year 1872. + + + + +The Nativity Of Christe. + + + Behould the Father is His daughter's Sonne, + The bird that built the nest is hatched therein, + The Old of Yeares an hower hath not outrunne, + Eternall life to live doth now beginnn, + The Word is dumm, the Mirth of heaven doth weepe, + Mighte feeble is, and Force doth fayntely creepe. + + O dyinge soules! behould your living Spring! + O dazeled eyes! behould your Sunne of grace! + Dull eares, attend what word this Word doth bringe! + Upp, heavy hartes, with joye your joy embrace! + From death, from darke, from deaphnesse, from despayres, + This Life, this Light, this Worde, this Joy repaires. + + Gift better than Himself God doth not knowe, + Gift better than his God no man can see; + This gift doth here the giver given bestowe, + Gift to this gift lett ech receiver bee: + God is my gift, Himself He freely gave me, + God's gift am I, and none but God shall have me. + + Man altred was by synne from man to best; + Beste's food is haye, haye is all mortal fleshe; + Now God is fleshe, and lyes in maunger prest, + As haye the brutest synner to refreshe: + O happy fielde wherein this foder grewe, + Whose taste doth us from beastes to men renewe! + + SOUTHWELL. + + + + +The Progressionists. + + +From The German Of Conrad Von Bolanden. + + + +Chapter VIII. Continued. + + +Once more the bell of the chairman was heard amid the tumult. + +"Mr. Seicht, officer of the crown, will now address the meeting," Schwefel +announced. + +The audience were seized with amazement, and not without a cause. A +dignitary of a higher order, a member of the administration, ascended the +pulpit for the purpose of making an assault upon Christian education. He +was about to make war upon morals and faith, the true supports of every +solid government, the sources of the moral sentiment and of the prosperity +of human society. A remnant of honesty and a lingering sense of justice +may have raised a protest in Seicht's mind against his undertaking; for +his bearing was anything but self-possessed, and he had the appearance of +a wretch that was being goaded on by an evil spirit. Besides, he had the +habit peculiar to bureaucrats of speaking in harsh, snarling tones. Seicht +was conscious of these peculiarities of his bureaucratic nature, and +labored to overcome them. The effort imparted to his delivery an air of +constraint and a sickening sweetness which were climaxed by the fearfully +involved style in which his speech was clothed. + +"Gentlemen," said Seicht, "in view of present circumstances, and in +consideration of the requirements of culture whose spirit is incompatible +with antiquated conditions, popular education, which in connection with +domestic training is the foundation of the future citizen, must also +undergo such changes as will bring it into harmony with modern enlightened +sentiment; and this is the more necessary as the provisions of the law, +which progress in its enlightenment and clearness of perception cannot +refuse to recognize as a fit model for the imitation of a party dangerous +to the state--I mean the party of Jesuitism and ultramontanism--allow +untrammelled scope for the reformation of the school system, provided the +proper clauses of the law and the ordinances relating to this matter are +not left out of consideration. Accordingly, it is my duty to refer this +honorable meeting especially to the ministerial decree referring to common +schools, in accordance with which said common schools may be established, +after a vote of the citizens entitled to the elective franchise, as soon +as the need of this is felt; which in the present instance cannot be +contested, since public opinion has taken a decided stand against +denominational schools, in which youth is trained after unbending forms of +religion, and in doctrines that evidently conflict with the triumph of the +present, and with those exact sciences which make up the only true +gospel--the gospel of progress, which scarcely in any respect resembles the +narrow gospel of dubious dogmas--dubious for the reason that they lack the +spirit of advancement, and are prejudicial to the investigation of the +problems of a God, of material nature, and of man." + +Here leader Sand thrust his fingers in his ears. + +"Thunder and lightning!" exclaimed he wrathfully, "what a shallow babbler! +What is he driving at? His periods are a yard long; and when he has done, +a man is no wiser than when he began. Gospel--gospel of +progress--fool--numskull--down! down!" + +"Quite a remarkable instance, this!" said Gerlach to the banker. +"Evidently this man is trying might and main to please, yet he only +succeeds in torturing his hearers." + +"I will explain this man to you," replied the banker. "Heretofore Mr. +Seicht has been a most complete exemplar of absolute bureaucracy. The only +divinity he knew were the statutes, the only heaven the bureau, and the +only safe way of reaching supreme felicity was, in his opinion, to render +unquestioning obedience to ministerial rescripts. Suddenly Mr. Seicht +heard the card-house of bureaucracy start in all its joints. His divinity +lost its worshippers, and his heaven lost all charms for those who were +seeking salvation. He felt the ground moving under him, he realized the +colossal might of progress, and hastened to commend himself to this party +by adopting liberal ideas. He is now aiming to secure a seat in the house +of delegates, which is subsequently to serve him as a stepping-stone to a +place in the cabinet. Just listen how the man is agonizing! He is wasting +his strength, however, and the attitude of the audience is beginning to +get alarming." + +For some time past, the chieftains in the chancel had been shaking their +heads at the efforts of this official advocate of progress. To avoid being +tortured by hearing, they had engaged in conversation. The auditors in the +nave of the church were also growing restive. The speaker, however, +continued blind to every hint and insinuation. At last a tall fellow in +the crowd swung his hat and cried, "Three cheers for Mr. Seicht!" The +whole nave joined in a deafening cheer. Seicht, imagining the cheering to +be a tribute to the excellence of his effort, stopped for a moment to +permit the uproar to subside, intending then to go on with his speech; but +no sooner had he resumed than the cheering burst forth anew, and was so +vigorously sustained that the man, at length perceiving the meaning of the +audience, came down amid peals of derisive laughter. + +"Serves the gabbler right!" said Sand. "He's a precious kind of a fellow! +The booby thinks he can hoist himself into the chamber of deputies by +means of the shoulders of progress, and thence to climb up higher. But it +happens that we know whom we have to deal with, and we are not going to +serve as stirrups for a turn-coat official." + +The chairman wound up with a speech in which he announced that the vote on +the question of common schools would soon come off, and then adjourned the +meeting. + +The millionaires drew back to allow the crowd to disperse. Near them stood +Mr. Seicht, alone and dejected. The countenances of the chieftains had +yielded him no evidence on which to base a hope that his speech had told, +and that he might expect to occupy a seat in the assembly. Moreover, Sand +had rudely insulted the ambitious official to his face. This he took +exceedingly hard. All of a sudden, he spied the banker in the chancel, and +went over to greet him. Greifmann introduced Gerlach. + +"I am proud," Mr. Seicht asseverated, "of the acquaintance of the +wealthiest proprietor of the country." + +"Pardon the correction, sir; my father is the proprietor." + +"No matter, you are his only son," rejoined Seicht. "Your presence proves +that you take an interest in the great questions of the day. This is very +laudable." + +"My presence, however, by no means proves that I concur in the object of +this meeting. Curiosity has led me hither." + +The official directed a look of inquiry at the banker. + +"Sheer curiosity," repeated this gentleman coldly. + +"Can you not, then, become reconciled to the spirit of progress?" asked +Seicht, with a smile revealing astonishment. + +"The value of my convictions consists in this, that I worship genuine +progress," replied the millionaire gravely. "The progress of this +community, in particular, looks to me like retrogression." + +"I am astonished at what you say," returned the official; "for surely +Shund's masterly speech has demonstrated that we are keeping pace with the +age." + +"I cannot see, sir, how fiendish hatred of religion can be taken for +progress. This horrible, bloodthirsty monster existed even in the days of +Nero and Tiberius, as we all know. Can the resurrection of it, now that it +has been mouldering for centuries, be seriously looked upon as a step in +advance? Rather a step backward, I should think, of eighteen hundred +years. Especially horrible and revolting is this latest instance of +tyranny, forcing parents who entertain religious sentiments to send their +children to irreligious schools. Not even Nero and Tiberius went so far. +On this point, I agree, there has been progress, but it consists in +putting a most unnatural constraint upon conscience." + +Gerlach's language aroused the official. He was face to face with an +ultramontane. The mere sight of such an one caused a nervous twitching in +his person. He resorted at once to bureaucratic weapons in making his +onslaught. + +"You are mistaken, my dear sir--you are very much mistaken. The spirit of +the modern state demands that the schools of the multitude, particularly +public institutions, should be accessible to the children of every class +of citizens, without distinction of religious profession. Consequently, +the schools must be taken from under the authority, direction, and +influence of the church, and put entirely under civil and political +control. Such, too, is now the mind of our rulers, besides that public +sentiment calls for the change." + +"But, Mr. Seicht, in making such a change, the state despotically +infringes on the province of religion." + +"Not despotically, Mr. Gerlach, but legally; for the state is the +fountain-head of all right, and consequently possessed of unlimited +right." + +"You enunciate principles, sir, which differ vastly from what morality and +religion teach." + +"What signify morals--what signifies religion? Mere antiquated forms, sir, +with no living significance," explained Seicht, lavishly displaying the +treasures of the storehouse of progressionist wisdom. "The past submitted +quietly to the authority of religion, because there existed then a low +degree of intellectual culture. At present there is only one authority--it +is the preponderance of numbers and of material forces. Consequently, the +only real authority is the majority in power. On the other hand, +authorities based upon the supposed existence of a supersensible world +have lost their cause of being, for the reason that exact science plainly +demonstrates the nonexistence of an immaterial world. _Cessante causa, +cessat effectus_, the supersensible world, the basis of religious +authority, being gone, it logically results that religious authority +itself is gone. Hence the only real authority existing in a state is the +majority, and to this every citizen is obliged to submit. You marvel, Mr. +Gerlach. What I have said is not my own personal view, but the expression +of the principles which alone pass current at the present day." + +"I agree in what you say," said the banker. "You have spoken from the +standpoint of the times. The controlling power is the majority." + +"Shund, then, accurately summed up the creed of the present age when he +said, 'Progress conquers death, destroys hell, rejects heaven, and finds +its god in the sweet enjoyment of life.' It is to be hoped that all- +powerful progress will next decree that there are no death and no +suffering upon earth, that all the hostile forces of nature have ceased, +that want and misery are no more, and that earth is a paradise of sweet +enjoyment for all." + +Mr. Seicht was rather taken aback by this satire. + +"Besides, gentlemen," proceeded Gerlach, "you will please observe that the +doctrine of state supremacy is a step backward of nearly two thousand +years. In Nero's day, but one source of right, namely, the state, was +recognized. In the head of the state, the emperor, were centred all power, +all authority, and all right. In his person, the state was exalted into a +divinity. Temples and altars were reared to the emperor; sacrifices were +offered to him; he was worshipped as a deity. Even human sacrifices were +not denied him if the imperial divinity thought proper to demand them. +And, now, to what condition did these monstrous errors bring the world of +that period? It became one vast theatre of crime, immorality, and +despotism. Slavery coiled itself about men and things, and strangled their +liberty. Matrimonial life sank into the most loathsome corruption. +Infanticide was permitted to pass unpunished. The licentiousness of women +was even greater than that of men. Life and property became mere +playthings for the whims of the emperor and of his courtiers. Did the +divine Caesar wish to amuse his deeply sunken subjects, he had only to +order the gladiators to butcher one another, or some prisoners or slaves +or Christians to be thrown to tigers and panthers; this made a Roman +holiday. Such, gentlemen, was human society when it recognized no +supersensible world, no God above, no moral law. If our own progress +proceeds much further in the path on which it is marching, it will soon +reach a similar fearful stage. We already see in our midst the +commencement of social corruption. We have the only source of right +proclaimed to be the divine state. Conscience is being tyrannized over by +a majority that rejects God and denies future rewards and punishments. All +the rest, even to the divine despot, has already followed, or inevitably +will follow. Therefore, Mr. Seicht, the progress you so loudly boast of is +mere stupid retrogression, blind superstition, which falls prostrate +before the majority of a mob, and worships the omnipotence of the state." + +"Don't you think my friend has been uttering some very bitter truths?" +asked the banker, with a smile. + +"Pretty nearly so," replied the official demurely. "However, one can +detect the design, and cannot help getting out of humor." + +"What design?" asked Seraphin. + +"Of creating alarm against progress." + +"Indeed, sir, you are mistaken. I, too, am enthusiastic about progress, +but genuine progress. And because I am an advocate of real progress I +cannot help detesting the monstrosity which the age would wish to palm off +on men instead." + +The church was now cleared. Greifmann's carriage was at the door. The +millionaires drove off. + +"Pity for this Gerlach!" thought the official, as he strode through the +street. "He is lost to progress, for he is too solidly rooted in +superstition to be reclaimed. War against nature's claims; deny healthy +physical nature its rights; re-establish the reign of terror of the seven +capital sins; permit the priesthood to tyrannize over conscience; restore +the worship of an unmathematical triune God--no! no!" cried he fiercely, +"sooner shall all go to the devil!" + +A carriage whirled past him. He cast a glance into the vehicle, and raised +his hat to Mr. Hans Shund. + +The chief magistrate was on his way home from the town-hall. He could not +rest under the weight of his laurels; the inebriation of his triumph drove +him into the room where sat his lonely and careworn wife. + +"My election to the assembly is assured, wife." And he went on with a +minute account of the proceedings of the day. + +The pale, emaciated lady sat bowed in silence over her work, and did not +look up. + +"Well, wife, don't you take any interest in the honors won by your +husband? I should think you ought to feel pleased." + +"All my joys are swallowed up in an abyss of unutterable wretchedness," +replied she. "And my husband is daily deepening the gulf. Yesterday you +were again at a disreputable house. Your abominable deeds are heaped +mountain high--and am I to rejoice?" + +"A thousand demons, wife, I'm beginning to believe you have spies on +foot!" + +"I have not. But you are at the head of this city--your steps cannot +possibly remain unobserved." + +"Very well!" cried he, "it shall be my effort in the assembly to bring +about such a change that there shall no longer be any houses of disrepute. +Narrow-minded moralists shall not be allowed to howl any longer. The time +is at hand, old lady--so-called disreputable houses are to become places of +amusement authorized by law." + +He spoke and disappeared. + + + +Chapter IX. Progress Grows Jolly. + + +The agitators of progress were again hurrying through the streets and +alleys of the town. They knocked at every door and entered every house to +solicit votes in favor of common schools. Thanks to the overwhelming might +of the party in power, they again carried their measure. Dependent, +utterly enslaved, many yielded up their votes without opposition. It is +true conscience tortured many a parent for voting against his convictions, +for sacrificing his children to a system with which he could not +sympathize; but not a man in a dependent position had the courage to +vindicate for his child the religious training which was being so +ruthlessly swept away. Even men in high office gave way before the +encroaching despotism, for in the very uppermost ranks of society also +progress domineered. + +One man only, fearless and firm, dared to put himself in the path of the +dominant power--the Rev. F. Morgenroth. From the pulpit, he unmasked and +scathed the unchristian design of debarring youth from religious +instruction, and of rearing a generation ignorant of God and of his +commandments. He warned parents against the evil, entreated them to stand +up conscientiously for the spiritual welfare of their children, to reject +the common schools, and to rescue the little ones for the maternal +guardianship of the church. + +His sermon roused the entire progressionist camp. The local press fiercely +assailed the intrepid clergyman. Lies, calumnies, and scurrility were +vomited against him and his profession. Hans Shund seized the pen, and +indited newspaper articles of such a character as one would naturally look +for from a thief, usurer, and debauchee. Morgenroth paid no attention to +their disgraceful clamor, but continued his opposition undismayed. By +means of placards, he invited the Catholic citizens to assemble at his own +residence, for the purpose of consulting about the best mode of thwarting +the designs of the liberals. This unexpected fearlessness put the men of +culture, humanity, and freedom beside themselves with rage. They at once +decided upon making a public demonstration. The chieftains issued orders +to their bands, and these at the hour appointed for the meeting mustered +before the residence of the priest. A noisy multitude, uttering threats, +took possession of the churchyard. If a citizen attempted to make his way +through the mob to the house, he was loaded with vile epithets, at times +even with kicks and blows. But a small number had gathered around the +priest, and these showed much alarm; for outside the billows of progress +were surging and every moment rising higher. Stones were thrown at the +house, and the windows were broken. Parteiling, the commissary of police, +came to remonstrate with the clergyman. + +"Dismiss the meeting," said he. "The excitement is assuming alarming +proportions." + +"Commissary, we are under the protection of the law and of civil rule," +replied Morgenroth. "We are not slaves and helots of progress. Are we to +be denied the liberty of discussing subjects of great importance in our +own houses?" + +A boulder coming through the window crushed the inkstand on the table, and +rolled on over the floor. The men pressed to one side in terror. + +"Your calling upon the law to protect you is utterly unreasonable under +present circumstances," said Parteiling. "Listen to the howling. Do you +want your house demolished? Do you wish to be maltreated? Will you have +open revolution? This all will surely follow if you persist in refusing to +dismiss the meeting. I will not answer for results." + +Stones began to rain more densely, and the howling grew louder and more +menacing. + +"Gentlemen," said Morgenroth to the men assembled, "since we are not +permitted to proceed with our deliberations, we will separate, with a +protest against this brutal terrorism." + +"But, commissary," said a much frightened man, "how are we to get away? +These people are infuriated; they will tear us in pieces." + +"Fear nothing, gentlemen; follow me," spoke the commissary, leading the +way. + +The ultramontanes were hailed with a loud burst of scornful laughter. The +commissary, advancing to the gate, beckoned silence. + +"In the name of the law, clear the place!" cried he. + +The mob scoffed and yelled. + +"Fetch out the slaves of the priest--make them run the gauntlet--down with +the Jesuits!" + +At this moment, a man was noticed elbowing his way through the crowd; +presently Hans Shund stepped before the embarrassed guardian of public +order. + +"Three cheers for the magistrate!" vociferated the mob. + +Shund made a signal. Profound silence followed. + +"Gentlemen," spoke the chief magistrate, in a tone of entreaty, "have the +goodness to disperse." + +Repeated cheers were raised, then the accumulation of corrupt elements +began to dissolve and flow off in every direction. + +"I deeply regret this commotion of which I but a moment ago received +intelligence," said Shund. "The excitement of the people is attributable +solely to the imprudent conduct of Morgenroth." + +"To be sure--to be sure!" assented Parteiling. + +The place was cleared. The Catholics hurried home pursued and hooted by +straggling groups of rioters. + +The signs of the approaching celebration began to be noticeable on the +town-common. Booths were being erected, tables were being disposed in rows +which reached further than the eye could see, wagon-loads of chairs and +benches were being brought from all parts of town, men were busy sinking +holes for climbing-poles and treacherous turnstiles; but the most +attractive feature of all the festival was yet invisible--free beer and +sausages furnished at public cost. The rumor alone, however, of such cheer +gladdened the heart of every thirsty voter, and contributed greatly to the +establishment of the system of common schools. Bands of music paraded the +town, gathered up voters, and escorted them to the polls. As often as they +passed before the residence of a progressionist chieftain, the bands +struck up an air, and the crowd cheered lustily. They halted in front of +the priest's residence also. The band played, "To-day we'll taste the +parson's cheer," the mob roaring the words, and then winding up with +whistling and guffaws of laughter. This sort of disorderly work was kept +up during three days. Then was announced in the papers in huge type: "An +overwhelming majority of the enlightened citizens of this city have +decided in favor of common schools. Herewith the existence of these +schools is secured and legalized." + +On the fourth day, the celebration came off. The same morning Gerlach +senior arrived at the Palais Greifmann on his way home from the +Exposition. + +"I am so glad!" cried Louise. "I was beginning to fear you would not come, +and getting provoked at your indifference to the interests of our people. +We have been having stirring times, but we have come off victorious. The +narrow-minded enemies of enlightenment are defeated. Modern views now +prevail, and education is to be remodelled and put in harmony with the +wants of our century." + +"Times must have been stirring, for you seem almost frenzied, Louise," +said Conrad. + +"Had you witnessed the struggle and read the newspapers, you, too, would +have grown enthusiastic," declared the young lady. + +"Even quotations advanced," said the banker. "It astonished me, and I can +account for it only by assuming that the triumph of the common-school +system is of general significance and an imperative desideratum of the +times." + +"How can you have any doubt about it?" cried his sister. "Our town has +pioneered the way: the rest of Germany will soon adopt the same system." + +Seraphin greeted his father. + +"Well, my son, you very likely have heard nothing whatever of this hubbub +about schools?" + +"Indeed, I have, father. Carl and I were in the midst of the commotion at +the desecrated church of S. Peter. We saw and heard what it would have +been difficult to imagine." He then proceeded to give his father a minute +account of the meeting. His powerful memory enabled him to repeat Shund's +speech almost verbatim. The father listened attentively, and occasionally +directed a glance of observation at the young lady. When Shund's coarse +ridicule of Christian morals and dogmas was rehearsed, Mr. Conrad lowered +his eyes, and a frown flitted over his brow. For the rest, his countenance +was, as usual, cold and stern. + +"This Mr. Shund made quite a strong speech," said he, in a nonchalant way. + +"He rather intensified the colors of truth, 'tis true," remarked Louise. +"The masses, however, like high coloring and vigorous language." + +A servant brought the banker a note. + +"Good! Shund is elected to the assembly! The span of bays belongs to me," +exulted Carl Greifmann. + +"Your bays Seraphin?" inquired the father. "How is this?" + +Mr. Conrad had twice been informed of the wager; he had learned it first +from Seraphin's own lips, then also he had read of it in his diary; still +he asked again, and his son detailed the story a third time. + +"I should sooner have expected to see the heavens fall than to lose that +bet," added Seraphin. + +"When a notorious thief and usurer is elected to the chief magistracy and +to the legislative assembly, the victory gained is hardly a creditable one +to the spirit of progress, my dear Carl. Don't you think so, Louise?" said +the landholder. + +"You mustn't be too rigorous," replied the lady, with composure. "Rumor +whispers many a bit of scandal respecting Shund which does, indeed, offend +one's sense of propriety; for all that, however, Shund will play his part +brilliantly both in the assembly and in the town council. The greatest of +statesmen have had their foibles, as everybody knows." + +"Very true," said Gerlach dryly. "Viewed from the standpoint of very +humane tolerance, Shund's disgusting habits may be considered +justifiable." + +Seraphin left the parlor, and retired to his room. Here he wrestled with +violent feelings. His father's conduct was a mystery to him. Opinions +which conflicted with his own most sacred convictions, and principles +which brought an indignant flush to his cheek, were listened to and +apparently acquiesced in by his father. Shund's abominable diatribe had +not roused the old gentleman's anger; Louise's avowed concurrence with the +irreligious principles of the chieftain had not even provoked his +disapprobation. + +"My God, my God! can it be possible?" cried he in an agony of despair. +"Has the love of gain so utterly blinded my father? Can he have sunk so +low as to be willing to immolate me, his only child, to a base +speculation? Can he be willing for the sake of a million florins to bind +me for life to this erring creature, this infidel Louise? Can a paltry +million tempt him to be so reckless and cruel? No! no! a thousand times +no!" exclaimed he. "I never will be the husband of this woman, never--I +swear it by the great God of heaven! Get angry with me, father, banish me +from your sight--it would be more tolerable than the consciousness of being +the husband of a woman who believes not in the Redeemer of the world. I +have sworn--the matter is for ever settled." He threw himself into an arm- +chair, and moodily stared at the opposite wall. By degrees, his excitement +subsided, and he became quiet. + +In fancy, he beheld beside Louise's form another lovely one rise up--that +of the girl with the golden hair, the bright eyes, and the winning smile. +She had stood before him on this very floor, in her neat and simple +country garb, radiant with innocence and purity, adorned with innate grace +and uncommon beauty. And the lapse of days, far from weakening, had +deepened the impression of her first apparition. The storm that had been +raging in his interior was allayed by the recollection of Mechtild, as the +fury of the great deep subsides upon the reappearance of the sun. Scarcely +an hour had passed during which he had not thought of the girl, rehearsed +every word she had uttered, and viewed the basket of grapes she had +brought him. Again he pulled out the drawer, and looked upon the gift with +a friendly smile; then, locking up the precious treasure, he returned to +the parlor. + +He found the company on the balcony. The sound of trumpets and drums came +from a distance, and presently a motley procession was seen coming up the +nearest street. + +"You have just arrived in time to see the procession," cried Louise to +him. "It is going to defile past here, so we will be able to have a good +look at it." + +A dusky swarm of boys and half-grown youths came winding round the nearest +street-corner, followed immediately by the head of a mock procession. In +the lead marched a fellow dressed in a brown cloak, the hood of which was +drawn over his head. His waist was encircled with a girdle from which +dangled a string of pebbles representing a rosary. To complete the +caricature of a Capuchin, his feet were bare, excepting a pair of soles +which were strapped to them with thongs of leather. In his hands he bore a +tall cross rudely contrived with a couple of sticks. The image of the +cross was represented by a broken mineral-water bottle. Behind the cross- +bearer followed the procession in a double line, consisting of boys, young +men, factory-hands, drunken mechanics, and such other begrimed and +besotted beings as progress alone can count in its ranks. The members of +the procession were chanting a litany; at the same time they folded their +hands, made grimaces, turned their eyes upwards, or played unseemly pranks +with genuine rosary beads. + +Next in the procession came a low car drawn by a watery-eyed mare which a +lad bedizened like a clown was leading by the bridle. In the car sat a fat +fellow whose face was painted red, and eyebrows dyed, and who wore a long +artificial beard. Over a prodigious paunch, also artificial, he had drawn +a long white gown, over which again he wore a many-colored rag shaped like +a cope. On his head he wore a high paper cap, brimless; around the cap +were three crowns of gilt paper to represent the tiara of the pope. A +sorry-looking donkey walked after the car, to which it was attached by a +rope. It was the _role_ of the fellow in the car to address the donkey, +make a sign of blessing over it, and occasionally reach it straw drawn +from his artificial paunch. As often as he went through this manoeuvre, the +crowd set up a tremendous roar of laughter. The fat man in the car +represented the pope, and the donkey was intended to symbolize the +credulity of the faithful. + +This mock pope was not a suggestion of Shund's or of any other inventive +progressionist. The whole idea was copied from a caricature which had +appeared in a widely circulating pictorial whose only aim and pleasure it +has been for years to destroy the innate religious nobleness of the German +people by means of shallow wit and vulgar caricatures. And this very +sheet, leagued with a daily organ equally degraded, can boast of no +inconsiderable success. The rude and vulgar applaud its witticisms, the +low and infamous regale themselves with its pictures, and its demoralizing +influence is infecting the land. + +The principal feature of the procession was a wagon, hung with garlands +and bestuck with small flags, drawn by six splendid horses. In it sat a +youthful woman, plump and bold. Her shoulders were bare, the dress being +an exaggerated sample of the style _decollete_; above her head was a +wreath of oak leaves. She was attended by a number of young men in masks. +They carried drinking-horns, which they filled from time to time from a +barrel, and presented to the _bacchante_, who sipped from them; then these +gentlemen in waiting drank themselves, and poured what was left upon the +crowd. A band of music, walking in front of this triumphal car, played +airs and marches. Not even the mock pope was as great an object of +admiration as this shameless woman. Old and young thronged about the +wagon, feasting their lascivious eyes on this beastly spectacle which +represented that most disgusting of all abominable achievements of +progress--the emancipated woman. And perhaps not even progress could have +dared, in less excited times, so grossly to insult the chaste spirit of +the German people; but the social atmosphere had been made so foul by the +abominations of the election, and the spirits of impurity had reigned so +absolutely during the canvass in behalf of common schools, that this +immoral show was suffered to parade without opposition. + +The very commencement of this sacrilegious mockery of religion had roused +Seraphin's indignation, and he had retired from the balcony. His father, +however, had remained, coolly watching the procession as it passed, and +carefully noting Louise's remarks and behavior. + +"What does that woman represent?" he asked. "A goddess of liberty, I +suppose?" + +"Only in one sense, I think," replied the progressionist young lady. "The +woman wearing the crown symbolizes, to my mind, the enjoyment of life. She +typifies heaven upon earth, now that exact science has done away with the +heaven of the next world." + +"I should think yon creature rather reminds one of hell," said Mr. Conrad. + +"Of hell!" exclaimed Louise, in alarm. "You are jesting, sir, are you +not?" + +"Never more serious in my life, Louise. Notice the shameless effrontery, +the baseness and infamy of the creature, and you will be forced to form +conclusions which, far from justifying the expectation of peace and +happiness in the family circle, the true sphere of woman, will suggest +only wrangling, discord, and hell upon earth." + +The young lady did not venture to reply. A gentleman made his way through +the crowd, and waved his hat to the company on the balcony. The banker +returned the salutation. + +"Official Seicht," said he. + +"What! an officer of the government in this disreputable crowd!" exclaimed +Gerlach, with surprise. + +"He is on hand to maintain order," explained Greifmann. "You see some +policemen, too. Mr. Seicht sympathizes with progress. At the last meeting, +he made a speech in favor of common schools; he sounded the praises of the +gospel of progress, gave a toast at the banquet to the gospel of progress, +and has won for himself the title of evangelist of progress. He once +declared, too, that the very sight of a priest rouses his blood, and they +now pleasantly call him the parson-eater. He is very popular." + +"I am amazed!" said Gerlach. "Mr. Seicht dishonors his office. He +advocates common schools, insults all the believing citizens of his +district, and runs with mock processions--a happy state of things, indeed!" + +"His conduct is the result of careful calculation," returned Greifmann. + +"By showing hostility to ultramontanism, he commends himself to progress, +which is in power." + +"But the government should not tolerate such disgraceful behavior on the +part of one of its officials," said Gerlach. "The entire official corps is +disgraced so long as this shallow evangelist of progress is permitted to +continue wearing the uniform." + +"You should not be so exacting," cried Louise. "Why will you not allow +officials also to float along with the current of progress until they will +have reached the Eldorado of the position to which they are aspiring?" + +"The corruption of the state must be fearful indeed, when such deportment +in an officer is regarded as a recommendation," rejoined Mr. Conrad +curtly. + +A servant appeared to call them to table. + +"Would you not like to see the celebration?" inquired Louise. + +"By all means," answered Gerlach. "The excitement is of so unusual a +character that it claims attention. You will have to accompany us, +Louise." + +"I shall do so with pleasure. When sound popular sentiment thus proclaims +itself, I cannot but feel a strong desire to be present." + +The procession had turned the corner of a street where stood Holt and two +more countrymen looking on. The religious sentiment of these honest men +was deeply wounded by the profanation of the cross; and when, besides, +they heard the singing of the mock litany, their anger kindled, their eyes +gleamed, and they mingled fierce maledictions with the tumult of the mob. +Next appeared the mock pope, dispensing blessings with his right hand, +reaching straw to the donkey with his left, and distorting his painted +face into all sorts of farcical grimaces. + +The peasants at once caught the significance of this burlesque. Their +countenances glowed with indignation. Avenging spirits took possession of +Mechtild's father; his strong, stalwart frame seemed suddenly to have +become herculean. His fist of iron doubled itself; there was lightning in +his eyes; like an infuriated lion, he burst into the crowd, broke the line +of the procession, and, directing a tremendous blow at the head of the +mock pope, precipitated him from the car. The paper cap flew far away +under the feet of the bystanders, and the false beard got into the +donkey's mouth. When the mock pope was down, Holt's comrades immediately +set upon him, and tore the many-colored rag from his shoulders. Then +commenced a great tumult. A host of furious progressionists surrounded the +sturdy countrymen, brandishing their fists and filling the air with mad +imprecations. + +"Kill the dogs! Down with the accursed ultramontanes!" + +Some of the policemen hurried up to prevent bloodshed. Mr. Seicht also +hurried to the scene of action, and his shrill voice could be heard high +above the noise and confusion. + +"Gentlemen, I implore you, let the law have its course, gentlemen!" cried +he. "Gentlemen, friends, do not, I beg you, violate the law! Trust me, +fellow-citizens--I shall see that the impertinence of these ultramontanes +is duly punished." + +They understood his meaning. Sticks and fists were immediately lowered. + +"Brigadier Forchhaem," cried Mr. Seicht, in a tone of command--"Forchhaem, +hither! Put handcuffs on these ultramontanes, these disturbers of the +peace--put irons on these revolutionists." + +Handcuffs were forthwith produced by the policemen. The towering, broad- +shouldered Holt stood quiet as a lamb, looked with an air of astonishment +at the confusion, and suffered himself to be handcuffed. His comrades, +however, behaved like anything but lambs. They laid about them with hands +and feet, knocking down the policemen, and giving bloody mouths and noses +to all who came within their reach. + +"Handcuff us!" they screamed, grinding their teeth, bleeding and cursing. +"Are we cutthroats?" The bystanders drew back in apprehension. The +confusion seemed to be past remedying. A thousand voices were screaming, +bawling, and crying at the same time; the circle around the struggling +countrymen was getting wider and wider; and when finally they attempted to +break through, the crowd took to flight, as if a couple of tigers were +after them. + +Many of the spectators found a pleasurable excitement in watching the +battle between the policemen and the peasants; but they would not move a +finger to aid the officers of the law in arresting the culprits. They +admired the agility and strength of the countrymen, and the more fierce +the struggle became, the greater grew their delight, and the louder their +merriment. + +Holt had been carried on with the motion of the crowd. When he dealt the +blow to the fellow in the car, he was beside himself with rage. The +genuine _furor teutonicus_ had taken possession of him so irresistibly and +so bewilderingly as to leave him utterly without any of the calm judgment +necessary to measure the situation. After his first adventure, he had +submitted to be handcuffed, and had watched the struggle between Forchhaem +and his own comrades in a sort of absence of mind. He had stood perfectly +quiet, his face had become pale, and his eyes looked about strangely. The +excitement of passion was now beginning to wear off. He felt the cold iron +of the manacles around his wrists, his eyes glared, his face became +crimson, the sinews of his powerful arm stiffened, and with one great +muscular convulsion he wrenched off the handcuffs. Nobody had observed +this sudden action, all eyes being directed to the combatants. Shoving the +part of the handcuff which still hung to his wrist under the sleeve of his +jacket, Holt disappeared through the crowd. + +The resistance of the peasants was gradually becoming fainter. At length +they succumbed to overpowering force, and were handcuffed. + +"Where is the third one?" cried Seicht. "There were three of them." + +"Where is the third one? There were three of them," was echoed on every +hand, and all eyes sought for the missing one in the crowd. + +"The third one has run away, sir," reported Forchhaem. + +"What's his name?" asked Seicht. + +Nobody knew. + +A street boy, looking up at the official, ingenuously cried, "'Twas a +Tartar." + +Seicht looked down upon the obstreperous little informant. + +"A Tartar--do you know him?" + +"No; but these here know him," pointing to the captives. + +"What is the name of your comrade?" + +"We don't know him," was the surly reply. + +"Never mind, he will become known in the judicial examination. Off to jail +with these rebellious ultramontanes," the official commanded. + +Bound in chains, and guarded by a posse of police, these honest men, whose +religious sense had been so wantonly outraged as to have occasioned an +outburst of noble indignation, were marched through the streets of the +town and imprisoned. They were treated as criminals for a crime, however, +the guilt of which was justly chargeable to those very rioters who were +enjoying official protection. + +The procession moved on to the ground selected for the barbecue. A motley +mass, especially of factory-men, were hard at work upon the scene. The +booths, spread far and wide over the common, were thrown open, and around +them moved a swarm of thirsty beings drawing rations of beer and sausages, +with which, when they had received them, they staggered away to the +tables. Degraded-looking women were also to be seen moving about +unsteadily with brimming mugs of beer in their hands. There were several +bands of music stationed at different points around the place. + +The chieftains of progress, perambulating the ground with an air of +triumph, bestowed friendly nods of recognition on all sides, and +condescendingly engaged in conversation with some of the rank and file. + +Hans Shund approached the awning where the woman with the bare shoulders +and indecent costume had taken a seat. She had captivated the gallant +chief magistrate, who hovered about her as a raven hovers over a dead +carcass. Moving off, he halted within hearing distance, and, casting +frequent glances back, addressed immodest jokes to those who occupied the +other side of the table, at which they laughed and applauded immoderately. + +The men whom Seraphin had met in the subterranean den, on the memorable +night before the election, were also present: Flachsen, Graeulich, Koenig, +and a host of others. They were regaling themselves with sausages which +omitted an unmistakable odor of garlic, and were of a very dubious +appearance; interrupting the process of eating with frequent and copious +draughts from their beer-mugs. + +"Drink, old woman!" cried Graeulich to his wife. "Drink, I tell you! It +doesn't cost us anything to-day." + +The woman put the jug to her lips and drained it manfully. Other women who +were present screamed in chorus, and the men laughed boisterously. + +"Your old woman does that handsomely," applauded Koth. "Hell and thunder! +But she must be a real spitfire." + +Again they laughed uproariously. + +"I wish there were an election every day, what a jolly life this would +be!" said Koenig. "Nothing to do, eating and drinking gratis--what more +would you wish?" + +"That's the way the bigbugs live all the year round. They may eat and +drink what they like best, and needn't do a hand's turn. Isn't it glorious +to be rich?" cried Graeulich. + +"So drink, boys, drink till you can't stand! We are all of us bigbugs to- +day." + +"And if things were regulated as they should be," said Koth, "there would +come a day when we poor devils would also see glorious times. We have been +torturing ourselves about long enough for the sake of others. I maintain +that things will have to be differently regulated." + +"What game is that you are wishing to come at? Show your hand, old +fellow!" cried several voices. + +"Here's what I mean: Coffers which are full will have to pour some of +their superfluity into coffers which are empty. You take me, don't you?" + +"'Pon my soul, I can't make you out. You are talking conundrums," declared +Koenig. + +"You blockhead, I mean there will soon have to be a partition. They who +have plenty will have to give some to those who have nothing." + +"Bravo! Long live Koth!" + +"That sort of doctrine is dangerous to the state," said Flachsen. "Such +principles bring about revolutions, and corrupt society." + +"What of society! You're an ass, Flachsen! Koth is right--partition, +partition!" was the cry all round the table. + +"As you will! I have nothing against it if only it were practicable," +expostulated Flachsen; "for I, too, am a radical." + +"It is practicable! All things are practicable," exclaimed Koth. "Our age +can do anything, and so can we. Haven't we driven religion out of the +schools? Haven't we elected Shund for mayor? It is the majority who rule; +and, were we to vote in favor of partition to-morrow, partition would have +to take place. Any measure can be carried by a majority, and, since we +poor devils are in the majority, as soon as we will have voted for +partition it will come without fail." + +"That's sensible!" agreed they all. "But then, such a thing has never yet +been done. Do you think it possible?" + +"Anything is possible," maintained Koth. "Didn't Shund preach that there +isn't any God, or hell, or devil? Was that ever taught before? If the God +of old has to submit to being deposed, the rich will have to submit to it. +I tell you, the majority will settle the business for the rich. And if +there's no God, no devil, and no life beyond, well then, you see, I'm +capable of laying my hand to anything. If voting won't do, violence will. +Do you understand?" + +"Bravo! Hurrah for Koth!" + +"There must be progress," cried Graeulich, "among us as well as others. We +are not going to continue all our lives in wretchedness. We must advance +from labor to comfort without labor, from poverty to wealth, from want to +abundance. Three cheers for progress--hurrah! hurrah!" And the whole +company joined in frantically. + +"There comes Evangelist Seicht," cried Koenig. "Though I didn't understand +one word of his speech, I believe he meant well. Although he is an officer +of the government, he cordially hates priests. A man may say what he +pleases against religion, and the church, and the Pope, and the Jesuits, +it rather pleases Seicht. He is a free and enlightened man, is he. Up with +your glasses, boys; if he comes near, let's give him three rousing +cheers." + +They did as directed. Men and women cheered lustily. Seicht very +condescendingly raised his hat and smiled as he passed the table. The +ovation put him in fine humor. Though he had failed in securing a place in +the assembly, perhaps the slight would be repaired in the future. Such was +the tenor of his thoughts whilst he advanced to the climbing-pole, around +which was assembled a crowd of boys. Quite a variety of prizes, especially +tobacco-pipes, was hanging from the cross-pieces at the top of the mast. +The pole was so smooth that more than ordinary strength and activity were +required to get to the top. The greater number of those who attempted the +feat gave out and slid back without having gained a prize. There were also +grown persons standing around watching the efforts of the boys and young +men. + +"It's my turn now," cried the fellow who had carried the cross in the +procession. + +"But, first, let me have one more drink--it'll improve the sliding." He +swallowed the drink hastily, then swaying about as he looked and pointed +upward, "Do you see that pipe with tassels to it?" he said. "That's the +one I'm going after." + +Throwing aside his mantle, he began to climb. + +"He'll not get up, he's drunk," cried a lad among the bystanders. +"Belladonna has given him two pints of double beer for carrying the cross +in the procession--that's what ails him." + +"Wait till I come down, I'll slap your jaws," cried the climber. + +The spectators were watching him with interest. He was obliged to pause +frequently to rest himself, which he did by winding his legs tightly round +the pole. At last he reached the top. Extending his arm to take the pipe, +it was too short. Climbing still higher, he stretched his body to its +greatest length, lost his hold, and fell to the ground. The bystanders +raised a great cry. The unfortunate youth's head had embedded itself in +the earth, streams of blood gushed from his mouth and nostrils--he was +lifeless. + +"He's dead! It's all over with him," was whispered around. + +"Carry him off," commanded Seicht, and then walked on. + +One of the bystanders loosed the cross-piece of the mock crucifix; the +corpse was then stretched across the two pieces of wood and carried off +the scene. As the body was carried past, the noise and revelry everywhere +ceased. + +"Wasn't that the one who carried the cross?" was asked. "Is he dead? Did +he fall from the pole? How terrible!" + +Even the progressionist revellers were struck thoughtful, so deeply is the +sense of religion rooted in the heart of man. Many a one among them, +seeing the pale, rigid face of the dead man, understood his fate to be a +solemn warning, and fled from the scene in terror. + +The progressionist element of the town was much flattered by the presence +at its orgies of the wealthiest property owner of the country. + +The women had already made the discovery that the millionaire's only son, +Mr. Seraphin Gerlach, was on the eve of marrying a member of the highly +respectable house of Greifmann, bankers. But it occasioned them no small +amount of surprise that the young gentleman was not in attendance on the +beautiful lady at the celebration. Louise's radiant countenance gave no +indication, however, that any untoward occurrence had caused the absence +of her prospective husband. The wives and daughters of the chieftains were +sitting under an awning sipping coffee and eating cake. When Louise +approached leaning on her brother's arm, they welcomed her to a place in +the circle of loveliness with many courtesies and marks of respect. + +Mr. Conrad strolled about the place, studying the spirit which animated +the gathering. + +To Be Continued. + + + + +{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~} + + + Not now for sleep, O slumber-god! we sue; + Hypnus! not sleep, but give our souls repose! + Of the day's music such a mellowing close + As might have rested Shakespeare from his art, + Or soothed the spirit of the Tuscan strong + Who best read life, its passions and its woes, + And wrought of sorrow earth's divinest song. + Bring us a mood that might have lulled Mozart, + Not stupor, not forgetfulness, not dreams, + But vivid sense of what is best and rarest, + And sweet remembrance of the blessed few; + In the real presence of this fair world's fairest: + A spell of peace--as 'twere by those dear streams(209) + Boccaccio wrote of, when romance was new. + + + + +A Legend Of Saint Ottilia. + + +Attich, Duke of Alsace, had a lovely wife, with whom he lived in great +happiness, desiring but one thing more than he possessed--this was the +blessing of children. His prayers, however, remained unanswered until he +vowed that, if the Lord would grant his ardent wish, he would dedicate the +child entirely to his service. At length a daughter was born to him, but +the parents' first joy was turned into sadness, for the child was blind. + +Ottilia (thus was she named) grew up a lovely maiden, with rare goodness +and virtues, showing, from her earliest youth, singular piety and +devoutness of character. One of her daily prayers was that God might +bestow on her the gift of sight. By-and-by, to the great astonishment of +all, this prayer was answered. Beautiful before, the new expression of her +eyes so enhanced her charms that, whereas previously she had no lack of +suitors, now she was wooed by many and most noble youths. These dazzling +prospects affected the mind of her father, and led him to repent the vow +he had made to give his sweet child to God. Then Count Adelhart, a brave +man, and one who had performed great services for Attich, claimed the hand +of Ottilia, and the duke resolved that his daughter should become his +wife. Ottilia heard this with terror; she told her father how wrong she +believed it to be, and how she feared the vengeance of heaven if they thus +disregarded his vow. Seeing, however, that her entreaties were of no +avail, and that they meant to marry her by compulsion, she fled she knew +not whither. Then Attich called out his servants to pursue her, he +himself, in company with Ottilia's suitor, taking the lead. They took the +road to Freiburg, in Breisgau. + +The day began to decline, and their efforts to find her had been in vain, +when, on riding up a hill from whose top they could overlook the country, +they heard a cry; turning their eyes toward the place from whence the +sound came, they saw her whom they were seeking standing on the summit. +They urged their steeds onward, rejoicing in the certainty of capturing +the fugitive. Then Ottilia threw herself upon her knees, and prayed to +heaven for assistance. The rock opened beneath her feet, and, in the sight +of all, she sank into the yawning depth. The rock closed again, and, from +the spot where it had been reft in twain, a clear well flowed, taking its +course downward into the forest below. + +The mourning father returned to his now desolate home. Never again did he +behold Ottilia. + +The wonderful tale soon spread far and near. The fountain became a place +of pilgrimage. People drank from its waters, to which a wonderful healing +influence for weak eyes was attributed. A hermit built his hut in its +neighborhood, and "The Well of S. Ottilia" was and is much frequented by +old and young. The mountain itself bears the name of "Ottilia-Berg." + +Thus runs the simple legend which, even after the lapse of centuries, +brings people to visit this famous spring, partly drawn thither by +religious faith in the curative power of its waters, and partly attracted +by the renowned beauty of the scenery which surrounds the spot where +heaven-trusting Ottilia had thrown herself upon the intervention of +Providence. + + + + +The Year Of Our Lord 1872. + + +There lurks a grim sarcasm in our title for those who, as the years grow +and die out one after the other, ask each in turn: What have you brought +us? what growth of good and lessening of evil? what new bond to link the +scattered and divided masses of a humanity which should be common--but is +not--more closely and firmly together? Have you brought us a step nearer +heaven, that is, nearer the destiny which God marked out in the beginning +for his creation, or thrown us backward? Years are the days of the world, +of national life; and as each closes, even the superior minds which will +not deign to believe in such old-fashioned words as a God, a heaven, or a +hell, cannot fail to ask themselves the question, What has the world +gained or lost in this its latest day? + +We know that we shall be greeted at the outset by the old cry:--Catholics +behind the age again: it is plain their religion was not made for the +XIXth century; they will drift backward and sigh for the days that were, +the gloom and the mist and the superstition of the "ages of faith": they +refuse to recognize the century, to understand it and its glorious +enlightenment: they decline to march hand in hand with the great leaders, +the apostles of the day, in politics, science, and religion--the Bismarcks, +the Lanzas, the Mills, the Fawcetts, the Bradlaughs, the Doellingers, the +Beechers, the Huxleys, the Buckles, the Darwins, the novelists, and the +newspapers; the "enlightened" ideas of the age on marriage, education, +civil government, and the rest. We humbly plead guilty to the greater +portion of this charge. Modern enlightenment, as preached by the apostles +above enumerated, and others such, possesses still too few charms to win +us from our benighted ignorance. To us Utopia appears as far off to-day as +when it grew upon the mind of Sir Thomas More in the shape of a dream too +splendid to be realized; as far off as the fairyland which presented +itself to our youthful imagination, where everybody was goody-goody, where +all were kings and queens with crowns and sceptres, or lovely princesses +and amiable princes, who loved each other with the most ardent nursery +love, and with only one crabbed old fairy to spoil the scene, whose +witcheries caused the amiable princes to undergo a certain amount of mild +misfortunes, creating a corresponding amount of misery in the bosoms of +the lovely princesses, till at length the old harridan was overridden to +her shame and confusion, truth and virtue triumphed, everybody married +everybody else, and there was peace and joy for ever after. To drop fancy: +the story of the year would not seem to bring happier tidings of the great +joy which was announced at the coming of Christ: of "peace on earth to men +of good-will." "Civilized" governments still hold fast by the good old +rule, + + + That he may take who has the power, + And he may keep who can. + + +We purpose passing in review a few of the chief events which have moved +the world during the past year and made its annals memorable in all time. +Our review must necessarily be a rapid one, a mere glance in fact, at the +multitude of events which confront us, some like ghosts which we have +summoned from their graves in the buried year, others which accompany us +into the new and the unknown to ripen or wither with us into their measure +of good or of evil. + +As the year opened, the eyes of the world were fixed upon the sick-bed of +the Prince of Wales, stricken down by fever apparently beyond hope of +recovery. The whole thing is long forgotten; but the anxiety which his +illness caused--in view of the possible political complications which might +have resulted from the death of the heir to the English throne--and the +enthusiasm which his recovery evoked from end to end of the land, makes +the event worthy of mention in the record of the year as significant of +the innate as well as outspoken loyalty of the English nation for their +crown and institution--a national trait which it is becoming fashionable to +question. + +Our own year opened tragically with the murder of Fisk by Stokes, his boon +companion. The man's end was in keeping with his life, and his name should +not have sullied our pages, but for the consequent collapse of the long +triumphant Erie Ring. The era of blood thus commenced has flourished +bravely. _Quid novi? quid novi?_ was the daily cry at Athens when S. Paul +entered it. We would not demean the commercial metropolis of the New World +and of the new age by comparing it with the intellectual metropolis of +paganism; but as the cry of the Athenians was each day: What new system, +doctrine, or philosophy is there? the question of our more enlightened and +Christian capital might well be: What new thing in the way of murder? +Scarcely a day passes but some fresh horror greets our eyes in the +morning. Nor is it left to the hand of man alone to take life as he +pleases; the privilege has passed to women, and they make right good use +of this latest form of their "rights." We read till our blood curdles of +the political poisonings of the XVIth century in Italy; of their secrecy +and the safety of their carrying out. We are a more honest race than the +Italians; we enshroud our deeds of blood in no false Machiavellian veil; +we kill in open day. The lady or gentleman who has just taken away a life +politely hands the pistol to the officer, who escorts him or her with the +utmost courtesy to the police station, where a cell is luxuriously fitted +up according to the exigencies of the case; the murderer stands up in open +court, with the ablest champions to defend him; he calls upon the law to +save him, and the "law" does. In the meantime obtuse people are beginning +to inquire if there be such a thing as law in New York, and in America +generally, and if the present administration of justice be not very +closely allied to administering injustice. + +We have felt compelled to touch on this point at some length; for murder, +cool, deliberate, wilful murder, has marked our year with a red stain +which was never dry; the murderers have either escaped or are living at +ease and being "lionized" by the press in their prisons; justice is not +administered among us. So true is this, that outraged public feeling, +which requires a very heavy force to set its inertia in motion, has at +length found it necessary to begin to weed the judiciary. Until it does so +thoroughly, the law of New York is the law of the bullet and the knife. + +If we were not above taking a lesson from people for whom we entertain, of +course, a sovereign contempt, we might find something commendable in the +action of the populace in Lima, Peru, on the occasion of the murder of +Colonel Balta, the president, by Guttierez, the minister of war; who, in +order to attain supreme power, caused Balta to be assassinated, having +previously gained over the garrison of Lima, and had himself proclaimed +dictator. The people, finding reason to object to this summary mode of +settling questions, refused to accept this dictatorship; rose in revolt, +overpowered the garrison, hanged the dictator and his brother to lamp- +posts in the public square, and burned their bodies. We, are far from +advocating the cause of "Judge Lynch"; but a slight touch of the sensible +spirit displayed by the inhabitants of Lima has a wonderfully wholesome +effect on evil doers in power. + +Our political life for the past year has been absorbed in the presidential +election and the settlement of the Alabama claims. This latter very vexed +question has come at last to a final, peaceful, and satisfactory solution. +Our claim for "indirect damages" against England was ruled out of court. +An adequate propitiation was made in the final decision, given in our +favor: England was compelled to pay us L3,000,000; she is supposed to have +lost very much in prestige in consequence; particularly as the San Juan +boundary question was also decided in our favor; the whole thing was +settled by peaceful arbitration, and, therefore, no matter which party +lost in prestige, or diplomacy, or pocket, both have good reason to +congratulate themselves on getting out of sight, let us ardently hope, for +ever, a very ugly question which was fast becoming a gangrene, corroding +and eating out all good feeling between the two nations. It is one of the +things which we sincerely trust may be buried with the dead year; and the +two rival claimants we hope to see enter on a new lease of friendship and +good-will. + +General Grant was re-elected; the opposition arrayed against him under Mr. +Greeley as candidate for the presidency, and such very able secessionists +from the republican ranks as Messrs. Sumner, Schurz, and others, and the +attempted coalescing of Democrats with dissatisfied Republicans, who would +not coalesce, utterly broke down. General Grant's is undoubtedly a +national election: we trust, therefore, that his future term may +correspond with the confidence placed in his rule by the nation; may be +productive of all the good which we expect of it for the nation at large; +may heal up old wounds still sore, and may lead the country wisely into a +new era of prosperity and peace: the more so that the outer world is fast +pouring in on us the most skilled artisans and law-abiding, intelligent +citizens of every European race. + +Having said so much for ourselves, we turn to the workings of events in +Europe during the past year, which indeed have occupied our attention +more, almost, than our home questions. Our gaze has been riveted with an +interest of almost painful intensity on the two contestants during the +late dread struggle, and the actions and bearing of each have brought out +the inner character of the two nations in such strong relief that we can +think of Germany and France as two individualities. On the one side, we +behold United Germany, the victor in the fight, like a strong athlete +glorying in his great strength, setting on his own brow the laurels which +he plucked from that of his fallen foe; not resting on his honors, and +satiated for the time being with his glory, but anxious, careful, trying +his strength, not letting his arms rust for want of practice, preparing +himself for new glories and new contests to come as though they were to +come to-morrow, and as a matter of course. On the other, we have France +wounded and bleeding at every pore. We thought its life had ebbed out, +stricken first by the terrible blows of a merciless conqueror, after by a +delirious contest with itself. And what do we behold? No longer a weak +convalescent, sick, sore, and spiritless, but a great nation, infused with +a new life; strong and gaining in strength every day; cautious indeed and +still uncertain, but these are not bad signs in a nation which is +recovering at however rapid strides, and which fell from its overweening +confidence. It has almost exhausted its terrible debt to Germany, and rid +the soil of the foot of the foe. Its loans were eagerly taken up and +covered four times over: its exports for the first six months of the year +were in advance of those for the corresponding six months, esteemed a +period of great prosperity, prior to the war; its army is again on a firm +and sound footing; its children are peaceful, calm and obedient to the law +in the face of the tyranny and unnecessarily harsh measures and dictation +of the conqueror and the rash declamations of Gambetta, biding their time +with a calm good sense which we scarcely expected in the French people. Of +course the nation is taxed and heavily; but the wonder is that a nation +can endure such blows and live; can not only live, but present to the +admiration and astonished gaze of the world, a year after what we +considered its death and burial, so glorious a resurrection into a +powerful and wealthy country. As these two nations have been the centre of +attraction to the whole world during the year, we feel called upon to +touch upon each in a more special manner than on other nations. + +On April 7th, the Emperor William delivered a speech from the throne, from +which we cull the following extract: + +"Honored Gentlemen: You will share the satisfaction with which the +Confederate Governments look back on the events of the first year of the +newly founded German Empire, and the joyful confidence with which they +look forward to the further national and state development of our internal +institutions. With equal satisfaction you will hail the assurance that the +policy of his majesty, the emperor and king, has succeeded in retaining +and strengthening the confidence of all foreign states; that the power +acquired by Germany through becoming united in one Empire is not only a +safe bulwark for the fatherland, but likewise affords a strong guarantee +for the peace of Europe." + +Now, that sounds so well, at least it did in April last, that it is almost +a pity to spoil it by the inevitable comments which cannot fail to present +themselves to the minds of its readers in December, in the face of one or +two little events which have occurred since April. But before commenting +on it, we must add a further exquisite little piece of irony from the same +speech of Bismarck's--we mean of the Emperor William: Prince Bismarck only +read it: + +"The new administration in, and the consolidation of the affairs of, +Alsace and Lorraine make satisfactory progress. The damage done by the war +is gradually disappearing with the aid of the subvention given in +conformity with the law, dated June 15, 1871." + +As it is not the purport of this article to go extensively into the +various subjects which come under our notice, we think that the best mode +of dealing with the German question will be to read the above speech by +the December light: + +Honored Gentlemen: You will share the satisfaction with which the +Confederate Governments look back on the events of the intervening nine +months since his majesty, the emperor and king, first found reason to +congratulate you on the consolidation of the newly founded empire. Those +events are, in brief, as follows: + +1. As we consider national education to be the first means in making good, +sound, and efficient citizens of the Empire, and as we consider it, +moreover, to be the great moralizer of the masses in these days, we have +found it necessary to take this education from the hands in which it has +rested for so long, "which the Prussia of the past encouraged, and indeed +enforced; which have had the honor to receive the zealous support of two +deceased monarchs, the father and brother of the present sovereign; which +have received for the last two generations the approbation of all sorts of +thinkers--who believed that the Prussian state could only subsist by a +strict military and religious organization, that a definite church system +must be chosen by the state, and the people drilled in it as they were +drilled for his majesty's armies."(210) Notwithstanding the very solid +proofs which our success in the late war gave us of the efficiency of this +system, when our soldiers went to battle under the double panoply of +intelligence and faith in God, we have since found it fit to divorce +religion from education, and place this moralizer of the masses in the +hands of those to whom morality is a thing unknown, or, if it mean +anything, means blind obedience to the state in all things. + +2. Holding as we do that marriage is another powerful moralizer of the +masses, and the strongest bond for the welfare, happiness, and power of a +nation, we have thought fit to divorce it also from religion, to strip it +of the sacred character with which Jesus Christ invested it, and which, +even were it false, has been the chief means of restoring woman to her +fitting station in life, of civilizing man, and substituting love and +purity for sensuality and animal passion: being perfectly alive to all +this, we have still seen fit to hand the power of the binding and the +loosing of marriage into the hands of the magistracy, to be dealt with for +the future as a civil contract, thus reducing it to the far more +convenient form of a mere matter of buying and selling at will. + +3. Having already testified in the most direct and special manner our +gratitude for the great services rendered us by the Society of Jesus and +kindred orders recently on the fields of France, and in the more lasting +and beneficial fields of intellectual and religious culture under the +educational system which obtained so long and with such profit to us, but +which we have since seen fit to put an end to, we think it fit to prove +their devotion still further to us by banishing them the Empire, breaking +up their communities, closing their churches, appropriating their property +to our own use and imprisoning them if we find them within our territory. +We mercifully spare them the further trial of immediate martyrdom. + +4. Having been compelled to meet the demands of two powerful bodies of our +subjects whose interests on religious questions sometimes clash, we have +very wisely, and very satisfactorily to both bodies, met those demands by +special articles in our legislative code which have hitherto answered +their purpose so well that both bodies have been enabled to work +harmoniously though in friendly rivalry together as common children of +fatherland. We have seen fit to erase those laws, at least in the case of +the Catholics. We cannot allow their bishops to excommunicate our +subjects, though we have hitherto allowed it, and though we still allow it +to the Protestants.(211) + +Honored Gentlemen: Having thus succeeded in creating a profound and +widespread agitation by outraging the feelings and the conscience of +14,000,000 of our most faithful subjects, an agitation which has spread +from these 14,000,000 to hundreds of millions of their co-religionists +outside the Empire, and indeed of large bodies and powerful secular organs +opposed to them in faith, the confederate governments, the most powerful +of which is Catholic, may look forward with joyful confidence to the +further national and state development of our institutions. With equal +satisfaction you will hail the assurance that the policy of his majesty, +the emperor and king, has succeeded in retaining and strengthening the +confidence of all foreign states,(212) that the power acquired by Germany +is not only a safe bulwark for the fatherland,(213) but likewise affords a +strong guarantee for the peace of Europe. + +The new administration in, and the consolidation of affairs in, Alsace and +Lorraine, have made most satisfactory progress. By careful and well- +devised management we have succeeded in driving out the population of +these two provinces, two of the wealthiest in the world, in rendering +their cities desolate and their smiling country a desert: in gaining for +ourselves a new legacy of hatred, and arousing the disgust and, what +politically is worse, the suspicion of all governments outside our own. + +As a further comment on this speech we must add the dangerous symptoms of +revolt exhibited by the Upper House in the Prussian diet, and the +dubiously constitutional mode adopted of bringing it to submission. The +influx of French gold would seem to have created a South Sea Bubble +commotion in financial circles. Rent in the chief cities and towns has +increased twofold; the cost of living has risen with it. This falls +heaviest, of course, on the middle and lower classes, so that we are not +surprised to hear, that the rate of living having increased 60 or 70 per +cent. for the poorer classes during the last six or seven years, and the +French gold never having filtered down to their pockets, the poor have +been unable to meet their new expenses, and "ever since the conclusion of +peace with France," to quote the special correspondent of the London +_Times_, April 11th, "the German workmen have been at war with their +'masters.' " As a last comment we see the German people fleeing from this +glorious consolidation of confederate governments in such numbers that the +central government is compelled to call into practice measures as harsh on +the one side to restrain their own people from running away as they used +to force out the inhabitants of Alsace and Lorraine. We believe we have +said enough of German "Unity" on its first two years of lease to show that +its workings, whether internal or external, have been anything but +satisfactory so far, and far from hopeful to the world at large. + +The strikes which were successful in Germany were not restricted to that +locality. They spread through the greater part of Europe, and reached out +here to us, with varied success. New York was in many departments of +business at a standstill in what is generally esteemed as the busiest +portion of the year. Fortunately with us and for the greater part +elsewhere, the "strikes" passed off peaceably, and the masters and workmen +succeeded in coming to a compromise at least for the time being. This +uprising of labor against capital formed one of the most significant, we +fear most threatening, aspects of the year. There was a union and a +combination among the working classes of European nations and our own, +which enabled them to offer a persistent, solid, and bold front to their +employers. Funds and a more perfect organization, neither of which seem to +us impossible, would convert trades-unions into the most formidable power +in the world. Christian education can alone hope to convert this into a +legal power. At present it wavers between the dictates of good sense and +fair demands and the wild and impossible, but, to half-educated men, very +fascinating, dreams of the Communists. Labor is beginning at last to feel +its power, its numbers, its irresistible force; that the world cannot get +on without it, as little as it can get on without the co-operation of the +rest of the world. Let the laboring classes receive an education worthy of +the name, plant religion in their hearts while at school, and, when they +come to face the hard problem, the division of wealth, they will be led +away by no fallacious teachings that what is and always must be a +necessity is a wrong done to humanity; but divorce the schools, as +governments seem now resolved to do, from religion, and labor will merge +into Communism. + +France has borne her terrible trials with a calmness, a magnanimity, and a +self-dependence which have regained for her in the eyes of the world more +than she ever lost at Sedan. We speak here of the nation, not of its +haphazard government. Thiers is at present a necessity; and by the aid of +the bogy "resignation" which he has conjured up so often, and whereby he +frightens the still cautious Assembly into submission, he has managed to +hold the dangerous elements in such a state of order that the nation has +been able so far to regain public confidence that its loans were caught up +with avidity; it has almost freed itself from the foot of the foe; it has +frowned down the folly of Gambetta; restored its army to a sound footing, +and won the admiration and good-will of all by its truly patriotic bearing +in the face of a rapacious, dictatorial, and merciless conqueror. But +Thiers cannot last, and what is to follow? The country would not bear the +rule of "the man of Sedan," though, undoubtedly, his twenty years of firm +government wrought it up to the pitch of material prosperity which even +its terrible losses have been unable to destroy. The speech of the Duc +d'Audiffret Pasquier on the army contracts, showing a system of finance in +the army somewhat similar to that which has recently greeted our eyes in +the city government, has killed Napoleonism for the nonce. We can only +hope for the best in France from some other and nobler sprout of former +dynasties; we cannot foresee it. We must not forget that the nation has +been kneeling at its altars and shrines. Of course superior people and +"witty" writers have laughed at and insulted a nation for being foolish +enough and so far behind the age as to believe in the assistance of a God +whom they could not contain in their capacious intellects. France has +survived the laughter and disregarded the laughers; but her sons have been +none the less obedient to the laws and constitution established, and thus +restored confidence in their country, by acknowledging the efficacy of +divine worship, and the intercession of the blessed Mother with her divine +Son. + +The year has, happily, borne no war stain on its record; for we cannot +dignify the English expedition against the Looshais in India by that +title. Revolts among the natives have of late been cropping up again in +British India, while the silent but steady march of Russia, with all her +vast forces, nearer and nearer to the outline of the British possessions, +threatens at no distant date an inevitable collision between the two +powers, which, in the not very doubtful event of Russia's victory, would +avenge Sebastopol, and, at the same time more than counterbalance the +present supremacy of Germany in Europe. + +While England was all aglow with the gorgeous story of pomp and pageantry +coming from the far East, of reviews of armies, of gallant processions +from end to end of the land, of displays of splendor, and more than royal +magnificence flashing on the bewildered gaze of the Easterns; outshining +in dazzling brilliancy their own "barbaric pearl and gold"--wrought up to +win over their allegiance by giving them some idea of the vast power of +that empire far away, whose representative could muster such a show of +majesty--came a cruel little flash across the world telling us that the +show was ended by the death of the chief performer at the hands of an +obscure assassin. A few feet in advance of his party, in the gloom of +evening, as he is about to step from the pier into his boat, the stroke of +a knife from a hidden assailant, and--Lord Mayo, the great Viceroy, is +slain. England viewed his death as a national calamity. Following close on +the heels of the murder of Mr. Justice Norman by another native, of the +outbreaks of the Kookas and the Looshais, it had a significance which the +nation took to heart. + +From a further corner of the East still comes a dread story of famine +devouring 3,000,000 of people in Persia. Small succor was offered them by +their Christian brethren: and such as was sent seems to have reached them +with the greatest difficulty. Horrible tales are told of hunger overcoming +all the ties of nature, and mothers, in their madness, devouring even +their own offspring. The harvest for this season was a very excellent one; +but its effects cannot be felt till the coming year. + +The East has not exhausted its romance yet, though this time it wears a +less grim visage. We refer to the discovery of Dr. Livingstone by Mr. +Stanley, a reporter of the _New York Herald_. Everybody believed Dr. +Livingstone dead: Mr. Bennett believed him living: he despatched Mr. +Stanley to interview him somewhere in the middle of Africa, and Mr. +Stanley obeyed as successfully as though he had only been despatched to +one of our hotels to "interview" a political man. Of course nobody +believed either Stanley or the _Herald_; and of course there has been much +consequent laughing at the "easy-chair geographers," when white, after +all, turned out to be white and not black, as the learned gentlemen thus +designated demonstrated to a nicety. But we should imagine that the +persistent doubts of these gentlemen were the highest compliment which +could be paid, either to Mr. Stanley or Mr. Bennett, as indicating the +almost utter impossibility of their stupendous and brilliant enterprise. +To the world at large, the finding of a man, whom, with all due respect, +we cannot but look upon as self-lost, is the least part of the +undertaking. Mr. Stanley's expedition and disclosures of the horrors of +the slave trade have awakened a new interest in that horrible traffic, and +promises to enlist the sympathies of nations in unison against it. + +After a sleep of centuries Japan has reopened her gates to Christian +influences and civilization--gates closed since the work so gloriously +commenced by S. Francis Xavier was marred by the narrowness and +selfishness and unchristian spirit of European traders. The Mikado +despatched an embassy under the leadership of one of his chief statesmen, +Iwakura, in order to study this boasted civilization and see what it was +like. In the meantime, Christians are still suffering persecution and even +death in Japan. But why should Iwakura interfere to stop it when he finds +"civilized" governments, such as Germany and Italy, setting Japan a +brilliant example in the same line of policy? + +Correspondents give us reason to dread a fresh outbreak in China similar +to the Tientsin massacre. We trust that the representatives of the +European powers and our own will be alive to this. Nothing of great import +has occurred in the empire beyond the marriage of his Celestial Majesty. + +Going back to Europe, we find Spain in much the same state as the opening +year found her; restless, dissatisfied, and disunited. A Carlist rising +was effected in the spring, which at one time threatened to be formidable; +but, after showing itself in fitful bursts at different points, it finally +died out, for the time being at least, with a greater loss of gunpowder +than of life. It was mismanaged. There were and still are a variety of +little eruptions here, there, and everywhere. An attempt on the life of +King Amadeo was got up for the purpose of arousing some loyalty in his +favor. It created a little sensation at first; but people speedily +suspected something, and the subject dropped. All parties in Spain are +still at daggers drawn. Even if Amadeo could, by his influence, which we +very much doubt after his sufficient trial, conciliate them, they would +not be conciliated. We do not expect to find Amadeo's name at the head of +the Spanish government this day twelvemonth. A good regent, not +Montpensier, might bring about the restoration of Don Alfonso; but where +is such a regent? Don Carlos possesses the greatest amount of genuine +loyalty to his name and cause, and he would be the winning man, could he +only manage his rising in a more efficient manner. Even the _Saturday +Review_, the other day, almost lamented the loss of Queen Isabella. + +The state of Italy is perhaps on a par with that of Spain, with the +advantage of the utter lawlessness touched upon in our last number. We are +now informed that a bill for the suppression of religious orders is +introduced. Of course it will pass. A government which shakes hands with +the _Garibaldini_, which is hand and glove with the murderer and assassin +whom it fears, is strong when it comes to the spoliation of religious +houses and the persecution of Christian men who it knows will not resist. +We cannot pass Italy by--alas! what an Italy it has become!--without one +word of admiration for the Holy Father. Men, journalists, all sorts of +people, would have driven Pius IX. from Rome long ago. But the pilot is +still at the helm of the barque of Peter, though pirates tread the decks. +And never during the successive storms which have made his long reign so +dark with trial has our great pontiff presented to the angry world a more +forcible spectacle of a man utterly above all the pettiness, all the +trials, all the misery, which human malice can inflict upon humanity, than +at this moment in his own person; looking afar over the troubled waters +for the calm which shall come from heaven, and bring men back from their +insane mood at the old whisper, "Peace, be still!" He stands there the +truest and purest living protest of justice shackled by injustice, and +around that prisoned throne range the hearts of all true Catholics and all +true men in the world. + +In England, the Gladstone Ministry after many threatenings has managed to +hold its own, in consequence probably of the successful termination of the +Alabama claims. The Ballot Bill has at length passed, and in future we +hope to be spared the degrading scenes which were wont to accompany +English elections. The Irish Church Establishment has falsified Mr. +Gladstone's high hopes of new life, vigor, efficiency, and so forth, on +being deprived of its "temporalities," which came into act this year. It +has come to a miserable collapse, and is now a pauper asking alms to live. +The agitation for the disestablishment of the English Church is gaining +ground, as is also the Home-Rule movement in Ireland, which undoubtedly +received a fresh impetus from the attack made by a renegade Catholic judge +on the Irish clergy and on one of their leaders, Archbishop McHale, whose +name is venerated wherever his fame is known. There has been a cry of a +coal failure, and a much more serious one, because better founded and more +immediate, of a potato failure in Ireland as well as England, which, +coupled with the strike of the agricultural laborers and the coming +winter, threatens an ugly season. Serious riots incurring a lamentable +loss of life and property occurred in Belfast on the repeal of the Parties +Processions Act. The rioters held the city in a state of terrorism for +days. "Of course the Orangemen began it," commented the London +_Spectator_; "the worst murder committed, that of Constable Morton, was +the murder of a Protestant by Protestants, because he upheld the law." + +In Mexico, the death of President Juarez, the murderer of the unhappy +Maximilian, as well as of countless others, whom "people who ought to +know" were never tired of calling the saviour of his country, the true +patriot, and the like, oddly enough put an end to the internecine strife +which was ravaging the country, and everybody suddenly collapsed into +peace: "Yet Juarez was an honorable man." + +In the natural order, there have been terrible convulsions, followed, in +the closing year, by a succession of tempests on sea and land, productive +of dismal disasters. In the spring, an earthquake shook Antioch, and half +the city was gone, with a loss of 1,500 inhabitants. In the same month, +Vesuvius belched forth torrents of burning lava for days, causing a vast +destruction of property and loss of life to a few overcurious sight-seers. +Later on came the inundations of the Po, accompanied by losses more +grievous still. Then storms swept the country, and, indeed, all Europe, +strewing the shores with wrecked vessels and their crews. Fire touched and +marred, but, fortunately, did not succeed in destroying, two of the +grandest monuments of European art--the Escurial of Philip II. in Spain, +and the Cathedral of Canterbury in England, doubly consecrated--the second +time by the blood of the martyred S. Thomas. It was more successful among +ourselves; and a few hours' blaze in the month of November destroyed the +finest portion of our most ancient city, Boston. + +Among what might be termed the curiosities of the year figured the Boston +Jubilee; an assembling together of European bands and singers, with a +native chorus of 20,000. It was called music. A second curiosity was the +epidemic which recently broke out among the horses, and brought life in +New York to a standstill, or at least to a walking pace, for several days. +It is to be hoped that means of transit may be devised to prevent the +effects of such a casualty in future. A third curiosity was an assembly of +recreant priests and others to the number of 400 at Cologne in order to do +something. What the something was never appeared. They dined, quarrelled, +and separated; while the world was agape to see something arise which +should crush God's Church. Other curiosities were the great trials, civil +and military, which took place during the year. Among the former class +that of the man known as the "Tichborne Claimant" stands pre-eminent. The +story is too well known to be commented on here; the "claimant's" case +broke down; he was committed to Newgate prison, bailed out, and is now +"starring" the country to procure funds for a new trial. The case was +remarkable for the strangest and oddest disclosures of character and +hidden life from the highest almost to the lowest classes, not only in +England, but in many other countries. The trial of Marshal Bazaine for the +surrender of Metz, which is still pending, stands foremost in the rank of +military trials. _Vae victis!_ Many of Bazaine's comrades were condemned +for premature surrender by the Committee of Inquiry; we shall see whether +the once great marshal will be able to come off with a clear escutcheon. +Other trials were those of the Communists and the murderers of the +Archbishop of Paris and the clergy. As a rule, a more villanous set never +stood face to face with justice. They have had full, fair, and exhaustive +trials; such as could offer any excuse for their crimes escaped; the +others were shot. + +Death has been mowing right and left among us with indiscriminating +scythe. In Persia he grew weary of his own grim harvest. Eastern Europe +was threatened with cholera, but escaped. Some tall heads have fallen +among the mean; many whose names are memorable for evil as well as good; +many others whose places it would seem hard to fill. The Catholic Church +has lost Archbishop Spalding, Bishops McGill and O'Connor in America, +Morris and Goss in England, Cardinal Amat in Italy. Their names will live +in the church and in her prayers. Anderson and Meade have gone, Seward and +Morse, and Bennett, the founder of the _New York Herald_, and Greeley, the +founder of the _Tribune_. Persigny, and Conti, and Mazzini, each memorable +in his way, dropped out during the year. Lever, one of the most genial of +Irish novelists, is dead, and his much-lamented countryman, Maguire, of +Cork. The only surviving son of the Duc d'Aumale, a promising young man, +was snatched away--an important event, as the claims of this branch of the +family to the French throne fall now to the Count de Chambord. Bernadotte, +Charles XV. of Sweden, has gone, and was succeeded on the throne by his +brother Oscar. + +And now, passing from the old, we look to the new, not without anxiety. +The war against the church, in reality against the rights of man, the +freedom of conscience, commenced in Germany, has spread thence to Italy, +Switzerland, and Spain, and, under the form of the educational question, +wider and further still. If Catholics would save the souls of their +children, and of their children's children, from the infidelity and the +moral decay which we see around us, even in this free breathing +atmosphere, they must be firm and united in their resistance to the +encroachment of the state, where states possess no rights--over the +dictates of conscience. The uprise of labor against capital, which was the +real cause of the first French Revolution and its mad excesses, we have +already touched upon. It should be a deep source of anxiety and care to +true statesmen. War looms on the European horizon, gathers in silent +thunder-clouds all around. A flash is enough to kindle the combustion and +make the thunder speak. Who shall say when or whence it comes? Europe is +arming, and we have good authority for saying that "the next war will rage +over half a century"--Bismarck himself. For the church we foresee an +increase of bitter and severe trials. We can only appeal to that +enlightenment which the age vaunts; to its common sense and common +fairness to allow us the freedom in our own worship which they, if they +possess any, claim for themselves. Public opinion is, to a great extent, +the lever of the age. We must work at that until we shame it into powerful +and persistent action to remove and overthrow the mountain of intolerance, +bigotry, and opposition, which rulers, who are neither Protestant nor +Catholic, are raising up in order to overwhelm all religion, all right, +all freedom. + + + + +New Publications. + + + MY CLERICAL FRIENDS. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. + 1873. + + +We need not say more than that the above is by the author of that +production of exquisite humor and satire, _The Comedy of Convocation_, to +awaken a profound interest in its appearance. This new book from his pen +is somewhat similar. It is a choice compound of argument, history, and +wit. Its object is to represent the English clerical body as it is, with a +special intention of showing the ridiculousness of the claim made by some +of its members to the character of Catholic priesthood. The author is the +son of a clergyman, and was himself a clergyman, and is at home in his +subject. We promise our readers a rare treat in this new and spicy volume. + + + CONVERSION OF THE TEUTONIC RACE. CONVERSION OF THE FRANKS AND + ENGLISH. + + SEQUEL TO THE SAME. S. BONIFACE AND THE CONVERSION OF GERMANY. By + Mrs. Hope. Edited by the Rev. J. B. Dalgairns, of the Oratory. + London: Washbourne. 1872. 2 vols. crown 8vo. (New York: Sold by + The Catholic Publication Society.) + + +Few readers of English books know much of those most splendid and +important chapters of history, of which these two volumes contain a +summary within a moderate compass. The lady who has written them is a very +competent and graceful narrator of historical scenes and events. She has +given us the cream of authentic and truly scientific historical works with +care and skill, and at the same time she has clothed her narrative with a +flowing and agreeable diction. There are scarcely two volumes to be found +in the whole mass of recent English literature better worth reading than +these. We are delighted, also, to meet again, in the preface of the second +volume, with F. Dalgairns, from whose pen nothing ever comes which is not +choice both in matter and style. His editorship adds a most satisfactory +sanction to the historical and critical accuracy of these volumes, over +which he has exercised a supervision, and some pages of which have been +written by himself. These volumes which have gained great repute and favor +in England will, we trust, have also a wide circulation in this country, +and help to diffuse sound historical knowledge, which, as F. Dalgairns +remarks, is such a powerful auxiliary to religious truth. + + + LIFE AND TIMES OF SIXTUS THE FIFTH. From the French of Baron + Huebner. By James F. Meline. New York: The Catholic Publication + Society. 1873. + + +The dying Gregory XIII., worn out with the difficulties and +responsibilities of his position, raised his weary hands to heaven, and +exclaimed: "Thou wilt arise, O Lord, and have mercy on Zion"; prophetic +words that were realized in the election of Pope Sixtus V., who, as Ranke +justly observes, possessed in the highest perfection the moral and +intellectual qualities demanded for the suppression of the prevalent +disorders of the times. Perhaps there is no other pope whose life is of +more universal interest. His striking individuality of character appeals +to the popular mind, and has given rise to a variety of fables respecting +him which fasten themselves on the memory and, though not literally true, +yet embody a certain truth of their own. + +His rise from obscurity to become a link of that august dynasty beside +which "the proudest royal houses are but of yesterday," his ability to +cope with all the difficulties of his position at a critical period in the +political and religious world, his astuteness in dealing with the most +wily diplomatists, his clear notions as to the necessity of balance of +power among different nations, his financial ability and genius for +statesmanship, have all commanded the very admiration of the enemies of +the papacy. "A grand old man," the _British Quarterly_ styles him, and +with reason. "A great pope, to whom posterity owes a debt of gratitude in +consideration of the whole results of his pontificate," says the +_Edinburgh Review_. + +The extraordinary events of the life of Sixtus V. were the result of his +wonderful energy and persistency. People like decision of character--a man +with a purpose, and the ability of putting it into execution. This is why +all admirers of "self-made" men like to retrace the upward steps of the +life of this eminent pope, from the rustic boyhood of Felice Peretti on +the shores of the Adriatic; his thirst for knowledge that impelled him to +study by the lamp of the sanctuary; his girding himself with the cord of +the humble Francis while yet a mere boy; his career as a young friar- +preacher, drawing crowded Roman audiences to listen to his fervid +eloquence, among them such men as S. Ignatius de Loyola and S. Philip +Neri; his promotion to a cardinalship by a sainted pope who was his +benefactor, and whose last moments he had the happiness of witnessing; his +temporary retirement to his villa, where he gave himself up to quiet +observation of the needs of the times, especially of his own country, the +study of architecture and the improvements needed in Rome, and all those +pursuits which tended to fit him for his subsequent elevation to the +papacy. Sixtus V. did not look upon his success in life as solely due to +his own merit. He recognized the finger of Divine Providence, and chose as +his motto: "Thou, O God, hast been my defender, even from my mother's +womb." + +_The Life of Sixtus V._ by Baron Huebner, though written from a Catholic +point of view, is acknowledged by the _Edinburgh Review_ to be one of the +most valuable contributions to the literature of the age, so rich in +historical biography. Its superiority to the previous lives of that pope +is partly due to his access to the archives of Simancas, not open to +research at the time of Ranke. Though the pontificate of Sixtus V. was +only about five years long, it embraced a rapid succession of +extraordinary and tragical events, as is evident when we remember he was +contemporary with Queen Elizabeth of England, Mary Queen of Scots, Philip +II. of Spain, and Henry of Navarre, whose names recall the persecution of +the Church in England, the execution of Mary Stuart, the Armada, the +overthrow of the League, and the accession of Henri Quatre to the throne +of France, and show us what a weight of responsibility rested upon the +Head of the Church. No wonder he was soon worn out by the pressure. The +tiara is but a thorny crown at the best, as befits him who stands in +Christ's stead. The very condition of the Pontifical States was an affair +of no slight difficulty. Only a man of extraordinary energy and decision +of character could have surmounted it. Sixtus V. has been called pitiless +from the terrible punishments he inflicted for apparently trivial +offences, but he was personally humane, for at the murder of his nephew he +was the first to entreat the pope (Sixtus being at that time Cardinal +Montalto) to drop his investigations, and when he had cleared the Roman +States of brigandage, he endeavored to conciliate the nobles. His +inflexible severity seemed imperiously demanded. Twenty-seven thousand +brigands ravaged his dominions; the castles of noblemen were their +strongholds; they were protected by neighboring princes; and the very +streets of Rome often witnessed the attacks of peaceful citizens by armed +bands. Sixtus himself when a cardinal had nearly lost his life in +encountering a band of lawless young nobles as he was going home one +night. He saw the absolute necessity of putting an end to such disorders +and the terror of the inhabitants. Accordingly, one of his first acts +after his election was to forbid the carrying of fire-arms in the streets, +and, when he found his order disobeyed by four young men, he had them hung +the very next morning. + +But he was strictly impartial in administering justice. No clerical +offender was screened by the sacredness of his garments. The friar who +imposed on the piety of the faithful was scourged from one end of the +Corso to the other; the cardinal who was desirous of protecting a guilty +servant was threatened with the Castle of St. Angelo; the traitor-priest +who gave Queen Elizabeth information of what was occurring at Rome was +executed in such a manner as to strike terror into every treacherous +breast. No wonder Sixtus became a terror to evil doers, and his very name +sufficed to put an end to the brawls in the streets. The time arrived when +he could say with grim humor: "_Fugit impius nemine persequente_"--"The +wicked flee when no man pursueth." + +Sixtus V. left proofs of his genius and energy all over Rome. He kept +thousands of men constantly employed. The dome of S. Peter's was completed +in twenty-two months, though the architect said it would require ten +years. He restored a colossal aqueduct that had fallen to ruin, and +brought the Acqua Felice into Rome from a distance of about twenty miles. +He opened great thoroughfares all through the city, built the Lateran +Palace, erected monuments, undertook to drain the Pontine Marshes, +encouraged agriculture and the manufacture of silk, established the +Congregation of Rites and several others, limited the number of cardinals +to seventy, and partly revised the Vulgate with his own hand. His +practical nature by no means made him insensible to softer influences. His +soul was so alive to music that at the exciting time of his election he +lent an ear to Palestrina's music hastily composed for the occasion, and +remarked that Pierluigi had forgotten Pope Marcello's Mass--a criticism +that mortified the great composer, but which has since been acknowledged +to be true. + +He won the gratitude of the Israelites by his favor. Amazed Rome saw a +Gentile actually scourged on the Corso for insulting a member of that +ancient race. To another Israelite was granted special privileges for his +success in increasing the production of silk. + +Col. Meline's book is not a literal translation of Baron Huebner's _Life of +Sixtus V._: it is rather a _resume_, as the preface explains. It consists +of three parts: the first reviews the life of that pope, giving such +details as are of interest to the general reader; the second portrays the +experience of a Transalpine traveller to Rome three centuries ago; and the +third is a vivid picture of Rome at that time: the whole being an improved +edition of three essays already given to the public. + +The readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD are already too familiar with Mr. +Meline's felicitous style and his power of analysis to require any +commendation on our part. And to the public at large he has recommended +himself by his chivalrous defence of Mary, Queen of Scots. The strong +lance he has wielded in the defence of her fair name against that doughty +writer of fiction, Mr. James Anthony Froude, has been too universally +applauded not to secure a general welcome to whatever comes from his able +pen. + + + THE HEART OF MYRRHA LAKE; or, Into the Light of Catholicity. By + Minnie Mary Lee. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1872. + + +The enthusiastic author of this charming little story has succeeded in +presenting much logic which is usually dull, in very attractive attire. +The arguments and conclusions are so wonderfully clear, that it is to be +hoped the book will fall frequently into the hands of the class most in +need of it, but, alas! least likely to read it. There is in it much of +quiet humor which is irresistible and very "telling"; as, for instance, +when to the question, "What Catholic books have you read, sir?" the sturdy +Methodist, Abner White, replies: "_Fox's Book of Martyrs_, _Maria Monk_, +_Six Months in a Convent_, _Romanism at Home_, _Priest and Nun_, etc." And +again, in the interview between Aunt Ruth and the committee of Methodist +ladies who had come to wait upon her after her husband's conversion, human +nature, and especially Methodist nature, is painted with a very clever +pen. Who has not known just such spinsters as Miss Nancy and Miss Sarah? +And what a keen dash is this: + +" 'Then we shall report that you choose to follow your husband, rather +than the goodly rules of our Methodist discipline?' + +" 'I shall go with my husband certainly,' was the firm, respectful answer. + +" 'And may God have mercy on your soul,' solemnly added the spinster, as +if addressing a person about to be hanged. + +" 'Thank you!' absently and innocently responded the quiet Quakeress. + +" 'I suppose, then, _we need not even pray for you_?' said one. + +" 'You always _was_ a little queer, Sister White, you and Brother White, +too, now that we come to think it over,' said another. + +" 'Extremely odd it is for one to lose all sense of propriety, and assume +the responsibility of such a fearful step,' rapidly spoke little Sarah. + +" 'We pity you, and _would_ help you, but you won't let us,' was Mrs. +Sand's trembling good-by. + +" 'We wash our hands of all sin in this matter. It lies at your own door,' +were the last consolatory words of Miss Nancy." + +Many another reader might say with Myrrha, "When I took up that small book +called _A General Catechism of the __ Christian Doctrine_, I little +dreamed upon what a study I had entered. Again, after reading it through, +I as little dreamed upon what a sea of speculation I had launched." May +the result of such reading prove as fruitful of good to all readers as to +Myrrha! But such results seem to happen oftener in books than in real, +selfish life. The best of this story is its ending, which, this time, is +neither marriage nor death for the lovers. + + + FLEURANGE. By Mme. Augustus Craven. Translated by M. P. T. New + York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1872. + + +Rarely, indeed, have we met a work whose author exhibits so many of the +qualities indespensable in a good novelist, as the one under +consideration. Artistic in conception, pure and elevated in style, it is +withal faultless in tone and sentiment. + +It is not our purpose to give an outline of the plot of this tale, or to +enlarge on the actors through whom it is evolved, but we shall confine +ourselves to some observations on certain characteristics of the writer as +developed in her work. + +The author manifests a high degree of insight and the aesthetic sense, an +intimate knowledge of feminine nature, and more of that of the opposite +sex than its members may dream of--in acquiring which the delicate +intuitions of her own sex doubtless serve a better purpose than the mere +logic and learning of ours. Although the story introduces the reader into +the highest social circles, and its incidents are of the most absorbing +interest, there is no sacrifice of the dramatic unities, or any departure +from the essential simplicity of the narrative. This severity of style, we +may say, is at once the most winning quality of a work of genius, and the +best test of its success; making the latter dependent on inherent +excellence, rather than adventitious aids. In works of this character, art +in letters reaches its highest development--that in which it becomes the +most natural. + +A noticeable feature is the epigrammatic conciseness with which a +sentiment or description is finished. The reader is never wearied with +platitudes or over-minuteness of limning. Whatever idea occurs to the +writer which she is willing to share with the reader is expressed in the +fewest possible words. Is a scene to be presented to the mind's eye?--a few +touches of the artist's pencil bring it vividly before us. The reader +finds himself moved alternately to mirthfulness, or tears, or +astonishment, as he encounters an unexpected bit of humor, and exquisite +burst of pathos, or some reflection almost startling in depth or +suggestiveness. Some passages are open to obvious inference, while others +constitute studies if we would probe their philosophy. It was a question +with those who watched the serial progress of the story, how the author +could bring order and harmony out of the complications in which she had +involved her principal characters; and the way this has been accomplished +will be acknowledged as not the least of her achievements. No characters +are interchanged or lose their identity. Each acts his part as naturally, +and retains his individuality, as in real life; so that, when the +_dramatis personae_ are at length summoned to the footlights for a final +adieu, we feel inclined to protest, in the name of all the delighted +auditors, against the call, as a premature termination of a very pleasant +intercourse. + +The reception _Fleurange_ has met with thus far is very flattering. It has +commended itself to the favorable judgment of the London _Saturday +Review_, and other authorities of like critical acumen; has been _crowned_ +by the French Academy; and received the general approval of the press and +public, so far as we have learned, while passing through the pages of _Le +Correspondant_ and THE CATHOLIC WORLD. We know of no recent imaginative +work of which we could speak in terms of more unqualified approbation, or +better deserving a permanent place in our literature, both as a work of +art and for the sound principles by which it is pervaded and informed. + +On the translation, we do not know that we could bestow higher praise than +to say that it reads like an original work of the first order; while we +are convinced that it is a faithful and conscientious rendering from the +French text. + + + LEGENDS OF ST. PATRICK By Aubrey De Vere. Dublin: McGlashan & + Gill. London: Henry S. King & Co. 1872. (New York: Sold by The + Catholic Publication Society.) + + +"If the Ireland of early times is ever understood, it will not be till +after thoughtful men have deemed her legends worthy of their serious +attention." This remark Mr. De Vere makes in his preface, and not until we +had read through his _Legends_ did we fully realize its truth. It is a +most certain fact that the twilight of Irish history can be changed into +day only by the profound study of its legendary lore. We have read several +lives of S. Patrick, and more than one history of Ireland have we studied, +but from none of them did we get so clear an insight into the character of +the saint and the genius of his people as from Mr. De Vere's _Legends_, +few and short though they be. + +The subjects are beautiful and poetic, and the author's conception of them +lofty and spiritual. There is indeed a sacred melody about early Irish +song which only a spiritual bard can evoke. Chords there are in Erin's +ancient harp which a hand of mere flesh and blood may not touch. Mr. De +Vere has sung those songs; he has touched these chords, and they have +given forth their true melody. It is not to his beautiful diction and +varying metres, it is not to his wonderful descriptive powers and high +poetic gifts, that we attribute this success, but it is to those two +passions of his soul which impress themselves on all that he writes--love +of God and love of Ireland. And here an opportunity is afforded us of +speaking of Mr. De Vere as the poet of Ireland. That he is far superior to +any Irish poet of the present day is beyond all question, and that his +equal, in everything save popularity, to any English poet of the day is a +verdict competent judges have not hesitated to give. + +We often ask ourselves, How is it, then, he is so little known and read by +his countrymen in America? For twenty years he has scorned "the siren's +tinsel lure," and devoted all his talents to sounding the praises of +Ireland and of Ireland's Catholicity. His sole aim through life has been +to enshrine Ireland's faith and Ireland's song in the temple of fame. +Patriotism is his only incentive to labor; he seems indifferent to +popularity, and perhaps this is one reason why he enjoys so little. But +there are other reasons, we think, and they also are in his favor. Mr. De +Vere is too polished, too thoughtful, and too spiritual to be a popular +poet. + +If he would descend from his high poetic ideal to sing love songs, he +would soon be popular; but he will never prove a recreant bard. Those for +whom he has so long and so faithfully labored must disenthrall themselves +from the spirit of the age, and ascend to his level; then will they find +in him all they can desire, and proclaim him their laureate. They will not +find in him, it is true, the inimitable sweetness of Moore or the poetic +fire of Davis, but they will find in him the patriotism of both, a polish +superior to either, and, over all and above all, they will find a muse +ennobled by the highest sentiments of religion and morality. + + + THE TRUTH. By Field Marshal the Duke of Saldanha. Translated from + the Portuguese, by William John Charles Henry. London: Burns, + Oates & Co. 1872. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication + Society.) + + +This little volume will be found to contain not only some of the most +forcible arguments for Christianity that have ever been advanced, but +particularly a collection (in the first chapter) of testimonials from +ancient heathendom to what is only realized in Christ and his religion. +Nothing can be more interesting, surely, than the study of the great +tradition of expectation which fulfilled the prophecy of the dying Israel: +"And He shall be the expectation of the nations" (Gen. xlix. 10). Our +noble author opens his first chapter with this sentence: "From the east to +the west, from the north to the south, in every language, in the +literature of all nations, with a voice spontaneous, universal, and +unanimous, the entire human race cried aloud for the coming of a Divine +Teacher." And when we have delightedly perused this first chapter, we as +heartily endorse its concluding sentence: "This we believe to have most +clearly demonstrated that, ... with one voice, unanimous, spontaneous, and +universal, the human race cried out for the coming of a God of +revelation." + +The work is designed for a defence of Christianity against the infidelity +of the day. And we think it a most able and a singularly attractive one. +Let our young men especially read it. It will make them a match for any +sceptical show of learning. + + + CATHOLIC WORSHIP. A Manual of Popular Instruction on the + Ceremonies and Devotions of the Church. By Frederick Canon + Oakeley. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1872. + + +Recent converts and inquirers after religious truth frequently experience +some difficulty in understanding the ceremonies of the church and the +various devotional practices of Catholics. We know of no more suitable +book to place in the hands of such persons than this little treatise of +Canon Oakeley. It is concise, clear, and methodical. Nothing is left +unexplained, from the practice of taking holy water upon entering the +church to the consecration of a bishop. This book will be found to be of +great use not only to converts, but to Catholics in general, containing as +it does a thoroughly reliable explanation of everything connected with our +worship. This second edition is an evidence of the favor with which it has +been received by the Catholic public. + + + THE SHADOW OF THE OBELISK, and Other Poems. By Thomas William + Parsons. London: Hatchards, Piccadilly. 1872. + + +This modest volume is from the author whose translations from Dante, that +have appeared in our magazine, are attracting deserved attention. + +Mr. Parsons' powers as a lyric poet are considerable. His verse has, for +the most part, the easy and often careless diction of a school which many +think gone out, but which we believe destined to revive. Yet here and +there we see the influence of Tennyson. The lines, "To Henry Wadsworth +Longfellow," are in the latter style. For strength his sonnets are his +best efforts. We wish he had favored us with more of them. + +There is ample variety in the pieces collected. The poet has travelled +much. "The Shadow of the Obelisk" sets us musing in Rome. "The Birthplace +of Robert Burns" takes us to "bonnie Scotland." "St. James' Park" tells us +the writer has philosophized in London. While the "Willey House," "On the +Death of Daniel Webster," and "Hudson River" are themes from his native +America. The lines, "On a Magnolia Flower," are fragrant with the +South--the pale, sad South--and one of the gems of the book. + +Mr. Parsons is a Unitarian, as he takes care to indicate; but, like +Longfellow, he has Catholic sympathies. However, there is one short +translation from Dante, entitled "A Lesson for Easter," the last two lines +of which _seem_ to talk Protestantism: + + + "Ye have the Testament, the Old and New, + And this for your salvation is enough." + + +But the preceding lines should throw light on the Catholic poet's meaning: + + + "Christians, be staid: walk wisely and serene: + Be grave, and shun the flippant speech of those + Who think that _every_ wave will wash them clean-- + That _any_ field will serve them for repose. + Be not a feather to each wind that blows: + There is a _Shepherd_ and a _Fold_ for you: + Ye have a _Leader_ when your way is rough." + + +All this is unmistakable orthodoxy; and, therefore, the two lines quoted, +which come next, speak of the evidence of the Old and the New Testament +for the "one Fold and one Shepherd" and the infallible "Leader." + +We conclude by hoping that Mr. Parsons will vouchsafe us another volume of +minor poems, and especially of sonnets. + + + THE LIFE OF FATHER MATHEW, THE PEOPLE'S SOGGARTH AROON. By Sister + Mary Francis Clare, Author of _The Illustrated History of + Ireland_, _Advice to Irish Girls in America_, _Hornehurst + Rectory_, etc. + + +The indefatigable Nun of Kenmare could not have employed her pen on a +worthier subject than the life and labors of the Apostle of Temperance. +She will have accomplished a great end if this work serves to keep green +in the hearts of her countrymen and of all Catholics the memory of one who +accomplished more good than many who possessed more brilliant abilities, +yet who neglected to employ their talents in that usurious activity which +wins a blessing. + + + DAILY STEPS TO HEAVEN. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1872. + + +This, as well as the preceding work, belongs to a series of publications +by the same author, embracing religious, historical, and miscellaneous +books, which have attained an extraordinary popularity in the old country +and in the United States. + + + A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. By Rev. Reuben Parsons, D.D. New York: + D. & J. Sadlier & Co. + + +This work has been compiled "for the use of colleges, schools, and +families." It contains short biographical sketches of the principal +characters of history, together with chronological tables. The subjects +are for the most part well selected, and, as far as we have read, are well +and correctly treated. The style of the author is terse and vigorous, and +well adapted to this kind of composition. + +The printing is excellent, the binding neat, but the figure in the +frontispiece has suffered not a little at the hands of the artist--an +accident which mars somewhat the general appearance of the book. + + + THE NEW GOD. Translated from the German of Conrad von Bolanden, by + Very Rev. Theodore Noethen, V.G. Albany: M. O'Sullivan. 1872. + + +Our readers have already had a sufficient taste of this author's quality +in "The Progressionists," now going through our pages, to desire the +further treat to be found in the new products of his pen. We do not recall +any series of fictitious writings, designed to combat vicious principles +and actions, more admirable as specimens of vigorous and effective +composition. The most obtuse progressionist could scarcely fail to +comprehend the drift of the underlying argument, while the more fastidious +reader will be carried along by the interest of the tale through which it +is conveyed. Father Noethen is performing an acceptable service in making +these works known to the English reader. + +Bolanden's works fairly palpitate with the gravity of themes of living +interest. The new German Government, the burthen of the present tale, has +given evidence of their telling effect by ordering their suppression. + + + GERALDINE: A TALE OF CONSCIENCE. By E. C. A. New York: P. O'Shea. + + +_Geraldine_ was one of the first successful religious novels which +followed the revival of Catholic doctrine in England, and bids fair to +hold its own for many a year to come. It enjoys a wider reputation than +either of Miss Agnew's other works, one of which, _Rome and the Abbey_, +forms a sequel to this. + +Mr. O'Shea also issues a reprint of Cardinal Wiseman's _Lectures on the +Connection between Science and Revealed Religion_; intended, apparently, +as the commencement of an uniform series of the great author's works. + +It is to be regretted that this work had not undergone a thorough revision +by some competent hand before its reappearance, in order to adapt it to +the present state of scientific investigation. Although true science can +never be out of harmony with revelation, its successive developments may +enable us to see the conditions of that harmony and relation in a clearer +light than when the _Lectures_ were originally published. + + + THE HISTORY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. Translated from the French + of the Abbe Orsini, by the Very Rev. F. C. Husenbeth, D.D., V.G. + Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1872. + + +This work is already known to many readers in the presentation edition +issued by the Messrs. Sadlier some years since, and the recent English +edition of which the above is a _fac-simile_. We are glad to see an +edition like this made accessible to the great body of readers, though the +fire in which the publisher was involved, will interfere for a time with +that consummation. It has a number of pictorial illustrations, and there +are appended the letters apostolic concerning the dogmatic definition of +the Immaculate Conception. + + + LIZA. By Ivan S. Turgenieff. New York: Holt & Williams. 1872. + + +_Liza_ is another work from the pen of M. Turgenieff, the distinguished +Russian novelist, several of whose works are already familiar to us. His +quiet sarcasm in depicting the Russian of the old school, who needs no +scratching to reveal the genuine Tartar--crafty and brutal, but with a +kindly streak withal--and the Russian of the present generation who has +imbibed foreign habits and theories by no means elevating, is admirably +calculated to correct the evils of a transition state of society. The +former affords us two affecting pictures in this book of women of +repressed lives, who humbly kiss with their dying lips the hand that has +crushed them. One of them leaves a young son, Fedor Lavretsky, who never +forgets his pale and gentle mother, who in turn hardly dared caress him +for fear of the sharp eyes and cutting tongue of her sister-in-law, +Glafira, who had taken charge of the child. He is brought up under a +system of repression, and, when his father dies, he goes to Moscow +determined to repair the defects of his education. There he falls in love +with the face of a beautiful girl who regards him as a _schoene Partie_ and +marries him. He gives himself up to the happiness of his new life, and is +induced by his wife to leave his estate, and, after various changes, to go +to Paris, where admiration seems to have intoxicated her. Fedor, becoming +aware of her real character, settles an annuity on her, leaves her, and +returns to his native land. He cannot bear, however, to go to his own seat +where he passed the first happy days of his married life, but betakes +himself to his aunt's place--the stern Glafira, who had died during his +absence. The desolate house is once more opened, and he stands alone in +the room where she breathed her last, and looks with softened heart on the +sacred icons in their gilded frames in the corner, and the worn carpet, +covered with drippings from the wax candles she had burned before them, +and on which she had knelt to pray. His old servant waits on him, he +drinks tea out of the great cup he had used in his boyhood, looks over the +large book full of mysterious pictures which he had found so wondrous in +childish days. Everything recalls the earlier remembrances of his life. +"On a woman's love my best years have been wasted," thought he. + +Going to pay his respects to his great-aunt, who is admirably drawn with a +few vivid touches, he meets with Liza, whom he left a child, but is now +nineteen years of age. There is a natural grace about her person; her face +is pale, but fresh; her eyes lustrous and thoughtful, her smile +fascinating, but grave, and she has a frank, innocent way of looking you +directly in the face. Lavretsky is instantly struck with her appearance, +and the impression is deepened the oftener he sees her. Liza's mother is +one of those women, _qui n'a pas invente la poudre, la bonne daine_, as +one of her visitors ungratefully remarks. Her daughter owes the elevation +and purify of her character to the nurse of her childhood, who gave +herself up to penitential observances. Instead of nursery tales, she told +Liza of the Blessed Virgin, the holy hermits who had been fed in their +caves by the birds, and the female martyrs from whose blood sprang up +sweet flowers. She used to speak of these things seriously and humbly, as +if unworthy to utter such high and holy names, and Liza sat at her feet +with reverent awe drinking in the holy influences of her words. Aglafia +also taught her to pray, and took her at early dawn to the matin service. +Liza grew up thoroughly penetrated with a sense of duty, loving everybody, +but loving God supremely and with tender enthusiasm. Till Lavretsky came, +no one had troubled the calmness of her inner life. + +After some time, learning through a newspaper that his wife is dead, he +confesses his love to Liza. She feels drawn towards him, her heart seems +to respond to his love, but it is hardly with genuine passion; it is +rather the agitation of a lily too rudely stirred by the breeze. Not that +she has no depth of feeling; but, as she afterwards acknowledges, when she +did indulge in hopes of happiness, her heart shuddered within her. Love +seemed almost a profanation, as if a stranger had entered her pure maiden +chamber. + +Suddenly, the wife, supposed to be dead, reappears. It is all a mistake. +Her husband is stunned. He feels he can never give back his love to one +who has no longer his respect. And Liza is lost to him. After several +attempts, he sees her again. Her eyes have grown dimmer and sunken, her +face is pale, and her lips have lost their color. She implores him to be +reconciled to his wife, and they part without her allowing her hand to +meet his. + +Six months later, Liza takes the veil in a remote convent in Russia. The +Greek as well as the Latin convent seems to be the ideal refuge of +startled innocence and purity. Once Lavretsky goes there, hoping to catch +a glimpse of her. He sees her as she is leaving the choir. She passes +close by him with the quick, noiseless step of a nun, but keeps steadily +on without looking at him. But he sees the almost imperceptible tremor of +her eye; she bends her emaciated face still lower, and the hands that hold +the rosary are clasped more tightly together. + +But the chief value of M. Turgenieff's novels to a Catholic lies not in +the stories themselves certainly, but in the delightful pictures of +Russian life and manners they present, and the influence they have had in +softening the rugged manners of the north and changing the condition of +the serfs. + + + WONDERS OF THE MOON. Translated from the French of Amedee + Guillemin, by Miss M. G. Mead. Edited, with additions, by Maria + Mitchell, of Vassar College. Illustrated with forty-three + engravings. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1873. + + +This little book contains a tolerably full account of all that is known +about the moon, and that is of interest to the general reader. Our +knowledge of our satellite is in some respects hardly equal to that which +we have recently acquired of the much more distant sun; though so near, +comparatively, to us, it is still too far away for the telescope ever to +give us as clear a view of it as we need; and the spectroscope is of +little use in its examination. We shall never know much about it, and +especially about its other side, unless we go to see it; and a trip to the +moon, chimerical as it may seem, may not always remain an impossibility +for some adventurous person who is willing to run his chance of finding in +the apparently uncomfortable little place the necessary conditions for +human life. However, not a few of us will be content with the information +given in this book, which is vastly greater than what most persons would +probably acquire by examining the moon with the finest telescope; for a +telescope is of little service to one unaccustomed to use it, and few +things are more provoking to an experienced moon-gazer than evident +failure of others to see what seems to him so plain. To those, then, who +really wish to get a good idea of the moon, and especially of its physical +constitution and probable scenery, in really the most satisfactory way, +this little volume, notwithstanding a few slight inaccuracies (such as the +placing of Petit's bolide at 9,000,000 miles from the earth), will be +quite interesting and valuable. These inaccuracies, if in the original, +should have been corrected in the translation. + + + THE GREAT PROBLEM: The Higher Ministry of Nature viewed in the + Light of Modern Science, and as an aid to advanced Christian + Philosophy. By John R. Leifchild, A.M., author of _Our Coal Fields + and our Coal Pits_; _Cornwall: Its Mines and Miners_, etc., etc. + With an introduction by Howard Crosby, D.D., LL.D., Chancellor of + the University of New York. New York: G. P. Putnam & Son. 1872. + + +Dr. Crosby introduces this really able and valuable essay with a just and +manly rebuke of the unparalleled absurdity and impudence of our modern +materialistic scientists; and it is high time for him, considering what +balderdash he is obliged to listen to from his chancellor's chair. The +essay of Mr. Leifchild is a series of arguments on the topics of natural +theology, in which some of the principal manifestations of the power and +wisdom of God in the physical world are pointed out and referred to their +true cause and end. The author most absurdly saws off the limb of the tree +on which grows all the fruit he admires so much and gathers so carefully, +by denying the value of metaphysics. But, in spite of that, his sound mind +holds implicitly the very metaphysics he ignorantly despises, and he is +therefore able to reason very well and conclusively. Most persons who read +books of this kind are more ready to listen to a geologist teaching +theology than to a professed theologian, and they prefer the roundabout +method of coming to a point by induction to the straight road of logical +deduction. This book is likely to be useful, therefore, and is, besides, +printed in very clear, legible type, which makes it a pleasant book to +read, though laboring under the sad inconvenience of having neither index +nor table of contents. There are a good many interesting facts and +statements about eminent writers interspersed, e.g., Spinoza and Leibnitz; +but the author is seriously mistaken in ascribing any pantheistic +doctrines or tendencies to Henry Suso and Tauler. We are happy to welcome +such books from English writers who are adepts in the physical sciences. +For these sciences, and the men who are really masters of them, we have a +great respect in their own sphere. And we consider it a very praiseworthy +and useful task for men of this kind, to undertake to show the conformity +of these sciences with the queen over all the scientific realm--Christian +philosophy. + + + THE MINNESINGER OF GERMANY. By A. E. Kroeger. New York: Hurd & + Houghton. 1872. + + +In this little book we have a very charming, as also very learned, +exposition of mediaeval art. The Minnesinger or minstrel-knights of the +latter half of the XIIth and earlier half of the XIIIth centuries are but +little known outside of Germany. In this book we are introduced to the +principal masters of this beautiful and ephemeral school of song, +Gottfried von Strassburg, Walter von der Vogelweide, Ulrich von +Lichtenstein, Hartmann von der Aue, Regenbogen, Conrad von Wuerzburg, and +Henrich von Meissen, known as "_Frauenlob_," or "ladies' praise." These +poets sang chiefly of religion and love. But foremost among all women, the +great Mother of God chiefly claimed their enthusiastic homage, as we see +by the long extracts given by Mr. Kroeger of some of their glorious "Hymns +to the Virgin." Here is an example, from "The Divine Minnesong," +attributed sometimes to Gottfried of Strassburg: + + + "Thou art the blooming heaven-branch, + Which blooming, blooms in many a grange; + Great care and strange + God lavished, Maid, on thee." + + +We have, unfortunately, no space for a selection of the beauties collected +for us in this book, and can only recommend our readers to procure it for +themselves. It is full of gems, and is especially welcome to us as +evidence of the high degree to which the burning faith of those days had +led and guided lyrical art. Hartmann von der Aue's "Poor Henry" is, so we +are told, "the original of that sweet story of self-sacrifice which +Longfellow has made universally known as the 'Golden Legend,' (p. 190)." +The same hymn we have already quoted has this allusion to the "living wine +of true remorse" and the following words: + + + "He whom God's love has never found + Is like a shadow on the ground, + And does confound + Life, wisdom, sense, and reason." + + +Conrad von Wuerzburg, in his "Golden Smithy," represents himself as a gold- +smith working an ornament for the Queen of Heaven, and says, "If in the +depth of the smithy of my heart I could melt a poem out of gold, and could +enamel the gold with the glowing ruby of pure devotion, I would forge a +transparent shining and sparkling praise of thy work, thou glorious +Empress of Heaven." Walter von der Vogelweide sings these grand words: + + + "Who slays the lion? Who slays the giant? + Who masters them all, however defiant? + He does it who himself controlleth; + And every nerve of his body enrolleth, + _Freed from passion, under strict subjection_." + + +Mr. Kroeger has done a service to art, to history, and to religion in +opening thus before our eyes a few of the treasures of the _so-called_ +dark ages. + + + COLLEGE JOURNAL. Georgetown College: Dec., 1872, Vol. I., No. 1. + + +This is as elegant a little paper in outward appearance as we remember to +have seen. The articles are written with taste and correctness, and we +offer a hearty welcome to the young gentlemen of classic Georgetown on +their editorial _debut_. We have only one piece of advice to give them, +which is, to be careful that their wit and humor be as classic and +scholarly as their serious pieces. Most papers, especially juvenile ones, +break down on this point. We wish our young friends honor and success in +their enterprise. + +The Catholic Publication Society will publish in a few days Wild Times, a +story by Miss Caddell. + + + +Books And Pamphlets Received. + + +From C. DAREAU, Quebec: Francis Parkman. Par L'Abbe H. R. Casgrain. 18mo, +paper, pp. 89. + +From A. WILLIAMS & CO., Boston: The Blazing Star; with an appendix +treating of the Jewish Kabbala. 12mo, pp. 180. + +From JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., Boston: The Masque of the Gods. By Bayard +Taylor. 12mo, pp. 48. + +From LEE & SHEPARD, Boston: Humanity Immortal. By L. P. Hickok, D.D., +LL.D. 8vo, pp. 362.--God-Man. By L. T. Townsend, D.D. 12mo, pp. +446.--Autobiography of Amos Kendall. Edited by his Son-in-law, Wm. +Stickney. 1872. + +From ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston: Paul of Tarsus: An Inquiry into the Times +and the Gospel of the Apostle of the Gentiles. By A Graduate, 12mo, pp. +401. + +From D. VAN NOSTRAND, New York: A Treatise on Acoustics in Connection with +Ventilation. By Alexander Saeltzer. 12mo, pp. 102. + +From J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., Philadelphia: Thoughts on Paper Currency, +etc. By Wm. Brown. 18mo, pp. 240.--Black Robes; or, Sketches of Missions +and Ministers in the Wilderness and on the Border. By Robert P. Nevin. +12mo, pp. 366. + +From A. D. F. RANDOLPH & CO., New York: The Scripture Doctrine in +Reference to the Seat of Sin in the Regenerate Man. 18mo, pp. 125. + +From DESFORGES & LAWRENCE, Milwaukee: A Religion of Evolution: Letters of +"Internationalist" Reviewing the Sermons of J. L. Dudley, Pastor of +Plymouth Congregationalist Church, Milwaukee, 8vo, pp. 42. + +From C. C. CHATFIELD & CO., New Haven: Hints to Young Editors. 12mo, pp. +31. + +From CARROLL, Wheeling: Pastoral Letter of the Rt. Rev. Richard Vincent +Whelan, Bishop of Wheeling, to the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese. 8vo, +pp. 12. + +Ninth Annual Report of the New York Catholic Protectory. Paper, 8vo, pp. +66. + +Constitution and By-Laws of the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of +America, with the Journal of Proceedings and Address of the First General +Convention held at Baltimore, Md., Feb. 22, 23, 1872. 8vo, pp. 57. + +Library Work in the Army. United States Military Post Library Association. +Annual Report, 1871-2. Paper, 12mo, pp. 57. + +The English Inquisition worse than the Spanish. By an English Priest. +Montreal. 18mo, pp. 34. + +From Hon. EUGENE CASSERLY: Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of the +U. S. transmitted to Congress with the Annual Message of the President, +Dec. 4, 1871. + + + + + +THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XVI., NO. 95.