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Title: Catholic World, Vol. XI, April 1870-September 1870
       A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science

Author: Various

Release Date: July 19, 2014 [EBook #46324]

Language: English

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Transcriber's Note:

    Transliterations of Greek script are surrounded by ~tildes~.

    ^ indicates superscript of the letter that follows.

    _Underscores_ indicate italicized text.

    This volume included the entire text of the Dogmatic Decree on
    Catholic Faith with its English translation. The Decree was not
    in the original contents list, but appeared--out of normal
    pagination--after the New Publications section at the end
    of the June 1870 issue.

    Remaining notes are at the end of the text.

       *       *       *       *       *




    THE
    CATHOLIC WORLD.

    A
    MONTHLY MAGAZINE
    OF
    GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.

    VOL. XI.
    APRIL, 1870, TO SEPTEMBER, 1870.


    NEW YORK:
    THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION HOUSE,
    9 Warren Street.

    1870.


    S. W. GREEN,
    PRINTER,
    16 and 18 Jacob St., N. Y.




CONTENTS.


    Adam of Andreini, The, 602.

    Brigand's God-child, The, 52.
    Bridemaid's Story, A, 232.
    Books, Old, 260.
    Brittany; its People and its Poems, 390.
    Boys, Reformatories for, 696.
    Blanchard, Claude, Journal and Campaign of, 787.

    Council of the Vatican, The First OEcumenical, 115, 270, 412, 546,
        701, 838.
    Church and State, 145.
    Children, The Association for Befriending, 250.
    Catholicity and Pantheism, 377.
    Catholicity of the Nineteenth Century, The, 433.
    Copernicus, Nicolaus, 806.
    Church beyond the Rocky Mountains, The, 812.
    Church of Christ, Dogmatic Decree on, 848.

    Dion and the Sibyls, 15, 160, 306, 446, 623, 733.
    Development of Religious Belief, Gould's, 70.
    Dogmatic Decree on the Church of Christ, 848.

    Emerson's Prose Works, 202.
    England, Froude's History of, 289, 577.
    Education, Religion in, 782.
    Emigrant, The, 800.

    Fenelon, 613.

    Gould's Origin and Development of Religious Belief, 70.
    Gordian Knots, Untying, 77.
    Griffin, Gerald, 398, 667.
    Greenwood, In the, 589.
    Griffin, Gerald, The works of, 398, 667.
    Genius, Hereditary, 721.
    Girls, The Willian, 775.

    Havana, Holy Week in, 58, 212.

    Iron Mask, The, 87.
    Ireland's Mission, 193.
    Irish Farmers and Mr. Gladstone, 242.
    Irish Churches, The Ancient, 472.
    Invitation Heeded, The, 542.

    Literary Notes, Foreign, 130, 424, 714.
    Lothair, 537.
    Lourdes, Our Lady of, 752.

    Mary, Queen of Scots, 32, 221.
    Mechanics, Molecular, 54.
    "Moral Results of the Romish System," The _New Englander_ on the,
        106.
    Maundeville, Sir John, 175.
    Mary Stuart, 32, 221.
    Matter and Spirit in the Light of Modern Science, 642.

    _New Englander_, The, On the Moral Results of the Romish System,
        106.
    New England, Home Scenes in, 183.
    Nazareth, 653.

    Ochino, Fra Bernardino, 253.

    Pope and the Council, by Janus, 327, 520, 680.
    Pole, Cardinal, 346.
    Protestantism, Phases of English, 482.
    Paradise Lost of St. Avitus, The, 771.
    Plutarch, 826.

    Religious Liberty, 1.
    Rome, Ten Years in, 518.

    School Question, The, 91.
    Science, Matter and Spirit in the Light of Modern, 642.
    St. Francis, Miracle of, 834.

    Unbelief, The Superstition of, 691.
    Untying Gordian Knots, 77.

    Vatican Council, The, 115, 270, 546, 701, 838.
    Vermonters, The Young, 364, 509, 658.