--FEBRUARY, 1873. + + + + +Who Made Our Laws? + + +It is a characteristic of every succeeding century to consider itself much +wiser than any or all that have preceded it. In this respect our beloved +NINETEENTH is no exception; in fact, with a vanity that may be palliated, +if not excused, it considers that, comparatively speaking, the world has +hitherto been in its schoolboy days, and only attained its majority on the +first day of January, 1800. It is true that the great advances made in the +physical sciences, in chemistry, astronomy, and geology, and in the +application of steam and electricity, have marked our age as one of true +progress in a certain direction, and are substantial subjects of self- +congratulation; but it must also be remembered that very little of the +genuine happiness of mankind in general depends upon any or all of these +discoveries and appliances. Man, being an intellectual as well as an +animal being, must look to spiritual discoveries and mental agencies for +his chief sources of enjoyment; and, as the soul controls the body, as his +main duty in this life is to qualify that soul for an eternity of bliss, +as the unlimited future is superior to the limited present, it follows +that the things merely of this world play a small and insignificant part +in the real drama of the life of a human being. The sad misconception of +this solution of the problem of man's destiny has been the principal +mistake of materialists, and their consequent punishment here below has +been so marked that the criticism of the charitable is considerately +withheld. + +Fortunately for us Catholics, the great desideratum--the law that includes +all laws--is immovably fixed, and no new discoveries, no alleged progress, +no experiment, can disturb it. Immutable as the eternal hills, it stands +to-day as when promulgated in Judaea over eighteen hundred years ago by its +Divine Founder, and though the heavens and earth may pass away, we have +the assurance that it shall not. But there have sprung out of the +operation of this great law other laws which may be called secondary or +subsidiary, which have long affected the welfare of Christendom, and upon +the observance or rejection of which much of the welfare or misery of +nations has depended and must for ever depend. Political justice, social +order, art, science, and literature, everything which relates to the +relations of man with his fellows, and brightens and beautifies life, have +a great deal more to do with forming the character and insuring the purity +of a people, as well as the regulation of their actions justly, than +railroads, telegraphs, and anaesthetic agents. Respect for the memory of +the dead and charity for the living prevent us from pointing out +individual instances where men, remarkable for their skill and +perseverance in forwarding the latter projects, have neither been +distinguished for their truthfulness, liberality, nor for any moral +quality typical of intelligent Christians. The best of these men are +simply clever mechanists, increasing, it is true, our sum of knowledge of +the effect of certain forces in nature, yet without being able to reveal +the nature of the forces themselves, which seems impossible; but whoever +teaches us true ideas regarding the active agencies that govern ordinary +life is the true benefactor of his species, and is the governor of his +audience or race. Have our discoveries in this science of making mankind +more moral, humane, and refined kept pace with our more intimate +acquaintance with the secrets of nature and the laws of mechanism, or have +we to look back to the despised past for all our ideas of rectitude in +legislation, honesty in the administration of government, and truthfulness +in the plastic arts? We fear that a candid answer to this question would +involve some loss of our self-esteem. While, like the degenerate Hebrews, +we have been worshipping graven images, the work of men's hands, we have +been neglecting the Tables of the Law. + +All national governments reflect more or less correctly the ideas of the +people governed. The absolutism of Russia is as much the reflex of the +mental status of the inhabitants of that vast and semi-civilized empire as +that of the United States is of our busy, hasty, and heterogeneous +population. The first is a necessity growing out of a peculiar order of +things, wherein many tribes and barbarous races are to be found struggling +towards light and civilization; the other is the creation of the matured +minds of experienced and profound statesmen, acting as the delegates of a +self-reliant and self-sustaining people. Still, though the framework of +the government is _unique_, the ideas of justice and equality which +underlie it are old. In one sense they are not American, but European, for +it cannot be denied that the principles of our constitutions, state and +national, the laws accepted or enacted in harmony therewith, and the modes +of their interpretation and administration, are taken from the civil +polity of the nations of the Old World, as those again have been the +direct and palpable result of the teachings of the Catholic Church. Russia +to-day is mainly barbarous, and subject to the unfettered will of one man, +because centuries ago the East broke away from the centre of Catholic +unity, and, in losing the Apostolic authority, lost all its vivifying +power, and the ministers of the so-called Greek Church their capacity and +efficiency as civilizers and law-givers. + +The West was more loyal, and consequently more fortunate. If we consider +for a moment the chaotic condition of the greater part of Europe when the +church commenced to spread far and wide the teachings of the Gospel, +slowly but steadily pursuing her holy mission, we may be able to +appreciate the herculean task before her. Then, in every part of Europe, +from the pole to the Mediterranean, from the Carpathians to the Atlantic, +disorder, ignorance, and rapine prevailed. Wave after wave of Northern and +Eastern hordes had swept over the continent and most of the islands, +submerging the effete nations of the South, and carrying destruction and +death wherever they surged. The old Roman civilization, such as it was, +was entirely obliterated, all municipal law was abolished, the conquered +masses were reduced to the condition of serfs, and, as each successive +leader of a tribe rested from his bloody labors and built a stronghold for +his occupancy, he reserved to himself the exclusive monopoly of plunder +and spoliation in his own particular neighborhood. This of course led to +rivalry and unceasing warfare between rival marauders, and the incessant +slaughter and oppression of their retainers and tenants. + +It was with these fierce and lawless _nobles_, as they loved to style +themselves, that the church for centuries waged most persistent and +uncompromising warfare, and against them she hurled her most terrible +anathemas. It was she who taught the sanguinary barons and chieftains that +there was a moral power greater than armed force and stronger than moated +and castellated tower, who took by the hand the downtrodden, impoverished +serf, freed him from his earthly bonds, taught him the knowledge of God's +law, the principles of eternal justice and the rights of humanity, and +instilled into his heart those ideas of human liberty which have since +fructified and now permeate every free or partially free government in +both hemispheres. Those great results were achieved in many ways, as local +circumstances required; by teaching and exhorting, by persuasion or +threats, by taking the serf into the ministry of the church and thereby +making him the superior of his former master, by introducing gradually +just and equitable laws, and when necessary forcing their adoption on +unwilling sovereigns and reluctant nobles, and, perhaps, most potently by +the example of her own organization, which permitted the humblest of her +children to be crowned by a free election with the tiara of the successors +of S. Peter. + +The influence of the church in secular affairs was particularly remarkable +in England, from which we have drawn so many of our political opinions and +principles. The early missionaries to the Britons and Saxons were +doubtless men of high intelligence as well as sanctity; but the Norman and +Anglo-Norman ecclesiastics who came into the country with William the +Conqueror and clustered around his sons and successors were still more +remarkable for astuteness and breadth of view. For many generations after +the Conquest they may be said to have governed England in so far as they +framed her laws, conducted her ordinary jurisprudence, and mainly directed +her foreign and domestic policy. The most interesting, though by no means +the most impartial, chapters in Hallam and Blackstone are those devoted to +the struggles between the lay lawyers supported or subsidized by the +nobility, and the clerical jurists who defended the privileges of their +order and the natural rights of the oppressed masses. The Great Charter, +of which we hear so much from persons who very probably never read it, was +undoubtedly the work of the latter, though signed by all the barons with +their seal or mark; trial by jury, the germs of which may be traced into +remote antiquity, was systematized and as far as possible perfected under +their auspices; courts of equity, for the rectification of "injustice +which the law from its generality worketh to individuals," were their +creation, and even until comparatively late years were presided over by +them; and representative or parliamentary government may justly be said to +have been the fruit of their fertile and ever-active brains. Its founder, +in England at least, was de Montfort, who, though not in orders, was the +follower, if not the pupil, of the great S. Bernard. + +It is thus that we, the ungrateful or forgetful eulogists of the XIXth +century, while laying the flattering unction to our souls that we have +done more than put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes, ignore the +long, painful, and continuous efforts of our spiritual forefathers to +christianize, civilize, and make free our ancestors in the order of nature +whom pagan despotism and barbaric cupidity sought to degrade and +brutalize. In our self-glorification we forget that all we have in +legislation, of which we are naturally so proud and for which we never can +be too thankful, is the product of long years of toil and reflection of +humble priests and learned prelates, whose names are now scarcely +remembered. The ideas of justice and clemency generated in the minds of +those men of the past by the spirit of Catholicity are the same which +govern our daily actions, and regulate the most important affairs of our +lives and of those most dear to us, though we are so occupied or so +ungrateful that we fail to acknowledge the sources from whence they arose. + +For instance, the possession of real estate forms one of the principal +attractions for the ambition of industrious Americans, yet how few of them +ever think that the laws regulating its disposition, acquisition, and +inheritance are the very enactments framed by monks, hundreds of years +ago, and recognized by armed laymen after long and at times doubtful +contests with the advocates of the arbitrary feudal system. Personal +liberty, speedy trial by our peers, were first secured in an incontestable +form by an archbishop of the church which some of our so-called and +"loudly called" preachers are never tired of denouncing as tyrannical. +That the right of the people governed, to elect representatives to make +laws affecting their "lives, liberty, and pursuit of happiness," was +obtained and carried into practical effect by a Catholic statesman many +centuries before Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin were born, seems to +have been forgotten by our pseudo-liberals; while the grand principle of +political equality which lies at the foundation of our republic, instead +of being less than a hundred years old, is coeval with Christianity +itself, and in its operation within the church is more expansive and less +discriminating as regards social rank and condition. + +But though, in this inconsiderate age, we fail to acknowledge the deep +debt of gratitude we owe to the workers and thinkers of the past for our +laws, civilization, and correct ideas of government, we cannot if we would +deny that we are still ruled by those very ideas, and that none of our +boasted, and in their way valuable, discoveries have had the effect to +give us a new or a better scheme of jurisprudence, whereby mankind can be +made better, wiser, or happier. + +The people of the United States are not generally considered a profoundly +reflective people; we are too much engaged with the present to care much +about either the past or future; but we respectfully suggest that, while +we may be justly proud of our laws and system of government, it is hardly +fair or generous to assume to ourselves all the credit for their formation +and existence. We have done enough to secure the liberty of our fellow- +men, and maintain our authority in the family of nations, not to be able +to be just, if not generous, to the memory of the men who have bequeathed +to us so invaluable a legacy; and let us therefore accord to our Catholic +ancestors due credit for the conception and transmission of the laws under +which we all so happily live. After all, their ideas rule more than our +own, whether we will or not. + + + + +Dante's Purgatorio. Canto Sixth. + + + When from the game of hazard men depart, + The loser stays, and, casting o'er his throws, + Learns a hard lesson with a heavy heart; + While with the winner all the assembly goes: + One runs before, one plucks his robe behind, + But he delays not, though beside his way + Another comrade calls himself to mind; + And every one perceives that he would say: + "_Press me no more!_" to whom he lifts his hand, + And by so doing keeps the crowd at bay; + Such I was, freeing me from that dense band, + To this and that one bending my survey, + And promising to answer each demand. + + Here was that Aretine whose lethal wound + The savage hands of Ghin' di Tacco made; + Also that knight who in pursuit was drowned. + Here with stretched palms Frederic Novello prayed, + The Pisan, too, at whose defeat his sire, + Good old Marzucco, showed a strength sublime. + I saw Count Orso, and that soul whom dire + Envy and spite, but no committed crime + Tore from his mortal frame, as he declared; + Pierre de la Brosse I mean: so, while she may, + Be that bad woman of Brabant prepared + Lest she go join a far worse flock than they. + + When I had freed me from the gathering press + Of shadows praying still that others' prayers + Might hasten forward their own blessedness, + I thus began: "Thy page, my Light! declares + Expressly, in one text, that Heaven's decree + To no beseeching bendeth.(214) Yet this race + Prays with such purpose: will their praying be + Without avail? or have I in that place + Misread thy word?" He answered: "It is gross + And plain to reason: no fallacious hope + Is theirs, if thy sound mind consider close; + The topmost height of judgment doth not slope, + Because love's fire may instantly complete + The penance due from one of these: but where + I closed that point with words which you repeat, + A gulf betwixt the Most High was and prayer: + No praying there could cover past defect. + Yet verily, in so profound a doubt + Rest not, till she who, 'twixt thine intellect + And truth, shall be thy light, herself speak out. + Dost understand me? Beatrice I mean: + Thou shalt behold her in a loftier place, + This mountain summit, smiling and serene." + "Good Guide," said I, "then let us mend our pace, + I feel no more my weariness: o'er us + The mountain shadow grows and hides mine own." + "We will go forward"--he gave answer thus-- + "Far as we can, ere this day's light be gone; + But thy thought wanders from the fact. That height + Ere thou canst gain, thou shalt behold the day's + Returning orb, who now so hides his light + Behind the hill that thou break'st not his rays. + But yonder look! one spirit, all alone, + By itself stationed, bends toward us his gaze: + The readiest passage will by him be shown" + + Sordello. + + We came up tow'rds it: O proud Lombard soul! + How thou didst wait, in thy disdain unstirred, + And thy majestic eyes didst slowly roll! + Meanwhile to us it never uttered word, + But let us move, just giving us a glance, + Like as a lion looks in his repose. + Then Virgil, making a more near advance, + Prayed him to show us where the mountain rose + With easier slope, and still that soul replied + Nothing to his demand; but question made + About life, and our country. My sweet Guide + Began to answer: "Mantua"--and the shade + From where it had been, separate from his band, + All rapt in self, sprang up towards him in haste, + Saying: "O Mantuan, I am of thy land, + I am Sordello." And the twain embraced. + + Ah slavish Italy! thou common inn + For woe to lodge at! without pilot, thou + Ship in great tempest! not what thou hast been, + Lady of provinces, but brothel now! + That gentle soul so quickly, at the dear + Sound that recalled his country, forward came + To grace his townsman with a greeting here; + And now thy living children, to their shame, + Are all at war, and they who dwell most near + Prey, each on each, with moat and wall the same! + Search, wretched! search all round thine either coast, + And then look inland, in thy bosom, see + If peace in any part of thee thou know'st! + What though Justinian made new reins for thee, + What boots it if the saddle remain void? + Without his mending thy disgrace were less. + And O ye tribe that ought to be employed + In your devotions, and let Caesar press + The seat of Caesar if God's word you heed, + See, since your hand hath on the bridle been, + How wanton grown and wicked is the steed, + Through want from you of the spur's discipline. + O German Albert! who abandonest + Her now run wild, unchecked by curb of thine, + When thou shouldst ride her with thy heels hard-pressed; + May heaven's just judgment light upon thy line, + And be it something strange, and manifest, + To make him tremble that comes after thee, + Because, for lust of barren fiefs out there,(215) + Thou and thy Father have not shamed to see + The empire's garden desolate and bare. + Come see the Capulets and Montagues, + Monaldi and Filippeschi, O thou being + Without concern! these wan with fears, and those + Already crushed: come sate thyself with seeing, + Thou cruel man, the outrage that is done + To thy best blood, and make their bruises well! + And thou shalt see too, thou cold looker-on, + Santafiore's lords how safe they dwell. + Come see thy Rome that mourning all alone + Weepeth, a widow, calling day and night, + Why, O my Caesar, dost thou leave thine own? + Come see what love there--how all hearts unite! + And if no pity move thee at our moan + Blush for thy fame beholding such a sight. + And, lawful if I speak, O most high Jove + Who wast for _our_ sakes crucified on earth, + Are thy just eyes who watchest men above + Turned elsewhere?--Or is this before the birth + Of some great good a preparation hid + From us in the abyss of thy intent, + That all the Italian towns are tyrant-rid, + And every clown that comes on faction bent + Makes as much clamor as Marcellus did? + + My Florence! well may'st thou remain content + At this digression; it concerns not thee, + Thanks to thy people, great in argument! + Many with justice in their hearts there be + Who stay the shaft lest, coming to the bow + Without discretion, it might err; but they + On their lips wear it. Many men are slow + To serve the state, and turn from place away; + Thy people do not--every one bends low, + Crying before he's called for: "I obey." + Now make thee joyful, who may'st triumph well; + Thou who art rich--so wise! and so at peace! + If I speak true in this--let the truth tell. + Athens and Sparta, that raised civil Greece + To such a height, and framed the ancient laws, + Towards the well-ordered life made small beginning + Compared with thee, whose legislation draws + Threads out so fine that thy October spinning + Comes before mid-November to a pause. + How many times hast thou renewed thy men, + Yea, within days that in thy memory dwell, + And changed thy laws and offices, and then + Customs and coins! if thou remember well + Thou wilt behold thyself, unless quite blind, + Like a sick woman, restless, that in vain + Seeks on her pillow some repose to find, + And turns and turns as 'twere to parry pain. + + + + +The Church The Champion Of Marriage. + + +"There is nothing new under the sun," least of all the continued crusade +the church has headed and now heads against the enemies of Christian +marriage. What marriage is, what duties it involves, what holiness it +requires, what grace it confers, we leave to other pens more learned or +more eloquent to define. What are the Scripture authorities and allowable +inferences concerning the married state, its indissolubility and its +future transformation in heaven, we leave to theologians to state. Those +who may feel curious as to that part of the question, or as to the local +and civil enactments concerning marriage and divorce, we refer to two able +articles published in THE CATHOLIC WORLD of October, 1866, and July, +1867.(216) + +But as witnesses are multiplied when a strong case has to be made out in +favor of some important issue, let us turn to the tribunal of history, and +look over the record of the church's battles. Witnesses without number +rise in silent power to show on which side the weight of church influence +has ever been thrown--the side of the oppressed and weakly. Every liberty, +from ecclesiastical immunities to constitutional rights, she has upheld +and enforced, and it would be impossible that she, the knight-errant of +the moral world, should have failed to break a lance, through every +succeeding century, for the integrity of the marriage bond. + +Take, for instance, the history of the new Frankish kingdom in the VIth +century, at the time when the church was laboriously moulding pagan hordes +into Christian and civilized nations. The times were wild and unsettled, +the very laws hardly established, heathen license barely reined in by the +threatening barrier of solemn excommunication. They were times of great +heroism, it is true, but none the less of great abuses and of startling +crimes. The bishops of the Christian church stood alone in the midst of +the universal depravity, like mighty colossi, defying the civil power and +rebuking royal license. S. Nicetus, the Bishop of Treves, was one of +these. The young King of the Franks, Theodebert, who was betrothed to +Wisigardis, the daughter of the Lombard king Wakon, had, during a war +against the Goths, taken a beautiful captive named Denteria. He made her +his mistress, and, forgetful of his solemn betrothal, lived with her for +seven years. The bishop never ceased boldly to admonish him and warn him, +but to no purpose. After a while, his powers of persuasion failing to +effect his charitable design, he resorted to the penalties of the church, +and excommunicated him. But, instead of suspending his evil career, the +king persuaded many of his courtiers to follow his example. The holy +bishop excommunicated them all with calm impartiality. Despite the +censures under which they lay, they insolently attempted to assist at High +Mass one Sunday in the bishop's presence. S. Nicetus turned to meet the +sacrilegious throng, and undauntedly announced that, unless those who were +excommunicated left the church, the Mass would not be celebrated. The king +publicly demurred to this, but a young man in the crowd, possessed by the +devil, suddenly started up, and in impassioned language gave testimony to +the holiness of the bishop and the vicious and debased character of the +king himself. Four or five stalwart men got up to hold him, but were +unable to do so; his strength defied their utmost efforts, and burning +words of condemnation continued to fall from his lips. The king, abashed, +was forced to leave the church, while S. Nicetus caused the young man to +be brought to him. The touch of the holy bishop's hand, and his +efficacious prayer breathed over him, cured him at once of the grievous +affliction which had beset him for ten years. Finally, the displeasure of +the Franks at the insult offered to the King of the Lombards and his +daughter grew so serious that, with S. Nicetus at their head, they called +a general meeting to denounce his conduct. He listened to their +reproaches, and at last agreed to dismiss his mistress and fulfil his +contract with the Lombard princess.(217) + +An eminent French writer, De Maistre, says of the part played by the popes +in the middle ages: "Never have the popes and the church rendered a more +signal service to the world than they did in repressing by the authority +of ecclesiastical censures the transports of a passion, dangerous enough +in mild and orderly characters, but which, when indulged in by violent and +fierce natures, will make havoc of the holiest laws of marriage.... The +sanctity of marriage, the sacred foundation of the peace and welfare of +nations, is, above all, of the highest importance in royal families, where +excesses and disorders are apt to breed consequences whose gravity in the +future none can calculate." + +In the early part of the VIIth century, S. Columbanus, the great Irish +monk who founded the powerful monastery of Luxeuil in Burgundy, began that +opposition to royal license which finally cost him his exalted position, +and made him an exile and wanderer from his chosen abode. Queen Brunehault +was practically reigning in Burgundy under the name of her grandson +Theodoric. She connived at the young sovereign's precocious depravity, and +herself furnished him with attractive mistresses, thereby preventing his +marriage with a suitable princess, for fear of losing her own influence +over him in public affairs. One day, as S. Columbanus, whose monastery the +king had munificently enriched, came to see Theodoric on matters of +importance, the queen rashly presented the king's illegitimate children to +the saint, and begged him to bless them. Columbanus refused, turning away +his eyes and saying sternly, "These children are the offspring of guilt, +and they will never sit upon their father's throne." Another time, after +many vain threats and remonstrances, the saint again visited Theodoric, +but, instead of accepting the hospitality of his palace, took up his +quarters in a neighboring house. Brunehault and her grandson, keenly alive +to the implied rebuke, and resenting the public slight thus put upon them +before their court and subjects, sent some officers of their household +with costly vases and golden dishes, full of delicacies from the royal +table, to Columbanus, at the same time entreating him to come to them. The +saint made the sign of the cross, and spoke thus to the messengers: "Tell +the king that the Most High spurns the gifts of the unjust; heaven is not +to be propitiated by precious offerings, but by conversion and +repentance." And as he spoke the vases fell to the earth and broke, +scattering the food and wine that had been brought to bribe the servant of +God. The king, afraid of the divine judgments, promised to amend, but did +not fail to relapse into sin, upon which Columbanus wrote to him again, +and finally excommunicated him. Theodoric then visited the monastery of +Luxeuil, and in retaliation publicly accused the saint of violating his +rule. Columbanus answered, "If you are come here to disturb the servants +of God, and stir up confusion among them, we will relinquish all your aid, +countenance, and presents, O Theodoric; but know that you and all your +race shall perish." The king retired, awed for this time into silence; +but, being further incensed against Columbanus by his grandmother +Brunehault, he had him exiled to Besancon. The saint's reputation was such +that no one would venture to guard him, and he of his own accord soon +returned to Luxeuil. Theodoric, growing more obstinate the firmer he saw +his judge become, again ordered him to leave, even threatening force. +Columbanus defied him, and announced that physical violence alone could +drive him from his post; but, upon the persecution of the monastery +continuing unabated, he judged it more perfect and charitable to exile +himself for the peace of his community. Three years after, Theodoric and +his children were all killed, and Clotaire, his relative and ruler of a +neighboring kingdom, reigned in Burgundy in his stead. + +The Byzantine Empire also was constantly torn by schisms and dissensions +originating in the unbridled passions of its ignoble sovereigns. In the +VIIIth century, Constantine VI., surnamed Porphyrogenitus, the son of the +Empress Irene, married at his mother's instigation an Armenian woman of +low birth but irreproachable morals, named Mary. It was not long, however, +before he became enamored of one of his wife's attendants, Theodota, +whereupon he proceeded to divorce the Empress Mary and force her to take +the veil. The Patriarch of Constantinople, Tarasius, refused to dissolve +the first marriage and perform the second, as required by the dissolute +emperor, who then attempted to blind him by alleging that his wife had +conspired to poison him. This the patriarch firmly refused to believe, +and, moreover, represented to the emperor the scandal of his conduct, the +infamy that would attach to his name in consequence, and especially the +incalculable evil his bad example would cause among his not too chaste +courtiers and people. Constantine lost his temper, and violently replied +that he would close the Christian churches, and reopen the temples of the +heathen gods. The patriarch threatened to refuse him the right of entering +the sanctuary, and of assisting at the sacred mysteries; but when an +unworthy priest, Joseph, the treasurer of the church of Constantinople, +was found willing to celebrate between the emperor and Theodota an invalid +"marriage" in one of the halls of the palace of S. Maurice, Tarasius +hesitated to pronounce the excommunication. At this distance of time, it +is not easy to point out the reasons and excuses which the unsettled state +of things in the Byzantine Empire may have furnished for this act of +seeming compromise; much less should we rashly condemn a holy and zealous +bishop; but it is noticeable that such instances have never been repeated +when it was the popes themselves who were directly appealed to. + +As the patriarch had foretold, evil results followed the sovereign's +licentious example, a frightful laxity of morals prevailed, and +insubordination to the church went hand in hand with the violation of the +marriage bond. Tarasius excommunicated the priest Joseph two years after, +but, although he had refrained from directly and publicly censuring the +principal culprit, he was none the less persecuted by him. + +In the following century, a still worse case of the kind took place, the +chief actors in it being Bardas, the ambitious uncle of the wretched +Emperor Michael the Drunkard, and the Patriarch of Constantinople, S. +Ignatius. The former, who had the practical control of the state, and had +induced his sottish nephew to give him the title of "Caesar" of the +Byzantine Empire, deliberately left his lawful wife, and lived in publicly +incestuous union with the wife of his own son. S. Ignatius indignantly +reproved him, and when the prince, braving his censures, presented himself +in church on the Feast of the Epiphany, the patriarch publicly refused to +admit him to the Holy Communion. Bardas furiously threatened him before +the faithful, but the holy prelate boldly presented his breast to the +blows he seemed about to receive, and in a few solemn words invoked the +wrath of God on the sacrilegious "Caesar." He was promptly exiled to the +Island of Teberinthia, where Bardas, partly by threats and partly by +hypocritical promises, induced all his suffragans to repair in a body, and +entreat him to resign the patriarchate. With holy firmness he resisted the +treacherous appeal, whereupon Bardas had him put in irons, deposed, and +replaced on the patriarchal chair by Photius, a creature of his own and a +layman. The famous schism of Photius thus sprang from the same cause as +later heresies, and everywhere we see contumacy to ecclesiastical +authority making common cause with abandoned passion and shameless +license. + +The Photian schism was abetted in the West by another rebellious son of +the church, Lothair, King of Lorraine, who was anxious to get rid of his +wife Thietberga. This was one of the most famous cases of the sort during +the middle ages, and was prolonged over many years, breeding not only the +utmost moral disorder, but threatening also to bring about even political +convulsions. Lothair had conceived a criminal passion for one of his +wife's maids, Waldrade, and to marry her his first endeavor was to prove +the queen guilty of incest before her marriage with him. For this purpose +he summoned his bishops three times at Aix-la-Chapelle, in 860, and had +Thietberga condemned to the public penance usually inflicted in those days +on a fallen woman. The time-serving prelates, after a superficial +examination of the evidence, allowed the divorce on the plea that "it is +better to marry than to burn"; thus giving an early historical proof of +the old saying about a certain person "quoting Scripture." Widalon, Bishop +of Vienne, who had not concurred in this iniquitous decree, wrote to the +pope for guidance. The pope, Nicholas I., firmly standing by the tradition +of the church, and vindicating the fundamental dogma of the sanctity of +marriage, replied uncompromisingly that the divorce was null and void, the +bishops blamable for their servility, and that even were it proved beyond +doubt that Thietberga had been guilty of incest or any other sinful +intercourse before marriage, yet the marriage itself could never on that +account be legally dissolved. The queen herself then appealed to the pope, +who appointed two legates to inquire into the matter. Baffled in his first +attempt, Lothair now trumped up a second pretext, and pretended that he +had been previously married to Waldrade, and that the queen had therefore +never been his lawful wife. The pope replied that, until this matter was +disposed of, the queen should be sent with all honor to her father, and +suitably provided for from the royal treasury. Thietberga was now +arraigned before a packed and bribed tribunal, and forced to acknowledge +herself an interloper, but found secret means of sending word to the pope +that she had acted under compulsion. Nicholas then wrote an indignant +letter to the king and bishops, annulled all previous decisions, and +commanded a new and _fair_ trial of the case to be held. He then wrote to +the Emperor of Germany, Louis II., and the King of France, Charles the +Bald, as well as to all the bishops of the four kingdoms, Lorraine, +France, Germany, and Provence, whom he ordered to repair to a council at +Metz, where his legates would meet them. He charged them to have more +regard to the laws of God than the will of men, and to protect the weak +and innocent with all the dignity of their influence. Lothair, however, +succeeded in corrupting the legates themselves, and the council merely met +to confirm the previous infamous decrees and condemnations. Two of the +prelates were chosen to report to the pope and bear hypocritical and +falsified messages to him, but in vain. Nicholas, secretly advised of this +treachery, and no doubt also divinely inspired, detected the imposition, +abrogated the decrees of the false council, and canonically deposed the +two guilty prelates from all their functions and dignities. They +immediately took refuge at Benevento with the Emperor Louis II., who, +hotly espousing their cause, marched with his army against Rome, and +surprised the clergy and people in the act of singing the litanies and +taking part in a penitential procession at S. Peter's. His soldiers +dispersed the people by force of arms, and blockaded the pope in his +palace. Nicholas escaped in disguise, and for two days lay concealed in a +boat on the Tiber, with neither covering for the night nor scarcely food +enough to sustain nature. Thus the conflict between a sovereign's +unbridled passions and the calm and immutable principles of the Gospel was +carried so far as to entail actual persecution on the sacred and +representative person of the pontiff. The emperor, repenting of his hasty +attack, sent his wife to the pope to negotiate a reconciliation. The two +insubordinate bishops at the same time sent an embassy to Photius, the +sacrilegious successor of S. Ignatius in the See of Constantinople, to +demand his support and countenance. "And thus," says Rohrbacher, to whom +we are indebted for these graphic pictures of the early struggles of the +church, "did the schism born of the adultery of Lothair in the West join +hands with that born of the incest of Bardas in the East." Lothair and the +rebellious bishops now quarrelled among themselves, and one of the deposed +prelates, the Archbishop of Cologne, repaired in haste to Rome to reveal +the duplicity, the plotting, and insincerity that had characterized the +whole of the proceedings. + +The king himself, however, showed a disposition to submit, most of the +bishops begged the pope's forgiveness, and the former legate, Rodoaldus, +having been excommunicated for his collusion with the king, a new one, +Arsenius, Bishop of Orta, was appointed. The conditions he was charged to +demand were explicit--either Waldrade must be dismissed, or the +excommunication until now delayed in mercy would be pronounced. Unwilling +to submit entirely, yet dreading the consequences if he did not, Lothair +actually recalled Thietberga to her lawful position, and allowed Waldrade +to accompany the legate to Rome, as a public token of her repentance and +obedience. But although his royal word was plighted, he soon found his +blind appetites too much for his reason and his faith, and, sending +messengers to bring back his mistress, relapsed into his former sins. +Waldrade herself was now publicly excommunicated. + +In the meantime, Pope Nicholas died, and was succeeded by Adrian II., who +proved himself no less strenuous an opponent of royal license than his +holy predecessor had been. Lothair, naturally inclined to temporize, +offered to go to Rome and plead his own cause with the new pontiff. In a +preliminary interview held at Monte-Casino, the pope reiterated his firm +intention of coming to no understanding before the king had made his peace +with Thietberga and finally dissolved his criminal union with Waldrade. +The next day was Sunday, and the king hoped to hear Mass before he left +for Rome, but he could find no priest willing to celebrate it for him, and +was forced to take his departure in diminished state for Rome, where no +public reception awaited him, so that he had to enter the Holy City almost +as a pilgrim and a penitent. In those days of princely hospitality and +profuse pageantry, such an occurrence was rare, and, therefore, all the +more significant of the majestic and practical power of the church. + +Lothair, now thoroughly sensible of his sin, and warned by the terrible +dissensions of the past of what further misery to his country and people +his prolonged obstinacy might involve, signified his intention to submit +unconditionally to the pope's decree. High Mass was then celebrated in his +presence and that of all his noble followers by the pope in person, and +when at the moment of communion the king approached the altar, Adrian +impressively addressed to him the following unexpected adjuration: + +"I charge thee, O King of Lorraine, if thou hast any concealed intention +of renewing thy shameless intercourse with thy concubine Waldrade, not to +dare approach this altar and sacrilegiously receive thy Lord in this +tremendous sacrament; but if with true repentance and sincere purpose of +amendment thou dost approach, then receive him without fear." + +The king, evidently moved by this solemn address, knelt down and +communicated, and his retainers and courtiers took their places at the +sacred board. That no pretext might remain for further equivocation, the +holy pontiff warned them also, before administering the Blessed Sacrament +to them, saying: + +"If any among you have wilfully aided and abetted the king, and are ready +wilfully to aid and abet him again in his wicked intercourse with +Waldrade, let him not presume to receive sacrilegiously the body of the +Lord; but you that have not abetted him, or that have sincerely repented +of having done so, and are resolved to do so no more, approach and receive +without fear." A few of them shrank back at these awful words, but the +greater part, whether in sincerity or in contempt, followed the king's +example and received. + +After this, which did not take place till 869, we hear no more of +Lothair's passion for Waldrade. + +Germany, too, had her Lothair, and, in the XIth century, King Henry IV., +one of the most abandoned sovereigns that ever reigned, brought upon +himself not only the papal anathema, but the displeasure of his electors +and confederated vassals themselves by his shameless trifling with his +marriage vows. His wife Bertha, a beautiful and virtuous woman, the +daughter of Otho, Marquis of Italy, never found favor in his sight; and, +in concert with some of his simoniacal bishops, Siegfried, the Archbishop +of Mayence at their head, Henry held a diet at Worms in 1069 to procure a +divorce from her. Siegfried, however, feeling uneasy at the part allotted +him, sent to the Pope Alexander II. for advice, and received from him a +severe reprimand for having countenanced the dissolute king. The papal +legate, an austere and holy man, Peter Damian, arrived during the session +of a diet at Frankfort, where the king's cause was to be finally judged. +Despite Henry's protestations that his divorce would enable him, as he +hypocritically said, to marry lawfully a wife that would please him, and +to abandon his numerous harem of favorites, whom he would have no excuse +any longer to retain, the stern sentence of Rome was passed against +him--either excommunication or reconciliation with his wife. He reluctantly +submitted, but only in appearance, for he refused even to see Bertha, and +soon gave himself up to his former illicit pleasures. His brutal treatment +of his second wife, Praxedes of Lorraine, whom he married according to his +own choice after the death of Bertha, drew upon him further ecclesiastical +censures, and he left a memory justly branded by all historians as more +infamous still than that of the notorious Henry VIII. of England. + +At the same time that his passions were revolutionizing the German Empire, +Philip I. of France was showing an equally deplorable example to his +vassals and subjects. He was married to Bertha, daughter of Hugh, Count of +Frisia, by whom he already had two children, one of whom, Louis le Gros, +succeeded him; but, blinded by a sinful affection, he carried off, in +1092, Bertrade, the wife of Fulk, Count of Anjou, and lived with her in a +doubly adulterous union. + +Hugh of Flavigny, a contemporary historian, says of this occurrence: "Even +if our book were silent, all France would cry out, nay, the whole of the +Western church would re-echo like thunder in horror of this crime. It is +truly monstrous that an anointed king, who should have defended even with +the sword the indissolubility of marriage, should on the contrary _wallow +shamelessly_ for years in _intolerable disorder_." The Blessed Yves, +Bishop of Chartres, immediately lifted his voice against the enormity of +the crime; but though his fervent reproaches fell upon a deadened +conscience, and his letter to the king was in vain, still among the +bishops of France none could be found, at least for a long time, to +perform a scandalous "marriage" between the king and his mistress. At last +the Archbishop of Rouen allowed himself to be blinded, and consented to +unite them, but a prompt and sharp interference on the part of Rome +punished him by a deposition from all his ecclesiastical dignities, which +lasted for several years. The whole of the controversy had now come +clearly to the knowledge of the Pope Urban II. + +The Count of Anjou had declared war against the ravisher, and the king had +put the B. Yves in irons under the guard of the Viscount of Chartres. In +the meanwhile, the pope wrote a scathing letter to the metropolitan of +Rheims and the episcopate of France. "You," he says, "who should have +stood as a wall against the inroads of public immorality, you have been +silent and allowed this great crime; for not to oppose is to consent. Go +now, speak to the king, reproach him, warn him, threaten him, and, if +necessary, resort boldly to the last measures." From 1092 to 1094 the pope +never ceased publicly and privately to oppose Philip's unlawful passion, +and, sending as his legate Hugh, Archbishop of Lyons, convoked an assembly +at Autun for the 15th of October, 1094, to decide the matter. The king +insolently attempted to forestall the papal decision by calling a council +for the 10th of September previous, which accordingly took place, and in +which a few contumacious bishops confirmed the king in his obstinate +resistance to the head of the church. As the queen had died a short time +before, Philip presumptuously began to hope that his marriage with +Bertrade would now be legalized; but, since she herself was the wedded +wife of the Count of Anjou, it will be easy to see how vain were his +expectations. The Council of Autun met, and, finding the king determined +to continue in sin, solemnly excommunicated him. Philip then wrote a +threatening letter to the pope, declaring that, if he did not absolve him +from the church's censures, he would go over to the anti-pope Guibert, +styled Clement III. Philip now attempted to secure immunity for himself in +another way: he promised all sorts of reforms, both ecclesiastical and +moral, if he could only obtain permission to indulge his guilty passion +undisturbed. To this proposal the B. Yves replied, like S. Columbanus to +Theodoric, that it was impossible to compound for sin by costly gifts, +that God desires ourselves, not our treasures, and that heaven is won by +penance and not by gold. + +At length, in 1095, the Council of Placentia was held. Philip pleaded for +a delay, which was granted him, but at the following council, that of +Clermont, he and his concubine were at last rigorously excommunicated. And +here Rohrbacher takes occasion to remark, _a propos_ to the crusade which +was then occupying Christendom: "Indeed, of what use would a crusade +against the Turks have proved if the popes had not, at the same time, +resolutely opposed the introduction of Turkish disorders into Christian +society?" + +In 1096, Philip consented to submit, and went in state to the Council of +Nismes to meet the pope, and be absolved from the excommunication, which, +as he found, weighed very heavily on his conscience. Throughout the middle +ages this one trait, a lively faith, proved, indeed, the only barrier +against excesses which, had they been unrestrained by the fear of +ecclesiastical censures, would have simply produced a state of license +worse than that of the latter days of the Roman Empire. But Philip's +repentance was short-lived; he recalled Bertrade, and even gave away +benefices and church dignities to her favorites, seculars, and persons of +questionable morality. Urban II. died, and was succeeded by Paschal II., +who again sent his legates to the king, and, at the Council of Poictiers, +excommunicated the guilty pair a second time. At this council a strange +scene took place. A layman threw a stone at one of the legates, and, +though it missed him, it split open the head of another bishop who was +standing near. This was the signal for a violent attack on the prelates; +the unruly crowd outside the church battered down the doors, and rushed +in, throwing stones and missiles of all kinds among the deliberating +bishops. Of these a very few, seized with panic, hastily made their +escape, but the greater part stood like heroes at their post, and even +took off their mitres that their heads might present a better mark to the +infuriated and partisan mob. Nor was this the only act of violence +perpetrated in the name of Philip and Bertrade. Shortly after this scene, +while staying at Sens, they remained a fortnight without hearing Mass, +which so incensed Bertrade that she sent her servants to break open the +doors of the church, and caused one of her priests, a tool of her own, to +celebrate the Holy Sacrifice in her presence. Philip now noisily +proclaimed that he was going to Rome to receive absolution, but Yves of +Chartres warned the Pope of the king's insincerity, and the pontiff +remained conscientiously cold to all his advances until he had wrested +from him a solemn oath not only to cease his criminal intercourse with +Bertrade, but also to abstain from seeing her or speaking to her unless in +the presence of a third person. Nevertheless, the solemn absolution was +not pronounced in his favor before the Council of Beaugency, assembled in +1104, _twelve_ years after his first sin in carrying off the lawful wife +of his own vassal and kinsman. + +The XIIth century, so stormily begun, was disturbed later on by yet +another controversy of the same kind. It has been noticed by Protestant +writers, says De Maistre, that it was almost invariably marriage, its +indissolubility and the irregularities against its integrity, that have +provoked the "scandal" of excommunication. In this admission, made rather +to criminate than to honor the church, made indeed to throw the obloquy of +schism upon the popes themselves, is there not an unwilling testimony to +the Papacy's unflinching championship of virtue? + +In 1140, Louis VII. of France, surnamed _Le Jeune_, refused to sanction +the canonical nomination of Peter, Archbishop of Bourges, whom Thibault, +Count of Champagne, valiantly defended and upheld. At the same time, +Raoul, Count of Vermandois, a man advanced in years, who had long been +married to Thibault's niece, wished to dissolve his marriage in order to +contract another with Petronilla, the sister of the Queen of France, +Louis' wife, Eleanor of Antioch. He succeeded in persuading a few bishops +to grant him this permission on the plea of relationship between him and +his first wife, which, if true, would have made that union illegal from +the first. S. Bernard, in a fervid letter to Pope Innocent II., denounces +his vile conduct, giving a most lamentable picture of the state of the +kingdom of France. "_That which is most sacred in the church_," he says, +"is trodden underfoot." The pope, through his legate, Cardinal Yves, +excommunicated the Count of Vermandois, and laid his whole territory under +an interdict. Mass could no longer be said, the sacraments were not +administered, the churches were closed, the bells silent. The king +revenged himself by declaring war on the Count of Champagne, who had given +shelter to the archbishop, and appealed to Rome against the Count of +Vermandois. He devastated Thibault's territory with fire and sword, and +behaved, says Rohrbacher, rather like a Vandal chief than a Christian +king. In 1142, he arrived before the town of Vitry, sacked it, and set +fire to its church and castle. In the former were no less than 1300 +persons, men, women, and children, who had sought safety in the sanctuary. +He ruthlessly closed all avenues to the church, and burnt the miserable +inhabitants as they vainly strove to escape. The town was hereafter called +_Vitry le Brule_. The Count of Champagne, weakened by this terrible onset, +sued for peace, and promised to exert his influence to have both +excommunication and interdict taken off the person and fiefs of Raoul de +Vermandois. It was, in fact, provisionally suspended, but, as the culprit +still refused to dissolve his criminal union, he was excommunicated for +the second time. S. Bernard was a prominent actor in this controversy, and +powerfully worked for the preservation of peace. + +But greater troubles were yet in store for France and the church. In 1193, +Philip Augustus lost his first wife, Isabella of Hainault, and soon +afterwards sent the Bishop of Noyon, Stephen, with great pomp to the King +of Denmark, Canute III., to ask the hand of his sister Ingeburga in +marriage. The request was joyfully granted, and the queen-elect brought +back to France with all possible honor. The marriage took place at once, +and the king confessed himself much pleased with his new consort. The next +day he caused her to be solemnly crowned, a ceremony to which great +importance was attached in those days; but, strange to say, during the +service itself he was seen to turn pale as if with horror, and to cast +sudden looks of aversion towards the queen. He, however, retired with her +to Meaux, and lived with her a short time, still unable to conquer his +dislike, which many did not fail to attribute to witchcraft, for Ingeburga +was both comely, virtuous, and accomplished. The king now called together +his parliament at Compiegne, his uncle, the Archbishop of Rheims and +legate of the Holy See, presiding. The queen, who did not understand +French, and whose Danish attendants had all been sent away, was present at +the deliberation. Unheard, therefore, and even unchallenged, she was +speedily declared too closely related to the king through his former wife +Isabella to be united to him in lawful marriage. This seems to have been +the favorite pretext for dissolving inconvenient marriages in those times, +as it was also later in the too famous case of Henry VIII. of England and +Catharine of Aragon, but even in this we see the spirit of subordination +to the general authority of the church still underlying the partial +revolts of her unruly sons. When Queen Ingeburga was made acquainted by an +interpreter with the sentence rendered against her, she was painfully +astonished, and, bursting into tears, cried out in her broken French, +_Male France! Male France!_ Some pitying hearts there must have been in +that assembly of lords spiritual and temporal, some remorseful consciences +among that gathering of Frenchmen, who, as Rohrbacher quaintly says, +"forgot even to be courteous to a stranger and a woman." Ingeburga, +rising, then added, "Rome! Rome!"--sublime appeal of oppressed innocence to +the fountain-head of justice and honor! Philip had her immured in the +Abbey of Cisoing. Pope Celestine III. sent legates to inquire into the +rights of the case, but the king succeeded in intimidating them, and no +conclusion was arrived at in the council held at Paris. The pope then +wrote an energetic letter to the bishops, concluding by a decision to this +effect, that, having carefully examined the genealogy upon which turned +the question of the alleged close relationship between the king's first +and second wives, he solemnly annuls the unlawful act of divorce passed at +the Parliament of Compiegne, and decrees that, if the king should attempt +to marry any other woman during Ingeburga's lifetime, he should be +proceeded against as an adulterer. + +This speedily came to pass. Not content with repudiating his wife, he +attempted, in 1196, to marry another, Agnes of Merania (Tyrol). Ingeburga +instantly appealed to the pope, saying that for this outrage her husband +"allegeth no cause, but of his will maketh an order, of his obstinacy a +law, and of his passion _une fureur_," as Rohrbacher rather untranslatably +puts it. + +The Protestant historian Hurter says: "In this instance, the pope stands +face to face, not with the king, but with the Christian. Innocent III. (he +had succeeded Celestine) would not sacrifice the moral importance of his +office even to procure help for the Crusade or to prepare for himself an +ally in his dissensions with the German emperors." + +Pope Innocent remonstrated with the king first through the Bishop of +Paris, Eudes de Sully, then personally by letter, and threatened him with +the last and most awful punishment, excommunication. The king temporized, +and would give no satisfactory answer, until in 1198 the papal legate, +Peter of Capua, was directed to give him his choice between submission +within one month or the imposition of an interdict upon the whole kingdom. +This appalling measure had never before been so sweepingly resorted to, +and the preparations for it were as solemnly magnificent as if they had +portended the funeral of a nation. The council met at Dijon in 1199, and, +during its seven days' session, once more invited the king to attend and +avert the doom his sin had well-nigh brought upon the realm. But Philip +remained inflexible, despite the last and urgent letters of the pope, and +the interdict was accordingly pronounced. + +Four archbishops, eighteen bishops, and a great number of abbots composed +the august assembly, and on the seventh day of the council a strange and +impressive scene closed the unavailing deliberations. At midnight the +great bell of the cathedral tolled out the knell of a parting soul, the +prelates repaired in silent and lugubrious procession to the high altar, +now divested of all its ornaments, the lights were extinguished and +removed, the figure of Christ on the great rood was veiled in penitential +guise, the relics of the patron saints were removed into the crypt below, +and the consecrated hosts yet unconsumed were destroyed by fire. The +legate, clothed in purple, advanced to the foot of the denuded altar, and +promulgated the awful sentence that was to deprive a whole Christian +kingdom of the consolations of religion. The assembled people answered +with a great groan, and, says a historian of the times, it seemed as if +the Last Judgment had suddenly come upon men. A respite of twenty days was +allowed before the interdict was publicly announced, but after Candlemas +Day, 1200, it was not only announced, but rigorously enforced. The effect +was terrible; thousands flocked to Normandy and other provinces belonging +to the King of England, to receive the sacraments and perform their usual +devotions; the king's own sister, on the occasion of her marriage with the +Count of Ponthien, had to remove to Rouen to have the ceremony canonically +performed. The king, meanwhile, vented his fury on the bishops, imprisoned +some, confiscated the temporalities of others, and caused many to be even +personally maltreated. Queen Ingeburga was dragged from her convent, and +barbarously imprisoned in the Castle of Etampes, near Paris. Philip's +wrath extended to all classes; the nobles he oppressed, the burghers he +taxed beyond their means, until his very servants left him as a God- +forsaken man. The pressure at last became so terrible that he was heard to +exclaim in a transport of rage, "I shall end by becoming a Mussulman! +Fortunate Saladin! he at least had no pope over him!" At a meeting of the +lords and prelates of the kingdom, at which Agnes of Merania assisted, +Philip moodily asked, in the midst of an ominous silence, what he was to +do. "Obey the pope," was the instant and uncompromising reply of the +assembly; and, when the king further obtained a confession from his uncle +the Archbishop of Rheims that the decree of divorce passed by him had been +invalid from the first, he exclaimed in ill-concealed anger, "You were a +fool to give it, then!" + +At this juncture, both Agnes and the king sent ambassadors to Rome to ask +for a suspension at least of the interdict, but the pope was inflexible, +and would hear of no negotiation before an unconditional submission. This +Philip reluctantly promised; the interdict had now lasted seven months, +and he could no longer withstand the dangerous and threatening attitude of +his dissatisfied subjects. In the summer of the year 1200, Cardinal John +Colonna, Cardinal Octavian, of Ostia, and several others repaired first to +Vezelay, then to Compiegne, where they met the king and received his +overtures. On the eve of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, the assembly +of lords spiritual and temporal met at the Castle of S. Leger, where the +legate insisted on the deliberations being held in public. The anxious +people crowded round the doors of the great hall, eager to watch every +fluctuation in the proceedings. At last, on the legate's urgent advice, +and in his presence, Philip consented to visit Queen Ingeburga in state. +She had been sent for to be present, but had not yet seen her husband. It +was their first meeting since their separation six years before. At sight +of her, the king recoiled, crying out, "The pope is forcing me to this." + +"Nay, my lord," replied the injured wife, calmly and meekly, "he seeks but +justice." + +Philip soon afterwards swore by proxy to receive the queen as his only and +lawful wife, and to render her all the honors due to her rank. As soon as +this was done, the bells rang out a joyous peal, and the people knew that +peace had been made. The sacred images were again uncovered, the church +doors were opened, and Mass was everywhere celebrated with great pomp. The +people were frantic with joy, but the king, though he had bent under the +weight of influence that had been brought to bear upon him, still +persisted in asking for a divorce from his wife on the before-mentioned +plea of relationship. The pope delayed an answer, and, the better to +satisfy the reason of the refractory king, appointed another meeting to be +held at Soissons, six months after the date of the recent one at S. Leger. + +To this meeting Canute III. of Denmark sent bishops and learned doctors to +plead his sister's cause, but, as on the king's side was arrayed the +best--though servile--talent of France, the case seemed not very hopeful, +until an unknown and obscure ecclesiastic arose, and, towards the end of +the council, which had already lasted a fortnight, modestly asked leave of +the august judges to speak in favor of Queen Ingeburga. His address +startled and moved all who listened, and they agreed with one voice that +this sudden and almost inspired burst of eloquence was surely a sign of +the will of God directly urging the queen's rights. Philip, anticipating +the papal decision, determined to surprise the assembly by forestalling +it. He accordingly appeared on horseback very early one morning at the +gate of the palace of Notre Dame, the queen's residence, and in public--and +shall we not say primitive?--token of reconciliation took Ingeburga away +with him, making her sit on a pillion behind him. They rode away quietly +and almost unattended, but soon after it became known that he had again +imprisoned her in an old castle, and that, having thus broken up the +council before a public decision had been rendered, he still considered +himself free to seek the divorce. Soon after the difficulty was lessened +by the death of the unfortunate Agnes of Merania, whose health had been +shattered by the terrible and infamous publicity necessarily brought upon +her during her recent pregnancy. It was not, however, for many years after +her death, not until 1213, that Philip was sincerely and permanently +reconciled to Ingeburga, whom he calls in his will his _dear wife_, and to +whom he left a suitable provision as queen-dowager. + +Hurter and Schlegel both give witness to the admirable conduct of the +mediaeval popes in these and kindred struggles. The former says: "If +Christianity was not reduced to a vain formula like the religion of the +Hindoos, or relegated to one corner of the globe like a common sect, or +sunk altogether in the mire of oriental voluptuousness, it was entirely +owing to the vigilance and constant efforts of the popes." And Schlegel, +in his _Concordia_, speaks thus: "We hardly dare to liken the Guelphs, +with the popes at their head, to anything approaching _liberalism_, so +degraded has the term become in connection with _modern liberals_; yet +they alone, because they had religion and the church on their side, were +the _true liberals_ of the middle ages. Indeed, if we look at the position +of the popes in its highest type, we shall find that they were always +either gentle peace-makers and arbiters in times of unnecessary and +foolish wars, or stern champions of the oppressed, and austere censors of +morals." + +We pass over a few other less important cases, and come at once to the +last and most fatal, those connected with the Protestant Reformation. In +the XVIth century, the old story of Bardas and Photius was lamentably +repeated in England. Germany was in open revolt; Philip, Landgrave of +Hesse, was extorting shameful permissions for polygamy from the married +monk Luther; religious were trampling their vows underfoot; Wittenberg, +according to the Lutheran chronicler Illyricus, was no better than a den +of prostitution; troops of "apostate nuns," as Luther himself called them, +were constantly arriving, begging, says Rohrbacher, for _food, clothing, +and husbands_; Luther, their prophet, was hawking his mistress, Catharine +Boris, about among his disciples, offering her as a wife first to one, +then to the other, till he was at last forced to take her himself, to the +no small disgust of his best friends, who remonstrated in the following +graphic words: "If any, at least not _this_ one." The Germanic world was +crazy with a new revolution, and henceforth the struggle was no longer to +be a partial one, a revolt of the flesh, but a radical onset upon +everything divine, upon revelation and faith, as well as upon moral +restraints and social decencies. Philip of Hesse, petitioning in 1539 for +permission to marry a second wife while the first was living, says that +"necessities of body and of conscience obliged him thereto"; that "he sees +no remedy save that allowed of old to the chosen people" (polygamy); that +"he begs this dispensation in order that he may live more entirely for the +glory of God, and lie more ready to do him earthly services; that he is +ready to do anything that may be required of him in reason (as an +equivalent), whether concerning the property of convents or anything +else." He also hints that he will seek this permission from the emperor, +"no matter at what _pecuniary cost_," if it be denied him by the +Wittenberg divines, and alleges as a sufficient reason that it is too +costly for him to take his wife to diets of the empire, with all the +honors due to her rank, and equally too hard for him to live without +female society during such times of gaiety. The permission was granted at +last, reluctantly, it must be admitted, for even the first Reformers, lax +as they were, were not Mormons. Melancthon drew it up, and eight divines, +including Bucer and Luther, signed it, but made secrecy a condition. The +shameful "marriage" was performed on the 4th of March, 1540, between the +landgrave and Marguerite de Saal, and perhaps the most revolting feature +of the proceeding was the consent of Philip's lawful wife, the Duchess +Christina. + +In Chambers' _Book of Days_, a collection of curious information, we read +that a still more liberal dispensation from the ordinary rules of morality +was in the last century accorded by the Calvinistic clergy of Prussia to +the reigning King, Frederick William, successor of Frederick the Great, to +have three wives at the same time, the Princess of Hesse, the Countess +Euhoff, and Elizabeth of Brunswick. The progenitor of the Prussian dynasty +had already given a similar example of licentiousness. In Luther's time, +Albert of Brandenburg, Grand Master of the religious order of chivalry, +the Knights of S. Mary, otherwise called the Teutonic Order, broke his +vows and took a wife, having already abjured his faith. Prussia, then only +a province dependent on the Order, he seized as his own, Protestantizing +it, and making moral disorder the rule there rather than the exception. + +But we must glance at England, though the story of its defection is so +well known that we will not do more than pencil the outlines of the +conflict on this occasion. After twenty years of married life, without a +scruple to mar his domestic peace, without a breath of scandal to sully +the fair fame of the queen, Henry VIII. suddenly strives to obtain a +divorce from his wife, Catharine of Aragon, that he may marry one who is +already his mistress and the acknowledged head of his court. A faithful +son of the church until a personal test of fidelity is demanded from him, +he had already refuted Luther's errors, and gained the title of "Defender +of the Faith." But passion blinds him, and everywhere he seeks a sanction +for his unrestrained license. He applies to Rome and to Wittenberg: the +latter answers in a deprecatory tone, "Rather than divorce your wife marry +_two_ queens"; the former, in the person of Clement VII., urges him to +desist from his unlawful courses. Repulsed the first time, the pope sends +Cardinal Campeggio, his legate, to treat of the matter with Cardinal +Wolsey; they summon the queen to their presence; she refuses point-blank, +and appeals directly to Rome. + +In 1531, Cromwell, the astute and traitorous _protege_ of Wolsey, suggests +schism to the king as a means to the desired end. Henry, knowing the +corrupt and venal state of the clergy in England, eagerly accepts the +proposals, and instantly attempts to enforce a declaration of his supreme +headship of the English Church by putting in force, against the clergy, +several obsolete statutes of Norman origin, named "praemunire"; the whole +ecclesiastical body is threatened with the punishment of attainder due to +high treason, and to save the rest they offer the king a ransom of +L100,000 (equal at that period to at least four times that sum according +to modern computation). The king only accepts this amount with the +supplementary condition of the "oath of supremacy." At one stroke the +episcopate is gagged, and schism practically effected. Meanwhile, Cranmer +is sent to Rome to apply anew for the divorce. + +His mission proved unsuccessful, and on his return a final council was +held at Dunstable, Bedfordshire, where, however, the queen refused again +to appear, and was therefore condemned as _contumacious_. Shortly after, +at Lambeth, her marriage was annulled, and her daughter, the Princess +Mary, declared illegitimate. Pope Clement VII. threatened to excommunicate +the king; Henry never heeded him. A public consistory, held at Rome in +1534, reversed the Lambeth decision, but the die was already cast, and the +complaisant parliament was ready to confirm Henry in all his desires. +More's and Fisher's were the only dissentient voices heard throughout the +kingdom; we know at what cost their courageous protest was raised. A reign +of blood was inaugurated; confiscations enriched the royal treasury, and +the servile episcopate bent to the shameful yoke like one man. Of the +Franciscan friars, Peyto and Elston, who dared to preach to the king's +face against his adulterous union, the Protestant historian Cobbett says: +"They were not fanatics, as some have said; they were the defenders of +morality and order, and I know of no instance in ancient or modern history +of a greater and nobler heroism than this."(218) + +In 1536, Queen Catharine died, and the same year was performed the +marriage of Henry with Anne Boleyn by a Catholic chaplain, who was ordered +to say Mass early one morning by the king, Henry falsely alleging that he +had in his possession the newly arrived permission from Rome. But passion +is no foundation whereon to build a permanent and happy domestic life. +Anne's immorality matched Henry's, and ere long she was accused, vaguely, +it is true, of treason, adultery, and incest. Her supposed accomplices and +lovers were all executed, and she herself, in cruel derision, condemned on +the 15th of May, 1536, to be executed on the 19th, while, on the +intermediate 17th, the Archbishop of Canterbury, according to his royal +master's orders, declared her marriage annulled, and her daughter +Elizabeth illegitimate. Thus she was first proved to have never been the +king's lawful wife, and then beheaded for _infidelity_ to the man who had +never been her husband. Of Henry's subsequent wives and his methods of +disposing of them we need say nothing; the separation from Rome had won +him a sad independence of the only tribunal once recognized by kings, and +divorce, adultery, and consequent murder had already begun the dark record +which has ever since steadily increased in England. + +The church was the only bulwark adequate to resist that flood of violent +and powerful passions which kingly supremacy naturally incites and +fosters, and, in breaking with the church, the licentious sovereigns of +the XVIth century acted indeed with the _wisdom_ of the children of this +world. Still the church stood fast, sad but not conquered; the Mosaic law +stood fast, passing into the dicta of society even where it was exiled +from the legal courts--for who does not attach even now some idea of +obloquy to a divorced or impure person?--still history pointed to the +inevitable punishments that fall on the adulterer, and of which the +"churches" so-called, born of royal adultery, have invariably been +palpable monuments. + +In our days, who can doubt that that church alone which guarantees the +sanctity and indissolubility of marriage can hope to become the saviour +and regenerator of modern society; that that church alone which protects +and ennobles woman can remain triumphant in lands where woman's influence +is slowly leavening the whole social mass; who can doubt that that church +alone which can trace its uncompromising laws back to Mount Sinai can hope +to retain the moral mastery over the unruly ages to come, even to that age +which shall witness the Last Judgment and the final condemnation? + + + + +Fleurange. + + +By Mrs. Craven, Author Of "A Sister's Story." + +Translated From The French, With Permission. + + + +Part IV.--The Immolation. + + +LV. + + +The clock had just struck two. Vera, according to her custom, was waiting +in the ante-room of the empress' audience-chamber. The door was soon +opened by an usher, and the person she was waiting to introduce appeared. +There was an involuntary movement of surprise on the part of both. +Fleurange stopped as if in doubt. Vera's appearance did not correspond +with the idea she had formed of the lady-in-waiting she expected to find +at her majesty's door, and for an instant she thought she was in the +presence of the empress herself. + +Vera, on her side, expected still less to see a petitioner like the one +who now appeared. + +The Princess Catherine, with her usual forethought, had, in view of this +important occasion, carefully prepared a dress for her who was to be +regarded as her son's _fiancee_, and, when the day came, the young girl +opened a coffer which had a special place among her luggage, and followed +with docility the instructions she there found in the princess' own +handwriting, with the dress she was to wear. It was black, as etiquette +then required, but a court dress, and the princess took pleasure in having +it made as magnificent as possible. Fleurange thus arrayed was dazzling. +Nevertheless, her only ornaments were a gold chain from which was +suspended a cross concealed in her corsage (a precious gift from her +father which she never laid aside), and on her right arm a bracelet the +Princess Catherine had taken from her own wrist the eve of the young +girl's departure, assuring her it would bring her good luck. She wore no +ornament on her head, but her beautiful hair was turned back and plaited +in a way not common at that time, though so becoming and striking as to +add another peculiar charm to that of her whole person, which was as noble +as if she was entitled to a place at court, but simple enough to show that +she now appeared there for the first time. + +The two young girls looked at each other, and, as we have said, their +surprise was mutual. But it was only for an instant. Vera advanced. + +"Mademoiselle Fleurange d'Yves, I suppose?" + +Fleurange bowed. + +"The empress awaits you: follow me." She turned towards the door, but +before opening it she said: "Take off the glove on your right hand--that is +etiquette--and hold your petition in that." + +Fleurange mechanically ungloved her beautiful hand in which trembled the +paper she held. She stopped a moment, pale and agitated. + +"Do not be afraid, mademoiselle," said the maid of honor to her in an +encouraging tone. "Her majesty is kindness itself. You have nothing to +fear; she could not be better disposed to give you a favorable reception." + +There was not time to utter another word. The door then opened. Vera +entered first. She bowed, and made Fleurange advance; then retired herself +with another profound reverence, leaving the young girl alone with the +empress. + +The audience lasted over half an hour, and Vera, though accustomed to +wait, was beginning to find the time long, when the door again opened, and +Fleurange came out. Her face was agitated, her eyes brilliant and tearful. +Perceiving Vera, she stopped, and took her by the hand. + +"Oh! you were right," she said. "Her majesty treated me with wonderful +kindness. But I know how much I am also indebted to you. It was owing to +you she was disposed to be gracious even before I was heard. May God +reward you, mademoiselle, and repay you for all you have done for me!" + +Vera replied to this effusion with unusual cordiality, and accompanied +Fleurange to the door. As they took leave of each other, their eyes met; a +common impulse caused them both to make a slight movement: but a little +timidity on one side, and some haughtiness on the other, stopped them, and +the young girls parted without embracing each other. + +Vera slowly retraced her steps, and entered the empress' salon. As soon as +the latter perceived her, she said: "Well, Vera, what have you to say? Did +you ever see a more charming apparition?" + +"The young lady was beautiful indeed," said Vera, with a thoughtful air. +"I never saw such eyes." + +"That is true--eyes that look you directly in the face, with an expression +so innocent, so frank, and almost of assurance, were it not so sweet. I +was not reluctant, I assure you, to take charge of her petition, and +promise to favor it. Here, take it: I would not even read it. I am ready +to grant all this charming girl requests. It is sufficient to know she +loves one of those criminals, and wishes to marry him in order to share +his fate. Such a terrible favor will not be refused, I am sure." + +The empress seated herself in her large arm-chair. "But what fools men +are," she continued, after a moment's silence, "to thus foolishly risk the +happiness of others as well as their own! Really, I admire these women +whom nothing daunts, nothing discourages, and who thus sacrifice +themselves for such selfish beings." + +"Yes," replied Vera, "their devotedness is certainly admirable; but the +women who implore, who supplicate, and at length avert the punishment of +the guilty, have also a noble _role_, madame, and one which the +unfortunate have reason to bless." + +"I understand you, Vera. Your large beseeching eyes have nothing to remind +me of, or reproach me for. I have already told the emperor all I learned +from you yesterday. We must now leave it to his magnanimity, and importune +him no more." + +These words were uttered with a slight accent of authority, and some +moments of silence followed. Vera, with mingled sadness and displeasure, +stood motionless with her eyes cast down, awaiting her sovereign's order. +In this attitude, she perceived a bracelet on the carpet, which she picked +up to give her mistress, who recognized it. "Ah!" said she, "it is the +talisman that charming creature, just gone, wore on her arm. Keep it, +Vera, you can return it to-morrow with the reply I promised her." + +Vera examined the bracelet with curiosity. It was a massive gold chain +with a deep-red cornelian clasp on which was graven some talismanic +figure. It looked natural. She had seen some one wear a similar bracelet, +she was sure; who could it be? For the moment, she could not remember. + +While thus examining it, the empress continued: "Take a seat at that +table, and write Prince W---- in my name, without any further delay--in my +name, you understand. Send this petition with your letter, and say it is +my wish it should be granted, and that I beg him to send me an answer--a +favorable answer--to-morrow morning at the latest. As soon as it arrives, +you will forward it in my name without any delay to that lovely girl. She +is staying at the Princess Catherine Lamianoft's house on the Grand Quay." + +Vera could not resist a slight start: "The Princess Catherine's?" + +"Yes; but make haste, and do what should be done at once." + +Vera again looked at the bracelet; the princess' name clearly recalled the +remembrance so vague a moment before. It was hers. She had seen the +Princess Catherine wear the bracelet. + +"Come, Vera, what are you thinking of?" + +"Nothing, madame; excuse me." + +"Then make haste and write what I tell you, and send the letter and the +petition without any delay." + +Vera obeyed without reply; she took the petition, and went to a table in +one of the deep embrasures of the windows, before which a gilt trellis +covered with a vine formed a genuine screen. As soon as she was seated in +this place where she could not be seen, she eagerly opened the petition, +and glanced over it before beginning the letter. This glance was +sufficient to justify the suspicion just excited. A deadly paleness came +over her face; her features, generally so calm, were suddenly transformed +by a violent explosion of anger and hatred. She crushed the paper, and +remained motionless on the chair into which she had fallen, incapable of +acting, thinking, or realizing where she was and what she had to do. + +At length she returned to herself, and made an effort to collect her +thoughts. The moments were passing away; the empress would be astonished +at the time it took to accomplish her wishes. She therefore took up her +pen, but had scarcely written a few words with a trembling hand, when a +noise, unusual at that hour, was heard in the court--the sound of a drum, +and the guards shouldering arms. Vera rose with surprise, and looked out +of the window. The emperor had arrived in his sledge, alone and without +any escort, according to his custom, though this was not his usual time of +coming. Shortly after, the doors of the salon were thrown open--a signal +for Vera to leave the room. She tore up the note, put the petition in her +pocket, and, while the empress was advancing to meet her husband, the lady +of honor disappeared through a side door, and hurried to her room next the +empress' apartment. + +A whole hour passed away, she could not tell how. She had been able to +control and generally to effectually disguise the strong feelings which +pique had not suppressed--feelings which gave her assurance of some day +overcoming all obstacles. And then, what were these obstacles? It was not +long since George, her chosen husband from childhood, plainly testified +the attraction he felt for her, and seemed as much as she to regard the +union arranged in their infancy as the realization of his wishes. It is +true a cloud had since passed across that brilliant horizon, and, when she +met George again, he was not the same.--Why was it so?--She had often sought +the reason, but all she was able to ascertain was that a young girl, an +obscure _demoiselle de compagnie_ in his mother's service, fascinated him +for a while, and some one had whispered the name of _Gabrielle_, but the +haughty Vera was not disturbed by so trifling an affair. The future was +hers, and she was awaiting it without any fear, when the news of George's +crime and misfortune came like a thunderbolt, enabling her to estimate the +depth of her affection for him by the very liveliness of her grief. From +that time she had but one thought--to prevail over the emperor, obtain +George's pardon, and win him back to herself. Her first repulse did not +destroy all hope of success. But while her influence, her passion, and her +efforts were still without any result, another--and what a rival! (for +Vera, in spite of her pride, was not so vain or so stupid as not to +recognize the redoubtable charm against which she had to +struggle)--another, young, as beautiful as herself, and even more so, had +eclipsed in an instant, by an heroic act, all her own devotedness had even +dreamed of, and gone beyond the limits which she dare not cross! How could +she doubt George's feelings when the young lady she had just seen appeared +in his prison. How could she thwart her? What was to be done? Besides, who +was this girl who suddenly appeared in their midst--who had the air of an +angel, but whom she hated as if she were a demon? All at once an idea +flashed into her mind. "Can this be Gabrielle?" she exclaimed aloud. But +before Vera had time to dwell on this idea, and calm the fresh agitation +which it caused, the sound of the little bell interrupted her painful +reverie. She rose, but with some surprise, for she had not heard the usual +signal of the emperor's departure, and she was very seldom admitted when +he was present. But her hesitation was only momentary, for the bell again +hastily repeated the summons. Vera hastened to answer it, but, confused at +the sight of the emperor, she stopped at the door, and bowed profoundly. +The empress, with mingled kindness and impatience, exclaimed: + +"Why do you not come in, Vera? The emperor wishes to speak to you, and you +are making _him_ wait!" + + +LVI. + + +While all we have just related was occurring at the palace, the Marquis +Adelardi was on his way to the fortress, considering as he went what it +was advisable to say to George. After much reflection, he resolved not to +announce Fleurange's arrival till he knew the result of her interview with +the empress. He must not torture George in his misfortunes with vague +hopes; above all, he must avoid arousing expectations that might prove +vain. This would delay the communication but little, for the young girl's +audience was the same day, and on the morrow he could act with a complete +knowledge of the case. + +Strong apprehensions were mingled with these thoughts as he reflected, on +the new position in which his friend now stood. His fate was decided, the +prolonged excitement of the trial was over, and the time come for him to +resign himself to his lot. In what disposition should he find him? With a +nature ardent and impetuous, but at the same time delicate, sensitive to +the least restraint, and excessively fond of the comforts of life, how +would he endure the horrors of this new prospect--he whose very object in +his studies, and in the gratification of his tastes and passions, was only +enjoyment? Pleasure by means of his intelligence, his affections, his +intellect, and his senses--such had been the sole motive of his actions, +even the best; and, in the dangerous risks that led to his destruction, he +had rather sought to satisfy a thirst for a new sensation than the +realization of a chimerical though generous scheme. How would he, for whom +the words duty, sacrifice, and restraint had no meaning, now bear up in +the presence not of danger, but of misfortune under so merciless a form? + +The marquis asked himself these questions with an anxiety founded perhaps +on some resemblance between his own nature and that of him whom he +comprehended so thoroughly. Both were men of the world: one more refined +and cultivated, more captivating; the other with more acuteness, more +sagacity, and more judgment. Both were generous and noble, and, apart from +the political entanglements that had misled them one after the other, +incapable of a base action unworthy of their noble birth. But there exists +in the human soul a chord whose tone is the echo of the divine voice; this +chord gave out no sound in these men, otherwise accomplished; or, if not +voiceless with the elder of the two, at least, according to the expression +of the great poet of his country, inert and feeble from "silence too +prolonged." This mysterious and hidden chord never resounds very loudly, +it is true, and the tumult of the world with its passions, pleasures, wit, +talent, and glory, often deadens its tone and prevents its being heard; +but when the silent hour of adversity comes, then it awakes to a sweet, +powerful harmony which sometimes transforms the soul it fills. At such a +time its want is felt, and excites a horror, the cause of which is not +comprehended by those who experience it. + +George was not confined in a dungeon, but in a narrow cell lighted only by +a high grated window. There was nothing in it but a bed, a table, and two +straw-bottomed chairs. In his former visits, the marquis had found his +friend sad, but always calm, courageous, and, as it were, contemptuous of +the danger of his position. Though grown pale and thin, his features +hitherto retained their lofty, noble character, and the disorder of his +hair and even of his garments did not at all detract from the aristocratic +appearance which, in the very best sense of the word, characterized his +whole person. But this was no longer the case. He could not have been more +changed by a long illness, or the inroads of time, than he was since they +last met. Seated beside his table in an attitude of deep dejection, he +hardly raised his head at his friend's entrance. After pressing his hand, +the latter remained some moments too much affected himself to break the +mournful silence. George waited till the warden who ushered the visitor in +had left the cell. + +"You have come at last, Adelardi," said he at length, with an altered +voice. "I have been surprised not to see you since--since everything was +decided." + +"I could not obtain permission to enter any sooner; but, to make up for +it, I am allowed to come every day, till--" He stopped. + +"Till I give up the enjoyments of this place for those that await me when +I leave it," said George, with a bitter smile.--"Adelardi," continued he, +changing his tone, and rising abruptly, "can a friend like you come to me +to-day with empty hands? Is it possible you have not divined my wants, and +are here without bringing me the means of escaping my doom, and meeting +death, which they have had the cruelty to refuse me?" He strode up and +down his cell two or three times as if beside himself. "Answer me, then, +Adelardi!" exclaimed he, in a violent manner. "Why have you not rendered +me this, the greatest of services? In a similar position, you would have +expected it of me, and I assure you it would not have been in vain." + +The marquis was not ignorant of the religious principles that should have +inspired his reply, but he had long lost the habit of appealing to them. +He therefore simply replied: "You know well, George, what you ask would +have been impossible." + +"Ah! yes, I forgot.--It is just. They take precautions to prevent their +victims from finding another way out of these walls than that opened by +their murderers; but they do not consider all the resources of despair," +continued he, with agitation. "When a man is determined to die, they must +be sharper than they are now to prevent him, and oblige him to accept the +odious life they would inflict upon him." + +Adelardi allowed him without any interruption to give vent for some time +to the despair that burdened his heart, but at last he turned to him with +sudden firmness: "George, I have always found you calm and courageous till +to-day, but now your language is unworthy of you." + +A slight flush rose to the prisoner's brow, and he resumed his seat. "You +are right, my friend, I acknowledge. I am no longer what I was. I must +indeed astonish you, for I no longer recognize myself." He remained +thoughtful for some moments, and then continued: "It is strange! for, +after all, Adelardi, in saying that till now I never knew what fear was, +or shrunk in the presence of danger or death, saying I had courage, was +not laying claim to any extraordinary merit, for there are but few men who +lack it. Yes, if any virtue fell to my lot, it was certainly that, it +seems to me. Why, then, am I so weak to-day?--Courage," repeated he, after +a pause. "Is it true? Was it really courage, or was I merely brave, which +seems to be another thing? What is the difference between them?" + +"I know not," replied the marquis, as if in a dream; "but there is a +difference, certainly." + +Neither of them possessed the true key to the enigma; neither of them now +thought of searching for it. But Adelardi, glad to see his friend's +excitement somewhat allayed, continued the subject to which the +conversation had led. Besides, he saw it would afford an opportunity of +touching on a point he did not wish to introduce directly. + +"No," he resumed, "bravery and courage are not the same thing. What proves +it is that the most timid woman can be as courageous as we when occasion +requires it, and often more so." + +"Yes, I acknowledge it." + +"For example," continued Adelardi, looking at him attentively, "more than +one of your companions in misfortune have had a signal proof of such +courage to-day." + +"How so?" + +"Do you not know that their wives have fearlessly and unhesitatingly +requested and obtained the favor of sharing their lot? Some are to +accompany them in their sad journey; others will follow them." + +"And have their husbands accepted such a sacrifice?" + +"They who inspire such great devotedness can generally comprehend and +accept it. It was only yesterday, one of them conversing with a friend +admitted to see him, as I to see you, said: 'I can submit to anything now; +I can endure my fate without murmuring; I shall not be separated from her. +The only intolerable sorrow in life will be spared me. I am grateful to +the emperor, and will no longer complain!' I must add that he was recently +married, and adores his wife." + +"The only sorrow," repeated George slowly--"the only one!--that is really +something I cannot understand. To love a woman to such a degree as to feel +her presence could alleviate such a lot as ours, and that never to behold +her again, would be a misfortune surpassing that which awaits us! No, I do +not understand that, I frankly confess." + +"And yet," said Adelardi, with some eagerness.--But he stopped and did not +continue his thought--that one can accept and admire heroic affection, but +not suggest it. + +"And yet," continued George, smiling, "how often you have seen me in love, +you were going to say. Yes, I acknowledge it, though perhaps I was +sincerely so but once, only once, and yet--shall I confess it, Adelardi? +Love even then was a holiday in my life; it added to its brightness; it +was an additional enjoyment, another charm. Her beauty; her rare, naive +intelligence; even her virtue, which gave a mysterious attraction to the +passionate tenderness sometimes betrayed, in spite of herself, by her +eyes, so innocent and frank in their expression; Oh! yes, that time I was +in love and ready to commit a folly I am now glad to have avoided. Poor +Fleurange! If I had married her, what a fate I should have reserved for +her, as well as for myself." + +"For her! Yes, indeed; it was a very different lot your affection promised +her when you displayed it without any scruple; but if she--she, charming, +devoted, and courageous, were there with you, do you not imagine she could +sweeten yours?" + +"Mine?--my lot?--the frightful lot that awaits me?" asked George, with a +bitter laugh. Then he resumed the previous tone of their conversation. + +"No, no; I am not one of those men whom love alone can suffice--stripped of +all that outwardly adorns and adds to its value. In short, think of me as +you please, Adelardi, but I do not resemble in the least my companion in +misfortune you have just referred to. No human affection could make me +endure the life I lead here; judge how it would be elsewhere." + +He rose, and began again to walk around in an excited manner. Adelardi +remained silently absorbed in anxious, painful thoughts. George soon +resumed, in a kind of fury: "Here, Adelardi, speak to me only of one +thing; give me only one hope--death! death! that is all I desire." And +touching, with a gesture of despair, the black cravat negligently fastened +around his neck, he said, in a hoarse voice: "This will be a last resort, +if in a week I do not succeed in finding some means more worthy of a +gentleman of escaping from their hands." + +His friend preserved a gloomy silence. What could he say? What reply could +he make at a time when every earthly hope failed, and there was none felt +in heaven? Adelardi was now fully conscious; he had a lively sense of what +was wanting. He was born in a land where the impressions of childhood are +always religious, and the longest period of indifference or forgetfulness +seldom effaces them completely from the soul in which they were profoundly +graven in early life. + +"My dear friend," said he, with a melancholy gravity not habitual to him, +"to be of service to you at such a time, I feel I should be different from +what I am. Yes, George; in the fearful temptation that now besets you, in +your despair in view of the frightful lot that awaits you, there is only +one resource, and but one. I feel unworthy of suggesting the only remedy." +His voice faltered, as he continued, with emotion: "George, you must +believe--you must pray." + +George was for a moment surprised and affected. After a pause, which +neither seemed disposed to interrupt, he said, in a softened tone: "Well, +Adelardi, let it at least be permissible, in praying, to implore a favor +not refused to a man more guilty than I: Fabiano is dying." + +"I know he cannot recover from his wound." + +"But perhaps he would not be in immediate danger had he not been violently +attacked with typhus fever the day before yesterday. I hoped something +myself from the contagion; but, doubtless afraid of shortening our heavy +chain, they sent him last night to die at a hospital, I know not where." + +At that moment the bolt flew back, the hour had elapsed, and they were +obliged to separate, but with an effort scarcely lessened by the thought +that it was not a final farewell, and that this sad interview would be +repeated more than once before the last. + +As the marquis was about to leave the prison, the warden said in a low +tone, as he was opening the last door: + +"I do not think I am acting contrary to my duty in confiding this letter +to you, sir. The dying prisoner who was taken away last night gave it to +me one day, begging me to forward it to the address after his departure. +He has gone away, and I wish to fulfil the poor fellow's request." + +"Give it to me," said Adelardi, as he took it. "I will see that it is +forwarded." + +After leaving the fortress, he looked at the letter confided to him, and +was greatly surprised to find it addressed to _Mademoiselle Gabrielle +d'Yves, at Professor Dornthal's, Heidelberg_. + + +LVII. + + +The Marquis Adelardi entered the sledge awaiting him at the gate of the +fortress, but gave no orders to his coachman, uncertain where he should +go. Fleurange by this time must have returned from the palace. Should he +go to see her, as was agreed upon the evening before, to learn the result +of the audience, and at the same time remit the letter confided to him? +This was the plainest course to pursue, and, if he hesitated, it was +because his interview with George had left a certain dissatisfaction or, +at least, uneasiness which he feared to betray. In the singular mission +confided to him, he began to feel that the love and courage of the two +parties were unequally divided, and he would have anxiously questioned +whether it was certain that the gratitude of one would finally correspond +to the devotedness of the other, had he not been reassured by several +reflections. + +It was not, perhaps, very surprising that George depreciated a happiness +he considered beyond his reach. But if she whom he was by no means +expecting suddenly appeared in his prison, would he then complain that his +bride was too beautiful? The marquis thought not. He knew better than any +one else how Fleurange once charmed him. No woman had ever held such +empire over George's mobile heart, and he was sure the very sight of her +again would suffice to revive the powerful attraction. As to this, his +perfect knowledge of his friend's character prevented all doubt, and +therefore, though wounded by his coldness in speaking of Fleurange, he +came to the conclusion his indifference would vanish like snow before the +sun as soon as she appeared. She would never perceive it or suffer from +it. He regarded this as the most important point. + +The interest Fleurange inspired him with was one of the best and purest +sentiments he had ever experienced in his life. Without suspecting it, and +without aiming at it, she exercised a beneficent influence over him. A +thousand early impressions, effaced and almost stifled by the world, awoke +in the pure atmosphere that surrounded this young girl, and he welcomed +them with a feeling that surprised himself. Therefore, from the time of +meeting her again, he seriously assumed, more for her sake than George's, +the quasi-paternal _role_ the Princess Catherine had entrusted to him with +respect to both. + +The considerations referred to having, therefore, completely reassured him +respecting George's probable if not actual dispositions, he returned to +his first intentions, and gave orders to be taken to the house on the +Grand Quay. He had scarcely descended and asked to see Mademoiselle +d'Yves, when he saw Clement crossing the hall. He bethought himself it +might be better to consult him first. + +Clement was gloomy and preoccupied. He had just seen his cousin return +from the palace in all the brilliancy that dress and the joy resulting +from success added to her beauty. But the marquis had not time to notice +the young man's physiognomy, nor the effort with which he replied to the +first questions addressed him as soon as they were alone together in a +room on the ground floor. + +"I wish to speak to. you, Dornthal, about an unexpected incident. But +first, has your cousin returned from the palace?" + +"Yes." + +"Do you know whether she is satisfied with the audience?" + +"Yes; the empress promised to have her petition granted by to-morrow." + +"I did not doubt it. The empress is always so kindly disposed to grant a +favor; and, were it otherwise, the sight of her who presented the petition +could not fail to ensure its success." + +Clement made no reply to this observation. "You said, Monsieur le Marquis, +that an unexpected incident--" + +"Yes, I am coming to it. I must first tell you what perhaps you are +ignorant of.--That miserable Fabiano Dini, who so cruelly compromised +George, and was confined with him--" + +Clement, surprised, interrupted him with emotion. "The unfortunate man is +actually dying, Monsieur le Marquis. He was removed from the fortress last +night, and--" + +"_Parbleu!_ I know it; that was precisely what I was going to tell you. +But how did you find it out?" + +"I made inquiries respecting him." + +"You knew this Fabiano, then?" + +"Yes, a little, and was interested in knowing what had become of him." + +"And do you know now?" + +"Yes, I know in what hospital he is, and that, thanks to his illness which +makes flight impossible, and the fear of contagion which keeps every one +away from him, he is only guarded by the infirmarians. I hope to get +admittance to him to-day." + +"You know him?" repeated the marquis after a moment's reflection. "Then +that explains what seemed so mysterious. Your cousin Gabrielle, in that +case, perhaps knows him also?" + +"Yes, she knows him--the same. as I." + +"That explains everything; and, since it is so, here, Dornthal," said the +marquis, giving him the letter of which he was the bearer, "have the +kindness to give her this." + +At the sight of his cousin's writing, Clement was unable to conceal his +emotion, and, seeing the marquis' observant eye fastened on him, it seemed +useless to conceal the truth. Without any hesitation, therefore, he +briefly related all the circumstances of the life of him who was now +expiating his faults by the final sufferings of a miserable death. + +"I am not afraid, Monsieur le Marquis, to confide to you the secret of his +sad life. You will keep it, I am sure, and will never forget, I hope," +added he in a faltering tone, "that it is _Fabiano Dini_, and not Felix +Dornthal, who will be delivered by death from an infamous punishment." + +The marquis pressed his hand. "Rely on my silence, Dornthal." After a +moment, he continued: "This unfortunate man showed great courage during +his trial, and absolute contempt of danger for himself. He only seemed +preoccupied with the desire of saving him whose destruction he had caused. +God forgive him!" + +"Yes, truly, God forgive him!" gravely repeated the young man. + +Adelardi again extended his hand, and was about to leave the room when +Clement stopped him. "Monsieur le Marquis, will you allow me now to ask +you a question?" + +"Certainly." + +"Well, may I ask if Count George has been informed of Gabrielle's +arrival?" + +"No, not yet." + +"But he is doubtless aware of her intentions?" + +"No, my friend, he is likewise ignorant of them. Though I had no doubt as +to Gabrielle's success in her interview with the empress to-day, +nevertheless, before giving George such a surprise, I wished to be +absolutely sure there was no uncertainty to apprehend." + +"Oh! yes, I comprehend you. To lose such a hope, after once conceiving it, +would indeed be more frightful than death!" said Clement, with a vivacity +that struck the other. He soon continued in a calmer tone: + +"One more question, Monsieur le Marquis--an absurd question, I acknowledge, +but one I cannot resist asking at such a time. You know my position with +regard to Gabrielle is that of a brother. Can you assure me that he whom +she loves, and is thus going to wholly immolate herself for--can you assure +me on your honor that he is worthy of her?--that he loves her?--that he +loves her as much as a man ever loved a woman? I certainly cannot doubt +it, but then I must see her happy in return for so much suffering--I must!" +repeated he almost passionately, "and I beg a sincere reply to my +question." + +The marquis hesitated a moment. Clement's vehemence struck him, and under +the impression of his recent interview with George, he did not at first +know how to reply. Should he betray his friend? Ought he to deceive him +whose noble, upright look was fastened upon him? He remained uncertain for +some moments; at length, he decided to be frank, and reply as candidly as +he was questioned. + +"You ask for the truth, Dornthal. Well, it is not in my power to affirm +that George's love is at this moment all you desire. According to my +impression, Gabrielle is now only a sweet dream of the past. But be easy, +my dear friend; as soon as this dream becomes a reality, as soon as she +appears before him--is with him--his--oh! then there is no doubt but the +almost extinguished flame will revive and become as brilliant as it once +was, and this charming creature will have no cause to suspect a shadow of +forgetfulness had ever veiled her image. What do you expect, Dornthal? As +to love and constancy, women far surpass us, and they are not the less +happy for that. Adieu! my dear friend, till to-morrow." + +Clement only replied by taking the hand the marquis again extended before +going out. He listened to him, pale and shuddering, but, as soon as he was +alone, he exclaimed, endeavoring with an effort to suppress the sobs that +stifled his breast: + +"Ah! my God!--my God!--Is that love?" + + +LVIII. + + +Fleurange, to the great regret of Mademoiselle Josephine, laid aside the +rich dress which seemed to realize the old lady's dreams of the previous +night, and had just reappeared clad in the simple high-necked dress of +dark cloth which was her usual costume, when Clement, who had told her he +should not return till late in the evening, suddenly re-entered the salon +he left only half an hour before. His intention was to consecrate the +remainder of the day to the sad duty he felt he owed his cousin, and +thought it useless to mention it to Gabrielle, from whom he concealed all +he had learned respecting Felix. But the letter just given him altered the +case, and made it indispensable to inform her at once. + +He therefore explained to her without much preamble the actual situation +of their unhappy cousin; he informed her of the attempt he was about to +make to see him, and then related what he had learned from the Marquis +Adelardi, giving her the letter of which he was the bearer. It was not +without lively emotion Fleurange broke the seal and hurriedly read it +aloud: + + + "COUSIN GABRIELLE: I am condemned to the mines for life, but as, + at the same time, I am dangerously wounded, I shall probably have + long ceased to exist when this letter reaches you, if it ever + does. I regret the misfortunes I have brought on so many, and + especially on my last benefactor, and I particularly regret this + on your account, for it will perhaps be a source of suffering to + you. I should have thought of this sooner, but, seeing you + unexpectedly pass by in a caleche one evening at Florence, I + waited at the door of the hotel where I saw you stop, and yielded + to the irresistible desire of making you think of me by throwing + you some lines concealed in a bouquet. A few days after, my + patron, who was very far from suspecting my acquaintance with the + original, imprudently showed me his beautiful Cordelia. I confess + I was seized with a keen desire to tear him away from + contemplating it, which irritated me. Lasko opportunely arrived. + But I did not think that would go so far. As to the rest, + Gabrielle, believe me, my love which you rejected (and I confess + you acted wisely) was perhaps more worthy of you than his; for I + feel if I had met you sooner, and you could have loved me, you + would have made me better, whereas he!--But it is too late to speak + to you either of him or myself!--It is all over. It is to you--you + alone, dear cousin, I address these last words; you must repeat + them to all to whom they are due; uttered by you they will be + heard. _Forgive_ and _Farewell_. + + F. D." + + +Fleurange wiped away the tears that filled her eyes. The letter affected +her in more than one way, and Clement, it may be imagined, did not listen +to it with indifference. But now one thought overruled all others, and, +after a moment's silence, he said: "This letter was written when he +expected to die from his wound. Illness is now hastening his end, and +perhaps he is no longer living while we are talking. This evening, at all +events, you will know whether I found him dead or alive." + +Fleurange interrupted him: "Clement, listen to me. If Felix is still +alive, as is by no means impossible, I should like to see him again, and +will go with you." + +"You!--no, that cannot be; the danger from contagion is too great. That +hospital! you cannot go there; it is a place provided for criminals and +miserable creatures of the lowest grade. I cannot expose you to so much +danger. I will not." + +"But, perchance," said Fleurange, "this preference, this sort of sympathy +he has always expressed for me in his way, might give me the power of +consoling the last moments of his wretched life. Who knows but my voice +might utter some word to soothe the despair of his last agony? Clement, +Clement, do you dare tell me I should not attempt it? Can you +conscientiously venture to dissuade me from it, because thereby I shall +incur some danger?" + +"Gabrielle," said Clement, with a kind of irritation, "you are always the +same! Do you not understand that you are merciless towards those that love +you?" + +"Come, reflect a moment," persisted she, "and answer me, Clement." + +A moment of silent anguish followed these words. Then, with a troubled +voice, he said: "Be quick; lose no time. You may perhaps have an influence +over him no one else could have. Make haste, I will wait for you." + +Before he ended, Fleurange was gone from the room. In less time than it +takes to relate it, she returned wrapped in her cloak, her velvet hat on +her head, her face concealed by a veil, ready to go. They went down +without speaking a word. Clement's sledge was waiting at the door. He took +a seat beside her, and they set off with the almost frightful rapidity +which is peculiar to that mode of conveyance. It was no longer light, +being after four o'clock, but the brilliant clearness of the night, +increased by the reflection of the snow, sufficiently lighted the way, and +the horses went as fast as in the daytime. The place of their destination +was on the opposite bank of the Neva, much lower down than the Princess +Catherine's house. They therefore crossed the river diagonally, following +a road traced out by the pine branches which from time to time indicated +the path. They were thus transported in the twinkling of an eye from the +splendor of the city into the midst of what looked like a vast white +desert. In proportion as they descended the river, the palaces, the +numerous gilded spires of the churches, with the immense succession of +buildings whose effect was heightened by the obscurity, were lost in the +distance, and, when they at length stopped at the very extremity of a +faubourg on the right bank of the river, they found themselves surrounded +by wooden hovels, with here and there some larger buildings, but all +indicating poverty, and none more than a story high. Clement aided his +cousin in alighting, and looked around for the person he expected as his +guide. A man approached. + +"M. Clement Dornthal?" said he in a low voice. + +"It is I." + +"You are not alone." + +"What difference does that make?" + +"I have no permission, and a woman--it is forbidden." + +"I suppose, however, more than one has entered the place?" + +"Oh! yes, but they must have permission--or else--" + +"Here," said Clement in a low tone, "mine will answer for both." + +The guide seemed to find the reply satisfactory; he pocketed the gold +piece Clement slipped into his hand and made no further objection. They +walked swiftly after him towards one of the buildings just referred to +which was the best lighted. As they approached, they saw the light +proceeded from a large fire kindled in the open air, around which quite a +number were warming themselves, some squatting down, others standing, and +some asleep near enough to the fire not to freeze to death; all lit up +with the wild light which revealed their bearded faces, their angular fur +caps, and their sheep-skin caftans. Here and there were some venders of +brandy, who furnished them with a more efficacious means of resisting the +cold even than the fire in the brazier. + +Clement and his companion passed rapidly by this group, not, however, +without being assailed by some annoying words. A vigorous blow from +Clement sent a curious winebibber flying back who attempted to lift +Fleurange's veil. This lesson was sufficient, and they arrived without any +further annoyance at the door of the building decorated with the name of +hospital, which was only a long, spacious wooden gallery. + +They entered. Passing thus suddenly from the light of the great fire, and +the sharpness of the extreme cold, into the obscurity and warmth of the +ambulance, their first sensations were caused by the darkness and stifling +atmosphere. Fleurange hastily threw back her veil, then took off her hat +and unclasped her cloak, for she could not breathe; she felt nearly ready +to faint from the effects of this sudden transition, but she almost +immediately recovered. Clement was alarmed at first, but soon saw she was +able to continue their sad search. As soon as their eyes became accustomed +to the dim light around them, they saw the long row of pallets on which +lay, in all the frightful varieties of suffering, nearly two hundred human +beings whose mingled groanings rose on all sides like one sad cry of pain, +enough to chill the veins with horror, and excite the pity of the most +courageous and most hardened heart. + +That of Fleurange beat painfully as they slowly advanced through the +obstructed space. Clement was remorsefully regretting his consent to bring +her to such a place, when all at once a moan, followed by some words +indicative of delirium, checked every other thought, and kept them +motionless where they stood. They listened--which of these unfortunate +beings had uttered those words? They looked around as well as the poor +light permitted, but on all these sick-beds so close to each other they +did not perceive one whose features bore the least resemblance to those of +the unhappy man whose voice they thought they recognized. + +"I beg you to lend me your light only for a moment," said Fleurange, in a +low, supplicating tone to an infirmarian to whom she had just heard some +one speak in German, and who was rudely passing by her, lantern in hand. + +The infirmarian stopped at hearing his language spoken, and looked at the +young girl with surprise, then, as if softened by her aspect, he gave her +the lantern, saying: "You can have it while I am gone to the other end of +the ward; I will take it when I return." As Clement took it, the light +flashed across Fleurange's face and uncovered head. Instantly there was a +cry, an almost convulsive movement, and Gabrielle's name was pronounced by +the voice they had just heard. This indicated which of the miserable beds +contained him whom they sought. They both approached with full hearts. By +the aid of the lamp they gazed at the dying man. Was it really he?--was +that Felix? His voice and words left no doubt, and yet there was nothing +in that face, disfigured by agony and a horrible wound, to recall him whom +they saw last in all the fulness of strength and the pride of youth. After +his exclamation, he fell back almost lifeless, and Clement trembled as he +bent down to ascertain if he still breathed. His heart was beating, though +feebly and irregularly. + +"Felix," said he, "do you hear me? Do you know me?" + +Felix opened his eyes. "What a strange dream!" murmured he. "It seems as +if they were all here. That vision a moment ago, and now this voice--O my +God, would I might never awake!" + +Fleurange took the dying man's hand, and bent over him to catch his words. +Her features thus became distinctly visible in the light, and his eyes +fastened with frightful tenacity on those of the young girl. + +"It is impossible!" said he. "But what illusion is this which makes me see +and hear what cannot be?" + +"Felix," said Fleurange, with a penetrating accent of sweetness, "it is +not an illusion. We are here. God has sent us that you may not die alone +without a friend to pray for you, without begging and obtaining pardon and +peace." + +A ray of perfect clearness of comprehension now lit up his eyes, hitherto +fixed or wandering. He seemed to comprehend, but did not reply. Clement +and Fleurange were afraid to break the solemn silence. Felix's eyes soon +wandered from one to the other, and, taking the young girl's hand and that +of Clement, he pressed them together upon his heart, saying: "O my God! +what a miracle!" Then he added in a feeble voice: "What a comfort that it +is he, and not the other!" + +They both understood his mistake, but were not equally affected. Fleurange +slightly blushed, and withdrew her hand with a faint smile, but Clement's +face became almost as pale as that of the dying man. But graver thoughts +prevailed over both at such a time. After a short silence, Fleurange again +addressed Felix some words, but he made no reply, and his head, which she +tried to raise, fell on his shoulder. He continued faint for some moments, +then opened his eyes, and saw her beside him. + +"God be praised!" said he. "The vision is still here!" + +"Yes, I am here, Felix," said Fleurange in a fervent tone: "I am here to +pray with you. Listen to me," continued she, speaking softly and very +distinctly. "Say with me that you repent of all the sins of your life." + +"Of all the sins of my life!"--repeated the dying man. + +"And if your strength were restored, you would make a complete and +satisfactory avowal of them, with a sincere repentance. Do you understand +me?" + +The hand she held pressed hers. A tear ran down Felix's cheek. A voice +which was a mere whisper repeated the words: "A sincere +repentance"--another faintness seemed to announce his end. "O my God!" said +Fleurange, fervently raising her eyes to heaven, "if the sacred absolving +words could only be pronounced over him!" + +At that moment the infirmarian returned and abruptly took the lantern from +Clement's hand. "Excuse me, I need it for some one who has come to visit a +patient." + +In the narrow space that separated the two rows of beds, there could be +indistinctly seen a person of majestic, imposing appearance, whose long +beard and floating hair, whose ample robes of silk and gold cross, clearly +indicated his character; he was, in fact, a priest of the Greek Church. He +had not, however, come to this sad place to exercise his ministry. One of +the poor men suffering from the contagious disease was the object of his +charity, and he had come to visit him. He was passing along without +looking around, even turning his eyes away as much as possible from the +sad spectacle that surrounded him, when Clement's hand on his arm stopped +him as he was passing Felix's bed. + +"What do you wish of me, young man?" he asked, with surprise. + +"I implore you," said Clement, "to come to this dying man who is truly +contrite for his sins, with a sincere desire to confess them if he had the +strength. Have the kindness to give him sacramental absolution!" + +In spite of the place, the hour, the awful solemnity of the moment, the +young Catholic girl started at hearing these words; her large eyes opened +with an expression of the keenest surprise, and turned towards Clement +with a mute glance of anxiety. He understood her, and, while the +infirmarian was interpreting his words which had been heard but not +understood, he replied: "This is a priest, Gabrielle, invested with all +the authority of Holy Orders. In the presence of death, we can avail +ourselves of it, without regard to anything else." + +He knelt down. Fleurange did the same. The dying man clasped his hands, +and, whilst the word "forgive" once more trembled on his lips, the Greek +priest raised his right hand with a majestic air, and pronounced over him +the merciful, divine words of holy absolution! + +To Be Continued. + + + + +Cologne. + + +What is more familiar than the name of Cologne? What is more delicious +than the perfume of the veritable Jean Maria Farina? What is more +delightful than the receipt of a box, with the stereotyped picture on the +cover of the Rhine lazily flowing under the bridges, of the cathedral +looming up to the sky, of the houses clustering around it as though for +protection? + +No one need be ashamed to avow his or her love of it; it is acknowledged +to be indispensable. Bishop or priest, sage or philosopher, can use it +without being thought undignified. Imagine a pope, or cardinal, or bishop, +or priest, or senator, or judge scented with "Mille Fleurs," or "Jockey +Club," or "Bouquet de Nilsson"! The bare thought is revolting! To be sure, +for some years, "Bouquet d'Afrique" has been the fashion among the +"potent, grave, and reverend seigniors" at Washington who make our laws +and amuse themselves by adding "Fifteenth Amendments" to the highly +respectable and ever-to-be-respected Constitution of the United States. + +But that will pass away with Time, the healer and destroyer; the +reconstructionist will make all right; the "Fifteenth" will be amended +with the "Sixteenth"; and, with the sway of lovely woman, Cologne, without +which no well-bred, well-dressed woman's toilette is complete, will resume +its reign over heads and hearts; and "Bouquet d'Afrique" will perhaps +return to the hot and happy home where the indefatigable Stanley recently +discovered the wandering, long-sought Livingstone--who did not care to be +found, as he certainly appeared perfectly content among dusky dark-browed +brothers and sisters, hunting lions and tigers, and imagining each little +rivulet and lake the source of the Nile, or Congo, or Niger, or any other +meandering river taking its rise in the great water-shed by the Mountains +of the Moon. + +If mothers are to be judged by the character of their sons, the mother of +Nero, in whose honor Cologne was named, could not have been the mildest +and gentlest of her sex. Says Lacordaire, "The education of the child is +commenced in the womb of the mother, continued on her breast, completed at +her knees." Sweet must have been the reveries, refreshing the +instructions, edifying the conduct of Julia Agrippina, who brought into +the world the finished despot that drenched the soil of Rome with the +blood of the Christian martyrs, who persecuted unto death the heroes of +the faith that now people heaven. + +Cologne owes its origin to a Roman camp established by Marcus Agrippa. The +Emperor Claudius, at the request of his wife, Julia Agrippina, daughter of +Germanicus and mother of Nero, sent a colony of Roman veterans, A.D. 50, +named the town after her _Colonia Agrippina_, and it then became the +capital of the Province of Germania Secunda. Vitellius was here proclaimed +Emperor of Rome, A.D. 69; Trajan here received from Nerva the summons to +share his throne; the usurper Sylvanus was also proclaimed emperor here in +353; a few years later Cologne was taken by the Franks; Childeric made it +his residence in 464; and Clovis was here proclaimed king in 508. + +During the reign of Pepin, it was the capital of the kingdoms of Neustria +and Austrasia. Bruno, Duke of Lorraine, was the first of its archbishops +who exercised the temporal power, with which he was invested by his +brother, Otho the Great. From that time the town increased rapidly in +wealth and splendor, and shortly after became one of the principal +emporiums of the Hanseatic League; the commerce of the East was here +concentrated, and direct communication with Italy constantly kept up. In +1259, the town acquired the privilege by which all vessels were compelled +to unload here and reship their cargoes in Cologne bottoms. + +At this period it had a population of 150,000, and could furnish 30,000 +fighting men in time of war. In the XIIIth century, there was a mutiny +among the weavers; 17,000 looms were destroyed; the rebellious workmen +were banished from the city; and that, together with the expulsion of the +Jews in 1349, did great injury to the town, the number of whose +inhabitants was reduced in 1790 to 42,000, of whom nearly one-third were +paupers. Then came the devastating wars which succeeded the maelstrom of +the French Revolution, when in the general upheaval empires and kingdoms +disappeared, new political combinations were made which changed the map of +Europe, and the Rhine became the frontier of the French Empire. + +Cologne was nominally French, but the hearts of the people were German--as +German as the most ardent worshipper of the "New God," as Von Bolanden +calls the new Empire, the child of Bismarck and Von Moltke. After +Waterloo, the Holy Alliance made another partition of the kingdoms and +peoples, and Cologne shook off the French yoke, and returned to her +national ways and customs. One great cause of its decay had been the +closing of the navigation of the Rhine, which restriction was removed in +1837, and, since then, trade has greatly revived, and the town been much +improved. + +Many of the old streets have been widened and paved, and a considerable +portion of waste ground covered with new buildings. The opening of the +railways to Paris, Antwerp, Ostend, Hamburg, and Berlin has greatly added +to its commercial prosperity, and Cologne bids fair to resume its former +position among the chief cities of Europe. Cologne was formerly called the +"Holy Cologne," and the "Rome of the North"--titles which she owed to the +number of relics and churches she possessed. + +At one time, the city contained 200 buildings devoted to religious uses. +These gradually diminished, until in 1790 their number was reduced to 137. +During the French Revolution, they were shamefully plundered, the convents +suppressed, and their property confiscated; so that at present there are +not more than twenty churches and seven or eight chapels; but many other +ecclesiastical buildings still remain, used as warehouses and chapels. + +Maria im Capitol, so named from its having been built on the site of the +Roman capitol, stands on an eminence reached by a flight of steps. The +Frankish kings had a palace close by, to which Plectruda, the wife of +Pepin, retired in 696, having separated from her husband on account of his +attachment to Alpais, the mother of Charles Martel. In 700, she pulled +down the capitol, and erected a church on its site, to which she attached +a chapter of canonesses. Until 1794, the senate and consuls repaired +hither annually on S. John's day to assist at Mass, when the outgoing +Burgomasters solemnly transferred the insignia of office to the newly +elected, who were each presented with a bouquet of flowers by the abbess. + +The convent no longer exists, but there is a large cloister of the XIth +century at the west end of the church, which was restored a few years ago. +In this church, there are mural paintings of the early Cologne school, +representing the wise and foolish virgins, numberless saints, the raising +of Lazarus, and the founders of the church with their children. As in duty +bound, Plectruda is properly conspicuous; her effigy in basso-rilievo +beneath the great east window is a very interesting work of the Xth +century, and, on one of the towers, her sculptured figure appears between +two angels, who are conducting her to her eternal home. + +All the churches are more or less interesting, none more so than that of +S. Gereon, founded in the IVth century. S. Gereon was the commander of a +Roman legion, and he and his companions, 700 in number, were murdered by +order of Diocletian upon the spot where the church was built by the +Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine. + +The style is Byzantine, and very singular. The body of the church, +preceded by a large portico, presents a vast decagonal shell, the pillars +of whose internal angles are prolonged in ribs, which, centring in a +summit, meet in one point and form a cupola, one of the latest examples +known. A high wide flight of steps, rising opposite to the entrance, leads +to an altar with an oblong choir behind it, from whence other steps again +ascend to the sanctuary, a semicircular apse, belted, like the cupola, by +an open gallery with small arches and pillars resting on a panelled +balustrade. + +The rotunda is surrounded by ten chapels, in which are the tombs of the +martyrs. The walls are encrusted with their skulls, and, in the +subterranean church, the pavement and walls are formed by the tomb-stones +covering the holy dust. In the lower church is the tomb of S. Gereon, and +in one of the chapels is a mosaic pavement laid in the time of the Empress +Helena. Behind the stalls of the clergy are hangings of Gobelin tapestry, +portraying the history of Joseph and his brethren. + +The baptismal font of porphyry, immensely large, was a present from +Charlemagne; and, as the lid is too ponderous for any one to lift, there +is a little machine that takes it off when required. We remained a long +while in this very delightful church, and, by the time we left, what with +Helen and Constantine, Diocletian and Charlemagne, we felt quite like an +animated verd-antique, so intensely Roman and Catholic had we become. + +Afterwards we proceeded to S. Ursula's, where the cruel Roman emperor was +exchanged for the barbarian Huns. S. Ursula's history was done in English +by the old sexton, who finished every sentence by assuring us that S. +Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins met with their untimely fate from +the barbarian Huns, who massacred them in cold blood. We made a stride of +a few centuries, became Gothic, and extended our hatred to the barbarian +Huns. As in S. Gereon, the bones of the martyrs are built in the walls for +a space of two feet the whole extent. + +In the Golden Chamber we saw the shrine of S. Ursula, the relics of S. +Margaret, a thorn from the crown of Our Lord, and one of the vases used at +the marriage feast of Cana, that witnessed the first miracle of the God- +man. Link by link we were carried to the days when Our Lord was incarnate +on the earth; we do not need such testimony to assure us of the truth of +our holy faith, but, when we touch the vase that has been touched by Our +Lord, our senses are awed by the thought of the God-like condescension of +him who became man, who lived like us, who mingled in our joys and +sorrows, that we might become greater than the angels. + +The Cathedral of Cologne, the queen of pointed architecture, erected on +the site of a church founded in 814 by Archbishop Hildebold, and more +beautiful than even we could imagine it, familiar as we were with it by +picture and description, was commenced in August, 1248, by Archbishop +Conrad, of Hochstaden. The works were for some years pushed on with great +activity under the direction of Master Gerard von Rile, a builder of whom +nothing more is known than that he died before 1302. + +In 1322, the choir was completed and consecrated; then the building went +slowly on until 1357, when the works were discontinued for a long time. In +1796, the cathedral was converted by the French into a warehouse, and it +had very nearly become a ruin in 1807, when the brothers Sulpice and +Melchior Boisseree drew attention to it by their illustrated work on its +history. In 1824, the work of restoration was commenced, but little +progress was made until, in 1842, the idea of completing the cathedral was +conceived, and an association was formed to collect subscriptions for this +purpose; and now the entire edifice will soon be finished if the works are +carried on as zealously as they have been of late. + +The glorious roof, arching 150 feet in the air, is magnificent; every day +new beauties are added; four hundred men are daily at work, the stones are +all cut, and in ten years at least this triumph of genius will be ready to +receive the homage of all true lovers of art. The shrine of the Three +Kings is superb--gold adorned with precious stones. There are the heads of +the three men who came in faith, and bowed in all their pride and majesty +before the infant Jesus in the manger; their names, Gaspar, Melchior, and +Balthazar, are encrusted in rubies above the crowns that encircle their +brows. Their bodies were brought from S. Eustorgio, in Milan, by the +Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, after the taking of that city, and presented +by him to Archbishop Rainoldo, who deposited them in the ancient cathedral +July 23, 1164; from whence they were removed into the present chapel in +1337. + +Among the treasures of the cathedral is a splendid ostensorium, one of the +finest in the world, presented by some sovereign; another, not so +handsome, sent by Pius IX.; and the cross and ring, given to the present +archbishop by Kaiser William; both are of diamonds and emeralds, the ring, +an immense emerald, surrounded by four circles of diamonds. The man who +showed the church prided himself upon his English; would call the +archbishops architects: "This is the statue of Engelbert, the first +_architect from_ Cologne." And when we innocently inquired if the +architects wore mitres and copes, he impressively repeated his remark; so +we are still in doubt whether the archbishops built the cathedral or the +architects dressed like bishops! + +Wandering one day through the aisles of the cathedral, we paused for a +while to gaze upon something beautiful that attracted our attention. It +was behind the high altar; we were standing between it and the Chapel of +the Magi, when, by chance, we looked down, and on the slab at our feet we +saw in large letters, "Marie de' Medici"--no date, no epitaph. So much for +human greatness! Under that stone, trodden daily by hundreds, was the +heart of Marie de' Medici, one of the powerful family that gave to the +church Leo X. and Clement VII., the descendant of Lorenzo the Magnificent, +the widow of Henri Quatre, the mother of Louis XIII., the ex-Regent of +France. Banished from France, the inexorable hostility of Richelieu +pursued her wherever she sought refuge. No crowned head dared shelter her. + +One heart was true, one man was found who remembered in her adversity that +she had favored him in the days of her prosperity. When, in the zenith of +her power, she built the Luxembourg, she sent for Rubens to adorn it with +the creations of his genius; she loaded him with favors, sent him on +diplomatic missions to restore peace between Philip IV. of Spain and +Charles I. of England. Both monarchs responded to her wishes, showered +honors upon the artist-diplomat, and Charles I. knighted him, and then +presented him with the sword which had been used for the ceremony. + +Genius is a power. Richelieu could command kings on their thrones, and the +refugee queen was abandoned by all--by those who should have been bound to +her by the ties of kindred, of position, by the claims of misfortune. +England, Spain, Holland, refused her entrance; only in the free city of +Cologne could she find sanctuary, and that sanctuary was the house of the +noble, chivalric artist, Pierre Paul Rubens, whose brave heart quailed not +before the wrath of the most powerful man of his age. + +With loving care and respect he watched over her, soothed her in her dying +agony, and held her in his arms when she breathed her last sigh. The house +of Rubens still remains, and the room in which Marie de' Medici died is +preserved with the greatest care. When we visited it, we felt as though we +were treading on holy ground, as in a shrine made sacred by a noble deed; +for what more royal, more heroic, more Christian, than the brave, grateful +heart that dared power to shelter misfortune? + +Meanwhile that Marie de' Medici lived and died in poverty in Cologne, +Richelieu was at the apogee of his glory. King, nobles, courts, cowered +beneath his glance. The conspiracy of Cinq-Mars was quelled; his head had +paid the penalty of his youthful folly. Richelieu, satisfied and avenged, +left Lyons for Paris, carried on the shoulders of his attendants in a kind +of furnished room, for which the gates of the cities through which he +passed were demolished if they were too narrow to admit it. But the +triumph was short-lived. A few months after the death of Marie de' Medici, +her relentless persecutor followed her to the tomb, and her poor wearied +body was removed to France and buried in S. Denis; but the heart was left +in the Cathedral of Cologne--a mausoleum sufficiently splendid for any +mortal dust. + +Soon after leaving the house of Rubens, we came to another famous in +Cologne; a large building, where, from one of the windows of the third +story, two stone horses were contemplating the busy scene in the Neumarkt +below; and then we heard the legend of the horses. Once upon a time this +house was the residence of the wealthy family d'Andocht. Richmodis, the +wife of Herr Mengis d'Andocht, died during the plague of 1357, and was +buried with great pomp in the Church of the Apostles on the Neumarkt. + +Her dressing attracted the notice of the sexton. He fancied he would like +to have some of the gold and silver adornments; so the night after she was +put into the vault he descended into it, opened the coffin, and took off +some of the jewels. One of the rings would not move. To make the task +easier, he cut her finger; she was only in a trance, and this summary +process restored her; she sat up; the man rushed off affrighted. She +managed to get out of the coffin. In his haste he had left his lantern +behind; with it she made her way out of the church, and reached her home +near by. + +She knocked at the door; a servant opened it, and scampered off half dead +with terror. She went to her husband's room. He thought she was a ghost or +devil; she told him she was his wife, as surely as that their horses would +come up-stairs and jump out of the window. As she spoke, the horses +galloped up-stairs, threw themselves out of the window; whereupon the +husband acknowledged her to be his veritable wife. She soon recovered her +health, lived for many years, and, to commemorate the wonderful event, the +husband had the two horses done in stone and put in their respective panes +of glass, where they have ever since remained, looking out of the window. + +Now the house is a hospital, and we hope the patients are as much amused +as we were at the effigies of the two well-bred, obedient horses, who were +as good at vouching for identity as Dame Crump's little dog. In the Church +of the Apostles, a faded Lent hanging is still preserved that was +presented by Richmodis in gratitude for her wonderful deliverance from a +living death. + +The Rathhaus or Town Hall is a curious building, erected at different +periods; the Hansa-Saal is a fine room on the first floor, in which the +meetings of that once powerful mercantile confederation were held; and at +one end of it are nine statues holding escutcheons emblazoned with the +arms of the Hanse Towns. + +The _Musee_, a comparatively new creation, erected partly by the +government, and partly by private subscription, contains many works of +art. In the lower story are numerous Roman antiquities, found in or near +Cologne; amongst them are busts of Caesar, Germanicus, Agrippina, a +statuette of Cleopatra, and a very fine head of Medusa, said to be larger +and more beautiful than the Medusa Rondinini in the Glyptotheca at Munich. +One gallery is filled with exquisite specimens of stained glass; the upper +rooms are devoted to statuary and paintings, many of which are of the +Duesseldorf school. + +We were particularly struck with one, the "Triumph of S. Michael over +Lucifer." S. Michael is radiant, his sword flaming; and Lucifer, who is +sinking into darkness, is terrible. There he is--no horned demon, but the +beautiful fallen archangel, majestic and powerful; profound despair and +gloom on his noble features, as the darkness overshadows him, and hell +opens to receive him. + +The people of Cologne are gay and sociable; in the afternoons, the +Zoological Gardens are filled with children and nurses admiring the +giraffes, elephants, and every other kind of animal belonging to earth, +air, or water. An immense lion was a particular object of interest, as he +had distinguished himself the day before we had the pleasure of seeing him +by devouring his keeper. The Flora or Winter Garden is charming--a crystal +palace, filled with fragrant plants, green vines garlanding the sides and +roof, fountains playing, beautiful music well rendered by a good +orchestra, and hundreds of people drinking coffee and smoking, who don't +bother themselves by receiving at home, but meet and gossip in the Flora, +or the Opera House, to which they generally adjourn. + +The Opera House is very pretty but miserably lighted, only two feeble gas- +lights by the door. Prussian officers, however, abounded, and the +glittering uniform shone in the _clair-obscur_ like fire-flies in Florida +on summer evenings. Perhaps it was to add to the effect of "La Dame +Blanche," which was the opera we chanced to hear, that we were kept in +such gloomy darkness; but, as the music was well executed, the time passed +pleasantly. + +One extraordinary event must be chronicled--we did not buy one bottle of +Cologne in Cologne; we left the city of Jean Maria Farina, and only saw +the outside of his shop. What with Gothic churches and relics, Roman +towers and antiquities, time flew, and we found ourselves also flying off +from Cologne on an express train, without one drop of the veritable _Eau- +de-Cologne_ in our possession. _Mirabile dictu!_ + + + + +John. + + +In beauty, not above criticism; in courage, undaunted; in love, most +generous and most forgiving; in patience, rivalling Job; in constancy, +unswerving; in humility, without an equal. + +After the above enumeration of qualities, it should be superfluous to add +that John is a dog. It would be ridiculous to expect so much of a man. He +is, moreover, a Skye-terrier, well-born and well-bred. + +To announce to John's acquaintances that one was about to eulogize the dog +would be to incur and deserve some such reply as that made by the Spartan +to a rhetorician who announced his intention to pronounce an eulogium on +Hercules: "An eulogium on Hercules?" repeated the Spartan. "Who ever +thought of blaming Hercules?" + +Our reply would be that we write, not for those who deny, but for those +who never heard. + +There is no shifting of scenes in our little drama. The unities are +preserved with almost Grecian strictness; the writer, however, as chorus, +claiming the privilege of being occasionally discursive. + +_Scene._--A suburban summer residence in that most magnificent of seasons, +autumn, "in that month of all months in the year," October; furthermore, +the most perfect of Octobers. The stone-colored house is the only neutral +bit in the landscape; all else is a glow of color. The fresh greensward +recedes under flower-bosses of solid brilliancy. A flower carpet, gayer +than any loom of Turkey, Brussels, or France ever wove, lies under the +clump of evergreens in a far corner of the estate. Tapestries of woodbine +hang over balconies, and porches, and bay-windows; and the noble trees +that stand, two and two, in stately pairs, all about the place, and up the +avenue, are a torchlight procession, which sunshine, instead of quenching, +fires to a still more dazzling blaze. It is that picturesque time when +ladies throw gay scarfs over the summer dresses they still wear; when the +sky shakes out her violet mists to veil the too divine beauty of earth; +that season of exquisite comfort when one has open windows and open fires; +that delicious season when fruit is brought to the table still warm with +the sunshine in which it finished ripening five minutes before. Above all, +it is that season when people who are at all sympathetic are inclined to +silence. + +Mrs. Marcia Clay was not at all sympathetic. She was simply herself, a +frivolous woman, with a strong will, and a Chinese wall of selfishness and +self-complacence built up on all sides of her. The soft "Hush!" on the +lips of the Indian summer, when the soul of Nature plumes her wings for +flight, she heard not. The suspense, the regret, the melancholy, the +fleeting rapture of the season she perceived not. To her it was surely the +fall of the year, when people get ready for the winter, lay in coal, buy +new clothes, and go back to town. + +Flounced to the waist in rattling silk, her fair hair furbelowed all over +her head, and, apparently, pounds of gold hanging from her ears, thrust +through her cuffs, dangling at her belt, strung about her neck, and +fastened to the pin that held her collar, this lady sat in one of the +pleasant parlors of her house, and talked as fast as her tongue could run. + +The woman who listened was of another kind, one who might have come to +something if she had been possessed of will and courage, but who, having a +small opinion of herself, was only somebody by little spurts, which did no +good, since they were always followed by unusual self-abasement. She was +not without a despairing sense of this incongruity, and had more than once +bewailed in her own mind the fact that she was neither fish, flesh, nor +fowl, but inclined to each in turn; had little wings which, as she spread +them, changed to little fins, which, as she moved them, became little +feet, that, when she would have walked, collapsed utterly, and left her +floundering--a woman without moral vertebrae, who had been all her life the +prey of people in whom the moral vertebrae were in excess. She was nothing +in particular, physically, either, being gayish, oldish, tallish, weakish, +and dressed in that time-honored, thin plain black silk gown which is the +infallible sign of genteel poverty, and which, at this instant, adorns the +form that owns the arm that moves the hand that holds the pen that writes +this history. + +_Mrs. Marcia Clay._--"It is very provoking, my dear, but it can't be +helped. If I should intimate to him that our trunks are all packed to go +in town, he would leave instantly. He is the most touchy of mortals. To be +sure, I have invited him here again and again, but I expected him in +summer-time, not when we were on the point of moving, and had our very +beds half made in the city. There's nothing for it but to unpack, and +pretend to be delighted. Fortunately, he amuses himself." + +The uncertain person in the black silk gown ventured to suggest that Mr. +Bently might accompany them to town, and was met by a little shriek which +made her jump. + +"Fancy him in my blue satin or pink satin chamber! Why, my dear, he +smokes, and--_chews! chews_, dear! Between you and me, he is a bear in his +habits, a positive bear. If you will believe me, I have seen him wear +slipshod shoes and crumpled linen. You should see him at home, in his den. +An inky dressing-gown that he wipes his pens on, old slippers with holes +in them, books piled all about, and dust that you could write your name +in! In that state he sits and writes hour after hour." + +Ah! Mrs. Clay & Co., who look at littleness through magnifying glasses, +and are blind to all true greatness, the sole of this man's slipshod shoe +is cleaner than your tongue. There is no dust on his thoughts; there are +no holes in the fabrics his brain weaves; and when he writes, far-away +lands that know you not, and kindred greatness nearer by, feel the +electric spark that slips from his pen's point. + +"What a shocking person he must be!" says Miss Uncertainty, meaning to +please. "I don't wonder you won't have him in town." + +"Goodness gracious, Miss Bird!" cried the lady, coloring up. "What can you +be thinking of! Why, Mr. Bently is famous. He can afford to be eccentric. +It is an honor to have him in one's house. People have turned and looked +at me when they heard that I am his cousin; and his name opens to me +places that--well, everybody can't enter. Then it is a very fine thing to +have a gentleman in one's parlors who can talk to those lions whom one +doesn't know what to say to, and who can tell what one's pictures, and +bronzes, and marbles mean, and translate from every language under the +sun. I well remember a time when he won for me a perfect triumph over Mrs. +Everett Adams. It was delicious. Mrs. Everett Adams is always picking up +lions, especially learned and scientific ones, and, when Professor Porson +came here, she monopolized him at once. You cannot conceive how odiously +she behaved, nor what airs she assumed. One heard nothing but Porson, +Porson, till I was sick of the name; and it was impossible to go anywhere, +to theatre, opera, or concert, without seeing her sail down to the most +conspicuous place, after everybody was seated, with Prof. Porson in her +train. Well, one evening she brought him to our house, just to plague me, +and we had half a dozen or so persons to meet him. It was an evening of +torment, my dear. The professor was in the clouds, with Mrs. Everett Adams +fluttering behind him, like a tail after a kite, and all the rest were in +raptures, except me--I was extinguished. The professor knew what every +bronze and marble was, and who made it, and if it was an original or a +copy; and, in short, everything I had seemed as common as possible. As a +last desperate resort, I brought out some old books in foreign languages +that poor dear Clay had picked up. He was always collecting things of that +sort. The professor turned them over with the tips of his fingers, and +read a word here and there. Oh! he knew all about them. Yes; he had read +them when he was a boy. But I had begun to suspect him. My poor husband +used to say that, when a man will not own that there is anything he +doesn't understand, root and branch, he was always sure that that man was +an impostor. So I took up two of the books that I saw he had passed over, +and asked him to translate a passage for me. They looked about as much +like a printed language as the figures on my carpet do. To my joy, he had +to own that he couldn't. They were Chaldaic, he said, and he had made but +little study in that language. Mrs. Adams glanced angrily at me, and I +smiled. Just at that moment, as good luck would have it, the door opened, +and in came Cousin Bently. I flew at him with the books. Triumph, my dear! +Never did I have such a rapturous moment. Cousin took the books up in his +slow way, put up his eye-glasses, and looked them over in such a superior +manner that really my hopes rose. They were Arabic, I've forgotten what +about, and he read out some passages, and translated them, all the company +looking on. My dear, the Porson and Adams stock sank to less than one per +cent. in an instant. The professor was red, and Mrs. Adams was pale. I +could have hugged Cousin Bently on the spot, though his boots were not +blacked, and his collar was in a positively shocking state." + +"How charming it must be to have him visit you!" says Miss Bird, wheeling +about as the wind veered. + +Poor thing! She did not mean to be insincere. She merely wanted to say the +right thing, and didn't care a fig about the matter, one way or the other. + +"Charming!" repeated Mrs. Clay, with emphasis. "It gives a _tone_. +Besides, it draws some people one likes to know. You should see Madame de +Soi, the most exclusive of women, flutter round him like a butterfly round +a--round a--well, really, I am at a loss for the word. It is impossible to +call Cousin Bently a flower, unless one should make a pun about the seedy +contents of his valise. I studied botany once, and I know a pun can be +made of it. Madame knows no more and cares no more about his learning than +a cat does, but she has tact, and does contrive to smile at the right +time. I never could do that. When I smile, Cousin Bently is sure to push +out his under lip, and stop talking. But she will look and listen with +such rapture that you would positively think he were describing the dress +the empress wore at the last ball; and sometimes she even says something +that he will seem pleased with. That very evening of the Porson collapse +she talked with him half an hour of _molecules_, whatever they are. I +actually thought they were speaking of people. Fancy being called a +molecule! Yes, Cousin Bently is a great credit, and a great convenience to +me. Why, but for him, I couldn't have gone to those stupid exclusive +lectures of Mr. Vertebrare's, where I yawned myself to death among the +very cream of society." + +The lady paused for breath, and her companion, feeling obliged to say +something, faltered out that she always feared those very clever persons. + +"I should think you would after the experience you had with that dragon," +replied Mrs. Clay significantly. + +Miss Bird colored, and was silent. "That dragon" was a rather difficult +old lady, a Miss Clinton, with whom she had lived and suffered many years, +and who had lately died. + +"And so," Mrs. Clay summed up, "I have Cousin Bently on my hands for a +week or ten days, and must make the best of it. And"--suddenly lowering her +voice--"speak of angels--ahem! Cousin Bently, allow me to make you +acquainted with Miss Bird, an old schoolmate of mine." + +Miss Bird rose with a frightened air, dropped her eyes, blushed deeply, +half extended her hand, and half withdrew it again, and stammered out, +"Good-morning, sir!" which was not a very felicitous greeting, the time of +day being near sunset. + +Mr. Bently acknowledged the introduction with rather a stately bow, gave +the person before him a calm and exhaustive glance, protruded his under +lip very slightly, without meaning to, and walked to the further end of +the room. + +"Why need people be such fools?" he muttered, half philosophical, half +impatient. He had been, as all learned and even merely clever people must +be, too much looked on as an ogre by the simple. It was rather provoking +to see people shaking at his approach, as if he were going to compel them +to talk Greek and calculus, or have their lives. + +As the gentleman seated himself in an arm-chair before a delightful bay- +window, and facing the window, there was another addition to the company, +and--enter our hero! + +Reader, John! + +A longish, curly-haired quadruped with bright dark eyes full of merriment +and kindliness, and teeth so beautifully white and even that it would be a +privilege to be bitten by them. Of course he has undergone those +improvements which man finds it necessary to make in the old-fashioned +plan of the Creator, and his clipped ears stand up pointed and pert, and +his clipped tail is indeed less a tail than an epigram. But the bounding +grace of his motions no scissors can curtail. + +Do not imagine that John has entered the room properly, and stood still to +be presented and described. Far from it. He bounced in through the window, +as though shot from a mortar, and, while we have been writing this brief +sketch of his person, has flown into the learned gentleman's arms, kissed +him enthusiastically a dozen times, pawed his hair into fearful disorder, +made believe bite his nose and hands, with the utmost care not to hurt him +in the least, pulled one end of his cravat out of knot, and threatened to +overturn him, chair and all, by drawing back and rushing at him again like +a little blue and yellow battering-ram. His manner was, indeed, so +overpowering that Mr. Bently had half a mind to be vexed, and could not +help being disconcerted. His affection for dogs was entirely Platonic, and +he had a theory that bipeds and quadrupeds should have separate houses +built for them; but this creature had struck him as being the most honest +and sensible being in the house, and had, moreover, taken to him. + +Miss Bird looked askance at the scene in the bay-window, and Mrs. Clay +looked askance at Miss Bird, and wondered at her impudence and folly. Bird +had blushed and dropped her eyes when she was introduced to the gentleman, +and she was now watching him out of the corners of her eyes. Bird was an +old maid, with a moderate annuity; Mr. Bently was an old bachelor, with +next to nothing beside brains and a name. Bird must be set to rights. So +much the lady's actions told of her thoughts. + +"I wish I dared send for Marian Willis here," she whispered +confidentially, watching the effect of her words. "Nothing would please me +better than to bring those two together again. But Cousin Bently would +suspect my drift, and, as likely as not, start off at once. Nothing annoys +him so much as to see that any one is trying to get him married. Marian is +in every way suitable, and between you and me, dear, I think they would +both be glad to have a mediator, only they are too proud to own it. +Everybody thought about ten years ago that they were engaged, and they +certainly were in a fair way to be, when some lovers' quarrel occurred, +and they parted. You have never seen Miss Willis, have you?" + +Yes; Bird had seen her at Miss Melicent Yorke's wedding, and she was the +grandest looking lady there. She wore a black velvet dress, buttoned up +high with diamonds, and not another jewel about her. She had a pink half- +open camellia in her bosom, and a wide-open one in her hair. Clara Yorke +said that the beautiful plainness of Miss Willis' toilet made everybody +else look all tags and ends. She gave the bride a rare engraving of some +picture of The Visitation, which Miss Melicent didn't half like, because +the S. Elizabeth was on her knees, and because there was a crown carved in +the frame just over the Virgin's head. But the bridegroom had reconciled +her to it, saying that motherhood is a crown to any woman. Mrs. Edith +Yorke, Carl's wife, who is now abroad, was very fond of Miss Willis, and +used to call her "Your Highness." + +"Oh! their intimacy was because Mr. Carl Yorke was a Catholic," interposed +Mrs. Clay rather abruptly. + +When Bird got talking of the Yorkes, she never knew when to stop; and the +subject was not pleasant to her listener. Mrs. Clay had tried to be +intimate with the family, and had signally failed. Always kind and +courteous, there still seemed to be an invisible crystalline wall between +them and her. + +"Marian's religion is her one fault. It may be possible that she and +Cousin Bently disagreed about that, though it would be hard to find out +what he believes, or if he believes anything. He defends every religion +you attack, and attacks every religion you defend." + +"But do you think she would marry him?" asked Bird incredulously; and her +glance toward the window became depreciatory and critical, instead of +awful. + +Mr. Bently, as a learned man, was to be regarded with fear and admiration; +but as a bridegroom--that was another thing. + +"Why, she is handsome and rich." + +"What if she is?" asked the other tartly. "It only makes her more +suitable. But she is not rich, though she lives with a rich old uncle, who +may leave her something. She is in every way suited to Cousin Bently. He +would never marry an inferior woman." + +This last assertion Mrs. Clay made very positively, for the reason that +she was mortally afraid it was not true. Her private opinion was that Mr. +Bently must have been very lonely in his bachelor lodgings before he came +to visit her, and that he might easily be induced to marry even Bird, +rather than live alone any longer. + +Meantime, the object of their conversation, having put the vociferous John +away, and induced him to lie at his feet, instead of pervading his neck +and face, sat gazing out through the window. He certainly was not an +eminently beautiful man, neither was he a pink of nicety in his dress, +though he abhorred untidiness in others, particularly in women. His form +was rather fine, but his features were too strong for grace, his hair was +growing gray, and his teeth were discolored by his odious beloved tobacco. +There was something a little neglected in his appearance. Evidently he +needed some one with authority to remind him, when occasion demanded, that +his cravat was horribly awry, that he had forgotten to smooth his hair +down since the last time he combed it up with his ten fingers, and that, +really, that collar must come off. In fine, he needed an indulgent wife, +who would look out for him constantly, but with discretion, never +intruding the cravat and collar question into his sublime moments. + +Was he conscious of something lacking in his life, that his expression was +less the gravity of the man of thought than the sadness of the lonely man? +Something ailed him--physical sickness, no doubt, for his face was flushed, +and his eyes heavy--but some trouble of the mind also. He looked across the +lawn, that was bounded by a dense line of autumn-colored trees, with a sky +of brilliant clearness arching over. Betwixt sapphire and jasper the low +purple dome of a mountain pushed up, making a background for a shining +cross that might be suspended in air for any support visible to him who +gazed on it. But he had seen that cross before, and his mind, leaping over +the few intervening miles, followed down from its sunlighted tip and +touched a slim gray tower and a vine-covered church, and, looking through +the gay rose-window over the chancel, saw a tiny lambent flame floating in +and fed by sacred oil of olives. Mentally he stood before the church door, +saw the grove of beeches that hid it from the road, saw through those +heavy boughs the green slope of a lawn near by and the mansion that +crowned its summit. But in one respect the eyes of the seer were less true +to the present than to the past, for they beheld roses, instead of autumn +colors, wreathing pillar, porch, and balcony. + +In this house Marian Willis lived. He sat and recollected all his +intercourse with her, from the first pleasant dawn of friendly regard and +sympathy, growing up to something brighter and closer, yet scarcely +defined, to its sudden extinguishment. His acquaintance with her had been +like a day that breaks in silent and cloudless light, and is shut in by a +cold and smothering fog before its noon. What had been expressed to her of +all that sweetness he found in her society? What to him of the pleasure +she seemed to feel in his? Nothing that had other utterance than silent +looks and actions. What had separated them? A mist, a fog, an impalpable +yet irresistible power. Some tiny wedge had been inserted that gave a +chance for pride to rush in and thrust their lives apart. There had been a +slight reserve that grew to coldness and thence to alienation. Who does +not know how those many littles make a mickle? Possibly a certain gallant +officer, just home from the wars, with his arm in a sling, and a sabre- +scar across his temple, had had something to do with the trouble. +Certainly the last mental picture Mr. Bently had carried away from his +last visit at Mr. Willis' was of this same officer walking in the garden +with Marian Willis leaning on his sound arm, and listening to the tale of +his adventures as women always do and always will listen to soldiers who +bring their wounds to illustrate their stories. + +On that occasion, Mr. Bently had returned to his cousin's house and +behaved in what he considered a very reasonable manner. He locked himself +into his chamber, let in all the light possible, placed himself before the +mirror, and critically examined the reflection he saw there. There was no +glorious sabre-wound across his temple, showing where he had once wrestled +with death, and come off conqueror; but, instead, there were long, faint, +horizontal lines beginning to show on his forehead--mementoes of the silent +combat with time, and of anxious quest in search of hidden truth. There +were no crisp, fair curls shining over his head; the brown hair was +straight and short, and here and there a white hair rewarded the search +for it. The soldier's large violet eyes flashed like jewels; but these +eyes in the mirror were no brighter than wintry skies, a calm, steady blue +that a planet might look through, perhaps, but that were not used to +lightning. The soldier was clad in a trim uniform that set off well a form +of manly grace, the stripe that glimmered down the leg, the band, like a +lady's bracelet, that bound the sleeve, the golden eagle outspread on +either shoulder, all helping to make a gallant picture; the raiment +reflected with pitiless fidelity by the mirror before him was decidedly +neutral. No one could call it picturesque nor even elegant of its kind. It +was simply calculated to escape censure. + +Having made a full survey and, as he thought, a fair comparison, this +self-elected judge then pronounced sentence on the person whose reflection +he gazed at. + +"You are a fool!" he said, with a conviction too deep for bitterness. +"What is there in you that a fair and charming woman could prefer? Bah! +She prizes you as she does those vellum Platos and Homers that she admires +because others do, but cannot read a word of. When she sinks into her arm- +chair for that hour of rest before dressing for dinner, does she take with +her a book of Greek or of logic? No; she reads the poet or the novelist. +You have nothing to do with her more intimate life." + +Thus had the scholar decided, gazing at his own reflection in the mirror, +seeing there only the shell of the man, and that not at its best, at its +worst rather. The kindling of intelligence, the scintillating of sharp +intellectual pursuit, the soft radiance which dawning love gave him when +he was shone upon by the beloved object--those he saw not. He saw only a +fool. + +So far, so good. But he had not finished the work. A fool may be +miserable, may be ruined by his folly, even while owning it. He must not +only prove the vanity of hoping, but the vanity of loving. He must remove +the halo from his idol's brow, not rudely, but with all the coolness and +gentleness of reason. What, after all, were beauty and grace, a sweet +voice and smile, and gracious speaking? He set himself to analyze them, +physiologically, chemically, and morally. + +So the botanist analyzes a flower, and when he has destroyed its ravishing +perfume, and that exquisite combination which constituted its +individuality--a combination man can separate, but which only God can +form--he points to the fragments, and says, "That is a rose!" + +But suppose that, even while he speaks, those withering atoms should stir +and brighten, the anthers should gather again their golden pollen, and +hang themselves once more on each slender filament, the petals blush anew, +and rustle into fragrant crowding circles, and a most rosy rose should +rise triumphantly before him! + +Some such experience had Mr. Bently when he had finished his work of +demolition. Turning coldly away from the ruins of what had been so fair, +he walked to the window to take breath, and saw there before him the +living woman complete, her soul welding with immortal fire every +characteristic and mood into a being irresistibly lovely, baffling, +and--disdainful. She stood in the garden where Mrs. Clay had purposely +detained her beneath his window, and she stood there unwillingly. Only a +social necessity had brought her to the house, and she had determined that +she would not, if it could be helped, meet that gentleman who, from being +a daily visitor of her own, had suffered three days to pass during which +he had once or twice talked with her uncle over the gate, but had never +approached her. + +Since that hour when, looking from his window, he had seen her sail past +without raising her eyes, Mr. Bently had been haunted at times by two +antagonistic visions--the rose dissected, which he viewed with +indifference, succeeded by the rose full-blown, triumphant in unassailable +sweetness. + +He thought it all over now as he sat looking out of Mrs. Clay's eastern +bay-window. And having thought it over once, it began to go through his +mind again, and still again. The various scenes passed, one by one, +slowly, like persons in a procession, and he gazed at them from first to +last; and there was the first again! He had had enough of it, but it would +not stop. His head was aching, and feeling somewhat light besides. He +pressed his forehead with his hands, and tried to think of something else, +even if it were no more pleasant subject than the cold he must have taken +to make him so sore from head to foot. But still that procession moved +with accelerating speed. He spoke to John, tired and annoyed himself a +little with the creature's antics, then leaned back in his chair, and let +his brain whirl. + +Certainly he was ill; but nothing else was certain. Whether to go or stay, +to speak or remain silent, he could scarcely decide. When dinner was +announced, instinct kept him conventional. He ate nothing, but he went +through all the proper forms, with no more abstraction than might be +attributed to his intellectual oddities. But dinner, with its inanities, +over, he made haste to escape to his own room. + +"Going out for a walk, cousin?" asked Mrs. Clay, as he passed her. + +How the trivial question irritated him! He bowed, afraid to utter a word, +lest it should be an offensive one. His nerves felt bare, his teeth on +edge. + +Miss Bird looked more deeply than her friend had, and in the one timid +glance she gave the gentleman saw a painful trouble underneath his cool +exterior. + +"I hope he didn't hear what we were saying of him before dinner," she +remarked apprehensively. + +"No, indeed!" was the confident response. "He scarcely hears what you say +to him, still less what is said of him." + +"But he looked displeased," persisted the anxious Bird. + +Mrs. Clay cast a sarcastic glance on her subordinate. "My dear," she said +with decision, "the less you occupy yourself with my cousin's feelings, +the better for you. Your solicitude will be quite thrown away." + +Bird sighed faintly, and resigned herself to being snubbed. + +Mr. Bently walked up-stairs slowly, dreading to be alone, and shut himself +into his room; and, when there, desolation settled upon him. It is not +pleasant to be sick in one's own home, with loving and solicitous friends +surrounding one with their cares, and taking every task from the weak +hands; it is still less pleasant when, though friends are near, they are +powerless to lift the burden which only those helpless hands can carry; +but how far more miserable, how far more cruel than any other desolation +on earth, is it when sickness falls upon one who must work, and the sick +one is not only oppressed by the burden of duties unperformed, but is +himself a burden, coldly and grudgingly tended, or tended not at all? Mr. +Bently knew well the extent of his cousin's friendship, and the worth of +her Chinese compliments, and he would far rather have fallen in the +street, and been left to the tender mercies of strangers, than fall ill in +her house. + +Morning came, and it was breakfast-time, by no means an early hour. Mrs. +Clay had put off the meal half an hour on her cousin's account. "He has at +least one polite habit--he does not rise early," she said. "But then he is +as regular as a clock in his late hour." + +He was not prompt this morning, however, for they waited ten minutes after +breakfast was on the table, and rang a second bell, and still their +visitor did not appear. + +Miss Bird suggested that he had looked unwell the evening before, and +might be unable to come down. + +"Really, how thoughtful you are!" Mrs. Clay said with cutting emphasis. "I +had quite forgotten. Perhaps, my son, you will go up and see if Miss Bird +is right." + +"My son" objected to being made a messenger of. "If the old fellar wanted +to sleep, let him sleep. Don't you say so, Clem?" + +Clementina always agreed with her brother; the two prevailed, and the "old +fellar" was left to sleep, or toss and moan, or be consumed with fever and +thirst, or otherwise entertain himself as he or fate should choose, while +the family breakfasted at their leisure. + +It is scarcely worth while to put Clementina and Arthur Clay in print. +They are insignificant and, in a small way, disagreeable objects, and +their like is often met with to the annoyance of many. The mental +ignorance and lack of capacity which we lose sight of when they are +overmantled by the loveliness of good-will, in such as these become +contemptible by being placed on pedestals of presumption and ill-nature, +and hateful when they are set as obstacles and stumbling-blocks in the way +of souls who would fain walk and look upward. + +Breakfast over, and no Mr. Bently appearing, Mrs. Clay felt called on to +make inquiries, and, accordingly, dispatched a servant to her cousin's +door, while she herself listened at the foot of the stairs. She heard a +knock, but no reply, then a second knock, followed by the servant's voice, +as if in answer to some one within. + +"Paper under the door, sir? Yes, sir!" + +She was half way up the stairs by this time, and snatched the slip of +paper which the man had found pushed out under Mr. Bently's door. "What in +the world can be the matter? Where are my eye-glasses? Cousin Bently is +such a frightful writer that, really--" + +While the lady is adjusting her glasses, and her children and companion +are gathering about her, we will read this document, for there will be no +time afterward. It is short, and is strongly scented with camphor. + +"I am ill, and, it is possible, may have small-pox. It has been where I +was a fortnight ago. Keep away from me, and send for a doctor." + +Confusion ensued. Screams resounded from the parlor; orders and counter- +orders were given, only one fixed idea penetrating that chaos--to get away +from the house as quickly as possible. Carriages were got out, silver and +valuables piled into them by Bird, who alone would go upstairs, and who +was made to do everything, and in less than half an hour the whole family +started for the city. The servants, all but the gardener, had already +fled. + +"But who is to take care of Mr. Bently?" Bird asked, pausing at the +carriage door. + +"I shall give the gardener orders to get a doctor and nurse," Mrs. Clay +said impatiently, fuming with selfish terror. + +"But I'm not afraid," Bird hesitated. "I've been vaccinated. And it's hard +to leave him alone." + +"Nonsense!" cried the lady. "I shall allow nothing of the sort. It is not +necessary, and, besides, it is not proper. Do get in, if you are going to +town. It really seems to me, Miss Bird, that you are altogether too much +interested in Mr. Bently." + +Then, at last, Bird perceived what was in the speaker's mind, and, as most +women would in such circumstances, laid down her better impulses at the +feet of meanness. Crushed and ashamed, and, at the same time, weakly and +despairingly angry, she took her place in the carriage, and listened in +silence to the lamentations and complaints of her companions. + +"How could Cousin Bently do such a thing? How could he come to me when he +knew he had been so exposed?" + +That Mr. Bently had only learned from the paper of the evening before to +what he had been exposed, and had only thought during the night what might +be the meaning of his illness, the lady did not inquire into. + +At the garden gate stood James, the gardener. Mrs. Clay stopped long +enough to give him hurried directions to get a doctor and nurse, and do +all that was necessary for the invalid, then ordered the coachman to drive +on. + +"I hope John isn't with us," one of the young ones said presently. "He was +round Cousin Bently all day yesterday." + +No; Bird, recollecting that fact also, had shut John into one of the +chambers, and left him there. She ventured to hope that he would not be +left to starve, but no one responded to her merciful wish. + +The cause of all this terror and confusion had seen the departure of the +family without being surprised at it. He had not undressed, but had lain +on a sofa all night, and, when morning came, had written the warning which +proved so effectual, and then sank into an arm-chair near the window, +longing for air. He expected the family to keep away from him, and was +neither sorry nor indignant that they had removed themselves still +further. Of course a doctor would be sent, and of course there was some +one to take care of him. He sat and waited for that some one to enter. +Perhaps it was James. He saw the gardener shut and fasten the gate after +the carriage went out, and he heard the locking of the stable door. He +waited, but no one came. Well, the house must be attended to first, and he +would be patient, though thirst, and alternate fever and chills, and +racking pains were tormenting him. He was annoyed, too, by John's efforts +to escape from the next room, and would have gone to release the creature +but for the fear of spreading contagion. + +A distant door opened and shut; he heard a distant heavy step, and thanked +God that relief and companionship were at hand. But the sounds ceased, and +no one came near him. He saw James, the gardener, laden with packages, +hurry down the avenue, and disappear into the public road, and a thrill of +fear shot through him. The scene outside swam before his eyes, and grew +dark for a moment. Could it be that they had all gone away, and left him +to die alone? No; he could not believe it! James had perhaps gone to bring +the doctor. He would wait patiently, since wait he must. + +An hour passed, and no one came. There was no sound in the house but that +occasional whining and barking from the next room; no sound outside except +when a carriage rolled swiftly by in the road. He saw no person coming. It +was impossible to endure that thirst any longer. He went into the +bathroom, and wet his hands and face, and drank of the tepid water there. +His head reeled at sight of the stairs, and he did not dare to attempt to +descend. Returning to his chamber, he fell on to the sofa, and, for the +first time in his life, fainted; coming back to life again as though +emerging from outer darkness, but not into light--into a sickening half- +light, rather. So hours passed, and he knew without a doubt that he was +utterly deserted, and that a lonely and terrible death threatened him. +Could he do nothing to avert it? He recollected that Mrs. Clay had a +medicine closet in the bathroom. Possibly, if he could reach it, something +might be found there to relieve, if not to cure, him. What mountains +molehills can change into sometimes! This man, so strong and full of life +but a day before, now lay and gave his whole mind to planning how he +should save himself a few steps in going to the bathroom again, how he +could avoid the stairs, lest he should fall, and whether he could this +time cross the corridor to release that troublesome, whining dog. +Whenever, weary and confused, he lost himself a moment in a half sleep, +that whining and scratching assumed terrible proportions in his +imagination, and became the fierce efforts of wild beasts to reach him. He +started up now and then, with wide-open eyes, to assure himself that he +was not in a menagerie; to fix in his mind the picture of that airy +chamber, with its clear tints of green and amber, its open windows showing +the long veranda outside, and the bright perspective of foliage and sky. + +But when his eyelids drooped again, and he sank back into half sleep and +half fainting, back came the painful phantoms to torment him till they +were once more chased away for a time. + +Toward evening he roused himself to make that difficult pilgrimage of +fifty paces in search of healing and refreshment, bathed eagerly his face +and head, and found his cousin's medicine closet. But when he had reached +that, his strength was nearly exhausted. He had only enough left to take +down the laudanum bottle, and get back to his room with it. Laudanum might +dull this pain, and quiet the excited nerves. Once more John must wait. He +could not stop to release him. + +The room in which the dog was confined had a window on the balcony that +ran past Mr. Bently's room. That window was open, but the blind was shut, +and John, despairing of escape through the door, had turned all his +efforts toward unfastening this blind, and had several times been near +success, when the spring, flying back, had defeated him. + +The invalid's bath of cold water had refreshed him somewhat. He hated to +take the laudanum. He had never been an intemperate man, and had always +shrunk from swallowing anything which could in the least degree isolate +his mind from the control of his will. He would bear the pain a little +longer. + +He lay there and thought, and visions of happy homes rose up before him. +At this hour of early twilight, the lamps were being lighted, or people +sat by firelight, and children, grown languid and sleepy with the long +day's play, leaned silent on their mothers' laps. At this hour, men of +thought, intellectual workers, laid aside the weightier labors of their +profession to indulge in an exhilarating contention of wits, so much +happier than other workers, in that their recreations do not retard, but +rather accelerate their work. It is but dancing at evening with +Terpsichore, or pacing with Calliope along the margin of the same road +which he had travelled by day in a dusty chariot, or walked encumbered by +his armor. In their lighter intellectual contests, what sparks were +sometimes struck out to live beyond the moment that gave them birth! What +random beams of light shot now and then into seeming nothingness, and +revealed an unsuspected treasure! + +All these scenes of social comfort and delight rose before the sufferer's +mind with tantalizing distinctness, fairer and fuller in the vision than +he had ever known the reality to be. He felt like a houseless wanderer +who, freezing and starving in the street, sees through lighted windows the +warmth and joy of the home circle. + +Mr. Bently was not a pious man. He had a deep sentiment of reverence, and +a firm belief that somewhere there is an inflexible truth that deserves an +obedience absolute and unquestioning. But controversy had spoiled him for +religious feeling, which is, perhaps, too delicate for rough handling, and +in the clash of warring creeds some freshness and spontaneity had been +lost to his convictions. Reaching truth, winning battles for truth, he had +been like a traveller at the end of a long journey, when he scarcely cares +in his weariness for the goal attained, but must needs eat and sleep. He +had spent too much time and strength in wiping away the mire flung on the +garments of religion to be any longer quick in enthusiastic homage. "Pity +'tis, 'tis true." The butterfly you would save from the net loses the down +from its wings with your most careful handling; the friend you defend from +calumny you dethrone even while defending. The feeling that dictated that +brutal egotism, "Caesar's wife must not be suspected," dwells in a less +arrogant form in most human hearts, and rare indeed is that soul which +sets its love as high, after even the most triumphantly refuted +accusation, as it was before. + +Desertion and imminent death chilled this man's heart, and he had no mind +to turn to God, save in a cold recognition of his power and wisdom. Love +entered not into his thoughts, but despair did. + +The pain increased, the dizziness came back. He stretched his hand for the +glass and vial of laudanum, and tried with a shaking hand to pour out what +he could guess to be an ordinary potion. There was no reason why he should +suspect that that bottle might have been standing in the house so long as +to have made even the smallest dose of its contents deadly. As he +measured, and tried to recollect how much he should take, pouring out +unknowingly what would have been for him Lethe indeed, a louder rattle and +bang at the blind of the next room proclaimed the success of the four- +footed prisoner. There was a scampering on the veranda, a dog's head, +eager and bright-eyed, was thrust in at the window of the sick-room, then, +with an almost human cry of joy, John flew at its occupant. + +Away went bottle and glass, breaking and spilling--no laudanum for Mr. +Bently that day. Down went Mr. Bently among the sofa pillows, prostrated +by the unexpected onset; and love, and delight, and absolute devotion, in +the form of an uproarious Skye terrier unconscious and uncaring for risks, +nestled in the breast of the deserted man, were all over his face and +neck, and through his hair, and speaking as plainly as though human speech +had been their interpreters. + +When the man comprehended, recovering from his first confusion, reason and +endurance stood aside and veiled their faces, and a greater than they took +their place. + +Through a gush of tears which were but the spray of a subsiding wave of +bitterness, this soul raised its eyes, and beheld a new light. It lost +sight of the Almighty in a vision of the Heavenly Father. + +The flight that followed was painful, but not unsoothed. The dog, +perceiving at once that his friend was ill, became quiet. He lay with head +pressed close to the restless arm, and, if the sick man moaned, he +answered with a pitying whine. Once he left the room, and wandered through +the whole house in search of help, whined and scratched at every closed +door, and, finding no one, came back with an air of distress and +perplexity. Later, when Mr. Bently seemed very ill, John ran out onto the +balcony, and barked loudly, as if calling for relief. + +Morning came again, and the sick man's pain gave place to a deathlike +faintness, resulting from lack of nourishment. For thirty-six hours +nothing had passed his lips but water, and that no longer ran from the +faucet when he tried it. He crept down-stairs, stair by stair, holding by +the balusters, like a little child. There was no water to be seen in the +dining-room, and he did not know where to find any. He reached the parlor, +lay down on the floor, and prayed for death or for life--anything to put an +end to that nightmare of misery. It seemed that death was coming. His +hands and feet grew cold with an unnatural chill, and, though the morning +sunshine poured through the windows, all looked dim to his eyes. His +senses seemed to be slowly receding, without pain, without any power or +wish on his part to recall them. He lay and waited for death. + +And while he waited, as one hears sounds in a dream he heard a door open +and shut, then a quick, light step that ran up-stairs. John, standing over +his friend, left him, and rushed to the parlor door, barking wildly, but +was unable to get out, the door having swung to. In vain he tried it with +his paws, and thrust his small nose into the crack. It was too heavy for +him to move. + +Suddenly, while Mr. Bently gazed with languid, half unconscious eyes at +the creature, the door was pushed wide open, and a woman stood on the +threshold. She was neither young nor old, but simply at the age of +perfection, which is a variable age, according to the person. Her face was +a full oval, but white now as hoar-frost. All its life seemed to centre in +the large hazel eyes that were piercing with a terrified search. She wore +her fair hair like a crown, piled high above the forehead in glossy coils +like sculptured amber. Over one temple a black and gold moth was poised, +as though it had just alighted there, its wings widespread. The long black +folds of a velvet robe fell about her superb form, sweeping far back from +her swift but suddenly arrested step. Scintillating fringes of gold +quivered against the large white arms, edged the short Greek jacket, and +ran in a single flash down either side of the train. A diamond cross lay +like a sunbeam on her bosom, a single diamond twinkled in each small ear. + +There was but an instant's pause, then she crossed the room quickly, and +knelt by him. + +"My God! my God!" she murmured, and lifted his head on her arm. "What +fiendish cruelty!" + +Her touch and voice recalled him to himself. He tried to put her away. +"Leave me, Marian, I beg of you! Do not endanger yourself for me!" + +But even while bidding her go, every nerve in him grew alive with the +joyous conviction that he would not be obeyed, and that, danger or no +danger, she would not desert him. Here were strength, help, and the power +to command. She brought the world with her, this queenly woman, who had +not even snatched the gloves from her hands since last night's ball, but +had hurried to seek news of him, after the first confused rumor, to call +doctor and nurse, to rush to him herself with all the speed her panting +horses could make. + +"Leave you? Never!" + +He asked no questions, but resigned himself. How delightful the sickness, +how sweet the pain, that led to this! How thrice blessed the desertion +that gave her to him! + +In half an hour, the doctor had come and given his decision. Mr. Bently's +illness was merely a violent cold with fever, and a few days of careful +nursing would make all right. In another half hour, he was established in +a pleasant chamber in Mr. Willis' house, with a nurse in close attendance, +the whole family anxiously ministrant, John an immovable fixture in the +sick-room; and, later, Mrs. Marcia Clay besieging the house for news of +poor dear Cousin Bently, and protesting and explaining to the very coldest +of listeners, declaring that nothing but her duty to her family, etc.; and +what was the meaning of that broken bottle and glass, and ineradicable +laudanum stain on the carpet in her house? Was it possible that Cousin +Bently had thought of taking any of that terrible stuff that she meant to +have thrown away ages before? And would they bring down John? Arthur had +asked for him. + +Some one went to Mr. Bently's room for John, but came back without him. +The invalid was reported to have flown into something like a passion on +learning the messenger's errand, and to have held the dog firmly in his +arms. + +John was his! No one else should have him. Whatever crime it might be +called to refuse to give him up--stealing, embezzling, false +imprisonment--he was ready to be accused and convicted of it, and would go +to jail for it with the dog in his arms. + +Mrs. Clay was enchanted to be able to oblige her cousin in such a trifle, +and would he speak freely when he wanted anything? and then went home and +told all her family in confidence that Mr. Bently was a raving maniac. + +Reader, according to our promises at the beginning of this history, we +should stop here. The scene has changed, the time already exceeds twenty- +four hours, and only the characters remain the same. But we have not done. +There is something more which we are pining to tell. Shall we stop, then, +and perish in silence, rather than transgress rules made by a people "dead +and done with this many a year," whose whole country, with themselves on +it, could have been thrown into one of our inland seas without making it +spill over? No! Perish the unities! + +_Scene II._--Large parlor, rosy-tinted all through with reflections from +sunset, from firelight, and from red draperies. After-dinner silence +pervading, open folding-doors giving a view through a suite of rooms, in +the furthest of which an old gentleman sleeps in his arm-chair. Or, +perhaps, it is a picture of a library, with an old gentleman asleep in it. +The stillness is perfect enough for that. Mr. Bently, convalescent, first +dinner down-stairs since his illness, stands near a window looking out, +but watchful of the inside of the parlor, and of a lady who sits at an +embroidery-frame near the same window. The lady is superficially dignified +and tranquil, but there is an unusual color in the cheeks, and a slight +unsteadiness in the fingers, which tell her secret conviction that +something is going to happen. This is the first time the two have met +since Miss Willis found the deserted man lying half senseless on Mrs. +Clay's parlor floor. + +He is thinking of that time now, and that an acknowledgment is due, and +wondering how it is to be made, half a mind to be angry, rather than +grateful, for the service. Such is man. All the bitterness of his lonely +life rises up before him. Gray hairs are on his head, lines of age mark +his face, but his heart protests against being set aside as too old for +anything but dry speculation and love of abstract truth. + +"I have been seeking for some proper terms in which to express to you my +grateful sense of your humanity in coming to me when I was left sick and +alone, but I cannot find them," he said at length, facing her. + +"There is no need to say anything about it," she replied quietly, setting +a careful silken stitch. "I could not have done otherwise." + +Having begun, the gentleman could not stop, or would not. + +"I am sure you meant well, but did you do well?" he went on. "Could you +not have been content to send the doctor, without coming yourself? Did you +reflect that you were apparently incurring peril, and that for a man who +had a heart as well as a head, and, worse yet, for a man whose heart had +for years striven vainly to forget you? You have deprived me of the shield +and support of even attempted indifference. I can no longer try to forget +you, or think of you coldly, without the basest ingratitude." + +Will the reader pardon Mr. Bently for expressing himself so grammatically? +It was through the force of a long habit, which even passion could not +break. It is true that, according to Gerald Griffin, Juno herself, when +angry, spoke bad Latin; but then, Juno was a woman. + +_Allons, donc._ We are ourselves interested in this conversation, and are +pleased to observe that, though the speaker's moods and tenses are not +flagrant, his eyes and cheeks are. + +The lady glanced up swiftly with that smile, half shy, half mirthful, with +which a woman who knows her power, and means to use it kindly, receives +the acknowledgment of it. + +"Why should you think coldly of me, or forget me?" she asked. + +Mr. Bently met her glance with stern eyes. "Does a man willingly submit to +slavery?" he demanded. He had not suspected Marian Willis of coquetry. + +She looked down at her work again, the smile fading, but the mouth still +sweet, slowly threaded her needle with a rose-pink floss, and said as +slowly, "I do not wish you to forget me." + +One who has seen the sun strike through a heavy fog, stop a moment, then +fling it asunder, all in silence, without breath of breeze, but making a +bright day of a dark one, knows how Mr. Bently's clouded face cleared at +those words, and the look of her who spoke them. + +No more was said then. Enough is as good as a feast, and both tasted in +that moment the full sweetness of a happiness the more perfect because +apparently incomplete. + +On one point our mind is made up--this story shall not end with a marriage. +A marriage there was, at seven o'clock one spring morning, in the little +suburban church, with only three visible witnesses; and the marriage feast +was--be it said with all reverence and adoration--manna from heaven, the +Bread of Angels! + +Mrs. Clay was, of course, shocked at this affair. Where was the +_trousseau_, where the fuss, the presents that might have been, the +rehearsal at a fashionable church, the organ music, the crowd of dear +criticising friends, the reception, cake and wine, journey, what not--all +the parade, weariness, and extravagance which have so often changed a +sacrament into a ceremony? Where, indeed? They had no existence outside of +the lady's disappointed wishes. + +She did not even see what she called this "positively shabby affair," and +we will not dwell on it. Turn we to the final scene. + +Does the reader object that John bears too small a part in the story named +for him? On the contrary, the whole story is because of John. You have, +perhaps, seen a painting of the procession at the coronation of George +IV., pages and pages of magnificent persons, names, and costumes, the +brilliant pageant of the long-extended _queue_, all because of one person +in it. The figure is rather large, apparently, for use in this place, but +only apparently; for John's record is better than any king's, in that it +is unstained. + +A year has passed. In the midst of a fair area of gardens and trees stands +a pleasant house. Only a window or two are open, for the spring is not yet +far advanced. Underneath a large old pine, tree not far from the porch, a +hole has been dug, and at one side of it stands Mr. Bently, spade in hand, +and at the other his wife. This little pit is lined with green boughs, and +the lady stoops and carefully and soberly adds one more. On the heap of +earth thrown up rests a box. + +This much is visible to a young man who comes strolling up the path from +the gate. He pauses, and looks on in astonishment. He recollects of having +heard somewhere that Cousin Bently's dog John was accidentally shot, and +that Mrs. Bently cried about it. Can it be possible that they are making a +funeral over John? That would be too funny. + +Mr. Bently stooped, took the box in his arms, and placed it carefully down +among the green boughs. Standing upright then, he wiped his eyes, and +muttered a trembling, "Poor fellow!" + +"Good-morning!" said a brisk voice at his elbow. "I'm sorry Johnnie met +with a mishap. Are you burying him here?" + +The vapid, mean, supercilious face gave them both such a shock that they +reddened and frowned. No one could have been less welcome at that moment +than Arthur Clay. + +Mrs. Bently answered his question with a brief, "Yes." + +"Oh! well, there are dogs enough in the world," said the young man, +meaning to be consoling. + +"There are puppies enough!" muttered Mr. Bently, and began shovelling the +earth savagely into the grave. + +"Please go into the house, and wait for us, Arthur," the lady said, with +polite decision. She had no mind to have this last touching rite spoiled +by such an intrusion. + +But young Mr. Clay was in an obliging mood. "Thank you; I'd just as lief +stay, and rather. I never attended a canine funeral before." + +There was a momentary silence, then Mrs. Bently spoke again, with still +more decision and far less suavity: "On the whole, you must excuse us from +seeing you any longer this morning. If you had gone to the door, the +servant would have told you that we do not receive any one to-day." + +The young man gave an angry laugh. "Oh! certainly! I wouldn't for the +world intrude on your sorrow. Good-morning! It's a pity, though, that dogs +are not immortal, isn't it? You might have John canonized." + +Mr. Bently flashed his eyes round at the speaker. "What!" he thundered, +"_you_ immortal, and _my_ DOG NOT!" + +If they had been two Parrott guns, instead of two eyes and a mouth, Mr. +Arthur Clay could not have retreated more precipitantly. + +The grave was filled in and covered over with boughs, two sighs were +breathed over it, then the couple walked, arm in arm, slowly toward the +house. + +"He was a perfect creature!" Mr. Bently said, after a silence. + +"Yes!" assented the wife. "Only he would bounce at one so." + +"Marian," said her husband solemnly, "if it hadn't been for John's habit +of bouncing at his friends, you would have had no husband." + +It was well meant, but unfortunately worded. The lady pouted, being by no +means an ideal, perfect, pattern woman, but only a natural and charming +one, with varying moods and whims playing, spraylike, over the deeps of +principle and religion. "Don't be too sure of that!" she made answer to +him. + +Mr. Bently never bristled with virtues when his wife made such remarks. He +smiled now, full of kindness. "I meant to say that I should have had no +wife," he corrected himself. + +At that, the pout, which was only a rebellious muscle, not a rebellious +heart, disappeared. "It means the same thing, you most patient of men!" +exclaimed his wife fervently. + +They reached the porch, and stood there a moment, looking back to the +mound under the pine-tree. + +"It is a comfort to think," said the wife, "that for one year of his life +we made him such a happy dog." + +Then they went in, and the door closed behind them. + + + + +The International Congress Of Prehistoric Anthropology And Archaeology. + + +From La Revue Generale De Bruxelles. + +The International Congress of Prehistoric Anthropology and Archaeology held +its sixth meeting at Brussels, in 1872. The idea of this congress +originated in Italy. Some eminent Swiss, Italian, and French naturalists, +assembled at Spezzia in 1865, resolved to hold the first session the +following year at Neufchatel. This meeting, entirely confined to +explorations, created no sensation out of the scientific world, but it was +agreed there should be another at the time of the International Exposition +at Paris in 1867. The congress, thenceforth established, appointed a +committee to organize the next meeting. More than four hundred savants +responded to the invitation. At Paris it was decided to meet again the +next year at Norwich, at the same time as the British Association for the +Advancement of Science. The programme of questions proposed for discussion +at Norwich presents a striking similarity to that at Paris. The congress +held at Copenhagen in 1869 was distinguished by a more local and practical +character than the preceding. Finally, the Congress of Bologna, in 1871, +enlarged still more the extent of its programme; according, however, the +first place to objects that particularly interested Italy. + +The programme of the Congress of Brussels was, so to speak, determined by +M. E. Dupont's important discoveries in the caverns of the province of +Namur, and the questions were drawn up from the Belgian point of view, in +order to give our savants an opportunity of acquainting foreign scientific +men with the researches and facts relating particularly to our country. +Similar proceedings had taken place at Copenhagen and Bologna. But the +programme of Brussels by no means excluded points of general interest. +Here is the list of those proposed: + +I. What discoveries have been made in Belgium to attest the antiquity of +prehistoric man? + +II. What were the manners and pursuits of the people who lived in the +caverns of Belgium? Did their manners and pursuits vary during the +quaternary epoch? What analogy is there between their manners and +pursuits, and those of the troglodyte population in other parts of Western +Europe and of the savages of the present day? + +III. What were the pursuits of the people who inhabited the plains of +Hainault during the quaternary epoch? Can it be proved they held any +communication with their contemporaries of the caverns of the provinces of +Liege and Namur, or with the quaternary peoples of the valleys of the +Somme and the Thames? + +IV. What characterized the age of polished stone in Belgium? What was its +connection with previous ages, and with the age of polished stone in +Western Europe? + +V. What were the anatomical and ethnical characteristics of man in Belgium +during the age of stone? + +VI. What characterized the age of bronze in Belgium? + +VII. What characterized the appearance of iron in Belgium? + +Excursions to the caverns of the valleys of the Lesse, the flint-works of +Spiennes and Mesvin, and the entrenched camp of Hastedon near Namur, +formed a practical demonstration of the problems discussed at the meeting. + +Many illustrious co-workers responded to the invitation of the Committee +of Arrangements. England was represented by Messrs. Prestwich, Owen, the +great palaeontologist, Dawkins, Lubbock, Franks, the Director of the +Department of Antiquities and Ethnography at the British Museum, etc.; +France, by her most eminent anthropologists, archaeologists, and +geologists, Messrs, Quatrefages, Broca, Belgrand, Hebert, De Mortillet and +Bertrand of the Musee de S. Germain, General Faid'herbe, the Marquis de +Vibraye, Cartaillac, De Linas, Doctors Lagneau et Hamy, one President and +the other Secretary of the Society of Anthropology, Deshayes, Gaudry, +Gervais, the Abbes Bourgeois and Delauny, one Superior and the other +Professor at the College of Pont-Levoy, Oppert, the celebrated explorer of +Khorsabat, and many others, among whom we must not omit the inevitable +Mlle. Clemence Royer, at least as a curiosity. The northern countries sent +the founders of prehistoric archaeology in the North--Messrs. Worsaoe, +Engelhardt, De Wichfeld, Steenstrup, Waldemar-Schmidt, from Denmark; +Messrs. Hildebrand, Landberg, Lagerberg, Nillson, D'Oliviecrona, from +Sweden; Italy was brilliantly represented by Messrs. Capellini, Fabretti, +Biondelli, Count Conestabile, Gozzadini, etc.; Spain and Portugal by only +a few; Holland by several, among whom was M. Leemans, Director of the +Museum of Leyden; Austria by Count Wurmbrand; Germany by the Baron de +Ducker, Professors Fraas, of Stuttgart, Schafthausen, of Bonn, the +celebrated Virchow, of Berlin, Lindenschmidt, of Mayence; Switzerland by +Desor, one of the founders of prehistoric archaeology. Belgian science was +represented in the committee by Messrs. d'Omalius d'Halloy, the venerable +President of the congress, Van Beneden, De Witte, Dupont, with the elite +of our savants, attended by a constellation of archaeologists _de +circonstance_ belonging to the various orders of the literary, artistic, +and political world, and even the commercial; for philosophy does not +daunt M. Jourdain in these days. As for the rest, it was a spectacle of no +slight interest to behold the extraordinary concourse of hearers that +thronged the sessions at the ducal palace, attentively listening to +discussions sometimes very abstract, and again participating in the +excursions of the learned assembly with a genuine interest apart from the +mere pleasure of the excursions themselves. In proportion as man adds to +his knowledge of the globe he inhabits, instead of being satisfied, the +greater ardor and interest he manifests to know more. "The surface of both +land and water explored in every sense of the word; mountains measured; +oceans sounded, and their secrets brought to light; inorganic substances +and organized bodies analyzed and described; plants, animals, and the +human races studied under every aspect; historical traditions investigated +and revised; the dead languages brought into use, and the words derived +from them traced back to their original roots--all this is not enough. +Knowing what he is, and with a thousand theories as to his destination, +man wishes to pierce the mystery of his origin; he asks whence he came, +and how he began the career so laboriously pursued, and into which he was +thrust by a destiny of which he had no consciousness."(219) The truths +that we grasp in our day were perhaps only guessed at by the ancients. +Lucretius has drawn a very correct picture, for those days, of the +wretched condition of the earlier races, their struggles with the +elements, and even the primitive weapons of stone which they wrought +before the age of bronze and iron. But this is only a poetical conception +to which must be attached no more importance than it merits. The science +of prehistoric ages then had no existence. This science, scarcely known +twenty years ago, has now quite a literature of its own, several reviews, +and an annual International Congress (in future it will be biennial), +splendid museums in all our capitals, and a society whose labors have +contributed not a little to so prodigious a result--the Society of +Anthropology. + +Some persons are troubled at the discussion of grave and delicate +questions that seem to set revelation and science at variance. As for us, +who can never admit the possibility of a conflict between the Bible and +nature--those two divine revelations--or that they ought ever to be +completely separated, we deeply regret the complete absence of our clergy +at these great sessions, while those of France and Italy were represented +in a brilliant manner. + +"I am well aware," says M. Chabas, in an able preface, "that the +materialistic tendency of savants of very considerable attainments in +anthropology and other branches of prehistoric research, withholds many +men whose concurrence would be of value to science from entering the arena +where such points are discussed." But timid minds are becoming more +reassured. Therefore, as the Abbe Bourgeois happily remarked at the +Congress of Paris, "We shall perhaps have to add to the antiquity of man, +but we ought also to detract from that of fossils." Besides, hitherto, in +spite of so much research, man alone has been found intelligent and with a +moral sense of his acts; and in the animal kingdom there is not a single +proof to confirm even remotely Lamarck's theory of transmutation revived +by Darwin. When so many are appealing to science to the exclusion of God +from the universe, it would be well for others to endeavor to make him +manifest by the aid of science. + +"What!" exclaims Mgr. Meignan, in his brilliant work on _The World and +Primitive Man according to the Bible_, "ought the exegete to make no +account of the progress of human knowledge? Can the savant find neither +profit nor light in the wisdom of Holy Writ? We think otherwise. The +theologian who first studies nature will be better enabled to explain +certain passages of the Bible; and the naturalist and archaeologist, in +their turn, will find it advantageous to study the real meaning of +Genesis." The human mind enters upon a course of examination more or less +legitimate in subjecting religion itself to the trial of controversy; it +is almost a duty imposed on the conscience of all who are not vainly +endowed with reason to enable themselves to give a reason for the belief +that is within them. "The task of the apologist," says the eminent prelate +just quoted, "is never at an end in our restless age." The disagreement +that some seem to apprehend only exists in superficial or sceptical minds. + +If the Bible is not a scientific revelation, neither does it contradict +science, and especially in the bold outlines drawn by Moses. Science, as +it progresses, sets up its landmarks, so to speak, beside the immutable +bounds of faith; it is so with the laws of light, as well as the +fundamental principles of geology. Revelation assigns no limits to the +antiquity of the world, and allows _the beginning_ in which God created it +to recede to as remote a period as is wished, and geology corroborates the +Scripture account of successive creations. Is not the unity of origin of +the human species, distinctly declared in both Testaments, connected with +all the hypotheses that have excited so much opposition in our day? I do +not mean the unity of the human species, a doctrinal question very +different from the other, and not necessarily connected with it. But the +unity of origin of the human race is now taught and demonstrated by the +greater part of those versed in natural history; it is a scientific truth. +As to the existence of man in the tertiary epoch, it is far from certain, +though sustained by many highly respectable men.(220) M. Evans, the +Secretary of the Geological Society of London, whose name is an authority +on things pertaining to anthropology and palaeontology, expressed himself +in these terms at a meeting of the British Association at Liverpool last +year [1871]: "We cannot," said he, "possibly make any prediction as to the +discoveries that still await us in the soil beneath our feet; but we +certainly have no reason to conclude that the most ancient traces of man +on the earth, or even on the soil of Western Europe, have been brought to +light. At the same time, I must confess that the existing evidence of man +in the miocene period, and even in the pliocene, in France (it will be +seen further on that this has since been asserted in Portugal), appears to +me, after the most careful examination on the spot, very far from +convincing." + +Besides, the word _prehistoric_ has only a relative exactness of meaning. +In Belgium, prehistoric man comes down to the century before the Roman +Conquest. A vast number of the monuments and remains so discussed in our +day might be included in the historic period. In most cases, too absolute +a signification is given to the word prehistoric, conveying an idea of +remote antiquity far beyond the bounds of chronology. It is under the +influence of this preconceived opinion that the most distinguished and +independent investigators have allowed themselves to be carried away with +the apparent revelation of an entirely new world. In hearing of the +millions of ages attributed to quaternary man, one feels greatly behind +the times, and asks himself anxiously if there really is a science that +has a good right to make man so old, and that affords means of +ascertaining, as has been stated, what our ancestors were observing in the +heavens on the 29th of January, 11,542 years before Christ. This feeling +of astonishment must be still livelier in those for whom the insoluble +problems of antiquity extend back to less than two thousand years. We do +not know the site of _Alesia_, and we pretend to know the habitat and +manners of villages of more than three hundred thousand years before the +downfall of the Gallic nationality! It should be confessed that the +science which has so recently sprung up, and which has for its object the +study of human labor anterior to the use of metals, is neither so firmly +established nor so positive in its deductions that we should blindly +accept such bold theories. This is one of the reasons that should +encourage more men of serious pursuits to take a part in these debates, as +to which it is allowable to hope that the truth will some day be +discovered at an equal distance from any exaggeration. + +We shall have occasion to return to these questions which occupied the +Congress of Brussels. This preamble appeared necessary as a justification +for confining ourselves to a plain, simple analysis of the proceedings of +the congress--others can review them better than we. + +We will only add one word more. The field for discussion had been prepared +in a wonderful manner by the recent publication of the excellent work in +which the learned and active director of our Royal Museum of Natural +History has condensed his researches.(221) + +The opening session took place the 22d of August. The day was spent in +receptions, speeches of welcome, replies, the installation of the board, +and other official courtesies which we spare the reader. The following +days there were two sessions a day. The morning of the 23d of August was +devoted to the first question in the programme. There was no one better +fitted to develop it than M. Dupont, the Chief Secretary of the congress, +and the most active of its organizers. He had already given a clear +outline of its history in his discourse at the first session of the day +before. It was started in Belgium in 1829, and kept up by the researches +of Schmerling, who may be regarded as the Champollion of prehistoric +anthropology; but our illustrious fellow-citizen was not encouraged in his +discoveries, and it may be said that he was, to a certain degree, a martyr +to the scientific prejudices of his time. His labors, occurring at a time +when Cuvier's authority was at its height, could not counterbalance the +influence of that great genius, who declared that man could not be found +among fossils' bones, and that the vestiges of the human race in the +caverns came under the general rule. No one then could have dreamed of +referring these remains to the epoch of the mammoth, and it was scarcely +admitted, till within a dozen years, that man was contemporary with the +animals of the geological periods which preceded ours. Schmerling, but +little befriended by circumstances, was deceived as to what caused the +introduction of this _debris_ into the caverns. He attributed it to sudden +inundations. Some years later, Mr. Spring opened the way to the true +theory, which allows the reconstruction of the ethnography of geological +epochs; but he could not continue his researches, and it was not till 1861 +that Lartet's report concerning the caverns of Aurillac at length +established a collection of decisive facts. In 1863, M. Dupont was +appointed to explore the caverns of the province of Namur, which gave +promise of discoveries of unusual interest; it was important that our +country, after having taken so large a part in establishing the first +principles of this new science, should not remain inactive in the movement +to which it had led. The immense result of researches continued without +relaxation for seven years, summer and winter, and the valuable remains +thus found, which are the ornament of our principal museum, prove that the +direction of the task could not have been confided to better hands. + +M. Dupont, laying aside the arbitrary classifications that had hitherto +been adopted for determining the antiquity of remains found in caverns, +introduced the geologic method in his researches, which is founded upon +principles almost incontestable and evidences of indubitable truth. The +chronological data furnished by this method are generally of mathematical +exactitude. "With this point to start from," says M. Dupont, "I was sure +of clearly determining the fauna and ethnographical remains of each epoch +to which the objects discovered in the various subterranean explorations +belonged."(222) In pursuing the application of this method, our young and +already illustrious savant was enabled to show the evolution of physical +and biological phenomena, and to reconstruct the ethnography of the age of +stone. Whatever may be thought of the reality of the facts brought +forward, it must be confessed that no ordinary mind could have formed such +bold conceptions. + +After a communication from Dr. Hamy on the flint-works of France and +England at the time of the mammoth, the Abbe Bourgeois discussed the +question of tertiary man. The learned professor's clear, fluent language, +the distinction of his manners, and his open, animated countenance so +completely won the goodwill of the audience that thenceforth, whenever he +spoke, his appearance in the tribune was hailed with unanimous applause. + +The Abbe Bourgeois and M. de Launay, his colleague, are the true heralds +of tertiary man. The chronological discussion they so boldly excite seems +to embarrass them but little; on the other hand, they almost banish the +hope some still seem to cling to of finding the man-monkey. In 1866, M. +Bourgeois described and presented to the Academy of Sciences some wrought +flints found in the tertiary deposits in the commune of Thenay near Pont- +Levoy (Loir-et-Cher). M. Desnoyers had already, in 1863, pointed out bones +found in strata incontestably pliocene, on which were striae, or very +distinct and regularly marked incisions. Worked flints are beginning to be +found, we are assured, in the bottom of the calcareous deposits of Beauce; +that is to say, in chalk. They are identical in form with those found on +the surface; as in other places, there are utensils for cutting, piercing, +scraping, and hammering. Many of these instruments have been injured by +the action of fire. Finally, says the Abbe Bourgeois, "I find in them +almost every proof of man's agency, to wit: after-touches, symmetrical +grooves, grooves artificially made to correspond with natural ones, and +especially the multiplied reproduction of certain forms. This is a +peculiar, unheard-of fact of the highest importance, but, to me, an +indubitable one." M. Bourgeois exhibited to the competent judges assembled +at Brussels what he considered the proofs of the authenticity of his +discovery. To him they are convincing, but what he seeks, above all, is +truth, and he asked that a special committee be appointed to elucidate the +question. This committee pronounced a verdict two days after, without +deciding the point. Of thirty-two specimens presented for examination, +some appeared to them evidently wrought, but most of them were unanimously +rejected. There was no difference of opinion as to M. Bourgeois' sincerity +of belief, but they were divided as to the authenticity of the deposit. +Those who have seen the place had no doubts; the remainder were +incredulous. M. Capellini proposed that a new committee be appointed to +make researches on the spot. The general conclusion was that no solution +is at present possible. + +The existence of prehistoric man in Greece next became the subject of +lively discussion, giving rise to the most contradictory opinions. The +conclusion was that there are no decided proofs. The same doubt was +manifested with respect to a skull from California, said to have been +found in tertiary formation. It is not even certain it is a human skull. + +The second session of the day opened with an account from M. Riviere of +the discovery of a complete skeleton in a grotto at Menton, found among +the remains of various animals of the quaternary epoch, such as the lion, +bear, rhinoceros, etc. Then M. de Mortillet gave a detailed description of +the fauna, and the utensils, arms, pursuits, manners, and even the first +manifestation of art, of man in the quaternary period, and he proposed a +still further subdivision of the classes than is now admitted. The speaker +mentioned a very singular circumstance calculated to excite reflection--an +inexplicable hiatus between the last period of the age of cut stone and +the age of polished stone, in which new races appeared of greater industry +and more intelligence, agriculture was developed, the industrial pursuits +were extended, and art disappeared. It is the era of lacustrine villages +and of dolmens. M. de Mortillet's sketch of prehistoric civilization was +picturesque but far from convincing. + +The Abbe Bourgeois did not think M. de Mortillet's classification correct, +because the progress of civilization in France and Belgium was unequal. +"The Belgians," he said, "were more advanced." And the orator added with +charming bonhomie: "I cannot say it is otherwise now." + +M. Fraas, professor at Stuttgart, stated that he had made some +explorations in the grotto of Hollenfelz near Ulm, in Wuertemberg. The +_Homo unius cavernae_ was refuted in his conclusions by M. Hebert, the +celebrated professor at the Sorbonne, and by other savants. M. d'Omalius +was of the opinion that two geologists of different countries, desirous of +identifying beds contiguous to their fields of exploration, were never +able to agree. Between two strata there are always deposits that partake +of the distinctive characteristics of both. + +We pass from the grave to the entertaining. The following day, at seven +o'clock in the morning, all the learned assembly, glad, it may be +imagined, to get away from the pretentious paintings of the ducal palace, +took flight by steam for the valley of the Lesse. We would be the first to +confess that, if the country excited the sincere admiration of the +excursionists, the latter were equally a delightful source of curiosity to +the native inhabitants. They will not readily forget the picturesque sight +of our long caravan traversing the good town of Dinant all decked out with +flags, parading in elegant equipages lost among the _coucous_, _fiacres_, +and _caleches_ of wondrous construction, or perched on the imperials of +the most extraordinary vehicles, omnibuses, and _pataches_ truly +prehistoric, filing along the banks of the Meuse towards the valleys amid +laughter, jests, joltings, and the vociferations of our _Automedon_. +Charming landscapes, but detestable roads. This region has been so often +described that I need not attempt to depict it; it is with the pencil and +brush it should be undertaken. Sometimes the road winds around with +disagreeable undulations through the deep ravines bordered by apple-trees +whose fruit-laden branches sweep the imperials of the carriages, +endangering the silken hat; sometimes rolling over broad grassy roads +walled in by immense cliffs crowned with ruins and verdure, or affording +vistas through the neighboring valleys, lit up by the sun streaming +through the woods with a mild radiance that recalls the Elysian Fields of +mythological memory. At length we come to the Lesse, which bars the way +with its clear, rapid current. The carriages have to ford the capricious +and petulant waters of the little winding torrent. The horses sheer in the +very middle of the stream, causing a deafening noise of laughter, shouts +of alarm, and blows of the whip. All ends by crossing without any great +difficulty, but the same scene is reproduced five or six times with varied +incidents; for there are that number of fords to cross. It was in one of +these places, where we were obliged to cross the river in boats in order +to reach the grottoes, that we saw the overloaded skiff capsized that bore +among others M. d'Omalius and Mlle. Royer. The apostle of woman's +emancipation clung with shrill screams to the neck of a small gentleman, +her _chevalier servant_ for the time, and, when she found a footing with +the water up to her chin, she contributed somewhat to save her assistant +by keeping his head out of water--a fine opportunity for quoting La +Fontaine, with a kind variation: "That is nothing; it is not a woman that +is drowning." The nonagenarian president of the congress was taken out +safe and sound, and it was with extreme difficulty he was induced to +change his _chaussures_, but nothing could prevail upon him to accept dry +garments. Happily, the weather was superb, and the shipwrecked travellers +could get dry in the sun. + +We returned by way of the plateaux that overlook the valley. Nothing could +be imagined more fantastically beautiful than that immense panorama bathed +in the purple light of the setting sun. The visitors, under the guidance +of M. Dupont, had been through all the principal caverns described in his +book. His learned explanations were greatly relished, and added a keen +interest to an excursion of which the unexpected and the amusing had +heightened the charm. We will not speak of the banquet that crowned so +delightful a day, or of the ovations that were lavished on the savants and +others. For such details, we refer you to the newspapers that published +the reports. + +To Be Concluded In Our Next Number. + + + + +The See Of Peter. + + + Not unto hirelings, Prince of Shepherds, leave + This distant flock. The wolf, long kept at bay, + No longer in sheep's clothing seeks its prey, + Nor prowls at midnight round the fold's low eave, + Its weak, unwary victim to deceive; + But rampant in the flock at noon of day, + Careering leaps, to scatter, mangle, slay, + While from afar the banished shepherds grieve. + How long must sycophants wax blandly wise, + And meek-faced aspirants rebuke the cries + Of outraged faith! On Peter, "Feed my sheep, + My young lambs feed," the charge benignant lies, + And we whose vigils cheat the night of sleep, + On Peter, still, calm eyes expectant keep. + + + + +Atlantic Drift--Gathered In The Steerage. + + +By An Emigrant. + +To most of the sons and daughters of Columbia the few days they pass in +returning from the Old Country represent but a period of wearisome +delay--an interval sometimes nauseous and always irksome between the +pleasures of travel and those of their own fireside, passed perhaps in +recollection of the pleasures of Paris, the classic grandeurs of the +Eternal City, or the picturesque beauties of Switzerland and the Rhine; +not unfrequently, perhaps, by our belles, whose elegance and social value +have received their last gilding in the grand tour of Europe, in +anticipation of the effect of their costumes at Newport or Saratoga, or of +their adventures and experiences in the great circle of their country +friends. All that wealth and skill can do is lavished on the +accommodations of ocean steamers, and nothing is spared to make the +traveller independent of the caprice or ill-temper of the watery god; and +nowadays a passage from the Mersey to our Empire City is to the ordinary +passenger almost as comfortable and quite as devoid of unusual interest as +a sojourn of so many days at the St. Nicholas or the Fifth Avenue. There +is, however, another class of voyagers whose hard-earned savings form the +staple of the receipts of the owners of these splendid vessels; they +usually belong to a sphere where literature hardly penetrates and whence +come few who wield a ready pen; hence perhaps the general ignorance that +seems to prevail as to their treatment and accommodation. The cabin +passenger sees them only in squalid groups, encumbering the decks of the +great ship, beyond the middle enclosure reserved to the saloon; and if he +dives into the close and half-lit steerage, a very brief glance round its +dim precincts satisfies his curiosity. Believing, however, that many of +our adopted countrymen will feel some interest in knowing how the great +army of emigrants who flock in hundreds of thousands to our shores fare on +their ocean transit, one of us lifts a voice from the steerage to relate +some of the realities of life in an emigrant ship. Naught have we +extenuated or aught set down in malice, and, such as it is, our little +narrative is a true history of personal and actual experience. + +To the reader it matters little what ill-fortune cast from his quiet +anchorage a London clerk who had already seen three decades, and whose +life had hitherto run in the tranquil groove of uniform official duty, +sufficiently well remunerated to furnish the comforts of a middle-class +English home. Unable to regain a similar position in his native land, he +goes to seek his fortune in the West, and, thither wending, finds himself +in the steerage of one of our principal ocean steamers. Candor requires +this avowal, for those interested in the great liners think they dispose +of the numerous complaints as to their treatment of their emigrant +passengers, by retorting that they provide for the working-classes, and +not for clerks out of place or penniless gentlemen. Hence what is here +stated as to their discomfort deals not with the writer's own feelings, +but speaks of what he saw endured by others, and he gives voice not merely +to his own opinions, but to the sentiments of the mechanics, artisans, and +farm laborers who were his fellow-voyagers. + +Every emigrant has to provide himself with bedding, plate, basin, drinking +and water can, and a knife and fork. Our first experience of emigrant life +consisted in the purchase of these articles at a Liverpool slop-shop; some +ten shillings covered the entire outlay, except for the blanket, the most +indispensable of all; for this purpose, the dealer persuaded us to buy a +horse-rug, which he solemnly assured us was worth double the money across +the Atlantic: as a copy of the _Times_ would give about as much warmth and +shelter as the common covering sold with the bed, we invested in it. An +addition to our comfort it certainly has been in the bunk, and in the long +nights in the emigrant trains, and it still remains our property; no +market have we been able to discover for the article, and we conclude that +a certain spice of Americanism had communicated itself to the mercantile +mind of the seller. Many of the inmates of our steerage dispensed with all +or most of these domestic utensils. One gentleman's luggage, whose world- +wide travels we may hereafter refer to, consisted of a limited brown-paper +parcel; in his subsequent oceanic career his Irish suavity usually +procured him the loan of one of the tins of an acquaintance; that failing, +he borrowed any neighboring utensil whose owner was not for the moment at +hand; or, driven to his last resource, abjured coffee or soup and ate his +portion of meat on a piece of brown paper. Some had but one vessel which +served indifferently for a drinking-can, soup-basin, plate, tea-cup, or +wash hand-basin, while a few comfort-loving people, more frequently, +however, in the after or family steerage than in our bachelor quarters, +carried heavy loads of comfortable bedding and neatly-arranged baskets of +table-ware. + +Nearly all this apparatus of bedding and tin-ware is thrown overboard or +given to the crew when the vessel arrives at its destination; only the +frugal Germans carefully preserve their vessels, and, shaking out its +straw or moss contents, preserve the ticking of the bed either as a +wrapping for their baggage or some ulterior purpose. It certainly seems +strange that an expenditure of from two to three hundred pounds should be +incurred by every ship-load of emigrants for articles of such brief +utility. Could not this outlay be converted to the benefit of the ship- +owners by the permanent provision of requisites of this description at a +moderate charge? + +The great landing stage at Liverpool on the morning of our embarkation was +crowded with some two thousand persons--the passengers of three mail +steamers, their friends, and the swarm of porters, carters, and pedlers in +attendance on them. Everything was confusion; here mothers seeking a stray +little one, there the husband anxiously gathering together his motley +property of boxes, bedding, cans, baskets, and packages of every +description, as they were roughly tossed out of the cart from some +boarding-house. The boxes had to be placed in one tender, the passengers +and lighter luggage in another; porters drove greedy bargains with females +helplessly encumbered with immovable boxes. Women with baskets full of +articles for sale--combs and brushes, knives, scissors, and soap--pushed +their way here and there. To single men, careful of small change, it was a +problem how to move the box or trunk in one direction and yet secure the +safety of the other articles while doing so. We despaired of solving the +problem, and trusted to the honesty of a badge porter, who undertook for +sixpence to place our box on the luggage tender; afterwards, nervous as to +the actual presence there of our little all, we spent two weary hours in +watching the baggage discharged into the hold. A thousand trunks and +chests of every conceivable size, shape, color, and dimensions passed down +the hatchway before us--handsome American boxes, ribbed and gay with bright +nails; immense iron-bound chests of unpainted deal, containing the whole +household goods of some Swedish or Norwegian family, directed in quaint +letters to some far-off town in Minnesota or Wisconsin; flimsy papered +trunks, with sides already creaking and gaping, threatening to disgorge +their finery before they touch the ground in Castle Garden; and German +packs of strong ticking or canvas about the size of a small haystack--and, +with a sigh of relief, we at last saw our property shot with a crash into +the hold. Nearly two long hours did we spend on the open stage under a +drizzling rain, that soaked the beds and blankets before the tenders +moored alongside; then all made for the gangways, tugging their luggage +with them; produced their tickets as they passed on, and pushed, tumbled, +and scrambled pell-mell on board; a similar scene was enacted at the +steamer's side; and when at last we reached her spacious decks we felt +like soldiers passed unscathed through some hard-fought field; not all +unscathed, however; a considerable number of missing tins, blankets, and +even beds attested the severity of the struggle and gave zest to the +satisfaction of the more fortunate. + +Arrived at last on our floating home for the coming fortnight, we pushed +our way into the steerages to find our berths and enter into possession: +and here let us try to describe. The steamer was a magnificent vessel, +advertised to be of 3,700 tons, and celebrated for the luxury of her +saloon accommodation and her almost unrivalled speed--qualities, as +experience taught us, attained somewhat at the expense of the comfort of +her emigrant passengers. Right aft the forecastle or forward part of the +deck was roofed over with what sailors call a whale-back, to the entrance +of the forward steerage; a small deck house, with doors on each side, and +on one side a small closet with a half door and a few racks for clothes +served as a deck bar; behind it, that is, towards the stern, was the +forward _fresh_ water pump; walking still sternwards, we next encounter +another small house containing the wash-house for the forward steerage, +entered from below, and two or three cabins for some of the officers or +petty officers opening on the deck; on one side of this was a hot water +tap; a few feet further is the main deck house, extending about half the +length of the ship; in the street-like passages between its sides and the +bulwarks--open iron railings in our vessel--are the doors to the galleys, +boilers, engine-rooms, officers' berths, and saloon, which, unlike most +other steamships, is in this situated amidships; from the saloon a +handsome double staircase led on to the deck above, which, however, like +the tops of all the other deck houses, was tabooed ground to the +emigrants. At the end of the main deck house was the entrance to the +forward or sternmost steerage, and at the side of it the after fresh water +pump; still further aft another deck house contained the wash-house +belonging to this steerage, and, as in case of the forward steerage, +entered from below, and one or two officers' berths, and provided outside +with a second hot water tap; still further, the stern deck house contained +the wheel house, with the engine for working the rudder, the butcher's +shop, ice and meat house, and vegetable storehouse; and between its +semicircular end and the bulwark round the stern ran a low gallery, always +considered among us as the most desirable place to settle for the day. We +were free to ramble or squat ourselves on the deck where we listed, except +the extreme forecastle forward of the entrance to the sailors' cabin; +there an incautious intruder paid his footing with the penalty of a bottle +or two of beer to the nearest sailor who could catch him. Under the +whaleback, also, either by custom or some rule of the ship, was forbidden +ground to children or the fair sex, and always the chosen resort of old +hands who liked to smoke a quiet pipe sheltered from the wind, chat with +those of the crew who were off duty, and be comfortably near the deck bar. + +Enter the forward or bachelors' steerage--the after one being reserved to +married couples and single women; leaving the bright day, we can hardly +distinguish the objects in the dim light, and feel our way down the first +flight of steps; this brings us on the main deck; here it is not open to +the sides of the ship, along which run the berths of the saloon +passengers. Entered from the saloons at the fore part, where they +terminate by the hospital, two neat rooms, each with three or four bunks +with bedding, wash-basins, etc., similar to those of a saloon berth, and +in one of which, in the absence of patients, our two stewards sleep; and +at the other or after end a narrow flight of steps leads up to the wash- +house on deck. The main deck is lighted only by the stairs and the +hatchway; when the wooden grating covering the latter is in its place, it +is dim; when it is covered with tarpaulin to prevent the entrance of the +rain or spray, too dark to see. We have still another flight of steps to +descend to reach the cavernous abyss of the steerage itself, which is +situated between-decks; when our eyes grow accustomed to the obscurity, we +see a central open space about ten feet wide, running from end to end; in +this are three narrow wooden tables with benches, two lengthwise and one +crosswise, each capable of seating about twenty people; on each side are +the bunks, reaching to the roof, entered by narrow streets or passages +leading off on either hand, and again benches in the central space all +round the outer side of the bunks. + +Each street of bunks contained twenty upper and lower rows of five each, +on either hand; the inmates therefore, lay side by side, parallel with the +ship's length, with their feet to their own street, and their heads +adjoining those of their neighbors in the adjoining street. The bunks +themselves consisted simply of shelves of unpainted boards, with an +opening of about an inch between each, and were about six feet and a half +wide, and divided into the spaces for each bunk, and fenced at the foot by +upright boards about a foot high; in short, an emigrant's bunk means a +slightly fenced off space of hard board rather more than six feet by two. +The lower row are about two feet from the ground; the upper about three +feet above the lower, and the same distance from the roof. They are not +attached to the side of the ship, but to a framework a few inches from it, +the interstices of which served to stow hats or tins. Inside this +coffinlike area of the bunks you stow bed, bedding, cans, and all smaller +_impedimenta_, while such boxes as found their way down are pushed under +the lower berths, piled in corners of the central space, or serve in the +streets as seats or footsteps to the upper berths. In our steamer the +bunks seemed to have been just put up; they were free from vermin, the +timbers had nothing dirtier about them than sawdust; indeed, as we +believe, the number of steerage passengers who cross eastwards is much +less than in the other direction, the greater part of the boards are often +knocked down on the ship's arrival in New York, and the steerage filled +with cargo, and then re-erected when she is again prepared for the +westward trip. The berths next to the central space were the most in +request, on account of their being nearer the fresh air, and the lower +range everywhere objected to; but nearly all the tickets had a number +affixed, and no liberty of choice was permitted. Ours was in the upper +berth in one corner, and consequently very far removed from any +ventilation; as a slight compensation, being next to the side of the ship, +we could look through the little window over the surging water, with which +it was almost level and frequently covered. The gaps between the planks +were very annoying, as small articles readily fell through them, and if +they fell beneath the lower range it was too dark and the space too narrow +to readily recover them. From about nine till twelve every day the +steerage was closed, all the inmates sent on deck, and the floor brushed +and laid down with fresh sawdust; this process, we think, was confined to +the central space and the streets, and did not extend to the spaces +underneath the bunks; and it was daily inspected or supposed to be +inspected by one of the doctors, of whom there were two on board. + +The wash-house to the forward steerage was of decent size, with tiled +floor, and contained eight closet pans, five wash hand-basins, each with a +tap of cold water and one with a hot water tap, and four sinks, also with +salt water taps: putting aside the absence of any privacy, the +arrangements were suitable, and the fittings generally clean; but, as in +so many other instances, the carelessness or inattention of the crew made +the admirable equipments of the ship almost useless. Except early in the +morning there was rarely any water in the taps, and in the hot water +cistern, which also supplied the hot-water tap outside, often none for two +or three days: the engineer, the steward told us, would not waste the +steam by putting his cistern into communication with the boilers; and then +often, when turned on, the tap poured out so much more hot steam than +water that one was likely rather to get scalded hands than a full can. + +The after-steerage was similar in character to that of the single men, but +much larger, occupying both the main and between-decks; the married men +and women slept on one side, the single women on the other; their privacy +being supposed to be secured by a canvas curtain let down at night the +whole length of the cabin. In the other lines, we believe the men and +women, married or single, are quite separated, but ours put it forward as +one of their attractions that husbands and wives are berthed together; as +this simply means that their bunks are allotted side by side, the wife is +really no more berthed with her own husband than with the spouse of her +next neighbor. Many of the more respectable women complained much of being +misled by the announcement, and of their being unable to undress to rest +during the whole of the voyage, as they might have done if a cabin had +been really and exclusively reserved for children and females. To the +after steerage two wash-houses were attached, one for the women with +closed private closets, and one for the men similar to ours. + +The routine of one day's life may serve for all. As the mornings were +generally damp and chilly, like most in our steerage we slept till towards +eight o'clock, and did not rise till breakfast was announced; as dressing +consisted in knocking off the rugs and donning coat, waistcoat, and boots, +it was not a long process; then we scramble down into our street, seize +our can and wait; in our corner we are too far removed from the +tables--which would not seat half the number the cabin contains--to try to +obtain seats at them; so we sit in the bunks on the chests in our street, +or stand till the steward comes round to the entrance, and sings out, "Who +is for coffee?" Each holds out or passes on his can, and he ladles into it +about a pint of a boiling hot decoction, sweetened but without milk, and +bearing a distant but still recognizable relationship to the article one +had hitherto known under the name. A few minutes afterwards he comes round +with the fresh bread, and over its distribution there were always much +squabbling and bad language, partly because the bakers disliked the +trouble of baking more than the strictly necessary quantity, and were +given to restricting both the number and size of the loaves, and partly +because many could neither eat the waxy potatoes nor hard sea-biscuits; so +that all sorts of tricks were resorted to to secure additional loaves for +their dinner or tea. Of all the articles of diet the warm fresh bread +every morning was decidedly the favorite, and any shortcoming in its +supply more resented than any other infliction; both in size and quality +the loaves varied very much according to the caprice of the bakers, but +they were generally good. Great pyramids of butter were placed in tins on +the tables; most of the men would not eat it on account of its tallow-like +flavor; for our own part, on obtaining our coffee and bread, we cut the +latter open, put a lump of butter to melt inside, and pressed it together +to distribute it equally as it melted, and then proceeded on deck, and +under the influence of the keen sea air rarely failed to eat with a good +appetite this not very luxurious fare in some quiet corner out of the +wind. After breakfast, warmed with the steaming coffee, we obtained a can +full of fresh water from the pump, produced the toilet requisites from our +satchel, and in one corner of our street performed our ablutions; we +always took as near an approach to a sponge-bath as circumstances +permitted, and found the practice more refreshing even than sleep. Though +the steward never interfered with me, it was, however, we believe, against +the rules to wash elsewhere than in the wash-house, or to use fresh water +for the purpose. The first day or two we had to wash in the wash-house +before breakfast, but the crowd there for various purposes was so great +and there was so little convenience for putting down the different +articles that we gave it up; and after breakfast there was rarely water +for the purpose. + +The decks always presented a more crowded and busy appearance in the +forenoon than in any other period of the day; the steerages were empty, +and all their inmates perforce on deck, huddled here and there, wherever +the deck houses offer shelter from the winds, in compact groups three or +four deep. The German and Scandinavian mothers perform the ablutions of +their numerous families deliberately and in public--an amusing, if to some +disgusting, process; first, the white-headed urchin is held between his +mother's or perhaps his eldest sister's knees, and his poll carefully and +methodically examined with the fingers--not a comb, and any strangers +summarily executed. Then he is taken to the scuppers by the side of the +ship, his head held over a tin of hot water and lathered till he is red in +the face and his eyes full of soap; then washed and taken back again, his +head combed down into smoothness, and released for the day with a weight +off his mind, the process being varied in the case of a little girl by the +plaiting of her long flaxen locks into ribbon-adorned tails. The majority, +however, treated their abode on shipboard as a time when the ordinary +rules of civilized life were temporarily suspended, and eschewed washing, +shaving, and all the vanities of dress until they again felt themselves on +terra firma. + +Dinner took place at twelve; we mustered as for breakfast, but with a more +careful marshalling of cans, for two, if not three, were necessary, and a +sharp watch was requisite to prevent some hungry but tireless prowler from +summarily appropriating the nearest ware; first came the soup, dealt out +as the coffee at breakfast--a hot compound with a faint reminiscence of +gravy and mutton bones, some grains of barley, and fragments of celery and +cabbage; sometimes, instead, a thick mixture of ground peas; such as it +was, with plenty of salt which one of our street usually fetched from the +table for the general benefit, it was the most reliable part of the +dinner; it was always drinkable, and many came down to obtain it who would +taste no other article provided by the ship beyond the soup and bread. +Next came the meat, cut up into chunks in an immense tin, and shovelled +out by the steward with a saucer on to the tin plates. Sometimes it was +eatable; say, perhaps, on five out of the ten days a hungry stomach and a +stern will could manage it; and once or twice we had fresh beef as good, +allowing for the roughness with which it was served, as any one could +desire; the salt junk and salt fish, however--and the latter, in deference +to the feelings of the Catholic passengers, always appeared on Friday--were +vile; the junk could not be cut with a knife, and had to be torn into +shreds along the grain, while the fish in taste and smell was simply +abominable. + +The potatoes were one of our standing grievances; as there were but two +stewards to assist some hundred and sixty people, they had to form a +course of themselves, or the meat got cold while waiting for them; and +instead of being boiled, they were steamed by some hasty process into the +taste and consistency of a tallow candle. To the natives of the Emerald +Isle, accustomed to consider their potato the _piece de resistance_ of +their humble fare, this misusage of their favorite food was particularly +aggravating, and their complaints were loud and endless. Boiled rice was +generally served after the potatoes with coarse sugar or treacle; as long +as the latter lasted it was palatable, but the sweetening generally bore +the same relation to the rice as did Falstaff's bread to his sack, and our +ingenuity had to be taxed to procure a double or treble allowance of the +sugar by changing places while the serving took place or holding the plate +over the shoulders of the steward who carried it. On Sundays plum duff, a +heavy pudding pretty liberally supplied with raisins, was dealt out, and +to stomachs accustomed to steerage fare seemed something faintly +approaching the luxuries of the table appropriate to the day. The tea, +which took place at five, may be dismissed in two words: taste it had +none, and its smell was beastly; however, it was always boiling hot, and +in the cold, damp evenings anything warming was grateful. With it we had +biscuits and butter. + +Without a detailed notice of that indispensable and omnipresent article +the sea-biscuit, any account of our food would be incomplete; a barrel of +them always stood at the head of the staircase on the main deck, and any +one could help himself as often and as liberally as he thought proper; +they formed our sole fare at tea, and our _dernier ressort_, when the +dinner was, as it usually was every other day, altogether uneatable. More +fortunate than most of our fellow-passengers, we could combine recreation +and humble fare by gnawing at their hard sides. Of wooden consistency they +certainly were; to make any impression on their hard edges it was +necessary first to break them with a smart blow of the fist, put a piece +between two sound molars, shut your eyes, hold fast to one of the +stanchions of the bulwarks, and bring your jaws together with a determined +and persevering grind! The result, to our taste, was not unsatisfactory; +they were perfectly sweet, and when once pulverized not ill tasted; and on +several occasions, when we found the other provisions inedible, two or +three biscuits, washed down with a bottle of porter, served us for a +tolerable meal. Few, however, shared our liking or would touch them, +except at the last extremity, and by those whose teeth were not in first- +rate order they were unassailable. As a souvenir, we pocketed a couple on +leaving the ship, and as we munched them on the following night on the +platform of the emigrant car jolting along the side of the broad and mist- +clad Hudson, hoped that Dame Fortune would never reduce us in the Far West +to more unpalatable fare. + +On the whole, it was possible to subsist on the ship's provisions, +particularly when the transit was regarded in a purgatorial or penitential +sense; and that statement, too, must be qualified by the admission of the +necessity of malt liquor: without two or three bottles of beer or porter a +day, we could not have survived; they served as a tonic, which made greasy +meat digestible, and biscuits possible to swallow; few, however, lived +entirely on the steerage fare, nor must it be supposed that the grumblers +or discontented were generally those who had, as it is termed, seen better +days. Men of that class were slow to complain, because ignorant of what +they ought to tolerate or endure in their altered circumstances. It was +the well-to-do artisans or workingmen who showed the greatest disgust and +were the bitterest in their complaints. Many families were provided with +well-filled baskets of good bread, ham, and bottles of preserves, and had +their own store of tea and sugar, for which they obtained hot water from +the galley; while others bought the whole of their food. + +Buying, begging, and stealing food was one of the most interesting and to +some the most engrossing of occupations; it required a little money, a +deal of diplomacy, and very hardened feelings, and was accomplished in +very various ways. At the commencement of the voyage, little cliques were +formed of four or five people, who made up a purse of two or three pounds +for one of the cabin stewards, who in return sold to or stole for them a +regular supply of cabin provisions; we were asked to join a little party +of this sort, but declined; nor did we observe much of their subsequent +fortune, except that they professed to have plenty of good food, and +seemed to spend most of their time in watching for the opportunity when +their steward could safely convey it to them; others peeled potatoes or +apples and carried water for the galleys, and got fed in return; some +reduced it to a system, bought meat from the butchers, and got it cooked +in the galley, or, for a consideration, got liberty to go in at an idle +time and cooked it themselves; the ordinary way, however, was to buy a +bottle of beer at our deck-bar, hand it in to one of the cooks with a tin, +and ask him to give you something, the best time being immediately after +breakfast, when the hot scouse or Irish stew--far better food than any +provided for us--was served out for the sailors' breakfast, or after the +saloon dinner; you then slunk about the galley door, cursed for being in +their way by all the cooks except the recipient of the beer, until that +gentleman saw the head cook or chief steward out of the way, filled the +tin with anything at hand--generally scouse in the morning, cold beef and +chicken in the evening--shoved it under your coat, and told you to clear +out instantly. One's feelings suffered much in this process; but a few +days of steerage fare blunt the sensibilities and whet the animal appetite +to an extent that requires to be experienced to be appreciated. + +Another want that is keenly felt in consequence of the salt food and dry +biscuit is that of something green or succulent. One craves an apple or an +orange or lemon; and so well aware were the experienced travellers among +us of this want that fresh fruit generally occupied a large space in their +well-stuffed baskets. We had only the slender resource of pulling pieces +of celery through the grating of the vegetable store, peeling them and +eating them as an addendum to the coffee and bread of our breakfast. +Unfortunately either the demand for that cool vegetable was unexpectedly +great in the saloon, or we emigrants were too successful in extracting it +through the bars of the always open store; for before the voyage was half +over the supply was exhausted, we then had raw carrots and onions from the +same source, but the result was not satisfactory. + +Many of the passengers who had no money suffered much from their inability +to cope with our daily fate. One young man of about twenty-two or three +years of age particularly attracted our attention. Short and slight, of +perfectly gentlemanly manners and quiet address, he had little of the +typical American about him, though as we afterwards learned from himself +he belonged to a Western family engaged in commerce and of considerable +means. Some strange star must have presided over his birth, for he had the +rarest of all dispositions in the New World, a dislike to traffic and +money-making, and an unconquerable yearning for a life of literary labor. +He was returning westward after residing in Dresden and Florence, full of +enthusiasm for Goethe and Schiller, Tasso and Dante, and proudly conscious +of a vocation himself as a dramatic poet. He had shot, he said, in the +lakes of Minnesota, hunted in the Adirondacks, become familiar with the +most beautiful and intellectual of the European capitals, and now felt +that his endowment for his career was enriched by the novel experiences of +the steerage of an emigrant ship. Fine conceptions, except perhaps among +saints or hermits, do not thrive on an empty stomach. + +Our poet looked daily more pallid and spiritless. He listened +uninterestedly to everything except prospects of better fare or prophecies +of the speedy diminution of the irksome voyage. One night one of the cooks +in the emigrant galley gave us a tin crammed to overflowing with fragments +of meat and fowl, and, additionally armed with a bottle of porter and a +biscuit, we had settled in a quiet leeward corner to make a hearty supper, +when we thought of the famishing poet. We found him tending a little +singing-bird he was taking out with him, and invited him to share our +meal; and the enjoyment with which he ate the broken meat--a biscuit +serving for a plate, and a clasp-knife for an instrument--was quite +refreshing. We took alternate pulls at the porter, and felt pleased with +ourselves and the world. His inner man refreshed, our poet became another +person. The charm of his conversation well repaid our little sacrifice, +and we talked art and literature, music and the drama, until the +loneliness of the deck, the chill night breeze, and the bright moon +mounted high in the star-spangled heaven warned us of the approach of +midnight. A few hours after we had landed in New York, we met our poet in +Broadway, in all the elegance of clean raiment, and happily conscious of a +well-lined purse. Though our rough garb assorted ill with his gentility, +he insisted on our drinking glasses together to the memory of our meeting. +As we drank, he expatiated on the advantages of a varied experience of the +many-sided life of our poor humanity. Nevertheless, we opine, to cross the +Atlantic in the steerage of an emigrant ship with an empty pocket, is one +of those phases of existence which he will never voluntarily again +investigate. Another instance of suffering was that of an Englishman--a +quiet-visaged, silent man, past middle age, whose velveteen coat and +corduroy trowsers bespoke him a ploughman or gamekeeper from some Old +World country neighborhood. He had with him his little daughter, a fair- +haired, sweet-faced little girl of about twelve, genteelly dressed. +Neither he nor his child could eat the ship's food, and the little girl +used to sit all day quietly pining by her father's side. They met, +however, worse fortune on shore. Bound to some town in Ohio, he was +apparently ignorant that a long journey separated it from their landing- +place, and landed in Castle Garden penniless. Too shy or too proud to beg, +the man and his little girl starved for a day, until some fellow-passenger +accidentally found out their condition and supplied them with food. + +No account of a sea voyage would be faithful without noticing the dread +malady, the sufferings of which form the traveller's introduction to the +domain of Neptune; but it is a life over which we must perforce draw a +veil. To the voyager who has a comfortable berth, every convenience that +wealth can produce, attentive stewards, and the command of each luxury +that his fancy or fears can suggest, the horrors of sea-sickness are +sufficiently nauseous. What they are in the steerage of an emigrant ship, +where your pangs are intensified by the maladies and filth, the groans and +curses, of some scores of other victims, can be better imagined than +described; it is too disgusting. For the first two or three days, to eye, +ear, and nose our steerage was insufferable; there was no remedy but to +avoid it as much as possible, and either abandon the meals altogether, or +rush down, snatch a hasty portion of whatever came nearest to hand, and +beat a hasty retreat to the fresh air of the deck before your rising gorge +added you to the ranks of the inconsolable. + +But this rough initiation had its practical advantage. Many of the younger +passengers of the better class at the commencement of their voyage +endeavored to keep up appearances in spite of all difficulties, and to +present themselves on deck fresh from a careful toilette and in all the +neatness of clean linen and well-arranged dress; but, when they had once +succumbed to the qualms of the malady, their vanity went overboard. +Languid and weary, they crowded on deck, unwashed and uncombed, muffled in +a waterproof, or huddled in twos and threes in a corner in the warm folds +of a blanket or horse-rug; and as their spirits revived they thought no +more of struggling against adverse circumstances, and were content to "peg +along" (pardon, kind reader, the expression) until their feminine +instincts revived at the welcome sight of the wished-for land. + +To Be Concluded In Our Next Number. + + + + +A Daughter Of S. Dominic. + + +If she had been condemned to have her life written, and been given the +choice of a name under which to appear before the world, this would +probably have been the one she would have taken. But who could have +persuaded the humble child of the grand S. Dominic that such a fate was in +store for her, or induced her humility to accept it? Well, it matters +little to her now whether men speak of her or for her, she is alike beyond +the reach of their hollow praise and their jealous criticism. But to us it +matters much. The teaching of such a life as Amelie Lautard's is too +precious to be lost; it is a lesson to be sought out and hearkened to, for +it is full of beauty, and light, and encouragement to those whom she has +left behind. + +Amelie was born at Marseilles on the 12th of April, 1807. Her father was a +medical man, eminent in his profession, an honorable man, and a good +Christian. She lost her mother at the age of seventeen. Early in life she +met with an accident which injured her spine so seriously as to render her +by degrees quite humpbacked; the progress of the deformity was slow and +very gradual, but even when it had grown to its worst it never looked +grotesque or repulsive, nor did it, strange to say, take away from the +singular dignity of her appearance or from the grace of her movements. In +person she was tall and dark, not handsome, though her features had so +much charm and expression that most people considered her so. Her +intelligence was of a very high order, and pre-eminently endowed with that +delightful and untranslatable gift called _esprit_. From her earliest +childhood she began to develop an angelic spirit of piety and a +sensitiveness to the sufferings of others that is generally the outgrowth +of maturer years. The sufferings of the poor claimed her pity especially, +but not exclusively. The range of her sympathies was wide enough to +embrace every kind and degree of sorrow that came within her knowledge. +This characteristic of her charity, as rare as it is attractive, may be +considered as the keynote of her life, and explains, humanly speaking, the +extraordinary influence she exercised over all classes indiscriminately. + +After her mother's death Amelie became the chief delight and interest of +her father, and she repaid his tenderness by the most absolute devotion. +Offers of marriage were not wanting for the accomplished and _spirituelle_ +young lady, but Amelie turned a deaf ear to them all; filial duty as much +as filial love had wedded her to her father, and she declared her +intention never to separate from him, or let any other love and duty come +between those she had vowed unreservedly to him. It was probably at this +period of her life that she bound herself exclusively to the service of +God by a vow of perpetual virginity. + +During many years Dr. Lautard's health was such as to require constant and +unremitting care. Amelie nursed him with the tenderest affection, never +allowing her devotions or her work amongst the poor to interfere with her +first duty to him. He expired in her arms, blessing her and declaring that +she had been the model of filial piety, the joy and solace of his +widowhood. Amelie generously made the sacrifice of this one great +affection to God, she drank the chalice with a broken heart, but with an +unmurmuring spirit, and entered bravely on the new life that was before +her. Hers was to be the mission of an apostle, and she must go forth to it +unshackled by even the holiest and purest of natural ties. She had long +been a member of the Third Order of S. Dominic, to whom from her childhood +she had had a great devotion. To her previous vow of virginity she now +added a vow of poverty, which, in the midst of abundance, she observed +rigorously to the end of her life. Dr. Lautard, knowing her propensities, +and suspecting rightly that, if her fortune were left completely in her +own power, she would despoil herself of everything and leave herself +without the means of subsistence, tied it up in annuities which could not +be alienated. But while binding herself henceforth to the practice of the +most rigid austerities, Amelie did not break off from her accustomed +intercourse with her friends. She continued to receive them as hitherto in +her father's house. Dr. Lautard used to say that hospitality was a virtue +which it behooved Christians living in the world to exercise towards each +other, and he imbued Amelie with the same idea. Mindful of his precepts +and example, she went on inviting her friends, and enjoyed having them +with her, and surrounding them with attentions and seeing them well and +hospitably served; at table she endeavored to disguise her own abstinence +under a semblance of eating, or would sometimes apologize on the plea of +her health, which had always been extremely delicate, for not setting them +a good example. + +Some rigid persons, unable to reconcile this frank and genial sociability +with the crucifying life of penance and prayer and unremitting service of +the poor and the sick which Amelie led, ventured to remonstrate with her +on the subject. She replied with unruffled humility that it was a pleasure +to her to continue to cultivate the friendships contracted for her and +bequeathed to her by her father, and that she felt satisfied there was +nothing wrong in her doing so, and that it did neither her nor them any +harm; on the contrary, hospitality was often a means to her of doing good; +a worldly man or woman who would fly from her if she approached them with +a sermon, accepted an invitation to dinner without fear or _arriere- +pensee_, thus enabling her to bring them under desirable influences in a +way that awoke no suspicion and roused no antagonism, and often led to the +most salutary results; a friendly dinner was, moreover, not unfrequently +an opportunity of bringing people together and reconciling those who were +at variance; in fact, Amelie pleaded so convincingly the cause of +Christian hospitality as it was practised in the Rue Grignan, that the +critics withdrew thoroughly converted and rather ashamed of their +censoriousness. This thirst for doing good was, moreover, so unobtrusive +and so free from anything like an assumption of superiority, that it was +impossible to resent it; the tact and simplicity that accompanied all her +efforts to benefit others prevented their ever being looked upon as +indiscreet or meddling. She had a way of rousing your sympathies in a +charitable scheme, or your indignation against some act of injustice or +cruelty, and drawing you into assisting in the one or redressing the other +without your suspecting that she had laid a trap for you; never preaching, +never dictating, she had that rare grace, whose absence so often foils the +most praiseworthy intentions, of doing good without being disagreeable. +Her conversation was so sympathetic, and, owing to her mind being so +abundantly stored by reading under her father's direction, could be, when +the opportunity occurred, so brilliant, that the most distinguished men +delighted in it, and flocked to the Rue Grignan, counting it a privilege +to be invited to its unpretending hospitalities. Amongst the many +illustrious men who admired Amelie's _esprit_ and virtues and who courted +her co-operation in their apostolic labors, one of the most prominent was +the Pere Lacordaire. The history of their first work in common deserves +special record, not only because of its being associated with "the cowled +orator of France," but because it is peculiarly identified with the +history of Provence, that land so dear to us all as the birthplace and +cradle of the devotion to S. Joseph. "Beautiful Provence! It rose up in +the west from your delightful land like the cloud of delicate almond +blossoms that seems to float and shine between heaven and earth over your +fields in spring. It rose from a confraternity in the white city of +Avignon, and was cradled by the swift Rhone, that river of martyr- +memories, that runs by Lyons, Orange, Vienne, and Arles, and flows into +the same sea that laves the shores of Palestine. The land which the +contemplative Magdalen had consecrated by her hermit life, and where the +songs of Martha's school of virgins had been heard praising God, and where +Lazarus had worn a mitre instead of a grave-cloth, it was there that he +who was so marvellously Mary and Martha combined first received the glory +of his devotion." We all know the passage by heart, but we quote it not so +much for its sweetness as because it so appropriately introduces the story +of the work in question, viz., the restoration of the pilgrimage of Ste. +Baume, a pilgrimage once so celebrated throughout Christendom, but of late +years fallen into neglect and almost total oblivion. Tradition tells us +the story of its origin, its growth, its glories, and its decay. Its +origin dates from a little bark that eighteen centuries ago came floating +down the sunny waters of the Nile and rode into the blue Mediterranean, +freighted with a legacy from Palestine to France, bearing in its frail +embrace none other than the family who had their dwelling on the shores of +the Lake of Galilee, and whose names have come down to us with the halo of +that simple and unrivalled title, "Friends of Jesus of Nazareth." +Villagers and the simple folk of the place welcomed the exiles more +kindly, let us hope, than Bethlehem had welcomed the Virgin Mother and +reputed father of their Friend some five-and-thirty years before; at any +rate, Lazarus and his sisters remained in Provence. The people gathered +round the dead man whom Jesus had wept over and raised to life, and +hearkened to his teaching; he planted the cross upon their soil, and sowed +the seeds of the Gospel in their hearts, and in return they thanked him as +the Jews had thanked his Master, by putting him to death. Lazarus opened +the first page of the martyrology of France. Martha on her side withdrew +to Avignon, where, on the ruins of a pagan temple situated on the Rocher +des Doms, she built a Christian church, and dwelt there in the midst of a +school of virgins, teaching the Gospel. She died at an advanced age, +venerated as a saint, and renowned as much for her sublime gift of +eloquence and her bountiful hospitality as for the austere sanctity of her +life. We are not told how far, if at all, Magdalen shared the apostleship +of her brother in Marseilles; the only trace of her that remains in that +city is an altar in the vaults of the Abbey of S. Victor. These vaults are +like catacombs, and the most ancient monument of Christian faith that +Marseilles possesses. The legend says that Magdalen, immediately on +landing on the shores of Provence, took up her abode upon the rocky +heights of Ste. Baume and lived there for thirty years, her life divided +between agony and ecstasy, between tears that had never ceased to flow +since that day when at Simon's house she broke the alabaster vase over the +feet of Jesus, and heard from his lips those words that have been the +strength and the hope of sinners ever since: much had been forgiven her +because she had loved much, and kept long vigils that were but a +continuation of her faithful watch under the cross and at the door of the +sepulchre. It seems strange, when we think of it, that she should have +left the country where Jesus had lived and died, the home at Magdala that +he had hallowed so often by his presence, and whose friendly hospitality +had often been a rest and a comfort to him in his weary journeys round +Jerusalem; that she should, above all, have torn herself from the +companionship, or at least the neighborhood, of his Mother and the +disciple whom he loved; for surely the one remaining solace of her +purified passionate heart must have been to speak of her brother's Friend +and her own dear Saviour with those who had known and loved him best, to +revisit the places he had frequented, the site of his miracles and his +sufferings, and that hill of solemn and stupendous memories where she and +they had stood together in a common agony of woe, hushing their breaths to +catch the last throb of his sacred heart. But perhaps this voluntary exile +from those beloved associations was the last sacrifice, the crowning act +of renunciation, that Jesus asked of her before he bade her farewell? +Perhaps he expressed a wish that she and Lazarus should be in a humble way +to the West what Mary and S. John were to be to the East, and that they +should forsake the land and the friends of their youth and go forth +bearing the good news of his Gospel to France? He had raised her once to +the rank of an apostle that morning after the resurrection, when he gave +her a message to the disciples and bade her go and tell them and Peter +that he was risen, and before ascending to his Father he may have told her +once more to go and be the harbinger of his resurrection to disciples who +knew him not and were yet dwelling in darkness. We shall one day know, +please God, what her motive was, but meantime we may reverently conjecture +that there was some such understanding between Our Lord and Magdalen which +induced her to leave the country that was so full of the fragrance of his +divine humanity, and where his Immaculate Mother still lingered in +childless desolation. Magdalen came to Provence, and withdrew to a wild +and barren spot, upon a mountain called, in memory no doubt of her first +interview with Jesus, Ste. Baume; it rises above a valley that runs +towards the Alps from the busy city of Marseilles. Here she dwelt in +solitude, communing only with her Saviour, and shut away from cruel men +who had crucified him. Many and beautiful are the legends grouped by the +simple piety of the inhabitants around the lonely watcher of Ste. Baume; +they tell you still in reverent and awestricken tones how seven times a +day the saint was rapt into ecstasy, and carried from her cave in the +mountain side to the summit of the mountain, and held there suspended +between heaven and earth by angels, but seeing more of heaven than of +earth, and hearing the music of the angelic choirs. The peasants show you, +even in these unmystical days of ours, the precise spot of an abrupt sally +of the mountain where the angels used to come every day at their appointed +hours to commune with the penitent and lift her off the earth. For thirty +years she lived here in penance and expectation, then the term of her +exile closed, the day came when she was to be set free from the bondage of +the flesh, and admitted once and for ever into the presence of her risen +Lord. Perhaps Jesus himself whispered the glad tidings to her in prayer; +or perhaps it was only the angels who were charged with the message; but +anyhow, tradition tells us--and who dreams of doubting it?--that Magdalen +knew by divine inspiration when the hour of her death was at hand, and +that she was filled with a great longing to receive the body and blood of +her Redeemer before entering his presence as her Judge. S. Maximin, who +had been the companion of Lazarus and shared his labors and his +pilgrimage, dwelt in the narrow plain which forms the base of the three +adjoining mountains, Ste. Baume, St. Aurelian, and Ste. Victoire--Ste. +Victoire under whose shadow Marius fought and defeated the Teutons and the +Cimbrians. The dying penitent was unable to traverse herself the distance +that separated her own wild solitude from the hermitage of S. Maximin, so +the kindly angels came and performed a last office of love for the friend +of their King, and bore her across the hills and the floods and the +valleys to the oratory of the saint: he too had been warned, and was ready +waiting for her. He heard her confession, pronounced again the words of +pardon that had been spoken first to her contrite soul by Jesus himself, +and gave her the holy communion. Then she died, and S. Maximin laid her in +an alabaster tomb that stood ready prepared for her in his oratory. The +piety of the faithful surrounded the tomb with enthusiastic reverence and +devotion; pilgrims flocked from all parts of the world to venerate the +remains of the queen of penitents, and to visit the grotto where she had +lived and the oratory where she died. Cassian, the monk, who was himself a +native of Marseilles, after graduating in the school of the Egyptian +anchorites, returned to his native city, and raised the Abbey of S. Victor +over the crypt where Lazarus slept. Ste. Baume and St. Maximin soon drew +him with irresistible attraction; he founded two noble monasteries there, +and he and his monks kept vigilant guard for a thousand years, from the +IVth to the XIIIth century, over the ground where Magdalen had wept, and +over the tomb where she rested. At the beginning of the VIIIth century, +the Saracens invaded the fair land of Provence, and for nearly three +hundred years it was a prey to their devastating fury. During this long +period of invasion, the Cassianites, terrified lest the precious remains +of Magdalen should be discovered by the enemy and desecrated, thought best +to remove them from the place where they were known to be to one of +greater secrecy and safety. They took the body, therefore, out of its +famous alabaster tomb and laid it in the tomb of S. Sidonius, having +previously translated elsewhere the relics of the holy bishop. With a view +to future verification, the monks placed on the coffin an inscription +testifying to the two translations, and narrating the manner of their +accomplishment and the circumstances which led to it. The entrance to the +crypt itself was then walled up with plaster, and overlaid further with a +quantity of rubbish. But six centuries were to roll over the arid heights +of St. Maximin before the entrance was to be broken open and the written +testimony of the Cassianites invoked. When the wars of the Saracens were +over, and men began to breathe in peace, and turn their thoughts once more +to the worship of God and the veneration of his saints, the fact of the +translation of the body of Magdalen from its original resting-place to the +sarcophagus of S. Sidonius had faded from their recollection; it was only +repeated in a vague sort of way that the illustrious penitent had been +removed to a place of safety, which was supposed to be at a distance; some +local coincidences pointed to the Abbey of Vezelay as the spot which had +been privileged to receive and shelter her. By degrees this belief took +root in the public mind, and the stream of pilgrims began to flow once +more and with renewed enthusiasm towards the venerable old Abbey of +Burgundy; crusaders met there to invoke before starting for the defence of +the Holy Sepulchre the protection of her whom the evangelists had handed +down to us as the heroine of the Sepulchre; kings and prelates, warriors +and poets, sinners and saints, flocked to the supposed tomb of Magdalen, +"till," in the words of a chronicler of the time, "it seemed as if all +France were running to Vezelay." God is slow to tell his secrets. It was +not until the close of the XIIIth century that the illusion, which had +evoked so much piety and so many manifestations of faith from Christendom, +was dispelled, and the truth revealed. This is how it happened. We will +translate from the Pere Lacordaire, whose _Sainte Marie Madeleine_ has +supplied us almost exclusively with the foregoing details: + +"S. Louis had a nephew born of his brother, Charles of Anjou, King of +Sicily, and Count of Provence. This nephew, who was likewise called +Charles, and who on the death of his father became king of Sicily and the +county of Provence, under the title of Charles II., had for S. Magdalen a +tenderness which he inherited from his race, and which, though common to +all the chivalry of France, attained in him the highest degree of ardor +and sincerity. While he was still Prince of Salerno, God inspired him with +a great desire to solve the mystery which for six centuries had hung over +the grave of her whom he loved for the sake of Jesus Christ. He set out +therefore to St. Maximin without any display, and accompanied only by a +few gentlemen of his suite, and having interrogated the monks and the +elders of the place, he caused the trenches of the old basilica of Cassian +to be opened. On the 9th of December, 1279, after many efforts which up to +that time had been fruitless, he stript himself of his chlamyde, took a +pickaxe, and began to dig vigorously into the ground with the rest of the +workmen. Presently they struck upon a tombstone. It was that of S. +Sidonius, to the right of the crypt. The prince ordered the slab to be +raised, and it was no sooner done than the perfume which exhaled from it +announced to the beholders that the grace of God was nigh. He bent down +for a moment, then caused the sepulchre to be closed, sealed it with his +seal, and at once convoked the bishops of Provence to assist at the public +recognition of the relics. Nine days later, on the 18th of December, in +the presence of the archbishops of Arles and of Aix, and of many other +prelates and gentlemen, the prince broke the seals which he had prefixed +to the sarcophagus. The sarcophagus was opened, and the hand of the +prince, in removing the dust which covered the bones, encountered +something which, as soon as he touched it, broke with age in his fingers. +It was a piece of cork from which fell a leaf of parchment covered with +writing that was still legible. It bore what follows: 'L'an de la Nativite +du Seigneur 710, le sixieme jour du mois de Decembre, sous le regne +d'Eudes, tres pieux Roi des francais, au temps des ravages de la perfide +nation des Sarrasins, le corps de la tres chere et venerable Marie +Madeleine a ete tres secretement et pendant la nuit transfere de son +sepulchre d'albatre dans celui-ci, qui est de marbre et d'ou l'on a retire +le corps de Sidoine, afin qu'il y soit plus cache et a l'abri de la dite +perfide nation.'