    Wooden Shoe, The Little, 343.
    Wig, The Sagacious, 495.


POETRY.

    A May Carol, 174, 376.

    Exultent, Sion Filiae, 241.

    Hymn of St. Paul's Christian Doctrine Society, 536.

    Lines, 397.
    Legend of the Infant Jesus, A, 480.

    Mary, 201.

    Our Lady's Nativity, 825.

    Prayer, The Unfinished, 411.
    Plange, Filia Sion, 76.

    Rainbow, To the, 115.
    Reading Homer, 666.

    Stabat Mater, 49.
    Sonnet, 193.

    Thorns, 220.


NEW PUBLICATIONS.

    Alger's End of the World, 136.
    Assent, Grammar of, 144, 283, 426.
    Arithmetics, Felter's, 575.
    Architecture, Wonders of, 700.

    Brownson's Conversations on Liberalism and the Church, 135.
    Borromeo, St. Charles, Life of, 430.
    Botany, Youman's First Book of, 431.
    Beech Bluff, 720.

    Catholic Church, Rhodes's Visible Unity of, 140.
    Charlestown Convent, The, 429.
    Caesar's Commentaries, 572.
    Criminal Abortion, 574.
    Catholic Church, History of, 860.
    Clymer's Notes on the Nervous System, 859.

    Dickens, Dialogues from, 288.
    Day Sanctified, The, 572.
    Dall's Alaska, 719.

    Eclipse of 1869, Sands's Reports on, 142.
    Economy, Bowen's American Political, 571.
    Earth, Paradise of, 720.

    Ferryman of the Tiber, The, 144.
    Flemmings, The, Mrs. Dorsey's, 431.
    Fasciculus Rerum, 576.

    Geology and Revelation, Molloy's, 142.
    Grammar of Assent, Newman's, 144, 283, 426.
    Geographical Series, Guyot's, 286.
    Glass-Making, 288.
    Goodwin's Out of the Past, 860.

    Health and Good Living, Hall's, 143.
    Holy Influence, 432.
    Home Communion, Reflections and Prayers for, 572.
    Hawthorne's Note-Books, Passages from, 718.
    Hidden Saints, 718.

    Italian Art, Wonders of, 432.

    Liberalism and the Church, Brownson, 135.
    Lindsay's Evidence for the Papacy, 141.
    Lacordaire's Conferences, 574.
    Lifting the Veil, 718.

    Marcy's Life Duties, 139.
    Molloy's Geology and Revelation, 142.
    Medicine, Niemeyer's Book of, 143.
    Modern Europe, Shea's History of, 143.
    Missale Romanum, 432.
    Marriage, Evans's Treatise of the Christian Doctrine of, 573.
    Marion, 719.
    Meagher, Thomas F., Life of, 719.
    Miles's Loretto, 720.

    Nature, The Sublime in, 288.
    Natural History of Animals, Tenney's, 283.
    Noble Lady, A, 574.
    Noethen's History of the Catholic Church, 860.

    Papacy, Lindsay's Evidence for the, 141.
    Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Veith's Life Pictures of, 143.
    Paradise, Morris's Earthly, 144.
    Pilgrimages in the Pyrenees and Landes, 575.

    Rhodes's Visible Unity of the Catholic Church, 140.
    Ramiere's De l'Unite dans l'Enseignement de la Philosophie, etc.,
        284.

    Sacrifice, the Double, 144.
    Statutes of the Second Synod of Albany, 287.
    Stanislas Kostka, Life of, 575.
    Stations of the Cross, Album of, 576.
    Sacred Heart, Devotion to, 720.

    The Sun, 288.

    Visible Unity of the Church, 140.
    Visitation, History of the Order of, 719.
    Venard, Theophane, Life of, 858.

    Waldenses, Melia on the, 428.
    Wise Men, and who they were, Upham's, 431.




THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XI., No. 61.--APRIL, 1870.


RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.[1]

LAST ARTICLE.