(223) A deed setting forth this inscription and the manner +of its discovery was drawn up by the prince, the archbishops, and bishops +present, and Charles in great joy, after placing his seals again upon the +tomb, summoned for the fifth of May of the following year an assembly of +prelates, counts, barons, knights, and magistrates of Provence and the +neighboring counties to assist at the solemn translation of the relics +which he had been instrumental in raising from the obscurity of a long +series of ages." + +The news of the event was hailed with a shout of joy by all Christendom; +kings and prelates vied with each other in doing honor to the new-found +treasure; gold and precious stones poured in in quantities to adorn the +shrine which was destined to replace the alabaster tomb of S. Maximin. +"When the appointed day arrived," continues the Pere Lacordaire, "the +Prince of Salerno, in the presence of a vast and illustrious assembly, +opened for the third time the monument which he had sealed, and of which +the seals were certified to be intact. The skull of the saint was whole +except for the lower jaw-bone, which was wanting;(224) the tongue +subsisted, dried up, but adhering to the palate; the limbs presented only +bones stripped of the flesh; but a sweet perfume exhaled from the remains +that were now restored to light and to the piety of souls.... The fact had +already been made known of a sign altogether divine having been seen upon +the forehead of Magdalen. This was a particle of soft, transparent flesh +on the left temple, to the right, consequently, of the spectator; all +those who beheld it, inspired at the same moment by a unanimous act of +faith, cried out that it was there, on that very spot, that Jesus must +have touched Magdalen when he said to her after the resurrection, _Noli me +tangere!_ There was no proof of the fact, but what else could they think +who beheld on that brow so palpable a trace of life which had triumphantly +resisted thirteen centuries of the grave? Chance has no meaning for the +Christian; and when he beholds Nature superseded in her laws, he ascends +instinctively to the Supreme Cause--the Cause that never acts without a +motive, and whose motives reveal themselves to hearts that do not reject +the light.... Five centuries after this first translation, the _noli me +tangere_, as that instinct of faith had irrevocably named it, subsisted +still in the same place and with the same characters; the fact was +authenticated by a deputation of the Cour des Comptes of Aix. It was not +until the year 1780, on the eve of an epoch that was to spare no memory +and no relic, that the miraculous particle detached itself from the skull; +and even then the medical men who were called in by the highest authority +in the county certified that the _noli me tangere_ had adhered to the +forehead by the force of a vital principle which had survived there." + +The piety of Charles of Anjou raised a stately temple to the penitent of +Bethany on the site of the oratory of S. Maximin. Boniface VIII., who had +beheld with his own eyes the miraculous presence of the _noli me tangere_, +endowed the basilica munificently, and authorized the king to transfer the +custody of the relics from the Order of Cassianites, who had formerly held +it, to that of the Sons of S. Dominic, since become renowned through the +world under the name of _Freres precheurs_. A great number of popes +visited the shrine, and every king of France held it a duty and a +privilege to come to S. Maximin and Ste. Baume, and invoke the aid and +protection of the saint; up to Louis XIV., hardly a sovereign neglected +this public tribute of respect and devotion to her; but with the _Grand +Monarque_ the procession of royal pilgrims came to an end. The red tide of +revolution arose, and waged war against men's faith, and destroyed its +most touching manifestations and its noblest monuments. It broke, however, +harmless, at the foot of S. Maximin. Not a stone of the grand old pile was +touched, not an altar profaned, not even a picture stolen from the mouldy +and unguarded walls; the most precious part of its treasure, the relics of +Magdalen, which had been carefully concealed, were found intact, and duly +authenticated as before. Ste. Baume was less fortunate; the storm that +respected the tomb showed no mercy to the grotto which had witnessed +Magdalen's ecstatic communings with her Lord; the hospital, the convent, +and the church adjoining it were completely destroyed; nothing remained +but a barren rock and a portion of the neighboring forest. In 1822, a +partial restoration was effected; the vast and massive monastery was +replaced by a temporary building of the lightest and cheapest materials, +little better than a lath and plaster shed, to keep the monks under cover; +the grotto itself, once so sumptuously adorned by the piety of pilgrims, +was left in a state of nakedness and neglect, its costly lamps once +abundantly fed with aromatic oils were gone, their lights extinguished, +like the faith that had kindled them. The church was rebuilt in the same +superficial style as the convent, and solemnly reconsecrated in the +presence of forty thousand souls assembled in the forest and down in the +plain. But the material temple, great or small, is more easily rebuilt +than the spiritual one; the temple of stone was raised up again, but where +was the temple of the spirit which had animated it? Where was the +architect who would rebuild this, who would collect the scattered +fragments, and breathe upon the dead bones, and make them live, and bind +them as of yore into a body of devout and simple-hearted worshippers? +Many, remembering the bygone glories of Ste. Baume, wished that a prophet +would arise and work this wonder in Provence. Perhaps the wish took the +form of a prayer in some loving hearts, and so brought about its +accomplishment. The valiant-hearted son of S. Dominic, the Pere +Lacordaire, was to be the prophet of their desires. He rose up and +upbraided the people of Provence for their ingratitude to the memory of +their illustrious patroness, and for their decayed faith, and exhorted +them to stir up the dead embers of a devotion that had formerly been the +edification and joy of Christendom to repair and beautify the deserted +grotto of Mary Magdalen, and rekindle its lamps, and restore the +pilgrimage of Ste. Baume in its ancient fervor. The work was one that +appealed strongly to the sympathies of the Marseillese; but this was not +enough to ensure its success. In order to make the sympathy effectual, the +Pere Lacordaire needed a helpmate who would go about amongst the people +and put their good-will into a practical form for him--some one who would +second his exertions by docile and zealous and intelligent co-operation. +He looked around him, and his choice fell upon Amelie. He knew her, and +thought she was of all others the person best suited to his purpose. It +was no easy or pleasant task the setting on foot of a movement such as +this; the preliminaries were sure to be full of difficulties, often of the +sort that make self-love wince and smart; there was plenty of ridicule in +store, a goodly harvest of sneers and snubs to be garnered at the outset, +rude opposition to be endured from those who had no faith at all, and +chilling indifference from those who looked upon anything like a return to +the forms and symbols of the middle ages as poetic enthusiasm not +practicable in the XIXth century. It was just the kind of work to put the +daughter of S. Dominic to. She did not disappoint the Pere Lacordaire; but +responded as promptly to the call as his own fiery spirit could have +wished. It was in Amelie's house that the eloquent Dominican inaugurated +the _oeuvre_ of S. Baume, and told the story of the great penitent's life +and death. From the salon in the Rue Grignan the burning words of the +orator went forth to all Provence and stirred many hearts. A committee was +soon formed for raising the necessary funds towards the restoration of the +grotto as a preliminary to the reopening of the pilgrimage. The Pere +Lacordaire, as if the more prominently to record the services Amelie had +rendered in the work so far, and to associate her name with its progress, +desired that the meetings should be held at her house; and so they were, +and continued to be regularly until she left Marseilles for Rome. She +lived to see their joint labors crowned with success; the grotto assumed +gradually something of its ancient beauty; an inn was built on the plain +at the foot of the mountain for the accommodation of travellers who came +from a distance, pilgrims were once more seen toiling in great numbers up +the steep paths of the forest leading to the grotto, and filling the glade +with the sound of canticles, and the feast of S. Magdalen, the 22d of +July, was again celebrated with something of the pomp and fervor of olden +times. + +But events of this stirring and, so to speak, romantic interest were rare +in Amelie's life. Her path lay rather along the valleys than upon the +heights above. The doors of the Rue Grignan were often open indeed to the +wise and learned, and occasionally to the great ones of the earth; but the +visits of these were few and far between compared to those of the poor and +humble, who besieged it at all hours of the day and night. The poor looked +upon it as a centre of their own, where they had a right to come at all +times and seasons and make themselves at home. They did this at last so +completely that Amelie was sometimes obliged to slip out by a back door in +order to escape from their precious but pitiless importunity. But no +importuning, however persistent or unseasonable, could ruffle her +unalterable sweetness, or surprise her into a sharp answer or an abrupt +ungraciousness of manner. Hers was the charity that is not easily +provoked: it made her stern to self, but long-suffering towards others, +slow to see evil, softly forbearing to the weaknesses of all. + +This home work was only an episode in her everyday labors. There was not a +mission, or a hospital, or a refuge, or a good work of any sort in the +town, that she had not to do with in one way or another. Just as we often +hear it said of a woman of the world, "She is of every _fete_," so it used +to be said in Marseilles of Amelie, "She is of every charity." One of the +most venerable fathers of the Society of Jesus declared that it was +chiefly to her zeal and intelligent exertions that the Jesuits owed the +establishment of their mission at Marseilles. The Pere de Magdalon looked +upon her as his right hand; he enlisted her co-operation in all his +undertakings, and he used to say that it was to her he owed in a great +measure the success of the Maison de Retraite of S. Barthelemy, the last +work of his apostolate, and which he lived to see blessed with such +abundant fruits. The _Filles de la Charite_ were long the special objects +of her liberality and devoted exertions; then came the Sisters of Hope, +whose services to the sick are so praiseworthy, and whose presence amongst +them was hailed so gratefully by the Marseillese. When the _Petites Soeurs +des Pauvres_ were in any difficulty, they looked to Amelie to help them +out of it, and they speak with effusion still of the many proofs of +generosity they received from her, and of her unfailing readiness to +assist them whenever they appealed to her. She seemed to hire herself out +as a beast of burden to do the work and the bidding of every one who +wanted her. When there was a question of establishing the _Freres +Precheurs_ at Marseilles, she multiplied herself tenfold. No obstacles +could deter her in the service of the sons of her beloved S. Dominic; she +found a house for them, and paid all the expenses of their installation. +But whatever the work was that came under her hand, she did it, and as +promptly and earnestly as if it were the one of all others she most +delighted in; there was no exclusiveness, no narrowing of her sympathies +to an _idee fixe_ either in piety or in charity; those who had the +privilege of being her fellow-laborers for many years declare they never +once knew her charity to flag or fail to answer a fresh demand upon it; +the supply was inexhaustible, and seemed to increase in proportion as it +spent itself. Her health was wretched and kept her in almost constant +physical pain; yet her activity was extraordinary, and, considering the +chronic sufferings she had to contend with for the greater part of her +life, the amount of work she contrived to get through may be regarded as +little short of miraculous. She rose habitually at five, spent several +hours in prayer, and assisted at the Holy Sacrifice before beginning the +active duties of the day. These lay wherever there were sick to be tended, +and sorrowing ones to be comforted, and sinners to be converted. She was a +member of the Congregation of S. Elizabeth for visiting the hospitals, and +gave a good deal of time to this work, for which she had a particular +devotion. Her gentleness and singularly attractive manner fitted her +especially for dealing with aching bodies and sorrowing hearts, and it was +not a very rare thing to see Amelie succeed in melting the heart of some +obdurate sinner with whom the entreaties and repeated efforts of the +chaplain and the nuns had failed. The same sympathetic responsiveness that +she threw into so many different good works marked her intercourse with +individuals; those whom she was tending or consoling or advising always +felt that for the time being they were the chief object of interest to her +in life, and that she was giving her whole heart to them. She made this +impression perhaps more especially on the poor, to whom the sympathy of +those above them has such a charm and such a gift of consolation. An +amusing instance of it occurred once in the case of an old woman whom +Amelie had been nursing for some time; she put so much goodwill into all +she did, and performed the offices of a sick-nurse so affectionately, that +the poor old soul believed she had inspired her with some unaccountable +personal attachment; she returned it enthusiastically, and was never tired +testifying her gratitude and love. One day, however, Amelie arrived in the +poor little garret--tidy and clean, thanks to her--but, instead of being +welcomed with the usual smiles and embraces, the old woman set her face +like a flint, and preserved a sullen silence. For some time she +obstinately refused to say what was amiss with her, but finally, shamed by +the coaxing and evident distress of her nurse, she confessed that the day +before she had had a bitter disappointment. "I thought," she said, "that +you loved me, but I find I was under a delusion; you don't care a straw +for me; they tell me you do for every sick body in the town just what you +have been doing for me." It was with great difficulty that Amelie was able +to console her and obtain her forgiveness for being so universal in her +charity. + +But though her creed dealt in no exclusions, there were two classes of her +fellow-creatures who above the rest had a decided attraction for Amelie: +these were prisoners and soldiers. She yearned towards the former with the +true spirit of him who loved the publicans and sinners, who gave the +first-fruits of his death to one of them on Calvary, and who prayed for +them all with his last breath, saying: "Father, forgive them, for they +know not what they do!" The wonders that Amelie worked in the gloomy cells +of the Fort St. Nicholas, the sudden and admirable returns to God that she +obtained from the condemned, are not to be counted; not by men, at least. +Day after day she was to be found in the midst of them, teaching old men +their catechism, comforting and exhorting all, preparing them for death, +washing and dressing their sores, combing their hair, performing +cheerfully and affectionately the most disgusting offices. Her labors in +behalf of the troops are perhaps the most remarkable part of her life. She +had for many years been very zealous in her endeavors to promote religious +instruction amongst the soldiers, but her mission in this direction dates +chiefly from the Crimean war. During this brilliant campaign, which +brought so much glory and cost so much blood to the Allied armies, the +thought of the sufferings of the soldiers in the trenches and on the +battle-fields filled Amelie's heart to the momentary exclusion of all +other interests and preoccupations. Her whole time was spent working for +them, and begging and praying for them. She inspired all who came near her +with something of her own ardor and tenderness in the cause. She set up +societies among her friends for making clothes and lint for the sufferers, +and for collecting money to procure all that could comfort and alleviate +them. Her efforts were crowned with abundant success. Now, as on many +other occasions, money flowed in to her from all sides, sometimes from +strangers at a distance, for the fame of her charity had spread much +further than the humble daughter of S. Dominic herself suspected, and many +benevolent people who wished to give, and knew not how to apply their +offerings, sent them to her, satisfied that they would be well and wisely +employed. The way in which large sums of money sometimes dropped into her +lap, as it were from the sky, at some opportune moment when she was in +dire want of it for some case of distress, led many of her humble +_proteges_ to believe that it came to her miraculously. But, while mindful +of their bodies, Amelie's first solicitude was for the souls of the brave +fellows who were going out to face death in the service of their country; +while working so hard to procure all that could heal and solace their +temporal sufferings, she was laboring still more assiduously in behalf of +their spiritual interests. Nor did her efforts confine themselves +exclusively to the soldiers, they extended to the officers as well, and +much more difficult she often found them to manage than the rough-and- +ready men under their command. Many a droll story is still told at +Marseilles of the tricks by which they sometimes evaded her attempts to +catch them in her zealous toils and make them remember that they had +another enemy to fight and to conquer besides the soldiers of Holy Russia. +Once two young officers of good family and fortune, whose lives were not +the most edifying to the community, were pointed out to Amelie by one of +their brother officers, a fervent Catholic, as fitting subjects for her +zeal. He undertook to bring them to the Rue Grignan under the pretence of +introducing them to an old and charming friend of his, if Amelie would +promise to try and convert them. She promised of course to _try_, and the +two scapegraces made their appearance, never suspecting that a trap had +been laid for them. The conversation dwelt upon the great topic of the +day, the war, Amelie carefully avoiding the most distant allusion to the +spiritual condition of her visitors. The young men were charmed with her +affability and _esprit_, and, when she asked them to return with their +friend in a few days and dine with her, they accepted her invitation with +delight. During dinner their hostess alluded to the numerous pilgrimages +that were being performed every day to Notre Dame de Garde; few of the +soldiers or sailors started for the Crimea from Marseilles without +climbing up the hill to salute Our Lady and ask her blessing on their +arms. The young men confessed that they had never made the pilgrimage and +evinced little admiration for their more devout comrades; Amelie seemed +surprised, but not at all scandalized, at the frank admission, and +proposed that they should both make the pilgrimage next morning and hear +Mass there with her at eight o'clock. They assented with ready courtesy, +inwardly treating the expedition as a harmless joke, and took leave of +their hostess, very much delighted with her, and not much terrified by the +salutary projects that might be lurking in her breast with regard to the +morrow. They were at the bottom of the hill punctually at half-past seven, +and toiled up to the church, where they expected to see Amelie already on +the lookout for them. But they looked round the church and saw no sight of +her. Taking for granted that she was not there, and that something had +interfered to prevent her keeping the appointment, they took themselves +off with the comfortable feeling of having done their duty, and behaved +like gentlemen, and come safe out of it. The morning was raw and cold, and +they were both tired after the long pull uphill, so on their way down they +turned into a little dairy where hungry pilgrims were comforting +themselves with cups of coffee. There was a good fire in the place, and +they sat down to enjoy it, and dawdled a good while over their hot coffee, +wondering what kind trick of Fortune had prevented the enemy from +appearing in the field; when lo! looking up suddenly, they beheld the +truant peering in at them through the window. The pair started as if they +had seen a ghost. But Amelie knew human nature too well to press her +advantage at such a moment; she smiled, shook her finger threateningly, +and went her way down the hill, leaving the two young men less triumphant +than she had found them, and very anxious to clear themselves of having +broken their word to a lady, and eager to redeem it a second time if +Amelie desired. She did desire it, and it was not long before one of the +two blessed her for having done so. He was ordered off with his regiment +soon after, and before setting sail ascended once more to the shrine of +Notre Dame de Garde in a different spirit and with a very different +purpose. + +Her intercourse with the troops during this period gave Amelie an insight +into the deplorable ignorance in matters of faith that existed in the +majority of them, and the absence of all religious instruction in the +army; it filled her with surprise and grief, and she determined to set to +work and bring about a change in both. + +Reforms are proverbially difficult, and in any branch of the public +service pre-eminently so. But difficulties only stimulate strong hearts to +more strenuous efforts. Amelie was, owing to her high intelligence, her +well-known virtue, and her widespread relations, better calculated than +most people perhaps to succeed in the undertaking; besides, whatever the +obstacles were, she never reckoned with human means when God's work was to +be done; she called him to the rescue, and left the issue in his hands. It +would be impossible to recount all she did and suffered in this most +arduous undertaking, the journeys she took, the petitions she drew up, the +letters she wrote, the disappointments and antagonism that attended it in +the beginning, and the physical and moral fatigue that it involved all +through. The frequent and successive journeys of eighteen hours to Paris +and the same back would have been a serious trial of strength to a strong +person; but to Amelie, whose health was extremely delicate, and who hardly +ever knew the sensation of being without pain, most frequently acute and +intense pain, the wear and tear of those journeys in the sultry heat of +summer and the bitter cold of winter alike must have been terrible. But +she made small account of her body, she drove it on like a beast of +burden, goading it with the ardor of her spirit, and never gave in to its +lamentations until it positively refused to go on. Her own shortcomings +were, however, the lightest portion of her difficulties. She had obstacles +to overcome on every side, especially in quarters where it was most +essential for her to find approval and assistance. Silvio Pellico said it +was easier to traverse a battle-field than the antechamber of a king, and +the same may be said most likely of the antechamber of a minister. At +least Amelie found it so. Many a brave spirit might well have given up in +despair before the contemptuous rudeness and petty opposition of small +functionaries, and the inaccessible coldness of great ones, and the +disheartening predictions of well-wishers who had gone through similar +experiences, and knew what it was to want anything, even in the natural +course of things, done at the War Office; but Amelie's courage never +flagged for a moment. By degrees her perseverance began to meet with some +signs of success. It was known that one military man in high repute +supported her views, and was doing his best to enable her to carry them +out; this converted others. Several who had in the first instance treated +her project as impracticable, or unnecessary, or simply absurd, one after +another came over to her; it was not always because she convinced them, +but she won them; they might resist her arguments, but it was impossible +to come often in contact with her without feeling the contagion of her +earnestness and sincerity of purpose. Her labors were finally crowned with +abundant success. She obtained all the concessions she asked, and every +facility for carrying them out and improving the spiritual condition of +the soldiers. One of her chief anxieties had been for the condemned +prisoners in the Fort St. Nicholas. She obtained permission for one of the +dungeons to be turned into a chapel there, and it was henceforth her +delight to go there on the great feasts and decorate the altar, and make +it gay with lights and flowers for the captives. A chaplain was appointed +to the fort, and he was allowed every facility for the exercise of his +ministry. + +The little _enfants de troupe_ whose youth recommended them to Amelie's +solicitude were provided with the needful means of religious instruction +by the establishment of a school, over which she herself presided from +time to time, cheering on the pupils by good advice, and occasional +presents to the most industrious and deserving. General de Courtigis, who +commanded the garrison for many years at Marseilles, and left behind him a +memory respected by all good men, had been from the first a staunch ally +of Amelie's in her endeavors to introduce a Christian spirit amongst both +the officers and men. At her suggestion he organized a military Mass every +Sunday at the Church of S. Charles, and there a great number of men, with +the general at their head, assisted regularly at the Holy Sacrifice. It +was a great treat to Amelie, whenever she could find time, to go and +assist at it with them. She enjoyed the martial appearance and reverent +bearing of the soldiers with a sort of motherly pride, and the sharp word +of command, and the clanking of the bayonets when they presented arms at +the solemn moment of consecration, used to send a thrill of emotion +through her frame that often melted her to tears. + +"Oh!" she was heard once to exclaim, on coming out of S. Charles', "what a +grand and consoling spectacle it is, to see our soldiers publicly +worshipping God! One feels that they must be invincible in battle when +they set out with the blessing of God on their arms." + +The troops, on their side, repaid her interest in them by the most +enthusiastic affection. They used to call her _notre mere_ amongst +themselves, and it delighted Amelie to hear a grizzly old veteran address +her by this familiar name. Sometimes the brave fellows' gratitude +expressed itself in a way that was rather trying to their adopted mother. +A regiment which had been quartered at Marseilles, and received many +proofs of zeal and kindness from Amelie during its stay there, happened to +hear, when passing through Lyons some years later, that she was stopping +there. They started off at once in full force, and gave her a military +serenade under her windows. Amelie, of course, showed herself at the +window, and acknowledged the honor, but this did not satisfy the soldiers: +nothing would do them but she should come out and shake hands with every +man in the regiment. + +Much as Amelie shrank from public notice or praise, her humility could not +prevent her extraordinary exertions in behalf of the troops, and the +success which had attended them, from shining out before men. The nature +of the undertaking had necessarily brought her in contact with the most +influential military men of the day, both at Marseilles and in Paris. +These gentlemen had ample opportunity to appreciate her character and +judge of the value of her services; and though so many had opposed her in +the beginning, when they saw her labors triumphant, success raised her so +highly in their estimation that they thought it would be becoming to offer +a public tribute of their esteem and gratitude by decorating her with the +Cross of the Legion of Honor. Accordingly, a letter was despatched one day +from the War Office, informing the quiet, unpretending friend of the poor +soldier that the government, to testify their approval of her conduct, +invested her with the most honorable mark of distinction it was in their +power to bestow. Amelie received the announcement at first as a joke. The +idea of her going about the world with the Cross or the red ribbon +fastened to her black gown, and being greeted with the military salute and +presented arms to whenever the symbol caught the eye of a soldier or a +sentry, while she threaded her way through the busy streets of Marseilles, +struck her as so altogether comical that she could only laugh at it. But +neither the authorities nor her friends saw any laughing matter in it; the +latter combated her refusal so strongly that Amelie was perplexed; she +knew not how to reconcile her deference to their wishes with what appeared +to her little short of an act of treason to Christian humility and common +sense; they argued that, by accepting the Cross, she would excite a good +feeling in the minds of many towards the government, a result which in +those turbulent and antagonistic times was always desirable, and, in the +next place, it would invest her with a half-official position in certain +circumstances that she might find very useful to others in her relations +with minor functionaries. This last consideration had some weight with +Amelie; she turned it to account, though not in the way her friends +desired. She wrote to the minister, declining gratefully an honor which +she did not feel qualified to accept, but requested that he would reward +what he was pleased to call her services by granting her a _droit de +grace_. This would entitle her to present petitions for a commutation of +sentence in case of military prisoners, and even on certain specified +occasions to commute the sentence herself. The privilege was granted at +once, and, if ever virtue had a sweet reward in this world, it was when +Amelie exercised it for the first time in favor of one of the captives of +Fort St. Nicholas. Her friends rejoiced with her, and almost forgave her +for refusing the sterile honor of the Cross of the Legion of Honor. They +never knew, so carefully did her humility keep its secret, that the +government, when granting her the _droit de grace_, exacted as a condition +that she should submit to become a member of the Legion of Honor. It was +years after that a friend, who had heard something in high quarters which +aroused his suspicions, and who was intimate enough with Amelie to take +the liberty of catechising her on the subject, asked point-blank if she +was decorated, and under promise of secrecy learned the truth. + +To Be Concluded In Our Next. + + + + +The Progressionists. + + +From The German Of Conrad Von Bolanden. + + + +Chapter IX. Progress Grows Jolly. Concluded. + + +In passing near the tables Gerlach overheard conversations which revealed +to him unmistakably the communistic aspirations and tendencies prevailing +among the lower orders, their fiendish hatred of religion and the clergy, +their corruption and appalling ignorance. On every hand he perceived +symptoms of an alarmingly unhealthy condition of society. He heard +blasphemies uttered against the Divinity which almost caused his blood to +run cold; sacred things were scoffed at in terms so coarse and with an +animus so plainly satanical that his hair rose on his head. It was clear +to him that the firmest supports, the only true foundations of the social +order, were tottering--rotted away by an incurable corruption. + +In Gerlach's life, also, as in that of many other men, there had been a +period of mental struggle and of doubt. He, too, had at one time found +himself face to face with questions the solution of which involved the +whole aim of his existence. During this period of mental unrest, he had +thought and studied much about faith and science, but not with a silly +parade of superficial scepticism. He had resolutely engaged in the soul +struggle, and had tried to end it for once and all. Supported by a good +early training and a disposition naturally noble, instructed and guided by +books of solid learning, he had come out from that crisis stronger in +faith and more correct in his views of human science. The scenes which he +was witnessing reminded him vividly of that turning-point in his life; +they were to him an additional proof that man's dignity disappears as soon +as he refuses to follow the divine guidance of religion. Grave in mood, he +returned to the table around which were gathered the chieftains. The marks +of respect shown to the millionaire were numerous and flattering. Even the +bluff Sand exerted himself unusually in paying his respects to the wealthy +landholder, and Erdblatt, whose embarrassed financial condition enabled +him beyond them all to appreciate the worth of money, filled a glass with +his own hand, and reached it to Mr. Conrad with the deference of an +accomplished butler. Gerlach was pleased to speak in terms of praise of +the nut-brown beverage, which greatly tickled Belladonna, the fat brewer. +Naturally enough, the conversation turned upon the subject of the +celebration. + +"I confess I am not quite clear respecting the purpose of your city in the +matter of schools," said Mr. Conrad. "How do you intend to arrange the +school system?" + +"In such a way as to make it accord with the requirements of the times and +the progressive spirit of civilization," answered Hans Shund. "An end must +be put to priest rule in the schools. The establishment of common schools +will be a decided step towards this object. For a while, of course, the +priests will be allowed to visit the schools at specified times, but their +influence and control in school matters will be greatly restricted. +Education will be withdrawn from the church's supervision, and after a few +years we hope to reach the point when the school-rooms will be closed +altogether against the priests. There is not a man of culture but will +agree that children should not be required to learn things which are out +of date, and the import of which must only excite smiles of compassion." + +"Whom do you intend to put in the place of the clergy?" inquired Mr. +Conrad. + +"We intend to impart useful information and a moral sense in harmony with +the spirit of the age," replied Hans Shund. + +"It seems to me the elementary branches have been very competently taught +heretofore in our schools, consequently I do not see the need of a change +on this head," said Gerlach. "But you have not understood my question. I +mean, who are to fill the office of instructors in morals and in +religion?" + +The chieftains looked puzzled, for such a question they had not expected +to hear from the wealthiest man of the country. + +"You see, Mr. Gerlach," said Sand bluntly, "religion must be done away +with entirely. We haven't any use for such trash. Children ought to spend +their time in learning something more sensible than the catechism." + +"I am not disposed to believe that what you have just uttered is a correct +expression of the general opinion of this community on the subject of the +school question," returned the millionaire with some warmth. "It is +impossible to bring up youth morally without religion. You are a +housebuilder, Mr. Sand. What would you think of the man who would expect +you to build him a house without a foundation--a castle in the air?" + +"Why, I would regard him as nothing less than a fool," cried Sand. + +"The case is identically the same with moral education. Morality is an +edifice which a man must spend his life in laboring at. Religion is the +groundwork of this edifice. Moral training without religion is an +impossibility. It would be just as possible to build a house in the air, +as to train up a child morally without a religious belief, without being +convinced of the existence of a holy and just God." + +"Facts prove the contrary," maintained Hans Shund. "Millions of persons +are moral who have no religious belief." + +"That's an egregious mistake, sir," opposed the landholder. "The +repudiation of a Supreme Being and the violent extinction of the idea of +the Divinity in the breast are of themselves grave offences against moral +conscience. I grant you that, in the eyes of the public, thousands of men +pass for moral who have no faith in religion. But public opinion is +anything but a criterion of certainty when the moral worth of a man is to +be determined. A man's interior is a region which cannot be viewed by the +eye of the public. You know yourselves that there are men who pass for +honorable, moral, pure men, whose private habits are exceedingly filthy +and corrupt." + +Hans Shund's color turned a palish yellow; the eyes of the chieftains +sank. + +"Besides, gentleman, it would be labor lost to try to educate youth +independently of religion. Man is by his very nature a religious being. It +is useless to attempt to educate the young without a knowledge of God and +of revealed religion; to be able to do so you would previously have to +pluck out of their own breasts the sense of right and wrong, and out of +their souls the idea of God, which are innate in both. Were the attempt +made, however, believe me, gentlemen, the yearning after God, alive in the +human breast, would soon impel the generation brought up independently of +religion to seek after false gods. For this very reason we know of no +people in history that did not recognize and worship some divinity, were +it but a tree or a stone, that served them for an object of adoration. In +my opinion, it would be far more indicative of genuine progress to adhere +to the God of Christians, who is incontestably holy, just, omnipotent, and +kind, whilst to return to the sacred oaks of ancient Germany or to adopt +the fetichism of uncivilized tribes would be a most monstrous reaction, +the most degrading barbarism." + +The chieftains looked nonplussed. Earnest thinking and investigation upon +subjects pertaining to religion were not customary among the disciples of +progress. They looked upon religion as something so common and trivial +that anybody was free to argue upon and condemn it with a few flippant or +smart sayings. But the millionaire was now disclosing views so new and +vast, that their weak vision was completely dazzled, and their steps upon +the unknown domain became unsteady. + +Mr. Seicht, observing the embarrassment of the leaders, felt it his duty +to hasten to their relief. His polemical weapons were drawn from the +armory of bureaucracy. + +"The progressive development of humanity," said Mr. Seicht, "has revealed +an admirable substitute for all religious ideas. A state well organized +can exist splendidly without any religion. Nay, I do not hesitate to +maintain that religion is a drawback to the development of the modern +state, and that, therefore, the state should have nothing whatever to do +with religion. An invisible world should not exert an influence upon a +state--the wants of the times are the only rule to be consulted." + +"What do you understand by a state, sir?" asked the millionaire. + +"A state," replied the official, "is a union of men whose public life is +regulated by laws which every individual is bound to observe." + +"You speak of laws; upon what basis are these laws founded?" + +"Upon the basis of humanity, morality, liberty, and right," answered the +official glibly. + +"And what do you consider moral and just?" + +"Whatever accords with the civilization of the age." + +A faint smile passed over the severe features of Mr. Conrad. + +"I was watching the procession," spoke he. "I have seen the religious +feelings of a large number of citizens publicly ridiculed and grossly +insulted. Was that moral? Was it just? You are determined to oust God and +religion from the schools; yet there are thousands in the country who +desire and endeavor to secure a religious education for their children. Is +it moral and just to utterly disregard the wishes of these thousands? Does +it accord with a profession of humanity and freedom to put constraint on +the consciences of fellow-citizens?" + +"The persons of whom you speak are a minority in the state, and the +minority is obliged to yield to the will of the majority," answered +Seicht. + +"It follows, then, that the basis of morality and justice is superior +numbers?" + +"Yes, it is! In a state, it appertains to the majority to determine and +regulate everything." + +"Gentlemen," spoke Gerlach with great seriousness, "as I was a moment ago +strolling over this place, I overheard language at several tables, which +was unmistakably communistic. Laborers and factorymen were maintaining +that wealth is unequally distributed; that, whilst a small number are +immensely rich, a much greater number are poor and destitute; that +progress will have to advance to a point when an equal division of +property must be made. Now, the poor and the laboring population are in +the majority. Should they vote for a partition, should they demand from us +what hitherto we have regarded as exclusively our own, we, gentlemen, will +in consistency be forced to accept the decree of the majority as perfectly +moral and just--will we not?" + +There was profound silence. + +"I, for my part, should most emphatically protest against such a ruling of +the majority," declared Greifmann. + +"Your protest would be contrary to morals and equity; for, according to +Mr. Seicht, only what the majority wills is moral and just," returned the +landowner. "And, in mentioning partition of property, I hinted at a red +monster which is not any longer a mere goblin, but a thing of real flesh +and bone. We are on the verge of a fearful social revolution which +threatens to break up society. If there is no holy and just God; if he has +not revealed himself, and man is not obliged to submit to his will; if the +only basis of right and of morals is the wish of the majority, this +terrible social revolution must be moral and just, for the majority wills +it and carries it out." + +"Of course, there must be a limit," said the official feebly. + +"The demands of the majority must be reasonable." + +"What do you understand by reasonable, sir?" + +"I call reasonable whatever accords with the sense of right, with sound +thinking, with moral ideas." + +"Sense of right--moral ideas? I beg you to observe that these notions +differ vastly from the sole authority of numbers. You have trespassed upon +God's kingdom in giving your explanation, for ideas are supersensible; +they are the thought of God himself. And the sense of right was not +implanted in the human breast by the word of a majority; it was placed +there by the Creator of man." + +The official was driven to the wall. The chieftains thoughtfully stared at +their beer-pots. + +"It is clear that the will of the majority alone cannot be accepted as the +basis of a state," said Schwefel. + +"The life of society cannot be put at the mercy of the rude and fickle +masses. There must be a moral order, willed and regulated by a supreme +ruler, and binding upon every man. This is plain." + +"I agree with you, sir," said the millionaire. "Let us continue building +on Christian principles. As everybody knows, our civilization has sprung +from Christianity. If we tear down the altars and destroy the seats from +which lessons of Christian morality are taught, confusion must inevitably +follow. And I, gentlemen, have too exalted an opinion of the German +nation, of its earnest and religious spirit, to believe that it can be +ever induced to fall away completely from God and his holy law. Infidelity +is an unhealthy tendency of our times; it is a pernicious superstition +which sound sense and noble feeling will ultimately triumph over. We will +do well to continue advancing in science, art, refinement, and industry, +in true liberty and the right understanding of truth; we will thus be +making real progress, such progress as I am proud to call myself a +partisan of." + +The chieftains maintained silence. Some nodded assent. Hans Shund gave an +angry bite to his pipe-stem, and puffed a heavy cloud of smoke across the +table. + +"I have confidence in the enlightenment and good sense of our people," +said he. "You have called modern progress 'a pernicious superstition and +an unhealthy tendency of the times,' Mr. Gerlach," turning towards the +millionaire with a bow. "I regret this view of yours." + +"Which I have substantiated and proved," interrupted Gerlach. + +"True, sir! Your proofs have been striking, and I do not feel myself +competent to refute them. But I can point you to something more powerful +than argument. Look at this scene; see these happy people meeting and +enjoying one another's society in most admirable harmony and order. Is not +this spectacle a beautiful illustration and vindication of the moral +spirit of progress?" + +"These people are jubilant from the effect of beer, why shouldn't they be? +But, sir, a profound observer does not 'suffer himself to be deceived by +mere appearances.' " + +An uproar and commotion at a distance interrupted the millionaire. At the +same instant a policeman approached out of breath. + +"Your honor, the factorymen and the laborers are attacking one another!" + +"What are you raising such alarm for," said Hans Shund gruffly. "It is +only a small squabble, such as will occur everywhere in a crowd." + +"I ask your honor's pardon: it is not a small squabble, it is a bloody +battle." + +"Well, part the wranglers." + +"We cannot manage them; there are too many of them. Shall I apply for +military?" + +"Hell and thunder--military!" cried Hans Shund, getting on his feet. "Are +you in your senses?" + +"Several men have already been carried off badly wounded," reported the +policeman further. "You have no idea how serious the affray is, and it is +getting more and more so; the friends of both sides are rushing in to aid +their own party. The police force is not a match for them." + +Women, screaming and in tears, were rushing in every direction. The bands +had ceased playing, and noise and confusion resounded from the scene of +action. Louise ran to take her brother's arm in consternation. The wives +and daughters of the chieftains huddled round their natural protectors. + +"Hurry away and report this at the military post," was Seicht's order to +the policeman. "The feud is getting alarming. One moment!" + +Tearing a leaf from a memorandum book, he wrote a short note, which he +sent by the messenger. + +"Off to the post--be expeditious!" + +Louise hastened with her brother and Gerlach senior to their carriage, and +her feeling of security returned only when the noise of the combat had +died away in the distance. + +The next day the town papers contained the following notice: "The +beautiful celebration of yesterday, which, on account of its object, will +be long remembered by the citizens of this community, was unfortunately +interrupted by a serious conflict between the laborers and factorymen. A +great many were wounded during the _melee_, of whom five have since died, +and it required the interference of an armed force to separate the +combatants." + + + +Chapter X. Brown Bread And Bonnyclabber. + + +Seraphin had not gone to the celebration. He remained at home on the plea +of not feeling well. He was stretched upon a sofa, and his soul was +engaged in a desperate conflict. What it was impossible for himself to +look upon, had been viewed by his father with composure: the burlesque +procession, the public derision of holy practices, the mockery of the +Redeemer of the world, in whose place had been put a broken bottle on the +symbol of salvation. He himself had been stunned by the spectacle; and his +father? Was it his father? Again, his father had accompanied the brother +and sister to the infamous celebration. Was not this a direct confirmation +of his own suspicions? His father had become a fearful enigma to his soul! +And what if, upon his return from the festival, the father were to come +and insist upon the marriage with Louise, declaring her advanced notions +to be an insufficient ground for renouncing a pet project? A wild storm +was convulsing his interior. He could not bear it longer, he was driven +forth. Snatching his straw hat, he rushed from the house, ran through the +alleys and streets, out of the town, onward and still onward. The August +sun was burning, and its heat, reflected from the road, was doubly +intense. The perspiration was rolling in large drops down the glowing face +of the young man, whom torturing thoughts still kept goading on. Holt's +whitewashed dwelling became visible on the summit of a knoll, and gleamed +a friendly welcome as he came near it--a welcome which seemed opportune for +one who hardly knew whither he was hastening. The walnut-tree which could +be seen from afar was casting an inviting shade over the table and bench +that seemed to be confidingly leaning against its stem. A flock of +chickens were taking a sand-bath under the table, flapping their wings, +ruffling their feathers, and wallowing in the dust. Seated on the sunny +hillock, the cottage appeared quiet, almost lonesome but for a ringing +sound which came from the adjoining field and was made by the sickle +passing through the corn. A broad-brimmed straw hat with a blue band could +be noticed from the road moving on over the fallen grain, and presently +Mechtild's slender form rose into view as she pushed actively onward over +the harvest field. Hasty steps resounded from the road. She raised her +head, and her countenance first indicated surprise, then embarrassment. +Whom did her eyes behold rushing wildly by, like a fugitive, but the +generous rescuer of her family from the clutches of the usurer Shund. His +hat was in his hand, his auburn locks were hanging down over his forehead, +his face was aglow, his whole being seemed to be absorbed in a mad +pursuit. To her quick eye his features revealed deep trouble and violent +excitement. She was frightened, and the sickle fell from her hand. Not a +day passed on which she would not think of this benefactor. Perhaps there +was not a being on earth whom she admired and revered as much as she did +him. All the pure and elevated sentiments of an innocent and blooming girl +united to form a halo of affection round the head of Seraphin. At evening +prayer when her father said, "Let us pray for our benefactor Seraphin," +her soul sent up a fervent petition to God, and she declared with joy that +she was willing to sacrifice all for him. But behold this noble object of +her admiration and affection suddenly presented before her in a state that +excited the greatest uneasiness. With his head sunk and his eyes directed +straight before him, he would have rushed past without noticing the +sympathizing girl, when a greeting clear and sweet as the tone of a bell +caused him to look up. He beheld Mechtild with her beautiful eyes fixed +upon him in an expression of anxiety. + +"Good-morning, Mr. Seraphin," she said again. + +"Good-morning," he returned mechanically, and staring about vaguely. His +bewilderment soon passed, however, and his gaze was riveted by the +apparition. + +She was standing on the other side of the ditch. The fear of some unknown +calamity had given to her beautiful face an expression of tender +solicitude, and whilst a smile struggled for possession of her lips her +look indicated painful anxiety. Mechtild's appearance soon directed the +young man's attention to his own excited manner. The dark shadow +disappeared from his brow, he wiped the perspiration from his face, and +began to feel the effect of his walk under the glowing heat of midsummer. + +"Ah! why, here is the neat little white house, your pretty country home, +Mechtild," he said pleasantly. "If you had not been so kind as to wish me +good-morning, I should actually have passed by in an unpardonable fit of +distraction." + +"I was almost afraid to say good-morning, Mr. Seraphin, but--" She faltered +and looked confused. + +"But--what? You didn't think anything was wrong?" + +"No! But you were in such a hurry and looked so troubled, I got +frightened," she confessed with amiable uprightness. "I was afraid +something had happened you." + +"I am thankful for your sympathy. Nothing has happened me, nor, I trust, +will," he replied, with a scarcely perceptible degree of defiance in his +tone. "This is a charming situation. Corn-fields on all sides, trees laden +with fruit, the skirt of the woods in the background--and then this +magnificent view! With your permission, I will take a moment's rest in the +shade of yon splendid walnut-tree planted by your great-grandfather." + +She joyfully nodded assent and stepped over the ditch. She shoved back the +bolt of the gate. Together they entered the yard, which a hedge separated +from the road. The cock crew a welcome to the stranger, and led his +household from the sand-bath into the sunshine near the barn. + +"This is a cool, inviting little spot," said the millionaire, as he +pointed to the shade of the walnut-tree. "No doubt you often sit here and +read?" + +"Yes, Mr. Seraphin; but the dirty chickens have scattered dust all over +the bench and table. Wait a minute, you'll get your clothes dusty." + +She hurried into the house. His eyes followed her receding form, his ears +kept listening for her departing steps, he heard the opening and closing +of doors: presently she reappeared, dusted the bench and table with a +brush, and spread a white cloth over the table. Seraphin looked on with a +smile. + +"I do not wish to be troublesome, Mechtild!" + +"It is no trouble, Mr. Seraphin! Sit down, now, and rest yourself. I am so +sorry father and mother are not at home. They will be ever so glad to hear +that you have honored us with a visit." + +"Is nobody at home?" + +"Father is in town, and mother is at work with the children in the harvest +field." + +"Are you not afraid to stay here by yourself?" + +"What should I be afraid of? There are no ghosts in daytime," she said +with a bewitching archness; "and as for thieves, they never expect to find +anything worth having at our house." + +She was standing on the other side of the table, looking at him with a +beautiful smile. + +"Won't you have a seat on this bench?" said he, making room for her. "You +need rest more than I do. You have been working, and I am merely an idle +stroller. Do take a seat, Mechtild." + +"Thank you, Mr. Seraphin--I could not think of doing so! It would not be +becoming," she answered with some confusion. + +"Why not becoming?" + +"Because you are a gentleman, and I am only a poor girl." + +"Your objection on the score of propriety is not worth anything. Oblige me +by doing what I ask of you." + +"I will do so, Mr. Seraphin, since you insist upon it, but after a while. +I would like to offer you some refreshments beforehand, if you will allow +me." + +"With pleasure," he said, nodding assent. + +A second time she hurried away to the house, whilst he kept listening to +her footsteps. The extraordinary neatness and cleanliness which could be +seen everywhere about the little homestead did not escape his observation. +On all sides he fancied he saw the work of Mechtild. The purity of her +spirit, which beamed so mildly from her eyes and was revealed in the +beauty of her countenance and the grace of her person, seemed embodied in +the very odor of roses wafted over from the neighboring flower garden. He +was unconscious of the rapid growth within his bosom of a deep and tender +feeling. This feeling was casting a warm glow, like softest sunshine, over +all that he beheld. Not even the chickens looked to him like other fowls +of their kind; they were ennobled by the reflection that they were objects +of Mechtild's care, that she fed them, that when they were still piping +little pullets she had held them in her lap and caressed them. He +abandoned himself completely to this sentiment; it carried him on like a +smooth current; and he could not tell, did not suspect even, why so +wonderful a reaction had in so short a time taken place in his interior. +Beholding himself seated under the walnut-tree surrounded only by +evidences of honorable poverty and rural thrift, and yet feeling a degree +of happiness and peace he had never known before, he fancied he was +performing a part in some fairy tale which he was dreaming with his eyes +open. And now the fairy appeared at the door having on a snowy-white +apron, and carrying a shallow basket from which could be seen, protruding +above the rest of its contents, a milk jar. She set before him a pewter +plate, bright as silver. Then she took out the jar and a cup, next she +laid a knife and spoon for him, and finished her hospitable service with a +huge loaf of bread. + +"Don't get dismayed at the bread, Mr. Seraphin! I am sorry I cannot set +something better before you. But it is well baked and will not hurt you!" + +"You baked it yourself, did you not?" + +"Yes, Mr. Seraphin!" + +He attacked the loaf resolutely. From the dimensions of the slice which he +cut off, it was plain that both his appetite and his confidence in her +skill were satisfactory. She raised the jar of bonnyclabber, which lurched +out in jerks upon his plate, whilst he kept gayly stirring it with the +spoon. Then she dipped a spoonful of rich cream out of the cup and poured +it into the refreshing contents of the plate. + +"Let me know when you want me to stop, Mr. Seraphin." Mechtild poured +spoonful after spoonful; he sat immovable, seemingly observing the spoon, +but in reality watching her soft plump fingers, then her well-shaped hand, +next her exquisitely turned arm, and, when finally he raised his eyes to +her face, they were met by a mischievous smile. The cup was empty, and all +the cream was in his plate. + +"May I go and fetch some more?" she asked. + +"No, Mechtild, no! Why, this is a regular yellow sea!" + +"You wouldn't cry 'enough!' " + +"I forgot about it," he replied, somewhat confused. "To atone for my +forgetfulness, I will eat it all." + +"I hope you will relish it, Mr. Seraphin!" + +"Thank you! Where is your plate?" + +"I had my dinner before you came." + +"Well, then, at any rate you must not continue standing. Won't you share +this seat with me?" + +She seated herself upon the bench, took off her hat, smoothed down her +apron, and appeared happy at seeing him eating heartily. + +"Don't you find that dish refreshing, Mr. Seraphin?" + +"You have done me a real act of charity," he replied. "This bread is +excellent. Who taught you how to make bread?" + +"I learned from mother; but there isn't much art in making that sort of +bread, Mr. Seraphin. The food which people in the country eat does not +require artistic preparation. It only needs good, pure material, so that +it may give strength to labor." + +"I suppose you attend to the kitchen altogether, do you not?" + +"Yes, Mr. Seraphin. That's not very difficult, our meals are of the +plainest kind. We have meat once a week, on Sundays. When the work is +unusually hard, as in harvest time, we have meat oftener. We raise our own +meat and cure it." + +"You have assumed household cares at quite an early age, Mechtild." + +"Early? I am seventeen now, and am the oldest. Mother has a great deal of +trouble with the small ones, so the housework falls chiefly to my share. +It does not require any great exertion, however, to do it. Plain and +saving is our motto. Mother specially recommends four things: industry, +cleanliness, order, and economy. She advises me not to neglect any one of +these points when once I will have a household of my own." + +"Do you think you will soon set up a separate household?" asked he with +some hesitation. + +"Not for some time to come, Mr. Seraphin, yet it must be done one day. If +my own inclination were consulted, I would prefer never to leave home. I +should like things to continue as they are. But a separation must come. +Death will pay us a visit as it has done to others, father and mother will +pass away, and the course of events will sever us from one another." + +Her head sank, the brightness of her face became obscured beneath the +shadow of these sombre thoughts, and, when she again looked up, there +appeared in her eyes so touching and childlike a sadness that he felt +pained to the soul. And yet this revelation of tenderness pleased him, for +it made known to him a new phase of her amiable nature. + +For a long time he continued conversing with the artless girl. Every word +she uttered, no matter how trifling, had an interest for him. Besides her +charming artlessness, he had frequent occasions to admire the wisdom of +her language and her admirable delicacy. The setting sun had already cast +a subdued crimson over the hilltops, hours had sped away, the chickens had +gone to roost, still he remained riveted to the spot by Mechtild's grace +and loveliness. + +"Father is just coming," she said, pointing down the road. "How glad he +will be to find you here!" + +His head bent forward, Holt came wearily plodding up the road. His right +hand was hidden in the pocket of his pantaloons, and his head was bowed, +as if beneath a heavy weight. As Mechtild's clear voice rang out, he +raised his head, caught sight of his high-hearted benefactor, and smiled +in joyful surprise. + +"Welcome, Mr. Seraphin; a thousand times welcome!" he cried from the other +side of the road. "Why, this is an honor that I had not expected!" + +He stood uncovered, holding his cap in the left hand, his right hand was +still concealed. Mechtild at once noticed her father's singular behavior, +and her eye watched anxiously for the hidden hand. + +"Your daughter has been so kind as to offer refreshments to a weary +wanderer," said Gerlach, "and it has been a great pleasure for me to sit +awhile. We have been chatting for several hours under this glorious tree, +and may be I am to blame for keeping her from her work." + +Holt's honest face beamed with satisfaction. He entirely forgot about his +secret, he drew his hand out of his pocket, Mechtild turned pale, and a +sharp cry escaped her lips. + +"For mercy's sake, father!" And she pointed to the broken chain. + +"What are you screaming for, foolish girl? Don't be alarmed, Mr. Seraphin! +this chain has got on my arm in an honorable cause. I will tell you the +whole story; I know you will not inform on me." + +Seating himself on the bench, he related the adventures of the day. + +The mock procession passed before Mechtild's imagination with the +vividness of reality. The narration transformed her. Her mildness was +changed to noble anger. She had heard of the vicar of Christ being +insulted, of holy things being scoffed at, of the Redeemer being derided +by a horde of wretches. With her arms akimbo, she drew up her lithe and +graceful form to its full height, and with flashing eyes looked at her +father while he related what had befallen him. Seraphin could not help +wondering at the transformation. Such a display of spirit he had not been +prepared to witness in a girl so gentle and beautiful. When her father had +ended his account, she seized his hand passionately, pressed it warmly +between her own hands, and kissed the chain. + +"Father, dear father," she exclaimed in a burst of feeling, "I thank you +from my heart for acting as you did! Those wretches were scoffing at our +holy religion, but you behaved bravely in defence of the faith. For this +they put chains on you, as the heathen did to S. Peter and S. Paul." + +Once more she kissed the chain, then, turning quickly, hastened across the +yard to the house. + +"Mechtild isn't like the rest of us," said Holt, smiling. "There's a great +deal of spirit in her. I have often noticed it. But I am not astonished at +her being roused at the mock procession--I was roused myself. I declare, +Mr. Seraphin, it is a shame, a crying shame, that persons are permitted to +rail at doctrines and things which we revere as holy. One would almost +believe Satan himself was in some people, they take so fanatical a delight +in scoffing at a religion which is holy and enjoins nothing but what is +good." + +"It is incontestable that infidelity hates and opposes God and religion," +replied Gerlach. "The boasted culture of those who find a pleasure in +grossly wounding the most sacred feelings of their neighbors, is wicked +and stupid." + +Mechtild returned with a file in her hand. + +"Right, my child! I was just thinking of the file myself. Here, cut the +catches of the lock." + +He laid his arm across the table. A few strokes of the file caused the +lock and remnant of chain to fall from his wrist. + +"We will keep this as a precious memento," said she. "Only think, father, +that wicked official ordered you to be manacled, and he is the +representative of authority. How can one respect or even pray for +authorities when they allow religion to be ridiculed?" + +"Pray for your enemies," answered the countryman gravely. + +"I will do so because God commands me; but I shall never again be able to +respect the official!" + +Her anger had fled; she appeared again all light and loveliness. He did +not fail to observe a searching look which she directed upon him, but its +meaning became clear to him only when, as he was taking leave, she said in +a tone of humility: "Pardon my vehemence, Mr. Seraphin! Don't think me a +bad girl." + +"There is nothing to be forgiven, Mechtild. You were indignant against +godless wretches, and they who are not indignant against evil cannot +themselves be good." + +"We are most heartily thankful for this visit," spoke Holt. "I need not +say that we will consider it a great happiness as often as you will be +pleased to come." + +"Good-night!" returned the young man, and he walked away. + +Deeply immersed in his thoughts, Seraphin went back to town. What he was +thinking about, his diary does not record. But the excitement under which +he had rushed forth was gone--dispelled by the magic of a rural sorceress. +He walked on quietly like a man who seems filled with confidence in his +own future. The recent painful impressions seemed to his mind to lie far +back in the past; their place was taken up by beautiful anticipations +which, like the aurora, shed soft and pleasing light upon his path. He +halted frequently in a dream-like reverie to indulge the happiness with +which his soul was flooded. The full moon, just peering over the hills, +shed around him a mystic brightness that harmonized perfectly with the +indefinable contentment of his heart, and seemed to be gazing quizzingly +into the countenance of the young man, who almost feared to confess to +himself that he had found an invaluable treasure. + +As he stopped before the Palais Greifmann, all the bright spirits that had +hovered round about him on the way back from the little whitewashed +cottage, fled. He awoke from his dream, and, ascending the stairs with a +feeling of discomfort, he entered his apartment, where his father sat +awaiting him. + +"At last," spoke Mr. Conrad, looking up from a book. "You have kept me +waiting a long time, my son." + +"I was in need of a good long walk, father, to get over what I witnessed +this morning. The country air has dispelled all those horrible +impressions. There is only one thing more required to make me feel +perfectly well, dear father, which is that you will not insist on my +allying myself to people who are utterly opposed to my way of thinking and +feeling." + +"I understand and approve of your request, Seraphin. The impressions made +on me, too, are exceedingly disagreeable. The advancement of which this +town boasts is stupid, immoral, detestable. How this state of society has +come about, is inexplicable to me who live secluded in the country. +Society is diseased, fatally diseased. Many of the new views professed are +sheer superstition, and their morality is a mere cloak for their +corruption and wickedness. All the powers of progress so-called are +actively at work to subvert all the safeguards of society. And what your +diary reports of Louise, I have found fully confirmed. Though it cost the +sacrifice of a long cherished plan, a son of mine shall never become the +husband of a progressionist woman." + +"O father! how deeply do I thank you!" cried the youth, carried away by +his feelings. + +"I must decline being thanked, for I have not merited it," spoke Mr. +Conrad earnestly. "A father's duty determines very clearly what my +decision upon the matter of your marriage with Louise, ought to be. But I +am under obligations to you, my son, which justice compels me to +acknowledge. Your discernment and moral sense have prevented a great deal +of discord and unhappiness in our family. Continue good and true, my +Seraphin!" + +He pressed his son to his bosom and imprinted a kiss on his forehead. + +"To-morrow we shall start for home by the first train. Fortunately your +prudent behavior makes it easy for us to get away, and the final breaking +off of this engagement I will myself arrange with Louise's father." + + + Seraphin Gerlach To The Author. + + DEAR SIR: Two years ago, I took the liberty of sending you my + diary, with the request that you would be pleased to publish such + portions of its contents as might be useful, in the form of a tale + illustrative of the times. I made the request because I consider + it the duty of a writer who delineates the condition of society, + to transmit to posterity a faithful picture of the present social + status, and I am vain enough to believe that my jottings will be a + modest contribution towards such a tableau. + + The meagre account given by the diary of my intercourse with + Mechtild, will probably have enabled you to perceive the germ of a + pure and true relation likely to develop itself further. I shall + add but a few items to complete the account of the diary, knowing + that poets, painters, and artists have rigorously determined + bounds, and that a twilight cannot be represented when the sun is + at the zenith. I am emboldened to use this illustration because + your unbounded admiration of pure womanhood is well known to me, + and because the brightness of Mechtild's character, were it + further described, would no more be compatible with the sombre + colorings in which a true picture of modern progress would have to + be exhibited, than the noonday sun with the shadows of evening. + + My memoranda concerning Mechtild, which, despite studied + soberness, betrayed a considerable degree of admiration, made + known to my parents, naturally enough, the secret of my heart. + Hence it came that a quiet smile passed over my father's face + every time I commenced to speak of Mechtild. Holt's manly deed at + the mock procession had already gained for him my father's esteem, + and, as I spoke a great deal about Holt's thoroughness as a + cultivator, my father began to look upon him as a very desirable + man to employ. + + "We want an experienced man on the 'green farm,' " said father, + one day. "Offer the situation to Holt, and tell him to come to see + me about it. I want to talk with him." + + "Give the good man my compliments," said mother; "tell him I would + be much pleased to become acquainted with Mechtild, who + sympathized with you so kindly on that memorable day!" + + I wrote without delay. Holt came, and so did Mechtild. But few + moments were necessary to enable mother to detect the girl's fine + qualities. Father, too, was delightfully surprised at her modesty, + the beauty of her form, and grace of her manner. He visited the + farm accompanied by Holt. The cultivator's extraordinary + knowledge, his practical manner of viewing things, and the + shrewdness of his counsels in regard to the improvement of worn- + out land and the cultivation of poor soil, completely charmed my + father. A contract containing very favorable conditions for Holt + was entered into, and three weeks later the family took charge of + the "green farm." + + Upon mother's suggestion, Mechtild was sent to an educational + institution, where she acquired in ten months' time the learning + and culture necessary for associating with cultivated people. + + Father and mother had received her on her return like a daughter. + This reception was given her not only in consideration of Holt's + skilful and faithful management of business, but also on account + of Mechtild's own splendid womanly character--perhaps, too, partly + on account of my unbounded admiration for the rare girl. + + "The girl is an ornament to her sex," lauded my father. "Her + polished manner and ease in company do not suffer one to suspect + ever so remotely that she at any time plied the reaping-hook, and + came out of a stubblefield to regale a weary wanderer with brown + bread and bonny-clabber. I am quite in harmony with your secret + wishes, my dear Seraphin! At the same time, I am of opinion that a + step promising so much happiness ought not to be longer deferred. + I think, then, you should ask the father for his daughter without + delay, so that I may soon have the pleasure of giving you my + blessing." + + From my father's arms, into which I had thrown myself in + thankfulness, I hastened away to the "green farm," where Mechtild + with maidenly blushes, and Holt in speechless astonishment, heard + and granted my petition. + + I am now four months married. I am the blest husband of a wife + whose lovely qualities are daily showing themselves to greater + advantage. Mechtild presides over Chateau Hallberg like an angel + of peace. Towards my father and mother she conducts herself with + filial reverence and never-ceasing delicate attentions. Mother + loves her unspeakably, and no access of ill humor in father can + withstand her charming smile and prudent mirth. Concerning the + banking-house of Greifmann, I have only sad things to tell. Carl's + father had entered into very considerable speculations which + failed and drove him into bankruptcy. Carl saw the blow coming, + and saved himself in a disgraceful manner. There was a savings + institution connected with the bank in which poor people and + servants deposited the savings of their hard labor. Carl + appropriated this fund and made off a short time before the + failure of the house. Thousands of poor persons were robbed of the + little sums which they were saving for old age, by denying + themselves many even of the necessaries of life. + + The maledictions and curses of these unfortunate people followed + across the ocean the thief whose modern culture and progressive + humanity did not hinder him from committing a crime which no + Christian can be guilty of without losing his claim to the title. + Carl, however, still continues to pass for a man of culture and + humanity notwithstanding his deed. And why should he not, since + without faith in the Deity moral obligations do not exist, and + consequently every species of crime is allowable? The old + gentleman Greifmann died shortly after his ruin; Louise lost her + mind. + + My father felt the misfortune of the Greifmanns deeply, without, + however, regretting in the smallest degree the wise determination + which their godless principles and actions had driven him to. + Formerly he could never find time to take part in the elections. + But now he is constantly speaking about the duty of every + respectable man to oppose the infernal machinations and plans of + would-be progress. He intends at the next election to use all his + influence for the election of conscientious deputies, so that the + evil may be put an end to which consists in trying to undermine + the foundations of society. + + Accept, dear sir, the assurance of the esteem with which I have + the honor to be + + our most obedient servant, + + SERAPHIN GERLACH. + + CHATEAU HALLBERG, Jan. 4, 1872. + + +[Two chapters have been omitted in this translation of "The +Progressionists."--ED. C. W.] + + + + +F. James Marquette, S.J. + + +Among the names that have become immortalized in the history of our +country, there are few more certainly destined for perpetual fame than +those connected with the discovery and exploration of that mighty river +which courses so boldly and majestically through this vast continent. Thus +it is probable that there never will be a time when even children at +school will not be familiar with such names as De Soto, Marquette, and La +Salle. + +James Marquette was born in the city of Laon, near a small branch of the +Oise, in the department of Aisne, France, in the year 1637. His family was +the most ancient of that ancient city, and had, during many generations, +filled high offices and rendered valuable services to their country, both +in civil and military life. We have accounts of eminent services rendered +to his sovereign by one of his ancestors as early as 1360. The usefulness +and public spirit of the family, we may well suppose, did not expire with +the distinguished subject of this memoir; for we find that, in the French +army that aided our fathers in the achievement of American Independence, +there were no less than three Marquettes who laid down their lives in the +cause of liberty. His maternal name was no less distinguished in the +annals of the church. On the side of his mother, Rose de la Salle, he was +connected with the good and venerable John Baptist de la Salle, founder of +the Brothers of the Christian Schools, so distinguished for their +successful services in the cause of popular religious education. It was +this pious mother that instilled into her illustrious son that tender and +fervid devotion to the Blessed Virgin which so ravished his soul and +adorned his whole life. In 1654, when but seventeen years old, he entered +the Society of Jesus, in which the time of his novitiate, the terms of +teaching and of his own theological studies, consumed twelve years. He had +chosen for his model S. Francis Xavier, and in studying his patron's life, +and meditating on his virtues, the young priest conceived a holy longing +to enter the field of missionary toil. He was enrolled in the province of +Champagne; but, as this had no foreign missions, he caused himself to be +transferred to the province of France. His cherished object was soon +attained. In 1666, he was sent out to Canada, and arrived at Quebec on the +20th of September of that year. + +F. Marquette was at first destined for the Montagnais mission, whose +central station was at Tadousal, and on the 10th of October he started for +Three Rivers, in order to study the Montagnais language, a key to many +neighboring Indian tongues, under that celebrated philologist as well as +renowned missionary, F. Gabriel Druilletes. His intervals of leisure were +here employed in the offices of the holy ministry. F. Marquette was thus +occupied till April, 1668, when his destination was changed, and he +received orders to prepare for the mission on Lake Superior, known as the +Ottawa mission. He accordingly returned to Quebec, and thence set out for +Montreal on the 21st of April, with Brother Le Boesme and two other +companions; and from the latter place he embarked on the Ottawa flotilla. +He was accompanied by other missionaries on this toilsome and dangerous +voyage up the Ottawa, through French River, to and across Lake Huron, and +to the Sault St. Mary. This region had long before been dedicated to God +by the erection of the cross by Fathers Jogues and Raymbault, and twenty +years later, 1660, F. Menard became the founder of the Ottawa mission; and +when F. Marquette arrived in Canada, F. Allouez was then pushing his +spiritual conquests beyond any points reached by his zealous predecessors. +On the advent of F. Marquette to the shores of Lake Superior, it was found +expedient to establish two missions, one of which should be located at the +Sault St. Mary, and the other at Green Bay. Erecting his cabin at the foot +of the rapids on the American side, F. Marquette opened his mission at the +Sault, where he was joined the following year by F. Dablon, Superior of +the Ottawa mission. These two zealous missionaries soon gathered a +Christian flock around them, and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was now +offered up in that wild region in "a sanctuary worthy of the faith." "It +is," says Bancroft, "the oldest settlement begun by Europeans within the +present limits of the commonwealth of Michigan." So rich was the harvest +which the enthusiastic and apostolical Marquette saw before him that he +writes in one of his letters: "Two thousand souls were ready to embrace +the faith, if the missionary were faithful to his task." Yet knowing the +uncertainty of the Indian character, he proceeded cautiously and prudently +in his undertakings. Though his ardent hopes were not fully realized, the +harvest was not a fruitless one; and Fathers Dablon and Marquette labored +on with undaunted courage and undiminished zeal, instructing the people, +baptizing such as were in danger of death, and laying the solid +foundations of a future Christian commonwealth. + +In August of 1669, F. Marquette was transferred from the Sault to +Lapointe, to conduct the missions of the Holy Ghost among the Ottawas, and +to fill the place recently occupied by F. Allouez, who had gone to Green +Bay. After a perilous and exhausting navigation, amid snow and ice, of a +month's duration, he reached Lapointe in safety, and full of ardor for the +work before him. A few extracts from the account of this mission, which F. +Marquette gave to his superior in his letter of the following year, will +be more acceptable to the reader than any synopsis we could prepare from +it: + + + "Divine Providence having destined me to continue the mission of + the Holy Ghost begun by Allouez, who had baptized the chiefs of + the Kiskakonk, I arrived there on the thirteenth of September, and + went to visit the Indians who were in the clearings, which are + divided into five towns. The Hurons, to the number of about four + or five hundred, almost all baptized, still preserve some little + Christianity. A number of the chiefs assembled in council were at + first well pleased to see me; but I explained that I did not yet + know their language perfectly, and that no other missionary was + coming, both because all had gone to the Iroquois, and because F. + Allouez, who understood them perfectly, did not wish to return + that winter, as they did not love the prayer enough. They + acknowledged that it was a just punishment, and during the winter + held talks about it, and resolved to amend, as they tell me. + + "The nation of the Outaouaks Sinagaux is far from the kingdom of + God, and being above all other nations addicted to lewdness, + sacrifices, and juggleries. They ridicule the prayer, and will + scarcely hear us speak of Christianity. They are proud and + undeveloped, and I think that so little can be done with this + tribe that I have not baptized healthy infants who seem likely to + live, watching only for such as are sick. The Indians of the + Kinouche tribe declare openly that it is not yet time. There are, + however, two men among them formerly baptized. One, now rather + old, is looked upon as a kind of miracle among the Indians, having + always refused to marry, persisting in this resolution in spite of + all that had been said. He has suffered much, even from his + relatives, but he is as little affected by this as by the loss of + all the goods which he brought last year from the settlement, not + having even enough left to cover him. These are hard trials for + Indians, who generally seek only to possess much in this world. + The other, a new-married young man, seems of another nature than + the rest. The Indians, extremely attached to their reveries, had + resolved that a certain number of young women should prostitute + themselves, each to choose such partner as she liked. No one in + these cases ever refused, as the lives of men are supposed to + depend on it. This young Christian was called; on entering the + cabin, he saw the orgies that were about to begin, and, feigning + illness, immediately left, and, though they came to call him back, + he refused to go. His confession was as prudent as it could be, + and I wondered that an Indian could live so innocently, and so + nobly profess himself a Christian. His mother and some of his + sisters are also good Christians. The Ottawas, extremely + superstitious in their feasts and juggleries, seem hardened to the + instructions given them, yet they like to have their children + baptized. God permitted a woman to die this winter in her sin; her + illness had been concealed from me, and I heard it only by the + report that she had asked a very improper dance for her cure. I + immediately went to a cabin where all the chiefs were at a feast, + and some Kiskakonk Christians among them. To these I exposed the + impiety of the woman and her medicine men, and gave them proper + instructions. I then spoke to all present, and God permitted that + an old Ottawa rose to advise granting what I asked, as it made no + matter, he said, if the woman did die. An old Christian then rose + and told the nation that they must stop the licentiousness of + their youth, and not permit Christian girls to take part in such + dances. To satisfy the woman, some child's play was substituted + for the dance; but this did not prevent her dying before morning. + The dangerous state of a sick man caused the medicine men to + proclaim that the devil must be invoked by extraordinary + superstitions. The Christians took no part. The actors were these + jugglers and the sick man, who was passed over great fires lighted + in every cabin. It was said that he did not feel the heat, + although his body had been greased with oil for five or six days. + Men, women, and children ran through the cabins, asking, as a + riddle, to divine their thoughts, and the successful guesser was + glad to give the object named. I prevented the abominable lewdness + so common at the end of these diabolical rites. I do not think + that they will recur, as the sick man died soon after. + + "The nation of Kiskakous, which for three years refused to receive + the Gospel preached them by F. Allouez, resolved in the fall of + 1668 to obey God. This resolution was adopted in full council, and + announced to that father, who spent four winter months instructing + them. The chiefs of the nation became Christians, and, as F. + Allouez was called to another mission, he gave it to my charge to + cultivate, and I entered on it in September, 1669. + + "All the Christians were then in the fields harvesting their + Indian corn; they listened with pleasure when I told them that I + came to Lapointe for their sake and that of the Hurons; that they + never should be abandoned, but be beloved above all other nations; + and that they and the French were one. I had the consolation of + seeing their love for the prayer and their pride in being + Christians. I baptized the new-born infants, and instructed the + chiefs whom I found well disposed. The head chief having allowed a + dog to be hung on a pole near his cabin, which is a kind of + sacrifice the Indians make to the sun, I told him that this was + wrong, and he went and threw it down. + + "Having invited the Kiskakous to come and winter near the chapel, + they left all the other tribes, to gather around us so as to be + able to pray to God, be instructed, and have their children + baptized. They all call themselves Christians; hence in all + councils and important affairs I address them, and, when I wish to + show them that I really wish what I ask, I need only address them + as Christians; they told me even that they obeyed me for that + reason. They have taken the upper hand, and control the three + other tribes. It is a great consolation to a missionary to see + such pliancy in savages, and to live in such peace with the + Indians, spending the whole day in instructing them in our + mysteries, and teaching them the prayers. Neither the rigor of the + winter nor the state of the weather prevents their coming to the + chapel; many never let a day pass, and I was thus busily employed + from morning till night, preparing some for baptism, some for + confession, disabusing others of their reveries. The old men told + me that the young men had lost their senses, and that I must stop + their excesses. I often spoke to them of their daughters, urging + them to prevent their being visited at night. I knew almost all + that passed in two tribes near us; but, though others were spoken + of, I never heard anything against the Christian women, and when I + spoke to the old men about their daughters, they told me that they + prayed to God. I often inculcated this, knowing the importunities + to which they are constantly exposed, and the courage they need to + resist. They have learned to be modest, and the French who have + seen them perceive how little they resemble the others from whom + they are thus distinguished. + + "After Easter, all the Indians dispersed to seek subsistence; they + promised me that they would not forget the prayer, and earnestly + begged that a father should come in the fall when they assemble + again. This will be granted, and, if it please God to send some + father, he will take my place, while I, to execute the orders of + my father-superior, will go and begin my Illinois mission. + + "The Illinois are thirty days' journey by land from Lapointe by a + difficult road; they lie south-southwest of it. On the way you + pass the nation of the Ketchigamins, who live in more than twenty + large cabins; they are inland, and seek to have intercourse with + the French, from whom they hope to get axes, knives, and ironware. + So much do they fear them that they unbound from the stake two + Indian captives, who said, when about to be burned, that the + Frenchman had declared that they wished peace all over the world. + You pass then to the Miamiwek, and by great deserts reach the + Illinois, who are assembled chiefly in two towns containing more + than eight or nine thousand souls. These people are well enough + disposed to receive Christianity. Since F. Allouez spoke to them + at Lapointe to adore one God, they have begun to abandon their + false worship; for they adored the sun and thunder. Those seen by + me are apparently of good disposition, and they are not night- + runners, like the other Indians. A man kills his wife if he finds + her unfaithful. They are less prodigal in sacrifices, and promise + me to embrace Christianity, and do all I require in their country. + In this view, the Ottawas gave me a young man recently come from + their country, who initiated me to some extent in their language + during the leisure given me in the winter by the Indians at + Lapointe. I could scarcely understand it, though there is + something of the Algonquin in it; yet I hope, by the help of God's + grace, to understand and be understood if God by his goodness + leads me to that country. + + "No one must hope to escape crosses in our missions, and the best + means to live happily is not to fear them, but, in the enjoyment + of little crosses, hope for others still greater. The Illinois + desire us, like Indians, to share their miseries and suffer all + that can be imagined in barbarism. They are lost sheep, to be + sought amid woods and thorns, especially when they call so + piteously to be rescued from the jaws of the wolf. Such, really, + can I call their entreaties to me this winter. They have actually + gone this spring to notify the old men to come for me in the fall. + + "The Illinois always come by land. They sow maize, which they have + in great plenty; they have pumpkins as large as those of France, + and plenty of roots and fruit. The chase is very abundant in wild + cattle, bears, stags, turkeys, duck, bustard, wild pigeon, and + cranes. They leave their towns at certain times every year to go + to their hunting-grounds together, so as to be better able to + resist if attacked. They believe that I will spread peace + everywhere if I go, and then only the young will go to hunt. + + "When the Illinois come to Lapointe, they pass a large river + almost a league wide. It runs north and south, and so far that the + Illinois, who do not know what canoes are, have never yet heard of + its mouth; they only know that there are very great nations below + them, some of whom raise two crops of maize a year. East-southeast + of the country is a nation they call Chawawon, which came to visit + them last summer. They wear beards, which shows intercourse with + Europeans; they had come thirty days across land before reaching + their country. This great river can hardly empty in Virginia, and + we rather believe its mouth is in California. If the Indians, who + promise to make me a canoe, do not fail to keep their word, we + shall go into this river as soon as we can, with a Frenchman and + this young man given me, who knows some of these languages, and + has a readiness for learning others; we shall visit the nations + which inhabit it, in order to open the way to so many of our + fathers who have long awaited this happiness. This discovery will + give us a complete knowledge of the southern or western sea. + + "The Illinois are warriors; they make many slaves, whom they sell + to the Ottawas for guns, powder, kettles, axes, and knives. They + were formerly at war with the Nadouessi, but, having made peace + some years since, I confirmed it, to facilitate their coming to + Lapointe, where I am going to await them, in order to accompany + them to their country." + + +Much as he loved his children at Lapointe, and faithfully as he had served +them, the voice of his superior had ordered him to this new, vaster, and +more laborious field, which to his true Jesuit obedience was a task of +love. The Illinois at once become dear to his heart as his future +children; he studies their language, loses no opportunity of learning all +about their country, its tribes and their customs, sends them presents of +pious pictures and the loving messages of a father, welcomes every member +of their nation who might visit Lapointe with open arms, and presses him +to his heart, and devotes every moment of leisure afforded him from his +labors to sedulous preparation for the contemplated mission of the +Immaculate Conception. His intelligent mind fully comprehended the vast +importance of the undertaking in its relations to the church and the +civilized world, and conceived at once the bold and daring project of a +thorough exploration of the great river around which so much mystery, +intermingled with romantic fables and dim traditions, still hung. It is +with equal truth and justice that Bancroft writes: "The purpose of +discovering the Mississippi, of which the tales of the natives had +published the magnificence, sprang from Marquette himself." + +It has already been stated that F. Marquette had sent some pious pictures +to the Illinois, and by the same messenger to the Sioux, whom he expected +to be embraced in his intended mission. The messenger who carried the +father's presents also bore his request for protection and a safe-conduct +to such European missionaries as might visit or pass through their +country, and a message, "That the black-gown wished to pass to the country +of the Assinipoils and Kilistinons; that he was already among the +Outagamis; and that he himself was going in the fall to the Illinois." + +Sad indeed must have been the feelings of the good father, when, early in +the winter, the Sioux returned to him the pious pictures he had sent them, +in which he saw an ominous forerunner of impending war. The Ottawas and +Hurons had by their insolence aroused the indignation of the Sioux, and +the latter had seized the tomahawk and prepared for the bloody and +revengeful strife. His hopes of reaching the cabins of the Sioux by an +overland route now vanished before the approaching storm. The Indians at +Lapointe could not withstand the fierce onsets of the Dakotah war-parties, +and first the Ottawas, abandoning their village, launched their canoes +upon the lake, and were soon gathered in Ekaentoulon Island. The Hurons +remained alone at Lapointe, and F. Marquette remained in the midst of them +to minister to their spiritual wants, share their dangers, and uphold +their faith and courage. And when they too were forced to depart, the good +father, ever true to his spiritual flock, was content to "turn his back on +his beloved Illinois to accompany his Hurons in their wanderings and +hardships." The Hurons settled at Mackinaw, a bleak and desolate spot, but +the abundance of fish the neighboring waters afforded was certain to +secure the fugitives from starvation, while the very desolation of the +scene seemed a protection from hostile bands. Scarcely had the Hurons +thrown up their cabins on this dreary shore, when a rude sylvan chapel, +surmounted by a cross, graced and cheered the scene, and became the cradle +of religion at the mission of S. Ignatius. Such was the early origin of +Michilimackinac. Beside the enclosure of cabins and chapel arose a +palisade fort for defence. For several years F. Marquette labored in this +remote and arduous station, cheered only by the consolations which spring +from faith and by the bountiful harvests of souls he reaped. + +Though longing to proceed on his mission to the Illinois, as all his +letters so earnestly manifest, F. Marquette found ample work both for his +mind and hands in arranging matters at Lapointe, so that his departure +should cause as little damage as possible to that mission, to which he had +been so faithful and devoted, and which he was now about to confide to the +care of another, and in making the necessary preparations for his +departure; for his time seemed now near at hand. The dreary days of winter +were enlivened by recounting the projected plans of the coming spring, and +in gathering all the information within his reach concerning the +Mississippi and the nations inhabiting its banks. Most of the actual +knowledge then possessed on the subject was derived from the accounts and +relations of the Jesuit missionaries of the Northwest, and from the +reports of the Canadian traders among the Indians. His inquiries of the +more northern tribes were eagerly answered by startling fables of various +hues and contradictory generalities, but nothing definite could be learned +from them as to the course of the great river, its direction or outlet, or +of the natives along its course. All was conjecture and theory. As early +as 1639 the Sieur Nicolet, who was the interpreter of the French colony of +New France, had penetrated westward to the furthest grounds of the +Algonquins, and had encountered the Winnebagoes, "a people called so +because they came from a distant sea, but whom the French erroneously +called Puents." And we learn from F. Vimont that "the Sieur Nicolet, who +had penetrated furthest into those distant countries, avers that, had he +sailed three days more on a great river which flows from that lake (Green +Bay), he would have found the sea." And although the Indians called the +Mississippi itself "the sea," and the Sieur Nicolet may have fallen into +the same error, in either case it seems quite certain that he was the +first to reach the waters of that river. In 1641, Fathers Isaac Jogues and +Charles Raymbaut carried their missionary labors to the Sault St. Mary, +and received distinct accounts of the Sioux, and of the great river on +whose banks they lived. In 1658, after F. Garreau had suffered martyrdom +on the St. Lawrence on his way to renew the Western missions destroyed by +the recent Iroquois war, De Groseilles and another Frenchman penetrated to +Lake Superior, and passed the winter on its shores. They visited the +Sioux, learned with greater clearness and particularity of the course of +the great river on whose banks they stood. Their annalist writes: "It was +a beautiful river, large, broad, and deep, which would bear comparison, +they say, with the St. Lawrence." The missionaries of the Saguenay had +also "heard of the Winnipegouek, and their bay whence three seas could be +reached." And war parties of the Iroquois told the missionaries of New +York of their wars with the Ontoagannha, "whose towns lay on a beautiful +river (Ohio), which leads to the great lake, as they called the sea, where +they traded with Europeans who pray to God as we (the French) do, and have +rosaries and bells to call men to prayer."(225) F. Menard, the founder of +the Ottawa mission, also heard, in 1660, of the Mississippi and the +nations on its banks, and was only prevented from visiting them by meeting +with a martyr's death while prosecuting his work. F. Allouez, his +successor, also writes of the great river, "which empties, as far as I can +conjecture, into the sea of Virginia," and was the first to reveal to +Europeans its Indian name; for, in speaking of one of its tribes, he says: +"They live on a great river called Messipi." At the time that F. Dablon +was appointed Superior of the Ottawa missions, and F. Marquette appointed +to establish the intended Illinois mission, and the exploration of the +river was about to be undertaken, the latter, as already stated, was for +some time engaged in gathering information concerning its course and +outlet. Three principal conjectures prevailed at this time: first, that it +ran towards the southwest, and entered the Gulf of California; second, +that it flowed into the Gulf of Mexico; third, that it took a more +easterly direction, and discharged itself into the Atlantic Ocean, +somewhere on the coast of Virginia. To F. Marquette belonged the glory of +solving the problem, and thus of opening the interior of the continent to +Christianity and civilization. + +The war which was raging in the country rendered it impossible for the +missionaries of themselves to undertake the opening of the long-desired +mission of the Illinois, and they had accordingly applied for assistance +to the French government to further this great enterprise. F. Marquette, +as we have seen from his letters, remained ever ready at a moment's notice +from his superiors to advance into this dangerous field. He was not +deterred by a consciousness of his own declining health, already enfeebled +by labors and exposures, nor by the hostile character of the nations +through whose country he would have to pass, nor by the danger of a cruel +death at the hands of the fierce Dakotah. This last only made the prospect +more enticing to one whose highest ambition was to win the glorious crown +of martyrdom in opening the way for his brother Jesuits to follow in the +battle of the faith. The same flotilla that carried his letter to F. +Dablon to Quebec in the summer of 1672, on its return conveyed to him the +joyous news that the petition of the missionaries had found favor with the +government; that the Sieur Jolliet was designated to undertake the +exploration of the Mississippi; and that F. Marquette was chosen the +missionary of the expedition. It was the Blessed Virgin whom, F. Marquette +says, "I had always invoked, since my coming to the Ottawa country, in +order to obtain of God the favor of being able to visit the nations on the +Mississippi River." It was on the feast of the Immaculate Conception of +the same Blessed Virgin Mary that he received the glorious tidings that +the realization of his hopes and prayers was at hand. He bestowed upon the +great river the name of the Immaculate Conception, which, however, as well +as its earlier Spanish name of River of the Holy Ghost, has since yielded +to its original Indian appellation. + +The exploring party, consisting of "the meek, single-hearted, +unpretending, illustrious Marquette, with Jolliet for his associate, five +Frenchmen for his companions, and two Algonquins as guides, lifting their +canoes on their backs, and walking across the narrow portage that divides +the Fox River from the Wisconsin," set out upon their glorious expedition. +Mr. J. G. Shea, to whom we are so much indebted for his researches into +this interesting part of the history of our country, describes the voyage +in the following graphic and eloquent manner: + + + "In the spring they embarked at Mackinaw in two frail bark canoes; + each with his paddle in hand, and full of hope, they soon plied + them merrily over the crystal waters of the lake. All was new to + Marquette, and he describes as he went along the Menonomies, Green + Bay, and Maskoutens, which he reached on the 7th of June, 1673. He + had now attained the limit of former discoveries; the new world + was before them; they looked back a last adieu to the waters + which, great as the distance was, connected them with Quebec and + their countrymen; they knelt on the shore to offer, by a new + devotion, their lives, their honor, and their undertakings to + their beloved Mother, the Virgin Mary Immaculate; then, launching + on the broad Wisconsin, sailed slowly down its current, amid its + vine-clad isles and its countless sand-bars. No sound broke the + stillness, no human form appeared, and at last, after sailing + seven days, on the 17th of June they happily glided into the great + river. Joy that could find no utterance in words filled the + grateful heart of Marquette. + + "The broad river of the Conception, as he named it, now lay before + them, stretching away hundreds of miles to an unknown sea. Soon + all was new; mountain and forest had glided away; the islands, + with their groves of cottonwood, became more frequent, and moose + and deer browzed on the plains; strange animals were seen + traversing the river, and monstrous fish appeared in its waters. + But they proceeded on their way amid this solitude, frightful by + its utter absence of man. Descending still further, they came to + the land of the bison, or pisikiou, which, with the turkey, became + sole tenants of the wilderness; all other game had disappeared. At + last, on the 25th of June, they descried footprints on the shore. + They now took heart again, and Jolliet and the missionary, leaving + their five men in the canoes, followed a little beaten path to + discover who the tribe might be. They travelled on in silence + almost to the cabin-doors, when they halted, and with a loud + halloa proclaimed their coming. Three villages lay before them; + the first, roused by the cry, poured forth its motley group, which + halted at the sight of the new-comers and the well-known dress of + the missionary. Old men came slowly on, step by measured step, + bearing aloft the all-mysterious calumet. All was silence; they + stood at last before the two Europeans, and Marquette asked, 'Who + are you?' 'We are Illinois,' was the answer, which dispelled all + anxiety from the explorers, and sent a thrill to the heart of + Marquette; the Illinois missionary was at last amid the children + of that tribe which he had so long, so tenderly yearned to see. + + "After friendly greetings at this town of Pewaria, and the + neighboring one of Moing-wena, they returned to their canoes, + escorted by the wondering tribe, who gave their hardy visitants a + calumet, the safeguard of the West. With renewed courage and + lighter hearts, they sailed in, and, passing a high rock with + strange and monstrous forms depicted on its rugged surface, heard + in the distance the roaring of a mighty cataract, and soon beheld + Pekitanoui, or the Muddy River, as the Algonquins call the + Missouri, rushing like some untamed monster into the calm and + clear Mississippi, and hurrying in with its muddy waters the trees + which it had rooted up in its impetuous course. Already had the + missionaries heard of the river running to the western sea, to be + reached by the branches of the Mississippi, and Marquette, now + better informed, fondly hoped to reach it one day by the Missouri. + But now their course lay south, and, passing a dangerous eddy, the + demon of the Western Indians, they reached the Waboukigou, or + Ohio, the river of the Shawnees, and, still holding on their way, + came to the warm land of the cane, and the country which the + mosquitoes might call their own. While enveloped in their sails as + a shelter from them, they came upon a tribe who invited them to + the shore. They were wild wanderers, for they had guns bought of + Catholic Europeans at the East. + + "Thus, after all had been friendly, and encouraged by this second + meeting, they plied their oars anew, and, amid groves of + cottonwood on either side, descended to the 33d degree, when, for + the first time, a hostile reception was promised by the excited + Metchigameas. Too few to resist, their only hope on earth was the + mysterious calumet, and in heaven the protection of Mary, to whom + they sent up fervent prayers. At last the storm subsided, and they + were received in peace; their language formed an obstacle, but an + interpreter was found, and after explaining the object of their + coming, and announcing the great truths of Christianity, they + embarked for Akamsea, a village thirty miles below on the eastern + shore. + + "Here they were well received, and learned that the mouth of the + river was but ten days' sail from this village; but they heard, + too, of nations there trading with Europeans, and of wars between + the tribes, and the two explorers spent a night in consultation. + The Mississippi, they now saw, emptied into the Gulf of Mexico, + between Florida and Tampico, two Spanish points; they might, by + proceeding, fall into their hands. Thus far only Marquette traced + the map, and he put down the names of other tribes of which they + heard. Of these, in the Atotchasi, Matora, and Papihaka, we + recognize Arkansas tribes; and the Akoroas and Tanikwas, Pawnees + and Omahas, Kansas and Apiches, are well known in after-days. + + "They accordingly set out from Akensea, on the 17th of July, to + return. Passing the Missouri again, they entered the Illinois, + and, meeting the friendly Kaskaskias at its upper portage, were + led by them in a kind of triumph to Lake Michigan; for Marquette + had promised to return and instruct them in the faith. Sailing + along the lake, they crossed the outer peninsula of Green Bay, and + reached the mission of S. Francis Xavier just four months after + their departure from it. + + "Thus had the missionaries achieved their long-projected work. The + triumph of the age was thus completed in the discovery and + exploration of the Mississippi, which threw open to France the + richest, most fertile and accessible territory of the New World. + Marquette, whose health had been severely tried in this voyage, + remained at St. Francis to recruit his strength before resuming + his wonted missionary labors; for he sought no laurels, he aspired + to no tinsel praise. + + "The distance passed over by F. Marquette on this great + expedition, in his little bark canoe, was two thousand seven + hundred and sixty-seven miles. The feelings with which he regarded + an enterprise having so grave a bearing on the future history and + development of mankind may be appreciated from the following + closing passage of the ninth section of his _Voyages and + Discoveries_: + + " 'Had all this voyage caused but the salvation of a single soul, + I should deem all my fatigue well repaid. And this I have reason + to think; for, when I was returning, I passed by the Indians at + Peoria. I was three days announcing the faith in all their cabins, + after which, as we were embarking, they brought me to the water's + edge a dying child, which I baptized a little before it expired, + by an admirable Providence, for the salvation of that innocent + soul.' " + + +F. Marquette prepared a narrative of his voyage down the Mississippi (from +which the foregoing quotation is taken), and a map of that river; and on +his return transmitted copies to his superior, by the Ottawa flotilla of +that year. It is also probable that Frontenac, the Governor of New France, +as he had promised, sent a copy of them to the French government. The loss +of Jolliet's narrative and map gave an inestimable value to those of +Marquette. Yet the French government did not publish them, probably in +consequence of the discontinuance of the publication of the Jesuit +_Relations_ about this time; and thus the great interests involved in the +discovery were neglected. Fortunately, F. Marquette's narrative fell into +the hands of Thevenot, who had just published a collection of travels, and +such was his appreciation of it that he issued a new volume, entitled +_Recueil de Voyages_, in 1681, containing the narrative and map of the +Mississippi.(226) Mr. Sparks, in his life of F. Marquette, speaks thus of +the narrative: + + + "It is written in a terse, simple, and unpretending style. The + author relates what occurs, and describes what he sees, without + embellishment or display. He writes as a scholar and as a man of + careful observation and practical sense. There is no tendency to + exaggerate, nor any attempt to magnify the difficulties he had to + encounter, or the importance of his discovery. In every point of + view, this tract is one of the most interesting of those which + illustrate the early history of America." + + +Having reached Green Bay, the exhausted voyager sank down under the +effects of his recent travels and exposures. His disease was so obstinate +and protracted that he suffered during the entire winter, though with +patience and resignation, and did not recover before the end of the +following summer. Having received from his superior the necessary orders +for the establishment of the Illinois mission, he started on the 25th of +October, 1674, for Kaskaskia. He was accompanied and assisted by two +faithful and devoted Frenchmen, and by a number of Pottawattomies and +Illinois Indians. They coasted along the mouth of Fox River, and then, +advancing up as far as the small bay breaking into the peninsula, they +reached the portage leading to the lake. As the canoes proceeded along the +lake shore, the missionary walked upon the beach, returning to the canoes +whenever the beach was broken by a river or stream; and their provisions +were obtained from the abundant yield of the chase. On the 23d of +November, the courageous missionary found his malady returning, but pushed +on, amid cold and snow, until, on the 4th of December, he reached the +Chicago River, which was closed with ice. Here again the unpropitious +elements and his own infirmities compelled him to stop and spend the +winter. But his time was not idly spent during this detention, for his +missionary zeal found occupation in the spiritual care of his Indian +companions, whom he instructed as well as he could, and sent them forward +on their journey. His faithful Frenchmen remained now alone with him; but +at a distance of fifty miles was an Illinois village, where there were two +Frenchmen, traders and trappers; and these, hearing of the forlorn +condition of the missionary, arranged that one of them should go and visit +him. They had prepared a cabin for him, and the Indians, alarmed for his +safety, were also anxious to send some of their tribe to convey their +father and his effects to their village. Touched by their attentions, he +sent them every assurance of his visiting them, intimating, however, the +uncertainty of his doing so in the spring, in consequence of his continued +illness. These messages only added to the alarm of the Indians, and the +sachems assembled and sent a deputation to the black-gown. The presents +they bore were three sacks of corn, dried meat, and pumpkins, and twelve +beaver skins. The objects of their visits were, first, to make him a mat +to sit on; second, to ask him for powder; third, supply him with food; +fourth, to get some merchandise. The good father made answer in +characteristic terms, as follows: "First, that I came to instruct them by +speaking of the prayer; second, that I would not give them powder, as we +endeavor to make peace everywhere, and because I did not wish them to +begin a war against the Miamis; third, that we did not fear famine; +fourth, that I would encourage the French to bring them merchandise, and +that they must make reparation to the traders there for the beads taken +from them while the surgeon was with me." Presenting them with some axes, +knives, and trinkets, he dismissed them with a promise to make every +effort to visit them in a few days. Bidding their good father to "take +heart," and beseeching him to "stay and die in their country," the +deputation "returned to their winter camps." + +The ensuing winter months, though marked by every bodily suffering and +privation, were replete with religious consolation. His whole time was +spent in prayer. Admonished by his disease that his last end could not be +far off, he offered his remaining days entirely to God. He lost sight of +the sufferings of his body in the overflow of heavenly consolations with +which his soul was ravished. Still the recollection that he had been +appointed missionary of the Illinois, and the duty this seemed to impose +upon him of laboring for the conversion of those noble but benighted +souls, filled his heart with the desire of visiting them, if it should be +the will of God, and the establishment of the Illinois mission became the +absorbing thought of his mind and the burden of the prayers which he +addressed to the throne of heaven. His sufferings he bore not only with +patience, but with joy; if he prayed for their cessation, it was only with +the view that he might thus be enabled to encounter the new sufferings, +labors, and hardships of his mission, and that he might devote his +remaining days to the salvation of his beloved Illinois. To obtain this +privilege from heaven, he induced his companions to unite with him in a +novena of prayers in honor of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed +Virgin Mary. Some time after Christmas, 1675, his Patroness in heaven +obtained the desired boon of health for her devoted client; for he soon +began to recover from his disease, and, though still feeble, was enabled +by the 29th of March, when the snow and ice began to melt, and the +inundations compelled them to move, to set out for Kaskaskia, in the Upper +Illinois. He arrived at that Illinois town on the 8th of April, but his +journal was discontinued from the 6th of April, and we have no record of +his movements from that time. He was received by his children as an angel +from heaven, for they scarcely supposed he had escaped alive the rigors of +the winter. It was Monday in Holy Week, and the good man immediately +commenced his work. He visited the chiefs and ancients of the town, and +gave them and the crowds who assembled in the cabins he visited the first +necessary instructions in the Gospel. So great were the throngs that +assembled to hear him preach that the narrow accommodations of the cabins +could not hold them. On Maundy Thursday he called a general assembly of +the people in the open field, a beautiful prairie near the town, which was +decorated after the fashion of the country, and spread with mats and bear +skins. He formed a little rustic altar by suspending some pieces of Indian +taffety on cords, to which were attached, so as to be seen on all four +sides, four large pictures of the Blessed Virgin, under whose invocation +the mission was placed. The assembly was immense; composed of five hundred +chiefs and ancients seated in a circle around the missionary, and around +these stood fifteen hundred young men. Besides these, great numbers of +women and children attended. He addressed his congregation with ten words +or presents, according to the Indian fashion, associating each word or +present, which represented some great truth or mystery, with one of the +ten beads on the belt of the prayer which he held in his hand. He +explained the object of his visit to them, preached Christ crucified--for +it was the eve of Good Friday--and explained to them the principal +mysteries of the Christian religion. The Holy Mass was then celebrated for +the first time in this new mission. On each of the following days he +continued his instructions, and on Easter Sunday he celebrated the great +Feast of the Resurrection, offering up Mass for the second time. He took +possession of the land in the name of his risen Lord, and bestowed upon +the mission the name of the Immaculate Virgin Mary. + +His former malady now returned with renewed violence. His strength was +wasting away. To remain would accomplish no good for his children, for he +was unable to discharge the duties of the missionary, and no alternative +was left but to make an effort to reach his former mission, Mackinaw, +where he hoped to die in the midst of his fellow-members of the Society of +Jesus. He was the more willing now to seek rest in the bosom of his +Redeemer and in the Society of his Blessed Mother in Heaven, because he +had performed his promise, the mission of the Illinois had been founded, +his words had been lovingly received by his people, the good seed had been +sown in their hearts, the Holy Sacrifice had been offered up in their +presence and for their salvation, and future missionaries might now +advance to cultivate the field and reap the harvest he had prepared. His +docile Indians, with the devotion of children, begged him to return to +them as soon as his health should permit. He repeatedly promised them that +he or some other missionary would come to continue the good work amongst +them. The people followed him on his journey, escorted him thirty leagues +on his way with great pomp, showing him every mark of friendship and +affection, and many contended among themselves for the honor of carrying +the scanty baggage he possessed. Taking the way of the St. Joseph's River +and the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, along which he had yet to travel +over a hundred leagues through an unknown route, his strength soon began +to fail entirely. He could no longer help himself; his two faithful French +companions had to lift him in and out of his canoe when they landed at +night; and so exhausted had he become under his wasting disease that they +had to handle and carry him like a child. In the midst of his sufferings +and the hardships of such a journey in his enfeebled health, his +characteristic equanimity, joy, and gentleness never for a moment left +him. He could even forget his own sufferings to console his companions. He +encouraged them to sustain the fatigues of the way, assuring them that God +would protect and defend them. His native mirthfulness was even in this +extreme crisis conspicuous in his conversations. He now calmly saw the +approach of death, and joyfully and heroically welcome it as the reward of +his toils and sacrifices. He had some time before prepared a meditation on +death, to serve him in these last hours of his life, which he now used +with great consolation. He said his office to his last day. His devotions +frequently assumed the shape of colloquies with his merciful Lord, with +his Holy Mother, with his angel guardian, and with all heaven. He +repeatedly pronounced with fervor the sublime words, "I believe that my +Redeemer liveth"; and again, "Mary, Mother of grace, Mother of God, +remember me." Perceiving a river on whose banks loomed up a prominent +eminence, he ordered his companions to stop, that he might die and be +buried there. He pointed out the spot on this eminence in which he desired +them to inter his remains. This river, until recent years, bore his name. +His companions still desired to press forward, in the hope of reaching +Mackinaw; but they were driven back by the wind, and, entering the River +Marquette by its former channel, they erected a bark cabin, under which +Marquette, like his great model, S. Francis Xavier, was stretched upon the +shore, and, like him, sighed only to be dissolved and to be with Christ. +So cheerfully did he realize his approaching dissolution that he gave all +the necessary directions to his companions touching his burial. He had a +week before blessed some water, which he instructed them how to use on the +occasion, how to arrange his hands, feet, and head, with what religious +ceremonies to bury him, even telling them that they should take his little +altar bell, and ring it as they carried him to the grave. On the eve of +his death, he told them with a countenance radiant with joy that the +morrow would be his last day on earth. Still mindful of his sacred +ministry, and anxious to be doing good, he administered the sacrament of +penance to his two companions for the last time. He thanked them for their +charity to him during this arduous and eventful voyage, begged their +pardon for the trouble he had given them, and directed them to ask pardon +for him and in his name of all the Fathers and Brothers of the Society of +Jesus in the Ottawa country; he also gave them a paper in which he had +written all his faults since his last confession, which he begged them to +give to his superior, that he might pray the more earnestly for him. He +promised not to forget them in heaven. Ever mindful of others in this +trying moment, and overflowing with charity for his neighbor, he insisted +upon his companions taking some rest, leaving him to commune with heaven, +assuring them that his hour was not yet at hand, and that he would call +them in due time. This he did; summoning them to his side, just as his +agony was approaching. Hastening to him, they fell melting into tears at +his feet. He embraced them for the last time, called for the holy water he +had blessed and his reliquary, and, taking his crucifix from around his +neck, and handing it to one of them, he requested him to hold it up before +him, so that he could behold it every moment he had yet to live. Clasping +his hands, and fixing his eyes affectionately on the image of his expiring +Saviour, he pronounced aloud his profession of faith, and thanked God for +the favor he enjoyed in dying a Jesuit, a missionary of the cross, and, +above all, in dying in a miserable cabin, amid forests, and destitute of +all human consolation and assistance. He then communed secretly for some +time with his Creator, but his devotion from time to time found vent in +the ejaculations, "Sustinuit anima mea in verba ejus," and "Mater Dei, +memento mei." These were his last words before he was taken with the agony +of death. His companions frequently pronounced the names of Jesus and +Mary, as he had previously requested them to do, and, when they saw he was +about to expire, they called out "Jesus, Maria," whereupon he repeated +those enrapturing names several times with distinctness, and then +suddenly, as if his Saviour and Mother had appeared to him, he raised his +eyes above the crucifix, gazing with a countenance lit up with pleasure at +those blissful apparitions. He expired as peacefully and gently as a child +sinking into its evening slumber. + + + "Thus he died, the great apostle, + Far away in regions West; + By the Lake of the Algonquins + Peacefully his ashes rest; + But his spirit still regards us + From his home among the blest." + + +The devoted companions of the illustrious missionary, happy, in the midst +of their bereavement, in the privilege of witnessing one of the most +heroic and saintly deaths recorded in the history of our race, carried out +every injunction of their departed father, and added every act that love +and veneration could suggest, and that their impoverished condition in the +wilderness could afford. They laid out his remains as he had directed, +rang the little altar bell as they carried him with profound respect to +the mound of earth selected by himself, interred him there, and raised a +large cross to mark the sacred spot. + +The surviving companions of the deceased now prepared to embark. One of +them had been ill for some time, suffering with such depression of spirits +and feebleness of body that he could neither eat nor sleep. Just before +embarking he knelt at the grave of his saintly friend, and begged him to +intercede for him in heaven as he had promised, and, taking some earth +from the breast of the departed, and placing it upon his own breast, it is +related that he felt his sadness and bodily infirmity immediately depart, +and he resumed his voyage in health and gladness. Many are the pious +traditions of miraculous results attributed to the sanctity of F. +Marquette; many of them are still handed down among the Western +missionaries, and some of them have found a place in the pages of serious +history. + +The remains of the saintly Jesuit were, two years afterwards, disinterred +by his own flock, the Kiskakons, while returning from their hunting- +grounds, placed in a neat box of bark, and reverently carried to their +mission. The flotilla of canoes, as it passed along in funeral solemnity, +was joined by a party of the Iroquois, and, as they approached Mackinaw, +many other canoes, including those of the two missionaries of the place, +united in the imposing convoy, and the deep, reverential chant, _De +Profundis_, arose heavenward from the bosom of the lake until the body +reached the shore. It was carried in procession with cross, burning +tapers, and fragrant incense to the church, where every possible +preparation had been made for so interesting and affecting a ceremony; +and, after the Requiem service, the precious relics were deposited in a +vault prepared for them in the middle of the church, "where he reposes," +says the pious chronicler, "as the guardian angel of our Ottawa missions." +"Ever after," says Bancroft, "the forest rangers, if in danger on Lake +Michigan, would invoke his name. The people of the West will build his +monument." + +The following notice of the character of F. Marquette is from the gifted +pen of Mr. Shea: + + + "Such was the edifying and holy death of the illustrious explorer + of the Mississippi, on Saturday, the 18th of May, 1675. He was of + a cheerful, joyous disposition, playful even in his manner, and + universally beloved. His letters show him to us as a man of + education, close observation, sound sense, strict integrity, a + freedom from exaggeration, and yet a vein of humor which here and + there breaks out in spite of all his self-command. + + "But all these qualities are little compared to his zeal as a + missionary, to his sanctity as a man. His holiness drew on him in + life the veneration of all around him, and the lapse of years has + not even now destroyed it in the descendants of those who knew + him. In one of his sanctity we naturally find an all-absorbing + devotion to the Mother of the Saviour, with its constant + attendants, an angelical love of purity, and a close union of the + heart with God. It is, indeed, characteristic with him. The + privilege which the Church honors under the title of the + Immaculate Conception was the constant object of his thoughts; + from his early youth he daily recited the little offices of the + Immaculate Conception and fasted every Saturday in her honor. As a + missionary, a variety of devotions directed to the same end still + show his devotions, and to her he turned in all his trials. When + he discovered the great river, when he founded his new mission, he + gave it the name of the Conception, and no letter, it is said, + ever came from his hand that did not contain the words, 'Blessed + Virgin Immaculate'; and the smile that lighted up his dying face + induced his poor companions to believe that she had appeared + before the eyes of her devoted client. + + "Like S. Francis Xavier, whom he especially chose as the model of + his missionary career, he labored nine years for the moral and + social improvement of nations sunk in paganism and vice, and, as + he was alternately with tribes of varied tongues, found it was + necessary to acquire knowledge of many American languages: six he + certainly spoke with ease; many more he is known to have + understood less perfectly. His death, however, was, as he had + always desired, more like that of the apostle of the Indies; there + is, indeed, a striking resemblance between their last moments; and + the wretched cabin, the desert shore, the few destitute + companions, the lonely grave, all harmonize in Michigan and + Sancian." + + + + +Prayer Of Custance, The Persecuted Queen Of Alla Of Northumberland. + + + Mother, quod she, and maiden bright, Mary! + Soth is that through womanne's eggement + Mankind was lorn, and damned aye to die, + For which thy Child was on a cross yrent: + Thy blissful eyen saw all his torment; + Then is there no comparison between + Thy woe and any woe man may sustain. + Thou saw'st thy Child yslain before thine eyen, + And yet now liveth my little child parfay, + Now, lady bright! to whom all woful crien, + Thou glory of womanhood, thou faire May, + Thou haven of refute, bright star of the day! + Rue on my child, that of thy gentleness + Ruest on every rueful in distress. + + --_Chaucer._ + + + + +Acoma. + + +"Mr. S----, would you like to visit Acoma?" asked the commandant. + +"Most assuredly," I replied; "I came out here to see all I could see. But +what or who is Acoma?"(227) + +"A town built on the top of a rock rising from a level plain to a height +of over two hundred feet is Acoma--the home of the Acoma Indians, a tribe +of the great Pueblo family. I am ordered thither to have a talk with the +principal men, and induce them to give up some Navajo +children--captives--they are said to have taken in a recent skirmish." + +I had been enjoying the hospitality of the commandant for some days at old +Fort Wingate, near the Ojo del Gallo, in the northwestern part of New +Mexico. Acoma lies about fifty miles to the southeast of the fort, by a +very rough trail across the mountains. It was somewhat further by the +regular trail. + +As we started, the sun was creeping over the brow of lofty San Mateo. The +party consisted of the commandant, Don Juan Brown, a Castilianized +American, who speaks Spanish like a native, and went with us as volunteer +interpreter; Messrs. Jim Durden and Joe Smithers, gentlemen loafers; a +sergeant and twenty cavalry as escort in case of unexpected and undesired +rencounters with hostile Apaches or Navajoes; last, the writer, a denizen +of the city of Gotham, general tourist, grand scribe and chronicler. + +We all rode on horseback, except Don Juan Brown, who, being a trifle over +225 lbs., divided his weight between a pair of good horses attached to a +light buggy. The order of march was: two cavalrymen five hundred yards in +advance; the commandant, with Jim and Joe and the writer; the main body of +the escort; Don Juan Brown with his buggy, and a rear guard of two +cavalrymen five hundred yards behind. + +A brisk trot of three miles brought us to the Puertocito, or Little Door, +which leads from the Valley of the Gallo into the Mal Pais, a petrified +sea of lava, which lies between the Puertocito and the mountains. The lava +stream seems to have been suddenly turned to stone by a wave of some +enchanter's wand while it was a raging, seething torrent. + +We halted and dismounted, tightened girths, etc. Jim and Joe, unused to +the equitating mood, and evidently disliking particularly the trotting +tense, had fallen back to the rear guard, and looked somewhat shaken. The +relief of a walk of some miles was in store for them, as the trail through +the Mal Pais admitted only of that gait and of single file. + +The Puertocito is formed by two rocks about twenty feet high. We wound our +way through tortuous passages, through lava spires, at a slow walk. We +could not see more than a few yards ahead. It was a dreary pathway. The +knowledge that it was a haunt for Indians bound on robbery or revenge gave +imagination an opportunity to put her darkest colors on the natural gloom. +An hour's slow walking brings us to the Bajada, or Descent, where our path +is up and down the steep sides of a lava rock thirty feet high. We +dismount and lead our horses carefully down. Half a dozen men holding on +to the buggy behind make sufficient drag to let it down in safety, though +with some wrenching of the wheels in the channelled surface of the rock. + +Thence our way lies on the eastern skirt of the lava, which runs along +with the stream known as the San Jose through a deep and winding gorge +named Los Remanzos. I have seen some wild scenery in my time, but never +before nor since so savage a piece of landscape as Los Remanzos. The +mountains rise perpendicularly on either hand--their barren sides dotted +with huge boulders which seem ready to fall instantly on the traveller +beneath. You wonder why they do not fall. The winding canon shuts out all +view beyond twenty yards in advance. A trail barely wide enough for one +vehicle to pass creeps between the San Jose and the mountains on one side; +and from the stream to the mountains on the other the lava piles up its +grim and threatening forms. + +We halted at the picket to wait for the escort, the buggy, and Jim and +Joe, beguiling the time by a comforting draught of hot coffee from a +military quart cup which the commander of the picket hospitably offered +us. The laggards soon arrived. Jim and Joe took advantage of the pause +before starting again to enter a solemn protest against trotting: + +"For heaven's sake, commandant!" said they with one voice and in a tone +that showed acute feeling, "either walk or lope; we cannot endure that +confounded trot. We shall be as raw as uncooked beefsteaks." + +A bright thought struck them both simultaneously, and, without any further +ceremony, they rushed to the buggy, leaving their horses to take care of +themselves or be taken care of by some good-natured dragoon. + +Another mile brought us to the crossing of the San Jose. Here was a check +to our proceedings: the crossing was not fordable. The stream, usually +about two feet wide and three inches deep at the crossing, had in +consequence of recent heavy rains and the melting of snows filled its +steep bed and overflowed its banks for fifty yards on either side. A +powerful eddy made it impossible for a horse to strike ground on the other +side. A dragoon dashed in and tried it, but it was with great difficulty +we saved him and his horse from being carried down the swollen stream, and +got them safe on our side again. + +"That settles it, gentlemen," said the commandant; "we shall have to cross +the mountains--a rough trail, but we have no choice." + +It was now proposed to leave the buggy behind, but Joe would not hear of +it. The commandant was too polite to insist, as he ought to have done. + +Crossing a narrow but steep cut, however, the buggy went over, spilling +Don Juan and Jim over the mountain-side. The buggy stood on its top--wheels +in the air. The horses--good and gentle animals--came to a full stop and +stood perfectly quiet. Otherwise, there would have been as little left of +the buggy as of Dr. Holmes' one-horse shay, the last time the deacon rode +in it. Neither the Don nor Jim was hurt, though the latter was somewhat +frightened. Don Juan took the matter with the coolness of an old hand. The +buggy was uninjured; it had merely met with a reverse. It was soon put +upon its legs--or, rather, its wheels--again. Its progress was so +aggravatingly slow when even our fastest possible gait was a walk, that, +dividing the escort, we went on, leaving it to proceed at its leisure. + +It was about nightfall when we reached the edge of a precipitous descent +where all marks of a trail disappeared. The descent was probably two +hundred feet in perpendicular height, and alarmingly steep. + +"The buggy can never go down there," was the general remark. + +"Confound the buggy, we shall have to sleep out in the cold all night with +nothing but a saddle-blanket, on account of it," also translates a very +general sentiment. + +"We cannot desert them, however," said the commandant; "as the buggy has +come with us we must stand by it. We shall wait here until it comes up." + +We had a long and weary wait for that anathematized buggy. At length, as +the shades of night were falling, the long-looked-for buggy was seen, its +top bumping up and down like a buffalo with a broken foreleg. The don +walked on one side of the vehicle holding the reins; Joe walked on the +other side as gloomily as a chief mourner. The remainder of the escort +with dismal visages followed behind. + +A glance over the steep brink did not give any radiance to their gloomy +countenances. Don Juan expressed his regrets that we should have been +detained by the slow and difficult progress of the buggy. Joe said +nothing, but evidently felt ashamed of himself. + +We were still twenty miles from Acoma. Within about five miles, the +commandant said there was a little Indian hut--a sort of outpost of the +Pueblo--the owner of which, old Salvador, was one of the notables of the +Pueblo. The commandant had notified Salvador by courier some days before +of our intended visit. He had proposed to meet us at the ranchito and +guide us over the remainder of the mountain trail. Here we could pass the +night under cover at least, though we should be pretty closely packed. + +Joe had resumed the saddle after the steep descent had been accomplished. +He and Jim now led the party, and, as the rest of us stayed with Don Juan +and the buggy, they got considerably in advance. Thus they had reached the +ranchito some twenty minutes before we did. We found them knocking at the +door and calling loudly and indignantly on the inmates to open. + +"We have been knocking and shouting here for half an hour, and the +confounded old Indian has not taken the slightest notice of us. I believe +he would let us freeze." + +"Salvador does not know you," said the commandant. "He is too wise an +Indian to open his doors to strangers in this country after nightfall. +Salvador is reputed wealthy, and it behooves him to be careful what +nocturnal visitors he receives. I think I can get Salvador to open. Is +Senor Don Salvador within?" asked the commandant, in Spanish. + +"Is it the Senor Comandante who is without?" asked Don Salvador, in the +same language, with the usual Pueblo peculiarities of pronunciation--the +use of _l_ for _r_, etc. + +Being satisfied on this point, Salvador opened the door to receive us. + +Salvador was a stout, middle-sized, gray-headed Indian of the Pueblo type. +The presence of the commandant being a voucher for the rest, Salvador now +proceeded to shake hands with the whole party--in the order of rank, as he +understood it--taking first the commandant, next the bugler, then the +sergeant and the men of the escort, and then the civilians, Don Brown and +the writer, and lastly Jim and Joe; conscientiously repeating in each +individual case, "_Como le va!_" and "_Bueno!_" Indians believe in +uniforms and brass buttons. They don't understand official dignity without +outward and visible signs. + +The ranchito was a little structure of _tierrones_, or sods, roofed with +poles laid across from wall to wall, and covered with brush and earth. +There were no windows. The door was the only aperture, I think. I am not +quite sure whether there was a hole in the roof to let out a little of the +smoke; there may have been. The edifice was about large enough for a fair- +sized poultry-house. It was perched on the steep mountainside, the earth +being cut away on the upper side to give an approach to a level +foundation. There was a small shed for animals, the fodder for whose use +being piled on top of it. There was the usual corn-crib. Our best horses +were honored with the hospitality of the shed, Salvador's pony and burros +being turned out to make room for them. The other animals were tied to +logs in front of the ranchito, and a guard placed over them. + +It required some stooping to enter Salvador's residence. This was very +hard on the stout Don, who had not seen his own knee for a number of +years, but he accomplished it as if he had been in the daily habit of +touching his toes without bending his knees. But a further trial still +awaited him. The hut was divided into two rooms. The passage between the +two rooms was a blighted door, cut short in its youth to the proportions +of a small fireplace. We had to come down to all-fours to get into the +inner chamber. When the commandant, the staunch Don, and the writer had +entered, the place seemed full. But Salvador, on hospitable thoughts +intent, insisted on Jim and Joe entering. Then Salvador wriggled in. The +room was replete. + +After a meagre supper and a quiet smoke, we arranged the details of the +morrow's trip. With our saddles for pillows, and our saddle-blankets and +overcoats for beds and bed-covering, we lay down to sleep. Brown, with Jim +and Joe, in the inner room; the commandant, the old Pueblo, and myself in +the outer. Jim and Joe lay perpendicularly to Brown, and Salvador +described a horizontal to the commandant and myself. I slept well, +considering, though I was waked two or three times by a roaring noise, +which seemed to me to be that of the house falling, as I was endeavoring +to force myself through the passage between the two apartments, in which, +more than once during the night, I dreamt that I was stuck fast. On +waking, I discovered that the sound proceeded from the resounding Aztec +nose of our host, Salvador. + +We were roused before day by the old Indian. Dressing took no time, as we +had not undressed the night before--a great saving of time, labor, and +discomfort. Breakfast was to be got ready, however. Salvador made the +fire. The commandant detailed himself and myself as cooks for the morning. +At supper-time, Don Juan, assisted by Jim and Joe, would officiate +culinarily. Slices from a haunch of bacon we had brought with us, cooked +on the end of a stick, with "hard tack" and coffee, made in a camp kettle, +furnished a delicious breakfast. What is there in the odor of unctuous +bacon that makes it so pleasant to the nostrils when one is camping out or +"roughing it"? There are people who cannot abide the smell of bacon within +the confines of civilization. But put them on the Plains, or in the field, +and a daily dose of the appetizing grease is necessary to "settle their +stomachs." I have known men who, in long trips in the wilds, forsook +chickens and returned to first principles and bacon. + +We made an early start. The buggy was left behind. Don Juan saddled one of +his horses. He borrowed from the old Indian a saddle, so angular and so +full of sharp points that it must have been hard even for an Indian's +seat. But Brown, though heavy, was a good horseman, and he bore the +infliction like a hero. + +Salvador was our guide. When we were all mounted, and ready to start, we +looked around for him. After some hunting we saw him above us, mounted, +and seemingly emerging from the roof of the ranchito. He went straight up +the side of the mountain, beckoning to us to come on, and shouting +"_Caballeros! por aqui!_"(228) + +An Indian does not understand flank movements. He does not go around +obstacles. He goes straight over them on the direct line of his objective. +We followed our guide, dismounting, however, leading our horses, and +zigzagging up the steep ascent like Christians and white men. + +Our course was over mountain and across ravine on a bee-line of ascent or +descent for Acoma. There was some growling by Jim and Joe, but as our +general gait was a slow walk, and they made much of their progress on +foot, they did not grumble much. + +I noticed moccasin tracks in several places where the ground was soft. The +distance between the foot-prints was very great. It astonished me. I rode +to the commandant's side, and called his attention to the wonderful +tracks. He pointed them out to Salvador, who said they were the tracks of +a _muchacho_ he had sent to the Pueblo last night with the news of our +arrival at the ranchito. What a stepper that _muchacho_ must have been! +His average bound must have been at least ten feet. + +"How long will it take him to go to the Pueblo, Salvador?" asked the +commandant. + +"Oh! not long," replied Salvador, "long as a good horse." + +_Experientia docet._ Before I saw those tracks I used to set down the +accounts I read in my Grecian history of wonderful time made by messengers +to Athens and other classic centres as antique yarns. I now believe in the +fastest Grecian time reported. Thus, the torch of faith is often lit by +the merest straying spark--a lesson to us not to limit our belief to what +is within the scope of our knowledge. We know so little. + +Jim and Joe had begun to growl over the continual ups and downs of the +journey when we saw Salvador, who was some three or four hundred yards +ahead, dismount at the foot of what seemed to be the steepest ascent yet. + +"This must be a stiff one," said the commandant. "I see Salvador has +dismounted. It takes a pretty steep ascent to make an Indian or a Mexican +dismount. They hold to the saddle until the animal begins to bend +backward." + +It was a steep and toilsome ascent, winding in and out through huge +boulders just wide enough apart to let a horse squeeze through. It was not +always easy to convince the horses that there was room enough for them to +pass. They would refuse to be convinced, and obstinately draw back, to the +discomfort and danger of those leading them, and more so of those +following. + +At last we reached the top of the ascent. The descent on the other side +was a worthy pendant to it. We halted on the crest to enjoy the landscape +before us. From the base of the height a level plain spread away for +miles, unbroken save by a cluster of lofty perpendicular white rocks, each +rising independently from the level plain. On the top of the highest of +these rocks stood a little town, the smoke from its chimneys mingling with +the clouds. This was Acoma. + +We descended slowly and carefully. A brisk trot of about two miles brought +us to two lofty natural columns, through which the trail passed. They +seemed the pillars of a gigantic portal--a resemblance which had struck the +Indians, for they named it El Puerto: The Gate. We had now reached the +base of the inhabited rock. An excavation near the base was pointed out to +us by Salvador as the trace of an attempt to mine the position by the +Spanish invaders! I think the story rather a doubtful one. + +I judged the rock to be about two hundred and fifty feet in height. The +path up the rocky side to the village was steep and narrow. No wheeled +vehicle has ever entered the Pueblo. The primitive _carreta_, with its +clumsy wheels of solid disks cut from the trunk of some gigantic cotton- +wood, stopped short at the base--going thus far and no further. Provisions +and other necessaries are packed up on the backs of surefooted donkeys. +Water for drinking purposes is carried up on the heads of the Indians in +large earthen vessels named _tinajas_; for other uses rain-water is +carefully gathered in natural tanks or hollows in the summit of the rock. +There is a bypath or short-cut up to the Pueblo which the Acomas generally +use when unburdened or in a hurry. A glance showed us that it was only +practicable for Acoma Indians. This short-cut is in the most nearly +perpendicular of any of the rocky sides. It consists of holes in the +smooth and vertical side of the rock, in which the Indians place their +hands and feet, and climb up after the fashion of sailors clambering up +rigging, and with no less rapidity. + +We returned to the common highway, which now seemed by comparison a +flowery path of dalliance. It was slow and tiresome work, however. After a +rest or two, to breathe our animals and ourselves, we finally reached the +comparatively level space, some acres in area, on the summit of the rock. + +Here we were met by Francisco, our guide's son, the governor, matadores, +alguazils, and other functionaries of the Pueblo. This is as good a place +as any other to say that the governor and all other officials are elected +annually. They were dressed in the usual Pueblo fashion. Their heads were +uncovered. They were draped in large blankets, which gave them a very +dignified appearance. + +We received a most cordial reception. The commandant had been a good +friend to the Acomas--had protected them in their little trading +operations, and helped them in the long, hard winters when their granaries +were empty. The entire male population was assembled in the Plaza or +central square. The squaws and children were at their front doors, that is +to say, on the roofs, for the entrance to a Pueblo's dwelling is from +above. + +A fire for the dragoons to cook their rations by was made in the centre of +the Plaza. The horses were picketed around. A contribution of corn and +firewood was levied by the governor for the use of the escort. The Indians +came in cheerful, laughing groups, bearing their _costals_ of corn or +their bundles of wood. The escort being provided for, we went to the house +of Francisco, the most comfortable house in the Pueblo; for Francisco was +the wealthiest member of the little community. The governor's dwelling was +a poor one, and himself a poor man who was unable to entertain us as +comfortably as Francisco could. He accompanied us thither. + +Francisco's dwelling, like most of the others in the Pueblo, was a two- +storied adobe building, whitewashed inside and out. The mode of access was +a ladder placed against the outer wall of the lower story. Having reached +the top of this, you walk across the roof and enter the house by a door on +the second story, the facade of which is somewhat retired from the front +line of the first. + +Here we found some rosy, apple-faced squaws, engaged in culinary and other +domestic operations. One was kneeling grinding corn with the primitive +_matata_. They smiled with all their countenances on us; and a half-dozen +of the whitest sets of teeth, that dentist or dentifrice never touched, +gleamed a bright welcome to us. They wore the usual dark woollen robe, +made of two pieces, about five feet long and three broad, sewed together +at one of the narrow ends, but with an aperture for the head to pass +through. The robe is then gathered round the waist and tied with a string. +Their nut-brown arms were bare, and encircled at the wrist by from one to +a dozen brass rings; their feet were bare. The thick swathing of buckskin, +with which they wrap their lower limbs when journeying, and which gives +them the appearance of being terribly swollen, were laid aside, much to +the furthering of a graceful effect. + +We were invited to descend to the sitting-room, situated beneath, through +a very narrow trap-door. Don Juan walked fearlessly toward the aperture. +We begged him to pause before he rushed into a place whence he could never +hope to return. The Indians understood the joke, and enjoyed it hugely. + +So the Don entered the aperture, and by judicious squeezing actually +succeeded in passing. His coat-tails got through about the same time as +his head. The others, being of the lean and hungry-looking kind, had no +difficulty in descending. + +From the room into which we had descended ventilation was completely +excluded. Light was only admitted through one or two small panes of glass +in apertures like port-holes in the walls. + +We took seats on sheep-skins spread in a circle around the floor. The +commandant made known his business in passable Spanish; the governor +replied, through Francisco, as interpreter. The worthy Don intervened, +from time to time, between the high contracting parties, when there was a +lack of language or danger of misunderstanding. The business was completed +satisfactorily and in short order. + +While the floor was being set for dinner--tables not being in vogue here--we +endeavored to obtain the Acoma's idea of the antiquity of the Pueblo. +Francisco, though he had learned to read and write, had not got beyond the +Indian idea of time, space, or number. There is no medium between "many" +and "few"--very far, _muy lejos_; and near, _cerca_. + +"How many years old is the Pueblo?" + +"_Muchos anos._--Many years." + +"About how many?" + +"Who knows, senor?" with a shrug. "A great many." + +"Who is the oldest man in the Pueblo?" + +"The cacique." + +The cacique, we were informed, is the official historian of the Pueblo. +His records consist only in oral traditions, which he teaches to a youth +selected for the purpose, who is to succeed him in his office when he +dies. + +"Is the cacique very old?" + +"Si, senor! Very old." + +It is useless to ask an Indian how old he or any other Indian is, as he +never knows. So we did not ask how old the cacique was. + +"Was the cacique he succeeded very old?" + +"Yes, sir; very old." + +"Was the Pueblo in existence as long as he can remember?" + +"Yes, sir; and as long as the cacique before him and the cacique before +him could remember. But we shall have the cacique here shortly, and then +after dinner we'll have a good big talk about the many years ago." + +Francisco, the governor, and his father now engaged in an earnest +conversation in their Indian tongue, the result of which was that +Francisco unlocked a vast trunk, of antique form and solidity, and took +therefrom a pile of manuscript, which he handed us with great solemnity. +The Indians looked upon this venerable pile with great reverence. It was +probably the first time it had been touched by "outsiders." We owed the +permission to examine it to the many kind acts the commandant had +performed for the Acomas. + +The first portion of the manuscript examined was a Missal. The Office of +the Mass was copied in Latin in a fair plain hand, the work of some +Spanish missionary. The ink had turned yellow, but the text was clear and +legible throughout. Nothing in the MS. Missal indicated the date of its +writing. A further examination of the venerable pages furnished us some +information. Besides the Missal, they comprised a register in Spanish of +births, marriages, and deaths. The earliest written record of the Pueblo +which we found is the record of a baptism, 1725. + +Having gleaned what knowledge we could from the precious manuscripts, they +were carefully and reverently put away in the ponderous chest, and secured +by a padlock nearly as large as a travelling satchel. + +Dinner was now served. It was very good. It consisted of a chicken stew, +good white bread, and very passable tea. The stew was made so intensely +hot, however, by _chile colorado_,(229) that I did not enjoy it as much as +I might have done had it been less fiery. I never could relish _chile_ +either _colorado_ or _verde_. But on this occasion, I determined to eat it +if it burned me to a shell to show my appreciation of Acoma hospitality! + +The cacique--an old, white-haired, blear-eyed Indian, at least ninety--came +in toward the close of the meal, accompanied by the youth whom he was +instructing in the historical and legendary lore of the Pueblo. He evinced +no inclination to be communicative, but showed a determination to make a +rousing meal--something to which he was evidently not accustomed. After +dinner he devoted himself to smoking our cigars; but not a word could we +get out of him about the history of Acoma. Joe said that as a story-teller +he considered the cacique a decided failure. + +The governor signified that he was now ready to show us the church. So +thither we proceeded. + +The church is, of course, of adobe. It was unused at the time we visited +it. No priest had been attached to the Pueblo for some years. But it was +not suffered to fall into decay. On one side of the altar was a painting +of the Virgin and Child; on the other, one of S. Joseph. On the ceiling +above the altar were large paintings of the sun and moon. Here we got +another chronological glimmer--the last we found. It was an inscription +which stated that the church had been renovated in 1802. The Indians told +us it was done by some artist-priest who came from far away--probably Spain +or Italy. There are a pair of bells in the belfry. The Acoma tradition is +that these bells were a gift to the Pueblo from a Queen of Spain. Of +course they do not know the date of their reception. They say, however, +that it was some time before the renovation of the church. + +We next went to the southern edge of the rock to look at the "short cut" +from above. This was not easy or pleasant pedestrianism. The rock here +ceased to be level, throwing up sharp craggy points. The Indians stepped +from point to point, erect and graceful and without difficulty. The pale +faces were compelled by a due discretion to abandon erect attitudes, and +proceed bending down, and using hands as well as feet. A look down the +rocky side was sufficient. The commandant shook his head, and said in +Spanish: + +"That is no way for a white man to come up"--a remark which the Indians +seemed to consider remarkably humorous. They laughed and "how-how"-ed +vehemently. + +As we returned, we remarked that on one side of the rock it was bevelled +down from the summit about forty or fifty feet, and then resumed its +general steep and vertical character. Some houses were situated near the +superior edge of this bend. A thrill ran through me from head to foot as I +saw a child roll from the front of one of the houses down the incline. + +"He will be dashed to atoms!" I cried in horror. + +The Indians looked in the direction to which I frantically pointed, and +then united in a good-humored laugh. + +Soon another urchin, and another, and another followed the first, who +picked himself up just at the deadly brink, and mounted the incline, to +roll down again and again, as we used to on a hillside in snow with our +sleds, in our younger days. This was play for the infantine Acomas. They +were "keeping the pot a-bilin'." + +The Indians told us that no fatal accident had ever happened to any Acoma +either while rolling down the dread incline "in pretty, pleasant play," or +climbing the steep path the mere sight of which had made us dizzy. +Tradition records that only one Indian ever "went over the side." He was +saved by a projecting stump catching him by the breech-clout and holding +him suspended until he was rescued--unhurt. + +Our next visit was the _Estufa_. Here the sacred fire was burning. The +_Estufa_ was an underground apartment. We descended through a trap-door, +which also served as a chimney, and down a smoke-begrimed ladder. The +chamber was some thirty feet in length and perhaps fifteen in width. We +were informed that it was the general place of meeting--the public hall--the +club-room of the Pueblo. It was pretty hot and not very sweet down there. +We found four Indians seated around the fire, each with a loom in front of +him, weaving a blanket. Their only covering was the breech-clout. The +Indians told us, through Don Juan, that these men watched the fire, which +was always kept burning--waiting for the coming of Montezuma. They were +relieved by four others at stated times. We shook hands with the naked +watchers, and "how-how"-ed with them in the usual way. + +"Do you think Montezuma will come?" asked Joe, through Don Juan, of one of +the vigilants. + +The worthy, shrugging his naked shoulders, looked up sidewise at Joseph, +and replied: + +"_Quizas? Quien sabe?_--May be! Who knows?" + +Joe withdrew. We all followed him. We had now seen all the lions of the +Pueblo of Acoma. "Boots and saddles" and "to horse" were sounded, and with +many hand-shakes, some embraces, and general "how-hows," we bade adieu to +the hospitable Acomas and their rocky home, and began our return march. + + + + +New Publications. + + + THE LIFE OF DEMETRIUS AUGUSTIN GALLITZIN, PRINCE AND PRIEST. By + Sarah M. Brownson. With an Introduction by O. A. Brownson, LL.D. + New York: Pustet. 1872. + + +Women of talent and cultivation make admirable biographers. In religious +biography we know of nothing more charming than the lives written by Mere +Chauguy. In recent English literature, the Lives of Mother Margaret Mary +O'Halloran, by a lady whose name is unknown to us, and of S. Jane Frances +de Chantal, by Miss Emily Bowles, are among the most perfect specimens of +this very agreeable species of writing which we have met with in any +language. This new and carefully prepared biography of a priest who was +illustrious both by birth and Christian virtue, by a lady already known as +the author of several works of fiction, well deserves to be classed with +the best of its kind in English Catholic literature. It is a work of +thorough, patient, and conscientious labor, and for the first time +adequately presents the history and character of Prince Gallitzin in their +true light. Certainly, we never knew before how truly heroic and admirable +a man was this Russian prince who came to pass his life as a missionary in +the forests which crowned in his day the summit of the Alleghanies in +Pennsylvania. The charm of a biography is found in a certain fulness and +sprightliness of style and manner, a picturesqueness and ideality of +ornament and coloring, a warmth and glow of sentiment, which give life and +reality to the narrative. Miss Brownson still possesses the juvenile +_elan_ which naturally finds its expression in the style we have +indicated, and has also attained that sobriety and maturity of judgment +which give it the rightly subdued tone and finish. In several matters of +considerable delicacy which she has been obliged to handle, we think she +has shown tact and discretion, while at the same time using enough of the +freedom of a historian to bring out the truth of facts and events which +needed to be told in order to make a veritable record and picture of the +life of her subject. The prince is fortunate in his biographer. Would it +were the lot of every great man in the church to find a similar one! Miss +Brownson's book seems to us the best religious biography which has been +written by anyone of our American Catholic authors. We would like to see +more works of this sort from feminine writers, to whom we are already so +much indebted for works both of the graver and the lighter kind, and +particularly from Miss Brownson, who has fully proved her ability in the +volume before us. + + + BIBLIOGRAPHIA CATHOLICA AMERICANA. A list of works written by + Catholic authors and published in the United States. By Rev. + Joseph M. Finotti. Part I., 1784 to 1820 inclusive. New York: The + Catholic Publication Society. 1872. 8vo. pp. 319. + + +It was said of Bartlett's _Dictionary of Americanisms_ that it was the +first dictionary that a man could read through with pleasure. The same in +the way of bibliography may be said of this; for, if any of our readers +supposes that the title tells the truth, he is mistaken. It is not a mere +_list_, as the author modestly calls it. Some twelve years ago, Mr. Shea +published in one of our Catholic papers a list of titles of "The First +Catholic Books printed in this County," coming down to the same date and +including the same period as our author, and giving sixty-eight titles. +This meagre beginning of American Catholic bibliography has in F. +Finotti's hands grown to nearly five hundred titles, including some few +imprints later than 1820. + +It is not merely a collection of titles of Catholic works, but of all +works by Catholic authors printed in the country, with notes of the +highest interest to Catholics who care at all for what was done by our +fathers in the faith in this republic. Biographical notices, notices of +celebrated books, accounts of controversies of the time, anecdotes +illustrative of Catholic life in the earlier days, notes of Catholic +printers and journalists, all find their place in these notes, in which +the abundant knowledge of our earlier men and times, and things acquired +by the patient and loving research of years, fairly bubble out +spontaneously. It is not a history indeed, but to the historian will be +invaluable as an authority and a guide. + +On some points this work is absolutely exhaustive. The collection of +pamphlets and works growing out of the Hogan affair in Philadelphia, +considering their perishable nature, is perfectly wonderful, and his +library alone can enable any one to go thoroughly into the history of that +unhappy matter which was destructive to so many souls. + +Of the writings and publications of the celebrated Mathew Carey, we have +also here by far the most accurate and comprehensive account ever drawn +up, comprising nearly twenty-five pages. + +Many will be amazed to see how many sterling Catholic books were issued +early in the century, and thus be able to judge of the zeal and true +religious feeling of the little body of Catholics who so generously +sustained the publishers, as well as of the public spirit of a man like +Bernard Dornin--in our mind, as in F. Finotti's, the type of what a +Catholic publisher should be. Of him as of many other Catholics our author +gives biographical notices that we should look for in vain in all the +cyclopaedias and biographical dictionaries. Book notices often end with the +assertion that the book should be in every family; we hardly suppose the +publishers ready to supply every Catholic family in the country with a +copy, for the edition is small, and must be taken up at once. It is by no +means merely a book for the Dryasdust collector or antiquarian. It must +find its place in the libraries of many of our gentlemen who love their +religion and love books, as well as in our college libraries. We trust +that it will impel all to endeavor to have some of the early printed +Catholic books, as matters of laudable pride. If they can even find some +that have escaped the Argus eyes of the reverend collector and his +associate book-hunters, they will, we trust, be good enough Christians to +bear with equanimity even that severe trial to a bibliographer. + +This _Bibliography_ commends itself to those interested in the +bibliography of the country or the history of printing in the United +States. + +In the _Historical Magazine_ some months since there was a Bibliography of +works on Unitarianism, but it was silent as to Father Kohlmann's work, and +to a sermon by a Catholic clergyman of Pittsburg. So, too, Sabin's +_Bibliopolist_ recently gave a list of books printed in Brooklyn, but was +silent as to a _Catholic Doctrine_ printed there in 1817, as well as of +Coate's very curious _Reply_ to Rev. F. Richards' supposed reasons for +becoming a Catholic. + +There is one strange point about American bibliography, and that is that +the laborers in it have been almost exclusively from Europe. Ludewig gave +the _Bibliography of Indian Languages_ and that of Local History; +O'Callaghan, that of American Bibles; Harisse, that of the earliest +American; Rich was a pioneer in the same field; and now Finotti gives us +the Catholic element. Where are our native bibliographers? + + + LE LIBERALISME. LECONS DONNEES A L'UNIVERSITE LAVAL. Par l'Abbe + Benjamin Paquet, Docteur en Theologie, et Professeur a la Faculte + de Theologie. Quebec: De l'Imprimerie du _Canadien_. Brochure, pp. + 100. 1872. + + +Lower Canada, considered both in respect to the condition of the Catholic +Church therein, and to the political well-being of its people, is an +eminently fortunate region, despite the rigor of its climate. It is +especially pre-eminent in respect to the Catholic education given to young +men of the leisured classes, and others who go through the intermediate +and higher courses. Laval University is truly a splendid institution among +many others which make Quebec an _unique_ city in Northern America. These +remarks are suggested by the pamphlet before us, which is a specimen of +the sound and opportune instruction given at the Laval University. The +Lectures contained in it give an exposition which is both learned and +clear of that most important portion of the Syllabus which relates to the +errors of modern liberalism condemned in the Pontifical Acts of Pius IX. +When will the Catholics of the United States enjoy privileges similar to +those which are the portion of the Catholics of Lower Canada? The Abbe +Paquet's Lectures were delivered as a part of his course on the law of +nature and of nations, and were attended not only by his pupils, but by a +numerous and select audience, several of whom requested their publication. +We have already sufficiently expressed our approbation of their doctrine +and style, and they have been favorably noticed in Europe. We are +confident that a considerable number of our readers will hasten to procure +them, and receive great profit from their perusal. + + + CARDINAL WISEMAN'S WORKS. New Edition, first 3 vols. New York: P. + O'Shea. + + +This is a reissue of a new London edition which we most cordially commend. +The first two volumes, containing the _Lectures on the Connection between +Science and Revealed Religion_, have already been noticed in these pages. +The third volume contains the splendid treatise on the Holy Eucharist. +Cardinal Wiseman was a great writer, a great prelate, and a remarkably +devout and holy man. His works are among our choicest treasures, and as +such ought to be everywhere circulated and continually perused by those +who wish to imbue their minds with the purest doctrine and the most +valuable knowledge. + + + THE LIFE OF S. AUGUSTINE, BISHOP, CONFESSOR, AND DOCTOR OF THE + CHURCH. By P. E. Moriarty, D.D. Ex-Assistant General O.S.A. + Philadelphia: Cunningham. 1873. + + +This is a popular biography, though proceeding from the pen of a learned +man, and showing marks of erudition. The sketch is a complete one, and +shows great power of generalization and condensation in the writer, with +vigor and impetus of style. It is not, however, minute in respect to the +saint's public life, or his great work as a philosopher and doctor of the +church. This could not be expected in a work of moderate size adapted for +popular reading. There is, however, a brief summary of the saint's +writings, with a synopsis, and an account of the Augustinian Order, all of +which are of interest and value to the general reader. + + + PHOTOGRAPHIC VIEWS; OR, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL TRUTHS REFLECTED IN + THE UNIVERSE. By F. X. Weninger, D.D., S.J. New York: P. O'Shea. + 1873. + + +A handsomely printed volume, with a very ornamental title-page quite +appropriate to the nature of the book. The views of truth presented in +this book are expressed in aphorisms. Good taste, poetic sensibility, +spiritual wisdom, and the purest Christian feeling are their chief +characteristics. We are disposed to think this the best of F. Weninger's +works. There are many persons who take great delight in aphorisms of this +kind, and we think all such readers will like this book. It is good also +as a help to meditation, and a treasury of short spiritual readings for +those who have not time for long ones; and will be useful to those who +like to stop occasionally in more laborious occupations of the mind, and +gather a little spiritual nosegay. + + + MEMOIRS OF MADAME DESBORDES-VALMORE. By the late C. A. Sainte- + Beuve. With a Selection from her Poems. Translated by Harriet W. + Preston. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1873. + + +Madame Valmore was one of those poets of the affections who + + + "Learn in suffering what they teach in song." + + +No one can look for a moment at her portrait as depicted in this touching +book without feeling that the thorn is continually pressing against her +gentle breast. Her poetry and her letters are the very outcry of +impassioned love and grief. "I am like the Indian that sings at the +stake," she says. One of her volumes is entitled _Tears_, every line of +which is a pensive sigh. Her poems are full of "the charm of that +melancholy which M. de Segur calls _the luxury of grief_." M. Michelet +says: "She alone among us had the _gift of tears_--that gift which smites +the rock and assuages the thirst of the soul!" M. Sainte-Beuve calls her +"the _Mater Dolorosa_ of poetry," but that title, consecrated to a higher, +diviner type of sorrow, is one that most of us would shrink from applying +to ordinary mortals. + +It would almost seem as if the highest, purest notes--"half ecstasy, half +pain"--only spring from the soul overshadowed by sorrow, as the eyes of +some birds are darkened when they are taught to sing. Mme. Valmore +herself, in allusion to a brother poet, wonders "if actual misery were +requisite for the production of notes that so haunt one's memory." + +The tombs among which she used to play as a child in the old churchyard at +Douai seem to have cast their funereal shadows over her whole life--shadows +that lend to her sad muse so attractive a charm. One of her poems thus +begins: + + + "Do not write. I am sad and would my life were o'er. + A summer without thee?--Oh! night of starless gloom!-- + I fold the idle arms that cannot clasp thee more-- + To knock at my heart's door, were like knocking at a tomb. + Do not write." + + +Mme. Valmore's nature was eminently feminine. Her heart was her guide. She +was a being of impulse and sympathy. But her instincts were so delicate +and true that they were to her what reason and philosophy are to colder +natures. Her imagination was thoroughly Catholic. It is only Catholicity +that develops souls of such tender grace and beauty, and she was brought +up under its influences. A cheerful piety, Catholic in tone, seems to have +pervaded her life, and consoled and sustained her in its many dark hours. +She loved to pray in the deserted aisle of some shadowy church full of +mystery and peace. "She had her Christ--the Christ of the poor and +forsaken, the prisoner and the slave, the Christ of the Magdalen and the +good Samaritan, a Christ of the future of whom she herself has sung in one +of her sweetest strains: + + + 'He whose pierced hands have broken so many chains,' " + + +--a line that appeals to all who have sinned and been forgiven! + +In her last years she thus writes: "I see at an immense distance the +Christ who shall come again. His breath is moving over the crowd. He opens +his arms wide, but there are no more nails--no more for ever!" + +Her devotion to Mary is constantly peeping out in her letters. After +visiting a church at Brussels, she writes thus to her daughter: "To-day we +saw the black Virgin with the Child Jesus also black like his mother. +These Madonnas wring my heart with a thousand reminiscences. They are +nothing in the way of art, but they are so associated with my earliest and +sweetest faiths that I positively adore those stiff pink-lined veils and +wreaths of perennial flowers made of cambric so stout that all the winds +of heaven could never cause a leaf to flutter." + +She writes her brother: "Lift up your hat when you pass the Church of +Notre Dame, and lay upon its threshold the first spring flowers you find." + +One of the most touching features of her life is her devotedness to this +brother, an old soldier and pensioner in the hospital at Douai, whom she +aided out of her own scanty purse, and still more by the moral support she +was continually giving him in the most delicate manner; trying to ennoble +his unfortunate past so as to give him dignity in his own eyes--a thing so +often forgotten in our intercourse with those who are in danger of losing +their self-respect. + +Mme. Valmore's charity and sympathies were not confined to her own +kindred. They responded to every appeal. The condemned criminal and +prisoners of every degree excited the compassion of her heart. At a time +of great distress at Lyons, she says she is "ashamed to have food and fire +and two garments when so many poor creatures have none." And yet she seems +not to have had too many of the comforts of life herself. One Christmas +eve she speaks of kneeling on her humble hearth--"a hearth where there is +not much fire save that of her own loving, anxious heart--" to pray. + +It is sad to see a woman with such a refined, poetical nature, and a heart +sensitive to the last degree, condemned to a fate so chilling and unkind. +But she never lost courage. Living in narrow lodgings, and on limited +means, she contrived to give a certain artistic air to everything around +her, and received her visitors with polished ease and self-possession, +hiding her griefs under the grace of her manner and the vivacity of her +conversation. Her courage and fortitude were admirable under adverse +circumstances and such afflictions as the loss of her daughters. No book +not strictly religious could teach a more forcible lesson of patient, +cheerful endurance--how "to suffer and be strong." The work is elegantly +translated, and is a welcome addition to the lives of celebrated French +ladies already issued by the same publishers. + + + THE ENGLISH IN IRELAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. By James Anthony + Froude, M.A. In 2 vols. Vol. I. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & + Co. 1873. + + +We have here the first volume of a new and very elaborate work by the +adventurous historian of England, and chivalrous champion of Henry VIII. +and his daughter Elizabeth. It might perhaps have been hoped that enough +had been said of Mr. Froude in these columns, and that our readers had +done with him. His reputation as a faithful historian had been sorely +damaged, and indeed irretrievably ruined, by several indignant critics in +England, in Scotland, and in Ireland, as well as in the United States (by +the short, sharp and decisive onslaught of Mr. Meline); so that it has +been an actual surprise to the literary world to find him once more +tempting Providence in a new book, heralded and advertised by a course of +lectures in New York. But this is the nature of the man: he must surprise +and startle, or he dies; he must provoke the most wondering and angry +contradiction and comment, and gratify the small feminine spite that +possesses him, provided he can sting and wound like a hornet. For him, to +scold is to live. + +The present volume, although entitled _The English in Ireland in the +Eighteenth Century_, is in fact occupied, for more than two hundred pages, +with an account of the dealings of his country with Ireland during the +XVIIth century, and presents his views of Irish history at the notable +periods of the insurrection--or alleged "massacre"--in 1641, as well as the +short reign of James II. The narrative ends at the time of the small +French invasion under Thurot, shortly after the middle of the XVIIIth +century; leaving Still to be treated the whole era of the Volunteering, +the Insurrection of '98, and the Union, so-called. Indeed, if the author +carry forward his subject into the present century, as he has carried it +backward into the one before the last, he will have the great famines to +deal with, and the multitudinous emigration; so that we may expect a vast +picture, covering the whole canvas, portraying from the strictly English +point of view that ghastly history in its full perspective. The Froude +theory is, on the whole, quite simple; nothing can be more easily +understood. It is, in few words, that the English nation having been +"forced by situation and circumstances" to take charge of Ireland and its +people, when it suited the English to change their religion, or to come +back to it, or to change it again, they were bound in duty to compel the +Irish to change along with them each time, by means of pains and +penalties, from heavy fines to transportation and death on the gallows; +also that the English having a strong wish to possess themselves of all +the lands of Ireland, everything was lawful and right to effect that +object. The reader will remark, with surprise (and the more surprise, the +better for Froude), that in his lectures lately delivered in New York, +which were a kind of abstract of the work then in press, he did not +venture _to say_ before an intelligent audience of freemen some of the +things which he has dared to print in the book then just ready to burst +upon the world. For example, he did not say, even before the "Christian +young men," such words as these which are found in the book (p. 609): + +"The consent of man was not asked when he was born into the world: his +consent will not be asked when his time comes to die. _As little_ has his +consent to do with the laws which, while he lives, he is bound to obey." + +This sentiment he perhaps thought it unnecessary to enunciate here; +because, in fact, he intended it solely for the Irish, not by any means +for the Americans, although it reads like a universal maxim for the human +race. Again, he did not think it necessary to say in so plain words what +he has laid down clearly enough in this passage (p. 213): + +"No government need _keep terms_ with such a creed [meaning the Catholic +Church] when there is power to abolish it. To call the repression of +opinions which had issued so many times in blood and revolt _by the name +of religions persecution_ is mere abuse of words." + + + ELEVATIONS POETIQUES ET RELIGIEUSES. Par Marie Jenna. Deuxieme + Edit. 2 vols. Paris: Adrien le Clerc et Cie. 1872. + + +As the eye lingers upon a beautiful landscape, spring clad and fair in the +clear light of the new-risen sun; as the ear loiters unwilling to lose the +last echoed link of some simple melting melody; as the hand tarries loth +to quit the gentle grasp that speaks unspoken sympathy, so have +we--reluctant to lose such fair pictures, such moving lays, such deep and +tender feeling--lingered and loitered and tarried with Marie Jenna, "the +Poet of the Vosges." Gifted with the nice perception of a true poet, Marie +Jenna clothes the simplest ideas in language of such rare delicacy, so +fresh, tender, vivid, and withal so musical, that mind, heart, eye, and +ear, all are at once engaged. A bird, a butterfly, a flower, gains new +interest in her hands; she flings a grace around it, she vests it with a +dignity it never had before; she makes it live again. Take, for instance, +the opening stanzas of "Le Papillon": + + + "Pourquoi t'approcher en silence + Et menacer mon vol joyeux? + Par quelle involontaire offense + Ai-je pu deplaire a tes yeux? + + "Je suis la vivante etincelle + Qui monte et descend tour a tour; + La fleur a qui Dieu donne une aile, + Un souffle, un regard, un amour. + + "Je suis le frere de la rose; + Elle me cache aux importuns, + Puis sur son coeur je me repose + Et je m'enivre de parfums. + + "Ma vie est tout heureuse et pure, + Pourquoi desires-tu ma mort? + Oh! dis-moi, roi de la nature, + Serais-tu jaloux de mon sort? + + "Va, je sais bien que tu t'inclines + Souvent pour essuyer des pleurs, + Que tes yeux comptent les epines + Ou je ne vois rien que des fleurs. + + "Je sais que parfois ton visage + Se trouble et s'assombrit soudain, + Lorsqu'en vain je cherche un nuage + Au fond de l'horizon serein. + + "Mais Celui dont la main divine + A daigne nous former tous deux, + Pour moi parfuma la colline, + Et de loin te montra les cieux. + + "Il me fit deux ailes de flamme, + A moi, feu follet du printemps; + Pour toi, son fils, il fit une ame + Plus grande que le firmament. + + "Ecoute ma voix qui t'implore, + Loin de moi detourne tes pas... + Laisse moi vivre un jour encore, + O toi qui ne finiras pas! + + "Mon bonheur a moi, c'est la vie, + La liberte sous le ciel bleu, + Le ruisseau, l'amour sans envie: + Le tien ... c'est le secret de Dieu." + + +What can be fresher or more charming than this naive, earnest appeal for +life and liberty? And again, in "Pour un Oiseau," beginning with: + + + "Il est a toi, c'est vrai ... Frere, veux tu qu'il meure? + Sa beaute, sa chanson, tout est la ... dans ta main; + Et l'arbuste ou sa voix gazouillait tout a l'heure + Au bosquet, si tu veux, sera muet demain. + + "Tu le tiens: sa faiblesse a ta force le livre; + Mais aussi ta pitie peut le laisser aller; + Ne le fais pas mourir! il est si bon de vivre + Lorsque l'ete commence et qu'on peut s'envoler," + + +we find the same delicacy of thought, the same rippling, flowing language; +and what joyousness and how cheery it sounds: _il est si bon de vivre_. + +But Marie Jenna strikes deeper chords, awakes more solemn strains, than +these; and through them all, the graver as the lighter, binding them in +one harmonious whole, there sings out the same clear note of firm, +enlightened faith that never wavers; it penetrates each thing she handles, +giving that breadth and largeness to her field of view that it alone can +give. In some beautiful stanzas, "Beati qui lugeant," she draws near to +one bowed down with sorrow, and fearlessly, yet oh! how tenderly touching +the wound because she knows its cure, she speaks: + + + "Va, ton sein cache en vain le glaive qui le blesse: + J'ai compris ton silence et j'ai prie pour toi. + Laisse aller ta fierte comme un poids qui t'oppresse, + Et pleure devant moi. + + "Il est, je le sais bien, des jours ou la souffrance + Trouve en sa solitude une apre volupte; + Et le monde leger voit passer en silence + Sa pale majeste. + + "Et la main d'un ami s'arretant incertaine, + N'ose ecarter les plis de son voile de deuil. + Il est des maux si grands, que la parole humaine + Expire sur le seuil. + + "Mais deux jours sont passes; il est temps que je vienne; + Oh! laisse un front d'ami penche sur ta douleur! + Ne te detourne pas: Mets ta main dans la mienne, + Ton ame sur mon coeur. + + "Si je ne t'apportais qu'une amitie fidele, + Mes pas avec respect s'eloigneraient d'ici. + J'attendrais que la tienne enfin se souvint d'elle, + Mais j'ai souffert aussi... + + "Je ne te dirai point cette vaine parole + Que la douleur accueille en son muet dedain. + Non, ce que j'ai pour toi, c'est un mot qui console, + C'est un secret divin." + + +Already we seem to see awaked attention, a gleam of hope flit across the +stern, wan face that marks such helpless, hopeless misery; now softening +the hard, cold look that bid defiance to all sorrow, repelled all +sympathy; now changing it to one of anxious longing and of mute entreaty +for the proffered gift, _le mot qui console_. And see, or is it fancy +only, or are there really tears now falling, "gemlike, the last drops of +the exhausted storm"? Space forbids us to give it in its fulness, this +_secret divin_, to curtail it would spoil it: so we send the reader to the +original, and would ask him only if in the last stanza he does not hear +two voices singing: + + + "Heureux les affliges! dit la Verite meme. + Heureux, c'est vrai, mon Dieu! quand vous avez parle. + Nous voulons bien souffrir si le bonheur supreme, + Est d'etre console." + + +Then look at this exquisite little picture, "L'Enfant Ressuscite." Rarely +have we met with one more pathetic. It is very delicately painted, with +shades so subtile that, in the simplicity of the whole, we are apt to +overlook them. And here also we have a glimpse of that reverential love +for childhood that is by no means the least characteristic trait of Marie +Jenna: + + + "Elle avait tant gemi, sa mere, et tant pleure! + Tant presse sur son sein le front decolore, + Que dans le corps glace l'ame etait revenue, + Et qu'en benissant Dieu, palpitante, eperdue, + Comme un tresor qu'on cache elle avait emporte + Dans ses deux bras tremblants l'enfant ressuscite! + Trois mois s'etaient passes depuis.....mais, chose etrange! + On eut dit que le ciel avait fait un echange. + L'enfant penchait son front comme un bouton fletri, + Et depuis ces trois mois, jamais il n'avait ri. + Il preferait aux jeux l'ombre silencieuse; + Sa mere en l'embrassant n'osait pas etre heureuse.... + + "Des volets entr'ouverts s'elancent des chansons; + Dans les clochers fremit la voix des carillons. + Ecoute, mon Louis, ces chants, ces joyeux rires.... + Vois; c'est le jour de l'an; dis ce que tu desires. + Chaque enfant pour etrenne a des jouets nouveaux. + En veux-tu de pareils? en veux-tu de plus beaux? + Veux-tu ce belier gris qu'on traine et qui va paitre + Au printemps dans les pres l'herbe qui vient naitre? + Mais regarde plutot; des pinceaux, des couleurs, + Qui d'un papier tout blanc font un bouquet de fleurs. + Oh! vois donc ce ballon de laine tricolore + Qui s'eleve et retombe et se releve encore! + Tu n'aimes pas courir..... Que puis-je te donner? + Dis.....ta mere a present ne sait plus deviner. + Veux-tu ce sabre d'or qui deja ferait croire + Que mon petit Louis medite une victoire? + Aimes-tu ce chalet d'un long toit recouvert? + Mais non....qu'en ferais-tu? Veux-tu ce livre ouvert, + Ou pres de chaque histoire on regarde une image, + Ou l'on rit, ou l'on pleure, ou l'on devient plus sage? + Ah! voici des oiseaux! tu les aimerais mieux! + Les oiseaux sont vivants; tu les ferais heureux! + Si tu voulais des lisandes roses fleuries, + J'en saurais bien trouver, Louis, pour que tu ries. + Reponds; je t'aime tant! n'oses-tu me parler? + Tu pleurais ce matin; je veux te consoler. + Dis-moi ce doux secret pendant que je l'embrasse. + Que veux-tu, mon Louis? Et l'enfant, a voix basse: + Des ailes pour m'envoler!" + + +No one can fail to be struck with the sudden stillness that follows the +mother's anxious striving to drive away the cloud that would hang over her +little one; with the awe and fear, too, that fill her heart; with the +mystery in the whispered answer of the strange mysterious child given back +from death in answer to her passionate prayer. It sets us thinking of that +other mother whose grief so touched the Master's heart that he spoke the +word, "and he that was dead sat up and began to speak. And he delivered +him to his mother." Did that young man go home so grave, with never a +smile to light his face, so strangely altered, that, after the first burst +of gladness, his mother, clasping him to her bosom, dared not rejoice? + +Of the more serious pieces, perhaps not one equals in force "La plus +grande Douleur." It is the old tale, always new though so oft repeated: +the old tale that startles, shocks, and brings sharp pain as for the first +time it comes home to each one, telling that that strong bond which binds +friends closer, draws classes nearer, makes nations firmer, has snapped +and riven two hearts asunder; that the newly-awakened intellect first +meeting early faith has turned aside, has chosen a road far other than +that on which till now both friends had travelled hand in hand; that that +"little superficial knowledge of philosophy that inclines man's mind to +atheism" has come between them like an icy barrier, chilling the old +friendship and making everything so dark and strange which before was +warmth and light between them; and with effect so drear, so piercing, too, +and sharp, that the unchanged heart feels any pain than that would be +light to bear: + + + "Oui mon Dieu! nous pouvons, sans que l'ame succombe, + Laisser notre bonheur a ce passe qui tombe; + Nous pouvons au matin former un reve pur, + Tout d'amour et de paix, tout de flamme et d'azur, + Puis livrer les debris de sa beaute ravie + A ce vent du desert, qui laisse notre vie + Sans fleur et sans epi comme un champ moissonne; + Meliner notre front pale et decouronne, + Et devenir semblable a cette pauvre plante + Qui n'est pas morte encore, et qui n'est plus vivante, + Nous pouvons voir gisant sur un lit de douleur, + Celui qui nous restait, l'ami consolateur, + Compter chaque moment de son heure derniere, + Poser nos doigts tremblants sur sa froide paupiere, + Et baiser son visage, et nous dire; Il est mort! + Nous le pouvons, mon Dieu! Parfois le coeur est fort. + + "Mais aimer une autre ame, et la trouver si belle + Qu'on fremit de bonheur en se penchant vers elle, + Puis un jour contempler d'un regard impuissant + Sur sa beaute celeste une ombre qui descend; + De cette ame ou passaient les souffles de la grace, + Sentir parfois monter quelque chose qui glace, + Douter, prier tous bas, pleurer d'anxiete, + Craindre, esperer..... Longtemps marcher a son cote + Sans oser voir au fond.... Puis un jour ou l'on ose, + Reculer de partout ou le regard se pose, + Ou fut le feu sacre toucher de froids debris, + Murmurer en tremblant un langage incompris + Ou Dieu passa, chercher sa lumineuse trace, + Et n'y trouver plus rien ... rien! pas meme un soupir, + Pas un cri douloureux vers l'aube qui s'efface, + C'est trop souffrir!" + + +The two volumes before us contain many poems, both short and long, of such +great freshness and beauty, so full of original turns and delicate +touches, that it is difficult to choose from amongst them. However, we +have said enough to give a fair notion of Marie Jenna's style, and quite +enough to show that it is her own, with its own peculiar charm. And so our +task is done. If it be said that, having uttered only praise and found no +fault, we have but half fulfilled the critic's task, we answer that we +never meant the tone of criticism. All know that man's most perfect work +is not without its blemish; but in our first walk through so fair a +garden, meeting new beauties on every side, it would have been ungracious +in us to have sought defects: that task we leave to others. Ours has been +to welcome, and to tell of fresh flowers of much loveliness offered to us +from across the sea, with the certainty that no one can read her +"Elevations Poetiques" without feeling that he is indebted for some real +enjoyment to the charming "Poet of the Vosges." + + + THE TWO YSONDES, AND OTHER VERSES. By Edward Ellis. London: + Pickering. 1872. + + +It takes but a short while to read this thin volume; nor will any one with +a taste for true poetry find the perusal a task. The author undoubtedly +possesses "the vision and the faculty divine," and belongs to the +subjective school of which Tennyson is king--a school peculiarly capable of +teaching a subjective age. The more the pity, then, say we, that Mr. Ellis +should have made his chief poem, "The Two Ysondes," hang on the idea that +love is fate. His "Two Ysondes" are the two "Isolts" of Tennyson; but +Tennyson does not attempt to excuse the passion of Mark's wife for +Tristrem. Our author makes it originate in Tristrem and Ysonde having +"drunk," "by an evil chance," a philtre which had been placed "in +Tristrem's charge" as "a wedding-gift for Ysonde and King Mark" (p. 7). +Now, it may be said that this does away with the guilty aspect of the +romance, and throws over the whole a veil of faery. Yes; but we insist +that it is, therefore, the more mischievous, as teaching the doctrine of +fatality. + +Neither is this the only, or even the most, objectionable feature of the +poem; for, together with descriptions of emotions and caresses which would +be chaste if the theme were lawful love, all idea of sin is kept away, and +especially as regards its eternal consequences. There is not a word about +remorse during life, or of repentance at death. But Tristrem dies in +despair of beholding the object of his passion; and Ysonde, in turn, +expires on the breast of her dead lover, declaring that she will "go with +him _beyond the bars of fate_." + +Now, we should not have troubled ourselves to make these strictures but +that Mr. Ellis shows powers for the misuse of which he will be very +responsible. Moreover, as is clear from some of his shorter lyrics, +particularly "At a Shrine," his mind has a religious bent, with (of +course) Catholic sympathies. + +With regard to his verse, it is less Tennysonic than his thought. Better +if, while originating metres (with which we have no quarrel whatever), he +modelled both his lines and his diction on the peerless accuracy of +England's laureate. + + + +Books And Pamphlets Received. + + + From KELLY, PIET & CO., Baltimore: The Money God. By M. A. + Quinton. + + From LYNCH, COLE & MEEHAN, New York: English Misrule in Ireland: A + Course of Lectures. By V. Rev. T. N. Burke, O.P. 12mo. pp. 299. + + From J. A. MCGEE, New York: "Thumping English Lies": Froude's + Slanders on Ireland and Irishmen. With Preface and Notes by Col. + J. E. McGee, and Wendell Phillips' Views of the Situation. 12mo. + pp. 224.--Half Hours with Irish Authors: Selections from Griffin, + Lover, Carleton, and Lever. 12mo. pp. 330. + + From A. D. F. RANDOLPH, New York: Christ at the Door. By Susan H. + Ward. 12mo, pp. 232. + + From J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., Philadelphia: Expiation. By Mrs. + Julia C. R. Dorr. + + From J. R. OSGOOD & CO., Boston: The Romance of the Harem. By Mrs. + A. H. Leonowens. 12mo. pp. viii.-277. + + From ROBERTS BROS., Boston: What Katy Did. By Susan + Coolidge.--Thorvaldsen: His Life and Works. By Eugene Plon. 12mo. + pp. xvi.-320.--The World Priest. By Leopold Schefer. 12mo. pp. + xv.-371. + + From THE AUTHOR: Sermon at the Month's Mind of the Most Rev. M. J. + Spalding, D.D., Preached at the Church of the American College + (Rome). By the V. Rev. Dr. Chatard, Rector. Paper, 8vo. pp. 30. + + From E. H. BUTLER & CO., Philadelphia: The Etymological Reader. By + Epes Sargent and Amasa May. + + From S. D. KIERNAN, Clerk, Department of Public Instruction: + Report of the Board of Public Instruction of the City and County + of New York, for the year ending Dec. 31, 1871; with Addenda to + May, 1872.--Manual of the Department of Public Instruction, 1871-2. + 18mo, pp. 262. + + From HOLT & WILLIAMS, New York: Sermons by the Rev. H. R. Hawes, + M.A. 12mo, pp. xiv. 347. + + From AMERICAN BAPTIST SOCIETY, Philadelphia: The Baptist Short + Method, with Inquirers and Opponents. By Rev. C. T. Hiscox, D.D. + 18mo, pp. 216. + + From HURD & HOUGHTON, New York: The City of God and the Church + Makers. By R. Abbey. 12mo, pp. xx. 315. + + From BURNS, OATES & CO., London (New York: Sold by The Catholic + Publication Society): The Life of Monseigneur Berneux, Bishop of + Capse. Vicar-Apostolic of Corea. By M. l'Abbe Pichon. Translated + from the French, with a Preface by Lady Herbert. + + From JOHN HODGES, London: (New York: Sold by The Catholic + Publication Society): The Lives of the Saints. By Rev. S. Baring- + Gould, M.A. March. + + From J. R. OSGOOD & CO., Boston: His Level Best, and Other + Stories. By Edward E. Hale. + + + + + +THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XVI., NO. 96.--MARCH, 1873. + + + + +The Relation Of The Rights Of Conscience To The Authority Of The State +Under The Laws Of Our Republic. + + +(A LECTURE BEFORE A CATHOLIC SOCIETY OF S. PATRICK'S CHURCH, NEW HAVEN, +CONN., OCT. 20, 1872.) + +REVEREND GENTLEMEN AND MY FRIENDS: Before I speak particularly of the +relation of the rights of conscience to the laws existing in our republic, +I consider it necessary to make a few preliminary remarks and to lay down +a few principles regarding the nature of law and government in general, +and the relation which they hold to religion. I shall best illustrate the +difficulties which envelop this subject, and also give a clue to the way +by which it may be extricated, by making a supposition. + +Let us suppose that a large number of men come together for the purpose of +founding a new state with all its institutions of civil society and +government. Some of these are Christians, among whom are Quakers; others +are Mohammedans, Hindoos, Thugs, idolaters practising human sacrifices, +and communists. It is necessary that they should agree and concur with +each other in regard to the rights which respect life, liberty, property, +the pursuit of happiness in general and particular, and the means of +protecting all these rights, otherwise no society or government is +possible. But this cannot be done by any general consent among these +different parties. The Christian holds the sacredness of life and +property, and the force of the law of monogamy. The Mohammedan rejects +this last, and maintains the right to a plurality of wives. The Hindoo +regards it as a sacred right and duty of a widow to offer herself on the +funeral pile of her husband, that her spirit may rejoin his spirit in +another world. The Thug considers it a most holy and meritorious act to +murder as many persons as possible in honor of the cruel goddess whom he +worships; while the idolater looks on the sacrifice of children or +captives as the means of placating his offended deities and procuring +success in war. The Quaker will not allow of any bloodshed whatever, +either for avenging crime or repelling aggression. And the communist would +abolish all rights of property, reconstruct society on a wholly different +plan from that which has heretofore existed, and banish all religion as +noxious to the well-being of man. + +It is evident, therefore, that society cannot be constituted without +religion, and that society constituted with religion, and on the basis of +religious ideas, requires some agreement in these religious ideas, and the +incorporation of some fixed and definite religious principles into its +very structure and conformation. + +If we consult history, we shall find that no state or perfect society has +ever been established on the atheistic principle. Every one that has ever +existed has had a religious basis, and all political and social +constitutions have proceeded from religious ideas and been founded upon +them. The civilization of Christendom in general has received its specific +form from the influence of the Christian religion moulding and modifying +in the Eastern world its previous and ancient laws, and in the West to a +great extent creating a new order out of a pre-existing state of imperfect +civilization or semi-barbarism. To this Christendom we belong, and the +laws of our republic are a product of this Christian civilization. This +cannot be denied, considered as a mere historical fact respecting our +origin; for we are the offspring of Christian Europe, and in the beginning +distinctly professed to be a Christian people. But it may be said that we +have changed, have undergone a political regeneration as a nation, and in +the process of transformation have thrown out all religion from our +organic constitution as a republic. By our organic constitution and the +laws of our republic I intend not merely the federal constitution and laws +which bind together the United States, but also the laws and constitutions +of the states, the _tout ensemble_ of our common and statute laws of every +kind, which form the regulating code of our whole society as one political +people. And in regard to this organic law, I affirm that we do not form an +exception among human societies to the universal rule I have above laid +down, that the state in political society is based on religious ideas. + +In support of this proposition, I cite the opinion of a most competent and +impartial judge, Prof. Leo, of Halle, and borrow from him a definition of +that which constitutes our state religion. This great historian, in the +introductory portion of his _Universal History_, where he is discussing +the universal principles which underlie all political constitutions, +analyzes in a masterly way the elements of our own system of government; +and he points out that which is the religious element, namely, the rule or +law of morals, derived from the common law of Christendom, or a certain +standard of moral obligation, conformity to which is enforced by the state +with all its coercive power. All churches or voluntary associations which +include this moral code or religion of the state within their own specific +religious law possess complete equality and liberty before the civil law. +With their doctrines, rites, regulations, and practices the state does not +interfere, and gives them protection from any infringement upon their +rights on the part of any private members of the community. But let them, +on pretext of doctrine, of ecclesiastical law, of liberty of conscience, +or even of any divine revelation, violate by any overt acts the rule of +moral obligation recognized by the state, they come into direct collision +with her authority, and must suffer the consequences. So far, therefore, +as concerns that portion of Christian law, namely, the moral precepts of +the Christian religion, which are incorporated into our civil law, all +churches are in vital union with the state. Even Jews, because they hold, +with Christians, the decalogue; and societies based on purely natural +religion, because they hold the law of nature, are in the same vital +union, so far, with the state. And beyond this, within the limits which +this law sanctions or permits, all these churches or societies are in +union with the state, as lawful, voluntary associations over which her +protection is extended. But let a Mohammedan community be formed among +citizens or resident foreigners, and attempt the introduction of polygamy, +our laws require the civil magistrate to interfere and suppress by force +this exercise of the privileges granted by their prophet. Let a community +of Hindoos, Thugs, or idolaters establish itself within our bounds, and +commence any of the murderous practices of those false religions, and the +gibbet or the sword would be called on to execute vengeance upon them. We +have in our borders the sect of Mormons, whose doctrines and practices are +contrary to our fundamental laws and subversive of them. Obviously, we +cannot, consistently with our safety, our well-being, or our essential +principles of political and social order, tolerate the enormities of +Mormonism, much less permit the formation of a Mormon state. The right to +life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, must be exercised +in conformity to certain laws, which are to the state as her axioms or +first principles, and are held as inviolable. And the exercise of this +right, in this due and legitimate manner, must not be hindered by force +and violence under any pretext. Therefore no pretence of conscience or +religion can avail to cover any violation of law by an individual or a +society, or any such infringement on the rights of others as has been just +alluded to. All this presupposes that the state recognizes and bases its +laws upon certain fixed ideas concerning the rights which God has really +granted to men, and the obligations which he has imposed upon them. But +this has also been distinctly and expressly declared by a body of men, +representing the whole political people of the nascent republic which was +afterwards developed into the United States of North America. The +declaration was made in the very act which constituted the United Colonies +free and independent states, and which was published to the world on the +fourth day of July, 1776. In the first sentence of this Declaration of +Independence, the Congress affirms that the people of the United States +have judged it necessary "to assume among the powers of the earth the +separate and equal station to which THE LAWS OF NATURE AND OF NATURE'S GOD +entitle them." This august body then proceeds to lay down the foundation +and basis of the entire argument of the document, as follows: "We hold +these truths to be self-evident, that all men are _created equal_; that +they are _endowed by their Creator_ with certain inalienable _rights_; +that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to +secure these rights governments are instituted among men." It then +proceeds to argue that those governments which fail to fulfil this end, +and pursue a contrary end by invading and destroying these rights, forfeit +their powers; and makes an application of this principle to the _casus +belli_ between the colonies and the British crown. + +In this most momentous crisis, amid the very birth-pangs of our infant +republic, the people of the United States solemnly declared that the +origin of all right, all law, all political organization, all government, +and specifically of those which constitute the United States a separate +political people, is to be found in the _lex aeterna_, the law of God; that +is to say, it is in religion. For what is religion? According to Cicero's +definition, it is a bond which binds men to God and to each other. This is +the very meaning of the word, which comes from _ligare_, to bind, whence +we have the terms ligament, ligature, and obligation. Human right is, +therefore, something conferred by God. The right to govern must come from +God, for we are created equal, and therefore without any natural right of +one over another to give him law. The rights of the governed come from +God, and are therefore inviolable; but liberty is the unhindered +possession and exercise of the rights conferred by God, under the +protection of lawful government; and liberty of conscience is freedom to +obey the law of the Creator, and to enjoy the blessings which he has +imparted to the creature by that law. These rights and liberties belong to +each individual man as a grant from the Creator, which he can maintain in +the face of any government, be it that of a monarch, of an aristocracy, or +of a majority of the people. If a monarch, or one who executes by +delegated power the sovereignty of a majority, invades the right of an +individual, he violates a law. This law can be no other than that of the +Sovereign Lord of the universe. There is, therefore, a higher law than +human law, a higher sovereignty than human sovereignty, to which both +governments and the governed are subject and amenable, and which are +acknowledged as supreme by this American Republic of which we are +citizens. And as another proof of this recognition, I may cite the law of +oaths, or the solemn appeal to Almighty God as the Supreme Judge, by which +a religious sanction is given to judicial testimony and the engagements of +public officers. + +There is, therefore, in our republic a religion of the state, but one +embodied in civil and political society only, which leaves to citizens +perfect freedom to organize churches and act out what they profess to be +the dictates of their individual consciences, provided they do not violate +the laws which constitute the religion of the state. + +Under this law, the Catholic Church possesses in essential matters +theoretical liberty and equality of rights with the various religious +bodies existing in the country, with some trivial exceptions to be found +in the laws of some of the states. To a great extent, this theoretical +liberty is also a practical liberty, really possessed and enjoyed, and +only occasionally invaded. This is a remark which is quite specially +verified in the instance of your own state of Connecticut. + +This has not always been the case either here or in other portions of our +country. Catholics have not always enjoyed freedom of conscience and +liberty of religion. If we go back to the early history of the colonies +which became afterwards the United States, we shall find that their +founders did not intend to grant that liberty which now exists. In some of +these colonies, the Church of England, in others the Church of the +Puritans, and in those of Spain and France, which were admitted at a later +period, the Catholic Church was the established religion of the state. In +all the English colonies the Catholic religion was proscribed and +persecuted. The Puritan fathers of New England intended to establish a +theocracy. There was a strict union of church and state under their old +colonial governments. Only professed members and communicants of the +church could vote, and the legislatures regulated the affairs of parishes, +and decided doctrinal questions. Our ancestors therefore had a Christian +ideal of the state before their minds which they attempted to make an +actual reality, and which they dreamed should become the kingdom of Christ +our Lord upon the earth which the prophets and apostles foretold. The +attempt failed from causes which lay within the bosom of the community +itself, and not because of any external force; and the same community +which had by tacit agreement or positive statutes enacted the original law +combining a specific form of religion with the state, repealed the same by +its own free will. In the Puritan state, the first change came about by +the multiplication of baptized persons who never became communicants. The +number of citizens who were thus deprived of the highest rights of +citizenship was felt to be a grave anomaly and inconvenience in a +democratic state, and caused the adoption of the half-way covenant. By +this arrangement, those baptized persons who publicly acknowledged their +baptism were considered as quasi-members of the church, entitled to all +political rights. When, in the course of time, the number of unbaptized +persons increased, and other sects of Protestantism began to flourish, new +changes were brought about by which in the end the connection between the +state and the Puritan Church was dissolved. Similar causes produced +similar effects in other parts of the country, and, so far as the federal +union was concerned, there was obviously from the first an utter +impossibility of making any specific form of Christianity the religion of +the entire republic. Thus, by the very law which the necessity of the case +imposed upon the separate states and the entire federal republic, that +liberty of religion became established under which the Catholic Church +could come in upon a footing of perfect equality with the other religious +denominations. Catholics have not come into New England and Connecticut +either to demand religious liberty as a right or to beg toleration as a +favor. We have not obtained our rights or privileges by any agitation or +revolution stirred up by ourselves in our own interest. The work was done +before there was a number of Catholics worth estimating either in +Connecticut or New England. It was done by the old manor-born citizens for +their own advantage and the welfare of the state. + +So also, in regard to the political privileges conceded to foreign-born +immigrants. These are, in their nature, distinct and separate from the +rights of conscience conceded to Catholics. Yet they have an actual +connection, arising from the fact that so very large a proportion of our +Catholic citizens are of foreign birth, and so large a proportion of our +adopted citizens are of the Catholic religion; and therefore, in the +public mind, these two matters are very much blended together, and even +confused with each other. It is, therefore, quite fitting that I should +speak of the two things in relation with each other. And I remark on this +point that the privileges possessed by the Catholics of this state who are +of foreign birth, by which they are made equal to the native-born citizens +in regard to both religious and political rights, have not been extorted +by themselves, but freely conceded for the good of the state and of all +citizens generally. The original inhabitants had the power to exclude the +Catholic religion from all toleration. They had the power and the right to +exclude all foreigners from the privileges of native-born citizens, or to +make the conditions of being naturalized more stringent than they now are. +They took another course, having in view their own good and the well-being +of the state, and Catholics as well as foreigners have profited by it. +Catholics have profited by the religious liberty conceded to citizens, +which is something essentially distinct from the privileges conceded to +residents of foreign origin. And in point of fact, although the extent and +prosperity of the church in Connecticut have proceeded principally and in +very great measure from the immigration of Irish Catholics into the state, +yet its rights, and liberty, and equality do not depend on anything +necessarily and essentially but the religious liberty granted to citizens, +and which is the birthright of Catholics as well as Protestants who are +born on the soil of the republic. + +It would be easy to show, in respect to our country at large, that the +first beginnings of the Catholic Church have an intertwined radical grasp +with the first fibres of national life in our own soil; and that there is +a truly glorious Catholic chapter in the history of the United States. We +can find something of this even in the history of this state. The first +Mass celebrated in Connecticut was said in an open field within the bounds +of Wethersfield, by the chaplain of the French troops who came here to aid +our fathers in fighting the battle for independence. The first Catholic +sermon in English was preached by the Rev. Dr. Matignon, of Boston, in the +Centre Congregational Church of Hartford, at the invitation of the Rev. +Dr. Strong, the pastor of the church. The first Catholic church was formed +at Hartford in 1827, by Mr. Taylor, a respectable citizen of that town, +who was a convert, and who organized the few Irish, French, and German +Catholic residents in the place into a congregation, which assembled on +Sunday for worship. In 1830, Bishop Fenwick, of Boston, a native of +Maryland, purchased and blessed a small frame church, over which he placed +F. Fitton, a native of Boston, who was the pastor of the entire state, and +who is still actively engaged in the duties of the priesthood at Boston. +During the first five years of his ministry at Hartford, F. Fitton +received eighty adult converts, who, with their families, made a +considerable portion of his little flock, since, in 1835, there were only +730 Catholics in the whole state. The first bishop of the diocese of +Hartford was a native of New England. The present distinguished prelate +who rules the church in Connecticut is a native of Pennsylvania; and of +the 150,000 Catholics under his jurisdiction nearly one-half must be +natives of the state or of the United States. We have, then, some 67,000 +native-born Catholics in this state, most of whom are native-born +Yankees.(230) If you wish to see a fair sample of these, you have only to +visit St. Patrick's Church at nine o'clock of a Sunday morning, where you +will see the church filled with them, and to go into the school-house +behind the church any day in the week, where you will find 1,100 of these +young Catholic Yankees busily conning their lessons, and learning to love +God and their native Columbia. All these have their liberty of conscience +and their other rights as citizens secured to them by their birthright, +and therefore, on this ground alone, the Catholic Church is equal to the +Protestant churches before the law. + +And as regards foreign-born citizens, the state having conceded to them +equal rights to those of native-born citizens, their conscience or +religion is included among these rights. The original concession was a +privilege, but, having been once conceded, it has become a right. And it +was conceded, as I have said, for the good of the state which conceded it, +and in view of a compensation or equivalent which the party of the grantor +expected to receive. You did not intrude yourselves upon the soil of the +state, or come uninvited to beg food and shelter. You were invited, and +that not from motives of pure philanthropy. Doubtless many had a kind and +philanthropic feeling in the matter, but the prime and urgent motive was +that you were needed and wanted for your labor. You were told that your +services were wanted for the upbuilding of the material prosperity of the +state, and, as an inducement to come, you were offered citizenship, and +with that, freedom to bring your religion with you and enjoy it. This was +a favor to you without question; but not a purely gratuitous one. It was +something advanced to you, but for which you were expected to make a +future compensation. And you have well purchased your rights, not only by +what you have done in the peaceful arts of industry, but by fighting for +your adopted country and shedding your blood for its integrity and the +consolidation of its power. You have fought for the state, and for the +United States, and, therefore, the compact has been sealed and made +inviolable by your blood. + +Now, what is the point I have been coming to and have at length reached? +It is this: that you possess the full freedom and equality of your +Catholic religion, not by toleration, but as an absolute right, inhering +in your character as citizens whether by birth or adoption. Catholics are +legally domiciled here by virtue of our laws, which recognize, maintain, +and protect their religious rights as standing on an equal footing with +those of Congregationalists or Episcopalians. No doubt, we should cherish +a kind feeling toward those who have granted these most precious and +valuable rights, and respect their similar rights. But we must not permit +ourselves to be placed in any position of inferiority to other classes of +citizens. We must insist upon the full recognition of our equality in the +state, and maintain with a manly bearing all our rights of conscience to +their fullest extent, claiming and demanding from our fellow-citizens a +complete respect and observance of these rights, and from the state that +protection in their exercise which it is bound to give. + +The Declaration of Independence avows as an article of the national creed +that the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness has been +conferred by the Creator, and is inalienable, and that government is +instituted for the purpose of securing to us the possession and exercise +of this right. The right to liberty includes freedom to keep the +commandments of God, to observe his law, to make use of all the means +which he has granted to us for obtaining grace, acquiring virtue, and +fulfilling the end of our creation. The right to happiness includes the +undisturbed enjoyment of all the privileges of our religion, which alone +can make us truly happy in this world, and enable us to obtain eternal +happiness. The right to liberty and happiness gives freedom, to those who +choose to do so, to devote themselves to the sacred duties of the altar +and the cloister. It gives freedom to practise all the rites and +ceremonies of religious worship, to dedicate our wealth to the service of +God and our fellow-men, to constitute and regulate our churches according +to our own canonical law, to establish and hold possession of colleges, +seminaries, convents, and charitable institutions, to educate our +children, to profess and practise the Catholic religion wholly and +entirely. It is the end of government to secure these rights, so that, if +it fails to do so by extending an efficacious protection to their free and +peaceable exercise, it is negligent of its duty; and if it impairs or +violates them by unjust and tyrannical legislation, it commits a positive +act of wrong and usurpation. The government, the sovereign power in the +state from which the government holds its authority, are amenable to the +eternal law, as well as the individual citizen; and they may violate it by +neglecting to secure and protect, or by infringing upon, the rights of +conscience conferred by the Creator. Wherefore it is necessary to keep a +watchful guard over these rights, to proclaim and defend them loudly when +they are assailed or in danger of being impaired, and by all lawful means +to hinder any attempt to interfere with their exercise by unjust +legislation or a tyrannical exercise of authority by the governing power +and its official agents. It is a universal and constant tendency of the +sovereign power in the state to usurp unjust authority and to invade the +rights of its subjects. The liberty of the individual man and of the class +which is governed is always in danger, and, therefore, eternal vigilance +is the price of liberty. This is true where the people retains its +sovereignty, as well as where the sovereignty has been entrusted to a +monarch or an aristocracy. It is a great mistake to suppose that a popular +form of government and republican institutions are a perfect and adequate +guarantee of liberty in general or of liberty of conscience in particular. +The political majority or ascendant party can tyrannize over the minority +or weaker party and over private citizens. Magistrates elected by a +popular vote can misuse their power to oppress those whom they ought to +protect. Legislatures chosen by the people can pass the most unjust and +despotic laws. The Athenian democracy banished Aristides the Just, and +poisoned Socrates, the wisest man of pagan antiquity, the father and +founder of philosophy. In our own day we have seen the most perfidious +violation of guaranteed rights, and the most tyrannical oppression of the +religious freedom of Catholics, perpetrated by the Swiss Republic. +Catholics are always liable to oppression where they are the weaker party, +and have never any sufficient guarantee for the acquisition and +preservation of their full religious liberty, except in their own numbers +and strength, made available by their own energetic activity in their own +cause. According to the principles and spirit of our laws and political +institutions, the Catholic Church possesses in the United States a greater +degree of the liberty which belongs to her by divine right than in most +other countries. And in practice this liberty has been to a great extent +secured to her by the justice of the people at large, and the fidelity of +those to whom the administration of law has been entrusted. We may say of +Connecticut especially that, considering the old and deeply rooted +prejudice of her native inhabitants against the Catholic religion, it is +remarkable with what comity they have received and made place for the new +and mercurial race who have come in to replenish their staid old towns and +quiet villages with fresh life, and with what composure they have beheld +the multiplication of the crosses which gleam in the sunlight, on their +hilltops and in their valleys, over the churches and convents of that +which to them was a new and strange religion. Nevertheless, we cannot and +ought not to be content with anything short of that full and complete +liberty and equality which of right belong to us, and which do not in the +least degree prejudice the same rights in those who profess a different +religion. There are some things in regard to which it is our duty as well +as our right to demand a greater measure of justice than that which has +hitherto been yielded, and to exert ourselves to prevent a still further +diminution of our rights as Catholic citizens. + +One of these is the right of those unfortunate persons who are inmates of +prisons, houses of reformation, and similar institutions to enjoy all the +privileges and fulfil all the duties of their religion, if they are +members of the Catholic Church. Closely connected with this is the right +of the Catholic clergy to have access to all the members of their flock, +and to exercise the functions of their sacred ministry wherever their duty +calls them, unhindered, and, if necessary, fully protected by the law and +all official persons. + +Another is the complete and untrammelled freedom of Catholic education in +all its departments. The state has no right either to prescribe and +enforce religious instruction beyond those first principles of morality +and civic obligation which are the foundations of our political order, or +to interfere with the religious instruction which the Catholic conscience +demands for those who are in a state of pupilage. Far less has it the +right to prescribe an irreligious and atheistical system of instruction. I +cannot enlarge upon this most important topic in this place. I will here +simply recall what I have said of the possibility and danger of usurpation +over the rights of conscience even in popular governments, and point out a +direction from which we ourselves are threatened by this very danger. I +refer to a project entertained by some persons in high positions of +establishing under the authority of the federal government a national and +compulsory system of education, thus depriving not only Catholics, but +Protestants and Jews also, of their essential right as citizens to give +their children a religious education. I do not attribute this policy to +the party of the administration as a party, but it is most undoubtedly the +policy of a considerable and very active section of what is called the +Republican party, and is part and parcel of a scheme for modifying most +essentially the relations between the federal and the state governments, +for extending the authority of the governing power and restricting the +private liberty of citizens. The men who are possessed by these ideas are +in sympathy with that party in Europe self-styled the progressive party. +The idea which they have of liberty is their own freedom to drive the +people on the path which they themselves have surveyed and marked out as +the straight road to happiness and well-being, and this compulsory march +they dignify by the name of Progress. In this country, they are avowedly +not content with existing institutions and laws, but are restless to try +their improving hand upon them. They desire to secure uniformity according +to their own ideal standard, by consolidation, concentration, unification +of the legislative and executive powers in the federal government, and the +reduction of the states into the condition of subordinate, dependent +provinces in a republican empire. Education by the state and for the +state, and in accordance with so-called progressive ideas, is an essential +part of this Prussianizing plan--an education wholly secular, from which +instruction in positive, revealed dogmas and a positive religious +discipline are wholly excluded, on the plea that all these are sectarian; +and one, of course, which is really anti-Christian and godless--an +education like that of the University of Paris, which made a whole army of +infidels among the lettered class in France. It is on this ground of +education that the tyrannical and infidel power of the state is waging a +battle with the point of the lance against the church and the Catholic +religion in Europe. In England, also, as I know from those who have heard +it from the lips of the leaders of this party, it is the fixed purpose of +these leaders to work for the establishment of this infidel system by the +coercive power of the state. The necessary sequel of all this is the +_commune_; and, if such a system should prevail here, we have in prospect +the confiscation of ecclesiastical property, the destruction of those +institutions of learning which will not conform to the ideal of the state, +the overthrow of the most essential rights of conscience, and finally the +proscription of religion, followed by the war of the masses upon the +rights of property and upon the order of civil society itself. + +We want none of these improvements of Boston _doctrinaires_, and no +meddling of political charlatans with our constitution. Our private rights +we hold from the Creator, and not from any social compact or grant of +government. State rights, the strongest safeguard we have against +usurpations upon our liberty, we hold from the fundamental law which first +constituted us a political people--the law of unity in multiplicity, which +is our strength, and the geometrical principle, of our harmonious and +symmetrical structure. There was a time when our centralizing principle +was in danger; when, so to speak, the centrifugal force threatened to +become too strong, and to make a rupture of our system. Now it is the +opposite danger we have to fear--the increase of the centripetal force. As +we were in danger of flying away from our sun and becoming separated, +wandering political orbs, so we are now in danger of running into our sun, +and thus losing our proper orbits, becoming absorbed into the central +mass, and thereby suffering the extinction of the life of liberty in the +individuals who form our population. Therefore, as the exorbitant demands +of state rights have been repressed, it should now be our study to prevent +the encroachment of federal power upon the just domain of these state +rights, of state power over municipal freedom, and of all these powers +upon the personal and private liberty of the citizen. It is for the +interest of all to do this, but my special purpose has been to show why +Catholics in particular are bound to do it, in order to preserve that +liberty which God has given to them, and their rights of conscience, among +which this right of education is one of the most precious and the most +imperilled. + +This leads us to another point. All religious societies being equal before +the law, and entitled to an equal protection, so long as they do not +violate those fundamental principles of morality which constitute the +religion of the state, Catholic institutions have an equal claim to a +share in the distribution of the public money with those which are not +Catholic. In this state, large sums have been granted to institutions +which are under the control of particular denominations; for instance, to +Yale College. The state is bound to be impartial, and whatever it +determines to do in support of education or for the nurture and relief of +the helpless and destitute, and the reformation of the depraved, it is +bound to carry out on this impartial principle. Therefore grants to useful +institutions ought never to be opposed or withheld on the ground that the +Catholic clergy have the control over them, and that within their walls +the Catholic religion is taught and practised. Nor has the state any right +to prefer, much less to enforce, what is falsely called a non-sectarian +system of religious and moral instruction. This is one of the most patent +fallacies by which the common mind in our time and country is duped and +deluded. If there is one only true church, all other so-called churches +are sectarian, or sections cut off from the church. The true church cannot +be a sect or have anything sectarian about it. But the state is +incompetent to judge or decide that the Catholic Church is a sect in this +sense; and, therefore, incapable of determining that the public money +which is granted to a Catholic institution is devoted to sectarian +purposes. The state is equally incompetent to decide that there is no one +true church, and that, therefore, all denominations are sections of the +true church, or sects considered in the sense of parts included in a +whole. But if it were competent to decide this point in the sense +indicated, the only just conclusion would be that all should be +impartially treated and protected. The state is also incompetent to decide +that a particular party of men, having a system differing from that of any +one sect, and professing to retain the common elements of all, is not +itself a sect, and that its system is non-sectarian. It is, in fact, only +another sect. Regular association, government, and special rites are not +essential to the nature of a sect. There were the sects of Pharisees, +Sadducees, and Herodians among the Jews. There are philosophical sects. A +sect is a party of men holding certain particular opinions. Those men who +profess to hold what they call the essential parts of religion and +morality, and to teach the same without any sectarian doctrines, simply +mean that they do not hold the tenets of any of the Protestant sects +around them, by which they differ from each other. But they belong to the +genus Protestant nevertheless, and have their own specific _differentia_. +They cannot discriminate the essential from the non-essential parts of +Christianity without a criterion, and the criterion which they adopt and +apply makes their specific doctrine, which constitutes them a distinct, if +not a separate, sect. They assume that the specific doctrines and laws of +the Catholic Church are not essential. But in this they deny a fundamental +Catholic doctrine: they place themselves in opposition to Catholics in +respect to the essentials of faith and practice, and thus they are, +relatively to us, a sect. The state cannot decide this question, and +cannot, without injustice, prefer one party to the other. It is, +therefore, a violation of Catholic rights to compel Catholics to listen to +the teaching which calls itself non-sectarian, or in any way to adopt and +sanction it as a system exclusively entitled to the support and protection +of the state. + +The truth is that the state has nothing to do directly with religious +instruction. Formerly, in this state of Connecticut, it had to do with it, +because the Puritan form of Protestantism was the established religion of +the state, and made part of the law. But now the state has only to protect +the religious corporations and societies which have legal existence in the +enjoyment of their vested rights. Grants of money and other legal +provisions must be made in view of the utility to society and the state +which lies in the nature of the object which any institution aims at +accomplishing. Education, the care of the orphaned, the poor, the sick, +and other destitute persons, and the instruction of all classes in moral +and civic virtues and the fear of that Creator who is acknowledged in our +Declaration of Independence as the Author of our natural rights, are +useful to the state and society, and even necessary to their continuance +and well-being. Therefore the state may exercise a supervision within +certain limits over these things, and grant subsidies for the purpose of +sustaining them. But this must be done in such a way that no violence is +committed upon the rights or the liberty of conscience guaranteed by law. +Religion must be left free, and not interfered with by the state. But non- +interference is something quite incompatible with exclusion. The state +cannot confiscate the property which it has once granted to Yale College +because the clergy of one particular denomination control the religious +instruction of the college. Nor can it justly refuse to treat Catholic +institutions of education with a favor equal to that which it shows to +others, because the Bishop of Hartford will have control of their +religious teaching. + +It is for the interest and well-being of the state and of all classes of +its citizens that the Catholic Church should fully exercise all its +rights, and enjoy the most perfect freedom of growth and development. The +Catholic Church is fully and unchangeably committed to those essential +principles of morality on which our laws are founded. By the very +principle of the Catholic religion, those who profess it can never abandon +or change these principles, and they thus receive the strongest guarantee +of their perpetuity in the number and the moral power of those citizens +who profess this religion. By our religion we must hold and profess that +human rights are conferred by the Creator, that they are inviolable, and +that civil society has been established by Almighty God, with its +institutions of government, in order that these rights may be secured. We +must profess that peoples and governments are accountable to God for the +just administration of the trust committed to them, and responsible to a +higher law than mere human laws, the eternal law itself, which is written +on the conscience and clearly promulgated by a divine revelation. We must +profess the sanctity of life, of marriage, of the rights of property, of +oaths, contracts, treaties, and civic obligations, and the duty of +allegiance and obedience to the laws and the lawful authorities in the +state. All that I have shown to be the religion of the state, which is +indeed nothing more than a portion of the universal common law of +Christendom, is involved in the religion of Catholics and taught by it +with an authority which they acknowledge as unerring and supreme. Here is, +therefore, a principle of stability to the state, and to the rights of all +classes of citizens, which is involved in the education and popular +instruction which is given by the Catholic clergy. Moreover, as the +pastors of 150,000 of the inhabitants of the state, and wielding a moral +influence over them far superior to that of any other body of clergy, it +is for the interest and advantage of their fellow-citizens that their +education, training in their special functions, and other qualifications +and advantages for exercising their civilizing power upon such a large and +increasing mass of the population, should be elevated to the highest +possible grade. Therefore the schools, academies, seminaries, and +religious houses in which the clergy are trained are deserving of +encouragement as sources of intellectual, moral, and social benefit and +improvement to society at large, which accrue to the benefit of the state. + +The same is true of institutions of religious women, who are a kind of +female clergy in a wider sense of the word, of schools of all kinds, of +orphanages and charitable asylums. In the care of the poor and the sick +especially, the Catholic Church can do a work which cannot be done so well +by any other society, and thus relieve the state of a burden as well as +heal a sore on the body politic which is frequently dangerous as well as +distressing. Besides these more necessary services to humanity, the +Catholic Church contributes to the decoration and embellishment of life, +to the refinement of taste, and to the increase of innocent and elevating +enjoyment. It ornaments towns and villages with specimens of fine +architecture, multiplies statues and paintings, cultivates sacred music, +and by its multifarious ceremonies acts most powerfully not only on the +souls of men to raise their minds to an unseen world, but, in their human +sentiments and manners, to give grace and refinement as well as enjoyment +to a life rendered too dull and prosaic by the everlasting drudgery of an +industrious and material existence. + +All this would not weigh a feather with the severe Puritan ancients who +founded this commonwealth. The Catholic religion is a religion of error, +they would have said; error is fatal to the soul, and cannot be tolerated +in a state where laws are framed according to the laws of God. But times +are changed, and both laws and the minds of the descendants of the +Puritans are changed with them. Even a great light among the descendants +of the Scottish Presbyterians, the Rev. Dr. Hodge, has declared that the +Catholic religion teaches the essentials of Christianity, exercises a +wholesome moral influence, and cannot be refused the same countenance and +aid by the state which is given to the Protestant religion, without the +usurpation of an authority to determine what is religious error. Although +the _New York Observer_ has raised an outcry against this candid statement +of a learned and honest man, and has vehemently denounced the Catholic +religion as worse than infidelity, I am persuaded that Yale College will +not be satisfied to take a more illiberal position than Princeton, and +that the general sense of the Protestant people of Connecticut will accord +with that of Dr. Hodge, and reject the contrary extreme of the _Observer_. +The religious people of Connecticut cannot fail to see that they have a +common cause with us against atheism and progressive radicalism, and that +we are a bulwark against a devastating flood which would sweep away their +rights with ours if it once broke over the surface of our society. Our +rights stand upon a common basis. They depend from a common chain, which +is fastened by the same ring. They have nothing to fear from any violation +of their liberty or usurpation of their rights on our part, even should we +obtain power enough to be able to attempt such an enterprise. We always +respect vested rights and established laws, when these are not contrary to +the law of God. The order which is now established is the only one that is +good for a state in which the inhabitants are divided in religion, and it +enables these divided religious communities to live together in political +harmony and social peace. We will not disturb this harmony, and we +denounce those who attempt to stir up the passions of the people to +destroy it as the enemies of the state as well as impious transgressors of +the law of God. The rights of conscience and the liberty of religion which +we possess under our laws are invaluable and precious to all of us. And +there is indeed a common bond between the descendants of the Puritan +founders of this commonwealth and the descendants of the persecuted +Catholics of Ireland who have settled on this soil, of which perhaps you +have not thought sufficiently. It is the bond which has been made by a +conflict which the fathers of both these lines of descendants have +maintained against a common enemy. That enemy was the despotic tyranny of +the successors of Henry VIII. and their ministers. Our ancestors drew the +sword against an invasion of rights which, they avowed, had been conferred +upon them by their Creator, and the issue of the war was the establishment +of this republic, in which the rights of conscience are declared to be +sacred. The ancestors of the "exiles of Erin" who have found a new home in +this republic fought, both with the sword and with the patient resistance +of martyrdom, against the same despotic violence which invaded all their +rights both civic and religious. It is fitting, therefore, that their +descendants should dwell together in the land rescued by the blood of +heroes from tyranny, and that here should flourish the religion rescued +from the same tyranny by the blood of martyrs. + +I conclude with the eloquent apostrophe of the Bishop of Orleans to the +Belgians, which came from his mouth like the electric flash, amid thunders +of applause, at the Congress of Malines in 1867, where I had the privilege +of being present. "_Vous avez une patrie, sachez la garder!_"--"You have a +country, _know how to keep it_!" + +When we look abroad and see the dark, threatening clouds overhanging older +nations, threatening new tempests to follow those which have lately burst +upon them, and then look at home on the peace and liberty we enjoy; our +church and religion free, priests, bishops, and the Holy Father from his +prison in the Vatican, exercising their lawful jurisdiction without +hindrance, we can esteem at their proper worth the blessings we enjoy. We +learn how to value order, good government, and civilization founded on +religious ideas, as the most precious of all earthly possessions after the +faith and the means of eternal salvation. These advantages we possess in +the laws and institutions which are summed up in the one word _our +country_--our native land, or the land of our refuge and our children's +nativity. Let us all, therefore, prize, cherish, guard, and loyally serve +it during life; prepared and resolved, if necessary, to give our blood and +our lives in its defence, in emulation of the patriotic bravery of our +noble brothers and ancestors from whom we have received this fair +inheritance. + + + + +The Widow Of Nain. + + +"The only son of his mother, and she was a widow." + + + I. + + The dust on their sandals lay heavy and white, + Their garments were damp with the tears of the night, + Their hot feet aweary, and throbbing with pain, + As they entered the gates of the city of Nain. + + II. + + But lo! on the pathway a sorrowing throng + Pressed, mournfully chanting the funeral song, + And like a sad monotone, ceaseless and slow, + The voice of a woman came laden with woe. + + III. + + What need, stricken mothers, to tell how she wept? + Ye read by the vigils that sorrow hath kept, + Ye know, by the travail of anguish and pain, + The desolate grief of the widow of Nain. + + IV. + + As he who was first of the wayfaring men + Advanced, the mute burden was lowered, and then + As he touched the white grave-cloths that covered the bier + The bearers shrank back, but the mother drew near. + + V. + + Her snow-sprinkled tresses had loosened their strands, + Great tears fell unchecked on the tightly clasped hands; + But hushed the wild sobbing, and stifled her cries, + As Jesus of Nazareth lifted his eyes. + + VI. + + Eyes wet with compassion as slowly they fell-- + Eyes potent to soften grief's tremulous swell, + As, sweetly and tenderly, "Weep not," he said, + And turned to the passionless face of the dead. + + VII. + + White, white gleamed his forehead, loose rippled the hair, + Bronze-tinted, o'er temples transparently fair; + And a glory stole up from the earth to the skies, + As he called to the voiceless one, "Young man, arise!" + + VIII. + + The hard, rigid outlines grew fervid with breath, + The dull eyes unclosed from the midnight of death; + Weep, weep, happy mother, and fall at his feet: + Life's pale, blighted promise grown hopeful and sweet. + + IX. + + The morning had passed, and the midday heats burned: + Once more to the pathway the wayfarers turned. + The conqueror of kings had been conquered again: + There was joy in the house of the widow of Nain. + + + + +Fleurange. + + +By Mrs. Craven, Author Of "A Sister's Story." + +Translated From The French, With Permission. + + + +Part IV. The Immolation. + + +LIX. + + +Several hours had passed since Fleurange's return. Anxiety, horror, +sadness, and emotion, which by turns filled her heart during the affecting +scene we have just described, now gave place to a feeling in which a +sweet, profound sense of gratitude predominated. + +Ah! no one could comprehend, without the experience faith alone gives, the +mysterious joy that penetrates the heart when the salvation of a soul +seems assured; when, in a tangible manner, as it were, the abyss of divine +mercy which ever surrounds us, opens and allows us to sound its depths; +when, in answer to our tears, we almost behold the heavens open; when, in +return for _pardon implored_, we are made to comprehend the ineffable +signification of two other words, sweet as mercy and boundless as +infinitude--_pardon obtained_. + +Fleurange therefore felt, if not happy--for the impressions of the day had +been too solemn not to have left a veil of sadness on her soul--at least +calm and serene. The sight of that death-bed had put to flight some of the +dreams she so often abandoned herself to now without scruple--dreams of +passionate joy at her approaching sacrifice, mingled with the perspective +of a brighter future, in which her happiness with George would be +increased and consecrated by the sufferings they first shared together--the +cherished theme on which lingered her imagination, her heart, and even her +soul, which had faith in the efficacy of sacrifice, and instinctively made +it the basis of its hopes. Everything, even this, was forgotten for the +moment. It was as if a graver, purer, holier strain had put to flight the +mingled harmony in which heaven and earth seemed almost confounded. +Hitherto, the idea of immolating herself with and for another had seemed +noble; but at this quiet hour, after a day of so much agitation, a +sublimer thought sprang up in her soul in spite of herself; it was that of +a sacrifice unknown to the person for whom one immolates one's self! + +Was not the greatest of sacrifices--the sacrifice which is our example--of +such a nature? Was it not made for those who were unaware of it? And has +not this very ignorance been regarded by the eternal goodness as a plea +for disarming eternal justice? + +Fleurange did not attempt to thus define her confused thoughts; she +allowed them to float in her mind without welcoming or rejecting them. She +was in that frame of mind which unconsciously enfolds a latent disposition +in the depths of the soul, that suddenly develops into efforts and +sacrifices which seem impossible an hour before they have to be made. + +She was alone in one corner of a large, white marble fireplace in which +blazed a good fire. She preferred this salon to the others, which were +heated invisibly, though it was the smallest in the house, and it was the +one she habitually occupied. Clement, after accompanying her home, had +returned to the sad place they visited together to obtain, if not an +honorable, at least a separate burial of his unfortunate cousin's remains. +Mademoiselle Josephine, at her usual hour, had gone to her fine chamber, +which she now occupied with less uneasiness than the first night, and had +been for an hour in the capacious bed, where she had learned to sleep as +comfortably as under the muslin curtains which generally guarded her +slumbers. + +It was nearly ten o'clock, and Fleurange in her turn was about to retire, +when the noise of a carriage was heard, the bell rang, and a few minutes +after a card was brought her. She looked at it: "The Countess Vera de +Liningen"--and beneath, written with a pencil: "Will Mademoiselle Fleurange +d'Yves have the kindness to see me a moment?" + +"Vera!--the Countess Vera!--" + +Fleurange repeated the name twice. It was the first time she had thought +of it since she left Florence. She remembered hearing it once in a +conversation between the Princess Catherine and the marquis, the first +time she ever saw the latter. From that time, Vera's name had never been +mentioned before her. The marquis instinctively avoided it in talking with +her the day before, as he did that of Gabrielle in conversing with Vera, +and no one mentioned it at the palace. Fleurange's surprise was therefore +inexpressible. She remained with her eyes fixed on the card, till the +valet de chambre took the liberty of reminding her the Countess Vera was +waiting in her carriage for an answer. + +"Certainly. Ask her to come up." Then she waited, with a mixture of +curiosity and embarrassment, for the entrance of the visitor, without +knowing exactly why. She was almost breathless from agitation; but when +the door opened, and she saw the beautiful maid of honor, she felt +partially relieved. + +"Ah! it is you, mademoiselle," she exclaimed joyfully. "Pardon me for not +having divined it immediately, but I did not know this morning the name of +her who received me so kindly." + +It now occurred to Fleurange that the maid of honor had been sent by the +empress sooner than she expected with the favorable reply promised, but +the visitor's pale face and silence struck her and checked the words on +her lips. + +"You were unaware of my name this morning, but did you never hear it +before?" + +Fleurange blushed. "Never would be incorrect," replied she.--And she +stopped. + +"No matter," continued Vera. "I do not care to know when or how you heard +it. I can imagine they did not say much to you about me. But allow me to +ask you in my turn if you have not another name besides that under which I +had the honor of presenting you to her majesty!" + +"My name is Fleurange," replied the young girl simply, "but it is not the +one I habitually bear." + +"And your other name?" asked Vera, with a trembling voice. + +Fleurange was astonished at the manner in which this question was asked, +and still more so at the effect of her reply, which produced a frightful +change in the listener's face. + +"Gabrielle!" repeated she. "I guessed rightly, then." + +An embarrassing silence followed this exclamation. Fleurange did not know +what to say. She awaited an explanation of the scene which appeared more +and more strange. But while she was looking at Vera with increased +surprise during this long silence, a sudden apprehension seized her, and a +faint glimpse of the truth flashed across her mind. Nothing could have +been more vague than the remembrance of the name mentioned before her but +once, but that time it was in a conversation respecting George, and she +bethought herself that she understood it to be a question of a marriage +the princess desired for her son. Was it with reluctance Vera had now +brought the permission for another to accompany him? Such was the question +Fleurange asked herself. Approaching Vera, therefore, she said to her +softly: + +"If you have come with a message, how can I thank you sufficiently, +mademoiselle, for taking the trouble of bringing it yourself!" + +Vera hastily withdrew her hand, and retreated several steps; then, as if +suffering from an emotion she could not overcome, she fell into an arm- +chair beside the table, and for some moments remained pale and breathless, +with a gloomy, forbidding air, wiping away from time to time with an +abrupt gesture the tears which, in spite of all her efforts, escaped from +her eyes. + +Fleurange, motionless with surprise, looked at her with mingled interest +and astonishment, but, the frank decision of her character prevailing over +her timidity, she came at once to the point. + +"Countess Vera," said she, "if I have not guessed the motive that brings +you here, tell me the real one; there is something in all this which I do +not understand. Be frank; I will be likewise. Let us not remain thus +towards one another. Above all, do not look at me as if we were not only +strangers, but enemies." + +At this word, Vera raised her head. "Enemies!" she said. "Well, yes, at +present we are." + +What did she mean? Fleurange crossed her arms, and looked at her +attentively, trying to guess the meaning of her enigmatical words, and the +still more obscure enigma of her face, which expressed by turns the most +contradictory sentiments; the enigma of her eyes, which sometimes gazed at +her with hatred, and then with sweetness and a humble, beseeching look. At +length Vera seemed decided to continue. "You are right," she said; "I must +put an end to your suspense, and explain my strange conduct; but I need +courage to do this. To come here as I have, to appeal to you as I am going +to do, I must--I must, without knowing why--" + +"Well," said Fleurange with a faint smile, "continue. You must what?" + +Vera went on in a low tone, as if affected: "I must have had a secret +instinct that you were kind and generous." + +This result of so much hesitation did not throw any light on the subject, +but only made it more obscure. + +"There has been preamble enough," said Fleurange, with a calm accent of +firmness. "Speak clearly now, Countess Vera, tell me everything without +reservation. You may believe nothing to fear. Though your words do me an +injury I can neither foresee nor comprehend, speak, I insist upon it. +Hesitate no longer." + +"Well, here," said Vera, suddenly throwing on the table a paper till now +concealed. + +Fleurange took it, looked at it, and blushed at first, then turned pale. +"My petition!" she said. "You have brought it back? It has been refused, +then?" + +"No; it was not sent." + +"You mean that the empress, after showing me so much kindness, changed her +mind and refused to present it?" + +"No; on the contrary, she ordered me to forward your petition, and to add +her recommendation." + +"Well?" + +"I disobeyed her orders." + +"I await the explanation you doubtless intend giving me. Go on without any +interruption; I am listening." + +"Well, first, did you know that George de Walden was the husband promised +me--to whom my father destined me from infancy?" + +"Who was promised you!--from infancy! No, I did not know that. No matter; +go on." + +"No matter, indeed; that is not the point, though it is proper to inform +you of it. Neither is it a question of his misfortune, or his frightful +sentence, or that terrible Siberia where you wished to accompany him and +participate in a lot the severities of which you could neither alleviate +nor perhaps endure. This is the point: to preserve him from that destiny, +to save him, to enable him to regain life, honor, and liberty--in a word, +all he has lost. His property, name, and rank can all be restored to him. +It is this I have come to tell you and ask you to second." + +"All can be restored to him?" repeated Fleurange, in a strange voice. "By +what means?--what authority?" + +"The emperor's. I have appealed to his clemency, and my prayers have +prevailed, but on two conditions, one of which is imposed on George, and +the other depends on me. To these two conditions, there is a third which +depends on you--you alone!" + +Fleurange's large eyes fastened on Vera with an expression of profound +astonishment and anguish. + +"Finish, I conjure you, if you are not mad in speaking to me so, or I in +listening to you--if we are not both deprived of our reason!" + +Vera clasped her hands, and passionately exclaimed: "Oh! I beg you to have +pity on him!" She stopped, choked with emotion. + +Fleurange continued to gaze at her with the same expression, and, without +speaking, made a sign for her to continue. She seemed to concentrate her +attention in order to comprehend the words addressed her. + +"I am waiting," she said at last. "I am listening attentively and calmly; +speak to me in the same manner." + +Vera resumed in a calmer tone: "Well, this morning just as I had finished +reading your petition and learned for the first time who the exile was you +wished to accompany--at that very moment the emperor arrived at the palace +and sent for me." + +"The emperor!" said Fleurange, with surprise. + +"Yes, and can you imagine what he wished to say to me? You could not, and +I am not surprised, for you are not aware how earnestly I had solicited +George's pardon, and, to this end, how zealously I had sought out every +circumstance calculated to conciliate his sovereign. Well, what the +emperor wished to inform me was that this pardon would be granted me--_me_, +do you understand?--but on two conditions." + +"His pardon!" exclaimed Fleurange. "Go on, I am listening.--" + +"The first, that he should pass four years on his estates in Livonia +without leaving them.--" Vera stopped. + +"I hear; and next?" said Fleurange, raising her eyes. + +"Next," said Vera slowly and anxiously, "that the will of my father and +his should be fulfilled before his departure." + +Fleurange shuddered. An icy chill struck to her heart, and her head swam +as if with dizziness. But she remained perfectly motionless. + +"His pardon is at this price?" said she in a low voice. + +"Yes; the emperor has taken an interest in me from my childhood; he loved +my father, and it has pleased him to make this act of clemency depend on +the accomplishment of my father's wish." + +There was a long silence. Vera herself trembled at seeing Fleurange's pale +lips, and colorless cheeks, and her eyes looking straightforward, lost in +space. + +"And he?"--she said at last. "He accepts his pardon on this +condition--without hesitation?" + +"Without hesitation!" repeated Vera, blushing with new emotion. "That is +what I cannot say. It is this doubt that humiliates and alarms me, for the +emperor would regard the least hesitation as fresh ingratitude, and +perhaps would annul his pardon." + +"But why should he hesitate?" said Fleurange, in an almost inaudible tone. + +"Fleurange," said Vera, in that passionate tone she had used two or three +times during this interview, "let us rend each other's hearts, if need be, +but let us go on to the end. Have you had permission to see George since +you came?" + +"No." + +"But he expects you; he knows you have arrived, and the devotedness that +has brought you here?" + +"No, he is still ignorant of all this; he was to be informed of it to- +morrow." + +A flash of joy lit up Vera's black eyes. "Then it depends on you whether +he hesitates or not--whether he is saved.--Yes, Fleurange, let him remain +ignorant of your arrival, let him not see you again--let him never behold +you again," she continued, looking at her with a jealous terror she could +not conceal, "and his life will again become brilliant and happy--as it +was--as it always should be--and the remembrance of the last few months will +disappear like a dream!" + +"Like a dream!" repeated Fleurange mechanically, passing her hand over her +brow. + +"I have told you everything now," said Vera. "I have done you an injury I +can understand better than any one else. But," she continued, with an +accent that resounded in the depths of the listener's soul, "I wished to +save George, I wished to win him back to me! And I thought, I know not +why, for I am generally distrustful--yes, I thought I could induce you to +aid me against yourself!" + +Fleurange, with her hands clasped on her knees, and her eyes gazing before +her with a fixed expression, seemed for some moments insensible to +everything. She was listening, however--she was listening to that clear, +distinct voice which resounded in her soul in a tone so pure--a voice she +had never failed to recognize and obey. + +If George were free, if he recovered his name, rank, and former position, +would she not still be in the same position as before? In that case, could +she treacherously usurp the consent obtained from his mother, and that to +the detriment of the one before her--the wife chosen from his infancy? +Would it not be treachery to him to present herself before him at the +moment of recovering his liberty, and thereby endanger its loss with the +momentary favor that conferred it? + +She placed her icy hand on Vera's, and turned towards her with a sweet +expression of resolution. "That is enough," she said, in a calm tone. "You +have done right. Be easy, I understand it all." + +Vera, astonished at her expression and accent, looked at her with +surprise. + +"Do not be afraid," continued Fleurange, in the same tone. "Act as if I +were far away--as if I had never come." And, taking the petition lying on +the table, she tore it in pieces, and threw it into the fire! There was a +momentary blaze, which died away, and she looked at the ashes as they +flew. + +Vera, with an irresistible impulse, pressed her lips to the hand she +seized, then remained mute and confounded. She had come determined to +prevail over her rival, to convince her, to use every means of contending +if she failed in her first efforts, but her victory suddenly assumed an +aspect she had not anticipated. It had certainly been an easy one, and yet +Vera felt it had left a bleeding wound. She experienced for a moment more +uneasiness than joy, and her attitude expressed no more of triumph than +that of Fleurange of defeat. While one remained with her head and eyes +cast down, the other had risen. A passing emotion colored Fleurange's +cheek, the struggle of the sacrifice gave animation and an unusual +brilliancy to her face. + +"I think," said she, "you have nothing more to say to me." + +"No--for what I would like to say I cannot, dare not." + +Vera rose and turned towards the door. A thought occurred to her. She +approached Fleurange. "Excuse my forgetfulness," said she; "here is the +bracelet you lost this morning. I was commissioned to restore it to you." + +At the sight of the talisman, Fleurange started; her momentary color faded +away, she became deadly pale, and, as she looked at it silently, some +tears, the only ones she shed during the interview, ran down her cheeks. +But it was only for an instant. Before Vera realized what she was doing, +Fleurange clasped the bracelet around her rival's arm. + +"This talisman was a present from the Princess Catherine to her son's +betrothed. She said it would bring her good luck. It no longer belongs to +me. I return it to you; it is yours." + +Fleurange held out her hand. "We shall never see each other again," she +continued; "let us not bear away any bitter remembrance of each other." + +Vera took her hand without looking at her. She had never felt touched and +humiliated to such a degree; gratitude itself was wounding to her pride. +But Fleurange's sweet, grave voice was now irresistible, and spoke to her +heart in spite of herself. She hesitated between these two feelings. +Fleurange resumed: "You are right. It is not my place to wait for you at +this time--you have nothing more to forgive me for, I believe, and I +forgive you everything." + +And as Vera still remained motionless with her head bent down, Fleurange +leaned forward and embraced her. + + +LX. + + +The Marquis Adelardi often declared he had witnessed so many extraordinary +and unexpected events that he was seldom surprised at anything that +happened. But the day that now dawned brought a surprise of the liveliest +kind, and even a second one in the course of a few hours. He rose late, +according to his custom, and was breakfasting beside the fire when a note +was brought him which put a premature end to the repast just begun. After +reading it, he fell into deep thought, then rose and strode around his +room. Finally he went to the window, and read the following note a second +time. + +"MY KIND FRIEND: I have changed my mind. I earnestly beg you when you see +Count George not to mention my name, and, above all, to take the greatest +precaution to keep him for ever ignorant of the plans I formed and the +journey I have made. This will be easy, for no one knows I am here, and +tomorrow, before night, I shall have left St. Petersburg. Everything will +be explained to you, but I only write now what is most essential for you +to know without any delay." + +In vain he read and re-read. Such were the words, signed _Fleurange_, +which he held in his hands. For once the marquis was completely at a loss. +Nothing--absolutely nothing--could account for this sudden change. The +success of her petition presented the empress the day before was certain. +He recalled every detail of his recent interview with her, during which, +having nothing more to conceal, she naively revealed all the depth and +sincerity of her sentiments towards George. He had long been aware of her +firmness and courage, and the idea of her drawing back at the last moment +in view of the trial never occurred to him. There was, then, an +impenetrable mystery, and he impatiently awaited the hour he could go for +the promised explanation. But he must first keep his engagement with +George. Poor George! he inspired him now with fresh pity, though he had +doubted, the evening before, if he was worthy of the consolation in store +for him. It seemed now as if he could not live without it, and that a new +and more frightful sentence had been pronounced against him. The marquis +was about to start for the fortress to fulfil more sadly than ever the +painful duty of his powerless friendship, when another letter was brought +him. The mere sight of this second missive made him start, and he examined +with extreme astonishment the address and the very envelope that bore it, +the impression on the seal, and the slight perfume it gave out. All this +was a source of surprise, and, for once, it was not unreasonable, as it +generally is, to dwell on these exterior signs before solving the mystery +by opening the letter. The reader may judge, after learning that the +Marquis Adelardi recognized his friend's writing in the address. Since +George's imprisonment, he had neither had permission to write, nor the +means. In the second place, the paper, the arms on the seal, the +perfume--all these things belonged to a different condition, for certainly +none of these elegances had been allowed him in prison. The mere exterior +of the letter, therefore, had something inexplicable, and, when he opened +it to solve the enigma, he read as follows: + +"MY VERY DEAR FRIEND: Perhaps the very sight of this letter has given you +a suspicion of its contents. If not, know that I am free, or, at least, I +shall be so to-morrow! Meanwhile, I have left the frightful cell where you +found me yesterday, and now, thanks to the governor of the fortress, am +established in his own apartment and surrounded once more by all the +delightful accessories of civilized life of which I thought myself for +ever deprived--accessories which are only a dawn of the delightful day +before me. Yes, Adelardi, free! by the favor of the emperor, against whom +I eagerly pledge myself never to enter into a conspiracy as long as I +live. Free on two conditions: one to live at my home in Livonia four +years; the other--guess what it is! It is not more severe than the first: +it is to return to my first love--to her to whom I owe my pardon. In a +word, to end where I began, by marrying Vera de Liningen! What do you say +to that? Is not this a _denoument_ worthy of a romance? You predicted it +once, do you remember it? 'You will renounce this folly which tempts you, +and keep the promise you made.' I was far from believing it then, and +perhaps it is well even now that that beautiful siren is seven hundred +leagues off, for I know not what would be the result were I subjected to +the fascination of those eyes which turned my head, whereas I am now +wholly absorbed in the happiness that awaits me. Vera still loves me. She +is also beautiful in her way, and, above all, possesses a charm which +makes me forget all others. She has the beautiful eyes of liberty which I +owe her. Therefore I am not tempted to refuse the hand she is ready to +accept, or even my heart, though somewhat _blase_, but now filled with +gratitude strong enough to sufficiently resemble the love she has a right +to expect. + +"_Au revoir_, Adelardi! Come when you please; I am no longer a prisoner, +though I have pledged myself not to leave here till I go to the empress' +chapel to meet her who is to accompany me into the mitigated exile to +which _we_ are condemned." + +It would be difficult to describe the strange effect of this letter, +coming so soon after the other, upon the person to whom they were both +addressed. It would be impossible to say whether he was glad or sorry, +indignant or affected, relieved or overwhelmed, by such sudden news; and, +though only imperfectly enlightened respecting some of the circumstances +he wished to know, he felt that somehow Fleurange had been informed of +George's pardon before himself, and the conditions attached to it. This +was the evident meaning of her note, which now seemed to the marquis so +generous, so touching, and even so sublime, that his whole interest +centred, with a kind of passion, in this charming, noble girl. Her letter, +which lay beside George's before him, displayed the greatest contrast +imaginable to the cold, selfish levity of the latter. At all events, he +had no reason now to be anxious about him on whom everything seemed to +smile, but rather about her who was immolating herself to-day as much as +yesterday--unsuspected by the object--and with a devotedness a thousand +times more disinterested and more generous than before. + +At that moment the door opened, and the marquis uttered an exclamation of +joy and welcome at hearing Clement announced. He was just thinking of him, +and wishing he could see him at once. As soon as he looked at him he +perceived he was unaware of what had occurred. Clement returned home at a +late hour the night before, and had not seen Fleurange since their return +from the hospital. He now came from the burial of his unfortunate cousin +in a distant, obscure spot, to beg the marquis to use his influence to +obtain permission to place a simple stone cross on his forlorn grave. But +he could not find any opportunity of introducing the subject, the marquis +was so eager to enter on that which absorbed him. He informed Clement of +George's pardon and the conditions on which it was granted; but in his +eagerness he did not at first perceive the effect of the news on his +listener. The latter remained motionless, and for moments his excessive +surprise prevented him from replying. The aspect of everything was so +changed by the intelligence that his mind refused to take it in. He looked +at the marquis with so singular an expression that he was struck by it, +and clearly saw he had unguardedly touched a deeper and more vital point +than he supposed. + +"Pardon me, Dornthal, I have excited you more than I wished or expected." + +"Yes," said Clement, in a strange voice, "I acknowledge it; but does she +know what you have just informed me of?" + +The marquis in reply gave him Fleurange's note. He read it with a still +more lively emotion than he had just experienced; but he succeeded better +in controlling it. + +"Poor Gabrielle! This is evidently a generous, spontaneous impulse, worthy +of her. But," continued he, in quite a different accent, in which trembled +an indignation he repressed with difficulty, "I cannot comprehend how +this--how Count George can unhesitatingly consent to the conditions +_proposed_, for really I can never believe them rigorously _imposed_ by +the emperor, still less that they could be accepted if he appreciates as +he ought the sentiments which I should suppose would prevent him from +accepting them." + +The marquis hesitated a moment, and then said: "Here, Dornthal, time +presses; it is better you should know everything without delay." And he +gave him George's letter. + +As Clement read it, contempt and anger were so clearly displayed in his +face that the marquis was confounded at the flash of indignation with +which he crushed the letter and threw it on the table. "That is exactly +what I should have expected from the man you told me of yesterday. Poor +Gabrielle!" he continued, in a voice trembling with emotion and +tenderness, "it is thus that the precious treasures of thy heart have been +lavished and wasted!" + +He leaned on the table, and hid his face in his hands. For some instants +there was a silence neither sought to break. At length Clement returned to +himself. "Once more pardon me, M. le Marquis. I really do not know what +you will think of me after the weakness I have shown before you. But no +matter, it is not a question of myself, but of her. There is one point I +recommend to you which there is no need of insisting upon: she must remain +ignorant of the contents of this letter. She must never know--_never_, do +you understand?--what kind of a love she thought worthy of hers." + +The marquis looked at him with astonishment. "And it is you, Dornthal, who +are so anxious as to your cousin's remembrance of Count George!" + +This total absence of vulgar triumph and selfish hope added another +notable surprise to those of the morning. Clement neither noticed +Adelardi's tone nor the kind, affectionate expression of regard which +accompanied the words he had just uttered. + +"I wish her to suffer as little as possible," said he briefly; "that is my +only aim and thought." + +He rose to go out. The marquis pressed his hand with a cordiality he +rarely manifested, and after Clement's departure he remained a long time +thoughtful. Perhaps at that moment he was thinking how much more +satisfaction there was in meeting and studying such a noble heart than +most of those whose acquaintance he had hitherto sought and cultivated +with so much eagerness. + + +LXI. + + +At Clement's return, he learned that his cousin had asked for him several +times. He immediately went up to the room she occupied. His emotion at +seeing her again, though less sudden than that he had just experienced, +was deeper than he anticipated, for he was unprepared for the change +wrought within so short a time. She was, however, as calm and resolute as +the night before, though she had passed through what might be called the +agony of sacrifice--that hour of inexpressible suffering, not when the +sacrifice of one's self is decided upon, not even that in which it is +consummated, but the intermediate hour in which repugnance still struggles +against the will. It was this hour endured by our common Master in the +order of his sufferings after he took upon himself our likeness. + +Fleurange had only taken a short hour of repose before day. The remainder +of the night she passed wholly in conflict with suffering. She then +allowed the repressed sobs that filled her breast during her interview +with Vera to burst forth without restraint as soon as she was alone for +the night; she gave herself up to the poor solace of tasting at leisure +the bitterness of sacrifice, repelling every consoling thought--almost +allowing the waves of despair to gather round her, and, if not to break +over her, at least to threaten her. + +The chamber she occupied was more spacious and sumptuous than Mademoiselle +Josephine's, being that of the Princess Catherine herself. It was lighted +only by a lamp which burned before the holy images enshrined in gold and +silver in one corner, according to the Russian custom. Fleurange threw +herself on a couch, and there, with her head buried in the cushions, her +long hair dishevelled, and her hands clasped to her face inundated with +tears, she gave vent to her grief for a long time without any attempt to +moderate it. + +Once before in her life she had abandoned herself to a similar transport +of grief, though certainly with much less reason. It was when she left +Paris two years before, and it seemed as if she was alone in the world, +and all the joys of life had come to an end. Those who have not forgotten +the beginning of this story may remember that on that occasion the sight +of a star suddenly appearing in the clear sky brought her a message of +peace. God knows, when it pleaseth him, how to give a voice to everything +in nature, and to speak to his creatures by the work of his hands, and +even of theirs. An impression of such a nature now infused the first ray +of calmness into the tempest that completely overwhelmed her soul. +Suddenly raising her head from the attitude in which she had so long +remained, her eyes naturally turned towards the light diffused by the lamp +before the images in the corner of the chamber, the richest of which +sparkled in its ray. In these Greek paintings, as we are aware, the heads +alone on the canvas stand out from the gold and precious stones that +surround them. That which now attracted Fleurange's attention was the +image of Christ--that sacred face of the well-known type common to all the +representations of Byzantine art. That long, grave face, those mild eyes, +with their calmness and depth, have a thrilling, mysterious effect which +surpasses a thousand times every reproduction of human beauty. This +impression, which a pious love of art enables every one to comprehend, was +associated with a tender remembrance of Fleurange's childhood. She had +often prayed before a face of similar aspect in the chapel of Santa Maria +al Prato. She now looked steadfastly into those divine eyes gazing at her, +and it seemed as if that sweet penetrating look pierced to the depths of +her soul, and infused a sudden, marvellous, inexpressible consolation. +Changing gradually her previous attitude, she remained for some time +seated with clasped hands, transfixed. At last, her eyes still fastened on +the holy face, she fell on her knees, bent down her head, and remained a +long time buried in profound recollection. Her immoderate grief seemed to +diminish and change its character. Her tears, without ceasing to flow, +lost their bitterness and changed their object; for in the mildness of +that majestic look she read a reproach which she comprehended!