In our third article on the Abbe Martin's exhaustive work on
the future of Protestantism and Catholicity, we disposed of the
pretension of Protestants that the Reformation created and has
sustained civil and political liberty in modern society. We proceed
in the present and concluding article to dispose, as far as we
can, of the pretension that it has founded and sustained religious
liberty, or the freedom of conscience.

No fact is more certain than that the Reformation has the credit
with non-Catholics, if not even with some half-instructed Catholics
themselves, of having originated religious liberty and vindicated
the freedom of the mind. Here as elsewhere the formula of the age,
or what claims to be enlightened in it, is, Protestantism and
freedom, or Catholicity and slavery; and it is to its _prestige_ of
having founded and sustained religious liberty that Protestantism
owes its chief ability in our times to carry on its war against the
church. Protestantism, like all false religions or systems, having
no foundation in truth and no vital energy of its own, lives and
prospers only by availing itself of the so-called spirit of the
age, or by appealing to the dominant public opinion of the time and
the place. In the sixteenth century, the age tended to the revival
of imperialism or caesarism, and Protestantism favored monarchical
absolutism, and drew from it its life, its force, and its sustenance.

The spirit or dominant tendency of our age, dating from the middle of
the last century, has been and is the revival of the pagan republic,
or, as we call it, democratic caesarism, which asserts for the people
as the state the supremacy which under imperialism is asserted for
the emperor. Protestantism lives and sustains itself now only by
appealing to and representing this tendency, as we may see in the
contemporary objections to the church, that she is "behind the age,"
"does not conform to the age," "is hostile to the spirit of the
age," "opposed to the spirit of the nineteenth century."

Every age, nation, or community understands by liberty, freedom to
follow unrestrained its own dominant tendency; we might say, its own
dominant passion. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, liberty
meant the freedom of temporal sovereigns to govern according to their
own good pleasure, unrestrained by the church, on the one hand, and
estates, diets, or parliaments, on the other. Liberty means now the
freedom of the people, unrestrained either by the rights of God or
the rights of princes, to govern as they or the demagogues, their
masters, judge proper. Hence, liberty, as the world understands it,
varies in its meaning from age to age, and from nation to nation,
and, indeed, from individual to individual. Whatever favors or is in
accordance with the dominant tendency or passion of an age, nation,
community, or individual, favors or is in accordance with liberty;
and whatever opposes or impedes it is opposed to liberty--is civil,
political, or spiritual despotism. Protestantism never resists, but
always follows, and encourages and echoes the dominant tendency of
the age or nation. The church, having a life and force derived from
a source independent of the age or nation, seeks not support in that
dominant passion or tendency, does not yield or conform to it, but
labors unceasingly and with all her energy to conform it to herself.
Hence, in the estimation of the world, Protestantism is always on the
side of liberty, and the church on the side of despotism and slavery.

The attempt to deny this, and to prove that the church favors
liberty in this sense, is perfectly idle; and to seek to modify her
position and action, so as to force her to accept and conform to the
dominant or popular tendency or passion of the age or nation, is to
mistake her essential character and office, and to forget that her
precise mission is to govern all men and nations, kings and peoples,
sovereigns and subjects, and to conform them to the invariable and
inflexible law of God, which she is appointed by God himself to
declare and apply, and therefore to resist with all her might every
passion or tendency of every age, nation, community, or individual,
whenever and wherever it deviates from that law of which she is the
guardian and judge. The church is instituted, as every Catholic who
understands his religion believes, to guard and defend the rights of
God on earth against any and every enemy, at all times and in all
places. She therefore does not and cannot accept, or in any degree
favor, liberty in the Protestant sense of liberty, and if liberty in
that sense be the true sense, the Protestant pretension cannot be
successfully denied.