-- + +"O my Saviour and my God! pardon me!" exclaimed she, with fervor, bending +down till her forehead touched the floor. + +Pardon!--Yes, in spite of her purity, her piety, and the uprightness of her +soul, it was a word Fleurange was likewise obliged to utter. In it she +felt lay solace and peace for her heart. She perceived it now for the +first time. A new light began to rise in her soul, like the faint flush of +aurora which precedes day, and her grief seemed a punishment merited for +forgetfulness, her tears an expiation. These thoughts were still confused; +but their influence was already beneficent, and she soon felt really +springing up within her the courage and fortitude which she outwardly +manifested during her interview with Vera. She had always been capable of +action in spite of suffering, and she now sought it, realizing its +benefit. The night was far advanced, but she did not feel the need of +repose, and before seeking it she would give her heart and mind, even more +fatigued than her body, the relief they needed. Under the impression of +all the incidents and varied emotions of the day, she wrote the Madre +Maddalena a letter which was the faithful transcript of all she had passed +through. The joy of the morning, the sacrifice of the evening, her despair +scarcely subsided, nothing was concealed or suppressed, not even a fresh +ardent aspiration towards the cloister which she thought could no longer +be shut against her, and which now seemed the only refuge of her broken +heart. + +There is a certain art in reading the hearts of others; but it is as great +a one to be able to read one's own, and this art Fleurange possessed in +the highest degree when in the presence of that great soul which afar off +as well as near watched over hers. This outpouring soothed her. She +afterwards slept awhile, and, on awaking, courageously despatched the +letter which we have just seen the Marquis Adelardi read and communicate +to Clement. + +But such a night leaves its traces. Fleurange's swollen eyes, her +contracted features, her pale, trembling lips, and her sad expression +indicated suffering which was an insupportable torture to Clement. He +would have spared her this at the expense of his life, as it is allowable +to say he had proved. But now that the arduous duty of earnestly desiring +her happiness through the affection of another was no longer required of +him, the impetuous cry of his own heart became almost irresistible in its +power, and Clement never manifested more self-control than this morning in +subduing the impulse which prompted him a thousand times to throw himself +at his cousin's feet, and passionately tell her she loved and regretted an +ungrateful man, and that she herself was even more ungrateful than he! But +instead of that, he silently pressed her hand. Fleurange saw he was aware +of everything, and it was a relief to have nothing to tell. In a few words +they made arrangements for their departure, and Clement promised her to +start within twenty-four hours. + +Meanwhile, Mademoiselle Josephine appeared, and Clement, too preoccupied +to use any circumlocution, simply announced the change in his cousin's +intentions, without giving her any explanation. But when, in the height of +her joy, mademoiselle exclaimed, "She is going back with us!--O mon Dieu! +what happiness!" Clement frowned and pressed her hand in so expressive a +manner that the poor demoiselle stopped short and, according to her +custom, buried her joy in utter silence, saying to herself that the day +would perhaps come when she would understand all these inexplicable +things, and, among others, why, when she wept at Gabrielle's leaving them, +it was necessary to conceal her sorrow; and now she was to remain, it was +not permitted to manifest her joy. + +"All this is very singular--I always seem to take aim at the wrong moment. +And yet, Clement allow me to say that I suspect that, as to this Monsieur +le Comte, it was I--and I alone--who was right." + +This last reflection did not escape her, it is reasonable to suppose, till +later, at one of those seasons of special unburdening her mind to Clement +which she sought now and then, and we should add that the smile in return +amply repaid her for the frown we have just noted. + +The evening passed away almost in silence. The Marquis Adelardi spent it +with them. The frightful alteration in Fleurange's features did not allow +him to mistake the extent of her sufferings; and her calm, simple manner +redoubled the enthusiasm she had always inspired him with--an enthusiasm +which gradually ripened into solid friendship, and ultimately wrought a +durable, beneficent effect on his life. + +Before Clement and his cousin separated for the night, they spoke of +Felix's sad burial, and its lack of any religious ceremony. The marquis +had promised to obtain the last favor Clement asked--that a cross should +mark the spot where he reposed. The following morning Mass was to be +celebrated for him in the Catholic church. + +"We will attend this Mass together," said Fleurange. + +"Yes, Gabrielle, that was my expectation." + +The next morning, at an early hour, Fleurange and her cousin were +prostrate at the foot of the altar in the large Catholic church on the +Nevskoi Prospekt. After all the sorrow that had overwhelmed the young +girl's soul since the night before, this was an hour of sad consolation +and repose. Her long journey, after all, in spite of the bitter deception, +in spite of the grief and sacrifice at the end, had not been made in vain. +He whose last hours she had consoled, and for whom they were now praying, +had carried away with him the blessed influence of her presence into those +regions to which repentance opens the door! Repentance! the salvation of +the soul that feels it, the benediction of the soul that seconds it, the +mysterious joy of the angels that inspire it and rejoice over it as one of +the delights of their eternal beatitude! + +They left the church, and slowly descended the long avenue bordered by +trees called the Nevskoi Prospekt. They found their way impeded by a +numerous crowd in front of the gate of the Anitschkoff Palace, which they +had to pass. Fleurange, lost in thought, was walking slowly along without +looking around, and Clement also was absorbed in his own reflections, when +they were both startled as if by an electric shock. + +"The newly married pair are coming out," said a voice. + +"Married!--condemned, you mean," replied another, laughing. "You know they +are both going into exile." + +They heard no more. Clement's sudden effort to lead Fleurange away was +powerless. She resisted it, and, leaving his arm without his being able to +prevent it, she swiftly made her way to the front, and leaned against a +tree. She saw the _grille_ open--the carriage appeared; it drew near; at +last she saw him! Yes; she saw Count George's noble features, his smiling +face, his radiant look, and she caught a glimpse of the black eyes and +golden locks of the bride. Then it seemed to grow dark around her, and +everything vanished from her thoughts as well as from her sight! + + +Epilogue. + + +--"No, my Fior Angela, I once more say no, as when you made the same +request at Santa Maria that lovely evening in May while we were gazing at +the setting sun over the cloisters. What has been changed? And why should +God call you now to this retreat if he did not call you then?--Because you +suffer still more? But, my poor child, you were suffering then. Life, you +said, seemed 'empty and cheerless, unsatisfactory and imperfect.' And, +indeed, you were not wrong. That is its real aspect when we compare it +with the true life that awaits us. From that point of view nothing truly +can give it the least attraction; but with this kind of disgust there is +no sadness mingled. We are not sad when an object seems poor and valueless +compared with another object wonderful and divine of which we are sure. As +I have already told you, this is the disgust of the world whence springs +the irresistible call to the cloister; but, as I likewise said, this +divine voice, when it speaks to the soul, resounds alone, to the exclusion +of all earthly voices. A flame is kindled that absorbs and extinguishes +all others, even those earthly lights that are attractive and pure. That +divine call has not been made to you. The earthly happiness you dreamed of +has failed you, that is all. And this disappointment for the second time +has inspired you with the same wish as before; but, as on that occasion, I +believe if God claimed your life he would not have permitted such a heart +as that of my Fleurange to be divided for a day! + +"This time, it is true, everything is at an end, and without remedy. You +are irrevocably separated from him to whom you gave your heart--allow me to +say now, to whom you gave it unreasonably!--You shudder, my poor child, you +find me cruel, and all the false brilliancy which fascinated you, now +lights up anew the image still present and still dear to your imagination; +nevertheless, I will go on. + +"There is an earthly love which, if it lengthens the road that leads to +God, does not, however, turn one from it--which, by the very virtues it +requires, the sacrifices it imposes, and the sufferings that spring from +it, often seconds the noblest impulses of the soul. + +"Do you not feel now, Fleurange, that the foundation of such a love was +wanting to yours? I perceived it at Santa Maria as soon as I heard your +story to the end, and looked into the most secret recesses of your heart. +I then understood why God had placed obstacles in your way, and imposed a +sacrifice on you. Your sufferings appeared to me the expiation of an +idolatry you did not realize the extent of. + +"If you had shown any doubt or hesitation as to the course to be pursued, +if you had been weakly desirous of sparing yourself and escaping the +sacrifice imposed, perhaps I should at that time have expressed myself +more severely. But you acted with firmness and uprightness, and I deferred +revealing to you the secret malady of your heart till, with time, peace +should be restored to you. Till then, what you suffered seemed to me a +sufficient punishment. + +"But it was not to be so. The temptation was to be renewed, and under a +form impossible for my poor child to resist. She yielded to the generous, +passionate impulse of her heart, and found in the very excess of her +devotedness a means of satisfying her conscience which she confusedly felt +the need of. But something more was essential: she must suffer still +more--more than before. In short, the idol must be shattered, and this +destruction seemed to involve the very breaking of her own heart!-- + +"But it is not so, Fleurange. Across the distance that separates us I +would make my voice heard, and wish it possessed a divine power when I say +to you: 'Rise up and walk.' Yes; resume your course through the life God +gives you, and courageously bless him for having snatched you from the +snare of a love not founded on him, which must have proved hollow sooner +or later. Then look around, see whom you can console and aid; see also +whom you can love; especially notice who loves you, and banish from your +heart the thought, equivalent to blasphemy, which you express in saying, +'My life is stripped of all that made it desirable!'-- + +"Some day, my Fior Angela, you will again recall these bitter, ungrateful +words, and will, I assure you, see their falsity. If God did not create +you to love him to the exclusion of those lawful affections which reflect +a ray of his love, you were still less created to find rest in a love +deprived of that light--a love whose sudden rending and keen anguish +preserved you from proving its perishable nature and spared you the pain +of irreparable deception! + +"Once more, Fleurange, prostrate yourself before God, and give thanks: +then rise up and act. No lingering pity over yourself, no dwelling +regretfully on your deceived hopes and the pain you have suffered. +Courage! Your heart has been weak, it yielded to fascination; but your +volition as yet has never ceased to be strong. However rough the path of +duty, it was enough for you to see it in order to walk in it without +faltering. Courage, I say! You will live. You will do better than live--you +will recover from all this, and recall the time that seemed so dark as +that which preceded the real day that is to illumine your life. + +"At first this letter will add to your sadness. You will feel yourself +deprived of everything, even of the consolation you expected of me; but do +not yield to the temptation of burning this letter after reading it. Keep +it to read over again, and be sure that sooner or later the day will come +when a sweet promise of happiness will respond at the bottom of your heart +at reading it. You will then comprehend what were the prayers of your +Madre Maddalena for you, dear Fleurange, for they will on that day have +been heard!--" + +This reply to the letter Fleurange wrote during the night of agitation +which followed her interview with Vera we lay before our readers at its +arrival at Rosenheim after her return from her sad journey; but one summer +evening, two years after, the young girl, seated on a bench overlooking +the river, read it over the second time. She was in her old seat, but her +appearance was somewhat changed. A severe illness, resulting from the +emotion and fatigue endured two years before, endangered her life, and to +her convalescence had succeeded a malady slower, deeper, and more +difficult to heal, against which all remedies, though energetically +seconded by a resolute will, long remained ineffectual. + +During this period of weakness Fleurange had never known before, life +assumed a new and formidable aspect. For a long time she was unable to +struggle actively against the double languor of illness and depression; +she had to endure inaction without making it an additional torture to +herself and others; in short, she was obliged to be constantly and +silently on her guard against herself. She succeeded, however, accepting +with grateful docility all the care that surrounded her. She did not repel +her friends from her crushed heart, but, on the contrary, endeavored to +convince them that their affection was sufficient, and that, once more +with them, nothing was wanting. By degrees, it required no effort to say +this. As the sun in spring-time melts away the snow, then warms the earth +and covers it with flowers, so, under the influence of their beneficent +tenderness, everything began to revive in her heart and soul. Was it not +delightful, as she lay half asleep on her _chaise longue_ for long hours, +to hear around her, like the warblings of birds, Frida's caressing voice +mingled with the tones of her cousin's little children whom she loved to +hold in her arms and caress when they awoke her? Was it not a consolation +to rest her weary head on a bosom almost maternal? Was it not salutary to +converse with her Uncle Ludwig when he wheeled his chair near the young +invalid, and spoke of so many things worthy of her attention without ever +turning it away from the highest of all? And Hilda? And Clara? And Julian +and Hansfelt? Did they not all come with their constant affectionate +interest, each one bringing, as it were, a flower to add its perfume to +the air she breathed? Finally, was it nothing when she opened her eyes to +meet the kind glance of her old friend who, after fearing to lose her, was +never weary of gazing at her now she was again restored to life? + +And what shall we say of him whom we have not yet named--him whose +solicitude for her was not apparently greater than that of his parents and +sisters, but who, during her long convalescence, ended by taking a place +beside her which no one thought of disputing? Clement's character has been +badly delineated if, after the unexpected occurrence that restored freedom +to his hopes, it is supposed he was prompt to admit them, and especially +to express them. Nevertheless, since it was no longer an absolute duty to +maintain a strong, constant control over himself; since the fear of +betraying himself no longer obliged him to a restraint with his cousin +which had extended to every subject, and ended by frequently obliging him +to partially conceal from her the superiority of his mind and the rare +nature of his intelligence, a change was wrought in him which he did not +realize himself, and now gave to his physiognomy, the tone of his voice, +and his whole person a wholly different character than before in the eyes +of her to whom he thus appeared for the first time. She noticed it with +surprise, and, when he stopped reading to express the thoughts that sprang +spontaneously from his heart when moved, or his mind unimpeded in its +flight, and touched on a thousand subjects hitherto deemed forbidden, she +became thoughtful, and, in spite of herself, compared his eloquence of +soul, whose source was so profound, and whose flight was sometimes so +elevated, with the eloquence of another which once dazzled her, the only +charm of which sprang from his carefully cultivated mind, and his mind +alone. Every day she impatiently awaited this hour for reading or +conversation. She already appreciated her cousin's devotedness, the +incomparable kindness of his heart, his trustworthiness, his energy, and +his courage. She had given him credit for all these qualities before, and +yet, all at once, it seemed as if she had never known him. She even asked +herself one day if she had ever looked at him, so completely did the +expression of his countenance--which beamed with what is most divine here +on earth--a double nobleness of mind and soul--so fully did his look and +smile atone for the imperfections already alluded to in Clement's +features, but which time had greatly modified to his advantage. She soon +felt that, though she had always cherished a strong regard for her cousin, +she had been unjust to him and never appreciated his real worth. + +But the day, the hour, the moment when she discovered she had been not +only unjust, but ungrateful, and even cruel, we cannot state, and perhaps +she did not know herself. Was it the day when, after reading in a +tremulous tone a passage that expressed what he dared not utter, he +suddenly raised his eyes and looked at her as he had never done before? +Was it on another occasion, when, playing one tune after another on his +violin, he ended with that song without words which Hansfelt called +_Hidden Love_, and suddenly stopped, incapable of continuing? Or was it +when, towards the end of the second spring after their return, she had +fully recovered, and he saw her for the first time in the open air +standing near a rose-bush with her hands full of flowers? Was it when he +knelt to pick up one that had fallen at her feet, and remained in that +position till she extended her hand and blushingly bade him rise? No +matter. That day came, and not long before the one when we find her seated +on the bench by the river-side, attentively reading over the letter Madre +Maddalena had written her two years before. + +The young girl, as we have said, had changed somewhat since we last saw +her. Her long illness had left some traces, but those traces which are an +additional charm in youth, betokening the complete return of brilliant +health. Fleurange's form was more slender and supple; her complexion more +transparent; her long hair, cut off during her illness, and now growing +out again, encircled her youthful face with thick, silky curls--all this +gave her something of the grace of childhood, and when she stood beside +her cousin, whose tall stature and manly, energetic expression added the +appearance of several years to his real age, it would never have been +supposed she was not the younger of the two. + +Motionless and absorbed, from time to time as she read her face colored +and expressed a variety of emotions. But when she came to her own words: +"My life is now stripped of all that made it desirable," and what follows, +"Some day, my Fior Angela, you will recall these bitter, ungrateful words, +and will, I assure you, see their falsity," she stopped short, and, +raising her eyes full of tears to heaven, she said: + +"Yes, Madre mia, you were right!" She covered her face with her hands, and +remained a long time absorbed and overpowered by a flood of thoughts. In +the depths of her memory, there were vague recollections of the past +traced as if by lightning; and some almost forgotten scenes now rose +before her like a confused dream. + +That violent outburst of grief; the sobs he could not repress when he +learned she was determined to go to George; and, later on, the words +murmured on the ice when he thought the last hour of his life had come, +scarcely heard at the time, and then speedily forgotten, came back to-day +like invisible writing brought out by the application of heat. The +sentiments she had discovered only within a few days perhaps had long been +experienced by Clement, if not always--and, if so, oh! then, how great had +been his love and constancy, and what sufferings had he not endured for +her sake! Alas! what had she not inflicted on that noble, faithful soul! + +"Oh!" cried she aloud, "was there ever a person more blind, more +ungrateful, more cruel than I?" + +She stopped, started, and raised her head; she thought she heard her +cousin's step. She was not mistaken. He sought her in her favorite seat, +and now stood before her in the same place where, three years before, she +unwittingly caused him so much suffering as he looked at her. It was the +same place, and the same season, and also the same hour. Daylight was +fading away, and now, as then, the rising moon cast a silver ray over the +charming face which he was again seeking to read. But this time his +questioning look was comprehended, and the silent response of her +beautiful eyes, as expressive as words, imparted to the heart that +understood it one of those human joys reserved here below for those alone +who are capable of a pure, constant, peculiar love--a love only worthy of +being named after that for God. + +We might now end this story, and lay down our pen, without attempting to +describe the joy of the family when, as night came on, they saw the two +absent ones return, and each one divined from their looks the nature of +the conversation which tonight had detained them so long on the banks of +the river. But towards the end of an evening so happy, Mademoiselle +Josephine unintentionally made an exclamation it may not be useless to +add: + +"See! see!" she cried, in the exultation of her happiness, mingled with +secret pride at her penetration, "how right I was in thinking Count +George!--" She stopped confounded, suddenly recalling all past precautions, +and fearing she had been imprudent in neglecting them. + +But Fleurange unhesitatingly exclaimed: "Go on, dear mademoiselle, go on +without any fear, and boldly pronounce a name I now neither shrink from +nor seek to hear." And, as she spoke, the remembrance of his past tortures +crossed Clement's memory, giving him a keener sense of his present +happiness. She asked him, in a calm tone, "Is he still in exile, or has he +been pardoned?" + +Clement replied with a smile: "No, he has not been pardoned; he is still +undergoing his sentence to the full extent." After a moment's silence, he +added: "I had a letter from Adelardi this very morning which speaks of +him.--Would you like to read it?" + +At an affirmative nod from her, he took out his pocket-book to find the +letter. As he opened it, a little sprig of myrtle fell out. Fleurange +immediately recognized it. "What! you still keep that?" said she, +blushing. + +Clement made no reply. He looked at it with emotion; it was a part of a +carefully hoarded treasure, and for a long time the only joy of his hidden +love! "Never, no never!" murmured he. "That was my reply that evening, +Gabrielle, when you promised me a beautiful bride. Do you remember it?" + +"Yes, for I had said the same words an hour before, and the coincidence +struck me." + +"What can we think of it, now you are really the _fiancee_ I dreamed of as +impossible?" + +"That our presentiments are often illusory--and our sentiments also, +Clement," added she, turning towards him her eyes veiled with tears which +seemed to implore his pardon. + +We will not say what Clement's reply was; only, that it made them both +completely forget Adelardi's letter. We will, however, lay it before our +readers, who may be less indifferent to its contents than he to whom it +was addressed was for the moment. It was dated at Florence. The marquis, +whose visits at Rosenheim had become annual, announced his speedy arrival, +after which he continued: + +"The poor Princess Catherine, after whom you inquire, has had a return of +her malady, so many times cured, and it is now increased by +dissatisfaction and annoyance more than by age. No one succeeds in taking +care of her so well as she whom she still remembers. Each new attack +renews her regrets, which have found no compensation in the gratification +of her wishes. I have often remarked, however, that there is nothing like +the realization of a desire to efface the remembrance of the ardor with +which it was sought, and even the transport that hailed its fulfilment. It +is certain the princess' actual relations with her son are by no means +satisfactory; they are affected by the ill-humor of both parties. George's +exile would seem enviable to many; for the place he inhabits has +everything to make it delightful excepting the liberty of leaving it, and +this mars the whole. He can enjoy nothing, he says, because everything is +forced upon him. There is reason, therefore, to fear the future he is +preparing for himself and his wife is very ominous. + +"The Countess Vera is a beautiful, noble woman, capable of self-sacrifice +to a certain point, but haughty, high-tempered, and jealous to the last +degree. She thought the sacrifice she made in marrying George in the +position he was then in, would secure his unsteady heart, and bind him +faithfully to her through gratitude. She saw only too soon it was not so, +and that the comparative liberty he had regained was soon regarded as a +weary bondage. Thence resulted scenes which more than once have disturbed +the life whose monotony they are not allowed to break. Will you credit it? +In one of them, Vera, in the height of her irritation and jealousy, +betrayed the secret hitherto so well guarded, and declared in her anger +that _she regretted not having left him to the fate another was so ready +to share with him_. She afterwards had reason to regret her imprudence, +for George exacted a complete revelation, and the remembrance thus +suddenly revived and clad with the double charm of the past and the +unattainable caused him in his turn to overwhelm her with the most bitter +reproaches. I am not sure but he had the cruelty to tell her he should a +thousand times have preferred the fate she saved him from to that he now +had to endure with her!--There can only be one opinion as to this mirage of +his imagination; but, after all this, you will not be surprised to hear +that they both long with equal ardor for their liberty, which they must +wait for two years longer. According to appearances, it will be as +dangerous for one as for the other. The princess has realized and +predicted this since her visit to Livonia last summer, where I accompanied +her. + +"During her stay, George did not spare her any reproaches, and they were +the more keenly felt because she had for a long time seen that the result +of her wishes had been a sacrifice of her own comfort and happiness +through her opposition to what had at once deprived her of her son and the +only companion that had ever satisfied her. And when she is dissatisfied, +she must always vent her anger on some one besides herself. Whom do you +think she reproached the other day before me for all her troubles? +Gabrielle!--who, she said, did not know how to avail herself of her +ascendency three years ago as she should, and to retain it! + +"Since she has seen that I by no means sympathize in her regrets--which +will not be shared by you either, I suppose, nor, I like to think, by her +who inspires them--she is offended with me in my turn, and declares in a +melancholy tone that all friends are unfeeling and all children +ungrateful!--" + +Clement's reply to this letter hastened the marquis' arrival. He had seen +his young friend's hopes spring up and develop, and would not for the +world have been absent from Rosenheim on the day of their realization. +William and Bertha, the discreet confidant who knew how to console Clement +in his sufferings without questioning him, were the only friends, besides +the marquis, who were admitted that day into this happy family. The +wedding was as gay as Clara's, but the newly married pair were graver and +more thoughtful. They had both passed through severe trials, which now +gave a certain completeness to their happiness, often wanting here below +in the most joyful of festivals. + +And they also, in their turn, set off for Italy, and it may be imagined +that, among the places they visited together, the first to which their +hearts led them was that where awaited the Madre Maddalena's welcome and +blessing. At their return, Mademoiselle Josephine's house, improved and +embellished, became their home, on the condition imposed by their old +friend that she should dwell under their roof the remainder of her days. + +Was their destiny a happy one? We can safely reply in the affirmative. Was +it exempt from pains, sufferings, and sacrifices? We can deny that still +more positively. But it was, however, enviable; for of all earthly +happiness, they possessed what was most desirable, without ever forgetting +that "life can never be perfectly happy because it is not heaven, nor +wholly unhappy because it is the way thither."(231) + + + + +American Catholics And Partisan Newspapers. + + +To Catholics, as such, the political discussions of a Presidential +campaign have no special significance. Thus far no issues between the two +chief parties have particularly affected us. Both have generally been +careful not to offend us; and although in local elections questions +touching our schools and charities have sometimes become prominent, in the +larger contest our votes have been fairly divided between the Republican +and the Democratic candidates. If there ever unfortunately arise a +distinctively Catholic party in American politics, it will not be because +Catholics are unwilling to co-operate freely with their Protestant fellow- +citizens in secular affairs, but because we have been thrown upon the +defensive by some combination directly and designedly hostile to our +religious interests. None know better than we do that there is no excuse +in this country for uniting religious with political issues. Our +constitution gives equal liberty and protection to all, and we should be +sorry to have it otherwise, for we know that the church makes all the more +rapid progress in the United States by reason of her absolute +independence. Asking nothing of the state but fair play, she gives no +excuse to her enemies for making any discrimination against her children. +Her position has been generally understood and approved; and although +there are fiery bigots at all times who rave about the dangerous designs +of the papists, and affect to dread a crusade with torch and sword as soon +as we get to be a little stronger, the good sense of the American people +has usually treated these sectaries with the indifference they deserve. + +We have intimated, however, in former numbers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, that +the chronic anti-Catholic agitation might assume a new character which +would require on our part a new attitude of resistance. A few years ago, +when the settlement of the issues of the war first seemed to menace the +dissolution of the Republican party, the most active leaders of that party +began to cast about for a "new departure," and one of their favorite plans +for keeping the organization alive was the scheme of compulsory education +by the general government. Of this project the Hon. Henry Wilson was a +prominent advocate. It has not yet been formally brought into politics, +for the party has been able to get along without it; but it has not been +abandoned, and we need not be surprised if it be strongly pushed within +the next few years. Now, Catholics look upon the question of religious +education as one of paramount importance. They will not surrender the +teaching of their children into the hands of Protestants and infidels; +they will not consent, so far as _their_ young people are concerned, to +the separation of religious and secular instruction. Any party which seeks +directly or indirectly to limit the usefulness or hamper the operations of +Catholic schools, must prepare to encounter in Catholics a united and +determined resistance. + +Thus far no such conflict has arisen. We may hope that it never will +arise. And yet, during the canvass that has recently closed, two of the +leading organs of Republican opinion have opened a bitter and apparently +concerted warfare upon the Catholics of the United States which we cannot +help regarding as highly significant. In the midst of a Presidential +campaign, political organs never make such attacks except for political +reasons. The papers to which we refer are in close relations with the +party leaders. _The New York Times_ became for a time, when _The Tribune_ +abandoned orthodoxy, the principal Republican newspaper of the principal +state in the Union. It is known to have reflected with tolerable accuracy +the sentiments of the Republican managers in New York, and it has always +said what it assumed to be acceptable at the White House. For a long time +it has been notoriously unfriendly to Catholics. It has amused itself, in +its heavy, witless way, laughing at what they hold sacred and abusing all +that they respect. Until a few months ago, its offensive utterances seemed +to be merely the occasional vulgarities of a bigotry that, did not know +enough to hold its tongue. But when Mr. Francis Kernan was nominated for +Governor of the State of New York, its assaults became more methodical, +more vehement, and apparently more malicious. Mr. Kernan is a Catholic; so +_The Times_ instantly denounced him as "a bigot." An utterly untrue +pretence was made that Democrats were asking Irishmen to vote for him on +account of his religion, and thus the point was insinuated rather than +openly pressed that on account of his religion Protestants ought to vote +against him. For the first time, to our knowledge, since Know-Nothing +days, the question of religious belief was dragged into the dirty arena of +politics. Happily, the Catholics as a body kept their temper and their +judgment during these infamous proceedings. They refused to be drawn into +the discussion which _The Times_ wanted to provoke, and even when that +paper surpassed all its former disreputable acts by reproducing in its +columns a forged handbill, showing the name of Francis Kernan surrounding +a huge black cross, and told the public that such were the devices by +which the Democratic candidate sought to inflame the fanatical zeal of his +followers, the Catholics contented themselves with one word of indignant +denial. It would have been a rash display of political courage to which we +do not believe _The Times_ capable of rising, if an open attack had been +made upon the Catholic faith or Catholic morals. _The Times_ was even +frightened at its own frankness in scolding at Mr. Kernan for a bigot. It +professed to be shocked at the introduction of religious affairs into the +discussions of the campaign, and carried on a cowardly anti-Catholic +warfare under cover of repelling purely imaginary assaults. Of course this +subterfuge was well understood by all parties. The Catholics knew that +they had done nothing to draw this fire; the Protestants also knew it, and +a great many of them were indignant at the transaction. Was _The Times_ +itself deceived? That is a question which perhaps we should not attempt to +answer. In its wild bigotry, it is capable of believing almost any +preposterous falsehood against us; but it is equally capable of inventing +one. Some familiarity with the course of political controversies in the +United States has convinced us that in a fight _The Times_ sticks at +nothing. It would rather stab an enemy in the back than kill him in open +battle. It never gives fair-play; it never makes amends for a wrong-doing; +it never withdraws a calumny. Everybody who has had a controversy with it +will bear witness that it is not in the habit of telling the truth about +its adversaries. That it is in the habit of consciously, or, to speak more +correctly, deliberately, lying we do not go so far as to say. But there is +a kind of falsehood very common with people of strong prejudices to which +_The Times_ is greatly addicted. It bears about the same relation to truth +that hyperbole bears to historical statement. Let us suppose that _The +Times_ really imagines the Catholic Church to be a dangerous and immoral +organization, and its bishops and supporters in this country to be engaged +in an enterprise which ought to be resisted; with this conviction of the +general wickedness of Catholic principles, it imagines itself justified in +charging upon individual Catholics a variety of specific crimes for which +it has no evidence whatever. Catholics are none too good to commit murder, +we can imagine it saying; therefore let us accuse Francis Kernan of +killing his grandmother. The Pope is an impostor; therefore it cannot be +wrong to call Archbishop McCloskey a thief. Indeed, men who would blush to +tell an untruth in private intercourse with their fellow-men have no +hesitation in publishing slanderous accusations which they suppose may +"help their party"; and, if we should say that their conduct in doing so +was to the last degree infamous, they would affect to be shocked by our +strong language. The editor of _The Times_ would think twice before he +went into a club parlor, and publicly accused some prominent citizen of a +criminal action, unless he had the strongest possible proof of the +commission of the offence. But he makes such accusations every day in his +newspaper, without knowing, and we presume without caring, whether they +are true or not. Anybody whom he dislikes he regards as an outlaw. Anybody +who comes in his way is a fit subject for the penitentiary. We saw a +striking illustration of his entire insensibility to the demands of truth +and honor in his behavior towards a rival newspaper a few weeks ago. At +the close of the year, _The Times_ made great efforts to secure the old +subscribers of _The Tribune_, who were supposed to be dissatisfied with +that paper's recent declaration of political independence, and the means +which it took to secure them was one which in any other business would +have resulted in a suit for slander and a verdict in very heavy damages. +_The Times_ first circulated a report that _The Tribune_ had sold itself +to one of the most disreputable stock-gamblers in Wall Street, and then +assured the public that the circulation of its competitor had fallen away +more than half, and was rapidly going down to nothing at all. Both these +stories were well known to be entirely untrue, and, if the editor of _The +Times_ was not conscious of their falsity when he penned them, he might +easily have learned the truth by a moment's inquiry. But he did not want +the truth. He wanted to say something damaging, and these were the most +damaging things he could think of. + +How much he succeeded in damaging Mr. Kernan by his campaign slanders +against Catholics, we can guess from the figures of the election. Mr. +Kernan received about 5,000 more votes for Governor than Mr. Greeley +received in this State for President; but he received 5,000 fewer than the +candidate for Lieutenant-Governor on the same ticket. This loss is +probably attributable directly to the anti-Catholic feeling, for Mr. +Kernan is a gentleman to whom no personal objection could possibly be made +except on religious grounds. No doubt an equally large number of voters +were repelled, by the bigotry _The Times_ fostered, from supporting the +Democratic and Liberal ticket at all; so that we shall not pass the bounds +of probability if we estimate the fruit of prejudice and falsehood in this +case as equivalent to ten thousand votes. + +Catholics are used to injustice, and they are not quick to resent it. In +America, the church has prospered under every sort of obstacle and +discouragement short of the direct hostility of the government, and it is +not likely that her course will be stayed by _The New York Times_. But it +is well for us to look at the situation carefully, and judge who are our +friends. If any political party is to make bigotry part of its stock in +trade, we cannot help taking notice of such a declaration of hostilities, +and we shall govern ourselves accordingly. + +We have said that _The Times_ and _Harper's Weekly_ appear in this matter +to have acted in concert. Perhaps it is unfair to hold the party managers +fully responsible for the utterances of these two violent newspapers; but +we cannot forget that both journals are in close communion with the +Republican administration, and that both have been governed during the +campaign by the judgment of the Republican leaders. The editor of _The +Times_ enjoys the most intimate association with the federal organization +popularly known as the "Custom-house faction" in New York City; the editor +of _Harper's Weekly_ is the personal friend of the President, and speaks +the mind of the President's chief advisers in Washington. If, then, these +two papers have made a systematic assault upon the Catholic Church in the +midst of a sharp political controversy, and have taken pains to give their +furious Protestantism a direct political bearing, the party for which they +speak must be prepared to face the responsibility. It should be observed, +however, in justice to the sensible and unprejudiced members of the party, +that _Harper's Weekly_, though it may have been encouraged in its +bitterness by partisan considerations, did not draw from such motives its +first anti-Catholic inspiration. It has always been our enemy. A spirit, +of commercial fanaticism, the hatred of a religion which it will pay to +abuse, has distinguished the firm of the Harpers ever since the public has +known anything about them. The political campaign of 1872 made no +difference in the tone of their paper; it merely gave force, and +concentration, and regularity to the attacks which had previously been +spasmodic. + +How coarsely it attempted to turn to political account the religious +bigotry upon which it had always traded may be seen in an article entitled +"Our Foreign Church," published in _Harper's Weekly_ of the 14th of +September last. The writer starts with the assumption that all religious +denominations in this country, except "the Romish Church," patriotically +renounced the authority of their European rulers when the American +republic was founded. The Methodists "rejected the control in political +and ecclesiastical matters of their founders"; the Presbyterians +repudiated the General Assembly of Scotland; Episcopalians revolted from +the Archbishop of Canterbury; the Jews "threw themselves boldly into the +tide of American progress"; while the Catholic Church alone stood aloof, +and "refused to separate itself from its European masters," and conform +its organization to the Declaration of Independence and the constitution +of the United States. Ridiculous as this complaint sounds, it is no +burlesque, but a faithful synopsis of the nonsense which Mr. Eugene +Lawrence is permitted to print in _Harper's Weekly_. A church of divine +origin, according to this preposterous person, is to change its divine +laws to conform to the requirements of temporary human institutions; and +the political theories of Thomas Jefferson are to govern the ordinances of +Jesus Christ. It is the glory of the true church that she is above all +secular constitutions. She has seen the rise and fall of countless +dynasties and states; she will survive the ruin, if every form of +government now known upon earth shall be eventually overthrown. Empires, +kingdoms, republics, are all alike to her. She was founded for all ages +and all climes; she was not created, as Mr. Eugene Lawrence seems to think +she ought to have been, for the exclusive benefit of the United States of +America. This is a great country; but we presume that our constitution, +amendments and all, occupies but an insignificant place in the divine +order of the universe. + +Obeying its heaven-appointed head, who did not see fit to choose either +Europe or America for the place of his human birth, the Roman Catholic +Church in America, according to _Harper's Weekly_, is a foreign body, and, +therefore, dangerous (as all foreigners are) to the peace of society. "It +is loud in its denunciations of American civilization;" it "furnishes +three-fourths of the criminals and the paupers who prey upon the +Protestant community"; it never intermits its "attacks upon the principles +of freedom"; and "its great mass of ignorant voters have been the chief +source of our political ills." Moreover, "the unpatriotic conduct of the +Romish population in our chief cities during the rebellion is well known. +They formed a constant menace and terror to the loyal citizens; they +thronged the 'peace meetings'; they strove to divide the Union; and when +the war was over they placed in office their corrupt leaders, and +plundered the impoverished community." We are almost ashamed to copy, even +for the purpose of denouncing it, this insult to the memory of our dead +Catholic soldiers. There is not a man in the United States who does not +know of the noble share of these outraged "Romish" troops in the terrible +struggles of the civil war; not a man who is ignorant of the splendid +record of the Irish regiments under the Union flag on every hard-fought +field from the first Bull Run to the last conflict before Richmond. "The +Romish population of our chief cities" furnished the bone and sinew of +more than one gallant army during those four sad years. They gave up their +lives for the country of their birth or their adoption with a heroism that +stirs every sensitive heart. Their priests followed the army on the march +and into the fight. Their Sisters of Charity nursed the wounded and the +sick. The greatest of their prelates, aided by another bishop who is still +living, spent the last remains of his strength in defending the cause of +the Union in hostile foreign capitals. Nothing, in fine, could be more +magnificent than the patriotism with which the adherents of this "foreign +church" sacrificed life and fortune for their country during its hour of +need; and we have no language to define the infamy of endeavoring to make +capital for Gen. Grant by maligning the devoted men whom he led to death +at Shiloh and in the wilderness, and whose bravery, we are sure, he would +be the last man to depreciate. + +And now, continues the writer in the _Weekly_, as the Presidential +election approaches, "our foreign church has assumed more openly than ever +before the form of a political faction." "Romish priests" and "Romish +bishops" have taken the field as the partisans of Mr. Greeley, "the +candidate of disunion _and of religious bigotry_"!--the italics are +ours--and the church is engaged in an attempt "to place the fallen +slaveholders once more in power." For these statements we deliberately +declare that there is no justification whatever. Mr. Eugene Lawrence +invented them out of his own bigotry and malice; and when he had the folly +and insolence to threaten us, as he did at the close of his article, with +"the vengeance of the people," he added to his untruthfulness a degree of +hypocrisy which we have rarely seen equalled even in the publications of +the house of Harper & Brothers. We say hypocrisy; but perhaps that is +unfair. Mr. Lawrence may be silly enough to tremble at the bogies of his +own devising. He may imagine that the rest of the world is as much afraid +of the Pope as he is. He may fancy that the whole party of which he is +such a hard-working member is burning with desire to take the Jesuits by +the throat and hang them on the nearest lamp-post. If he did not suppose +that a profitable market could be found for his sensational wares, he +probably would not be at the trouble of the manufacture. If the "vengeance +of the people" do not menace the Jesuits, it will certainly not be the +fault of Mr. Lawrence. In the issue of the _Weekly_ for Oct. 12, he had a +furious narrative of "The Jesuit Crusade against Germany," the points of +which are substantially these: The Jesuits, with the aid of the +Inquisition (of which they are the directors) and of a hired band of +convicts and brigands, obtained the absolute mastery of the city of Rome +and the papal government. The wretched people "cowered before their Jesuit +rulers," and within the crumbling walls of the guilty capital "priests and +cardinals perpetrated their enormities unchecked and unseen." They then, +by means of their "lawless police," overpowered the OEcumenical Council, +and forced it, "by intimidation and bribes," to accept the doctrine of +infallibility, to curse liberty and education, and to set on foot a bloody +crusade against political and intellectual freedom. This was in accordance +with the Jesuits' time-honored policy. "The fierce and fanatical Loyola" +used to burn heretics in Spain and Italy, and taught his followers that no +mercy should be shown to such offenders. It was the Jesuits who set on +foot the persecutions under Charles V. and Philip II., and "excited the +unparalleled horrors of the Thirty Years' War." In 1870, they were getting +ready for a new religious war. Napoleon III. was their chief backer. In +fact, the attack upon Germany in 1870 was the result of a conspiracy +between Rome and Paris, concluded at the council, and the purpose of the +war was nothing less than the establishment of the Jesuit Order on the +ruins of prostrate Germany! For this scheme _the Irish Catholics of +Dublin, London, and New York __"__furnished men, sympathy, and possibly +money.__"_ And now that the conspiracy has failed, and that the papists of +France have been beaten (in spite of all the sinews of war so lavishly +furnished by the Irish laborers and servant-girls of New York), the +Jesuits are getting, up another European convulsion. "The Romish Church, +organized into a vast political faction, is stirring up war in Europe, +calls upon France to lead another religious crusade, and promises the aid +of all the chivalry of Catholicism in avenging the fall of Napoleon upon +the German Empire." It purposes to involve all the great states of Europe +in a common ruin, "and erect the Romish See upon the wrecks of the +temporal empires." The pilgrimage of Lourdes is a part of this scheme. The +Catholic Union is another. The International Society of Workingmen (of +which the Jesuits are the secret instigators!) is another. Mr. Lawrence +exhibits the venerable fathers in the unfamiliar garb of communists, and +substitutes the red cap for the beretta with all the effrontery and +_nonchalance_ in the world. The Order which in one column is the detested +safeguard of absolutism becomes in the next the raving propagandist of +social anarchy, revolution, and universal democracy. Can any rational +person after this condescend to dispute with Mr. Lawrence? + +As in the other cases to which we have referred, there was a political +moral to this story also. If we would avert this horrible era of blood and +fire, said _Harper's Weekly_, we must vote for General Grant, and stand up +for the straight Republican ticket. Grant is the firm ally of Germany +against Jesuitism. Grant is the champion of public schools against +religious education. Grant is the enemy of all manner of Romish fraud and +violence. Greeley is the friend of priests and persecutors, the foe of the +Bible and education, the accomplice of that infamous "Jesuit faction" +which "would rejoice to tear the vitals of American freedom, and rend the +breast that has offered it a shelter"; and if he should be elected the +"Jesuit Society" would celebrate the victory "like a new S. Bartholomew, +with bells, cannon, processions, prayers at the Vatican," and hasten "the +rising of the Catholic chivalry ... in their sanguinary schemes against +the peace and independence of Germany." Such was the wicked nonsense with +which _Harper's Weekly_ in the autumn of 1872 attempted to make political +capital out of the ignorance and bigotry of its readers. + +But this was not the worst. The Jesuits were not only conspirators against +political and mental freedom, they were the principal enemies of the freed +people of the South. Their society (_risum teneatis, amici_) had "allied +itself with the Ku-klux of Georgia and Mississippi"! And so infatuated was +the _Weekly_ with the monstrous folly of this tale that week after week it +returned to the same slander. On Oct. 26 it printed a portrait of the Most +Reverend Father-General, accompanied with one of the most outrageous pages +of falsehood and defamation ever put into type. "In our country," says the +author of the article, "the Jesuit faction has allied itself with the Ku- +klux." "The Jesuit Society assumes the guise of liberalism, and cheers on +the rebel and Ku-klux in their plots against the Union." "In America the +Jesuits link themselves with the Ku-klux." They do this because they hate +the republic. They denounce, "with maledictions and threatenings, the +course of modern civilization." + + + "The world is in danger from the mad schemes of the triumphant + society; it is rousing France to a new crusade with omens and + pilgrimages; it threatens the German Empire with a war more + disastrous and destructive than Europe has ever seen. It summons + its adherents to the polls in Italy; it guides the elections of + Ireland, terrifies Spain, and even disturbs the repose of London; + and in our own country, so recently torn by civil war, the papal + crusaders, linked by the tie of perfect obedience, stand ready to + profit by our misfortunes, and to stimulate our internal + dissensions; to crush those institutions that have ever reproached + their own despotism, and destroy that freedom which is the chief + obstacle to their perpetual sway." + + +The picture which the _Weekly_ draws of these dangerous brethren is +horrible enough to throw a child into fits: + + + "A dreadful mystery still hangs over them. Their proceedings are + secret, their purposes unknown. At the command of an absolute + master, they wander swiftly among the throngs of their fellow-men, + eager only to obey his voice. Obedience is to the Jesuit the first + principle of his faith, instilled into his mind in youth, + perfected by the labors of his later years; he hears in the + slightest intimations of his chief at Rome the voice of his God, + the commands from heaven; and in the long catalogue of fearful + deeds which history ascribes to the disciples of Loyola, the first + impulse to crime must always have come from the absolute head of + the Order, and its single aim has always been to advance the power + of the Romish Church. Scarcely had its founder gained the favor of + the Pope, and fixed his seat at Rome, when he revived the + Inquisition. Italy trembled before the spectacle of ceaseless + _autos-da-fe_; the tortures and the cries of dying heretics, the + ruin of countless families, the flight of terrified and hopeless + throngs from their native land to the friendly shelter of Germany + and Switzerland, were the earliest fruits of the relentless + teachings of Loyola. The Jesuits led the armies of the persecutors + into the beautiful Vaudois valleys, and the worst atrocities of + that mournful example of human wickedness are due to their brutal + fanaticism. Soon they spread from Italy through all the kingdoms + of Europe; everywhere they brought with them their fierce and + cruel hatred of religious freedom, their cunning, their moral + degradation, their bold and desperate policy. They ruled in + courts; they terrified the people into submission; they were the + most active politicians of their time; their wealth was enormous; + their schools and colleges spread from Paris to Japan; and for + three centuries the name of the Jesuits, covered with the infamy + of the massacres of the Vaudois, the Huguenots, the Hollanders, + and the Germans, surrounded by its terrible mystery, the symbol of + a dark and dreadful association, has filled mankind with horror + and affright." + + +The practical conclusion to be drawn from all this rhetoric was that +everybody, and especially every German, ought to vote for Gen. Grant and +the straight Republican anti-Jesuit ticket. It was the Jesuits who +"nominated Mr. Greeley, a person known to be in friendly connection with +the Romish leaders and closely linked to the Papal Church." The Jesuits +"cover Grant with monstrous calumnies, and celebrate the erratic Greeley." +"Let every German beware lest he lend aid to the enemies of his country. +Let him shrink from the support of any candidate who is maintained by the +influence of the Jesuits." "We trust every sincere Protestant ... will +labor ceaselessly to defeat the schemes of the Jesuits, and drive their +candidate back to a merited obscurity." And in the same number we find the +following wicked paragraph: + + + "A Jesuit, the Rev. Mr. Renaud, was appointed some time ago by + Archbishop McCloskey to superintend the Romish interest in our + city charities. The result was at once apparent. The Jesuits + excited a revolt in the House of Refuge. One of the keepers was + murdered. One of the convicts was sent to the State prison. The + rebellion was subdued; but the Jesuits still defend the murderer, + and assail with calumnies the House of Refuge, one of the most + valuable and successful of our city institutions. This is a + curious confirmation of that dangerous character of the Jesuit + Society which is painted upon a larger scale in our article in the + present number on 'The Jesuits.' " + + +The next slander of the _Weekly_ was to identify Tweed with the Jesuits. +"When the Romish priests," says this astonishing journal (Nov. 2, 1872), +"at the command of their foreign master, began their assaults upon the +public schools, they found a ready ally in the Tammany Society.... Tammany +became the representative of a foreign influence and a foreign church. It +was European rather than American. It teemed with the coarse prejudices, +the dull ignorance, the intense moral blindness that to American sentiment +are so repulsive, with that mental and moral feebleness that belongs to +populations racked by the despot and oppressed by the priest." An infamous +compact was now struck between Tammany and the Papal Church. The +"Romanists" supported the political leaders in riotous license, gross +vices, and indecent corruption; while an enormous debt was laid upon the +city "to satisfy the demands of the Romish priests." Thus Tammany, by the +aid of its foreign allies, became despotic master of New York. + + + "Covered with the ineffaceable stains of treason and of public + robbery, its members attempted to rule by force, and in the spring + of 1871 New York lay at the mercy of rebels, peculators, and + foreign priests. The press was threatened, whenever it complained, + with violence, lawsuits, and the frowns of infamous courts. The + Common Council was imported from Ireland, and foreign assassins + threatened the lives of those ardent citizens who planned reform." + + +The overthrow of the Tweed and Connolly Ring was a stunning defeat for the +Pope and his agents. The nomination of Greeley and Kernan (the one openly, +the other secretly; a slave of the Jesuits and the Inquisition) was a +desperate attempt of the Jesuits to recover what they had lost. And then +followed the usual homily, "Vote for Grant," etc. + +In this bitter political campaign against the church the writers for +_Harper's Weekly_ were zealously assisted by their artist, Mr. Thomas +Nast. This individual has done more to degrade his profession than any +other draughtsman we know of, except, perhaps, the makers of lascivious +pictures for some of the flash newspapers. He has made a practice of +ridiculing the religious belief of hundreds of thousands of honest people +who came to America, as he did, from a foreign land, because America +offers to all immigrants the fullest measure of political equality and +religious freedom. It has been his pleasure to depict the priest +invariably as a sleek, sensual, brutal, and repulsive rogue; the bishop as +a grim, overbearing, and cunning despot, or now and then as a crocodile +crawling with open jaws towards a group of children. In the _Weekly_ of +Oct. 12, he represents Brother Jonathan attempting to sever the tie which +binds an American bishop to the Pope, holding out, as he does so, a +naturalization paper inscribed "This ends the foreign allegiance." The +Pope has his arms full of papers: "Orders to all state officials that are +Roman Catholics"; "Down with the American public schools"; "The promised +land, U. S.," etc.; and the bishop carries similar documents: "Orders from +the Pope of Rome to the Catholics in America"; "Vote for Horace Greeley"; +"Vote for Kernan; he is a Roman Catholic, and will obey the orders of the +church." Another picture, entitled "Swinging around the circle," was +intended to represent all the disreputable supporters of Mr. Greeley in +company. "Free love and Catholicism" were side by side, in the persons of +Theodore Tilton and a priest, and "Mass and S. C." figured as a +conventional Irishman with one of the Ku-klux. Mr. Kernan was drawn (Nov. +2) kneeling, in an abject attitude, at the feet of the Pope ("Our Foreign +Ruler"), and swearing, "I will do your bidding, as you are infallible"; in +the background stood a priest loaded with papal orders against the public +schools; and on the wall was a copy of the forged handbill, with the +legend, "For governor, Francis Kernan," surrounding a black cross. In a +picture of the "Pirates under False Colors," a priest with a cross held +aloft in one hand, and a tomahawk half hidden in the other, is a +conspicuous figure in a gang of ruffians. In another cartoon a vulgar- +looking priest is seen sprinkling the ruins of Tammany Hall with holy- +water. + +Now, we know very well that from one point of view the introduction of +these calumnies into politics was fraudulent. Mr. Greeley certainly had no +leaning towards the Catholic Church and no affiliations with Catholic +leaders, and Gen. Grant, we venture to affirm, is insensible to the +bigotry which his unworthy followers brought up as a reason for his re- +election. We have nothing to ask of any President, and we give our votes +according to our individual preferences. But while we do not purpose +acting as a religious body in any political movement, we do not purpose +either to be set aside by any political party as an outlawed and degraded +people, upon whom venal pamphleteers and ignorant politicians may trample +at pleasure. If party organs take pains to attack us, and pour out, day +after day, and week after week, their filthy libels upon us, the party +which sanctions such a warfare and tries to reap the fruits of it shall +bear the responsibility. The Catholics of the United States are too +numerous, too intelligent, and too public-spirited to be treated with +contempt by any faction, whether that faction call itself Liberal, or +Republican, or Democratic. We prefer, as we have often said before, to let +the politicians alone, and go our various ways in quiet, some after one +leader, some after another. But it may as well be understood that, if any +of these parties invite an irrepressible conflict with us, they will find +out, we trust, that we are not disposed to flinch from the defence of our +rights, which are identical with the rights of all other American +citizens. + + + + +Brussels. + + + "There was a sound of revelry by night, + And Belgium's capital had gather'd then + Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright + The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men. + A thousand hearts beat happily; and when + Music arose with its voluptuous swell, + Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spoke again, + And all went merry as a marriage bell; + But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!" + + _Childe Harold._ + + +The roar of cannon that ushered in the day of Waterloo--the deadly +Waterloo, big with the fate of empires--the fatal Waterloo, that sealed the +doom of the mighty conqueror, that hurled him on the prison-island in the +far-distant ocean, where expiation could be the only consolation of the +proud, haughty heart that knew no law but the iron will, which, +irresistible to all else, was shivered on the Rock of Peter--was not the +first, and may not be the last, sound of fearful strife there heard, as +Belgium has ever been the chosen battlefield of Europe. + +And so well is the fact recognized, that the sole condition on which she +now exists as an independent state, is that of perfect neutrality. No +matter what may be her sympathies, what may be her interests, she cannot +take the sword: she can only defend her frontier, and prevent the entrance +of either friend or foe. This it is that gives her importance; her central +position, which makes her the key of the Continent, causes England to +watch over her with tender interest, gives the mistress of the seas a +_pied-a-terre_ in case of a general war--a contingency which may arise at +any moment. + +The late King Leopold I., the Nestor of the European sovereigns, held an +exceptional position; the head of one of the smallest states, he had +perhaps the largest personal influence. His sagacity and experience made +his advice sought and respected by all. When, in the revolution of 1848, +thrones were tumbling down, and kings flying in every direction, of course +Brussels had to follow the prevailing fashion, and, without knowing +exactly what was wanted, the Bruxellois assembled around the palace; but +before they could state their grievances, Leopold appeared upon the +balcony, told them there was no necessity of any demonstration; he had +come to Brussels at their invitation, and was ready to leave, if his +departure would make them happier. Whereupon they reconsidered the +question, and concluded to let well enough alone. + +After the separation of Holland and Belgium, Brussels increased rapidly, +and is now one of the pleasantest capitals in Europe. The new part of the +city, the Quartier Leopold, is a beautiful faubourg, and the boulevards +that encircle the city with a belt of green verdure, furnish a delightful +promenade. The park, a portion of the forest of Soignes, is charming; the +great trees meet in arches, and shade the crowds of ladies and children, +who live in the open air on fine days. On Sundays, the military bands play +from 2 to 3 P.M.; and every summer evening, from the 1st of June to the +1st of September, the orchestra of the Grand Opera gives concerts in the +kiosk of the _Quinconce_, the flower-garden of the park. + +Life in Brussels is very pleasant, easy, and independent; all the +appliances of modern civilization are within reach, botanical and +zoological gardens, picture galleries, theatres; the opera is a permanent +fact, at a reasonable rate; the orchestra led by Hanssens (recently +departed for another world) was admirable; numbered among the violinists +De Beriot, blind, but playing always with rare skill, and the other +artists were of equal merit. Of late years Brussels has become a _foyer_ +for discontented spirits-- + + + "Black spirits and white, + Red spirits and gray. + Mingle, mingle, mingle, + You that mingle may." + + +And mingle they do without fear of _mouchards_, and air their opinions, no +matter how wild and dangerous. If they go a little too far, the government +or persons attacked interchange a few diplomatic notes with the Belgian +authorities, and then the police politely request them either to be silent +or try another dwelling-place. Prim was for a long time resident, but one +fine morning was advised to take his departure, as his intrigues were +becoming too open and dangerous, but had been kept secret long enough to +lay the mine that exploded and blew the Queen of Spain into France; and +Henri Rochefort, driven from France, issued his _Lanterne_, which threw +light on many facts then thought to be false, but which events proved to +have been only too true. + +Brussels is a paradise for women of taste; for where else can be found +such laces and fairy webs, such garnitures of _point de Bruxelles_, of +Valenciennes, of Malines, of Duchesse? A morning stroll down the Montagne +de la Cour and the Madeleine is a feast for the eye, for lace-making is +one of the fine arts; the large houses employ three or four first-class +artists to draw the designs, and, as the competition is great, the efforts +to surpass are immense. In making up a bride's trousseau, it is etiquette +for the mother of the bride to give the white laces, the happy bridegroom +the black; and the prices where the parties are wealthy run up to an +enormous amount. + +The gold embroideries are equally beautiful; in one _fabrique_ we saw a +set of vestments just finished for the Cathedral of Tournai; they were for +Lent, and were violet, with the instruments of the Passion exquisitely +done in raised embroidery. The effect was admirable; on the back of the +chasuble was the cross with the spear and the sponge, and so perfect was +the sponge it seemed as though it could be grasped. The column was on the +front of the vestment. It was a complete set for priest, deacon, and sub- +deacon, with five copes, so that the artist had full opportunity for the +display of his talent. The same house had recently sent off the dresses +for the Empress of Austria and the ladies of her court, to be worn when +they walked in the procession on the Feast of Corpus Christi. Specimens of +the embroidery, which was of silver on white satin, were shown us, and, +judging by what we saw, the effect of the whole must have been charming. + +The Musee Ancien is devoted to the artists of the past. Hubert and Jean +Van Eyck, whose discovery of the use of oil in mixing colors +revolutionized art, are represented by the "Adam and Eve" and the +"Adoration of the Magi." Holbein's portrait of Sir Thomas More is worthy +of the subject and the artist. Crayer's Saints and Martyrdoms abound; one, +the "Apparition of Our Lord to S. Julien," illustrates the beautiful +legend of S. Julien and his wife, S. Basilisse, who founded a hospital, +where they received and tended the sick poor. One winter night, hearing +sighs and groans at the door, S. Julien went out, and found a man nearly +frozen to death. He carried him in, warmed him before the fire, restored +him to consciousness, and then laid him in his own bed. The next morning +the holy couple went in to see their guest. The bed was empty, and, as +they approached it, Jesus, for it was he who had taken the form of the +poor sick man to try their charity, appeared to them, and said, "Julien, I +am your Lord and Saviour, who announces to you that ere long you and your +wife will repose in God." + +The "Martyrdom of S. Peter," by Van Dyck, is terrible. The saint is +fastened to the cross, and three men are placing it in the ground. One, +kneeling, is endeavoring to push the end of the cross into the hole +prepared to receive it, another supports the cross on his shoulders, the +third steadies it. Meanwhile, all the blood in S. Peter's body seems to +have descended into his head and face, which is brick-dust color, and +looks as though it would burst. Altogether it is a fearful picture, so +lifelike that one waits to hear the thump the cross will give when finally +placed. Such pictures make us appreciate our feather-bed Christianity, the +comfortable way we try to gain heaven and at the same time keep up an +agreeable acquaintance with the world, and perhaps its friend, the devil. + +The finest Rubens in this Musee is "Christ ascending Calvary." It is when +he is met by S. Veronica and some other women, who are magnificently +dressed, thus making the contrast greater between them and the exhausted, +blood-stained figure of Our Lord, who is sinking beneath the weight of the +cross, and the agonized face of his blessed Mother, who, supported by S. +John, is advancing with outstretched hands to the assistance of her +beloved One. + +The flower-pieces by Seghers, the famous Jesuit painter, are exquisite; +interiors by Cuyp and Teniers, displaying their delicate care and finish, +are numerous; pictures by Rembrandt, with all his wonderful effects of +light and shade; some charming faces by Velasquez--two lovely little girls +hand-in-hand, who look as if they would step out of the frame and speak; +two splendid half-lengths of Albert and Isabella, by Rubens, whose +portraits are always admirable; and some very good specimens of the +Italian school, among which are a Madonna of Sassoferrato, and a portrait +of a young woman, by Guercina, which is very beautiful. + +The Musee Moderne is a collection of the modern Belgian school, which +deservedly ranks among the first. "Hagar in the Desert," by Navez, is as +touchingly beautiful as any of the masterpieces of the great past; Leys, +Wiertz, Gallait, Portaels, whose "Fuite en Egypte" is found everywhere, +are men whose genius is recognized by all Europe; Van Schendel has +produced effects of light as remarkable as Rembrandt; Willems and Stevens +in finish rival Cuyp and Teniers; and Verboekhoven's cattle-pieces are +unsurpassed. Art is encouraged and fostered by the government; every year +there is a grand competition for the "Prix de Rome"; a committee is +appointed by the crown to decide upon the merit of the pictures, and the +successful one receives the Prix de Rome, which is four thousand francs, a +sum sufficient to maintain a student in Rome, in artist style, three +years, while he continues his studies. + +Brussels is comparatively modern; it was a mere village when Malines, +Louvain, and other towns had acquired importance. In 1005, it passed by +marriage into the possession of the Comtes de Louvain, under whom it +rapidly increased; in 1040, it was surrounded by massive walls, of which +some portions still remain in the garden of the Cure of S. Gudule. In +1106, Comte Godfrey le Barbu acquired the title of Duc de Brabant, but +Louvain continued the most important town in the duchy, and preserved the +title of capital until the time of Albert and Isabella, who preferred +Brussels on account of its healthful climate and the vicinity of the well- +stocked forest of Soignies. + +The Grande Place of Brussels is unique; any change is forbidden by law; as +it has been for generations, so it must remain; and when one descends +suddenly from the park and boulevards, brilliant and gay with all the +sparkle of modern life, into the Grande Place, it is like another world. +The Hotel de Ville is on one side; opposite is the Maison du Roi, adorned +with a statue of the Blessed Virgin, beneath which is the legend, _A +Feste, Fame et Bello, libera nos, Maria Pacis_, placed there in 1625 by +Isabella in gratitude to our Lady of Peace, for having delivered the city +from plague, famine, and war. In the place immediately below, is the noble +monument erected in reparation to the memory of the unfortunate Comtes +d'Egmont and de Hornes, on the spot on which, as the inscription runs, +"they were unjustly executed by the decree of the cruel Duc d'Albe." + +It was unjust and cruel, but still we cannot judge the past by the +present. Then, principles were positive facts, not vagaries expected to +give way at any moment to expediency, but realities plain and palpable, +upon which depended not only this perishable present, but the never-ending +future, with its eternity of weal or woe. As men were expected to live up +to their principles, so were they expected to die for them. It is a high +standard by which to live, but it is the safest. We fancy nowadays that +the cruelty then dealt out for thoughts and opinions was abominable, but +we forget that those ideas, those thoughts, produced the frightful effects +of the ravages of the Gueux, of the orgies of John of Leyden; that from +religious they degenerated into social excesses of the lowest +kind--excesses which, if prolonged, would have reduced Christian Europe to +Vandal barbarism. + +And so the brave, unfortunate Comte d'Egmont, the hero, whose valor +contributed so signally to the brilliant victory of Philip II. at St. +Quentin, lost his life for having tampered with the political sectaries, +or rather by being led into the snare by the Prince of Orange; when too +late, he saw his error, which was only political; his faith he ever kept +pure and untarnished. The Prince of Orange, on the eve of leaving Brussels +to join the enemy in Germany, urged him to go, but Egmont refused; the +prince told him if he remained he would be lost; that he was a fool to run +the risk. Friends until then, they parted in anger. Egmont spurned him, +and said, "Adieu, prince sans terre"; the prince replied, "Adieu, comte +sans tete"--words which were too fatally verified soon after. The Maison du +Roi is now occupied by the Cercle Artistique et Litteraire, and it was in +a small room in the second story that Comte d'Egmont passed the night +preceding his death, and wrote those touching farewell letters to his wife +and the King of Spain which reveal the nobleness of his character. The +famous picture by Gallait, "La tete d'un supplicie," is a portrait of +Egmont. We have seen the original in the _atelier_ of Gallait, and he +assured us it was an accurate resemblance. _Requiescat in pace._ + +The Hotel de Ville on the Grande Place is the finest of the municipal +palaces found in almost every city of Belgium. It is built round a +quadrangle, and the oldest part is the wing to the east of the tower, +commenced in 1402, at the angles of which are elegant turrets; the facade +consists of a gallery of open arches, surmounted by the Grande Breteque, a +balcony from whence proclamations were made; above this are two rows of +windows, and an enormous battlemented roof, pierced with thirty-seven +dormer windows. + +The tower is 330 feet high; the lower half, from the basement to the +summit of the roof, is square; the upper part, built in 1444, is +octagonal, surmounted by a magnificent spire of open-work, remarkable for +its lightness and delicacy; on its apex is fixed a table of stone, twelve +feet in circumference, and on this stone a globe of copper, supporting a +colossal figure of S. Michael trampling on the devil, thirteen feet high, +made of a number of thin plates of copper-gilt, in 1454, which serves as a +weathercock, and turns with the least breath of wind. There is a shocking +tradition, currently reported, but not positively confirmed, that the +architect of the beautiful tower hung himself on its completion, because +he had not placed it exactly in the centre of the facade; which certainly +did not remedy the evil, as putting himself out of the world did not put +the tower in the right place. + +The first story of the Hotel de Ville contains a gallery in which are +magnificent full-length portraits of Philippe le Beau, Charles V., Philip +II., Albert and Isabella, and other dignitaries; the council-room, +audience-chamber, and all the other apartments are splendidly ornamented, +the walls hung with Gobelin tapestry, representing scenes in the life of +Clovis and Clotilda. The ceiling of the council-chamber is a masterpiece +of Janssens, in which the most extraordinary effects of light and shade +are produced; it represents an assembly of the gods, and their majesties +vary in their positions as they are seen from different points. + +The remainder of the Grande Place is lined with venerable old houses, +terminating in fantastic gables, most of which were originally the halls +of various guilds and corporations; their facades pierced with numerous +odd little windows and covered with quaint designs, bas-reliefs, +pilasters, balustrades, and inscriptions; some of the houses are gilded, +which adds to the picturesque appearance of the place, and on the summit +of the Brewers' Guild is a fine equestrian statue of Prince Charles of +Lorraine--the good prince, as he is still affectionately called. In +mediaeval times, the Grande Place was the ordinary scene of tournaments and +executions; here the Knights of the Golden Fleece held their brilliant +_reunions_, and Philip l'Asseure and Charles V. gave splendid fetes, which +in the reign of Philip II. were succeeded by very different scenes, under +the stern rule of the Duc d'Albe. + +Just behind the Hotel de Ville, at the corner of the Rue du Chene and the +Rue de l'Etuve, is the beloved little statue of the "Premier Bourgeois de +Bruxelles." The present bronze statue, after a model by Duquesnoy, was +made in 1619, and this replaced an old stone statue which is said to have +existed in the IXth century. Its origin is not known, but the favorite +tradition is that it represents a youthful Duc de Brabant, whose father +dying left him an infant of three years under the regency of his mother, +the Duchesse Lutgarde. The neighboring Comte de Malines coveted the fair +inheritance, declared war against the boy-duc, and approached Brussels, +determined to take it by force of arms. The Brabancons flew to defend the +rightful heir, and, when the decisive day arrived, they besought the +duchesse to let them carry the little fellow in his cradle, and suspend it +from a great oak-tree that overlooked the battle-field. The duchesse in +tears consented, accompanied them to the field of Ransbeek, and remained +by the tree, from the highest branch of which the cradle was suspended. + +The battle raged with fury; three times the Brabancons were driven back to +the tree, but the sight of the brave little boy, who looked on with +intense interest, never exhibiting fear or impatience, spurred them on to +fresh efforts; at last the day was won, and the cradle carried back in +triumph to Brussels, the duchesse radiant with joy. To commemorate the +event, the oak-tree was transplanted to Brussels, placed at the corner of +a street, since then called Rue du Chene, and the statue erected at its +side; in the course of time, the tree has disappeared, but the statue +remains, the object of undying love and interest. To steal it is +considered an impossibility; in 1585, he was seized and carried off to +Antwerp, but was speedily recaptured and brought home in triumph by a +small party of Bruxellois; again he was taken away in a baggage-wagon by +the English troops after the battle of Fontenoy, and, on being recovered, +was allowed for a short time to delight by his presence the inhabitants of +Grammont, until he was reclaimed by the Bruxellois. In 1747, he was stolen +by some soldiers of Louis XV., and again a few years later by two English +soldiers, who, however, found him too heavy to carry away; the last time +he was disturbed was in 1817, but the same good fortune attended him, and +he was again recovered, to the great joy of the Bruxellois, who look upon +him as the good genius of the city, and consider his loss a public +calamity. + +In the XVIth century, Louvain and Brussels gave him two splendid dresses +for fete-days; Charles V. presented him with a complete suit, and settled +a pension on him. In 1698, the Elector of Bavaria not only gave him a +uniform, but invested him with a military order, and appointed a valet-de- +chambre to wait on him. Peter the Great visited him, and added to his +pension. In 1747, Louis XV. made him a knight, and solemnly decorated him +with the Order of S. Louis, at the same time presenting him with a suit of +gold-laced uniform, a _chapeau-bros_, and a sword; and in 1780 he was the +first who wore the national cockade of Brabant, hence his present title, +"Le Premier Bourgeois de Bruxelles." + +On national fetes, and during the _Kermesse_ in July, he is always dressed +in the uniform of the Garde Civique, which he has worn since 1830, his +numerous orders displayed on his infant breast. In addition to these +gifts, several persons have made him presents, while some have actually +remembered him in their wills. He thus possesses a positive revenue which +is regularly paid, a treasurer who is responsible for his disbursements, a +lawyer, and a valet-de-chambre; and let any stranger beware of ever +speaking disrespectfully or slightingly to any Bruxellois of the "Premier +Bourgeois de Bruxelles"! + +Brussels abounds in charitable institutions and convents of every order; +some are peculiar to the place. There is but one house in the world of the +"Dames de Berlaimont"--an order of canonesses who follow the rule of S. +Augustine--and it was founded by the Comtesse de Berlaimont, whose husband +was one of the great officers of the court of Charles V. It is eminently +aristocratic in its design. Any number of quarterings was required for the +fair candidates in the palmy days of the old regime, but ideas have been +modified by the wheel of the revolution, and now, if the head and heart +are right, whether the blood is more or less blue is not strictly +considered. The convent is splendid, the canonesses charming, and the +education received by the young ladies under their charge leaves nothing +to be desired. + +Convents of Poor Clares are now few and far between; one is still found in +Brussels. The rule is very strict--the strictest, we believe, for women in +the world, not even excepting those of the Trappistines and Carmelites. It +is forbidden to see strangers, but the superioress graciously relented in +our favor, drew aside the heavy serge curtain behind double iron grilles +armed with spikes, and told us we could look at her, but not speak. This +announcement was made before the curtain was drawn. We kept profound +silence, and for a few moments contemplated the figure, that stood +motionless and speechless. What could have carried her there, from family, +from home with all its charms? At the moment of solemn choice, the world +enters but little into the thoughts: it is the strong ties that God and +nature have implanted in the human heart that are the hardest to unloose. + +She had left all for the rigid rule, for the self-denying life, of a Poor +Clare; the happy unbroken sleep of youth for the broken night of prayer +and meditation; and, when sleeping, not even to lie down, but to sit half- +upright; to go barefooted, never to touch meat, never to speak--only +imagine it, a woman, and never to speak!--never to her fellow-beings--ever +to God. It was for him she had left home and friends, to find her eternal +home and the never-failing Friend; to be thirteen hours a day in prayer +and adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, to expiate by her life the +sins of the world around her. It is a wonderful life, a supernatural life; +but, when truly desired, supernatural grace is given to lead it +courageously to the grave. + +The oldest church in Brussels is Notre Dame de la Chapelle, in the Rue +Haute, which derives its name from having been at first a simple oratory +in which the great S. Boniface, the apostle of Germany, had said Mass. The +style is Gothic, and recently the choir, which is very fine, has been +restored; it had been disfigured by an atrocious high altar in the style +of the Renaissance; but in this reign of good taste it was decided to +remove it, and in making the changes it was found there was a false wall, +which, on being destroyed, disclosed the beautiful circle of the apse, +which is remarkable for having the presbyterium and the credence-table cut +in the wall, something that has only been found in two other churches--one +in France, another in Germany. + +Notre Dame des Victoires--or Notre Dame du Sablon, as it is more generally +called from its situation on the Place du Petit Sablon--is in the form of a +Latin cross, with a polygonal apse to the choir. The Place du Petit Sablon +during several centuries was the favorite residence of the aristocracy, +and is yet surrounded by the Hotel de Merode, and the palace of the Duc +d'Aremberg, which was formerly occupied by Comte d'Egmont. Consequently in +this church the monuments are very fine, especially the mortuary chapel of +the Princes of Tour and Taxis, in which is an exquisite statue of S. +Ursula, by Duquesnoy, and the tombs of the De Hornes, d'Egmonts, and De +Chimay. + +The beautiful collegiate church of SS. Michel and Gudule is built on a +height formerly called Mont St. Michel, and its great towers dominate the +city, and can be seen from every point. Its plan is cruciform. The choir +is entirely surrounded by chapels, from which it is separated by double +rows of columns; on one side is the Chapel du Saint-Sacrement de Miracle, +on the other the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin, behind that of S. Mary +Magdalen. It is a magnificent church, one of the richest in Belgium, and +the vestments and appointments are superb. The laces are a treasure in +themselves--laces which now cannot be bought, are used in the sanctuary, +and the vestments and antependiums are of corresponding magnificence. One +antependium, which is the Lamb surrounded by the symbols of the four +evangelists, is considered the finest piece of embroidery in Belgium. + +But the glory of S. Gudule is not the gold, and silver, and lace, but the +Tres-Saint-Sacrement de Miracle, which is there preserved, and which is +the object of the profoundest love and veneration. For it did Charles V. +build the exquisite chapel whose four splendid windows were presents from +his sisters, the Queens of Portugal and Hungary, his brother Ferdinand, +King of the Romans, and Francis I. of France. Sovereigns, princes, nobles, +and people for five hundred years have adored the sacred Body of our Lord, +so cruelly profaned and outraged by the Jews, on Good Friday of 1370, who +on that day, the day of Redemption, assembled in their synagogue, and +stabbed the consecrated hosts stolen from S. Catherine's, and, when they +stabbed them, the blood which had flowed for them on Calvary, flowed again +beneath their sacrilegious hands. + +Day and night reparation is offered; the synagogue is now a _chapelle +expiatoire_, attached to which is a community for perpetual adoration, and +the Confrerie du Tres-Saint-Sacrement de Miracle, established in S. +Gudule, embraces thousands. The Duc d'Aremberg gave the monstrance, which +is a cross of diamonds, surmounted by a triple crown of diamonds, from +which hangs a little ship of the same precious stones, presented by the +captain and crew of a vessel, in gratitude for delivery from shipwreck. +Marie Antoinette sent her wedding necklace of diamonds to be suspended +around it, and the lamps around the sanctuary are kept burning by the +children of the family d'Aremberg. + +The great ornament of the nave is the pulpit, elaborately and exquisitely +carved in oak by Verbruggen in 1699, originally in the church of the +Jesuits, in Louvain, and, on the suppression of the Order, given to S. +Gudule by Maria Theresa, in 1776. The lower part represents the expulsion +of Adam and Eve from Paradise by the angel of the Lord, armed with a +flaming sword. On the left is seen Death gliding around with his dart. The +pulpit itself, in the hollow of the globe, is supported by the tree of +knowledge, crawling up which is the serpent, while on the extreme summit +stands the Blessed Virgin holding her divine Son, whom she is assisting to +bruise the serpent's head with a large cross. On either side the railing +of the steps is formed by a hedge in which numerous birds are enjoying +themselves; on the side of Adam are the eagle, the jay, and a monkey; +while in the vicinity of Eve are the peacock, the ape, and the parrot. + +And why these birds are there is the result of a little domestic +disagreement between the artist Henri Verbruggen and his wife Martha Van +Meeren, whom he married, hoping to find a tenth muse, but who only proved +a prosaic everyday somebody, who fretted herself to death because Henri +loved pleasure even more than art, and, while amusing himself with his +friends, forgot there was no money in the house, nothing in the larder, +nothing wherewith to dress Mme. and Mlle. Verbruggen. Poor Martha, who +loved order, and would have been the treasure of some honest burgher, only +provoked and irritated Henri by her occasional plain statement of facts. +Affairs were in this sad condition when the Jesuits of Louvain, knowing +the splendid talent of Verbruggen, ordered a pulpit for their church. The +artist was enchanted. Here was a field for his genius; he immediately +conceived an admirable work, which should contain, as in a book, the whole +history of the Christian religion. + +Said he, "I will make a globe, which will represent the earth, under which +I will place Adam and Eve, the moment after their fatal disobedience, +which entailed on us such misery. This globe will be the pulpit, the +canopy of heaven will cover it, the tree of knowledge will overshadow it, +around which will creep the serpent, and above, Mary, crowned with stars, +the moon at her feet, her infant Son before her, will bruise the serpent's +head with the cross. By the side of the man I will place the cherubim with +the flaming sword; near the woman, young and beautiful, hideous death--that +will be a contrast!" + +The artist commenced his work with ardor. The wood grew animated beneath +his fingers. But pleasure for ever distracted him; the more people +admired, the more he amused himself. Martha was miserable; she could see +no hope of order and plenty. Irritated by the complaints of his wife, +Verbruggen determined to revenge himself in his _chef-d'oeuvre_, and so +perpetuate his vengeance. He was making the stairs of the pulpit. In his +angry malice, Verbruggen thought he would punish Martha by placing +satirical emblems to characterize women. On the staircase, by the side of +Eve, who has just sinned, and who still holds the apple, he placed, as +symbols, a peacock for pride, a squirrel for destructiveness, a cock for +noise, an ape for malice--four defects of which poor Martha was totally +innocent. + +Man he made with pleasure. On his side he placed, first, an eagle, to +typify genius--but just then Martha bade adieu to the world and her +troubles, and Verbruggen was a happy widower. Too late, the sculptor +understood his loss; the gentle, patient wife was gone, and now he only +remembered her good qualities; his courage and energy forsook him; he +could not work. Months rolled on; his friends pitied him, and tried to +rouse him from his deep despondency. + +"You weep for Martha," said they; "there are others as good; you are only +thirty-six--marry Cecile Byns. She is joyous and lively like you. She will +be a mother to your daughter, a charming companion for you." + +Verbruggen listened to the good advice; he asked the hand of Cecile Byns, +who was one of those women that rule while laughing, that carry the point +while appearing to submit. Cecile knew her power over Verbruggen, and made +him obey. + +"I love you," said she, "but I will not marry you until the work which +will make me proud of the name of Verbruggen is finished." + +"Only say the word," replied Henri, "and I will complete it." + +Accompanied by her mother, she visited his _atelier_. She asked the +explanation of the emblems he had placed on the side of Eve. The sculptor +blushed. + +"When I made what astonishes you," he stammered, "I did not know Cecile +Byns." + +"Very well," replied the young lady; "but after the symbols of our +defects, which perhaps we have not, how do you intend to designate your +own noble sex?" + +"I had just commenced," he answered, blushing redder than before. "You +already see the eagle, perhaps it typifies vanity." + +"Not at all," interrupted Cecile. "The eagle is a bird of prey, an emblem +of brutal tyranny. What do you intend adding?" + +Verbruggen was silent. Cecile continued: "To be just to men, as you +fancied you were towards us, you will place near the eagle a fox, a symbol +of vain gossip; a monkey eating grapes, for drunkenness; a jay, for +foolish pride. You must avow, my dear Verbruggen, these defects belong to +men as much as the faults you have given to us, and which adorn the other +staircase. And now, when this great work is completed, I will accompany +you to the altar." + +The sculptor did not reply. He obeyed, fulfilled faithfully the orders +given, and received for reward the hand of Cecile Byns; since which happy +event he was never known to offer any further insult to the devout female +sex. + +And so the pulpit was finished and placed in the church of the Jesuits in +Louvain, where it was the object of universal admiration, as it still +continues to be in beautiful S. Gudule the pride and joy of Brussels. + + + + +Sayings Of S. John Climacus. + + +It is better to displease our relatives than displease God. + +Obedience is simply going about anything without any judgment of our own. + +Let your conscience be the mirror in which you behold the nature of your +obedience. + +A new wound is easily closed and healed; but the old wounds of the soul +are cured, if ever, with great difficulty. + +He is truly virtuous who expects his death every day; but he is a saint +who desires it every hour. + + + + +Marriage In The Nineteenth Century. + + + "Heaven and earth shall pass, but my words shall not pass."--Matt. + xxiv. 35. + + +It is only truth that is immutable in this world, and only truth's +representative that dare speak to-day the same language it spoke eighteen, +twelve, or three centuries ago. + +Truth cannot progress, for it partakes of the nature of God's perfection; +it is not an ideal of our own evolving, susceptible of improvement as our +knowledge grows wider, but a type towards which we are, on the contrary, +making slow stages of assimilation. Of all individual parts of truth, +hardly one of which remains in our day unassailed, none is so fiercely +attacked as the truth about marriage. And yet, as we have shown in a +previous paper,(232) almost every argument against it has repeatedly been +put forward by barbarians and Romans, Byzantine emperors and feudal +chiefs, and borne out by all the imposing display of military force, legal +servility, and even ecclesiastical truculence. One might almost say of the +agitation against marriage in our day, "What has been will be, and what +will be has been." If it is no longer in the individual passions of kings +and nobles that the conflict centres, it is still a "sovereign" who plays +the part of Philip Augustus or Henry VIII.--the "sovereign people." Instead +of one mighty colossus, it is a legion of personally obscure individuals +which the church finds opposed to her; but the principle is the same, the +issue is identical. What councils and embassies did formerly is now done +oftener and in privacy; new agencies have widened the possibilities of +communication, of discussion, and of adjustment, and causes are more +rapidly multiplied, as well as more speedily settled. The press has lent +its power to the altar, and redeemed, in part, its too well-earned +reputation as a pander and a tempter; and besides these new helps, we +have, as of old, all those oft-tried resources of personal eloquence, +canonical censures, and grievous penances. + +Still the question is exactly the same in the nineteenth as it was in all +preceding centuries: Shall passion or reason rule mankind? Shall the most +sacred of all rights of property be protected and maintained, or shall +communism be allowed gradually to extirpate the human race? + +The historian Rohrbacher, whom we have often quoted in the paper referred +to above, specially insists upon the confusion which the legalized +disruption or total disregard of the marriage vow would introduce into +society, and supports his opinion by that of De Maistre. He also adduces +the argument that, since the creation of man in the earthly Paradise was a +perfect and complete act, and only one woman was there joined to one man, +therefore the union of one man and one woman was distinctly God's type of +what he meant all future unions to be. We might speak of many Scripture +proofs of the original institution of marriage being a state of perpetual +monogamy until death, but such proofs would involve too lengthy a sketch +of _one_ portion of the subject, and this aspect has been so often +discussed that we turn with a feeling of relief to any less hackneyed view +of the question. + +Speaking broadly, we may say that the Hebrews were the first, as they were +for a long time the only, people whose laws protected both the honor and +the property of women. Because they did so, they were also most stringent +as regards the tie of marriage. Again, with them ancestry and descent were +of paramount importance, and every family jealously guarded its record and +registers; this also implied a strict protection of marriage, and, in +fact, would have been impossible without it. Even when dispensations were +allowed the Jews "because of the hardness of their hearts," the son of the +first wife was not to be put aside for the son of the second, if the +latter were more pleasing to her husband than the former, and this because +the sacred rights acquired at her betrothal were absolutely +inalienable.(233) In the marriages mentioned in the Old Testament, the +consent of the woman is always formally asked,(234) and she is considered +competent to inherit property and transfer it to her husband.(235) + +Among other nations of antiquity, the more truth was obscured in their +religious forms, the more degraded became their ideal of marriage. This is +patent even among such civilized nations as the Greeks and Romans; the +whole of mythology is a deification of the passion of lust, and a +caricature on marriage. Still, where greater genius abounds, there also we +find glimpses of a higher morality. For instance, in Homer's magnificent +poems, conjugal love and fidelity stand out nobly as the themes of his +especial admiration. It would require a thorough examination of many of +the passages of the _Iliad_, and greater space than we have now before us +(since this idea can only be used here as a collateral one), to bring out +the full force of this striking fact, and some day perhaps it may be our +good fortune to return to this topic; suffice it to say at present, that +any one who reads Homer attentively will be struck by the majestic +attitude of Juno, the constant protectress of the Greeks, and by the +hearty sympathy shown by the poet in a struggle undertaken purely to +vindicate the dignity of marriage and the rights of hospitality. This is +perhaps even more obvious from the fact that even the good personages of +the poem, the self-sacrificing and devoted Andromache, the noble Hector, +the infirm and guiltless Priam, are all included in the sweeping +misfortune which is the swift and just retribution of the cowardly rape of +Helen. The vindication of the principle of marriage is evident, while in +the _Odyssey_ its glorification is even more obvious. This illustration, +for which we have to thank a very zealous and learned religious whose +kindness put the suggestion entirely at our own disposal, is one which it +is worth while for thoughtful persons to consider, as it gives a far +greater moral importance, and consequently a more perfect artistic +interest, to one of the few colossi of the intellectual world. + +The law of Jesus Christ succeeded the preparatory dispensation of Moses, +and perfected all its enactments, marriage among the rest. It gave the +marriage contract an added dignity by making it the image of the +union--single and indivisible--of Christ and the church, and by elevating it +into a sacrament; in other words, a means of sanctifying and special +grace. In this is certainly the secret of the church's inflexibility with +regard to marriage. Since by it a distinct and sacramental grace was +vouchsafed, it followed that this grace in itself was sufficient to enable +the contracting parties, provided they faithfully corresponded to it, to +remain holily in the state of matrimony until death; so that, whenever any +serious breach took place between them, the church could reasonably argue +that the fault lay with their dispositions, not with the contract itself. +In the old law, marriage, though holy, was not a sacrament, and was +susceptible of greater relaxations; but in the new law, with a higher +dignity added to it, and more abundant grace attached to it, it is too +strong to need concessions and too noble to wish for them. + +The Hebrews also, in propagating their own race, used the only means then +in their power of propagating the knowledge of the true God; but in the +new dispensation we have substituted a generation according to the spirit +for the previous generation according to the flesh. Polygamous marriages +among the Jews were a mysterious channel provisionally used for the +increase and maintenance of God's worship upon earth; but, since the +coming of Christ, men have been won by the Word of God, the preaching of +his servants, the sufferings of his martyrs, and the learning of his +disciples. Those who are now constantly born into his fold are born "not +of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of +God."(236) Having said so much upon the historical and Scriptural aspect +of marriage, we leave it to others to dispute the particular meaning of +such and such texts, and the particular inferences to be drawn from the +context, and go back to the church's firm stand upon this matter. + +Not only has she been the foremost champion of the integrity of marriage +in past ages, but she is now almost its only one. No body of such force or +numbers exists in the world, which alone gives her the priority among the +upholders of Christian marriage; and when the tenets of the few other +bodies to whom marriage is sacred are examined, they will be found to be +inspired and created by her principles, so far as they refer to this +matter. + +Of the Anglican communion, especially in its more advanced branches, it is +sufficient to say that, having better than any other body preserved the +forms, it has as its reward attained to more of the spirit, of a "church," +and consequently inculcates a higher morality. But the following +testimony, which, from the name of the sheet furnishing it (the _Reformed +Missionary_), we suppose represents some other Protestant body, is more +interesting because more unexpected. A Catholic paper of Nov. 16, 1872, +the _Standard_, has preserved this testimony for us. Under the title of +"The Divorce Question Again," it discusses church authority and its +relation to the civil law, and uses the following strong language: +"Spiritual interests and spiritual _discipline_ belong to that +supernatural order of grace which has its home in the bosom of the +Christian church.... There are many things besides loose divorce +legislation which the state either tolerates or legalizes, but which the +church cannot sanction or countenance for a single instant without +committing spiritual suicide. And if the state should expressly dictate to +the church a line of action at variance with the plain teaching of Christ, +then it would be our _solemn duty_ to obey God rather than men.... The +_church must interpret God's Word_, and exercise spiritual discipline in +accordance therewith, no _matter what course the state may take_ in +disposing of kindred questions. As Dr. Woolsey has expressed it: +'_Whatever be the attitude_ of the state, the church _must stand_ upon the +principles of the New Testament as she expounds them, and apply them to +all within her reach!' " + +What is here said of the "state" may be applied to the people, the press, +popular license, and all the modern agencies which the evil one has added +to his former royal and learned tools. But if among earnest though +mistaken Christians we find such auxiliaries as the _Reformed Missionary_ +and the eloquent sermons of Anglican divines,(237) we have also to +encounter such authorities as the following on the side of passion and +licentiousness: "Dr. Colenso, embarrassed by the obstinate adherence to +polygamy which he observed among the Kaffirs, came to the resolution, +after conference, it is said, with other Anglican authorities of the +highest rank, to remove the difficulty by a process which, though adopted +in a well-known case by Luther and Melancthon, had not previously received +the official sanction of Anglican bishops. As polygamy would not yield to +Protestantism, Dr. Colenso agreed to consider polygamy 'a Scriptural mode +of existence.' Here are his own words: 'I must confess that I feel very +strongly that the usual practice of enforcing the separation of wives from +their husbands, upon their conversion to Christianity, is quite +unwarrantable, and _opposed to the plain teaching of our Lord_.' And then +he proves, of course from the Bible, that polygamy is not inconsistent +with the all-holy religion of the Gospel. Here is the _proof_: 'What is +the use,' he asks, 'of our reading to them (the heathen) the Bible stories +of Abraham, Israel, and David, with _their_ many wives?' But Dr. Colenso +was not without support in his view on polygamy. 'The whole body of +American missionaries in Burmah,' he observes, '_after some difference of +opinion_, came to the unanimous decision to admit in future polygamists of +old standing to communion, but not to offices in the church (as if the +last were a greater privilege than the first!)' 'I must say,' he +continues, 'that this appears to me the only right and reasonable +course!' " + +At the beginning of this extract, we read that Dr. Colenso was +_embarrassed by the obstinate adherence to polygamy_ among the Kaffirs. +This means, we infer, that he had originally withstood this heathen +practice. Why had he done so? If he believed it sufficiently immoral to +attack it, he was guilty of violating his conscience in ceasing his +attack; if he had always believed it "Scriptural" or allowable, he was +guilty of hypocrisy in attacking it at all. Then, when he asks, "What is +the use of our reading to them the Bible stories of Abraham, Israel, and +David, with _their_ many wives?" he gives us unconsciously another +advantage by tacitly confessing the necessity of a divinely inspired +interpreter of the Bible. If Dr. Colenso had been a Catholic, the +difficulty would not have existed. Does he suppose that Catholic converts +among savage nations do not hear the same stories? But in their case, a +teaching and speaking church comes to their rescue, and explains what +otherwise would seem dark. It is strange to hear a Protestant Christian, +bred up on the rule of "the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the +Bible," hesitate as to the effect of certain stories in the Bible. If the +poor Kaffirs were to be evangelized upon the principle that a Bible +precedent was practically a permission for all time, they would soon have +Judiths and Jaels among them, as well as Abrahams, Israels, and Davids. + +In the _Times_ (London) of Dec. 20, 1872, on the occasion of a public "Day +of Intercession" for more missionaries, we read the following stringent +criticism upon the body which of all others most nearly approaches the +ideal of a church: "The Church of England," says the _Times_, "utterly +abandons large regions on the ground that in tropical climes there will be +polygamy or an equivalent disregard of the marriage ties, and that no +preaching can prevail against it"--a confession of powerlessness which +quite coincides with what we have said of Dr. Colenso. Still it is not +fair to class the Anglican communion, despite this weak shrinking from a +difficult task, with the more systematic deserters from the championship +of duty; but, if we are grieved and astonished at her defection under +certain circumstances, what shall we say of the following breach of +ecclesiastical discipline on the part of those whose very names argue in +this case a departure from the path of known duty? In the New York _World_ +of the 5th of January, 1873, we read among the announcements of business +transacted in the mayor's office the previous day this startling +disclosure: "During the day the mayor was waited upon by a wedding-party, +the principals of which were Michael M'Clannahan and Mary Donovan, who +wished to be united in matrimony without going to the trouble of getting +up a public church celebration. Mr. H---- performed the duty according to +the statute, and the bride and bridegroom went on their way rejoicing." + +It is not for us to judge these persons, nor speculate upon the motives +that led them to take such a step; but the occurrence is nevertheless a +sign of the demoralization which is every day on the increase among our +people. + +Polygamy, under the name of Mormonism, is still tolerated and protected in +the United States, and the annals of divorce in the states where Mormonism +is illegal quite make up the deficiency. In Connecticut, according to the +deposition of the Rev. Dr. Woolsey, President of Yale College, made before +the Western Social Science Congress in Chicago, the ratio of divorce is +one in every _eight_ marriages. We were told by a distinguished New +England convert that the Vermont marriage law was practically so lax that +the following "cause" for a divorce was considered legal: A couple, not +very long married, mutually wished for a separation, simply on the score +that they were dissatisfied with their bargain. They went to a lawyer to +ascertain the technicalities of the case, and were told--appearances having +to be saved!--that some specific cause must be alleged. The easiest was +cruelty. But the parties had never been violent; so the lawyer suggested +that the husband should, in his presence, give his wife a "blow." This was +soon accomplished by a light slap on the cheek of the willing "victim"; +cruelty was pleaded, and the divorce obtained. + +In Rhode Island, the proportion of divorces to marriages in 1869 was one +to fourteen, and the law of that state leaves it practically to the +discretion of the courts to annul any ill-assorted marriage on the ground +of uncongenial temper, desertion, drunkenness, or any sort of bad conduct. +In that year, out of 166 divorces, only 66 were granted on the plea of +adultery, while it must also be borne in mind that this grave charge is +often unjustly and maliciously made to cover some shameful behavior on the +part of the plaintiff, or to gratify his or her revenge. Speaking of a +clergyman who was reported to have married one man successively to five +wives, all of whom were living at the same time, a Protestant paper +comments thus on the story: "It may be true or false. _It is not +altogether improbable._ It suggests very serious reflections, as +indicating what is possible under our laws, and the course things are +taking in American society." The paper goes on to speak of the clergyman's +responsibility in such a case, and although advocating the desirability, +"for many reasons," of the office of solemnizing marriage being "confined +_almost entirely_ to ministers of the Gospel," does not see that it +stultifies itself directly after by explaining that "the trust is reposed +in them, _not by any right to it on their part, as holding an +ecclesiastical office_, but on account of their position and general +character(!). They are able to guard marriage, and _give it_ a religious +character and sanction. But they act, so far as the law goes, simply as +civil magistrates." + +And let us add that here is precisely the evil, and that as long as +clergymen are lowered to the level of magistrates, loose morals will never +be uprooted. + +The _Nation_ of March 2, 1871, has the following: + + + "We cut from the marriage notices of the _Philadelphia Press_ the + following illustration, omitting names, of the way in which + attempts to reduce human marriages to the level of those of the + lower animals are dressed up in fine language: + + " 'In Philadelphia, February 23, S---- and S----, the parties + protesting against all marriage laws, whether legal or + conventional, which subject either the wife or the husband to any + control or influence on the part of the other which is not in + accordance with the dictates of pure and mutual love.' + + "This is, of course, simple 'pairing.' Marriage means the + assumption by a moral agent of an obligation to perform certain + duties, even after they become disagreeable. The arrangement by + which the parties live together as long as they find it thoroughly + pleasant is that common among birds, beasts, and fishes, and has + nothing human about it." + + +The _Independent_, a Protestant religious paper, sneers at all barriers to +divorce, Catholic, Protestant, or civil, as "shallow," and declares that +"no matter with what solemn ceremony the twain may have been made one, yet +when love departs, then _marriage ceases_ and divorce begins." + +A certain unhappy section of those waifs of womanhood, the advocates of +woman's rights, is known as the champion of "free-love," that is, in plain +words, adultery. Mrs. Stanton, one of the leaders, has said somewhere that +"marriage is but a partnership contract terminable at the will of the +parties," and has advocated marriages for three years. + +To this last proposition we have only one objection. Why _three_ years? If +a marriage is based on mere passion, three _months_ or six at the furthest +would be enough to exhaust the cohesive element, for if the adage be true +that "_no man is a hero to his valet_," it is equally certain that no man +and woman could by any human possibility live together for that time in +the familiar intercourse implied by marriage, without discovering to each +other certain asperities of temper, inequalities of disposition, in short, +all the little meannesses of our poor human nature. This disenchantment, +following the close and daily companionship that is almost inevitable in +married life, is enough to kill passion, though it cannot even daunt +principle. Again, in a marriage based on passion, the satiety that follows +in the train of unlawful love would be reproduced, and would break up the +connection in far less than three years. In fact, when we come to sift the +question, we find that, putting aside the religious spirit presiding over +marriage, that state of life has no appreciable sign to distinguish it +from the score of illicit connections punished by law or branded by +society. We find here almost a parallel to the question lately agitated in +England among Episcopalians, as to the reason why the Church of England +should be called a "church," and not, like all other independent +Protestant bodies, a "sect." We ask, What is to distinguish such a +"marriage" as our modern reformers advocate from the "_liaisons_" at which +society pretends to be so virtuously shocked? Where is the intrinsic +difference between a woman who sells her honor to many men at once and one +who surrenders it to a single man at a time for just that period during +which pleasure shall keep her constant to him? + +Another form of attack upon the sanctity of marriage is the trade of the +great journals in daily advertisements such as these, which meet our eyes +every morning: + + + "Absolute divorces legally obtained in different states. + Desertion, etc., sufficient cause. No publicity. No charge until + divorce is obtained. Advice free. + + ----, _Attorney_, ---- Broadway." + + +Or, with slight variations, thus: + + + "Also Commissioner for every State. + + ----, _Counsellor-at-Law_, + ---- Broadway." + + +Here we see the press and the law conspiring to lend aid--and, more than +that, encouragement--to the loosest and most devastating of passions. Then, +again, the tone of the newspapers with regard to moral irregularities is a +painful sign of the times. Thus we read in a great "daily": + + + "Out West they call divorces 'escapes.' A speedy and safe 'escape' + is guaranteed for a very low figure, and, _as usual_, a great many + parties figure for it." + + +There is a levity about such remarks that is saddening, when taken in +connection with the future of a great people. + +The morbid curiosity of the public is thus excited under the convenient +plea of satisfying it, while, with regard to the institution of marriage +itself, the saying is exemplified, "Give a dog a bad name, and then shoot +him." Marriage is ridiculed, conjugal affection put down as antiquated, +home-lovingness pitied as old-fashioned, family reunions voted dull, and, +as a natural consequence, youth is more or less alienated from the +unfashionable circle. It is easy, then, to turn on marriage as a +principle, remove the stumbling-block altogether, paint in seductive +colors a substitute for home, and familiarize the public with so-called +legal but transient unions. Once this principle is established in the +abstract, it will be merely a question of time as to its practical +extension. Granted that a man or woman may change companions as often as +they choose, who is to regulate _how_ often? Like the husband of +Scheherazade in the _Arabian Nights_, every day? Why not? Again, if one +man may have many "wives," why should not a woman have many "husbands"? +And so on _ad infinitum_ the license might spread unchecked, till there +would be as many conflicting interpretations of marriage as there are +already of the Bible. Absolute communism would be quite a logical +sequence, and, in a society so utterly confused as to parentage, there +could be little question as to inheritance! + +Christian marriage, on the contrary, has both a social and a sanitary, as +well as a religious aspect. It creates a strong and healthy race, and at +the very outset of each man's career gives him a position by investing him +with a responsibility. He feels that the pride which his old father and +mother have in him must not be shamed; that the honor of his family is +bound up in his actions; and that his behavior may influence for good or +for evil both the moral and temporal prospects of his near kindred. A man +so weighted feels a just pride, which, in default of higher motives, may +even yet guide him into greatness; and though such a man may yield to +temptation, fall into vice, and disgrace himself, so much at least of his +early training will survive as to make him feel keenly the shame of his +position. This alone has saved hundreds. It has been the serpent in the +wilderness to many, but it would no longer be an imaginable motive were +the ideal of Christian marriage, with its attendant responsibilities, to +be swept away. There is another aspect under which the frequency of +divorce and the condoned irregularities of intercourse between the sexes +are a constant threat to public security--we mean in provoking murder. +Three parts of the fearful murders committed in New York, and also in many +other parts of the Union, are traceable more or less to ill-assorted +marriages and a spirit of unchristian rebellion against lawful restraints. +Lately there has been a glaring case in point, the details of which are +fresh in the memory of every one. A man is deliberately shot dead on the +very threshold of what is practically a "Divorce Court"; the murderer is a +brutal husband incensed at the victim's testimony against himself. In +1872, three of the most famous New York "characters" figured in a terrible +drama ending in death, imprisonment, and disgrace. What was the reason +that set two of the most unscrupulous speculators in the world at deadly +enmity? The disputed favor of a woman who, according to the new code, only +asserts her rights, and claims to change "husbands" as often as she +pleases. God help the age and nation in which such things are daily done, +and where animal passion laughs in the teeth of law! Who does not see how +every right and security hangs by the sanctity of marriage? Marriage, in +the proper sense of the word, implies exclusive and permanent possession, +and represents the first and greatest right of property. If that property +is to be made movable, salable, _takable_, in a word, why not other less +sacred and less valuable property also? "Property is theft," say the +socialists, and certainly it is, if we can previously agree to consider +marriage so. If all kinds of possessions (life itself included) are to be +thus transferable, every individual will be reduced to protect them +single-handed against the world, and from this state of things will grow a +monster system of organized murder and legalized rapine. The early +Californian society would be nothing to this imaginary community. + +In France, Italy, and Spain, the infamous laws not only encouraging but +actually enforcing _civil_ marriage are sapping the foundations of +society; and in England, a country hitherto held as a model for its +conjugal and homely tendencies, the tenets of "free-love" are making giant +inroads into social life, and leavening the mass of everyday literature. +Bigamy and divorce are almost worn-out sensations; they have supplied the +ablest pens with thrilling subjects, and have furnished the best theatres +with the only dramas that really "take." Something new and more monstrous +yet is needed, and the prurient imagination that shall first succeed in +originating a new version of social sin will become the power of the +moment. + +Such is the present situation. We do not know if there ever has been a +worse stage of immorality, except, perhaps, that before the Flood; for at +all times of unparalleled license there have been some extenuating +circumstances, of which we are afraid we must own ourselves bereft. In the +beginning of the Christian era, license was confined to pagans; for in the +tottering Roman Empire the Christians were all soldiers of the cross, and +their watch for the Bridegroom was too eager to allow them time for +temptation; in the transition state that followed, the church's power +already made itself felt, and though barbarian kings still defied their +pastors, the latter had at hand ecclesiastical terrors that seldom failed +in the end to subdue the half-converted Goth or Lombard. In the days of +the ill-starred Renaissance, when a spirit of neo-classicism threatened +once more to deify sin under the garb of art, the Council of Trent sat in +solemn judgment, and condemned abuses which had unhappily paved an easy +way for heresy: while later on, even in the days of the wicked and +brilliant court of Versailles, there was found a Bourdaloue to rebuke the +public sinners who sat in the high places, and to eulogize Christian +marriage in the midst of a gathering which seemed to have utterly +forgotten its meaning. + +Faith still lingered--the faith that made the middle ages what they +were--that faith that condemned public sin to as public a penance, and out +of great excesses drew great examples. Louise de la Valliere was almost +the last representative of this mediaeval spirit of generous atonement; and +her heroic words, when told in her cloister of the death of her son, "I +should weep rather for his birth than for his death," were the genuine +outcome of a faith that could restore a prostitute to innocence, and place +upon a once guilty brow almost a virgin's crown. + +With Voltaire, the work that Luther had begun was perfected, and +henceforth it was not Europe that believed, but only a few scattered +exiles who here and there kept the lamp of the faith dimly alight in the +stifling atmosphere of universal and fashionable doubt. Even among +believers the spirit of ready sympathy, with the slightest indication of +the church's unspoken meaning was gone, and there remained only the too +self-conscious effort of unquestioning loyalty. Still, thank God! it did +and does remain, and, though shorn of all poetry, it is none the less +vigorous in self-defence. But we may now say that indeed the flood has +broken loose, the Philistines are upon us, the whole array of the world's +newest forces is brought to bear against us, and behind her dismantled +outposts the church retreats to her citadel, the naked Rock of Peter. Men +say that the Council of the Vatican was inopportune, presumptuous, and +imprudent; let the world's gracefully lapsing course be a living +refutation to such words. Every outward stay is gone; every difficulty in +the way of the reunion of pastors is trebled; every see is hedged about +with physical bars that are insurmountable; nothing remains free but what +cannot be fettered--the tongue. Who can wonder if the church, in this dire +emergency, delegates to one man the power she can no longer collectively +exercise in peace? As in old Flemish cities there sits up in the lonely +belfry of the cathedral a watcher whose duty it is to guard the city +against fire, and to warn the people through a brazen trumpet at which +spot he descries the first appearance of danger, so in the heart of the +City of God there sits now the watchman whose eye and voice are bound to +raise the alarm and direct the remedies through the length and breadth of +listening Christendom. + +The Council of the Vatican has made the word of the Pope the brazen +_tocsin_ of the Christian world. + +And now, having said so much of the possibilities opened up by the present +lax spirit in morals and equally lax interpretation of what remains in the +shape of legal restraints upon vice, let us speak of what Christian +marriage ought to be. We will be brief, for the position almost defines +itself. Of the indissolubility of marriage under all circumstances, even +in the case of one of the parties breaking the marriage vow, we will not +speak, nor even of the fidelity which marriage requires in every thought +and slightest intention. But we would insist upon that which ensures a +happy and holy union, namely, the preliminary motive. We have seen how bad +marriages and an unworthy idea of this state of life lead to shame, to +socialism, to violence, sometimes to a criminal ending in a common jail; +let us see now what leads to bad marriages themselves. Two motives there +are--one mercenary, and one sensual. We heard a very impressive Jesuit +preacher say a few years ago, in the pulpit of one of the most beautiful +and frequented churches in London, that to make a good marriage _both_ +prayer _and_ seemly preparation are necessary. Some parents, he said, in +their pious anxiety to leave all things to Providence, and to avoid that +solicitude for worldly things which the Gospel condemns, neglect to avail +themselves for their children of the allowable means and legitimate +opportunities of social life; but to these he would say, Remember the +words of Christ: "Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter +into the kingdom of heaven."(238) On the other hand, many parents sinned +far more grievously and--he was loth to say it--more frequently by +altogether leaving the Creator out of the question in the serious matter +of their children's settlement in life. Which of these two extremes is the +prominent one in this country? We need not answer the question. We know +too well how nine-tenths of those marriages are made which within a few +months or years are broken in the divorce courts, or otherwise dissolved +by a shameful _esclandre_. We know how wealth especially, position, +associations, beauty, and accomplishments all rank before moral worth in +what is called lightly but too truly the "marriage-market." We know how +marriage is looked forward to through girlhood, not as the assumption of a +sacred responsibility, but as the preliminary step to emancipation; we +know how it is heartlessly canvassed by men as an expensive but +advantageous luxury, its cost being in proportion to the social figure it +will enable them to make, but its essence of no deeper moral account to +them than the purchase of one trotter or the undertaking of one +speculation more or less. We do not say that there are no exceptions to +this rule--far from it; but that is just the point: however honorable these +cases are, the fact still remains that they _are_ exceptions. Again, where +the motive is not directly mercenary, it is often selfish; old men will +marry for mere comfort, physical luxury, and the regularity of a well- +appointed home--things which the presence of a handsome, thoughtful, and +tolerably intellectual woman alone can ensure; women no longer young, but +still hungering for the whirl of fashion, will marry unsuitably for the +sake of an assured position and means to continue the frivolous course of +their former lives; in fact, all shallow disguises of selfishness have +their representatives in the "marriage-market," from that of the +millionaire who wants a wife to sit at the head of his table and wear his +diamonds, to that of the day-laborer who wants one to cook his dinner, +mend his clothes, and eke out his week's earnings by her own hard work. +Marriages made in this spirit are unblest and always end badly: the +millionaire will divorce his wife, and the laborer murder his in a fit of +intoxication; the end is the same, the means differ only according as +natural temperament and habits of education diverge. + +How far otherwise with marriage in the true Scriptural, Christian sense of +the word! In poverty or in riches, alike sacred and full of dignity; +always conscious of its sacramental crown; ever mindful of its holy +ministry, the salvation of two souls, the ladder to heaven of two lives +that without it might have made shipwreck of their eternal interests! A +thing apart from the common unions of earth, different from a commercial +partnership, stronger than a political coalition, holier than even a +spontaneous friendship. A thing which, like the riddle of Samson, is +"sweetness out of strength," and whose grace is so sublime that in heaven +it can only find one transformation worthy of itself. "You err, not +knowing the power of God; for in the resurrection they shall neither marry +nor be married; but shall be as the angels of God in heaven."(239) We are +not told that the tie will be like brotherhood or like friendship; we are +left to infer that between husband and wife some more peculiar link will +exist hereafter than will be common to us all as children of the same +Father, and it is plainly foretold that this relation will be as that of +the angels towards each other. + +We have only to look into the gospels and the teachings of the Apostle of +the Gentiles to see by what means we may in the married state so sanctify +our lives as to deserve this heavenly transformation; we have only to read +the marriage-service to learn the plain, straightforward, but most solemn +duties, the performance of which will secure us spiritual peace and joy in +this life or the next. To use the sacrament worthily, we must come to it +with worthy preparation and steadfast intention, first as Christians +resolved never to perjure themselves before God, then as rational beings +willing to abide by whatever unforeseen consequences their deliberate vow +may entail in the future. For it is an idle pretext to allege that, if one +party breaks the engagement, the other is _de facto_ absolved from it. +Where in the formula, Catholic or Protestant, is this proviso? The only +qualifying sentence is this, "Until death do us part." How, then, can any +reasonable person interpret "death" to mean sin, incompatibility, or any +other incidental unpleasantness? We think that those who are so ready to +foist unwarrantable meanings on the plain and naked oath they have sworn +in full possession of their senses at the altar, would hardly be the +persons we should like to trust as men or women of unimpeachable honor in +the ordinary transactions of life. + +If mercenary motives are uppermost in the majority of marriages in this +age and in this nation, sensuality is none the less responsible for a +share of the misery attendant upon modern unions. We have already spoken +of the evil of marriages founded on passion, and of the shameful way in +which the colloquial adage, "Marry in haste, and repent at leisure," is +thus frequently illustrated. To this also the remedy lies in a serious +Christian spirit of preparation for marriage. The root of all evil +developments in the relations between the sexes lies in the early +education of the contracting parties, and it is here that the only radical +cure can be tried. The church bids her children be especially circumspect +at the juncture of marriage, but she also teaches them to reverence the +sacrament from childhood upward as a type of the union between herself and +her divine Spouse. If, as children, marriage appears to us in the shape of +the angel of home, watching over the existence it has created, and +dignifying the parental authority it has built up; if in youth the goal of +marriage is looked forward to as the _toga virilis_ of life, the reward of +a dutiful childhood, the ennobling badge of our enrolment among the +soldiers of the cross, then and only then will our country find in us +efficient citizens, earnest patriots, and reliable defenders. If among men +there is revived the chivalrous spirit of deference and forbearance +towards women which sealed the middle ages as a charmed cycle among all +divisions of time, and among women there is cultivated that generous and +true womanliness which made SS. Monica and Paula, and Blanche of Castille, +the typical heroines of the wedded state, then may we expect to see "a new +heaven and a new earth." Marriage means reverence for each other on the +part of the persons married, as representing in themselves the sacrament +typical of Christ's union with the church; it means reverence for the +children who are entrusted to their care by God and their country, and +whom they are bound by the solemn adjuration of Christ not to scandalize; +it means reverence for themselves, as the tabernacles of a special grace +and the progenitors of new worshippers at God's feet, new subjects of the +kingdom of heaven. It is the woman especially who is bound to feel and +express this reverence, for woman is, as the French poetically say, the +priestess of the ideal. Besides, the highest perfection ever reached in +the married state was reached by a woman, the Blessed Virgin, Mother of +God. Among married saints there have always been more women canonized than +men. The women of a nation form the men; and, if marriage is to be +reformed, it must be done first through the women. We hope and pray that +it may soon be so, but we fear that outside the church, where the reform +is, in the abstract, not needed, there is not sufficient impetus to ensure +its being made. We say in the abstract, because practically there are many +marriages made among Catholics, celebrated in Catholic churches, and +decorously observed through the course of a blameless life, which yet call +loudly for reform, and sadly lack the noble Christian spirit that made +perfect the unions of Delphina and Eleazar, and of S. Louis of France and +Margaret of Provence. But however deficient in some cases our practice may +unhappily be, our doctrine remains ever unchanged, and our laws ever +inflexible. Thanks to the church, marriage is still recognized as an act +not purely animal nor yet purely civil; and, thanks to the infallibility +of the church and her calm expectancy of eternal duration, it will remain +to the end of time an honored institution. If threatened, it will still +live; if derided, it will nevertheless conquer. Christian marriage is the +mould in which God has chosen to throw the lava of natural passion, and +without whose wholesome restraints we should have a shapeless torrent of +licentiousness, scathing mankind with its poisonous breath, carrying away +all landmarks of ancestry, property, and personal safety, and finally +exterminating the human race long before the appointed time for the dread +judgment in the Valley of Josaphat. + + + + +A Pearl Ashore. + + +By The Author Of "The House Of Yorke." + +If one should wish to enjoy perfectly a fugue of Bach's, this is perhaps +as good a way as any: listen to it on a warm afternoon, in a Gothic +Protestant church, in a quiet city street, with no one present but the +organist and one's self. If any other enter, let him be velvet-footed, +incurious, and sympathetic. It would be better if each listener could +suppose himself to be the only listener there. + +The wood-work of the church is dark, glossy, and richly carved. Rose, +purple, and gold-colored panes strain the light that enters, full and +glowing up in the roof, but dim below. On the walls, tinted with such +colors as come to us from Eastern looms, and on the canvas of the old +painters, are texts in letters of dull gold--those beautiful letters that +break into bud and blossom at every turn, as though alive and rejoicing +over the divine thought they bear. A sunbeam here and there, too slender +to illumine widely, points its finger at a word, touches a dark cushion +and brings out its shadowed crimson, or glimmers across the organ pipes, +binding their silver with gold, as though Light would say to Song, "With +this ring I thee wed!" + +Those clustered, silvery pipes are surrounded by a border of dark, lace- +like carving, and a screen of the same hides the keyboards. Through this +screen shines the lamp on the music-desk. Some one is stirring there. You +lean back on the cushions, so that the body can take care of itself. +Mentally, you are quiescent with a delightful sense of anticipation. If +the situation should represent itself to you fancifully, you might say +that your soul is somewhat dusty and weary, and has come down to this +beach of silence for a refreshing bath. Knowing what you are to hear, +watery images suggest themselves; for in the world of music it is the +ocean that Bach gives us, as Beethoven gives us the winds, and Handel the +stately-flowing streams. + +We have made a Protestant church our music-hall, because, though not the +dwelling-place of God on earth, it is often the temple of religious art, +and, having nothing within it to which we can prostrate ourselves in +adoration, it can yet, by signs and images, excite noble and religious +feeling. Indeed, we would gladly banish to such concert-rooms all that +music, however beautiful in itself, which intrudes on the exclusive +recollection proper to the house of God. + +This, we repeat, is as good a way as any to hear a fugue of John Sebastian +Bach's. So also thought Miss Rothsay; and she was one who ought to know, +for she was a professional singer, and as sensitive musically as well +could be. + +It was an afternoon in early September, and she had only the day before +reached her native city, after a prolonged residence abroad. Hers had been +that happy lot which seems to be the privilege of the artist: her work, +her duty, and her delight were the same. That which she must and ought to +do she would have chosen above all things as her recreation. Now, with a +perfected voice, and a will to use truly and nobly that gracious power, +she had returned to her native land. + +Her first contact with the New World had given her a slight jar. Utility +seemed to mean here something rough and harsh, and the utility of beauty +to be almost unrecognized. She had as yet met with only two kinds of +people: those who regarded her talent as beautiful indeed and useful, in +so far as it brought her money, but otherwise superfluous; and that yet +more depressing class who were enthusiastic in hailing a new amusement, a +new sensation, and who valued the singer as a necessity to elegant +dissipation. As yet, she had met with no serious disciple of music. + +Yet, when she stepped from her door to walk about, to renew her knowledge +of familiar scenes, and make acquaintance with changed ones, she was +pleased to perceive some of that tranquillity which, in her foreign life, +had been so conducive to a steady growth in art. The fine streets she +traversed were quiet, distant from the business world, and out of its +track. The September air was golden, and the sun so warm as to make the +shade welcome. Here and there, through openings between the houses, or at +the ends of long avenues, were to be seen glimpses of country; and a thin +haze, so exquisite that it might be the cast-off mantle of Beauty herself, +half veiled, while it embellished, the landscape. It was quite in keeping +to see an open church door. One who loitered on the steps explained that +there was to be an organ recital, but could not say who the organist was +to be. + +Miss Rothsay entered, scarcely seeing her way at first, seated herself, +and looked about. The atmosphere of the place suited her taste. None but +noble and sacred images presented themselves. Art was there in its +sublimity, and in its naive simplicity. Here was a form full of austere +beauty, there one whose grace verged on playfulness. The scene had the +effect of a sacred picture, in the corner of which one can see children +playing or birds on the wing. + +Miss Rothsay, without knowing it, made, herself, a lovely picture in the +place. Her oval, pale face was lighted by liquid gray eyes, now lifted, +and drinking in the upper light. On her fair hair was set a foreign- +looking black hat, turned up over the left temple with an _aigrette_ and +feather. A slight and elegant figure could be perceived beneath the dark- +blue mantle. + +Wondering a little, while she waited, who the organist might be, she ran +over in her mind those she had known before going abroad. From that, +dismissing the present, her thoughts glanced over those she had known +abroad, and at last rested on one she had not seen nor heard of for eight +years. Eight years before, Laurie had gone to Germany to study, and he was +probably there yet. She recollected his face, more youthful than his +years, and full of a dreamy beauty; the figure, tall and graceful, yet +wanting somewhat in manly firmness. She heard again, in fancy, that +changeful voice, so low, eager, and rich-toned when he was in earnest; she +met again the glance of his sparkling blue eyes, full of frankness and +enthusiasm. Where was he now? + +Had he been a common acquaintance, she would have inquired concerning him +freely; but he was a rejected lover, and she would not, by mentioning his +name, remind people of that fact. Why had she rejected him? Simply because +he had seemed to her not to reach her ideal. It had occurred to her since +that time that possibly his manner and not his character had been at +fault. At twenty years of age, she had been more mature than he at twenty- +five. She liked an appearance of dignity and firmness, and had made the +mistake often made by those older and wiser than herself, of thinking that +dignity of soul must always be accompanied by a grave manner, and that an +air occasionally or habitually demonstrative and variable, which is merely +temperament, indicates a fickle or superficial mind. Sometimes, indeed, +the strongest and most profound feelings, in reserved and sensitive +persons, seek to veil themselves under an affectation of lightness or +caprice, and the soul looks forth with a sad scorn through that flimsy +mask on the hasty and egotistical judge who pronounces sentence against +it. + + + "And you must love him, ere to you + He will seem worthy of your love," + + +is true of some of the finest natures. + +Miss Rothsay, during these eight years of her separation from Laurie, had +more than once felt a misgiving on his account, lest she had done him +injustice. Observing and studying the manners of those she met, she saw +that what passed for dignity was sometimes only the distrustfulness of the +suspicious, the caution of the worldly-wise, the unsympathizing coldness +of the selfish, or the vanity of the conceited. She had lost not only her +admiration, but her respect for that unchangeable loftiness which chills +and awes the demonstrative into silence; and she had remembered, with a +growing regret, Laurie's cordial ways, that seemed to expect friendliness +and sympathy from all, and to appreciate the purity of his soul, that +never looked for evil, and turned away from it when it intruded itself, +and thus seemed scarcely aware that evil existed. Still she had been too +deeply engrossed in her studies to give him much thought, and it was only +now that she became conscious of regret. + +Meantime, the organist had taken his place, and was arranging his music. +The light of the lamp shone on a face wherein were exquisitely blended +strength and refinement. One could see there passion purified by prayer, +and enthusiasm too deep for trivial excitement. The face showed, too, when +studied, that tranquil reserve, not without sadness, which is learned by +those who have too often cast their pearls before swine, yet who do not +despair of finding sympathy. + +He placed the music, sat an instant in fixed recollection, as though he +prayed, then lifted his tapering hands, so nervous, light, and powerful, +and let them fall on the keys. To the listener beyond the screen, it was +as though her reverie had been broken by a burst of thunder. Then the sea +rolled in its waves of sound, strong, steady, a long, overlapping rhythm. +What did it mean, that fugue? Did it symbolize the swift-coming assaults +of evil that seek to drag the race of man downward, as the persistent sea +eats away, grain by grain, the continents? Was it, perhaps, the ceaseless +endeavor of the faithful will that, baffled once, returns ever to the +charge, and dies triumphantly struggling? Did it indicate the generations +of men flowing on in waves for ever, to break at the feet of God; or the +hurrying centuries, cut short, at last, by eternity? However it might be +interpreted, the music lifted and bore the listener on, and the silence +that followed found her otherwhere than the last silence had left her. She +was the same in nature, but her mood was higher; for music does not change +the listener, it merely intensifies what is positive in his nature, +whether it be good or bad, to its superlative degree. + +Vibrating and breathless still with the emotion caused by that grand +composition so grandly rendered, Miss Rothsay perceived a slip of paper on +the cushion, and reached her hand for it. It proved to be a programme of +the Recital. She glanced along the list, and read the name of the organist +at the end--it was Duncan Laurie! + +She heard, as in a dream, the soft-toned Vorspiele that followed, and only +came back to music when the third number, a toccata, began. But the music +had now to her a new meaning. It seemed to triumph over and scorn her. She +heard through that melodious thunder the voice of Nemesis. + +But when the closing piece, a noble concerto by Handel, sang out, it +reproved that fancy of hers. There was no spirit of revenge nor mean +triumph in Laurie's nature. + +The audience, small and select, went out quietly. The organist closed the +instrument, and prepared to follow, yet waited a moment to recover full +consciousness of the everyday world he was going to meet. The air seemed +to pulse about him still, and wings of flying melodies to brush his face. +Never had he felt less inclined to meet idle compliment or talk +commonplace. "I hope no one will wait for me," he muttered, going out into +the vestibule. + +But some one was waiting, a pale-faced, lovely woman, who looked at him, +but spoke not a word. The look, too, was short; for when he exclaimed and +reddened up to the eyes, and held out a trembling hand, her eyes dropped. + +There is a commonplace which is but the veil to glory or delight, like +Minerva in her russet gown. The conventional questions that Laurie +properly asked of the lady, as they walked on together, were of this sort. +When did she come home? was as one should say, When did Joy arrive? When +do the stars come? And the steamer that brought her could be as worthy of +poetical contemplation as the cloud that wrapped a descending Juno, or the +eagle that bore away a Ganymede. + +Not long after, when some one asked them who was their favorite composer, +each answered "Bach!" and, when alone together, each asked the other the +reason for that answer. + +"Because," said the lady, blushing, "it was on the waves of one of Bach's +fugues that I reached the Happy Islands." + +"And because," returned the lover, "when some of Bach's music had rolled +back into the ocean, it left a pearl ashore for me." + + + + +The Benefits Of Italian Unity. + + +From The Etudes Religieuses. + +Revolution is a dangerous syren. The nations of the earth have yielded to +her seductions, but the day is coming when with one voice they will curse +the great enchantress who has lured them on to apostasy. For a century she +has not ceased to announce an era of prosperity to the rising generation, +but at length we see her promises are as deceptive as her principles are +corrupt. From the heart of all nations rise up groans and maledictions +against her teachings, and against her agents who have betrayed the hopes +of their partisans, brought death instead of life, ruin instead of +prosperity, and dishonor instead of glory. In a word, revolution is in a +state of bankruptcy. This is not acknowledged by the politicians of the +_tiers-parti_ and their followers. They still continue to proclaim the +sovereignty of the "immortal principles," declare revolution a success, +celebrate its material and moral benefits, and boast that "real social +justice was _for the first time_ rendered in 1789"--after eighteen +centuries of Christianity! But people are ceasing to be duped by any such +political sophisms; they are beginning to regret profoundly the peace, +order, and security, and all the benefits assured to the world by the +supremacy of religion, and lost through social apostasy. The wisest of +politicians are tired of revolutions. People who have lost their sacred +heritage, and find themselves deprived of the highest blessings of life, +are beginning to remember their baptismal engagements, and to feel the +necessity of putting an end to revolution, and returning to the social +order established of God. The prodigal son, famished with hunger, makes an +energetic resolution: _Surgam et ibo ad patrem!_ Hesitation is no longer +possible. Weary of your modern theories, we will return to our Father's +house--to Christ and his church! + +The man who comprehended most thoroughly the Satanic nature of the +revolutionary spirit--Count Joseph de Maistre--had an intuitive assurance of +the calamities that would avenge the disregard of the laws of order, and +lead future generations back to the sacred principles of their ancestors. +The foresight and warnings of this eminent writer are well known. +Addressing the French, he says: "Undeceive yourselves, at length, as to +the lamentable theories that have disgraced our age. You have already +found out what the promulgators of these deplorable dogmas are, but the +impression they have left is not yet effaced. In all your plans of +creation and restoration you only leave out God, from whom they have +alienated you.... How has God punished this execrable delirium? He has +punished it as he created light--by a single word--_Fiat!_--and the political +world has crumbled to atoms.... If any one wishes to know the probable +result of the revolution, they need only examine the point whereon all its +factions are united. They all desire the degradation, yea, the utter +subversion, not only of the monarchy, but of Christianity; _whence it +follows_ that all their efforts must finally end in the triumph of +Christianity as well as the monarchy."(240) In these few words the great +philosopher gives us a complete history of the era of revolution in the +past as well as the future. He declares it a widespread overturning of +order, necessarily followed by terrible misfortunes, till a counter-stroke +turns the nations back to the way appointed by God.(241) + +While M. de Maistre was regarding the progress of events from the heights +of his genius, he gave the most minute attention to the ravages of the +revolutionary spirit in every department. In the _Melanges Inedits_, for +which we are indebted to Count Joseph's grandson, and which appeared on +the very eve of our great disasters (1870), we find more than a hundred +pages devoted to reviewing the _benefits_ of the French Revolution. They +contain an inventory drawn up by the aid of the republican papers of the +time, in which the moral and material results of revolutionary barbarism +are attested by the avowal of the barbarians themselves. A certain +historian of the Revolution would have done well to examine this catalogue +before officially undertaking, in the presence of the National Assembly, +the awkward apology so generally known. And what if he had continued to +verify the benefits of the revolutionary syren, still beloved of certain +politicians, till the end of the year 1872? How glorious would be the +balance-sheet of the "immortal principles" in the eighty-fourth year of +their reign! Every Frenchman knows what it has cost to be the eldest son +of the Revolution!--As statistics are held in such high honor in our day, +why not draw up the accounts of '89, and establish clearly the active and +passive of the revolutionary spirit now spreading throughout the world? + +We lay before our readers some notes that may be of service in this vast +liquidation, taken from two valuable works that have been kindly brought +to our notice.(242) We do not feel at liberty to designate the eminent +person who wrote these _Notes_, which, if we are rightly informed, were +first published in the _Messager Russe_. All we feel permitted to state is +that we can place full confidence in the probity of this traveller. He +belongs to the diplomatic corps, but unfortunately is not of the Catholic +religion. We will let him testify for himself. It will at once be seen by +the frequent quotations we shall make that he is a man of superior mind, +decision and honesty of character, and of an upright and incorruptible +conscience. + +"Eleven years ago, I witnessed the foundation of the kingdom of Italy. I +have just seen the work completed--the edifice crowned--Rome made the +capital.--My observations have been made in person, and are impartial, as I +had no preconceived opinions. My numerous quotations are taken in a great +measure from Italian sources, nay, even _the most Italian_. My position as +an independent observer, unbiassed by any feeling of responsibility, +enables me to judge events in a cooler manner than might be done by an +opponent of the various publicists that have treated of the successive +phases of the great Italian drama."(243) + +Here, then, is contemporaneous Italy studied by an observer of +incontestable impartiality--studied on the spot, and from authentic +sources. It is by no means uncommon to hear the correspondents of Catholic +journals accused of exaggeration. Certain newspapers under party +influence, like the _Journal des Debats_ and the _Independance Belge_, are +paid to divert public attention from facts that cannot be denied. We are +sure the Italo-Parisian and the Italo-Belgian press will not say a single +word about the _Etudes sur l'Italie contemporaine_.(244) + + + +I. + + +How shall we characterize the Italian crisis as a whole? Is it merely one +of those accidental revolutions which history is full of, or is it a +genuine revolution with its systematic hatred of Christian society? Our +readers must not be astonished at such a question. I know some Catholics--a +little too liberal, it is true--who have not thereon, even in these times, +perfectly correct notions. We remember certain unfortunate expressions +respecting the governments of the _ancien regime_ which committed the +unpardonable fault of injuring Italian liberty, and even respecting that +venerable Christian administration that has been dragged through blood and +fire. Did not the honorable M. Dulaurier recently confess in an ingenuous +manner the illusions he was under before he set foot on Italian soil, and +how he believed in the possibility of a reconciliation between the Pope +and the excommunicated king? He says he heard on all sides a sentiment to +which he gave credence without much reflection: "Why interpose between the +two parties contending for Rome? Pius IX. and Victor Emmanuel are both +Italians: they will end by settling the difficulty, and we shall trouble +ourselves for nothing." The reality, the sad reality, forces us to a +different opinion. + +It was a beautiful illusion--once greatly dwelt upon in official papers--to +think Piedmont sincerely and uniquely preoccupied about the freedom of +Italy; to believe in the Subalpine posture of disinterested chivalry, and +in Napoleon III. going to war in a great cause merely for the glory of +being a liberator. Doubtless there was, for some time, a liberal party in +Italy dreaming at once of a confederacy and of national independence. But +Mazzinism and its ideas of unity prevailed, and it was manifest to those +whose eyes were not blinded that the Piedmontese government superseded +_Giovane Italia_ by taking advantage of the _naivete_ of honest +liberals.(245) All sincere and upright minds must free themselves from so +illusive a deception. The mask has fallen off, so must the scales from +their eyes. The Italian movement is essentially revolutionary--or Satanic. +It is not one of those transformations so frequent in the political life +of a nation: it is a work of subversion, a war on the church, a religious +persecution, and "pure impurity," to use Joseph de Maistre's words. + +It has been demonstrated quite recently in this magazine that the whole +tendency of the Italian Peninsula, and its providential destiny, are +opposed to unity; that the Revolution has done violence to nature and +religion, to the institutions and traditions of the past, and to the faith +and morals of the people weighed down by the yoke of unity; and that it +has lied to history, to the world, and to God. _Les Etudes sur l'Italie +contemporaine_ takes a similar view of the case: + + + "The unity of Italy was not a national necessity; ... the movement + was not spontaneous, but forced.... The Piedmontese government has + shown some shrewdness (unscrupulous shrewdness) in borrowing its + programme from Mazzini. The campaign of 1859 led the way to this + political intrigue. As to the nation, it imagined the promised + regeneration would produce a new era of happiness when the + foreigner was once got rid of. The masses have given in to the + ambition of the minority. + + "In the transformation of Italy, we see action precede reflection; + we see what Frederick the Great said of Joseph II.--the second step + taken before the first.... It must be remembered that the + geography of Italy was one of the causes of its division, the + length being so disproportionate to its width, which prevented a + common centre, and led to separate developments and outlets.... + Even if railways are now a means of greatly shortening distances, + the union of the remote parts ought to be the result of a natural + and progressive tendency--not revolutionary. + + "The first idea of Rome as the capital sprang from the classics. + It was a rhetorical expression (according to Senator Stefano + Jacini).... If official Italy had need of Rome, Rome by no means + had need of Italy.... And what do they wish to do with Rome? The + unionists in favor of a monarchy wish to transform it into a + modern capital that it may become the centre of the general action + and influence which united Italy is ambitious of exercising in the + world. The Mazzinians, the socialist republicans, and the free- + thinkers wish to make it the centre of the doctrines they are + desirous of substituting for Christianity. These new apostles are + not agreed among themselves, but they are all fighting in the + breach against the Catholic organization, and their real object is + the destruction of Christian principles."(246) + + +To effect the unification of Italy, it was therefore necessary to conspire +against the natural inclinations of the inhabitants, against the rights of +local principalities, and against the real interests of the nation, to +conspire not only against the temporal, but the spiritual power of the +papacy. Where they do not find the normal conditions of assimilation, they +do not hesitate to resort to deeds worthy of brigands. Conspirators, alas! +have never been wanting in the country of Machiavelli. In the present age +they superabound. "It has been the misfortune of Italy--its robe of +Nessus--that for twelve years all who have succeeded to power, even the +best, have been conspirators."(247) Yes; and foremost among them is the +_great_ and _good_ Cavour, whom a French diplomatist--an honest man, +however--has lately depicted, with an enthusiasm that has hardly died away, +as struggling to promote the greatness of his country.(248) We do not +dispute Cavour's ability, or his perseverance in striving after a certain +end, or his subtleness and patience in the execution of his designs, or +his skill in availing himself of the very passions he pretended to yield +to. He succeeded--is it not a glorious title to fame?--in keeping Napoleon +III. in leading-strings till a Prussian Cavour is found to continue the +_role_ and lead the emperor on to Sedan. But herein Cavour showed himself +crafty, deceitful, and--why should we not say it?--criminal. Has not M. +Guizot called a certain writer a "_malfaiteur de la pensee_?" Besides, +Cavour spoke of himself to his friends somewhat as we do. Our French +diplomatist, M. Henry d'Ideville, in a curious page of his _Notes +Intimes_, lets us into the secrets of the game and those who took part in +it. + + + "You see, my dear d'Ideville (it is Cavour who is speaking), your + emperor will never change. His fault is a disposition to be for + ever plotting.... With a country as powerful as yours, a large + army, and Europe at peace, what is he afraid of? Why is he for + ever disguising his intentions, going to the right when he means + to turn to the left, and _vice versa_? Ah! what a wonderful + conspirator he makes!" + + +M. d'Ideville is a man of wit. With all possible courtesy, he replied: + + + "But, M. le Comte, have you not been a daring conspirator also?" + + "I? Certainly," replied M. de Cavour. "I have conspired, and how + could I do otherwise at such a time?... We had to keep Austria in + the dark, whereas, your emperor, you may be sure, will remain for + ever incorrigible. I have known him a long time! To plot, for ever + plot, is the characteristic of his nature. It is the occupation he + prefers, and he pursues it like an artist--like a _dilettante_. In + this _role_ he will always be the foremost and most capable of us + all."(249) + + +US ALL! Yes, there it is ably expressed in a word: all conspirators and +accomplices, not to speak of the dupes. On the 24th of March, 1860, M. de +Cavour, after signing the treaty that ceded Nice and Savoy to France, +approached M. de Talleyrand, and, rubbing his hands, whispered in his ear: +"We are accomplices now, baron, are we not?"(250) Alas! wrongfully +acquired, and never any benefit, we now see why we have lost Alsace and +Lorraine! + +The entire route from Turin to Rome is marked by the deeds of these +conspirators, by their tricks and intrigues, and by their crimes and +double-dealings, which have resulted in the profit of Piedmont and +Prussia, and the disgrace of our poor France. M. d'Ideville's conscience +evidently reproached him at last for having liked Cavour so well, and for +imprudently interesting himself in the Italian scheme. The other +diplomatist, who has anonymously given his _Etudes sur l'Italie_ to the +public, seems never to have had the least sympathy with the iniquitous and +sacrilegious ambition of the Sardinian government. It is true he does not +belong to the French diplomacy infatuated with the ideas of '89!(251) He +finds nothing seductive in the policy of the conspirators. The fiction +disguised under the attractive title of national rights, the age of +annexations, the trick of the plebiscites, the system of moral agency, the +so-called exigencies of civilization and progress, and the revolutionary +messianism which constitutes the foundation of the Napoleonic ideas, have +no attraction for him. His style is tolerably forcible when he speaks of +all these stratagems: "Such tactics are nothing new. They have always been +resorted to in order to palliate schemes of ambition and hypocrisy."(252) + + + +II. + + +A government given to conspiracy condemns the nation that supports it, as +well as itself, to degradation--to moral and material ruin. If for a while +it flatters itself with the hope of systematizing the revolution and +directing its energies, it soon becomes its slave and finally its victim. +When the hand is caught in machinery, the whole body is soon drawn after +it, the head as well as the rest. + +Our diplomatic traveller states some aphorisms in connection with this +subject that are full of significance, and reveal the genuine statesman. + + + "A government that owes its existence to a revolution is not + viable in the long run unless it has the power and wisdom to + sunder all the ties that connect it with the party to which it + owes its origin. + + "Every government that has a similar origin to the Napoleonic + Empire, and, still more, one which owes its existence thereto, + will find itself in danger when traditionary principles once more + assert themselves for the safety of society. + + "Governments of a revolutionary origin have been known to become + conservative and renounce their former principles of action. The + Italian government may likewise wish to do this, but it cannot. + + "All who have risen to power in Italy have had some connection + with the revolutionary party, and are obliged to favor it. In + particular instances, they have sometimes manifested a certain + firmness towards its factions, but in essentials they have yielded + to the inevitable pressure. + + "Revolution leads to disorder, and, when it triumphs, the destiny + of the country is thrown into the hands of its adherents. + Political bias must take the place of capacity and often of honor + itself."(253) + + +One of the first material disasters produced by a triumphant conspiracy is +the squandering of the finances. There is an immediate necessity of +enriching itself, repairing all deficiencies, paying traitors, buying +consciences and votes, keeping a secret reserve of ready money to reward +the zeal of journalists, and stimulate or lull the passions according to +the exigencies of the moment. The wretched state of the budgets in United +Italy will become as proverbial as the _marches_ of the 4th of September +in France. With all the domains Piedmont has received from the annexed +states, it ought to be rich--rich enough to pay the debt its accomplice, +the Empire, has bequeathed to us. The finances of the different states, +especially of Rome, were in perfect order, and, with the exception of the +kingdom of Sardinia, the receipts surpassed the expenses. Now the credit +of Italy is destroyed, and nothing is heard of but duties and taxes, such +as were unknown throughout the Peninsula in 1859, more particularly at +Rome. Figures are eloquent--we must refer to them: + + + "Previous to 1860, there were seven states in Italy, each with its + court, ministers, administration, and diplomatic corps. All these + governments expended about five hundred millions of francs a year, + and the imposts amounted to nearly the same sum. These seven + states had a debt of about two milliards and a half. At the + present time, without reckoning the interest on the floating debt + to the National Bank, Italy annually pays about three hundred + millions of interest, corresponding to a debt of seven milliards, + and all this notwithstanding the sale of domanial property + amounting to six hundred and fifty millions, notwithstanding the + alienation of the railways of the state and the manufacture of + tobacco, and notwithstanding the seizure of ecclesiastical + property, all of which have amounted _in nine years_ to nine + milliards three hundred and sixteen millions of francs received at + the state treasury. Nevertheless, the public debt amounts to the + aforesaid sum of seven milliards. And yet the army is badly + maintained, the navy poorly organized, and the administration in a + state of chaos and unparalleled demoralization."(254) + + +And here is M. Quintino Sella, who has just made known the projected +budget for 1873; he acknowledges a deficit of sixty millions, as had been +anticipated, while the ordinary receipts amount to eight hundred and five +millions. If the kingdom of Italy were administered as economically as in +the time of the seven sovereigns, a budget of eight hundred and five +millions would leave a surplus of three hundred millions. And yet one of +the pretexts of unification was that it would save the expense of so many +courts, which bore hard on the people! Poor people! they know now what to +think of cheap governments, and will soon see that the ministration of the +imposts is leading to bankruptcy, in spite of the fresh confiscations and +appropriation of conventual property about to be made at Rome.(255) + +And it must be remembered that, in spite of these great budgets, the army +is badly maintained and the navy poorly organized. Custozza and Lissa had +previously convinced us of this. Austria was well aware of it, and even +the France of M. Thiers suspects that, in spite of the valor of the old +Piedmontese soldiery, and the discipline of the Neapolitan army; in spite +of the aptitude of the Genoese and Venetian sailors, the military forces +of Italy are a mere illusion, particularly on account of the inefficiency +of the leaders of the army and navy. Since the time of M. de Cavour, whose +ability is by no means beyond doubt, there have been only second-rate men +beyond the Alps--not a statesman, not an orator, not a minister, not a +financier, not a genuine soldier--everywhere and in everything there is the +same disgraceful deficiency. _Facundum sed male forte genus._ + + + "I knew well the men of 1848, some of whom are still remaining, + but they must have degenerated through ambition and the necessity + of sustaining their position, for even in the revolutionary ranks + there was more elevation in 1848 than at the present time. + + "Previous to 1860, the armies of the different states, including, + of course, the Piedmontese army, constituted a more powerful and + better organized force than is now under arms. 'Our army,' says + General La Marmora, 'has the traditional reputation of being + disciplined, but it is demoralized by a want of stability in its + organization, and a lack of moral influences.' La Marmora opposes + among other things the exclusion of chaplains and of the religious + element among the troops. + + "The Sardinian and Neapolitan navies greatly surpassed the + Italian. The men were better drilled, and the shipping in better + order. Such is the opinion recently expressed by the English naval + officers in port at Naples who were at the exposition of the + present year."(256) + + +And yet the military forces are the only remaining bulwark of order in +Italy--I mean material order, for moral order no longer exists anywhere. +The so-called conservative party, that is to say, the moderate +revolutionists, rely on the army. But the ultra revolutionary element is +also to be found there, and some day the advanced party will, for its own +designs, entice away the officers that followed the hero of Caprera in his +campaigns. It will not be sufficient to name Cialdini, Cadorna, or even La +Marmora, to counteract the fatal consequences of Castelfidardo and the +Porta Pia. By excluding religious influences from the army, and giving it +a false idea of patriotism, the source of courage and energy is dried up. +After all, revolution will never be friendly to the army, and the genuine +soldier will always execrate revolution, whether instigated by princes, +citizens, or the mob. A soldier who entered Rome through the breach, +lately wrote to the _Liberta_: "The day the King of Italy is satisfied +with mere volunteers, as the Pope was, we shall see whether it is the Pope +or the king that is loved and esteemed the most by the Italian people." + +In opposing the system of territorial divisions on account of the army, +which he considers unsuited to the Peninsula, General La Marmora's opinion +is founded on a proof that has the misfortune to prove too much. "If there +were small territorial armies," says he, "in addition to separate +administrations in the various regions of Italy, the unity for which we +have done so much, and Providence still more than we, would incur great +danger."(257) Why not boldly declare, general, that there are two +Italys--the _Reale_ and the _Legale_, one of which has a tendency to revolt +against the other? And, above all, why utter a blasphemy against the +sovereign providence of God?(258) _Italia legale_ labors in vain; the +revolutionary impulse given to it by Cavour is an accelerated movement; it +will never reascend the declivity that leads _al fondo_. It will always +have against it not only the betrayed interests and the revolted +conscience of _Italia reale_, but, above all, Divine Providence, who will +one day show that the favors and proofs of protection accorded to the +"regenerators" were merely for them, as for Napoleon III., the snares of +avenging justice. _In insidiis suis capientur iniqui._ + + + "As to greatness and political importance, admitting even the + possibility of indefatigable and intelligent effort, Italy will + never equal the glorious traditions of its past history. Italian + glory is the glory of the different states of the Peninsula.... To + acquire fresh glory, there must be, besides unity, a strength of + organization it does not possess, and cannot, because it is a + mirage and not a reality. + + "The North invades the South: this cannot be called community of + interests. It is an attempt at absorption on the part of the + North, and at the expense of the South. + + "Once at Rome, the programme was to have ended. A new life was to + commence; fresh energy was to be the signal of an era of grandeur + and prosperity; interiorly, there was to be a more perfect + administration; exteriorly, a prudent _national_ policy, that is + to say, the Napoleonic idea of the Latin races that Italy was to + revive. Rome was to be the great centre of liberal influences.... + All this had been announced and promised. As for me, I see no + choice between a blind alley and a _politique d'aventure_. + + "It seems to me the union, at a critical moment, should find + protection in the wishes of the inhabitants. I can testify that if + the former sovereigns of Naples, Florence, Parma, and Modena could + return, the day would be hailed by a majority of the inhabitants + as one of deliverance. In Lombardy it is different, I acknowledge. + The _noblesse_ say, as I myself heard a personage of great note: + We are badly governed, but at least it is no longer by foreigners. + The middle classes are republicans, and in the country the + Austrian rule is regretted. The people of Venice either aspire to + a republic or regret the unfortunate Archduke Maximilian, whom + they would have liked as an independent sovereign. In the old + pontifical provinces called the Legations, they would not care to + return to the former condition of things as they were, but some + would be satisfied with the Pope and a local autonomy; the + remainder form a sufficiently numerous republican party." + + "In a word, THERE IS EVERYWHERE DISSATISFACTION AS WELL AS + DISAPPOINTMENT, AFTER TWELVE YEARS OF EXPERIENCE."(259) + + +It is not astonishing, therefore, that at an audience on the 18th of last +Nov., the Grand Duke Nicholas, nephew of the Emperor of Russia, said to +Pius IX., with all a young man's frankness: "Most holy Father, since I +have been in Italy, everywhere I go, I hear nothing but evil of King +Victor Emmanuel and his government."(260) + +We need only open our eyes to see the interior condition of united Italy +as soon as there was any question, no longer of conspiring and declaiming, +but of organizing and governing. And its exterior political relations +compare quite as unfavorably with the programme of emancipation. By a kind +of divine irony, Italy has become a mere humble vassal of Germany--of the +Holy Protestant Empire of Berlin--and the future King of Rome was only +acting his part when he proclaimed himself the King of Prussia's +hussar.(261) It is well known at the Quirinal that, though influenced for +the moment by the dominant party, the authorities may some day return, +even through interest, to traditional principles and the old political +code which does not recognize the revolutionary schemes of nations or +parties. Besides, the Italian princes, who represent the law, are still +living. Francis II. may be found to be a genuine Neapolitan, Ferdinand IV. +a very good Tuscan, Robert I. an excellent Parmesan, and Francis V. the +best of Modenais. And, lastly, is not Pius IX. more of an Italian than the +Savoyard who styles himself the King of Italy?... And if the French, whose +connivance can no longer be expected, even under M. Thiers, should favor +the restoration of the throne to a prince, "_qui a la justice dans le sang +et dans l'ame_," and would at need have it in his hand, the Italian +framework, which merely stands through toleration, would be threatened +with sudden and ignominious ruin. It is all this that recently induced the +_prince-heritier_ to mount like a Hungarian foot-soldier behind the +triumphal chariot of the German Caesar. + +Another evil: the Prussians are not the most scrupulous people in the +world about other people's property, and their investigations in the +Peninsula have excited suspicions as to the object of their cupidity. Let +M. de Bismarck, more audacious and grasping than the late M. de Cavour, +once succeed in driving the Hapsburgs from Germany, will it not occur to +him to take advantage of the title of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom for +the benefit of the Caesar of Berlin? For it is skilfully demonstrated in +Germany that the Germanic race has the power, and, therefore, the right, +to a powerful navy, and, for the benefit of this navy, an outlet on the +Adriatic. And there is no other possible ally but Prussia to protect what +calls itself the kingdom of Italy! + + + "Alliances are beneficial when the parties unite their influence + for a common end. (Allies, in our day, no longer seek to know each + other's principles or origin.) But when they are not formed _inter + pares_, or nearly so, and especially when they are intended to + guarantee the very existence--the vital principle--of the weaker + ally, then the alliance loses its true character, and soon ends in + subjection on the ground of politics or economy, and sometimes + both."(262) + + +Such are the glories of Italy _free from the Alps to the Adriatic_! If, in +spite of her presumptuous _fara da se_, she was obliged to have recourse +to a foreign hand in order to rise, and still needs a foreign arm to stand +erect, she will, according to appearances, have need of no one to aid her +in falling: she will topple over of herself. The so-called free country is +only an enslaved kingdom--a vassal, a satellite without strength and +without prestige. + + + +III. + + +Of all the Italian formulas that have served to mislead the liberal mind, +there is not one more odiously false and deceptive than the too famous +expression, _A free church in a free country_. History has already +interpreted it, A persecuted church in an enslaved country. The +revolutionary factions that have assumed the authority have imposed +thereon the complete execution of their plan, and we know that the Masonic +lodges, though they denounce Mazzinian deism, have fallen into the atheism +of Renan, _al fondo_! + +The sacrilegious frenzy of the Revolution, and the madness of those that +encouraged it, have been stigmatized in forcible terms by the august +prisoner of the Vatican: + + + "Unbelief assumes an air of authority, and proudly stalks + throughout the length and breadth of the earth, doubtless + imagining it is to triumph for ever.... Woe to those who are + linked with the impious, and dally with the Revolution under the + pretence of directing it! Sooner or later they will be drawn into + the abyss. The recent disasters at Naples may be adduced as an + example. A great number of curious people, heedless and devoid of + all prudence, hastened to get a nearer view of the devouring + flames issuing from the fearful mouth of Vesuvius, and many of + them became victims of mistaken curiosity. So it is with those who + covenant with the Revolution and the revolutionists, hoping to + overrule the former and keep down the latter. Rash people! they + will all become a prey to the flames that surround them on every + side."(263) + + +The revolutionary lava floods the streets of Rome and covers the whole +Peninsula. It began in the cities, spread into the country, and will end +by swallowing up the army. The universities and common schools are +invaded, the torrent engulfs the workshops and stalls, and undermines the +walls of palaces. Princes even have opened their gates at its approach. In +vain the Holy Father sounds the cry of alarm; in vain his prime minister +publicly denounces the progress of the deadly current--party spirit seems +to have paralyzed all in authority. + +We will not describe the exploits of this new Islamism against the papal +power. The history of its ambuscades and pillages is sufficiently well +known. There never was a richer treasure of dishonor for revolution to +endow a people with. "The title of liberators was all the same retained." +Yes, all the same! + +Joseph de Maistre somewhere refers to an English functionary as saying +that every man who spoke of taking an inch of land from the Pope ought to +be hung. "As for me," adds the witty writer, "I cheerfully consent, in +order to avoid carnage, that _hung_ should be changed to _hissed_."(264) + +Let us wait. An avenging God will do both: _subsannabit_, _conquassabit_. +Had the plots of the unionists merely aimed at the temporal power, perhaps +divine justice would have been satisfied with a hiss at the hour of some +Italian Sedan, but the gibbet--it is a law of history--is reserved for +persecutors and apostates. + +When the Sardinian government knocked at one of the gates of Rome, as it +awaited a propitious moment for battering it down, it bound itself before +all Europe to solve the problem of the separation of church and state +which had puzzled all the doctors of liberalism, and of which it pretended +to have found the key. It was said the Roman question and the Italian +question were to cease to be antagonistic, or, at least, they were to +resemble those rivers that, while mingling their waters, preserve their +own colors, as we see in the Rhone and the Saone. It was promised a +channel should be made wide enough for this double current of opinions. +Hence the origin of the famous law of the Guarantees. This scheme of +conciliation is properly appreciated in the _Etudes sur l'Italie +Contemporaine_: + + + "How many times I have heard it said that the Papacy and the + Italian government, even though they never came to an agreement, + might at least be like two parallel lines indefinitely and + pacifically prolonged! This is a mistake arising from a judgment + founded on impressions--and when I say impressions, I mean + appearances. + + "From the beginning, this law of Guarantees was a one-sided and + fruitless attempt.... The government and the Chambers never had + any doubt as to the refusal of the Pope. This law was like an + olive branch presented at the point of the sword as a suitable + corrective to palliate the violent occupation of Rome.... I do not + think a single statesman could really have believed in the success + of this law, otherwise than as the decree of the conqueror. + + "Besides the moral, juridical, and historic reasons to hinder an + understanding between the Pope and a sovereign master of Rome, + there was also the impossibility of coexisting with a power that + rests on an unstable foundation. + + "Even from the point of view of modern but not subversive ideas, A + SEPARATION MORE IMPORTANT THAN THAT OF STATE AND CHURCH IS THE + SEPARATION OF STATE AND REVOLUTION."(265) + + +These are golden words. But our diplomatic traveller is forced to +acknowledge that the Italian government cannot break its iniquitous bonds, +that it lacks honesty and force, and that all the factions seek their own +good first and then the evil of others. Our author, though, unfortunately, +too indifferent a spectator to Italian persecution, at least has the +advantage of being an unexceptionable witness. + + + "Practically, it is not the state, it is society, that modern + Italy separates from the church.... One of the greatest mistakes + the unionists have made since the beginning of the Revolution has + been the war declared against the clergy and the church. It is at + once a political and historical error, and the greater for being + committed at Rome. + + "Tolerance (practised from time to time according to orders) has + its reaction, and of the deepest die, in a recrudescence of + insults, sequestrations and confiscations imposed on the ministers + of the sanctuary and even the sanctuaries themselves. + + "Anti-Christianity has established itself with a bold front at + Rome--with its schools of free-thinkers, speeches in which atheism + is proclaimed without the least reticence, burial without any + religious ceremony, and irreligious books sold at low prices. + + "In everything relating to teaching, the choice generally falls on + the unbeliever. + + "Materialism is taught _ex cathedra_ in all the universities. + + "They have not yet touched on the most vital question--the + suppression of the convents (at Rome) and the incameration of the + property of the clergy. But they will come to that, and + speedily.... The attempt at what is called a conciliation must + sooner or later end in an outbreak."(266) + + +They did come to it--to that shameful encroachment of the government on the +religious corporations. The party demanded it, M. de Bismarck advised it, +and the diplomatic corps tolerated it. What will not diplomacy tolerate? +It was, however, clearly demonstrated to the representatives of different +governments the urgent necessity there was of taking under their united +protection the independence of the Sovereign Pontiff so poorly guaranteed +by the usurper, of declaring the inviolability of church property, the +possession of which--and it is a wholly legitimate one--is a _sine qua non_ +condition of pontifical independence, without considering that most of +these establishments have a double claim as to their origin and +destination, to be regarded as international property.(267) Nothing was +done. The tolerance of official Europe towards the Piedmontese +filibustering has been unlimited, though unrestricted usurpation has been +followed by open persecution. Pius IX. had good reason to severely allude +to "the so-called governments" that find amusement in the Revolution. +Europe seems to have sent its diplomatists to the court of the usurper in +the capital of the Christian world, that they might close their eyes to +all the schemes of Freemasonry, and the numberless vexations and +spoliations, that they might play the _role_ of stage-dancers in the +sacrilegious comedy! Such base complacency justifies the expression of a +Catholic writer: "Europe is in a state of mortal sin!" + +I am almost ashamed to be obliged to refer to the authority of a +diplomatist who belongs neither to our nation nor our religion. I wish I +could quote some official report of a minister from France! Might not M. +Fournier have employed his time better than in figuring at banquets +offered to a renegade, and in listening to heretical and atrocious +speeches from the professors of the Romano-Piedmontese university? I will +console myself in transcribing a page from M. Dulaurier, the honorable +member of the Institute, likewise an ocular witness, and a witness worthy +of credit, even from a subscriber to the _Debats_: + +"These grievances and many others are aggravated by the excesses to which +the press--the illustrated press, above all--has given itself up, and by the +incessant war it wages against religion. Ignoble caricatures are daily +exposed for sale in the sight of the police, and to their knowledge, in +all the Kiosques and newspaper shops, and on the walls, or are hawked +around by miserable creatures in rags. The _Don Pirloncino_, a humorous +paper, obsequious to the government, diffuses three times a week its +abominations on the most august mysteries of the Christian faith and the +ministers who dispense them. The cross itself--the cross before which +Christians of all communions bow with respect--not only Catholics, but +schismatics, Greeks, and Orientals, and even Protestants--is not safe from +its insults. My heart swells with horror when I recall one of these +pictures--a caricature of the Crucifixion. In the place of the God-Man is +Dr. Lanza, Minister of the Interior. The words put in his mouth, and on +the lips of his murderers, are untranslatable. Under his feet, at the +lower extremity of the tree of the cross, is fastened transversely an +instrument that I dare not designate otherwise than by saying it is made a +burlesque use of at the end of the first act of _M. de Pourceaugnac_. Our +French revolutionists, in their senseless fury, have broken the cross in +pieces, but it never occurred to them to defile it in such a manner. So +revolting an idea could only spring from imaginations the country of +Aretino alone is capable of producing. + +"In the presence of these abominations echoed by the political press +devoted to the advancement of free-thinking, the Sovereign Pontiff, the +clergy, and the Roman people who are fundamentally religious, can only +veil their faces, resign themselves, and have recourse to prayer. And +prayer rises unceasingly to heaven in expiation of so many horrors. It is +the only consolation left to all these afflicted souls. There is a +constant succession of triduos, announced by blank notices, headed _Invito +sacro_, and signed by Mgr. Patrizi, the Cardinal Vicar. One of these +notices, which I saw affixed to the columns at the entrance to his +eminence's palace near the Church of Sant' Agostino, gives an idea, in the +very first line, of the indignation that is fermenting in every Catholic +breast: 'The earth is full of the most horrible blasphemies. _La terra e +piena della piu orrende bestemmie._' " + + + +IV. + + +We will not deny one benefit--and this time a real one!--that has sprung +from the Italian Revolution: it has served to revive the fidelity and +fervor of all true Italians. It can be rightly said of it, as M. Guizot +says of the Reformation of the sixteenth century, It has awakened, even +among its adversaries [we must correct this Protestant writer's mistake--he +should have said among its adversaries alone], religious faith and civil +courage. Some natures that were formerly nonchalantes, timid, and +delicate, are no longer satisfied with groaning over the evil, but take a +bold stand against the inroads of impiety. Italy, somewhat inclined to the +_far niente_, might of itself have yielded; sustained by the hand of a +great Pope, she is roused to withstand the unloosed tempest. She no longer +falters before the responsibility of a religious manifestation or an anti- +revolutionary vote. No longer afraid of the threats of the poniard, or of +conciliating, through culpable prudence, her temporary masters, she at +last ventures to show herself openly, as she really is--the cherished and +faithful daughter of the Church of Rome. Roused by provocations and +blasphemies, her filial piety towards the Papacy has become more lively +and aggressive. She protests solemnly against the schemes of the +adventurers who have trampled under foot their faith, honesty, morality, +and honor. At the sight of these sublime outbursts of a spirit at once +Catholic and Roman, the church is consoled, and observant Christendom +begins to hope the reaction will be the more salutary from the extreme +violence of the crisis. + +One of our co-laborers has expressed all this much better than we can: + + + "If there is a country we have reason to conceive such consoling + hopes of, assuredly it is Italy, in spite of all the scandals and + all the infamy that now degrade it. All who have had a favorable + opportunity of observing the moral condition of the country agree + in declaring the greater part of the inhabitants faithful to their + belief. It is merely the froth and pestilential impurities that + are seething on the surface. Some day it will doubtless be with + this impure froth as with the stagnant waters for which Pius IX. + some years ago made an opening to the sea, giving fresh fecundity + to the old Italian soil. Purified by trials, as by a new baptism, + this nation, in many respects so highly gifted, will once more + have acquired a beneficial discipline of mind and character, the + advantages of a robust and manly training, the practice of + energetic individual action, and especially of great combined + efforts which she is beginning to give us the consoling spectacle + of in the recently formed Catholic associations."(268) + + +In France we think lightly, or rather we have an incorrect idea, of what +our brethren in Italy are effecting. The very people among us who only +talk of harmony and compromise reproach the Catholics of the Peninsula for +being inactive and inefficient. They even make them partly responsible for +the national misfortunes and the decay of moral principle beyond the Alps. +We protest against such superficial judgments. We know Italy too well not +to have a right to speak in favor of those who are so unjustly accused. +Catholics in Italy decline public offices, _ne eletti, ne elettori_; and +they do well, because the Sardinian government imposes an oath after the +style of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. Tell us if it is proper for a Catholic +to take a seat in a parliament established at Rome between the Vatican +where the Pope is imprisoned, and the Quirinal where the Piedmontese has +established himself by the aid of a false key. Does the military career +offer much attraction when he might be ordered to assassinate the +pontifical zouaves, open a breach in the walls of Rome, bombard Ancona or +even the quarter of the Vatican? He might without any great difficulty +present himself at the municipal and provincial ballot-boxes. The faithful +Neapolitans, at the invitation of their archbishop, formed a majority +there, and this is not an isolated case. But do you, who are the safety of +France, set the example of hastening to the polls?--No; good Christians in +Italy are far from being inert, nor do the clergy inculcate inertness. +Abstaining is quite a different thing from inaction. Is the public aware +that the Catholic press is one of the glories of the Peninsula? There are +a hundred journals and reviews on the other side of the Alps consecrated +to the service of the truth, and some of these publications are of +unequalled merit. It is sufficient to name the _Civilta Cattolica_, the +_Unita Cattolica_, and the _Voce della Verita_. We confess our admiration +for the courageous journalists who keep their own course in spite of +arrests, law-suits, fines, imprisonment, and threats of _coltellate_. And +the tone of these papers, with some insignificant exceptions, is healthier +than with us, the union of sentiment stronger, and their adhesion to the +apostolic constitutions more sincere and open. Associations have spread +from one end of the Peninsula to the other, and everywhere produce the +most beneficial results. I need only mention the Society of Catholic Youth +at Bologna, celebrated on account of the generous filial stand it has +taken from the first in favor of Pius IX., and the Roman Society for the +promotion of Catholic interests, which, by its branches and parish +committees, exercises so prodigious an influence over the city of Rome as +to excite the anxiety of those in authority. + +But let us once more listen to our unexceptionable witness, whom I think +every one will feel indebted to us for quoting so much at length: +_testimonium animae naturaliter Christianae_. + + + "The religious reaction is more and more decided, even in the + middle and lower classes, owing to the zealous associations that + have assumed the direction. This movement is worthy of study.... + At Rome, and throughout Italy, this reaction has given rise to + societies composed for the most part of men still young, whose + object is to oppose all pernicious doctrines. These societies are + to be found at Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan, Naples, Turin, + Verona, Genoa, Lucca, Padua, Pisa, and Bologna. + + "In January, 1871, the following statement was made in the + _Riforma_, the organ of Rattazzi: 'The clerical party is being + more and more reinforced at Rome; the clerical press every day + acquires more strength, its organs increase in number and + boldness.'... The clerical press is really well sustained, and, in + spite of the persecutions and ill-treatment of all kinds the + editors of these journals have to undergo, they do not cease their + energetic efforts. + + "The administering of the oath has caused wholesale resignations + in all the _dicasteres_ (at Rome). Many of these functionaries are + left without any means of subsistence.... As early as the year + 1871, there were more than four thousand resignations. + + "Thousands of Romans go to the Vatican to give their plebiscites, + and to the basilica of St. Peter to offer solemn prayers for + hastening THE DAY OF DELIVERANCE."(269) + + +The day of deliverance will arrive, and, in spite of the sneers about our +wailing over disappointed hopes, it will come soon! But how will this +deliverance be effected? United Italy has against it the upper and nether +fires--the Catholic reaction that will never stoop to parley, and the +exertions of the demagogues, which are continually increasing. At present +the nether fires seem like the prelude of the Internationale. + +The intermediate party, which would like to consolidate _le fait +accompli_, and which recruits adepts from the very opposers of the _mezzi +morali_, is not sufficiently free from all alloy of party spirit to +constitute a government capable of resistance and of exacting respect from +the league of destruction. + +Unhappy but beloved Italy! Great and holy city of Rome! shall we have the +sorrow of seeing the enemy _flamber_ your palaces, your museums, your +churches? + +Not long since we were asked at Florence to read the prophecy of Joel, so +applicable to the future of Italy: "Hear this, ... tell ye of this to your +children, and let your children tell their children, and their children to +another generation. That which the palmer worm hath left, the locust hath +eaten; and that which the locust hath left, the bruchus hath eaten; and +that which the bruchus hath left, the mildew hath destroyed. Awake, ye +that are drunk, and weep, and mourn, all ye that take delight in drinking +sweet wine; for it is cut off from your mouth."--Joel. i. 2-5. + +It is true too large a part of the Italian nation have grown giddy from +the intoxicating draught of liberalism, and it is to be feared they may be +condemned to drink the bitter cup of expiation to the dregs. The +international "locusts" will devour that which the Sub-Alpine "palmerworm" +hath left. To-day, the taxes of Sella; to-morrow, the communism of +Castellani: yesterday, a political revolution; to-morrow, a radical +revolution: yesterday and to-day, the hypocrisy of the tribune; to-morrow, +the bloody scenes of the national Comitia. After the physicians and +lawyers, after the members of the Consorteria and the friends of Rattazzi, +the lowest grade of society--the "bruchus" and the "mildew"--like a +barbarous horde, will overturn, and destroy, and deluge with petroleum. + +Italy, more than France or Spain, has abused the divine gift. She has "the +light of Rome and the sun," but has been ungrateful, proud, impious, +shameless, and reckless. The whole land is now a mere haunt for banditti, +traitors, and buffoons. + +Alas! it is so: but Pius IX. still prays for his beloved Italy! Following +the example of its lawful ruler, the nation--at least, the better portion +of the nation--have multiplied their holy prayers, which daily grow more +frequent from the delay of the benefit and the example of France. It has a +clearer sense of equity and justice; it already feels disposed to renew +its former covenant with God, return to the path of order, and take up its +national traditions of glory. It is awakening from its dreams of moral and +social primacy. It will be satisfied with, and glory in, being the _patrie +environnante_ of the Vicar of Christ. Would that France, once more +regenerated, might speedily aid her in breaking loose from the tyranny of +lodges, and shaking off the Prussian suzerainty! + +In 1860, the unhappy King of Sardinia said to M. de la Tour d'Auvergne, +the French minister at Turin: "I do not wish you to leave me under false +impressions. I feel sure you regard me as impious--as an infidel, as people +persist in saying. You are wrong.--If I number kings among my ancestry, +there are likewise saints. Here, look around.--Well, do you think that in +yonder world all these sainted relatives of mine have any other occupation +than to pray for me?"(270) + +Our Saviour prayed for those who knew not what they did! _Pater dimitte +illis._ May all the saints in heaven and on earth pray for poor Italy! It +has need of it. + + + + +Sonnet. + + +FROM THE ITALIAN OF GIOVANNI BATTISTA ZAPPI, UPON THE MOSES OF MICHAEL +ANGELO IN THE CHURCH OF SAN PIETRO IN VINCOLI, AT ROME. + + + Whose form there, sculptured in such mass of stone, + Sits like a giant, carrying art so far + Beyond all works most beautiful and known? + On those quick lips life's very accents are! + That man is Moses: on the awful front + The double ray,(271) the glory of his beard, + Reveal as much: 'tis Moses from the Mount + When much of Deity in his face appeared! + So looked he once when he the vasty fount + Of sounding waters with his one word stayed. + Such was his aspect when the sea obeyed + And swallowed Egypt. O ye tribes that bent + Before the calf! had you an image made + Like this to worship, less were to repent. + + + + +Recollections Of Pere Hermann. + + +France has a strange, magnetic power of attracting to herself, and +absorbing into her mould, all the great talent of the world. How many men +there are in Paris, who, from the ends of the earth, come together to lose +their nationality in her appreciative bosom, and to gain there instead a +reflected light of popularity ensured by her endorsement alone! All +countries have adopted citizens, it is true, some by social, some by +artistic, some by political adoption, but no country has a larger share of +adopted intellect than France. + +To all intents and purposes, the famous artist-convert and artist-monk, +Pere Hermann, was a Frenchman, though he was born a German Jew, in the +free city of Hamburg. His biographers have told us all the striking +incidents of his life; they have dwelt on his intoxicating success during +youth, his mad extravagance of opinion, of expenditure, and of depravity, +and, lastly, on his almost miraculous conversion and religious vocation. +His death, which was a fitting crown to his life, and can be dignified by +no lesser title than martyrdom, has endeared his memory still more to all +those who knew him personally and had many secret reasons to admire his +sanctity and feel grateful for his spiritual direction. His was a figure +not easily forgotten, and perhaps a few touches of personal reminiscences +will not be unacceptable to our readers, since all that links us to the +saints, and brings the shadow of their sanctity nearer to our littleness, +can hardly fail to be of interest. + +The first time we were brought in contact with him was in the summer of +1862, when he came by special invitation to spend a few days with us in +the country. The house itself had a monastic appearance and origin. It had +been, so said tradition, a rural dependency, half farm, half infirmary, of +a great Franciscan convent. It had been restored in 1849 and 1850, or +thereabouts, and thanks to the good taste of the owner and the talent of +the architects employed, had developed into a gem of Elizabethan Gothic +and of domestic comfort. The little market-town adjoining, once a centre +of wealthy wool-merchants and a great mediaeval mart, contained several +XIVth century buildings in a state of entire preservation, besides the +later pile of the almshouses (XVIIth century), which, both as a building +and an institution, was the pride of the surrounding country. Twelve old +and destitute people, six men and six women, invariably widows or +widowers, are generously supported on the fund left in perpetuity for this +purpose by Joanna, Lady C----, wife of the great loyalist Baptist, Viscount +C----, who burnt down his manor-house (opposite the almshouses), rather than +let it fall, with its treasures of plate and furniture, into the hands of +Cromwell's Roundheads. + +It was the yearly custom to feast these good people at the manor, the +restored Franciscan dependency, and thither they were conveyed one day +during the summer in question, in a large covered cart provided with seats +like a French _char-a-banc_. Pere Hermann had been in the house since the +previous evening, and had stipulated with his cordial host and hostess +that he should wear his Carmelite habit while within the limits of the +private grounds. The sight of this alone had in it something homely; it +was a rest to the eye to see the cowled figure pacing the terrace in the +early morning, Breviary in hand, and to lapse into beautiful day-dreams of +what might have been had England kept true to the faith. The Carmelite was +delighted at the prospect of seeing this annual feast given to the +almshouse people, and no sooner had they all assembled round the ample +board spread for them on a shady part of the terrace at the back of the +house, than he made his way towards them, and, saluting them, showed how +much he sympathized in their enjoyment. His English was, of course, very +imperfect; indeed, he never grew to any proficiency in speaking that +language, but his interest in the scene was none the less vividly +expressed. The old people still wear the costume appointed by the +foundress of the institution: for the men, gaiters and a long coat of +rough black cloth, with a silver badge or medal; for the women, a narrow, +old-fashioned dress of the same material, and a similar badge. These +badges, we believe, have never been renewed since the original endowment, +and are handed down from one bedesman to his successor, and so on; the +clothes are renewed every two years. If we mistake not, Pere Hermann said +grace for these poor people, who, though all Protestants, seemed not at +all shocked at the "popish" apparition. Indeed, he gained the hearts of +all who ever saw him, his gentleness and recollection inspiring a respect +for his person which was little short of veneration. He seemed as though +he were walking with angels and listening to heavenly converse even while +charitably lending his time and his bodily presence to earth. When he had +enjoyed, with the simplicity of a child, the sight of the innocent sports +and merriment of the old people, he left us for the chapel, where he spent +a great part of his time. We cannot help adverting to a little occurrence +which took place at one of these almshouse feasts (we believe this very +one), and which was certainly very pathetic. A monk might well take +pleasure in such unaffected simplicity and gentleness among those whose +ancestors had been so intimately linked of old with monastic patrons. One +of the old women, speaking to one of her host's daughters of her little +grandchild, a baby girl who was just dead, said, in the broad dialect of +the county of Gloucester (which, however, we dare not imitate in print): + + + "When the child was born, my daughter made me notice how long the + little thing's fingers were, and said, 'Bless its little heart! + they are long enough for the baby to be a waiting-maid on the + queen.' And we agreed, laughing-like, that a waiting-maid the + child would surely be. But when it died, I said to my daughter, + said I, 'Jane, we were mistaken about the baby's fingers, you see. + I tell you the Lord gave her those beautiful long fingers, not to + attend on any great lady or queen on earth, but to play on the + golden harps in his kingdom of heaven.' " + + +No truer nor more reverent poetry can be found anywhere than that simple +utterance of an unlettered old woman who had not even that instinctive +education which belongs to all those who learn the Catholic catechism. +Such women and such poetry used to abound in the England of historic +times, but error and materialism have but too well succeeded during the +last three centuries in making the type rare and not easily discoverable, +save in some forgotten nook of the rural districts. + +Pere Hermann that evening allowed us to enjoy _our_ treat, after giving +him his among the bedesmen, by playing a little on a cottage piano-forte +in what we called the oak drawing-room. The servants were all collected in +the next room (the library), and this seemed to give him particular +satisfaction, as he was ever most fastidiously thoughtful of the comforts +and pleasures of those in inferior station. His playing, though not +comparable to his triumphant successes as an artist nearly twenty years +before, was still admirable, and, above all, so _sympathetic_. He played, +among other things, the "Prayer of Moses" with great solemnity and +expression, and also some of his own _Cantiques_, which for blending +passion with religious earnestness are something unique. He never played +anywhere save in private, and then only to small audiences in an informal +manner, and never touched the organ save by obedience in his own church, +or for the Forty Hours' Exposition, saying that he wished to have his art +ever sanctified by a religious inspiration. The fascination and temptation +of artistic triumphs must still have been appreciable stumbling-blocks in +his spiritual career. Therefore, to hear him play at all was no slight +favor, and, while on this visit, he repeated this favor more than once. On +the last day, he said Mass in the domestic chapel, and distributed the +Scapular to the household, enrolling nearly every member in the +Confraternity. He gave a short address on the origin and meaning of this +devotion, the distinctive one of his Order, and which was further made +interesting on this occasion by the fact of the host's having in former +years rescued a picture of S. Simon Stock in the act of receiving the +first miraculous Scapular. The figures were life-size, and the painting +after the manner of the later Italian school; the canvas was found riddled +with holes, having been used as a target by ignorant or fanatical +possessors. The restored picture was hung in the drawing-room, where it +became a great source of interest to the zealous convert Carmelite, our +dear guest. During this visit was laid the foundation of a spiritual +friendship between him and the writer--a friendship which proved a great +benefit and guidance in our after-life. + +Meeting him again in London a few months later, we learnt a singular +occurrence connected with his influence over souls. A young girl, not much +over seventeen, and of a wilful and rebellious nature, who was under Pere +Hermann's spiritual direction, happening to come up to town for a few +days, experienced a strange phase of religious excitement. Careless as she +was about all serious matters regarding the future state, she was +nevertheless seized with a strong feeling of inadequacy in her religious +efforts. She rose suddenly (it was a bright moonlight night), and went to +the window, where the chastened beauty of the moon made even the +monotonous landscape of London roofs and chimneys shine with a weird charm +and take on suggestive shapes of startling vividness. Something--the grace +of God, we ought no doubt reverently to say--seemed to take hold of her +heart and shake her whole being. It was not the fear of punishment, the +blank of unsated frivolity, that moved her; only one cry burst from her +heart--"I have never loved God enough--I have never loved him at all." If +any but the saints ever feel perfect contrition, she did at that moment; +for in that one sin she saw all others contained. Sobs came from the +depths of her heart; she paced her room with naked feet, unmindful of +discomfort, unheeding the autumn chill that is never long absent from +London atmosphere, repeating again and again, like a dirge, those words, +"I have never loved God enough--I have never loved him at all." Then came a +wondering feeling as to what this awakening meant; was it conversion, or +the beginning of a vocation, or a sign that some special self-devotedness +would be required of her through life? She said to herself, "I will see +Pere Hermann, and tell him; I wonder if this will last!" + +Strange to say, the blessed excitement passed away, and the next morning, +though she tried to revive it, it was impossible. Not a trace of emotion +was left, although the mind recalled distinctly what an ecstasy of sorrow +it had been, and how it had shaken the soul to its very centre. The young +girl, however, saw Pere Hermann, and told him of it, and in the parlor of +the nuns of the Assumption, Kensington Square, he gave her the advice of a +father and a saint. She is still living, and none can tell if that +prophetic call may not yet have unexpected fulfilment through the prayers +of one who is now a saint in heaven. This occurrence led to a very +interesting and intimate correspondence, which we have examined ourselves, +and of which we would gladly give some extracts were the letters not +unfortunately beyond our reach at the present moment. + +Pere Hermann was peculiarly fond of children, as indeed all saints are. +Going one day to the Brompton Oratory, which the finest organ in London +and a very perfect and numerous surpliced choir contribute to make one of +the leading Catholic churches of the English capital, he was prevailed +upon to play a voluntary after the Offertory. There sat a child in that +choir, only a little chorus singer, but whose early dream it had ever been +to become a musician and play upon an organ such as that majestic, +imperial instrument which he listened to with vague awe every Sunday. He +knew the story of the great artist who now sat at the organ in his +Carmelite habit, and he drank in eagerly the grand strains he could but +dimly understand, yet admired so intensively. Things which he never knew +technically till many years after, yet seemed not unknown to his +sympathetic ear, and, if he understood but little of the science that +created those rolling chords and modulations, he could worship the beauty +they expressed. + +A few days later, the little chorister, with six or seven companions from +the Oratory School, was taken to the temporary Carmelite chapel in +Kensington. It was all very poor and unpretending, but the spirit of +recollection and peace made an Eden of the temporary refuge of these +"knights of poverty," and the children were very much impressed. Pere +Hermann came to the parlor to see them, and inquired severally after each +one from the Oratorian Father in whose special charge they were. Our +little chorister was dumb with awe and delight, expecting the holy +Carmelite to notice him particularly; but when the Oratorian was +questioned about this boy, he answered laughingly: + +"Oh! this fellow is going to be a tinker." + +Pere Hermann looked amused but incredulous, and the child grew hot and +uncomfortable under the laughing gaze of his companions. He had long made +up his mind as to what he would like to be, and the tinker suggestion was +peculiarly hateful to him, because systematically used by his wise +instructor to "break his pride." But the gentle monk saw the boy's +discomfiture, and came skilfully to the rescue. + +"And will you really be a tinker, my little man?" he said, smiling. + +"No, father," readily answered the little one. "A musician." + +"You mean a tinker, Peter," teasingly suggested the Oratorian, and the boy +blushed with annoyance. + +"No, no," said Pere Hermann; "he will be a musician, as he says, and a +good one. And now," he continued, "it is nearly time for Benediction, and +I am going to play the harmonium; would you like to stay for that?" + +The child was speechless with delight, and then the holy monk added: + +"You shall pull out the stops for me, Peter," which was done, and, though +it seemed the acme of happiness to Peter, it probably did not improve the +music. + +After the service, the father called one of the lay brothers, and +entrusted the children to his care, saying, with simple glee, and in the +broken accent which all who knew him remember as a characteristic of his +otherwise terse and appropriate language: + +"Now, brother, go and feed these little ones, and mind you give them +plenty of good things." + +The order was well obeyed, for the tradition of ample and eager +hospitality has never been lost among religious orders, be they poor and +struggling and even proscribed, or rich, powerful, and influential. Rich +plum-cake and good wine, with candies of every sort, were set before the +little musician and his friends, but the child was even then thinking +exultingly that Pere Hermann had really said he should be an artist. In +later years, when studying his art in Flanders, or earning his bread by it +in England, this saying, that from such holy lips seemed a prophetic +blessing and an earnest of success, often and often recurred to his mind, +and encouraged him in the many dark days through which he had to pass. + +To all those who learned to love Pere Hermann from personal intercourse +with him, every remembrance of his words, however trifling, is now doubly +treasured; his death, uniting as it did in itself the heroism of +philanthropy, of patriotism, and of divine charity, has already +practically canonized him in the eyes of his friends and spiritual +children; and as we lay this slender wreath of praise among the more +important tributes that literature, art, and religion have heaped around +his memory, we are fain to exclaim, with the wise man of Israel, "Blessed +are they that saw thee, and were honored with thy friendship."(272) + + + + +A Daughter Of S. Dominic. + + +Concluded. + +It was a singular proof, not only of respect for her character, but of +confidence in her judgment and discretion, on the part of the government, +to have entrusted her with this right of mercy; knowing, as no one who +knew anything about her could fail to know, her extraordinary tenderness +of heart and compassion for suffering, especially in the case of the +soldiers. It seemed a risk to invest her with a sort of judicial right to +interfere in their behalf at the hands of law and justice; but they never +had reason to regret it. She showed herself to the last worthy of the +trust reposed in her. In the exercise of a privilege whose application was +one of the keenest joys of her life, Amelie evinced a mind singularly well +balanced, a judgment always clear, and a prudence ever on the alert to +guide and control the impulses of her heart. But when her judgment +approved the promptings of charity, no consideration could deter her from +obeying them. She was by nature very timid, and of late years, owing to +her having quite broken off intercourse with the world, properly speaking, +this timidity had grown to a painful shyness. Whenever there was a +necessity, however, she could brave it, and face a gay crowd or a doughty +magnate with as much ease and cheerfulness as if the act demanded no +effort or sacrifice of natural inclination. Such sacrifices were +frequently required of her. Her name had a prestige that gained entrance +through doors closed to persons of infinitely higher social position and +importance; and when a community, or a hospital, or a family wanted a +mediator in high quarters, they turned quite naturally to Amelie. On one +occasion her courage and good-nature were put to a rather severe test. It +was in the case of a poor man who had been condemned to a long term of +punishment for some fraudulent act. The circumstances of the case, the +hitherto excellent character of the man, the fierce pressure of want under +which the fraud was committed, and certain points which threw doubts on +the extent to which he had been consciously guilty, along with the misery +his condemnation must entail on a wife and young family, roused strong +sympathy for him, and a general impulse seized the townspeople to appeal +to the emperor for his pardon. But how to do it so as to make the appeal +efficacious--who to entrust with the delicate mission? Every heart turned +instinctively to Amelie. Her name rose to every tongue. The most +influential of the petitioners went to her, and besought her to go to +Paris and obtain an audience of the emperor, and implore of his clemency a +free pardon for the convict. Her first impulse was to draw back in dismay +at the mere contemplation of such a feat; but the petitioners brought out +an array of arguments that it was not in Amelie's nature to resist. She +called up her courage, recommended the success of her mission to the +prayers of the Marseillese and the protection of N. Dame de Garde, and +started off to Paris. Thanks to her previous relations with the +ministerial world, she was able to obtain, after some delay, an audience +of the emperor. He received her with the most flattering marks of personal +consideration, and granted her at once the pardon she sued for. Amelie +telegraphed the good news to Marseilles on leaving his majesty's presence, +and was met on her arrival there the following day by her protege and his +family in tears of joy and gratitude. + +On another occasion, she was applied to for a rather large sum of money +for a very pressing charity. She happened for the moment to have exhausted +all her own and her friends' resources, and knew not where to turn for the +necessary sum. Some enterprising person proposed that she should go and +beg it at the house of a banker who was giving a grand ball that night, +and at which all the wealthy notabilities of the town were to be present. +It was quite an unprecedented proceeding, and one that it required the +humility and the courage of Amelie to undertake. She hesitated as usual at +first, and as usual, seeing that the thing had to be done, and that no one +else would do it, she consented. A preliminary step was to obtain the +host's permission. This he at first emphatically refused; and, seeing that +it required nearly as much courage on his part to allow his guests to be +waylaid as for Amelie to waylay them, it is not much to be wondered at. +Courage, however, is catching. Amelie pleaded, and the banker gave way. He +opened her list of contributions by a handsome sum, and consented that she +should come the same evening and beg the rest at his house. It was a +strange episode in the brilliant scene--the pale, dark-eyed woman, in her +homely black gown and neat little black net cap, standing at the door of +the ball-room; and stretching out her little bag to the votaries of +pleasure as they passed her: "_Pour les pauvres, mesdames! Pour les +pauvres, messieurs!_" The words must have struck in oddly enough through +the clanging of the orchestra, and the rustling of silken robes, and the +hum of laughter as the merrymakers swept round in the mazes of the dance. +But the low, sweet voice of the beggar rose above the music and the din +loud enough to reach many hearts that night; no one turned a deaf ear to +the suppliant; the gentlemen gave money, or pledged themselves to give it; +the women dropped rings and bracelets into the velvet bag that soon +overflowed with its own riches; and when all the guests had arrived, and +the festivity was at its height, Amelie, after admiring, as she was always +ready to do, everything bright and beautiful that was not sinful--the +brilliancy of the scene, the bright jewels and the pretty toilets, and the +artistic decoration of the rooms--bade good-night to it all and to her +host, and went home with her heart full of love and gratitude towards her +kindly fellow-creatures. + +But we should never end if we were to narrate all the acts of charity and +zeal that she was never tired of performing. The following, however, are +too characteristic to be omitted: + +Late one evening, in her rounds through one of those dark centres of +misery and crime that are to be found in all big cities, Amelie heard that +a mountebank was dying in a neighboring cellar, all alone and in great +pain. She made her way to the place at once. The dying man was lying on a +heap of a straw, but he was not alone; a bear and a monkey shared his +wretched abode; they had enabled the poor mountebank to live, and now they +stood by while he was dying, watching his death-throes in dumb sympathy. +Nothing scared by the presence of his strange company, Amelie went up to +the man and spoke to him gently of his soul. If he had ever heard of such +a thing as an essential part of himself, he seemed to have altogether +forgotten it, but he did not repulse her; he let her sit down beside him +on the live, fetid straw and try to soothe him in his pains, and instruct +him in the intervals, and prepare him to make his peace with God. By the +time her part of the task was done, the night was far spent, but there was +no time to lose. Amelie went straight to the priest's house and woke him +up. On the road, she told him what he would find on arriving. + +The two went in together. Amelie knelt down in the furthest corner of the +place and prayed, and the bear and the monkey looked on while the sweet +and wondrous mystery between Jesus and the good thief was renewed before +their blank, unintelligent eyes. The mountebank made a general confession +of his whole life, and received the last sacraments. Then the priest went +home, and Amelie remained alone with the dying man, who expired a few +hours later with his head resting on her shoulder. + +On another occasion, she heard that a woman whose life had been a public +scandal in the town was at the point of death. She rose at once to go to +her, and, in spite of the remonstrances of those present, she did go. The +character of the woman and her associates, and the place where she lived, +were indeed enough to deter a less daring spirit than Amelie, but whenever +an objection was raised on prudential grounds to her visiting here or +there, she would playfully point to her hump, and say: + +"With a protector like that, a woman may go anywhere." + +The woman at first repulsed her fiercely and bade her begone, and refused +to hear the name of God mentioned; but Amelie held her ground, pleading +with all the eloquence at her command--and those who have heard it in +moments when her soul was stirred by any great emotion declare that it was +little less than sublime. She caressed the wretched creature, calling her +by the most endearing names, till at last the obdurate heart was softened, +she let Amelie stay and speak to her, and even asked her to come back the +next day. "But," she added, "you'll find a _monsieur_ at the door, and +he's capable of beating you if you try to come in against his will." + +But Amelie was not likely to be deterred by this. She came the following +morning, and found the _monsieur_. He met her with insulting defiance, and +dared her to enter, and, on her attempting to do so, he raised his hand +and clenched it, with a savage oath threatening to strike her. + +"Hit here!" said Amelie, coolly turning her hump to him. + +Confounded by the words and the action, the man let his arm drop. Before +he had recovered from his surprise, she had passed into the sick room, and +he stood silently looking on and listening in wonder to what was going on +before him. Amelie left the house unmolested, and returned a few hours +later with a priest. The unhappy woman had been a Christian in her youth. +She made a general confession in the midst of abundant tears, and died the +next day in admirable sentiments of contrition and hope. The example was +not lost on her companion; he made a sudden and generous renunciation of +his sinful life, and Amelie had to rejoice over the return of two souls +instead of one. + +As we have said before, her charity was essentially catholic, universal in +every sense. She was ready to pity everybody's troubles, and, with Amelie, +to pity meant to help. The poor widow toiling broken-hearted for her +children in the courts and alleys of the big town; the father struggling +with adversity in another sphere, trying to educate his sons and marry his +daughters and pay the inexorable debt of decency that society exacts from +a gentleman; the poor, lone girl battling with poverty, or perhaps +writhing in agonized shame at having fallen in the battle; the rich mother +weeping over the wanderings of a son; the poor orphan without bread or +friends; the rich orphan pursued by designing relations, or in danger of +falling into the hands of a worthless husband; high and low, rich and poor +alike, all came to Amelie for sympathy and counsel, and no one was ever +repulsed. Even those difficulties which are the result of culpable +weakness, and which meet generally with small mercy, not to say +indulgence, from pious people, found Amelie full of indulgent pity and a +ready will to help. An officer on one occasion was drawn inadvertently +into contracting a debt of honor which he had no means of paying. In his +despair he thought of Amelie, and, half maddened with shame and remorse, +he came to her to ask for pity and advice. The sum in question was two +thousand francs. Amelie happened to have it at the moment, and, touched by +the distress of the man of the world, she gave it to him at once. There +was no spirit of criticism, no censoriousness in her piety, no fastidious +condemnation of things innocent in themselves, however apt to be dangerous +in their abuse. She loved to see young people happy and amused, and would +listen with real interest and pleasure to an account of some fete where +they had enjoyed themselves after the manner of their age. This simplicity +and liberty of spirit enabled her often to take advantage of opportunities +for doing good that never would occur to a person whose piety turned in a +narrower groove; she was wont to exclaim regretfully against good people +for being so overnice in the choice of opportunities, and thus cramping +their own power and means of usefulness. With regard to the choice of +tools in the same way, she would often deprecate the fastidiousness of +certain pious people, urging that, when there was a work to do, an aim to +accomplish, an obstacle to overcome, we should take up whatever tools +Providence put in our way, not quarrelling with their shape or quality, +but doing the best we can with them, profiting by a knave's villany or a +fool's folly to further a just purpose, or a noble scheme, or a kind +action, making, as far as honesty and truth can do it, evil accomplish the +work of good. + +Faithfully bearing in mind that we may do no evil that good may come of +it, Amelie had withal an ingenious gift of turning to good account the +evil that was done by others; but she was slow to see the evil, and, when +it was forced upon her, she had always more pity than censure for it. Her +lamp was always lighted, and she was ever ready to help the foolish ones +who go about this world of ours crying out to the wise ones: "Give me of +your oil!" For it is not only when the Bridegroom comes that we need to +have our lamp lighted, we want it all along the road, for others as well +as for ourselves; we must even adapt it to the necessities of the road by +changing the color of its light. This we can do by changing the oil. We +must use the oil of faith when we want a strong, bright blaze to keep our +feet straight amidst the ruts and snares and pools of muddy water that +abound at every step; we must burn the oil of hope to frighten away +despondency and cheer us when our hearts are heavy and our courage ebbing; +but we must be chiefly prodigal of the rich and salutary oil of charity, +for the flame it sends out is often more helpful to others than to +ourselves. Sometimes, when our lamp is so low that it hardly shows the +ground clear under our own feet, it is shedding--thanks to this marvellous +oil of charity--a heavenly radiance on the path of those journeying behind +us; its flame is luminous as a star and soft as moonlight; people on whom +we turn its roseate glow rejoice in it as in sunshine: it softens them, it +heals them, it takes the sting out of their worst wounds. The lamp fed +with this incomparable oil is, moreover, often brightest when we ourselves +are sick at heart, and when it costs us an effort to pour in the oil and +set the wick in order. We do not realize it, but we can believe it by +recalling the effect of kindness on our own souls in some well-remembered +hour, when it came from one in great sorrow, and who we knew was setting +aside her own grief to enter into ours. Let us be brave, then, to hold up +our lamp arm-high to the pilgrims who are toiling foot-sore and faint up +the steep and rugged path of life along with us; its flame soars on to +heaven, and shines more brightly before God than the fairest and loveliest +of his stars. + +We mentioned already that Amelie, on her father's death, made a vow of +personal poverty. She observed this vow with the utmost rigor as far as +was consistent with decorum and the absence of anything approaching to a +display of holiness--a thing of which she was almost morbidly afraid. Her +usual dress was a black woollen gown and a shawl of the same material; her +appearance in the street was that of a respectable housekeeper, but no one +who saw the outward decency of her attire suspected the sordid poverty +that often lay beneath it. She limited herself to a pittance for her +clothes, and she would submit to the most painful inconvenience rather +than exceed it. Once she gave away her strong boots and a warm winter +petticoat to a poor person at the beginning of the winter, and, though the +cold set in suddenly with great severity, she bore it rather than replace +either of them till her allowance fell due. How her health bore the amount +of labor and austerities that she underwent it is difficult to explain +without using the word miraculous. + +When, under the pious auspices of Monseigneur de Mazenod, the devotion of +the Perpetual Adoration was established at Marseilles, Amelie at once had +herself enrolled in the confraternity; unable to spare time from her +multiform works of mercy during the day, she entrenched upon her nights, +and used to spend hours in adoration before the Tabernacle. Fatigue and +bodily suffering were no obstacle to the ardor of her soul; her spirit +seemed to thrive in proportion as her body wasted. After a day of arduous +labor, constantly on her feet, going and coming amongst the poor and the +sick, breathing the foul air of hospital wards, and dingy cellars, and +garrets, fasting as rigorously as any Carmelite, and grudging her body all +but the bare necessaries of life, she was able to pass an entire night on +her knees before the Blessed Sacrament, and be apparently none the worse +for it. Such wonderful things are those who love God strengthened to do +for him. Yet this woman was made of the same flesh and blood as ourselves; +she had the same natural shrinkings and antipathies; her body was not made +of different clay from ours, or supernaturally fashioned to defy the +attacks of the devil and the repugnances of nature, to endure hunger, and +pain, and fatigue without feeling them; she had the same temptations to +fight against, the same corrupt inclinations to overcome, and the same +weapons of defence against her enemies that we have--faith and prayer and +the sacraments. What, then, is the difference between us? Only this, she +was generous and brave, and we are mean and cowardly. We bargain and hang +back, whereas she made no reserves, but strove to serve God with all her +heart and all her strength, and he did the rest. He always does it for +those who trust him and hearken unconditionally to that hard saying: "Take +up thy cross and follow me!" For them he changes all bitter things into +sweet, all weakness into strength; for the old Adam that they cast aside +he clothes them with the new, thus rendering them invincible against their +enemies, and repaying a hundred-fold, even in this life, the miserable +rags that we call sacrifices; he fills the hungry with good things, and in +exchange for creatures and the perishable delights which they have +renounced for his sake he gives them himself and a foretaste of the bliss +of Paradise. + +During her solitary vigils before the altar, the thought of the +ingratitude of men and their cruel neglect of our Saviour in his +Eucharistic prison sank deeply into Amelie's heart, and filled it with +grief and an ardent desire to make some reparation to his outraged love. +We have all read the wonderful chapter on Thanksgiving in that wonderful +book, _All for Jesus_. Most of us have felt our hearts stirred to +sorrowful indignation at the sad picture it reveals of our own unkindness +to God, and the tender sensitiveness of the Sacred Heart to our +ingratitude, and his meek acceptance of any crumb of thanksgiving that we +deign once in a way to throw to him; we have felt our tepid pulses quicken +to a momentary impulse of generosity and passionate desire to call after +the nine ungrateful lepers, and constrain them to return and thank him; we +watch them going their way unmindful, and we cast ourselves in spirit at +the feet of Jesus, gazing after them in sad surprise, and we pour out our +souls in apologies--so bold does the passing touch of love make the meanest +of us in consolations to him for the unkindness of his creatures. Alas! +with most of us it ends there. Next time he tries us we follow the nine +selfish lepers, and leave him wondering and sorrowing again over our +ingratitude. But with Amelie it was different. No inspiration of divine +grace ever found her deaf to its voice; her love knew no such things as +barren sighs and idle mystic sentimentalities. Her whole heart was stirred +by that touching and powerful appeal of Father Faber's, and she began to +consider at once what she could do to respond to it. The idea occurred to +her of instituting a community, to be called _Soeurs Reparatrices_, whose +mission should be to give thanks and to console our divine Lord for the +ingratitude of the world by perpetual adoration before the Tabernacle, and +at the same time of getting up a regular service of thanksgiving among the +faithful at large, to have short prayers appointed and recommended by the +church to their constant use, for the sole and express purpose of thanking +God for his countless mercies to us all, but more especially to those +among us who never thank him on their own account. Both suggestions were +warmly approved of by many pious souls to whom she mentioned them. + +In order, however, to carry them out effectively, it was deemed advisable +that Amelie should go to Rome and obtain the authorization and blessing of +the Holy Father. She had never been to Rome, but it was the desire of her +life to go there; it drew her as the magnet draws the needle; Rome, to her +filial Catholic heart, was the outer gate of heaven; it held the Father of +Christendom, the Vicar of Christ; it held the tombs of the martyrs, its +soil was saturated with their blood, all things within its walls were +stamped with the seal of Christianity, and told of the wonders that it had +wrought. Amelie, glad of the necessity which compelled her to fulfil her +long-cherished desire, set out for the Eternal City. She received the most +affectionate welcome from the Holy Father, who had been long acquainted +with her by name, and knew the apostolic manner of life she led. With +regard to the community which she desired to found, and of which she was +to become a member, but not superioress, His Holiness approved of it, but +beyond this, of what passed between him and Amelie on the subject, no +details have transpired. She said that the Holy Father encouraged her to +carry out the design and gave her his blessing on it, and promised her his +fatherly countenance and protection; but whether she submitted any rule to +him at this period we have not been able to ascertain. As to the scheme of +general thanksgiving that she proposed to inaugurate, he gave her abundant +blessings on it, and indulgenced several prayers that she submitted to his +inspection. Unfortunately, we have not been able to procure a copy of the +little book which contained them all; this is the more to be regretted, +that some of them were drawn up by Amelie herself and full of the spirit +of her own tender piety; they were also preceded by a preface in which she +appealed very lovingly to the children of Mary and the members of the +Confraternity of the Sacred Heart, and begged their zealous co-operation +in the service of thanksgiving. We may mention, however, that she was in +the habit, during the few remaining years of her life, of constantly +recommending to her friends the use of the _Gloria Patri_ and the +ejaculation _Deo Gratias!_ as having been particularly commended to her +devotion by the Holy Father himself. + +An incident occurred to Amelie during her stay in Rome which she often +narrated as a proof of the extreme need we have of a service of +thanksgiving. She went one morning to an audience at the house of a +cardinal, and while she was waiting for her turn she got into conversation +with the Superior of the Redemptorist Fathers in France. Always on the +watch to gain an ally to the cause, she told him the motive of her journey +to Rome, and begged that he would use his influence in his own wide sphere +to forward its success amongst souls. + +"Ah! madame!" exclaimed the Redemptorist, "it was a good thought to try +and stir up men's hearts to a spirit of thanksgiving, for there is nothing +more wanted in the world. The story of the nine lepers is going on just +the same these eighteen hundred years. I have been forty years a priest, +and during that time I have been asked to say Masses for every sort of +intention, _but only once_ have I been asked _to say a Mass of +thanksgiving_!" + +Yes, truly the story of the nine lepers is being enacted now as in the old +days when Jesus exclaimed sorrowfully, "Is there no one but this stranger +found to return and give thanks?" + +But for all her clear-sighted sensitiveness to the sins and shortcomings +of her day, Amelie was full of hope in it; nothing annoyed her more than +to see good people lapse into that lugubrious way so common to them of +always crying anathema on their age and despairing of it; she used to say +that she mistrusted the love and the logic of such; that those who love +God and their fellow-creatures for his sake never despair of them, but +work for them, trusting in God's help and in the ultimate triumph of good +over evil; that despair was a sign of stupidity and cowardice. And was she +not right? Surely every age has in its ugliness some counterbalancing +beauty, some redeeming grace of comeliness, in the tattered raiment that +hangs about its ulcers and its nakedness. God never leaves himself at any +time without witnesses on the earth, and it is our fault, not his, if we +do not see them. There are always bright spots in humanity, and those who +cannot discern them should blame their own dull vision, not their fellow- +men. As poets who have the mystic eye see beauties of hue and color in the +material world where common men see nothing but ruin and decay, so do the +saints and the saint-like, with the keen vision of faith and hope, alone +penetrate the external darkness and decay of humanity, and discover in the +midst of gloom and evil much that is promising and fair; they see +elemental wines boiling up in the cauldron of travail and suffering, and +they know that their bitterness is salutary and their fire invigorating +unto life. + +Amelie returned to Marseilles well satisfied with her visit to the Holy +City, and resumed her labors with renewed zest. But she had left her heart +behind her, and from the day she left Rome she had but one desire, and +that was to return and end her days there. Her health had of late grown so +feeble that it was more and more a subject of wonder to those who +witnessed it how she was able to continue her life of superhuman activity +without flagging for a day. Amelie felt, however, that it could not last +much longer now. She had frequently expressed in the midst of her busy, +active life a longing for a life of contemplation, and in proportion as +the end drew near, the yearning for an interval of silence and solitude +increased. She was often heard to say to her fellow-laborers: + +"It is time I left off looking after other people's souls, and attended a +little to my own; I feel the want of more prayer, of more time before the +Blessed Sacrament; really, I must begin to get ready." + +In the year 1869, she determined to carry this desire into execution, and +begin to get ready, as she said, by withdrawing into a more solitary life. +Her love for the church had taken a new impetus from her intercourse with +the Holy Father; from the first the Denier de S. Pierre counted her among +its most zealous promoters, but more so than ever now. An abundant +collection which she made just at this time offered a plausible pretext to +her for going to Rome, in order to lay it at the feet of Pius IX. So after +putting her affairs in order, and bidding good-by to only her immediate +and intimate friends, so as to avoid anything like resistance or a +demonstration on the part of the multitude of people to whom she knew her +departure would be painful, Amelie took leave of the hospitable old home +in the Rue Grignan, and set her face once more toward the Eternal City. + +But she had a last work to do for her native town on the road. The +splendid military hospital of Marseilles, in which she had taken so deep +and active an interest, was served by lay nurses, and both the soldiers +and the civil authorities were anxious to have these replaced by Sisters +of Charity. Easy as the thing seemed, up to the present all endeavors to +effect the substitution had failed. It rested with the government to make +the appointment and to grant a certain sum for the maintenance of the +community when attached to the hospital, but, owing either to the case not +being properly represented, or to the ill-will of certain officials who +put obstacles in the way, every application on the subject had been met by +a refusal. The authorities, seeing all else fail them, turned to Amelie. +They remembered her success on a former occasion, and requested her to +take the affair in hand on arriving in Paris, and get from the minister +the desired concession. The mission was repugnant to her, because she +foresaw it would involve her having to come forward and put herself in the +way of notabilities and magnates; but, as there seemed just a chance of +being able to perform a last service to the soldiers, she accepted, and +promised to do her best. + +She had a military friend in Paris, who, though a practical Catholic, +occupied a distinguished position in the service, and was on good terms +with its chiefs. This gentleman procured an audience for her of Marshal +----, who was then in the ministry, and the person to whom she was directed +to apply in the first instance. + +The marshal, who had been made aware of the subject of her visit, received +her, according to his custom, in shirt-sleeves and a towering rage, asked +her a dozen questions, one on top of another, without giving her time to +edge in a word of protest, wondered very much what she or anybody else +meant by interfering with soldiers and their hospitals and the supreme +wisdom of the government, of dictating to them what they ought to do; but +that was the way with women; women were always meddling with what didn't +concern them; they were the most difficult subjects to govern; for +himself, he would rather have the management of ten armies than a village +full of women, etc. In fact, his excellency bullied his visitor after the +usual manner of his peculiar courtesy, and Amelie was obliged to take her +leave after a very brief audience, during which she had been rated like a +naughty schoolboy and not allowed to say three sentences in self-defence. +Clearly there was not much to be done in that quarter. Her friend then +proposed getting her without further preamble an audience of the emperor. +Amelie preserved a grateful recollection of the reception she had met with +from his majesty some years before, and the idea of entering his presence +again inspired her with less terror than the prospect of a second edition +of the marshal; she thought, moreover, that there might be a speedier and +better chance of success by applying directly to the emperor than by +beating about the bush with his ministers, admitting even that they were +not all of the same type as the one she had tried. Amelie accepted the +offer, therefore, and, after a shorter delay than any one but a cabinet +minister might have been obliged to undergo, she received a letter from +the Lord Chamberlain notifying the day and hour when she was to present +herself at the Tuileries. + +She was shown into the antechamber, where generals, dignitaries of the +state, bishops, and other important personages were waiting their turn to +enter the imperial presence. His majesty was giving audience to an +ambassador when Amelie arrived, and there was rather a long delay before +the door opened. When it did, it was not his chamberlain, but the emperor +himself who appeared on the threshold; he stood for a moment, and looked +deliberately round the room, where he recognized many noble and +influential personages, and then, perceiving an elderly lady in a rusty +black gown sitting at the furthest end of it, he walked straight up to +her, and held out both his hands. "Mademoiselle Lautard," said his +majesty, "I thank you for the honor you do me by this visit; I am sure I +have only to mention your name for every one present to admit your right +to pass before them." + +There was a general murmur of assent, though it must have puzzled most if +not all of the spectators of this strange scene who this poverty-stricken, +humpbacked elderly lady was to be thus greeted by Napoleon III., and +handed over their heads to the presence-chamber. As soon as they were +alone, the emperor drew a chair close to his own, and, inviting his +visitor to sit down, he said: + +"Now, tell me if, over and above the pleasure of seeing you, I am to have +that of doing something that can give you pleasure?" + +Amelie, in relating the interview to her friend, said that, when she saw +his majesty bearing down upon her before the assembled multitude in the +antechamber, she felt ready to sink into the ground, and wished herself at +Hongkong; but the moment he spoke her terrors vanished, and she had not +been two minutes with him before she felt perfectly at her ease, and +talked on as fearlessly as if he had been an old friend. She told him her +wishes about the hospital, and he promised unconditionally that they +should be carried out. For certain formalities, however, it was necessary +to refer her to his minister. + +"You will call on Marshal ----," said his majesty; "he is the person to do +it." + +"Sire!" exclaimed Amelie, throwing up her hands in dismay, "anything but +that; your majesty must really manage it without sending me again to +Marshal ----." + +"Ah! you have been to him already," said the emperor, with a quiet smile; +"well, try him again, and this time I warrant you a better reception; he +is _bon enfant au fond_, but you must not let him think that you're afraid +of him." + +Thus warned and encouraged, Amelie promised to take her courage in both +hands, as the emperor said, and beard the lion once more in his den. +Before letting her go, his majesty questioned her minutely about the +condition of the hospitals and other charitable institutions at +Marseilles, concerning all of which he appeared to be singularly well +informed. + +The next day, she presented herself at the _ministere_, and was ushered +into the marshal's presence. He had his coat on this time; whether the +fact was due to accident, or to a desire to propitiate the lady who had +complained of him to his master, history does not say; but, as soon as +Amelie entered, his excellency accosted her with: "Well, so you were +affronted with me, it seems! What did you say about me to the emperor?" + +"Excellency," replied Amelie, "I told his majesty that I had expected to +find a minister of France, but I found instead a man in a passion." + +The marshal grunted a laugh, and told her to sit down and explain her +business. She did so, this time with perfect satisfaction to both parties, +and they parted the best friends in the world. + +This closed her career of usefulness in France; she waited to make the +needful arrangements for the departure of the nuns, their reception at +Marseilles, etc., and then she started for Rome. + +On setting out for the Eternal City, Amelie seemed to have had the +presentiment that she had entered on the last stage of her pilgrimage. The +sense of her approaching end, which betrayed itself, perhaps +unconsciously, in conversing both by word and letter with her most +intimate friends, was accompanied by an increase of fervor and a serenity +which struck every one who approached her as something almost divine. The +project which she had formed of founding and entering a community of +_Soeurs Reparatrices_ was still unrealized, but she hoped now to carry it +into effect, to make the remainder of her life a perpetual _Deo Gratias_! +and to die in the outward livery of the religious state whose spirit her +whole life had so faithfully embodied. But God had other designs upon her. +Meantime, in the twilight interval of comparative leisure that she had +looked forward to so long and enjoyed so thankfully, Amelie did not give +up all active work; she prayed more, and lived in greater retirement; but +she still gave a fair proportion of each day to her accustomed service of +the poor and the sick. + +These were troubled days that she had fallen upon in Rome. The +sacrilegious hand of parricides had robbed the church of her possessions, +and reduced Pius IX. to the nominal sovereignty of the capital of +Christendom, as a prelude to making it, what it is now, his prison. +Catholic hearts were sad; but, amongst all his children, the Vicar of +Christ had no more faithfully sorrowing heart than Amelie's, none who +entered more keenly into his griefs or responded with more filial alacrity +to their claim on her sympathy and participation and righteous anger. She +beheld the persecutions of God's church, the hatred and malice of its +enemies, the cowardice of those who called themselves its friends, but +stood by passive and cold while the crime perpetrated outside Jerusalem +eighteen hundred years ago was renewed before their eyes on the body of +that church which Christ had died to found; she saw pride and materialism +everywhere at work striving to undo his work, to prevent the coming of his +kingdom, and to establish the kingdom of sin upon earth; and the sight of +all this filled her heart with grief, but not with despair. It was indeed +an hour of unexampled grief for Christendom, but it was also an hour for +activity, and zeal, and renewed courage; it was a time for each individual +member to prove himself, for all to put their hand to the plough that was +furrowing the bosom of the church, and to water the travailed soil with +fertilizing tears, and, if need be, blood, thus preparing it for the +future harvest that was inevitable. For even as God's enemies of old had +stood at the foot of Calvary, and shook their heads at the bleeding victim +of their own hate and envy, and bade him come down from the cross, knowing +not the dawn of the Resurrection was nigh, when the victim would arise +triumphant over death, and compel his murderers to acknowledge that this +man must indeed have been the Son of God--so now the enemies of his church +had their hour of triumph, and clapped their hands for joy to see the +church that he had built upon the Rock, and promised that the gates of +hell should not prevail against, tottering and crumbling under the blows +of progress and an enlightened civilization and the force of arms. But +their triumph was but the hour of the powers of darkness that was not to +endure, but would perish at the appointed time before the manifestation of +the Sun of Justice. + +Still, even faithful hearts quailed before the storm, and were scandalized +at the way in which God seemed to forsake his own, not recognizing in this +mysterious abandonment another trait of resemblance between his Vicar and +the divine Model, who cried out in his dereliction, "Why hast thou +forsaken me?" + +Amelie was forced to hear and see much that was unutterably painful to +hear as a true child of the church; many who called themselves such, and +who were glad enough to draw upon her magnificent sacramental treasury, +and to praise and serve her in the days of peace, were not stout-hearted +enough to share her tribulations or even to understand them, and stood +aloof when they ought to have acted, or remained dumb when they ought to +have spoken, or spoke what they had better have left unsaid. But alongside +of this indifference or treachery she witnessed a great deal that was +beautiful and consoling. Pilgrims were flocking from the four quarters of +the globe to lay at the feet of Pius IX. the tribute of their fidelity and +abundant offerings, often collected in perilous journeys at great risk and +sacrifice. Then there were the Zouaves, _nos chers Zouaves_, as Amelie +always called them, presenting a noble example to us all by their heroic +devotion to the cause of God, their spirit of immolation, their chivalrous +valor in action, and the marvellous purity of their lives. These modern +crusaders replaced the suffering soldiers of Marseilles in Amelie's +solicitude during her stay in Rome. She tended them and worked for them +indefatigably, and dwelt continually in letters home on the consolation +the spectacle of their childlike piety afforded her. + +Early in December she wrote to a friend at Marseilles: "Our dear Zouaves +have made their entry into Rome. They passed under my windows. They are +the flower of the French nation. They are full of that energy which +nothing but the spirit of the faith gives. It is beautiful to see them +receive Holy Communion before arming themselves. This morning eighteen +hundred of them, bent on shedding their blood in the cause of God, marched +proudly into the Eternal City with the band playing and colors flying; +they reminded one of the Theban legion. I witnessed a touching sight. The +Holy Father met them on their way, and they fell on their knees like one +man to get his blessing. He blessed them with visible emotion. How could a +father not be moved at seeing the devotion of his children? The Flemish +and the Bretons are particularly conspicuous; ancient traditions have been +preserved amongst them, and have come down from the fathers to the sons. +This evening they accompanied His Holiness to the Vatican, where they +cheered him with the enthusiasm of Christian hearts. It was impossible to +withhold one's tears as one beheld the venerable Pontiff rest his loving +and gentle gaze on all this youth, so devoted to him, and burning to prove +their fidelity. In these days, the position of the Zouaves amongst +Christian soldiers is a noble one. Oh! if the idle youth of France knew +what a happiness it is to serve God, how many families would be happy and +blest even in this world as well as the next! I see here numbers of young +men who had strayed away from the right path for a time, but who had the +grace to return to it, and are now as happy as children, pure as angels, +attached to the church and the Vicar of Christ. Their sole ambition is +martyrdom; their joy is to look forward to it. Oh! I see here admirable +things. Adieu, dear friend. Let us pray always." + +Sinister reports and wild alarms, sometimes the result of malice, +sometimes of fear, were constantly starting up in Rome, terrifying the +weak, and stimulating the brave to greater vigilance and courage, but +keeping every one on the _qui vive_ from day to day. In the midst of the +general excitement of expectation or terror, the serene confidence of Pius +IX. remained unshaken, like the rock on which it rested. Amelie, who was +admitted frequently to the honor and happiness of speaking to the Holy +Father, was lost in wonder at it--at the unearthly peace that was visible +in his countenance and pervaded every word of his conversation. Shortly +before the date of the foregoing letter, she wrote to the same friend: + +"The most contradictory stories are current here, but the peace, the calm, +the _abandon_ of the Holy Father are indescribable, and go further to +inspire confidence than the most sinister conjectures to create terrors. +The daughters of Jerusalem followed our Redeemer to Calvary: a sort of +filial sentiment holds me in Rome. I cannot go away.... Let us pray! The +power of prayer obtains all things." + +Let us pray! This had been the lifelong burthen of her song, and the cry +grew louder and more intense as she drew near the close. It was not the +shrill cry of those who say, Lord! Lord! but the irrepressible voice of a +soul whom the spirit of prayer possessed in the fulness of its availing +power, and side by side with whose growth grew the spirit of sacrifice, +the thirst for self-immolation. She clung firmly to hope as the anchor of +courage and resignation in the present trials of the church, but the sense +of the outrages that God's glory was enduring in the person of His Vicar +increased in her soul to positive anguish. The consideration of her own +nothingness and utter inability to lighten the cross that was pressing on +the saintly Pontiff, pursued her day and night with the mysterious pain +that is born of the love of God. + +What a wonderful thing the soul of a saint or even a saintlike human being +must be! How one longs to go within the veil and get a glimpse of the life +that is lived there! It is so strange to us to see a creature take God's +cause to heart, and pine and suffer about it as we do about our personal +cares and sorrows. It sets us wondering what sort of inner life theirs can +be, and through what process of grace and correspondence and mysterious +training they have grown to that state of mind when the things of God and +his eternity are poignant realities, and the things of earth hollow +phantoms that have lost the power to charm, or terrify, or touch. We see +them hungering after justice as we hunger after bread, pining actually for +the accomplishment of God's will as eagerly as we pine for the success of +our puny enterprises and the triumph of our small ambitions; and we are +astonished, as it behoves our stupidity and hardness of heart to be, at +the incomprehensible character of their faith and love. When life presses +heavily upon us, and the cross is bruising our shoulders, and all things +are dark and dreary, we catch ourselves occasionally sighing for death. +This is about our nearest approach to that homesick yearning expressed in +the words of the apostle: "I long to die, to be dissolved, and to be with +Christ!" What an altogether different feeling it must be with these +saintlike souls when they long for death! They are not impatient of life, +or, like tired travellers, angry with the dust and sun of the road, and +disgusted with the uncomfortable wayside inn where they put up; they are +impatient of heaven and of the vision that makes the bliss and the glory +of heaven. Too jealous of their Creator's rights to rob him even in desire +of one year, or day, or hour of their poor service while he sees good to +employ them, they are willing to go on toiling through eternity if he +wishes it; but they are homesick, they long to see him, they yearn after +his possession with a sacred unrest that we who have but little kinship +with their spirit cannot understand. They are saddened by their exile and +by the sight of sin and of the small harvest their Lord's glory reaps +amidst the great harvest of iniquity that overruns the world. They watch +the sea of humanity rolling its waves along time, moaning with conscious +agonies of sin, storm-lashed and terrible, breaking in billows of impotent +rage against the Rock of redemption, and dashing headlong past it into the +gulf, where it is sucked down into everlasting darkness; and seeing these +things as God sees them, and as they affect his interests, they are filled +with sorrow, and call out for the end, that this mighty torrent may be +stayed. They call out to the stars to rise on the far-off heights, that +loom dim and gloomy through the swirl and vapor of the storm. They would +fain hush the winds and the waves, and hasten the advent of the Judge +before whose splendor the dark horizon will vanish, and whose glory will +outshine the sunrise and fill the universe with joy. It is not their own +selfish deliverance or the world's annihilation that they long for, but +its consummation in man's happiness and the Creator's glory. + +Amelie longed with all the strength of her generous heart to do something +for her Lord, to help ever so little towards hastening the coming of his +kingdom before he called her away. One morning, after communion, as she +was praying very fervently for the Holy Father, whose health just then was +a source of great anxiety amongst the faithful, this longing came upon her +with an intensity that she had never felt before; she was seized with a +sudden impulse to make the sacrifice of her life in exchange for his, and +to offer herself as a victim that he might be spared yet awhile to guide +and sustain the church through the trials and temptations that were +afflicting her. The impulse was so vehement that it was with difficulty +she restrained herself from obeying it on the spot; the desire, however, +to obtain the blessing of obedience in her sacrifice enabled her to do so. +She quietly continued her thanksgiving, and, on leaving the church, went +straight to the Vatican. There, kneeling at the feet of the suffering +Vicar of Christ, she told him of the desire that had come to her, and +begged him to bless it, and to permit her to offer herself up next day at +Holy Communion as a victim in his place if it should please God to accept +her. + +Pius IX. was silent for some moments, while Amelie, with uplifted face and +clasped hands, awaited his reply. Then, as if obeying a voice that had +spoken to him in the silence, he laid his hand upon her head, and said, +with great solemnity: "Go, my daughter, and do as the Spirit of God has +prompted you." He blessed her with emotion, and Amelie left his presence +filled with gladness and renewed fervor. She spent the greater part of the +day in prayer. In the afternoon she wrote two letters: one of them, of too +private a character to be given at length, contained the foregoing account +of the morning's occurrences; the other we transcribe. It is a revelation +beyond all comment of the state of her soul as it stood on what she +believed to be the threshold of eternity. + + + SATURDAY, Dec. 15--ROME. + + "We still continue in the greatest calm. _Nos chers Zouaves_ have + the courage of lions; they draw their strength from the blood of + the martyrs. Generally speaking, they are pious as angels. You see + them constantly during their free hours slipping off their + knapsack and their arms to go and kneel at the feet of the priest + in the confessional, or to pray at the shrine of the queen of + martyrs; they are truly the children of the church, and--" + + +Here the letter broke off. + +The next morning was Sunday. Amelie repaired, as usual, to early Mass at +S. Peter's. She received Holy Communion, and then, with the Eucharistic +Presence warm upon her heart, she offered up her life to him who had been +its first and last and only love. The words were hardly cold upon her +lips, when she was seized with sudden and violent pain, and fell with a +cry to the ground. She was surrounded immediately, and carried home. +Priests and religious of both sexes who were in S. Peter's at the moment, +and knew her, filled with alarm and distress, accompanied her to the +Strada Ripresa dei Barberi. Medical aid was sent for, but it was soon +evident that her illness was beyond the reach of human skill. All that day +and the next she continued in agonizing pain, unable to speak or to thank +those about her except by a smile or a pressure of the hand. Early on the +following morning, Wednesday, she grew calmer, the pain subsided, and +Amelie asked for the last sacraments. She received them with sentiments of +ecstatic devotion, and for some time remained absorbed in prayer. Her +thanksgiving terminated, she took leave tenderly of those friends who +surrounded her, and then begged they would begin the prayers for the +dying; they did so, and she joined in the responses with a fervor that +went to every heart. When they came to those grand and solemn words with +which the church speeds her children into the presence of their merciful +Judge, "Depart, Christian soul, in the name of the Father who created +thee, in the name of the Son who redeemed thee, in the name of the Holy +Ghost who sanctified thee," Amelie bowed her head and died. + +The news was conveyed at once to the Vatican. When Pius IX. heard it, he +evinced no sudden surprise, but raised his eyes to heaven, and murmured +with a smile: + +"_Si tosto accetato!_"(273) + +The announcement of Amelie's death was received with universal expressions +of dismay and sorrow. It was not only the poor, who had been her chief and +most intimate associates in Rome, that mourned her, all classes of society +joined in a chorus of heartfelt regret, and proved how well they had +appreciated the gentle French sister who had dwelt humbly amongst them +doing good. The house where she lay in her beautiful and heroic death- +sleep was besieged by people from every part of the city; all were anxious +to gaze once more upon her face, to touch her hands with crosses and +rosaries, to kneel in prayer beside the victim who had offered herself for +the sins of the people, and been accepted by him who delighteth not in +burnt-offerings, but in the sacrifice of a contrite heart. To her truly it +had been answered: "O woman, great is thy faith: be it done unto thee +according to thy word!" + +The miraculous circumstances of her death were soon proclaimed. In the +minds of those who had known her well they excited no surprise. From all +they called out sentiments of admiration and praise. Tears flowed +uninterruptedly round the austere court where the virgin tabernacle rested +from its labors, but they were tears sweeter than the smiles and laughter +of earth; prayers for the dead were suspended by common impulse, and the +spectators, exchanging the _De Profundis_ for the _Te Deum_ and the +_Magnificat_, broke out into canticles of triumph and hymns of rejoicing. + +The Zouaves, her beloved Zouaves, hurried in consternation to the house as +soon is the news reached them that the gentle, devoted friend of the +soldier was no more; and it was a beautiful and stirring sight to see them +sobbing like children beside her, touching her hands with their sword- +hilts and their rosaries, and swelling in broken but enthusiastic voices +the hymns of thanksgiving. + +The Holy Father, wishing to pay his tribute to the general testimony of +love and admiration, commanded that the child of S. Dominic should be +carried to her grave with a pomp and splendor befitting the holiness of +her life and the heroic character of her death. The remains were conveyed +accordingly first to the Basilica of the Apostles in solemn state, +escorted by a vast concourse of people, priests and religious, and exposed +there throughout the morning to public veneration; a requiem Mass and the +office of the dead were chanted; in the afternoon, the body, followed by +all that Rome held of greatest and best, was transported to the Church of +Santa Maria in Ara Coeli. The Zouaves claimed the privilege of bearing the +precious remains upon their shoulders, and it was granted them. By special +permission of His Holiness, Amelie was interred in Santa Maria; but her +death was no sooner known at Marseilles than the townspeople spontaneously +demanded that the body should be returned to them. But Pius IX. replied +that Rome had now a prior claim to its guardianship; Amelie had made the +sacrifice of her life at Rome and for Rome; it was fitting that the ashes +should remain where the holocaust had been offered and consumed. +Marseilles yielded to the decision of the Sovereign Pontiff, and the +daughter of S. Dominic was left to sleep on under the august dome of the +Ara Coeli, there to await the angel of the resurrection, whose trumpet +shall awake the dead and bid them come forth and clothe themselves with +immortality. + + ------------------------------------- + +The following is the authentic record of this miraculous death, as copied +from the original, legalized by Cardinal Patrizi, Vicar of His Holiness: + +"Je soussigne, cure de la tressainte basilique constantinienne des douze +saints apotres de Rome, certifie que dans le registre XII. des defunts, +lettre N, page 283, se trouve l'acte dont l'extrait mot a mot suit: + +"Le vingt-deux decembre mil-huit cent soixante six.--Mademoiselle Claire- +Francoise-Amelie Lautard de Marseille, fille de M. Jean Baptiste Lautard, +vierge tres pieuse, pendant quelle offrait Dimanche dernier a Dieu sa +propre vie pour le salut du souverain Pontife, Pie IX. de Rome et de la +sainte eglise, a ete saisie sur le champ par la maladie, et ayant recu +tres pieusement les sacraments de l'eglise, jouissant de la plenitude de +ses facultes, en priere, entouree de plusieurs pretres et vierges, a rendu +son ame a Jesus Christ son epoux, avec la plus grande serenite, le +Mercredi dix-neuf a neuf heures et demie du matin dans la maison Rue +Ripresa dei Barberi 175, l'age de cinquante neuf ans; son corps, le +lendemain vingt, apres le completuum a ete conduit accompagne par un grand +nombre de religieuse en cette basilique et y a ete expose pendant la +matinee suivant l'usage des nobles, l'office et la Messe ont ete dit, dans +l'apres-midi le corps a ete transporte a l'eglise de Sainte Marie in Ara- +Coeli, ou il a ete enseveli dans le tombeau des Soeurs de St. Joseph de +l'Apparition. + +"Donne a Rome," etc.(274) + + + + +The International Congress Of Prehistoric Anthropology And Archaeology. + + +From La Revue Generale De Bruxelles + +Concluded. + +The sessions of August 25 began with fresh discussions concerning the +troglodytes of Menton and the so-called tertiary skull from California +already spoken of. M. Desor entered into extensive details concerning the +hatchets of nephrite and jade found in the Alps, and apparently of +Oriental origin. "I do not believe," said he, as he ended, "that these +hatchets were utensils, but merely objects of display, like the +dolmens(!)--precious memorials and relics of the first ages of humanity." +M. de Quatrefages thought these hatchets a proof of ancient commercial +relations with the East. A great deal was said in this discussion of the +use of stone knives by the Egyptians in embalming the dead, and among the +Jews for circumcising. Only one thing was forgotten--neither the Egyptians +nor the Jews ever attached any religious importance to the use of stone, +and they likewise made use of bronze and iron knives in these operations. +The instrument of circumcision at the present day is a steel blade.(275) +M. Leemans, director of the museum at Leyden, thought these hatchets came +from Java. He reminded us that there has always been constant intercourse +between Switzerland and that island, and that the majority of the soldiers +of the East India Company were traditionally recruited in Switzerland. The +Abbe Delaunay refuted M. Desor's opinion by merely referring to the +collection at Pont-Levoy, where there are fourteen hatchets of jade found +in that vicinity. It was thought desirable to ascertain the as yet unknown +source of jade. They now returned to the _hiatus_ mentioned by M. de +Mortillet at the previous session, in order to oppose it by bringing +forward an intermediary race, for whom M. Broca was the sponsor, though +without flattering it much. He engaged in a long, subtile argument on the +way tertiary flints were introduced into the valleys and caverns. They +were not agreed on this question, which is one we can only regard with +speculative interest. + +The excursions to the _ateliers_ of Spiennes and Mesvin were not as +pleasant as the one to the Lesse. For that, the country around Mons should +be as charming as that of the Meuse--and the people likewise. There is a +very complete work by M. Dupont concerning these excavations, in which +have been found millions of rough flints, to which he does not hesitate to +assign a quaternary origin of the mammoth period. When one has a taste of +the mammoth, he cannot get too much of it. I know of sceptics and +controversialists who through speculations of another kind are plunged +into foolish incredulity. Here is an instance: from time immemorial our +forefathers made use of flints for striking fire, and many of us can still +remember the custom, which may not have wholly disappeared. For centuries, +households had to be supplied with flints for the tinder-box, and in +abundance, for this stone is soon worn out by iron; it becomes furred and +smooth, and is soon unfit for use. If we compare the considerable traffic +in flints that must have been carried on with the enormous consumption +that supports the fabrication of chemical matches, we can easily see that +the sites of the workshops where flints for striking fire were cut must +have been heaped with millions of rough ones--nodules, chips, and _debris_ +of all kinds; that excavations must have been made by pits, which +necessarily extended to considerable depth, and crossed very old geologic +strata, for silex is found imbedded in chalk at a depth of thirty or forty +metres in some places; that to argue from the stratification of +surrounding formations, in order to decide on the synchronism of the +excavations, would expose us to conclude _post hoc, ergo propter hoc_. And +I have not mentioned all the common uses made of flints in a household. +For many years they were used for firearms, and silex is still used in +ceramic manufactures, the origin of which is lost in the darkness of ages. +A great many of the flints that appear cut are only fragments that may +have been owing to spontaneous fracture. Now, whence came all the flints +used for striking fire during the historic periods that go back from our +time to the middle ages and to antiquity? Has it been proved that these +remains, so-called prehistoric, do not come within the domain of history; +nay, even of modern history? At all events, the age of the quaternary +deposits is by no means established, and it is on the mere presence of +human remains, or of the productions of human labor among these deposits, +that certain anthropologists found the millions of ages they attribute to +our species. These remains do not indicate the site of ancient +settlements; they have been washed away from those settlements by currents +of water, and the question is, What epoch produced these changes?--a +question not solved, and perhaps never will be. + +Besides, the primary defect of the whole prehistoric system is the +indissolubly confounding of two orders of very evident facts, but which +may by no means have any correlation as to time. Wrought flints show +evident traces of human labor, and there is no unprejudiced person who +cherishes the least doubt about it. The evidence of design shown by the +examination of two or three specimens is in itself a proof of some value, +but this proof makes an irresistible impression on the mind when, in +addition, we see an accumulation of specimens. It is, then, no longer +possible to attribute the uniform shape of the flints to a mere accident. +But were they fashioned at the time of the formation of the _terrains_ in +which they are embedded? That is another problem, the solution of which is +liable to controversy. Mr. Taylor, who is very respectable authority in +such matters, declares, after much conscientious research, that the +gravel-beds of St. Acheul were deposited in the earlier part of the +Christian era. People of the historic period, such as the first +inhabitants of Umbria and the Egyptians, made flints precisely like those +of St. Acheul. The prodigious antiquity of man must be greatly shaken by +these observations. At Sinai, flint has been used to effect immense +excavations in the rock; it is again utilized under the form of hammers +and chisels in the ancient copper mines of the Aztecs, in Canada, Spain, +Wady-Maghara, and Bethlehem, as well as on Lake Superior, in Tuscany, and +in Brittany. The Bedouins of Africa and the Indians of Texas still make +use of them; and M. Reboux, who gave the Congress a practical +demonstration of the mounting and use of the utensils of the stone age, +received his inspiration from those savages. They make the handles out of +the sinews of the bison, covered with a wide strip of the animal's skin +recently taken off. This band is wound around grooves made in the middle +of the hammer. The skin, as it dries, contracts, and the stone, the +extremities of which alone are uncovered, is enclosed in a sheath so tight +that it cannot be drawn out.