But we have already seen that liberty in the Protestant sense is
no liberty at all, or a liberty that in the civil and political
order is identified with caesarism--the absolutism of the prince in
a monarchy, the absolutism of the people or of the ruling majority
for the time in a democracy. This last might be inferred from the
ostracism practised in democratic Athens, and is asserted and
defended, or rather taken for granted, by almost the entire secular
press in democratic America. The most conservative politicians
among us recognize the justice of no restrictions on the will of
the people but such as are imposed by written constitutions, and
which a majority or three fourths of the voters may alter at will
and as they will. It is the boast of our popular orators and writers
that there are with us no restrictions on the absolute will of the
people but such as the people voluntarily impose on themselves,
which, as self-imposed, are simply no restrictions at all. It is
evident, then, if liberty means any thing, if there is any difference
between liberty and despotism, freedom and slavery, the Protestant
understanding of liberty is not the true one.

Nor is the Protestant understanding of _religious_ liberty a whit
more true. We have found that the basis or principle of all civil
and political liberty is religious liberty, or the freedom and
independence of religion--that is to say, the spiritual order;
but from the point of view of Protestantism there is no religion,
no spiritual order, to be free and independent. According to
Protestantism, religion is a function, not a substantive existence
or an objective reality. It is, as we have seen, on Protestant
principles, a function of the state, of the community, or of the
individual, and whatever liberty there may be in the case, must
be predicated of one or another of these, not of religion, or the
spiritual order. With Protestants the freedom and independence of
religion or the spiritual order would be an absurdity, for it is
precisely that which they began by protesting against. It is of the
very essence of Protestantism to deny and make unrelenting war on the
freedom and independence of religion, and the only liberty in the
case it can assert is the freedom of the state, the community, or the
individual from religion as law, and the right of one or another of
them to adopt or reject any religion or none at all as they choose,
which is irreligious or infidel, not religious liberty.

Protestantism, under its most favorable aspect, is not, even in the
estimation of Protestants themselves, religion, or a religion; but
the view of religion which the reformers took, or which men take
or may take of religion. At best it is not the objective truth or
reality, but a human doctrine or theory of it, which has no existence
out of the mind that forms or entertains it. Hence, Protestants
assert, as their cardinal doctrine, justification by faith alone; and
which faith is not the truth, but the mind's view of it. Hence, too,
they deny that the sacraments are efficacious _ex opere operato_,
and maintain that, if efficacious at all, they are so _ex opere
suscipientis_. They reject the Real Presence as a "fond imagination,"
and make every thing in religion depend on the subjective faith,
conviction, or persuasion of the recipient. The church they recognize
or assert is no living organism, no kingdom of God on earth, founded
to teach and govern all men and nations in all things pertaining to
eternal life or the spiritual end of man, but a simple association of
individuals, with no life or authority except what it derives from
the individuals associated, and which is not hers, but theirs.

Some Protestants go so far as to doubt or deny that there is any
truth or reality independent of the mind, and hold that man is
himself his own teacher and his own law-giver; but all concede,
nay, maintain, that what is known or is present to the mind is
never the reality, the truth, or the divine law itself, but the
mind's own representation of it. Hence their Protestantism is not
something fixed and invariable, the same in all times and places, but
varies as the mind of Protestants itself varies, or as their views,
convictions, or feelings change, and they change ever with the spirit
of the age or country. One of their gravest objections to the church
was, in the sixteenth century, that she had altered the faith; and
in the nineteenth century is, that she does not alter it, that she
remains inflexibly the same, and absolutely refuses to change her
faith to suit the times. They hold their own faith and doctrine
alterable at will, and are continually changing it. Evidently, then,
they do not hold it to be the truth; for truth never changes: nor to
be the law of God, which they are bound to obey; for if the law of
God is alterable at all, it can be so only by God himself, never by
man, any body of men, or any creature of God. There is no Protestant
ignorant or conceited enough to maintain the contrary.