(276) It must be acknowledged, then, that the +authenticity of these beds at Spiennes, as prehistoric _ateliers_, appears +exceedingly doubtful, and there is a tinge of similar incredulity in the +behavior of the people around the _Camp des Cayaux_: "Countrymen, and even +little peasant girls," says a reporter of one of our principal journals, +"were selling the finest stones to the travellers, making superhuman +efforts to repress smiles that threatened to explode into loud laughter. A +singularly ironic expression was legible in the large eyes of these +_fillettes_ and broke through their pretended seriousness. It was very +evident that the benighted villagers in the vicinity of Mons were not +sufficiently initiated into the new gospel of science, and by no means had +implicit faith in it. The irreverence of the population was still more +evident at the entrance of the hamlet, where a group of young women +manifested quite an uncivil merriment at the sight of some of the princes +of science who were toiling along under the heavy burden of quaternary +flint." As an example of moral contrasts, I will merely allude to Hennuyer +and the peasant of Furfooz, one sceptical and contemptuous of everything, +and the other with genuine respect for the traditions of his beloved +valleys. + +The morning of the twenty-seventh was mostly taken up with a report from +General Faid'herbe on the dolmens of Algeria. A burst of applause greeted +the illustrious and genial hero of Lille. Popular sentiment seemed an +embodiment of the + + + "_Placuit victrix causa diis, sed victa Catoni_" + + +in the very teeth of the Borussians.(277) + +General Faid'herbe assigned a historic epoch to the origin of the dolmens. +These monuments, which are tombs, were the work of one race found on every +shore from Pomerania to Tunis, and which, according to him, proceeded from +the north to the south. The dolmens of Africa are like those of Europe. +But what race was this? A blonde race from the shores of the Baltic, as +the speaker proved by three facts: 1. Blondes are still to be found in +Barbary. 2. Ancient historians speak of the blonde people who lived there +before the Christian era. 3. Fifteen centuries before Christ the blonde +inhabitants of that country attacked Lower Egypt. M. Faid'herbe stated +that when he lived in Senegal there were two powerful negro tribes in the +countries on the upper Niger having a political organization of relative +advancement. The complexion of the royal family was somewhat clear, and +they prided themselves on their descent from white ancestors. Etymological +indices lead us to believe that this dynasty descended from the blonde +race of the dolmens. + +M. Worsaae opposed the general's opinion, and maintained that the builders +of the dolmens, on the contrary, proceeded from the south to the north, +where they attained the height of their civilization. M. Cartailhac, +however, stated an important fact that weakens this objection: the dolmens +of the South of France contain metallic objects whose place of fabrication +could not have been far off; those of the interior and the North only +contained articles of polished stone. + +A small man now sprang into the tribune, fierce as Orestes tormented by +the Eumenides, with black eyes, long streaming hair, and a person of +incessant mobility. It is one of the princes of oriental philology--M. +Oppert, who began a demonstration of the chronology of remote historical +times, which he continued in the afternoon session. He assured us, as he +began, that he did not intend to offend any one's religious convictions, +or to discuss the chronology of the Bible, which, in his eyes, is +eminently respectable. In his opinion, the difference of the dates pointed +out in different chronological tables can be explained without any +difficulty. M. Oppert showed us how the chronologies of Egypt and Chaldea, +which were calculated by cycles of unequal length, begin with the same +date--the 19th of January, Gregorian (the 27th of April, Julian), of the +year 11542 B.C.! + +He therefore concluded that the people of those regions must have observed +the important astronomical phenomena of that time, the risings of Sirius +perhaps, which would indicate a degree of civilization somewhat advanced +for a period _still ante-historic_. I like to recall the very words he +used; they are full of meaning. + +M. Ribeiro had made researches in Portugal that appeared to him conclusive +as to the existence of pliocene man, and he produced tertiary flints which +he believed to be cut. The Abbe Bourgeois, who could not remain +indifferent to any proof of tertiary man, allowed an unexpected +declaration to escape his lips. "I should like," said he, "to consider +these fragments as authentic proofs of the truth of my theory, but the +truth obliges me to declare that I cannot discover any evidence of human +labor in them." M. Ribeiro sank into his seat under this _coup de hache- +polie_, and tertiary man was properly buried, after a later correction +from M. Bourgeois, who admitted that one of M. Ribeiro's flints bore marks +of human labor, but he had doubts as to its bed. + +Anthropology and ethnography had the honors during the greater part of +this session. + +M. Lagneau said the researches made in Belgium showed there were three +perfectly distinct species of men in this country, and he opposed M. +Dupont's opinion that the skulls of Furfooz belong to the Mongoloid race. +M. Hamy demonstrated anatomically that a particular race, the Australioid, +is spread throughout Europe. The jaw from Naulette appears to belong to +this race; the skull from Engis belongs to another. M. Hamy thought he +discovered some of the characteristics of the Australioid race in certain +inferior types in Belgium and France. These primitive races are not +extinct. They still peep out in isolated cases of atavism, and he +exhibited a curious instance--the hideous portrait of a boat-woman of the +neighborhood of Mons, with all the characteristics of the Australioid race +of the mammoth period. In this selection of a Montois type there was a +spice of revenge evident to every one. M. Virchow found a manifest +difference between the skulls at the British Museum and those of criminals +in the collection at the university. The Flemish skulls present the same +prognathism as those of Furfooz, and certain types have characteristics +that might cause them to be classed with the Mongoloid race. + +As to the size of the skull, it is not owing to the development of the +psychical faculties, and we should be cautious about drawing premature +conclusions concerning the primitive races of this country. M. Virchow +cited the example of the two skulls found in a Greek tomb of the +Macedonian epoch, the form and size of which induced him to class them +unhesitatingly with the Mongoloids of the caverns of the Lesse. Now, one +of these skulls was that of a Greek woman of great distinction, both as to +her social condition and intellectual culture. The learned professor from +Berlin expressed a doubt as to the Germanic origin of the Flemings. M. +Lagneau also thought we should not decide too hastily about the races that +first inhabited Belgium. He could not see why the Flemings and Germans +should have the same origin. In Germany, Belgium, and France the races are +excessively mixed up. Germany was repeatedly invaded by people from Gaul. +Prognathism alone is not typical any more than the temperament, color of +the hair, etc. + +M. Vanderkindere thought the Flemish of Germanic origin, and the Walloon +of Celtic. Blondes do not belong to the Aryan races. Prognathism is more +common in them than in the dark people of the country, in which the +speaker finds Ligurian traces, as in the basin of the Loire (Liger- +Liguria). Now, the blonde race, has always thought itself superior, and +this belief was so strong in Flanders in the heart of the middle ages that +the mother of Berthulphe de Ghistelles, displeased at the alliance her son +had contracted with the beautiful Godelive, a native of Boulonnais, whom +her contemporaries reproached solely on account of her black hair and +eyebrows, expressed her contempt in these significant terms: "_Cur, +inquit, cornicem de terra aliena eduxisti?_" She thought it disgraceful to +defile the pure blood of her antique Germanic race (_alti tui sanguinis_) +by such an alliance. + +In a subsequent session, this question of races came on the carpet again. +M. Dupont, combining the observations made in the three excursions (that +to Namur had taken place the day before), established a filiation between +the different peoples who inhabited Belgium in different periods of the +stone age. The people of Mesvin, the Somme, the Tamise, and the Seine were +contemporaries. The race of Mesvin inhabited Hainault at the same time as +the troglodytes, whom they did not know. It might have been the people of +Mesvin and the Somme, who, gradually attaining to polished stone, invaded +the country occupied by the less advanced people of the caverns. M. +Virchow could not recommend too much prudence to those who are +investigating the science of anthropology. In prehistoric times, as in our +day, there were variations of the same race, but that is not accounted for +by atavism. It must be concluded that men were simultaneously created or +born in several places, and different types sprang from the commingling of +the actual races. We take pleasure in collecting these indirect +acknowledgments from the lips that dared say, "There is no place in the +universe for a God, nor in man for a soul." M. de Quatrefages thought, +like M. Virchow, that all the various races cannot be owing to atavism. +Crossing has a good deal to do with it. It is allowable to refer the +variety of types to the more or less commingling of the ancient races, as +they are everywhere mingled now. We can hardly deny, however, that the +present population partly descended from the troglodytes. The people of +Furfooz must still have some representatives in Belgium, especially among +the women. Science proves that woman retains the type of the race to which +she belongs longer than man. At a later day we shall doubtless succeed in +deciphering the origin of the human races. In these researches we must +also consider the action of _les milieux_. Mlle. Royer expressed a +disbelief in the unity of the human species. Unfortunately, the inevitable +crossing is always obstructing her observations. She absolutely refuses to +admit that the white man is Aryan, or at least Asiatic. She hopes, +however, some day to obtain a solution of these great problems. How far, +madame, your knowledge extends, and how astonishingly you have retained +the persistent type of _madame la guenon_ from whom you flatter yourself +to have descended! After other discussions concerning the bronze utensils +found in various parts of Europe, and the influence of Etruscan art, which +extended even to the North, M. Baudre undertook the demonstration of a +point singular enough. Primitive man, he said, doubtless possessed the +musical faculty, and it is impossible with his knowledge of the flint he +daily used that it should not have occurred to him to apply the +sonorousness of that stone to some practical use. No one can positively +declare this was so, but who can deny it? M. Baudre has constructed an +instrument composed of accordant flints--a prehistoric piano--on which he +executed a _brabanconne_ that would have excited the envy of the +_Moncrabeaux_. It is neither more nor less insupportable than the modern +instrument of torture of which some unideal creature, with bent body and a +prey to convulsive jerks, strikes the senseless ivory with his skinny +phalanges till it shrieks under the touch. + +Of the excursion to Namur we will only allude to what bore on the +scientific labors of the Congress; that is, the visit to the Camp of +Hastedon. The delightful, cordial reception given us in that pleasant +town, the banquet and concert which followed, will not soon be effaced +from the memory of the excursionists. The plateau of Hastedon, close to +Namur, rests on a solid mass of dolomite, and is surrounded by a bastion +composed of fagots calcined--it is not known how, huge boulders, and a +thick layer of earth and stones. The Romans occupied it for a certain +time, but the parapets that surround it are much more ancient. It is an +immense plain, eleven hectares in extent, strewed with flints, both +wrought and polished, that came from Spiennes, while those of the caverns +of the Lesse came from Champagne. The troglodytes of the Lesse and the +people of Spiennes were contemporaries in the age of cut stone, but there +was no intercourse between them. During the age of polished stone, on the +contrary, the importation of flints from Champagne ceased in the region of +the caverns, and the flint of Spiennes was diffused among the plateaux of +upper Belgium. The inhabitants of Spiennes extended their former bounds, +penetrated to that region, and fortified it. According to M. Dupont, the +Camp of Hastedon must have been one of their fortresses. + +The final _seance_ of the Congress opened with a very interesting and +animated discussion as to the first use of bronze and iron. Where did the +bronze come from? M. Oppert thought it of European origin. The Phoenicians +went to England for tin rather than to the East. M. Worsaae was convinced +it came from Asia, and that a bronze age will be discovered in Egypt. M. +Leemans was of the opinion that the iron age preceded the bronze in India +and Ceylon. M. Conestabile was inclined to think the Phoenicians obtained +their tin from the Caucasus rather than England. M. Franks said they might +have found it in Spain and Portugal, and M. Waldemar-Schmidt thought the +Egyptians obtained theirs from Africa. + +M. de Quatrefages afterwards summed up the character of the Congress of +Brussels: it appears from scientific evidence in every direction that +certain existing types have an incontestable resemblance to the people of +the quaternary period. In the second place, it now seems established that +man of the stone age travelled much more than has been supposed. + +The close of the session was marked by two occurrences that produced a +strong impression on the assembly. The two workmen who so ably assisted M. +Dupont in the exploration of the caverns had, at the solicitation of the +committee, the _decoration ouvriere_ conferred on them by Messrs. de +Quatrefages and Capellini. Then a letter from M. G. Geefs was read, +stating that he had made a bust of M. d'Omalius unbeknown to the latter, +which he offered as a mark of homage to the Congress. This bust, concealed +at the end of the apartment, was uncovered and presented to the venerable +president, old in years but youthful in feeling, whose fine noble career +M. de Quatrefages retraced in an address sparkling with wit. Then, after +some isolated communications, the Congress passed a resolution to hold its +seventh meeting at Stockholm, in 1874, under the effective presidency of +Prince Oscar of Sweden, and the Congress was declared adjourned. + +We cannot better end this report, which I should have liked to make more +complete, than by quoting M. Dupont's _resume_ (a little indefinite, in my +opinion) of the labor of the Sixth International Congress of Prehistoric +Anthropology and Archaeology: + +"After the weighty discussions that have taken place at the Congress of +Brussels," says M. le Secretaire General, "it is proper to lay before the +public the chief problems discussed by the learned assembly. These +problems have not all been definitely solved. That was not to be expected, +for the result of such scientific meetings is seldom the decision of +questions, but rather stating them with clearness and precision. The +discussions at such meetings lead to the opening of new paths, and +preparing the way, by throwing new light on it, for calm and persevering +labor in the study. There alone is it possible to weigh the value of +arguments, elucidate obscure points, and arrive at conclusions. In this +spirit six principal points have been drawn up: + +"1. Did man really exist in the middle of the tertiary period? Several of +the specialists present at the Congress declared in the affirmative. But +it appeared, especially from the flints discovered by the Abbe Bourgeois, +that further researches should be undertaken before science can decide on +a point so important in the history of mankind. The bed of the flints in +question was ultimately regarded as incontestable. + +"2. The formation of the valleys and the filling of the caverns were +regarded as the result of fluvial action. The study of these phenomena may +be considered as the fundamental point of research respecting man of the +quaternary epoch. + +"3. The bones of goats, sheep, and oxen, discovered in the deposits of the +mammoth age in the Belgian caverns, were acknowledged to be similar to our +goats, sheep, and certain species of our domestic cattle. An opinion was +advanced that perhaps they originated these domestic species, whose origin +has often been sought in vain. + +"4. Communications between different tribes of the stone age in Western +Europe were for the first time distinctly stated. The people of the +quaternary epoch were divided into two classes, one of which, by the +regular development of its industrial pursuits, arrived at such a degree +of progress that it was thought they must have invaded the region of the +Belgian caverns in the age of polished stone, and subjugated our +troglodytes. + +"5. The discovery at Eygenbilsen gave occasion for recognizing the +Etruscan influence in our region previous to the Roman conquest. There was +a disposition to admit that the intercourse between Italy and the +Scandinavian countries must have been much later. + +"6. The opinion that the anthropological types of the quaternary epoch +have survived, and constitute an essential element of existing European +nations, was admitted in principle by all the anthropologists who +expressed any opinion on the subject. The problem of the origin of +European races is thus placed in an entirely new light." + + + + +Atlantic Drift--Gathered In The Steerage. + + +By An Emigrant. + +Concluded. + +The generally fortunate voyage of our vessel was varied by two or three +days of very rough weather, and the miseries of our first night at sea +were intensified by a violent gale. The fast steamer, built with lines +calculated for excessive speed, cut through rather than breasted the +waves. Tons of clear water washed over the whaleback, knocking over one or +two hapless wights, and drenching many others. Her wind-ward side was +incessantly swept by blinding showers of heavy spray. To pass from the +shelter of the main deck to the entrance of our steerage was a veritable +running the gauntlet. You watched till the ship rose, and then ran at full +speed for the shelter of the whaleback, happy if you reached it without +being rolled by a sudden lurch into the scuppers, or losing your balance +and clinging to the nearest rope or stanchion, being soused by the spray +from the next wave that struck her. + +The storm raged more fiercely as the evening advanced, and from timid lips +came stories of the lost _City of Boston_ and the hapless _London_, while +more experienced hands regretted their precipitancy in selecting a vessel +of a line in which every other quality was said to have been sacrificed to +that of excessive speed, and indulged in uncomfortable surmises as to the +consequences of the shaft snapping or the engines breaking down. When the +damp and chill of the advancing night drove us to our bunks, we clambered +down-stairs, and, staggering away into our respective streets, crawled in. +To realize my first impression of the steerage of our vessel at night, +when its cavernous space was lit, or rather its grim darkness made +visible, by a single lantern, would require the pen of Dickens or the +graphic pencil of Gustave Dore. Crouching between those bunks and the roof +grotesque forms, dimly seen in the obscure light, threw weird shadows on +the cabin sides. Here one busily engaged, under innumerable difficulties, +in making up a neat bed of sheets and blankets, into which he afterwards +burrows by an ingenious backward movement, like a shore crab hiding +himself in the sand left uncovered by the receding tide; while his next +neighbor retires to rest by the simple process of kicking off his boots, +pulling his battered night-cap over his eyes, and stretching himself on +the bare boards, with a muttered string of curses on the ship, the +weather, and the world in general, for his evening orisons. At a corner of +one of the tables appear a group of players poring over their cards in a +_chiaro-oscuro_ that recalls a scene of Teniers or Van Ostade, while at +another a group are gathered round a young vocalist who quavers out in a +dull monotone a curious medley of sentimental ditties and music-hall +vulgarities. Gradually all drop away into their bunks, and everything is +still, save the deep breathing of some hundred souls, and the groans of +the sufferers from the malady of the sea. Occasionally the heavy plunge of +the ship, as she dashes into some mountainous wave, extinguishes the lamp +with the shock, and buries the little windows under water, leaving the +cabin for a few seconds in profound darkness. In the gale during the first +night of our voyage, one tremendous billow struck the ship, burying us in +black night, and rolling trunks, tins, and clothes cluttering to leeward +with the lurch of the vessel, and awakening all in a moment from their +slumbers. A general consternation prevailed, and while some called in +angry tones for the lamp to be relighted, others could be heard muttering +the unfamiliar words of a half-forgotten prayer. As the great ship shook +in her conflict with the raging sea, and we heard overhead the rush of +many feet and the swash on deck of a heavy mass of water, I felt nervous +enough till she rose again and, creeping to the little window, I could see +the cold moon throwing a silvery track across the waste of raging, wind- +lashed surges. + +I thought of the great ships that had gone down, crowded with hundreds of +unprepared and unthinking souls, into the cruel bosom of the great ocean; +perhaps their unknown fate was to sink in the darkness of the night, +crushed in a moment by an iceberg, or, maimed and helpless, battered to +pieces and submerged by the angry waves. What a horrible death-agony must +be that of the doomed, who, after the sudden crash of a collision, or +battened down in their dark prison in a raging storm, heard the cataract +of water roar down the hatchway, greedy to engulf them! For a few moments +what fearful struggles would take place in the crowded cabin to mount the +bunks and gain the last mouthful of the retiring air, until the flood +buried all in the bosom of the deep, in a silence to be broken only by the +trumpet of the Judgment Day! Should I, I pondered, in such a dark hour, +have the strength of mind or grace of God to lie still on my bed and let +the rising water cut short the prayer on my lips, or, hoping against hope, +with angrily raging heart die fighting to breathe a few seconds longer the +vital air? Of a truth, to die suffocated in the darkness, without a last +look at the great vault of heaven, a last breath of the pure air, seemed +to me to be to doubly die. + +If I suffered some discomfort and perhaps a little anxiety from the +occasional anger of the mighty main, it was far more than compensated for +by its aspect in its calmer and more peaceful moods. I cannot understand +how in a few days voyagers can learn to complain of the monotony of the +sea; to me, its different moods in calm and storm, the snowy crests of the +dancing waves, the foaming and often phosphorescent wake of the great +steamer, and the ever-changing aspects of the cloud-laden heavens, were +objects of untiring interest. If I had the magic pen of the author of the +_Queen of the Air_, I would write a book on the cloud-scenery of the +Atlantic. Never, even in the purest Italian sky or the cloudless heavens +above the vast expanse of a Western prairie, have I seen Diana so purely +fair, Lucifer so bright, or Aurora clad in such varied garments of purple +and rose; such a wonderful vault lined with innumerable flakes of spotless +wool left by the dying wind; such masses of cumulus, sometimes as solidly +white as Alpine summits, sometimes before the rain-storm luridly gray- +black with the gathered water, like the massive bulk of Snowdon seen +through a driving rain; and, once or twice, the pall of the thunder-storm +rising over the leeward heaven and advancing towards us, its ragged edge +momentarily lit up with the blazing tongues of the lightning, until it +rolled over, deafening with its dread artillery and hiding all around in +mist and blinding rain. The grandeur of sunset and of sunrise, when not +obscured by the mistiness of a moist atmosphere, was indescribable. Every +night, with renewed pleasure, we watched the god of day sink beneath the +western horizon. Turner, in his wildest dreams of those gorgeous heaven- +pictures that he had not seen on earth but felt that he would love to see, +imagined no greater luxury of gold, carmine, purple, crimson, rose, and +rose-tinged snow, than was afforded by some of the spectacles of the +setting sun. One evening still holds my memory entranced: the heavy +curtain of dull gray mist that all day had lain low over the sea rolled +eastward before the evening breeze; the emerging sun, low on the horizon, +dyed the receding masses of cloud with a thousand shades of livid purple; +the peaks and shoulders of the eastern range of mountains of dark vapor +caught the light, while between them sank valleys and depths more sombre +by the contrast. Westward, below the rosy, almost blood-red sun, ran two +long narrow filaments of purple cloud, dark across the glow of the +heavens, like bars across a furnace. A few moments, and the shining orb +sinks beneath them, fringing their edges with refulgent gold, then falls +into a sea of liquid fire. A little longer the crimson hues linger on the +eastern curtain of clouds, then grow fainter and fainter, and die away +into the gray hues of a moonless night. + +Among the five hundred emigrants our good ship carried there were, it is +needless to say, many men of different speech, and almost every diversity +of occupation and character. Besides the four nations of Great Britain, we +had Germans, Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians in considerable numbers, a few +French, Poles, and Russians, a Levantine Jewess and her children, and a +solitary American. With the Teutons my ignorance of their language +prevented me holding further converse than to learn their nationality and +their destination--generally Illinois, Minnesota, or Wisconsin. Unlike the +Irish, with whom New York seemed to fulfil all their notions of America, +the Germans and Scandinavians appeared all westward bound, in large +parties, organized for agricultural life; and while they were in a +considerable minority on the vessel, they formed much the larger +proportion of the passengers in the emigrant cars. The amount of their +baggage was something prodigious. Nearly all apparently peasants in their +native land, they seemed on leaving it to transport everything they +possessed except the roof over their heads to their adopted country. What +would not break they enclosed in immense bags of ticking and rough canvas, +and the residue of their property in arklike chests, the immense weight +and sharp iron-bound corners of which moved the sailors to multiform +blasphemy. For my part, I had read so much of the contented prosperity of +the peasantry in Norway and Sweden that I speculated not a little as to +what cause could lead them to make the long and expensive migration from +Christiania or Gottenburg to the so far off shores of the Mississippi. + +With the Germans, who came principally from the neighborhood of Mannheim, +the case was different. Several of them could speak a little French, nor +were they reticent as to the principal cause that led them to desert their +fatherland: it was the man tax, levied by the empire of blood and iron on +their youth and manhood, that drove them from their farms in the sweet +Rhine valley to seek abodes in the new and freer world. Several of them +had followed the Bavarian standard under Von Tannen through the hardships +and carnage of the Franco-German war; but to the shrewd sense of the +peasant the halo of military glory and the pomp of wide empire meant but +conscription and taxation, fields untilled, and wife and children +starving, while the blood of father and son was poured out to indite a new +page in the gory annals of warlike fame. + +By the way, one of them assured us that never in the fiercest time of that +deadly strife, even when, in long forced marches, driving Bourbaki's +broken bands through the snows of Jura, had they fared so badly as he did +then, to which I may add the experience of an Englishman--whose sinister +countenance and shabby attire gave increased weight to his testimony--who +averred that we fared little better than in a workhouse and worse than in +a jail. + +Amongst us there were many mechanics, principally Irish, who were +returning from visits to their friends; nor can I omit to chronicle their +uniform and emphatic testimony as to the benefit they had received from +their emigration. In New York, Philadelphia, Boston, or Chicago, they were +sure of work, could live and dress comfortably, and lay by a large +proportion of their earnings, while in England, and still more in Ireland, +they were happy when their earnings kept them in lodging, food, and +clothing, and saving was neither thought of nor possible. From what I +could learn, the position of the unskilled laborer appeared by no means so +bright. The different system of hiring in America made the nominally +higher wages more precarious than in the old country; and I suspect that +everywhere the untaught man, who, ignorant of any distinct branch of +industry, brings only his thews and sinews to market, is, and will ever +be, but "a hewer of wood and drawer of water"--an ill-paid and little +valued drudge. + +For one class of the Irish emigrants, of whom we had a certain number on +board, their countrymen entertained a profound and not unfounded contempt. +Youths from Cork or Dublin shops or offices, whom dissipation or +misconduct had thrown out of place, or the desire of novelty or adventure +had attracted to the New World--unfit for manual labor, and without any +special qualification for commerce--their heads were turned with tales of +the giddy whirl of New York life, in their notions of which gallantry, +whiskey, politics, calico balls, and rowdy patriotism made a curious +medley. Their general ambition was to be bar-tenders, and with some +exceptions their usual behavior showed them to be little fitted for any +better avocation. + +One of the characters that most attracted my attention, though I elicited +but little response to my advances from his taciturn nature, was a miner +from Montana--a man of short stature but powerful build, with, a +determined, weather-beaten face, and a decidedly sinister squint, who had +rambled over the greater part of California, Nevada, Utah, Washington, and +Montana, and apparently returned no richer from his wanderings. Having +been a seaman before he took to a mountain life, his gait had acquired an +indescribably curious mixture of the out-kneed walk of a man constantly on +horseback with the roll of a sailor, while he had, too, a curious habit of +involuntarily working the fingers of his right hand as if they held a six- +shooter. He usually restricted himself to the bachelor society under the +whaleback, and, chary of his words, amused himself with an amateur +surveillance of the operations of the men, or occasionally exchanged +reminiscences in brief sentences with two or three other returned +Californians: how he and his mates had killed a grizzly at the foot of +Mount Helena; how he had made L1,200 in eight months from a claim in +Siskiyou County, and lost it all in working another in El Dorado County, +at which he persevered fruitlessly for three years, while the claims on +each side brought heavy piles to their workers; how he had seen twenty-six +"road agents" hanged together in Montana; and other tales of far West +mining, murder, and debauchery. Once only his hard face relaxed into a +laugh at a story he told of two men who quarrelled in a California saloon, +and, dodging round the table, while the rest of the company made for the +door or skulked behind the beer barrels, emptied their revolvers at each +other with no worse effect than one slight scratch. That twelve barrels +should go off and no one be killed seemed to be too ridiculous, and his +risible faculties overcame him accordingly. Strangely enough, while he +spoke with the most hearty enthusiasm as to the pleasures of a +mountaineering life, which he declared, with a good horse, a trusty rifle, +and staunch mates, was the finest in the world, and to judge from +appearances had certainly not made his pile, he never intended to return +westward, but was bound for some city of the South. Possibly some episodes +in his checkered existence had caused him to bear in mind the shortened +career of the twenty-six road agents with a distinctness that determined +his preference for this side of the Rocky Mountains. + +The most lively time of the day was the evening after the five o'clock +tea; the sailors during the dog-watches--from four to eight--do not turn in, +but remain on deck, and they amused or persecuted the female passengers +with a coarse gallantry that generally made the more modest women remain +below; the cooks, engineers, and firemen stood at their doors in the deck- +house and greeted with horse-banter the passers-by; while on the open +space before the wheel-house a few couples danced to the music of an +accordion, or tried to tire each other out to the whistled tune of an +Irish jig. A pair of professional singers, husband and wife, to whose +retinue I usually attached myself, used to sit at the door of the saloon +and favor us with selections from their repertory, often with a success +that brought metallic appreciation from the gentlemen in the neighboring +smoking-room; till after sunset--generally interpreted with extreme +liberality--one of the stewards of the after-steerage literally hunted the +women down-stairs; and then often on fine nights the sailors would cluster +round the open hatchway and sing for or banter with their favorites below. + +The behavior of the sailors towards the women was the subject of constant +complaint by the more respectable of the passengers throughout the voyage; +in the evening, no woman without her husband was safe from their +persecution, and not always with him at her side; as they stood by each +other, and always had the sheath-knife at their side, the men were not +very ready to commence a quarrel with them; if their advances were +resented, they were apt to change from coarse good-humor to the most +revolting and obscene abuse. Hence, as I have mentioned, many of the women +would not return to the deck after the evening meal. In short, if other +steamers are like the one in which we made the passage, no young woman +could cross in the steerage without her modesty being daily shocked, and, +if she was unprotected, running great risk of actual insult. I have +mentioned that the deck bar was at the head of our staircase and +consequently near the sailors' cabin; one night it was broken open and +cleared of its contents; whether the culprits were either sought for or +detected, I never heard; but certainly the seamen next day were in a state +of extreme conviviality: and, under the emboldening influence of liquor, +one lively young mariner put his arm round the waist of a very handsome +young Englishwoman, whose ladylike dress and appearance had so far +prevented her from being molested in this way. A fight between her husband +and the delinquent was with difficulty prevented by the bystanders, and +the former went to complain to the chief officer; he mustered the watch +and read them a lecture on their not interfering with the female +passengers, and told the culprit he would hand him over to the authorities +at Castle Garden on his arrival at New York, who would certainly send him +for six months to prison. The latter did not seem much discomposed at the +intimation, and the day I landed in the Empire City he appeared at our +boardinghouse on Washington Street in a state of great hilarity and beer, +and informed us with much blasphemy that he had cut his connection with +the ship. + +The emigrant passengers on board our ship suffered much annoyance and +discomfort; but I do not hesitate to say that most of our troubles arose +from the crew and attendants rather than the arrangements of the ship +itself. Much of the accommodation provided--for instance, in the case of +the wash-houses and fresh-water pumps--was made useless by the negligence +or surliness of the men by whom they were controlled; the victuals seemed +generally to be of good quality, and, except in the case of the fresh +bread and sugar, were provided with lavish if not wasteful abundance, but +they were usually carelessly cooked, if not actually uneatable, and served +in the roughest and most heedless manner. The crew were a most disorderly +set--quarrels were of constant occurrence. I saw two fights--one between the +interpreter attached to the after-steerage and one of the stewards; and +another, which took place between the head-cook and the butcher in the +saloon galley; and I heard of several others. The cooks and bakers in the +steerage galley were changed once or twice during the voyage, but no +change for the better resulted. I attribute this want of anything like +discipline or attentiveness to their duties to the constant change of the +men on board these steamers; they only sign articles for the run out and +home, rarely remaining more than one or two voyages in the ship, and many +go the westward voyage merely to get to New York and desert the ship the +moment they arrive there. I was told the chief officer called the _milors_ +together and promised them, as the ship was short-handed (she had seven +less than her complement of 28 seamen), they should receive L5 10_s._ per +month instead of the L4 10_s._ for which they had shipped; but in spite of +this, nearly half of them would desert when the ship came to her moorings. +The cooks, bakers, and stewards are engaged in the same way, and the +consequence is, before they can all be got to understand their positions +and work well together, they are paid off and a new set come on board. If +the companies could form a permanent staff for their vessels, and go to +the same care and expense over their organization as they give to the +material equipment of their splendid vessels, an immense change for the +better would be effected in the comfort and convenience of the emigrant. +As to the distribution of provisions, the passengers might be arranged in +messes of ten or twenty, some of whose number would fetch their food from +the galley for allotment among themselves, and thus give them an +opportunity of eating their meals at table in a more Christianlike and +less piggish manner than the majority are at present compelled to do. Nor +do I see any great difficulty or additional expense in a different +arrangement of the bunks, by which, at the sacrifice of the wide space in +the middle of the steerage, they could be grouped on each side of a +central table, so that each twenty or thereabouts would form a partially +separated room, with its own table and its own mess. + +At last, early on the second Sunday morning, the thunderlike roll of the +cable paid out over our heads awoke us as the ship came to anchor off +Staten Island, and later in the day she moored alongside the company's +wharf in New Jersey. In sight of the promised land, the fatigue and +annoyance of the voyage were soon forgotten. A liberal meal of fresh and +unusually well-cooked beef and plum-duff, eaten undisturbed by the +vessel's motion, made the memory of the disgusting messes we had endured +or revolted at less poignant. The entire passengers went on shore in the +forenoon, but none of the emigrants were allowed to leave, or any one to +come on board the ship. Boatfuls of friends of the passengers came +alongside, and the word passed along the deck that Mrs. Brady's husband or +Mary Cahill's brother was seeking her. Numberless inquiries were shouted +as to Mike, or Mary, or the children, until the gray twilight hid the +spires and streets of the great city across the river. The chief officer +came round early with a lantern, and summarily dismissed all the women +below, and all went quietly to rest. Often, I believe, the last night on +board the emigrant ship is a scene of wild revelry, if not actual +debauchery; but the want of liquor--none was sold after the vessel came to +her moorings--and the absence of the fairer sex, effectually quenched any +convivial tendencies. + +At an early hour next morning the luggage was run out of the hold, and +tumbled pell-mell on deck; and the youth of either sex, hitherto contented +with the shabbiest and most negligent of attire, watched eagerly for their +boxes, dragged them to a convenient corner, and made an elaborate +toilette, either for the benefit of their American friends or to give the +_coup de grace_ to the sweethearts they had encountered on the voyage. It +was like the transformation scene in a pantomime, and I could hardly +recognize my lady acquaintances in their gay bonnets and neat dresses. +Much of their finery, however, suffered serious damage before they emerged +on the Bowery. In the afternoon, the custom-house officer came on board +and took his place near the gangway, alongside of which lay a tender for +the passengers and a barge for the luggage. The boxes were scattered all +over the deck, and to get them examined one had to drag them to the +officer, open them and close them, obtain a Castle Garden check from an +official at the head of the gangway, and then they went over the side on +to the barge, and the passenger on to the tender. Every one was anxious to +be off, and all scrambled at once towards the gangway, dragging boxes and +bundles with them. Never did we see such a scene of tumult and confusion. +Such a babel of tongues; such despair at boxes that either would not open, +or more frequently, being opened, would not shut; such lamentations over +their often hopelessly shattered contents--the married women imploring some +one to mind their children while they dragged their boxes to the gangway; +the single ones begging quondam admirers to help them to move their heavy +trunks--appeals to which the latter, sufficiently engrossed with their own +struggle to be off, generally turned a deaf and unkind ear. The custom- +house officer seemed to discharge his duty with as much good-humor as the +necessity of examining some thousand boxes in a limited time would allow. +We got off with the first tenderful, and after waiting an hour or two in +Castle Garden, where we at once cleared the refreshment stall of what we +then thought delicious coffee and pies, we were told to fetch our luggage +on the following day, and then passed out into Broadway to seek our +various fortunes. + +In the boarding-house where I spent the night in New York, I met +passengers from most of the other lines. All complained of their +accommodations, and affected to believe that they had unfortunately +selected the most uncomfortable service. For my own part, I believe that +on the whole there is but little to choose between the accommodations and +provisions supplied by the different companies, and that the description I +have given of the arrangements of one line would generally apply to the +rest. + + + + +Martyrs And Confessors In Christ. + + +Nor let any of you be sad, on the ground that he is less than those who, +before you having suffered torments, have come by the glorious journey to +the Lord, the world being conquered and trodden down. The Lord is the +searcher of the reins and heart, he sees the secret things, and looks into +things hidden. The testimony of him alone, who is to guide, is sufficient +for earning the crown from him. Therefore each thing, O dearest brethren, +is equally sublime and illustrious. The former, namely, to hasten to the +Lord by the consummation of victory, is the more secure; the latter is +more joyful, to flourish in the praises of the church, having received a +furlough after the gaining of glory. O blessed church of ours, which the +honor of divine condescension thus illumines, which in our own time the +glorious blood of martyrs thus makes illustrious! Before, it was white in +the works of the brethren; now, it is made purple in the blood of martyrs. +Neither lilies nor roses are wanting to its flowers. Let all now contend +for the most ample dignity of both honors. Let them receive crowns, either +white from their works, or purple from their martyrdom. In the heavenly +camp peace and war have their respective flowers, by which the soldier of +Christ is crowned for glory. I pray, bravest and most blessed brethren, +that you be always well in the Lord, and mindful of us. Farewell.--_S. +Cyprian._ + + + + +The Roman Empire And The Mission Of The Barbarians. + + +Third Article. + +So the great Roman world sinned on to the last. Christianity, with a cry +of fear and alarm, pointed to the stormful North, and exhorted to +repentance; but her voice was drowned in the mad shouts of revelry and the +wild din of reckless passion. The mistress of nations would not consent to +show signs of fear or alarm. She cast her far-seeing eye over her wide, +rich provinces towards the frowning horizon, and she had some knowledge of +what sort of elements were hidden behind the black cloud-wall there. Never +yet had the whole terrible ferocity of latent wrath burst forth; but +still, from time to time, as she had watched for some centuries back, the +storm-cloud had opened for a moment, and the low thunder-peal had been +heard, and the lightning-fires had scathed her frontiers, and sometimes +even had touched the very heart of some of her outlying provinces. But the +fiery sword had been sheathed. The rent seemed to close again, and the +thunder-murmurs died away. Still no brightness tinged the angry North. But +darker, wilder, more fiercely threatening the storm-cloud grew. There was +an angry God behind it, with his warrior hosts, hidden, and biding the +solemn, predetermined moment. If the queen of empire felt, at times, a +thrill of alarm, she tried to shake it off again. For proudly she gazed +around on her widespreading dominions, and counted her almost countless +monuments of conquest and glory, and appealed to the long past for her +claim to live on immortally; and then took consolation and confidence to +herself that the pillars of the firmament would crumble to dust, and the +heavens fall, before she could be moved from her everlasting foundations. +But still there were hearts that trembled for fear, conscious that +something terrible was coming upon the world. The cry of the rapt seer of +Patmos seemed still to be rising from the bosom of the AEgean Sea, and +ringing in the ears of those who had faith in a God of justice. All those +terrible woes foretold in the sixteenth and seventeenth chapters of the +Apocalypse seemed about to be accomplished. With strange wailing sound, as +of a warning archangel's trumpet, the prophetic voice appeared to repeat: +"Thou art just, O Lord, who art, and who wast, the holy one, because thou +hast judged these things: for they have shed the blood of saints and +prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink.... And great Babylon +came in remembrance before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the +indignation of his wrath." Louder still that voice seemed to rise in tones +of merciful warning: "Go out from her, my people; that you be not +partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues. For her +sins have reached unto heaven, and the Lord hath remembered her +iniquities.... She saith in her heart: I sit a queen, and am no widow; and +sorrow I shall not see. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, +death, and mourning, and famine, and she shall be burned with fire; +because God is strong, who shall judge her." So appeared to sound out +clear the sad, wailing voice of the prophet in these sorrowful days. And +the people of God took warning. Full of fear and dread, they fled from the +"great Babylon" and the other principal cities of the empire, and hid +themselves from the wrath that was to come. Those who remained behind +laughed with mocking incredulity at their fears, and, as if in defiance of +a mighty God, drained the sparkling goblet with an intenser relish, and +the din of revelry waxed louder, and the Circensian games were applauded +with a wilder joy. Countless numbers of Christians, who still had faith in +God's Word and fear of his justice, hurried with rapid steps from these +scenes of reckless dissipation and pleasure. They went to kneel with +uplifted hands amid the sands of the Libyan Desert, or the wooded +mountains of Lebanon; to implore mercy on a wicked world, amid the islets +of the Tyrrhenian Sea, or in the rocky caves of the Thebaid. + +At intervals another warning voice is heard, sounding, with the vehemence +of the Baptist's cry, from the holy precincts of Bethlehem. S. Jerome is +meditating and commenting, in his convent cell, on the prophecy of +Ezekiel. As he ponders on the judgments of God on Jerusalem of old, he +cannot but think of Rome in his own day. As the images of ruin and +destruction grow before his mind, and his great heart burns with +compassion for sinful, sinning man, he pauses in his reading, and lifts +his voice in warning of the vials of wrath that are about to be poured out +upon the empire. Through the voluptuous palaces of Rome which he once knew +so well, the loud warning voice of the holy anchoret of Bethlehem pierces +with an awakening sound, and helps to persuade many a patrician beauty "to +exchange the dream of pleasure, so soon to be interrupted by the clangor +of the Gothic trumpet, for the sacred vigils and austerities of the Holy +Land." "Read," he cries out, "the Apocalypse of S. John: mark what is +written of the woman clothed in scarlet, with the mystic inscription on +her forehead, and seated upon seven hills, and of the destruction of +Babylon. 'Go out of her, my people,' saith the Lord; 'that you be not made +partakers of her crimes, and partners in the plagues that shall afflict +her.' Leave the proud city to exult in everlasting uproar and dissipation, +satiating her bloodthirstiness in the arena, and her insane passion in the +circus. Leave it to her to trample under foot every sense of shame in her +lascivious theatres." After these words of startling vehemence, he attunes +his voice to gentler accents. And pours out his enthusiastic soul in +language of sweetest music, winning and captivating both ear and heart. He +throws a ravishing fascination and sweetness around his life at Bethlehem +that must have been irresistible to souls in which yet lingered any purity +of sentiment or love for the holy and beautiful. "How different," he +exclaims, "the scenes that invite you hither! The most rustic simplicity +is characteristic of the natal village of our Redeemer, and sacred hymns +and psalmody are the only interruptions of the heavenly stillness and +serenity which reign on every side. Walk forth into the fields: you +startle with mingled astonishment and delight to find that 'Alleluia' is +the burden of the ploughman's song; that it is with some inspired canticle +the reaper recreates himself, in reposing at noontide from his +overpowering toil; and that it is the royal Psalmist's inspiration that +attunes the voice of the vine-dresser, as, scroll in hand, he plies his +task all day." Thus does he paint in charming colors the immediate +neighborhood in which he lived so happily. His words take us back to the +days of Eden, and make us realize what unfallen and sinless mankind would +have been. Then he passes on to those scenes and names which are +interwoven into the history of our Lord's life, and round these again he +casts the fascination of his poetical outpourings. We are carried on as by +a magic spell, and we feel ourselves drawn captives after the mighty heart +that glows with such a fiery heat of love in that grotto of Bethlehem. We +cannot wonder that many souls felt the wondrous spell of that clear, sweet +voice, as it broke with its music-tones of penetrating power into the +palaces of Rome. The loud-wailing trumpet-tones of the Apocalyptic seer, +as they rose with terrific warning from the bosom of the AEgean, and the +melodious music of the anchoret of Bethlehem, as it was carried westward +on the breeze, both conveyed a message from a merciful God to the children +whom he yet loved. But we will listen again to that winning voice from +Bethlehem, as it pleads on, trying to draw Christians from the perils that +were so near: "Oh! when shall that blessed day arrive," it continues, +"when it shall be our own delight to conduct you to the cave of the +Nativity; together to mingle our tears with those of Mary and of the +Virgin Mother in the sepulchre of our Lord; to press the wood on which he +redeemed us to our throbbing lips; and, in ardent desire, to ascend with +him from Mount Olivet?" We will hasten thence to Bethany to see Lazarus +come forth in his winding-sheet, and to the banks of that blessed stream +sanctified by the baptism of the Word made flesh. Thence to the huts of +the shepherds who heard the canticle of "Glory to God on high" and +"Tidings of great joy," as they were keeping their night-watch over their +flocks. We will pray at the tomb of David, and meditate under the steep +precipice where inspiration used to come on the prophet Amos, until we +hear again the living clangor of his shepherd-horn. In Mambre, we shall +commune in spirit with the great patriarchs and their consorts who were +buried there; visit the fountain where the eunuch was baptized by Philip; +and in Samaria honor the relics of S. John the Baptist, of Abdias and +Eliseus, and devoutly explore the caverns where the choirs of the prophets +were miraculously fed, in the days of famine and persecution. We will +extend our pilgrimage to Nazareth, and, as the name implies, behold the +_flower_ of Galilee. Hard by is Cana, where he changed water into wine. +Thence to Mount Tabor, where our prayer shall be that our rest may not be +with Moses and Elias, but in the eternal tabernacle, where we shall enjoy +the beatific vision of the Father and the Holy Ghost. Thence returning, we +shall see the Lake Genesareth, and the wilderness where the merciful Jesus +feasted the multitudes; and Naim shall not be passed by unheeded, where he +gave back to the disconsolate mother "her only son." Hermon shall be +pointed out, and the torrent of Endor where Sisera was overcome; and +Capharnaum, the theatre of so many miracles. Thence going up to Jerusalem, +as it were in the retinue of our Lord, as the disciples were wont to do, +we will pass through Silo and Bethel; and having made the circuit of so +many scenes, consecrated by the presence, the preaching, and the miracles +of the Son of God, to that grotto where he was born to us a Saviour, we +shall at last return; perpetually to hymn his praises, to deplore our +trespasses with frequent tears; to give our days and nights to holy +orisons, as if smitten with the same love which exclaimed, "Him whom my +soul hath yearned for, have I found. I will hold him, and will not let him +go."(278) Such wondrous music did the spiritual enchanter pour forth from +his lonely grotto. In such words as these, throbbing with love and holy +zeal, did the great heart of the worn ascetic of Bethlehem gush forth. And +they depicted in such vivid colors the sweet peace and purity and +happiness of a new earthly paradise far away in the Eastern land, that +many souls were lured away by the charmer's voice out of the great Western +Babylon in time to escape the tempest that was just about to descend upon +it. Many illustrious names appear among the fugitives. Paula forgot her +lofty pedigree and her more than princely fortune, and fled eastward, and +S. Melania and many others of patrician rank hurried away to Bethlehem to +escape the impending doom. And there, whilst the mighty God thundered, and +hurled his flaming arrows of vengeance, and the great sinful empire +tottered and crashed under the awful blows of his wrath, did those favored +Christians tremble and pray amid holy scenes and sweet associations, round +the grand spiritual figure of S. Jerome. + +But it was not only among the believers in God's Word, and those who +observed the signs of the times from their watch-towers in the heart of +the empire, that the belief in the imminent catastrophe had taken a strong +hold. The idea that vengeance was close at hand was agitating with fierce +intensity the barbaric nations themselves. Whence that idea came, they +themselves could not have told. It had long been working in their minds +like a living fire; it had gone on inflaming their souls till they felt +their whole being on fire with an ungovernable passion for destruction and +vengeance. They had been kept for long centuries by an overruling power in +their northern forests, waiting for an unknown moment in the future. But +that moment, they felt, was now at hand. They were ready for it, for they +knew they were the scourges of wrath in the hands of a mighty God. + +But before that fierce, black storm-cloud up yonder in the North pours out +its fiery wrath upon the doomed empire, we will try to get a glimpse +behind it to see what elements are hidden there. + +Let the reader open his historical atlas, and follow with his eye the +boundaries of the Roman Empire in the West. He will see that the east, +west, and south of Europe are lying at the feet of Rome, the heart and +centre of the world. As he casts his glance over his chart, he will be +struck by the countless names that cover the face of Italy and Gaul and +Spain, and all those countries that are comprehended within the rule and +civilization of the great capital of the empire. But as he raises his eye +northwards, he marks the outlines of Roman power. He might say that the +Rhine and the Danube are the boundaries in that direction of imperial +dominion. And what does he see beyond? Nothing that denotes that +civilization has ever set a firm foot there. The great Hercynian forest +begins at the Rhine, and stretches far away, with its dense, impenetrable +blackness, as far as the Vistula. It looks like a long, broad line of +fortification thrown up by nature to guard the North from Roman ambition. +Beyond this, again, is a wild unknown land. The student becomes bewildered +as he tries to gain an accurate knowledge of it. It is a dreary wilderness +of forest, and swamp, and vast tracts of land that have known no tillage. +He finds no name of city or town, but only the hard names of countless +barbaric tribes. These seem to fill, without order or defined limit of +dominion, the vast area from the borders of the Rhine and Danube to the +Baltic Sea, and the mainland and innumerable islets of Scandinavia. If he +cast his eye towards the North-east, the prospect is of a land still less +known, and, at the same time, less thickly peopled. But the barbaric names +are there, though few in number, and the wild waste seems to stretch away +interminably into the darkness. The map calls it Scythia, and that is +almost all the student can gather from looking at it; but it seems to him +that it is the high-road by which the countless barbarian tribes have come +into Europe. We may well believe Gibbon when he tells us that this vast, +unknown northern land, cut off from the Roman Empire by the Rhine and the +Danube, and shrouded in gloom and darkness by its widespreading forests, +extended itself over a third part of Europe.(279) Tacitus describes it as +a country under a gloomy sky, rude, dismal in aspect and cultivation; more +humid than Gaul, more stormy than Noricum and Pannonia.(280) It was a +country where the waters were often covered with thick ice, and the +mountains with snow, where the air was cold and sharp, and the storms blew +fierce and strong. It was, in a word, a country where no delicate, soft +races could have lived, but where only men of stalwart frame and hardy +natures could have their home; men who could bound up the snowy mountain +heights with a feeling of luxury, could hunt with delight among the frozen +swamps, and run in the teeth of the sharp blast through thick forests +where the warm sun-rays never penetrated. And what was this strange, +unknown land, so dark and impenetrable, so vast in its extent, so defended +by rivers and ocean and far-reaching fortification of Hercynian forest, so +wild and uncultivated, so dismal and cold, and overhanging with its +savage, frowning aspect the empire of Rome? It was the camp of the God of +battles. With a divine purpose of his own, he had kept it free from Roman +conquest. He had marked it off for himself by those wide rivers and stormy +seas, and planted that thick long line of forest trees on its frontier, +and shrouded its vast area in secrecy and mystery by widespreading woods. +And under the shadow of these thick forests he had, for long generations, +been gathering his warrior-bands. The great empire had been growing for +centuries in power and riches, and had piled up her monuments to tell the +ages of her glories, and had come to think herself everlasting; but whilst +she thus developed her power so mightily, her destroyers were being +gathered together in secret in that Northern land. It was not by chance +that the Roman Empire had built herself up in such glory and imposing +magnitude on the ruins of the great empires that had preceded her, and not +for a barren purpose. God had marked with his finger the boundary-line of +her dominions long before she extended her power so far, and he had +appointed her the work which she was to do for him. But he had marked out, +also, the term in the future whereunto she should endure, and had chosen +beforehand the instruments which he would use for her destruction. As she +was to be the most mighty of all empires which the world had ever seen, so +would her destroyers have to be mighty and terrible in their powers of +destruction. And those destroyers God will have ready at the right moment. +No human eye could see what was going on under that dense darkness in the +North; its mysterious depth was impenetrable to mortal kin. It was the +secret laboratory of God, where he was fashioning his instruments of +wrath. He had long been there amidst the terror and gloom beckoning the +wild races of the earth to come to him, and they had obeyed his call, +though they knew not why. Far back in the ages of time, before history had +taken up her pen, there was a great breaking up of the Aryan family in the +Eastern land, and they divided themselves into two great sections. They +moved in opposite directions, one towards the East, the other towards the +West. Though that breaking up seems, at first sight, to have nothing +providential about it, yet it was no accidental separation. Bringing our +Catholic principles to bear upon it, we soon see that it was the work of +God. The wild tribes wandered on, they knew not whither. But they had a +guide as real and definite as the Israelites in after-times. It was, +perhaps, no pillar of fire nor mysterious moving cloud, but yet as +unerring in its leading. The Eastern Aryans took possession of Persia, +and, invading India, gradually made themselves masters of the country as +far as the Ganges. In this rich and fertile region they soon advanced, +with rapid steps, to a high state of civilization. When we first meet them +in history, they are a powerful nation, with well-disciplined armies, and +arts and sciences highly cultivated. Of those who took the westerly +course, some settled down in the southern parts of Europe, and at the +opening of history are found in a state of civilization. One section of +them, wild, bold, and free, remain in a nomadic state. They wander on +towards the Northwest, never settling down, ever restless. They feel +themselves drawn ever onward, as by some mysterious power which they +cannot resist. That strange, unseen power is he who dwells amid the +darkness of the Scandinavian and Suabian forests. And as they pour into +that weird gloom, band after band, they are lost to view. God wants them +there for a time. They are one day to rush forth again, at his bidding, +wild and fierce as ever, to do their appointed work. + +Of these multitudinous tribes, hidden under the dark covering of those +Northern forests, we cannot undertake to give any detailed account. The +student who has ever pored over his historical chart representing the home +of the barbarians, knows well how impossible it is to obtain accurate +ideas about them. He is simply bewildered with the number of tribes, and +the hard names by which they are designated. He is content to let Dr. +Latham and Mr. Kingsley dispute at their pleasure as to whether the Goths +were Teutons or a separate tribe. Some authors, with Gibbon, would make +the Teutons the great tribe which included and absorbed almost all the +rest, whilst Dr. Latham insists that they were far less in numbers than is +commonly supposed. It is not now our purpose to enter on a question of +this nature. Our view of them is simply as a _fourmillement des nations_, +confused, indistinguishable, undefinable. We cannot pretend to speak with +accuracy as to what territory was occupied by each tribe. What they do we +can only guess at. They do not regard themselves as in their settled home. +They wander about restless, and unsatisfied in their wild forest lands. +They have only an indistinct idea whence they came, but they have a +mysterious instinct whither they are to go when the appointed day comes. +At one time they are on the Baltic shore, at another on the Danube bank. +They never think of marching back Eastward, whence they came; their faces +are turned towards the South, and they dream of a rich, golden city in +which they are one day to revel and feast to their heart's content. + +It is something bewildering to pause over and think upon, in our +historical studies, is this Northern land of darkness, with its hidden +millions of wild savages silently wandering about in their gloomy forest, +under the eye of God, and waiting for the signal to rush forth upon the +sin-laden empire of Rome! There never was anything more mysterious in +history. They hang for long years, like a suspended curse, over a sinful +world. They would have come down thundering like a crushing avalanche long +before they did, if God had not held them back. It is wonderful to think +how really they were in the hand of the great Over-ruler. Suddenly it had +entered into their minds, as we have seen, to break up their home in the +far East, in prehistoric times, and they had obeyed the instinct. They +moved away from their native land, and set out upon their wanderings. They +knew no land beyond their own, nor had they reason to expect that they +would discover anything better than what they enjoyed in the country of +their birth. But still they wandered on. Whither they were journeying they +had no knowledge, but they were obeying an overmastering power. They found +themselves, at last, gathered together in a mysterious land of darkness, +and there they paused. They felt they were at the rendezvous to which they +had been called. They were at the feet of him who had beckoned to them to +leave their homes in the Eastern land. Their instinct now was to remain +hidden there for a time behind the great fortification of the Hercynian +forest. From beginning to end all through their history these barbarians +are in the hand of God, under his generalship, and used to execute his +designs. Such teaching as this will, no doubt, appear puerile to the +sneering atheism of men like Herbert Spencer. He and those of his school +have discovered that God has nothing to do with the course of human events +or the government of the universe.(281) Social Science has led them far +beyond the old-world ideas of God and divine government; but, thanks to +the sound and safe teaching of Catholic principles, there are yet men in +these days who refuse to run after the _ignis fatuus_ of Spencerian +philosophy. + +But when we consider how the great civilized world of the Roman Empire and +this world of the barbarian tribes bordered so close on one another for so +long a time, and when we think what conquests Christianity had made +wherever civilization had set its foot, we wonder how that dark Northern +land could remain still heathen. Were not the citadels of the Christian +religion planted all along the borders of the Roman Empire? Did no gleams, +then, of Christian light shoot forth into the darkness beyond? We know +that such certainly was the case in the Northwestern portion, where the +Goths dwelt, for we read of Ulphilas and his apostolic labors among that +tribe. But for the most part, the darkness was unpenetrated, and we are +struck by the sight of two worlds running so close up to one another and +yet remaining so isolated in a religious point of view. The fact was, the +time for the conversion of the Northmen had not yet come. Their apostles +were to be a race of heroes born on the mountain-heights, and nourished in +the pure, bracing air of monastic solitude. The barbarians were waiting +for the monks. It is true that these wild tribes had already a worship of +their own, and deeply religious in their way they certainly were. It was a +religion quite in keeping with their wild, free character. Men who were so +restless and active in their disposition, who delighted in storm and +mountain and roaring torrents, would have no temple of wood or stone for +their place of worship. Their temple was out in the open air, under the +driving clouds, within hearing of the tumbling waterfalls, in sight of +nature's face; for nature to them was God. They saw him in the great +mountain towering up on high, in the rocking forest-trees, in the wide- +stretching plain, in the flowing river, in the gushing fountain. He was in +every object around them; in every speck of light in the overarching +heavens; in the glistening streamlet; in the variegated flowers bedecking +nature's face; in the rock that stood out to break the power of the +rushing sea-waves; in the very stones scattered around them on the plain. +There was a divinity of some kind in everything they saw.(282) It would, +perhaps, be more true to say that their religion was polytheism rather +than pantheism. We find, moreover, that the tendency of their religious +belief was to keep alive in their souls the warlike spirit. The greatest +and highest of their gods were beings of mighty power and terrible +violence. "Woden, or Odin, as he was called in Scandinavia, was the +omnipresent, the almighty creator, the father of gods and men; who ruled +the universe, riding on the clouds, and sending rain and sunshine; in whom +were centred all godlike attributes, of which he imparted a share to the +other gods; and from whom proceeded all beauty, wisdom, strength, and +fruitfulness, the knowledge of agriculture and the arts, the inspirations +of music and song, and all good gifts. He was the giant hunter, who in the +darkest nights rushed through the air on his white charger, clad in a +brown mantle, his white locks streaming from beneath his slouching hat, +followed by a train of wild huntsmen, the horses snorting fire, the +bloodhounds baying, announcing war and carnage, danger and distress, as he +passed along with lightning speed. But he was in a more special way the +god of war, revelling in blood and slaughter, giving courage and victory +to his votaries, and admitting to his Valhalla, or hall of bliss, none but +those who died by the sword. + +"Next to him was his son Thor, who rode on the thunder-cloud and +whirlwind, whose hammer was the thunderbolt, whose arrows were the +lightning flashes, and whose wagon dashed through the heavens with +crashing noise and ungovernable fury."(283) + +Then there was Saxnot, another son of Woden, who occupied the third place +among the gods. His name is afterwards associated with those of Woden and +Thor in the abjuration of paganism made by those who were converted to +Christianity. He is designated under many different names. He is Eor, or +Are, or Ere, or Cheru, Tyr, Zio, Tuisco, or Tuis. He was the god of war, +fierce and terrible, rushing to battle, at Woden's side, and bearing down +whole hosts with his mighty sword of iron or stone. + +War, blood, and violence, then, were ever, in the minds of the barbarians, +associated with the greatest of those beings whom they worshipped and +admired. The character and the deeds of these gods were the highest and +the noblest they could conceive. To be mighty in battle like them; to +wield their war-weapon as Thor wielded his huge hammer; to mow down +enemies as Tuisco did with his terrible sword, would be the grand object +of their soul's desire. We may judge how little there was in their +religious worship to tone down their fierce natures. Everything symbolized +war; their deities were almost all warlike. Even Freyja, the Northern +Venus, was pictured to their imagination as delighting in war. She was +believed to be ever present in the battle-field, wielding her flaming +sword, with frantic joy, over the heads of their enemies, and ready to +bear off the souls of the slain to Odin's Valhalla. In that imaginary +Elysium the joys of their fallen heroes were also of a warlike and savage +character. They revelled there in "constantly massacring visionary foes, +and drinking without satiety, out of the skulls of the slain, brimming +ale-cups presented by lovely Valkyrja." What shall we expect, then, when +these wild warriors are turned loose upon the Roman Empire? + +But is it possible to obtain a further glimpse behind that vast, dark line +of pine-trees? Can we, by any means, get a glance at the wild indwellers +of the mysterious land beyond? What are those men like whom God has so +long kept hidden there? From time to time they have come forth from their +forest homes and stood on the boundaries of the civilized world, and +rolled their glaring eyes around over the rich empire that was to be their +booty. But that has been, as it were, only for a moment. They have plunged +again into their native darkness. Yet such writers as Apollinaris and +Ammianus Marcellinus have told us something of them. By their aid we can +picture to ourselves what those terrible hosts of avengers will be like, +who will presently come down with such a headlong sweep upon the doomed +empire of Rome. + +All that we can imagine savage and terrible and extraordinary in figure +and habit is found in real fact among those barbaric hordes. There are +among them tribes who are small of stature, and thin and brawny, but quick +and fierce as the wild-cat. There are, too, men of giant height and +strength, who can wield their huge clubs like playthings, and shiver the +hard rock like glass. They have blue, flashing eyes, and bathe their +flaxen hair in lime-water, and anoint it with the unsavory unguent of +rancid butter. Some of them roam about nude and uncovered as the wild +animals of the forest, proud of their iron necklaces and golden bracelets; +others are partially clothed with the skins of savage beasts, cut and +shaped after the most odd and fantastic fashions. Some give additional +terror to their appearance by wearing helmets made to imitate the muzzles +of ferocious beasts. Plutarch tells us that all the Cimbrian horsemen wore +helmets made in the form of the open jaws and muzzles of all kinds of +strange and savage animals, and surmounted these by plumes shaped like +wings, and of a prodigious height. This gave them the appearance of +monstrous giants. They were armed with cuirasses of most brilliant metal, +and covered with bucklers of uniform whiteness. Some shaved their chins, +and, what must have added much to their hideousness, the back of their +heads, whilst their hair was drawn to the front and hung down over their +eyes like the forelock of a horse. So says Apollinaris, + + + "Ad front em coma tracta jacet, nudata cervix + Setarum per summa nitet."(284) + + +Others, again, allowed their hair to grow, and wore long mustachios and +beard. Their weapons of war were various and strange as their own +appearance. Some fought on foot, wielding with savage fury the huge club, +or crushing mallet, or heavy-headed hammer; or they did fierce work with +their rude sword, or long javelin with its two points, or double-edged +hatchet; or they were skilful in the use of the sling or the arrow pointed +with sharp pieces of bone. Others rushed to battle on high war-steeds +barded with steel, or on small horses, ugly and wretched to look at, but +swift as eagles in their course. If they fought on the level plain, these +barbarians were sometimes scattered over a large space, or they formed +themselves into cuneiform bodies, or they pressed together into compact, +impenetrable masses. If the contest was waged in the forests, they clomb +the trees, which they worshipped, with the agility of monkeys, and there +combated their enemies with wild ferocity, thus borne on the shoulders and +in the arms of their gods. If they were conquerors in the battle, they +abandoned themselves to acts of the most savage cruelty. To illustrate +this we need only think of the tragic deeds that were done amid the swamps +and the wooded hills of the Teutoberger Wald in the latter days of +Augustus. It is sad, indeed, to read in Tacitus and the pages of Dio of +the fate of that noble Roman army over which Varus held command. Yet we +cannot regret to see the well-concerted rising of the German tribes, under +the splendid military genius of Arnim, to throw off the Roman yoke. We +hold in deepest horror the wrongs, the oppressions of the Romans from the +first ravages of Caesar to the judicial murders of Varus. We think with +feelings of indignation of the treachery and the bloody cruelty of Caesar +when the Usipetes and the Teuchteri were all but annihilated on the banks +of the Rhine, and the Roman general rejoiced at his own unprovoked +atrocity. We recall with sorrow all that the barbarians had had to suffer +from their Roman conquerors through succeeding years, and our souls are on +fire at the recollection of it. When, then, we see that the day of +deliverance is at hand, we carrot but rejoice with Arnim and his brother +Adelings at the prospect of future freedom. Our sympathies are with the +Germans, not with their Roman oppressors. Whilst the Romans, then, are +hungry and starved in the long, boggy valley between the sources of the +Ems and the Lippe, and the rain falls in torrents through the cold night, +and the soldiers' spirits sink as they find themselves hemmed in by the +enemy on all sides, we are, meantime, in imagination and feeling with the +barbarian chiefs holding high festival as they recall the memory of +ancient freedom and the deeds of former days, and we join in the war songs +as they echo among the wild, dreary hills, and swell above the howlings of +the storm. And when the morning breaks ominously and darkly over the +Teutoberger Wald, and the tempest rises higher, and the heavy-armed Romans +cannot advance, and find it difficult, even, to keep their footing in the +wet and slippery swamp; when we see their bows now useless from the wet, +and their spears and shields no longer glittering in military pride, and +their entire armor and clothing drenched and made too heavy for the poor +benumbed and hunger-stricken soldiers to bear, we can scarcely feel one +pang of sorrow. On the contrary, our heart leaps with gladness when Arnim +from his watch-eminence gives the signal, and the trumpets ring out and +the war-weapons clang, and the terrible Barritum described by Tacitus(285) +is heard rising above the howlings of the storm. We know how that tragic +day ended, and how the evening saw the Roman host covering, with their +dead bodies, the length and breadth of the battle-field. Never had there +been, in the annals of military warfare, such a terrible massacre of Roman +legions. The news of it seized upon Augustus like a madness, and the old +man, during the short remainder of his life, wandered sad and disconsolate +through the apartments of his palace, sometimes dashing his white head +against the walls, and murmuring, _Quintili Vare, legiones redde!_(286) +But the barbarians were not content with such terrific slaughter as nearly +annihilated the Roman army; their wild ferocity and cruelty showed +themselves in their treatment of the captives. Tacitus in his _Annals_ +tells us(287) that in the neighboring woods the barbarians had altars +erected to their gods, and there the surviving Roman tribunes and the +centurions of the first class were offered in sacrifice. Around Varus's +camp Roman heads were fixed, in cruel mockery, on the trunks and branches +of trees, and in the midst arose a huge mound of Roman bones, left to be +stripped of their flesh by the wild birds of prey, and then to whiten +under that northern sky into a long enduring monument of a great barbarian +victory. + +If, on the contrary they were conquered, their fury was boundless, and was +even turned against each other. When Marius overcame the first Cimbrian +league, those who composed it were found on the field of battle bound fast +to each other, so that they could not fall back before the enemy, and thus +were compelled to conquer or die. Their wives were armed with swords or +hatchets, and, shrieking and gnashing their teeth with rage and grief, +they struck both Cimbrians and Romans. They rushed into the thickest of +the fight, snatching with their naked hands at the sharp-cutting Roman +sabres; they sprang upon the legionaries like tigers, tearing from them +their bucklers, and thus purposely drawing upon themselves their own +destruction. It was a dreadful sight also to witness some of them when the +fortune of the day had turned against them, rushing to and fro with +dishevelled hair, their black dresses all torn and bloody, or to see them +mounted like mad fiends on the chariots, killing their husbands and +brothers, fathers and sons, strangling their new-born infants and casting +them under the horses' hoofs, and then plunging the dagger into their own +bosoms.(288) + +Some of the barbarians delighted in eating human flesh. Ammianus +Marcellinus gives us a picture in his history which freezes our blood and +haunts us with its horrid memory. He tells us that, after the defeat of +Valens under the walls of Constantinople, a barbarian was seen rushing +among the imperial troops, naked down to his waist, sword in hand, and +uttering a hoarse, lugubrious cry. He sprang with savage fury upon an +enemy whom he had slain, and, applying his lips to his throat, sucked out +his life-blood with a wild beast's relish. The Scythians of Europe were +amongst those who showed this same instinct of the weasel and the hyena. +We have the authority of S. Jerome for believing that the Atticoti also +were accustomed to feed on human flesh. When they were wandering about in +the woods of Gaul, and happened to meet herds of swine or other cattle, +they cut off the breasts of the shepherdesses, and large pieces from the +bodies of the shepherds, and ate them as dainty bits.(289) The Alans tore +off the heads of their enemies, and caparisoned their horses with the +skins of their bodies. The Budini and Geloni were accustomed to do much +the same, being particular in reserving their enemies' heads for +themselves. The appearance of the Geloni was a sickening sight to look +upon. They were accustomed to have their cheeks cut and gashed; and their +proudest distinction was a face all covered with wounds that were scaly, +and livid and crowned with blood-red crests. + +But if there is something terrible in the appearance and customs of the +barbarians whom we have mentioned, it is surpassed by what we are told of +the Huns. We shall not be able to form a true idea of the dreadful +avengers who are to come down out of that Northern gloom, unless we look +for a moment at this most terrible of the barbaric tribes. The Goths +themselves, the stalwart giants of the Scandinavian forests, who knew no +fear of men, could not but be terrified when they first fixed eyes on the +hideous forms of the Huns. Jornandes, the Gothic historian, tells us that +"the livid color of their skin had in it something shocking to the sight; +theirs was not a face, but a deformed mass of flesh, provided, instead of +eyes, with two black sinister spots. Their cruelty wreaked itself even +upon their own new-born offspring, whose cheeks they lacerated with iron +before they had tasted their mother's milk; and from this cause no down +graced their chin in youth, no beard gave dignity to their old age." We +are told by Ammianus that "they looked not like men, but like wild beasts +standing on two legs, as if in mockery of the human species." They were, +in truth, the wildest and most savage of all the barbarian hordes. They +loved to be free and unrestrained as the wandering blasts of their native +solitudes. They ate and slept on the ground under the open sky. They took +their food raw and uncooked, like the tigers of the forest. No temples of +worship had they; their God was a naked sword fixed in the ground. They +were devoured by an insatiable thirst for gold, which they were ever ready +to procure through blood, and smoke, and wholesale ruin. But the +characteristic of their race was a ferocious delight in cruel massacre, +and they gloried in pillaging, burning, and levelling down to the ground +every monument of civilization that came in their path, till the regions +over which they swept bore a resemblance to their native deserts. The rest +of the barbarians were amazed at their inhumanity, and looked upon them as +fiends under the likeness of men. + +But we need say no more. We have caught some few glimpses of what is +behind the dark storm-cloud, and we can form some idea of the horrors that +are hidden there. Well may men tremble as they look northwards in the Vth +century. Well may Christians think they hear now again, ringing out more +clearly than ever, the warning voice of S. John, and flee to far-off +hiding-places. The sinful empire herself feels, at times, as if under the +horrors of a nightmare; in her frightful dreams she thinks she is trampled +upon, and crushed under the feet of fierce, wild men of terrible aspect, +and torn and hacked by their strange weapons of war. As the tempest lowers +over her darker and darker, and threatens to become all-enveloping in its +wrath, a deep shudder runs through her mighty frame. And well may she +stagger and quake for fear. The reckoning-day is close at hand, so long +waited for by the holy martyrs of foregone centuries. And a day of +dreadful destruction it will be. + +But lo! the hour has already struck. God has given the signal to his +warrior-hosts. The Goth has given a ringing blast on his horn, and the +German has shouted the first notes of his terrible war-song, and the pine- +trees of the Hercynian forest are trembling at the sound. The avengers of +the martyrs and the Christian name are coming, and the whole North is +shaking under their tread. At last the storm-cloud bursts, and fiery +destruction sweeps down upon the doomed empire of Rome. + + + + +New Publications. + + + IRELAND'S CASE STATED: IN REPLY TO MR. FROUDE. By the Very Rev. T. + N. Burke, O.P. New York: P. M. Haverty. 1873. + + +Ireland's case has been stated, argued, vindicated, and, so far as the +verdict of the American people is concerned, adjudicated. Mr. Froude has +given his last scowl and his last growl, and gone back to his own +country--which he has damaged by his foolish escapade--the most badly beaten +man of the present decade. It is rather late in the day to revert to the +topic of F. Burke's combat with this obstinate champion of bad characters +and bad causes, and we will, therefore, let it pass with these few words. +We are hoping to see soon issued Mr. Haverty's promised second volume of +F. Burke's _Discourses and Lectures_, and we once more express our regret +that any should be found so unmindful of propriety and courtesy, to say +the least, as to interfere with F. Burke's control of the publication of +his own works. The eloquent Dominican preacher may be assured that the +respect and sympathy not only of all Catholic Irishmen, but of all other +Catholics of the United States, will be his while he remains here as our +honored guest, and will follow him when he returns to his native land, or +to his own beloved and imperial Rome. + + + KEEL AND SADDLE: A RETROSPECT OF FORTY YEARS OF MILITARY AND NAVAL + SERVICE. By Joseph W. Revere. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co. 1872. + + +We are so often disgusted, in reading books of entertainment, with a +revelation of positive rascality and impiety, or at least of a want of +high moral and religious principle in the author, that it is a relief to +meet sometimes with a happy disappointment. This is a lively, entertaining +book of varied adventures on field and flood. Yet we always find the +author, when his personality comes into view, not only a bold and brave +soldier, but a gentleman, an honorable man, and a frank, staunch Catholic +Christian, who never obtrudes yet never hides his faith and his principles +of virtue. His views of Spanish affairs strike us as rather defective, and +occasionally there is a narrative concerning persons of depraved morals +which would have been better omitted for the sake of his youthful readers. +The "Golondina" episode in chapter xxiv. relates an adventure whose +lawfulness, we suspect, though perhaps admitted by quarter-deck theology, +would not stand the test of a strict examination. Sometimes we are at a +loss to discover whether the author intends us to understand his narrative +as historical, or is merely relating a _conte_ for our amusement. In his +own personal adventures and the descriptions he gives of what he has seen, +we discover at once that his narrative is real as well as picturesque. And +it is certainly most interesting. The off-hand, unstudied, and unaffected +style reveal the character of the true, genuine, frank sailor and soldier; +while at the same time, the refinement of taste and the cultivation of +mind which are manifest throughout give these sketches from the diary of a +long and adventurous life the literary finish which belongs to the work of +a scholar. Notwithstanding certain exceptions we have made, we reiterate +our commendation of the high tone of moral principle, the unaffected +religious reverence, and the generally healthful and invigorating spirit +which pervades the book which the gallant General Revere has given to the +public as the retrospect of his forty years of naval and military service. + + + HYMNS AND POEMS: ORIGINAL AND TRANSLATED. By Edward Caswall, of + the Oratory. Second Edition. London: Burns, Oates & Co.; + Pickering. 1873. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication + Society.) + + +Father Caswall's hymns are as well known as Father Faber's. Indeed, if we +mistake not, many of them are popularly attributed to the departed writer. +In the present volume we have a complete collection of the Breviary hymns, +in the first place. This is especially valuable as the only one in the +language (as far, at least, as we are aware). And the author deserves the +more praise for this labor of love, because of the great difficulty of +rendering the terse, stiff Latin. Then, secondly, we have "Hymns and +Sequences of the Roman Missal"; followed by "Hymns from Various Offices +and other Sources." Thus the translated portion of the volume is quite +sufficient to make it worth possessing. The execution, too, is very happy, +on the whole. No one who has attempted to translate these hymns himself +will insist overmuch on the absence of phrases commonplace or prosaic. + +The second portion of the volume, "Original Hymns and Meditative Pieces," +also contains much that entitles it to a place in every household. The +devout Catholic, and more especially the convert, will find many things +said for him which have come into his mind, but without his being able to +express them. Moreover, several pieces turn on topics which are generally +supposed themes for the dryest meditation. They are here proved suggestive +of true poetry. + +The only fault we have to find with Father Caswall's verse is the same +that we find with Wordsworth's: the too frequent sacrifice of poetic +diction and the use of too many long Latin words. But this defect is +unimportant compared with the value of the thoughts and teachings +conveyed, and we fervently thank Father Caswall for his contribution to +our scanty Catholic poetry. + + + THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co. + 1872. + + "Once I wrote because my mind was full; + But now I write because I feel it growing dull," + + +or, + + + "I have lived long enough," + + +or, + + + "Poor old man, thou prun'st a rotten tree + That cannot so much as a blossom yield + In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry," + + +or some such saw, this Poet at the Breakfast-table should have affixed to +these four hundred pages of incomparable drivelling. + +"I talk half the time," says the poet, in his opening paragraph, "to find +out my own thoughts, as a schoolboy turns his pockets inside out to see +what is in them." + +And what does the schoolboy find there? + +Rusty nails, old shoe-strings, copper pennies, dead bugs, crumbs of bread, +broken knives, and other trash neither beautiful nor useful. The +similitude is just. The contents of the Poet's brain are as precious as +those of the boy's pocket; and if we wish to push the comparison further, +the wares of both are often of doubtful ownership. The only serious thing +in the book is its humor. + +"I don't suppose my comic pieces are very laughable," writes this poet, +philosopher, sage; "at any rate, the man who makes a business of writing +me down says the last one I wrote is very melancholy reading; and that if +it was only a little better, perhaps some bereaved person might pick out a +line or two that would do to put on a gravestone." He has a most +infallible instinct for the right comparison; as, for instance: "I love to +talk, as a goose loves to swim. Sometimes I think it is because I _am_ a +goose." This is the first evidence of intelligent thought in the whole +book. "My book and I," he informs us, "are pretty much the same thing. +Sometimes I steal from my book in my talk, without mentioning it, and then +I say to myself: 'Oh! that won't do; everybody has read my book, and knows +it by heart.' And then the other _I_ says: You know there are two of us, +right and left, like a pair of shoes! The other _I_ says: 'You're +a--something or other--fool.' " The other _I_ is evidently a sensible +fellow. "They haven't read," continues the other _I_, "your confounded old +book; besides, if they have, they have forgotten all about it." + +Again, the other _I_ says: "What a Balaam's quadruped you are to tell 'em +it's in your book; they don't care whether it is or not, if it's anything +worth saying; and if it isn't worth saying, what are you braying for?" +This is the question the reader asks himself all along, as the evidence +that the poet has nothing to say worth the saying becomes more and more +overwhelming. This kind of criticism, we know, is little better than +trifling; but the performance deserves no other treatment, for we candidly +think that a sorrier book could not proceed from a mind untouched. + +Why did this Poet, when he meant to write a book, seat himself at the +breakfast-table? Did he not know that a full stomach does not argue a mind +replete? Had not Shakespeare said long ago that fat paunches have lean +pates, or was he not physician enough to know that the _mens divinior_ is +not to be found in hot rolls and coffee? + +We shall conclude with one other brief quotation from the Poet: + +"What do you do when you receive a book you don't want from the author? +said I: 'Give him a good-natured adjective or two if I can, and thank him, +and tell him I am lying under a sense of obligation to him. This is as +good an excuse for lying as any, I said.' " + +As we do not believe there can be an excuse for lying, and as we are +certain that in this case there is no obligation under which to lie, we +cannot give the author "a good-natured adjective or two"; but we shall +thank him to give us no more such nonsense. + + + YOUNG AMERICA ABROAD. Second Series: Cross and Crescent; or, Young + America in Turkey and Greece. A Story of Travel and Adventure. By + William T. Adams (Oliver Optic), author of "Outward Bound," + "Shamrock and Thistle," "Red Cross," "Down the Rhine," etc. + Boston: Lee & Shepard, Publishers. New York: Lee, Shepard & + Dillingham. 1873. + + +This is the third volume of the second series of _Young America Abroad_, +and, like all the rest of the series, is most instructive and +entertaining. + + + THE TREASURE OF THE SEAS. By Prof. James De Mille, author of "The + B. O. W. C.," "The Boys of Grand Pre School," "Lost in the Fog," + "Fire in the Woods," "Among the Brigands," etc. Illustrated. + Boston: Lee & Shepard, publishers; New York: Lee, Shepard & + Dillingham. 1872. + + +This is one of the best of the "B. O. W. C. Series," and will certainly be +a favorite with the boys. + + + THE POLYTECHNIC: A Collection of Music for Schools, Classes, and + Clubs. Compiled and written by U. C. Burnap and Dr. W. J. Wetmore. + New York: J. W. Schermerhorn & Co. + + THE ATHENAEUM: A Collection of Part-Songs for Ladies' Voices. + Arranged and written by U. C. Burnap and Dr. W. J. Wetmore. New + York: J. W. Schermerhorn & Co. + + +The best criticism of both these musical publications is found in the +preface to the first one cited: + +"Collections of school music are already sufficiently numerous and bulky, +but too often they are found to contain very little that is available for +the ordinary or the extraordinary occasions of school life." + + + HART'S MANUAL OF AMERICAN LITERATURE--A MISTAKE CORRECTED.--Since + writing the brief notice of this really valuable work which + appeared in our December number, we have observed a very serious + misstatement in it respecting a distinguished convert to the + Catholic faith, the late Dr. Ives, formerly Protestant Bishop of + North Carolina. Prof. Hart states that he _returned to the + Episcopal Church_. He never dreamed of such an act of superlative + folly. He died, as he had lived, a most fervent and devout + Catholic, we might almost say--a _saint_, and was buried with all + the rites and all the honors of solemn obsequies in St. Patrick's + Cathedral, New York. Prof. Hart, who always endeavors to be fair, + and whose notices of Catholic writers are marked by their + courtesy, would never have made this incorrect statement unless he + had been misled by some false information, and we rely on his + rectifying it in his next edition. + + + The following circular has been sent to us, and we publish it + because we think there is nothing more hostile to such nefarious + projects than free and early ventilation. Why does not Mr. _Abbot_ + renounce his popish name, in his zeal to abolish every vestige of + Christianity? Our readers will not fail to see how apposite an + illustration this document furnishes of some of the remarks in our + first article. We have also received an article from the + _Cincinnati Gazette_ advocating the persecution of Catholics in + this country, with a trenchant reply by F. Callaghan. + + (_From_ THE INDEX, _January 4, 1873_.) + + Organize! + + Liberals Of America, + + The hour for action has arrived. The cause of freedom calls upon + us to combine our strength, our zeal, our efforts. These are + + The Demands Of Liberalism. + + 1. We demand that churches and other ecclesiastical property shall + no longer be exempted from just taxation. + + 2. We demand that the employment of chaplains in Congress, in + state legislatures, in the navy and militia, and in prisons, + asylums, and all other institutions supported by public money, + shall be discontinued. + + 3. We demand that all public appropriations for sectarian, + educational, and charitable institutions shall cease. + + 4. We demand that all religious services now sustained by the + government shall be abolished; and especially that the use of the + Bible in the public schools, whether ostensibly as a textbook or + avowedly as a book of religious worship, shall be prohibited. + + 5. We demand that the appointment, by the President of the United + States or by the Governors of the various states, of all religious + festivals and feasts, shall wholly cease. + + 6. We demand that the judicial oath in the courts and in all other + departments of the government shall be abolished, and that simple + affirmation under pains and penalties of perjury shall be + established in its stead. + + 7. We demand that all laws directly or indirectly enforcing the + observance of Sunday as the Sabbath shall be repealed. + + 8. We demand that all laws looking to the enforcement of + "Christian" morality shall be abrogated, and that all laws shall + be conformed to the requirements of natural morality, equal + rights, and impartial liberty. + + 9. We demand that not only in the constitutions of the United + States and of the several States, but also in the practical + administration of the same, no privileges or advantage shall be + conceded to Christianity or any other special religion; that our + entire political system shall be founded and administered on a + purely secular basis; and that whatever changes shall prove + necessary to this end shall be consistently, unflinchingly, and + promptly made. + + Liberals! I pledge to you my undivided sympathies and most + vigorous co-operation, both in _The Index_ and out of it, in this + work of local and national organization. Let us begin at once to + lay the foundations of a great national party of freedom, which + shall demand the entire secularization of our municipal, state, + and national government. + + Let us boldly and with high purpose meet the duty of the hour. + Rouse, then, to the great work of freeing America from the + usurpations of the church! Make this continent from ocean to ocean + sacred to human liberty! Prove that you are worthy descendants of + those whose wisdom and patriotism gave us a constitution untainted + with superstition! Shake off your slumbers, and break the chains + to which you have too long tamely submitted. + + FRANCIS E. ABBOT. + + TOLEDO, OHIO, Jan. 1, 1873. + + Liberals Of New York, + + Shall the coming "National Association to secure a Religious + Amendment to the United States Constitution," to be held in New + York in February, find us unorganized for resistance? Let us at + once form a "Liberal League," in which we may arrange a campaign + offensive and defensive for our liberties. Send me at once the + addresses of those who sympathize with us, that a meeting may be + called at an early day: remember that "he who is not for me is + against me," and that our liberties are threatened. + + E. F. DINSMORE, + 36 Dey Street, New York, + Agent of _The Index_. + + + + + +[Transcriber's Note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected.] + + + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + + 1 Alfred de Musset. + + 2 _The Life and Labors of S. Thomas of Aquin._ By the Very Rev. Roger + Bede Vaughan, O.S.B., Cathedral-Prior of S. Michael's, Hereford. 2 + vols. London: Longmans; Hereford: James Hull. 1871-2. + + 3 Proverbs vi., vii. + + 4 _Adv. Prax._, c. 2. + + 5 Bishop Wilson, _Sacra Privata_. + + 6 _Homil._, in S. Ignat., vii. p. 593. + + 7 {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK ANO TELEIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~} + {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}. + + 8 {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH DASIA AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH YPOGEGRAMMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK ANO TELEIA~} + {~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI AND YPOGEGRAMMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH DASIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}. + {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PERISPOMENI AND YPOGEGRAMMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH YPOGEGRAMMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PERISPOMENI AND YPOGEGRAMMENI~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PSILI AND PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} + {~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER XI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK KORONIS~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}{~GREEK ANO TELEIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} + {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER BETA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK ANO TELEIA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ZETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, + {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}.{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}.{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}. + + 9 Eusebius' _Eccl. Hist._, l. 2, c. 25. + + 10 {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ZETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} + {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}.--_Eusebius_, l. 5, c. 8; also, S. Irenaeus, _Adv. + Haereses_, l. 3, c. 3. + + 11 {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ZETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}.{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}.{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}.--_Eusebius_, l. 2, + c. 25. + + 12 _Eusebius_, l. 3, c. 1. + + 13 "Edant ergo origines ecclesiarum suarum; evolvant ordinem + episcoporum suorum, ita per successiones ab initio decurrentem, ut + primus ille episcopus aliquem ex apostolis, vel apostolicis viris, + qui tamen cum apostolis perseveraverit, habuerit auctorem et + antecessorem. Hoc enim modo ecclesiae apostolicae census suos + deferunt: sicut Smyrnaeorum Ecclesia Polycarpum ab Joanne collocatum + refert; sicut Romanorum, Clementum a Petro ordinatum + itidem."--_Tertulliani_, _De Praescriptione Haereticorum_, c. 32. + + 14 "Si autem Italiae adjaces, habes Romam, unde nobis quoque auctoritas + praesto est. Ista quam felix ecclesia, cui totam doctrinam apostoli + cum sanguine quo profuderunt! ubi Petrus passioni Dominicae + adaequatur; ubi Paulus Joannis exitu coronatur."--_Tertulliani_, _De + Praescriptione Haereticorum_, c. 36. + + 15 "Videamus quod lac a Paulo Corinthii hauserint; ad quam regulam + Galatae sint recorrecti; quid legant Philippenses, Thessalonicenses, + Ephesii; quid etiam Romani de proximo sonent, quibus evangelium et + Petrus et Paulus sanguine quoque suo signatum + reliquerunt."--_Tertulliani_, _Adv. Marcionem_, l. 4, c. 5. + + 16 1 _S. Peter_ v. 13: "The church that is at Babylon, elected together + with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus, my son." + + 17 _S. John_ xxi. 18: "Verily, verily I say unto thee, when thou wast + young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldst: but + when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and + another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldst not." + Also, 2 _S. Peter_ i. 14: "Knowing that shortly I must put off this + my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me." + + 18 "Seven Roman cities strove for Homer dead + Through which the living Homer begged his bread." + + 19 "Veteres omnes in errorem abrepti sunt." + + 20 _Instit._, l. 4, c. 6, n. 15. + + 21 "De Babylone dissident veteres et novi interpretes. Veteres Romam + interpretantur, ubi Petrum fuisse nemo verus Christianus dubitavit: + novi, Babylonem in Chaldea. Ego veteribus assentior." + + 22 Prof. Stuart, Andover _Biblical Repository_, Jan., 1833, vol. iii. + p. 153. + + 23 _Lectures on Ecclesiastical History._ + + 24 _Introduction to the Study of the Holy Scriptures_, vol. ii. p. 361. + + 25 _A New Literal Translation, from the Original Greek, of all the + Apostolic Epistles; with a Commentary and Notes._ + + 26 Prior Vaughan, _S. Thomas of Aquin_, i. 464. + + 27 _S. Thomas of Aquin_, Introduction. + + 28 _Christian Schools and Scholars_, ii. 20, 21. + + 29 _S. Thomas of Aquin_, i. 369. + + 30 _Christian Schools and Scholars_, ii. 325. + + 31 _Ibid._ + + 32 _Christian Schools and Scholars_, i. 9-11. + + 33 _S. Thomas of Aquin_, i. 134. + + 34 Montalembert, _Monks of the West_, i. Edin. ed. + + 35 _Monks of the West._ + + 36 _Ibid._ + + 37 _Monks of the West._ + + 38 _Christian Schools and Scholars_, ii. 426. + + 39 _Monks of the West_, ii. + + 40 _Christian Schools and Scholars_, i. + + 41 _Ibid._ + + 42 _Ibid._ + + 43 _Christian Schools and Scholars._ + + 44 _Christian Schools and Scholars_, i. + + 45 Montalembert's _Monks of the West_, iii. 195, 197. + + 46 _Monks of the West._ + + 47 _Monks of the West._ + + 48 _Monks of the West._ + + 49 _Monks of the West._ + + 50 _Ibid._ + + 51 _Christian Schools and Scholars._ + + 52 _Christian Schools and Scholars._ + + 53 _Ibid._ + + 54 _Christian Schools and Scholars._ + + 55 _Christian Schools and Scholars._ + + 56 _Ibid._ + + 57 _Ibid._ + + 58 _Christian Schools and Scholars._ + + 59 _Monks of the West._ + + 60 _Gladstone._ + + 61 _Christian Schools and Scholars._ + + 62 _Monks of the West._ + + 63 _Monks of the West._ + + 64 _S. Thomas of Aquin._ + + 65 _Christian Schools and Scholars._ + + 66 "All the more reason." + + 67 Term for the peasants and workingmen. + + 68 "Go, my son, there are now no Pyrenees." + + 69 The queen's bed-chamber. + + 70 The king's bed-chamber. + + 71 "I am the state!" + + 72 "An instant more, and I should have had to wait!" + + 73 "The king is dead, long live the king." + + 74 The Duchesse de Polignac. + + 75 Louis only knew how to love and to forgive; had he known how to + punish, he would have known how to reign. + + 76 Bancroft. + + 77 Bancroft. + + 78 Shea. + + 79 Lake George. + + 80 Caughnawaga. + + 81 _Christian Schools and Scholars_, i. 327. + + 82 _Ibid._ + + 83 _Ibid._ + + 84 _Christian Schools and Scholars._ + + 85 _Life of S. Thomas of Aquin._ + + 86 _S. Thomas of Aquin._ + + 87 _Ibid._ + + 88 _S. Thomas of Aquin._ + + 89 _Christian Schools and Scholars._ + + 90 _Ibid._ + + 91 _Christian Schools and Scholars._ + + 92 _Ibid._ + + 93 _Christian Schools and Scholars_, ii. 370. + + 94 See _S. Thomas of Aquin_, i. 42. + + 95 Montalembert, _Monks of the West_, v. 159. + + 96 _Ibid._, v. 97. + + 97 _Christian Schools and Scholars._ + + 98 _Ibid._ + + 99 _Christian Schools and Scholars._ + + 100 For all these and the following details, see _Christian Schools and + Scholars_. + + 101 _Christian Schools and Scholars._ + + 102 _Ibid._ + + 103 _The Condition of the Catholics under James I. Father Gerard's + Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot._ Edited, with his Life, by John + Morris, Priest of the Society of Jesus. London: Longmans, Green & + Co. 1871. New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society. + + _Her Majesty's Tower._ By William Hepworth Dixon. Second series. + Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1869. Reprinted. + + 104 "The great house then rising at Charing Cross was said, in reference + to these gifts, to be plated with King Philip's gold. Much of Don + Juan's money passed in Cecil's pocket.... Northampton and Suffolk + also obtained the most princely sums."--_Her Majesty's Tower_, pp. + 59, 60. + + 105 _History of England_, ix. 36. + + 106 _Statutes of Elizabeth_, chap. i., v., xiii., xxi., xxiii., xxvii., + xxviii., xxix., xxxv. + + 107 _The Life of Father John Gerard_, xcvii.-ix. + + 108 Fifth Examination of Fawkes, November 9th and 10th, _State Paper + Office_, No. 54. + + 109 _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. clxxviii. + + 110 Page 221. + + 111 _A Narrative, etc._, pp. 76-77. + + 112 Told to the writer as a fact. + + 113 This incident is authentic, and occurred at No. 13 Rue Royale. + + 114 _The Life and Labors of S. Thomas of Aquin._ By the Very Rev. Roger + Bede Vaughan, O.S.B. 2 vols. London: Longmans; Hereford: James Hull. + 1871-2. + + 115 xiv. 15, 16. + + 116 "Stop, traveller." + + 117 "Behold, traveller." + + 118 "Farewell," or "Hail, for ever." + + 119 _Sit tibi terra levis._ + + 120 _Locus_, _loculus_. + + 121 Matt. xii. 32. + + 122 1 Cor. iii. 13, 15. + + 123 1 Pet. + + 124 Apocalypse xxi. 27. + + 125 2 Mach. xii. 43-46. + + 126 xvi. 14. + + 127 xxxv. 19, 20. + + 128 2 Chron. xxi. 19. + + 129 "_Les morts ne sont pas les oublies: ils ne sont que les absents._" + + 130 Sismondi, _His. Ital. Rep._ + + 131 See CATHOLIC WORLD, vol. xiii., No. 73, April, 1871, p. 1. + + 132 _The Following of Christ_, b. iii. chap. v. + + 133 _Following of Christ_, b. iii. chap. v. + + 134 The Marquisate or March of Ancona was then governed by Charles of + Valois, who held Naples. + + 135 That is, in the territory of Padua, founded, as the student will + remember, by the Trojan Antenor, whose tomb is shown in Padua to + this day. + + 136 That is to say, the hermitage of the Camaldolites in Milton's + Vall'ombrosa. + + 137 _Oriental and Linguistic Studies. The Veda; The Avesta; The Science + of Language_. By William Dwight Whitney, Prof. of Sanskrit and + Comparative Philology at Yale College. One vol. 8vo, 416 pp. New + York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1873. + + 138 _Oriental and Linguistic Studies. The Veda; The Avesta; The Science + of Language_. By William Dwight Whitney, Prof. of Sanskrit and + Comparative Philology at Yale College. One vol. 8vo, 416 pp. New + York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1873. + + 139 Title of the work given at head of this article. + + 140 Still stronger in the original: "Vielleicht ist noch kein Europaeer + so tief in diese Sprache eingedrungen als er."--_Mithridates_, vol. + i. p. 134. + + 141 Sidnarubam seu Grammatica Samscrdamica, cui accedit dissertatio + historico-critica in linguam Samscrdamicam, vulgo Samscret dictam, + in qua hujus linguae existentia, origo, exarati critice recensentur, + et simul aliquae antiquissimae gentilium orationes liturgicae paucis + attinguntur et explicantur autore Paulino a S. Bartolomaeo. Romae, + 1790. + + 142 _Catalogo de las Lenguas de las Naciones conocidas._ Madrid, + 1800-1805. Six large 8vo volumes. + + 143 These lectures, printed in book-form at London, were soon after + first published in the United States by the Presbyterian College of + Andover. + + 144 "Wouldst thou the young year's blossoms and the fruits of its + decline, + And all by which the soul is charmed, enraptured, feasted, fed, + Wouldst thou the earth and heaven itself in one sole name combine? + I name thee, O Sakuntula, and all at once is said." + + 145 _L'Aryanisme, et de la trop grande part qu'on a faite a son + influence, etc._ + + 146 How such information could have been had from the _Fasti Consulares_ + is difficult to say; the suppression was probably a _lapsus memoriae_ + for Josephus Flavius. The date of S. Paul's coming to Rome is too + uncertain to be fixed at 61, yet we accept this year on the + authority of those who put it forward in the discussion. + + 147 See _Op. S. Irenaei_, Ed. Cong. S. Mauri, Ven. an. 1734. + + 148 _De Viris Illustribus_, c. i. + + 149 _Ap. Eusebium_, H. E. lib. iii. c. i. + + 150 _Via Appia da Porta Capena a Boville._ Descritta dal Commendatore L. + Canina. 2 vols. Roma. 1853. + + 151 _La Roma Sotterranea Christiana._ Descritta ed illustrat dal Cav. G. + B. de Rossi. Roma. 1864. + + 152 _Defense de l'Esprit des Lois_, 3e partie. + + 153 Aringhi, _Roma Subterr._ lib. iii. c. 2. + + 154 _Ner._ 48. + + 155 _Pro Cluent._ 13. + + 156 _I cimeteri sotteranei di Roma sono stati scavati dai cristiani + fossari tranne pochissime eccezioni, le quali importanti per la + storia, nell'ampiezza pero della sotteranea escavazione scompajono; + e possono veramente dirsi quello, che i matematici appellano una + quantitia infinitesima e da non essere tenuta a calcolo._--App. p. + 39. + + 157 Psalm xxiii. + + 158 S. John x. 14-16. + + 159 _O praeclarum diem, cum ad illud divinum animorum concilium coetumque + proficiscar, cumque ex hac turba et colluvione discedam! Proficiscar + enim, non ad eos solum viros, de quibus ante dixi, sed etiam ad + Catonem meum._--_De Senectute_, 25. + + 160 Coleridge's _Piccolomini_, scene iv. + + 161 xii. 40. + + 162 Newman's _Church of the Fathers_, Introduction. + + 163 Jonas iv. 2. + + 164 S. Augustine says:--"Love the men, destroy the errors: be bold + without pride in the maintenance of truth; strive for the truth + without harshness; pray for those whom you rebuke and + confound."--_Contra lit. Petiliani_, l. i. + + 165 xx. 23. + + 166 Romans vi. 3, 4. + + 167 S. Augustine, _Serm._ 296, p. 1195, tom. v. + + 168 Tertullian, _Scorpiace_, p. 628. + + 169 1 Epist. iii. 2. + + 170 Am. ed. p. 82. + + 171 _An Eirenicon_, Eng. ed., p. 101. + + 172 "If there be one writer in the Anglican Church who has discovered a + deep, tender, loyal devotion to the Blessed Mary, it is the author + of _The Christian Year_. The image of the Virgin and Child seems to + be the one vision upon which both his heart and intellect have been + formed; and those who knew Oxford twenty or thirty years ago say + that, while other college rooms were ornamented with pictures of + Napoleon on horseback, or Apollo and the Graces, or Heads of Houses + lounging in their easy-chairs, there was one man--a young and rising + one--in whose rooms, instead of these, might be seen the Madonna di + Sisto or Domenichino's S. John--fit augury of him who was in the + event to do so much for the revival of Catholicism."--Newman's + _Essays_, vol. ii. p. 453. + + 173 _Memoir of Keble._ By Sir J. T. Coleridge, Eng. ed., p. 305. + + 174 Dr. Nevin, one of the leaders of religious thought in the German + Reformed communion, of which the _Mercersburg Review_ is the organ, + has said: "The man cannot be right at heart in regard to the faith + of the Incarnation, whose tongue falters in pronouncing Mary Mother + of God!" + + 175 _A Letter to Dr. Pusey on his recent Eirenicon_, p. 59. + + 176 The late Dr. Faber, when an Anglican, said: "Thus I hold it pious to + believe that in pagan times many a wandering beam, many a pitying + angel, many a rent in heaven, many a significant portent, many an + overflow of the appointed channels of grace, were vouchsafed, + whereon a poor glimmering faith might feed, and grow, not wholly of + itself, into a feeble yet steady light, acceptable for his sake who + sent such faith its food."--_Foreign Churches and Peoples_, p. 535. + + 177 Horace, _De Arte Poetica_, 391. + + 178 Keble's _Christian Year_--Easter Eve. + + 179 Lib. iv. c. 4. + + 180 _A Hist. de l'Art._ + + 181 Page 36. + + 182 Page 30. + + 183 The scourge used by one of the executioners at the pillar was + amongst the number, and is now to be seen in the cathedral of + Aachen. It is composed of narrow leathern thongs, terminated by an + iron point, the whitish color of the leather bearing manifest stains + of the precious blood that bespattered it. Constantine's signet, the + eagle and ciphers, is distinctly visible on the time-worn, faded + seal, that looks like a sort of hard chalk. The reliquary is a + crystal vase, encased in gold and gems. + + 184 It is not within the limits of this sketch to follow the "Saint + Suaire" through its subsequent translations, but it may interest + such of our readers as are not acquainted with the fact, that it is + now at Aix-la-Chapelle, where _every seven years_ it is opened by + the chief prelates of Catholic Germany, and in the presence of + princes and bishops exposed to the veneration of the faithful for + three days, the church bells ringing all the time, and the cathedral + crowded day and night. + + 185 _The Russian Clergy._ Translated from the French of Father Gagarin, + S.J. By Ch. Du Gard Makepeace, M.A. London: Burns & Oates. 1872. + (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.) + + 186 "L'ouvrage s'ouvre par une introduction majestueuse sur le treizieme + siecle." + + 187 _Memoir of Count De Montalembert, Peer of France, Deputy for the + Department of Doubs._ A Chapter of recent French History. By Mrs. + Oliphant, author of _The Life of Edward Irving_, _S. Francis of + Assisi_, etc. In two volumes. William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh + and London. 1872. + + 188 The Anitchkoff Palace, on the Nevskoi Prospekt. + + 189 In 1859, _Le Second Empire_; in 1860, _La France, l'Autriche et + l'Angleterre_; in 1865, _France et l'Allemagne_. + + 190 _Particularism_ here means the tendency and policy on the part of + Bavaria and the Southern States of Germany to resist absorption of + their autonomy in certain matters by Prussia.--_Translator._ + + 191 The town where Henry IV., of Germany, performed a penance imposed by + Pope Gregory VII.--_Trans._ + + 192 In the work, published in 1865, which procured me the honor of being + made the subject of a parliamentary debate, I had dwelt upon the + two-fold danger to be feared, whether from an alliance which might + reopen the Belgian question, or from a war on our frontiers, it + might be, on our invaded territory. I advised appeasing our + political discords, the better to resist this double peril. This + sums up in a few words the purport of my pamphlet. + + My adversaries in the tribune and in the press denied the existence + of these dangers which they asserted were merely imaginary; they + charged me with having got up a sham Belgian question, and with + having, in that way, spread the knowledge of it abroad. + + "With what have I charged the Honorable M. de Champs?" said M. + Dolez. "It is with having pretended that our nationality was + environed by perils, and that a Belgian question was on foot in + which our independence might be taken away from us." + + M. Frere-Orban ridiculed in a pleasant way my forebodings. He said + that I was "a lookout man who, in his tower, descries that which no + one else can possibly see, ... who imagines that he has discovered + that which nobody had seen before. To-day," he added, "when there is + _nothing, absolutely nothing_, of a nature to cause uneasiness to + the country, we are told, in consequence of a party scheme: Let us + hold our tongues and appease our discords. The liberal party must, + in order to save Belgium from a _danger which does not exist_, cease + resisting the pretensions of the clerical party." + + Well, what does M. Frere-Orban think now? While he, as minister, was + uttering in the tribune the above quieting and optimist statements, + M. Benedetti had entered with M. von Bismarck into a parley, the + subject of which was the Belgian question. This was the diplomatic + peril. The other peril has been clearly revealed to us after Sedan. + General de Wimpfen has stated to General Chazal that the question of + invading or not the territory of Belgium had been earnestly + discussed at Sedan. This would have been bringing the war on our + violated soil. + + 193 Priests and religious, men and women, numbering together 1,909, have + given corporeal and spiritual attendance to 21,000 sick and wounded, + and this only out of love for God and their neighbor. + + 194 Referring to the very bitter attack on the definition of + infallibility and the doings of the council which appeared about + that time in pamphlet form from a writer under the _nom de plume_ of + Janus.--_Translator._ + + 195 The bien-aime of the Almanac is no more the bien-aime of France, + He does everything ab hoc and ab hac, puts all in the same sack, + Justice and finance, this bien-aime of the Almanac, etc., etc. + + 196 Zamore was a negro who repaid by the basest treachery the favors + lavished on him by Madame du Barry; he was the immediate cause of + her execution, having betrayed her hiding-place to the convention. + She is the only woman of that period who died like a coward, + struggling to the last. + + 197 "Let our hearts be light and gay, + Glory's hour is here to-day; + The blood-red blade is raised on high, + We conquer when we die-- + Rally to victory. + 'Neath the flag of a dying God! + We tread the path he trod; + We run, we fly + To glory nigh. + Behold our ardor rise, + Our hearts are in the skies, + Arise, arise! + The scaffold mount--and God's the victory." + + 198 Blue is the color of knowledge. + + 199 _Der liebe Gott_, the received formula in Germany, as the "good + God," _le bon Dieu_, in French, and Almighty God in English. + + 200 Exod. xv. 11. + + 201 Matt. vi. 33. + + 202 Eccl. xx. 9. + + 203 Lam. iii. 31. + + 204 Is. xxix. 18. + + 205 Matt. v. 10. + + 206 Rom. xi. 33. + + 207 Ps. xlii. 1. + + 208 Baruch v. 6. + + 209 The Arno, Chiana, and Mugnone. + + 210 London _Times_, Feb. 3. + + 211 As was shown in THE CATHOLIC WORLD last month, excommunication is + not only recognized by the law in the case of Protestant + excommunicators, but has been sanctioned and confirmed by law, on an + actual case being brought into court. Of course we shall be met by + the objection that the formal declaration of Papal Infallibility has + altered the connection between the Catholic Church and the state. + Unfortunately for this easy method of explaining away difficult + matters, excommunication has not been a whit altered in force, + relation, or form from the days of the Apostles to Pius IX. + + 212 In proof of which read the declaration of Count Andrassy to the + Austrian Parliament that, notwithstanding the friendly assurances + with which the three emperors parted at the breaking up of their + recent conference at Berlin, he could not guarantee peace even up to + Christmas. Observe also the significant rearming of all the great + European powers and the recent order from Berlin of 3,000,000 rifles + of a new pattern. + + 213 Witness Bavaria's remonstrance, which was disregarded, at the sudden + imposition of the severe military code of Prussian service without + allowing it time to recover. As a more recent comment on that, read + the very able and interesting letters which appeared in the _New + York Herald_, Nov. 22, on the European situation, a short extract + from which, of a Bavarian view on German unity, we give: "Germany + accepts it, because it in some respects realizes the German dream of + unity. That, of course, every German wants. But no one wants a + united despotism, a military code that turns the whole nation into a + camp, and takes half a million able-bodied men away from the farms + and industrious callings. We want a Germany for the good of the + fatherland, not for the glory of a little upstart Prussian prince + whose name is not much older than the Bonapartes' crown." + + 214 "Desine fata deum flecti sperare precando."--_Virg. AEn._ vi. 376. + + 215 In Germany. + + 216 "Divorce Legislation in Connecticut," and "The Indissolubility of + Christian Marriage." + + 217 For this and the following references, see Rohrbacher's _Histoire + Universelle de l'Eglise Catholique_. This work is so comprehensive, + and so full of the most learned and accurate researches, that we + have relied entirely upon its lengthened narratives for the facts + mentioned in this article. The work is excessively voluminous (28 + vols 8vo), and to verify personally each separate reference given by + the author would be almost impossible, besides being a very tedious + undertaking. We have preferred, therefore, to rely upon the single + authority of one who is confessedly the best modern church + historian. + + 218 _History of the Reformation._ + + 219 E. Dally. + + 220 "It is an error to suppose that the Catholic faith limits the + existence of man to about six thousand years. The church has never + decided this delicate question, and this abstention is full of + wisdom. Nothing positive, in fact, has been revealed to us on this + point. The various chronological systems are the work of man; they + rest on bases often hypothetical. Nevertheless, we cannot admit even + the possibility of the arbitrary theories of several distinguished + geologists who date the appearance of man on the earth twenty and + even thirty millions of years back. Good-sense alone should incline + one to be moderate on this point."--Mgr. Meignan, _Le Monde et + l'Homme primitif_, chap. vi. + + 221 _L'Homme pendant les Ages de la Pierre dans les Environs de Dinant- + sur-Meuse._ 2e edition. Bruxelles: Muquardt. 1872. + + 222 This is true, at most, of the formations previous to the quaternary + deposits; in the latter, the synchronism of the fauna becomes wholly + uncertain, and only founds the emigration or disappearance of + certain species of animals on inductions that have a hypothetical + basis. As to their emigration, we have had too many instances in the + historic period, as M. Chabas justly observes, to make us regard + that necessarily the index of vast chronological intervals. Where + are the elephants that abounded in Mauretania Tingitana, according + to Solinus' _Polyhistor_; the hippopotami of Lower Egypt, the boas + of Calabria, the lions, aurochs, and bears of Macedonia, the beaver, + etc.? In the XVIIth century of our era, the stag, roebuck, wild + boar, wolf, and bear still formed a part of the fauna of the + Cevennes. The reindeer lived in the Black Forest in the time of + Caesar, who describes this animal from hearsay, but characterizes it + sufficiently by the peculiarity of the male and female having the + same kind of horns. M. Lartet is also inclined to the opinion that + _the age of the reindeer is perhaps not so ancient as was once + supposed_. The mammoth is no longer found alive, but has been + discovered with its flesh and skin still remaining, embedded in ice, + and affording nourishment to dogs and other animals. Struck with + this preservation, M. d'Orbigny expresses a doubt as to the + antiquity of the mammoth. He thinks it may have existed five or six + thousand years ago, and believes it may still live in some + unexplored locality. At least, it lived in America till a + comparatively recent period. Its remains, and those of the mastodon, + have been found in the auriferous deposits of California, among + remarkable traces of human labor. At the Congress of Copenhagen, M. + Schaffhausen expressed the opinion that the lost species should + rather be regarded of a more recent date than that the antiquity of + man should be extended to hundreds of thousands of years. As to the + wretchedness and inferiority evident from the primitive pursuits of + man and the conformity of his organs, the enemies of Christianity + triumph over the discovery. We believe with Mgr. Meignan that "a + proof of the authenticity of the Bible has been lightly transformed + into an objection against it. The revolt and disobedience of man + explain the wretched state in which he at first lived; and the + hardships he underwent during the period he inhabited caverns and + lacustrine dwellings prove to all who believe in the goodness of God + that a great crime must have armed His justice." + + 223 "In the year of the Nativity of our Lord 710, the sixth day of the + month of December, under the reign of Eudes, most pious King of the + French, during the ravages of the perfidious Saracen nation, the + body of the most dear and venerable Marie Madeleine was secretly and + by night transferred from its alabaster sepulchre into the present + one, which is of marble, and whence the body of Sidonius has been + withdrawn, in order that the other may be better concealed and be + beyond the reach of the above-named perfidious nation." + + 224 Seven years later, when the head was taken to Rome by Charles, + Boniface VIII. sent to S. John of Lateran for a relic which had long + been venerated there as the maxillar bone of Magdalen; on adjusting + it to the broken part, it fitted in so exactly as to leave no doubt + as to where it had originally been taken from. + + 225 Shea. + + 226 See the narrative and map in Shea's _History of the Discovery and + Exploration of the Mississippi_. + + 227 Pronounced Ac-o-ma--the accent on the first syllable. + + 228 "This way, gentlemen." + + 229 Red pepper; _chile verde_, green pepper. + + 230 This estimate, which was considered as too high by some of the + clergymen present, is given only as conjectural. It is based on the + census of 1870, according to which there are in the state, in round + numbers, 203,000 persons of foreign parentage at least on one side, + of whom 113,000 are foreign-born. It would seem probable that we + might allow out of this number 83,000 foreign-born and 67,000 + native-born Catholics. It is certain, from other evidence, that the + number is over 100,000, and, whatever the correct number may be, + nine-twentieths is very near the proportion of the native-born to + the whole number. The entire population of the state is 537,000. + Nearly two-fifths of the whole are, therefore, of foreign parentage. + + 231 Eugenie de la Ferronnays. + + 232 "The Church the Champion of Marriage," CATHOLIC WORLD, February, + 1873. + + 233 Deut. xxi 16, 17. + + 234 Gen. xxiv. 39, 57, 58. + + 235 Numb. xxvii. 8; xxxvi. 3, 8. + + 236 S. John i. 13. + + 237 Jeremy Taylor's "On the Marriage Ring," besides many modern ones, + especially by the Rev. Dr. Morgan Dix, New York. + + 238 Matt. vii. 21. + + 239 Matt. xxii. 29, 30; Mark xii. 24, 25. + + 240 _Considerations sur la France_, chapter x. _et alibi passim_. + + 241 M. de Maistre is sometimes quoted as taking a different view; for + example, in an article in the _Correspondant_ for Nov. 10, Joseph de + Maistre declared revolution an epoch and not an event. But this by + no means signifies that the illustrious publicist meant that + revolution was about to prevail. He says: "The French Revolution is + an important epoch, and its manifold consequences will be felt far + beyond the time of its outbreak and the limits of its original + sphere.... If there is not a moral revolution throughout Europe, if + the religious spirit is not strengthened in this part of the world, + the bonds of society will dissolve." The clergy of France, in + particular, are called to "the essential work" of reacting against + the influence of the _Goddess of Reason_. See _Considerations sur la + France_, chap. ii. + + 242 _Etudes sur l'Italie contemporaine_, and _Notes d'un Voyageur_. + _Premiere Etude_, June, 1871; _Seconde Etude_, July, 1872. Paris: + Amyot. + + 243 _Premiere Etude_, p. 3. + + 244 "Except the _Univers_, which has a correspondent at Rome, and keeps + up constant communications with that city in other ways, and, on the + other side, the _Journal des Debats_, which is supplied with + information by the Italian government, and, as we have been assured, + receives a handsome subsidy for the patronage accorded, most of the + French papers have no other source of supplying their readers with + news than the conjectures, more or less unreliable, of the Havas + agency, a _succursale_, as to what concerns Italy, of the Stefani + agency at Florence. It is supposed, however, that nothing is easier + than to obtain information about a country at our very doors."--M. + Ed. Dulaurier, member of the Institute, "Impressions et Souvenirs de + Rome," in the _Gazette du Languedoc_ for Sept. 19. I take the + liberty of recommending to M. Dulaurier, and all who wish to know + the state of affairs in Italy, the valuable _Correspondance de + Geneve_. The _Journal_ of Florence, recently combined with the + _Cattolica_ of Rome, affords instructive reading. Besides + information peculiar to itself, this paper reproduces in each number + interesting extracts from various Italian journals. + + 245 "The French, under Napoleon I., introduced the idea of + centralization into Italy and the code of the Revolution which the + restored princes had the want of foresight to retain. The old + municipalities were destroyed, and never recovered their former + independence even in the States of the Church. Piedmont, of all the + states of the Peninsula, was the longest under the poisonous + influence of foreign ideas. Hence it became the centre of the + Revolution."--_Quel est l'Avenir de l'Europe?_ pages 40-41. Geneva: + Grosset, 1871. The author of this remarkable work is of the school + of the Count de Maistre, and worthy of his master. + + 246 _Premiere Etude_, pp. 6, 12, 13, 15; _Seconde Etude_, pp. 4, 10, 11. + + 247 _Premiere Etude_, p. 10. + + 248 _Journal d'un Diplomate en Italie._--See the _Etudes_ for July, 1872. + + 249 _Journal d'un Diplomate en Italie_, pp. 305, 306. + + 250 _Journal d'un Diplomate en Italie_, pp. 116, 117. + + 251 _Les Diplomates Francais sous Napoleon III._, by B. d'Agreval. + Paris: Dentu. 1872. A work we recommend to all publicists who wish + to add to their knowledge. + + 252 _Premiere Etude_, p. 10. + + 253 _Premiere Etude_, pp. 5, 10, 11; _Seconde Etude_, p. 4. + + 254 _Premiere Etude_, p. 7. + + 255 The minister has laid before the Parliament the account of the + expense of opening the breach in the walls of Rome. This crime cost + nearly forty-eight millions. + + 256 _Premiere Etude_, p. 11; _Seconde Etude_, p. 12. + + 257 Cf. _Premiere Etude_, p. 10. + + 258 See a forcible and eloquent article in the _Civilta Cattolica_ on + the _Caresses de la Providence_. Ser. viii. vol. v., No. 519, Feb., + 1872. + + 259 (_Premiere Etude_, pp. 7, 8, 27; _Seconde Etude_, pp. 11, 12.) "The + invaders take the stand of masters, but the people have not joined + them. They remain isolated in their midst in the position of a + military and administrative colony, about as favorably regarded and + received as the Prussians in those departments of our country where + they are still encamped. The Romans, it cannot be denied, love their + Pope."--M. Ed. Dulaurier, _loc. cit._ + + 260 _Union_, Nov. 26. + + 261 "We continue to be regarded at Berlin with the most favorable + dispositions, as the demonstrations of which our princes were the + object prove."--_Speech of M. Visconti-Venosta_ in the Chamber of + Deputies, Nov. 27, 1872. + + 262 _Seconde Etude_, p. 13. + + 263 _Address_, April 28, 1872. + + 264 _Correspondance Diplomatique_ in the year 1815. + + 265 _Premiere Etude_, p. 17; _Seconde Etude_, pp. 4, 14, 15, 16, 17. + + 266 _Premiere Etude_, pp. 25, 26; _Seconde Etude_, pp. 15, 16, 26. + + 267 See, in the _Etudes_ for Oct., 1871, the article by Fr. Ch. Clair, + who, in an address to the government of M. Thiers, carries on a + vigorous argument _ad hominem_ respecting the "necessary liberties" + of the Pope. + + 268 P. Toulement, _La Providence et les Chatiments de la France_, ch. + xvii. + + 269 _Premiere Etude_, pp. 24, 25, 26: _Seconde Etude_, pp. 17, 22, 34. + + 270 _Journal d'un Diplomate en Italie_, pp. 17, 18. + + 271 This alludes to the indication of superhuman power by the budding + horns which Michael Angelo has represented upon the head of Moses, + adopting the Jewish symbol of strength so frequent in Scripture. + + 272 Ecclus. xlviii. II. + + 273 So soon accepted! + + 274 "I, the undersigned, parish priest of the most holy Constantinian + Basilica of the Twelve Apostles of Rome, certify that in Register + XII. of the dead, letter N, page 283, is to be found the deed of + which the following is the copy, word for word. + + "The twenty-second of December, eighteen hundred and sixty-six, + Mademoiselle Claire-Francoise-Amelie Lautard, of Marseilles, + daughter of M. Jean Baptiste Lautard, a most pious virgin, while + offering last Sunday her life to God for the Holy Father, Rome, and + the church, was seized on the spot by illness, and having received + most piously the sacraments of the church, in the full possession of + her faculties, in prayer, and surrounded by several priests and + virgins, gave up her soul to Jesus Christ, her spouse, with the + greatest serenity, Wednesday the 19th, at half-past nine in the + morning, in the house Rue Ripresa-dei-Barberi 175, at the age of + fifty-nine years. The following day, the 20th, her body was carried, + after the completuum, accompanied by a great number of religious, to + this basilica, and was here exposed during the morning after the + manner of nobles, the office of the dead and a solemn Mass being + performed; in the afternoon it was conveyed to the Church of Santa + Maria in Ara Coeli, and there interred in the tomb of the Sisters of + St. Joseph of the Apparition. + + "Given at Rome," etc. + + 275 This mistake is awing to a wrong meaning given to a word in the Book + of Joshua in the Septuagint; where the word _tsorim_ is translated + _knife of stone_, when it also means _a sharp knife_; _tsor_ only + means _stone_ in the sense of _rock_ or _block_. + + 276 Simonin, _La Vie Souterraine_. + + 277 Ancient name of the Prussians.--Trans. + + 278 S. Jerome's _Epist._ 44, 45. + + 279 _Hist. of Decline and Fall of Rom. Emp._, vol. iv. ch. ix. p. 262, + 1st ed. + + 280 _Germania_, i. 5. + + 281 "The Study of Sociology," by H. Spencer, in the May No. of _The + Contemporary Review_, 1872. + + 282 See Mrs. Hope's _Conversion of the Teutonic Race_, ch. i. + + 283 _Conv. of Teut. Race_, p. 20. + + 284 Apollin., _Paneg. Major_. + + 285 _Germania_, iii. + + 286 Suet., _in Oct._ xxiii. + + 287 I. 61. + + 288 Plutarch, _Vita Marii_. + + 289 S. Jer. _adv. Jovin._ ii. + + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CATHOLIC WORLD, VOL. 16, OCTOBER 1872-MARCH 1873*** + + + +CREDITS + + +September 12, 2015 + + Project Gutenberg TEI edition 1 + Produced by David Edwards, David King, and the Online + Distributed Proofreading Team at <http://www.pgdp.net/>. 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