This fact that Protestantism is a theory, a doctrine, or a view of
religion, not the objective reality itself, not the recognition and
assertion of the rights of God, but a human view or theory of them,
proves sufficiently that it is incompatible with the assertion of
_religious_ liberty. All it can do is to assert the right or liberty
of the state to adopt and ordain any view of religion it may take;
of the community to form and enforce its own views, convictions, or
opinions; or of the individual to make a religion to suit himself, or
to go without any religion at all, as he pleases. In none of these
cases is there any religious liberty; and in them all religion is
subjected to a purely human authority--the authority of the state,
of the community, or of the individual, one as human as another.
Protestantism is really in its very nature and essence an earnest and
solemn protest against religious liberty, and for it to assert the
freedom and independence of religion, or the spiritual order--that
is, of religion as law to which all men are bound to conform--would
be to commit suicide. Even the supremacy of the spiritual order,
which our old Puritans asserted, was only the assertion of the
authority of their interpretation of the written word against the
divine authority to interpret it claimed by the church, and against
the human authority of the civil magistrate claimed by Anglicanism,
from which they separated, while it subjected it to the congregation,
the brotherhood, or to the ministers and elders, no more spiritual
than the civil magistrate himself.

In the beginning Protestantism made religion in nearly all Protestant
nations a function of the state, as it is still in Great Britain,
Prussia, the several Protestant German states, in Norway, Denmark,
Sweden, Holland, and the Protestant cantons of Switzerland. The
progress of events, and the changes of opinion, have produced a
revolt among Protestant nations against this order, and Protestants
now make, or are struggling to make, it a function of the community
or the sect, and the more advanced party of them demand that it
be made a function of the individual. This advanced party do not
demand the freedom of religion, but the freedom of the individual
from all religious restraints, from all obligations of obedience to
any religious law, and indeed of any law at all, except the law he
imposes on himself. Dr. Bellows, of this city, a champion of this
party, proves that it is not the freedom of religion, nor the freedom
of the individual to be of any religion he chooses; for he denies
that he is free to be a Catholic, though he is free to be any thing
else. He tells Catholics they are only tolerated; and threatens them
with extermination by the sword, if they dare claim equal rights with
Protestants, and insist on having their proportion of the public
schools under their own control, or on not being taxed to support
schools to which they cannot with a good conscience send their
children.

Evidently, then, the pretension that the Reformation has founded
or favored religious liberty is as worthless as we have seen is
the pretension that it has founded or favored civil and political
liberty. It has, on the contrary, uniformly opposed it, and asserted
only the liberty of its contradiction. To assert the liberty of the
state, the people, or the individual to control religion, or to
assert the liberty of infidelity or no-religion, surely is not to
assert the liberty of religion. Protestantism yields always to the
spirit of the age, and asserts the right of that spirit to modify,
alter, or subject religion to itself. There can be no religious
liberty where religion must follow the spirit of the times, and
change as it changes. Religion, if any thing, is the supreme law
of conscience, and conscience is a mere name if obliged to obey
as its supreme law the dominant passion or tendency of the age or
nation. The freedom of conscience is not in the emancipation of
conscience from all law, for that were its destruction; but in its
being subjected to no law but the law of God, promulgated by divine
authority, and declared to the understanding by God himself, or a
court appointed, enlightened, and assisted by the Holy Spirit. Under
Protestantism there is and can be no freedom of conscience; for under
it conscience is either destroyed by being subjected to no law, or
enslaved by being subjected to another law than the law of God.

This conclusion, which we obtain by a simple analysis of
Protestantism, is confirmed by all the facts in the case. Every
student of the history of Protestantism knows that the reformers
never made the pretension now put forth in their name. No man was
ever farther from proposing the emancipation of the mind from what is
called spiritual thraldom than Martin Luther, and no man ever showed
less respect for human reason. His aim was to emancipate the church
from the authority of the pope; and in this laudable work he engaged
the princes of the empire, who were ready to assist him, because
in doing so they could also emancipate themselves, make themselves
pontiffs as well as princes, and enrich themselves with the spoils
of the church. But Luther substituted for the authority of the pope
and councils that of the written word, as amended and interpreted
by himself. He never recognized the so-called right of private
judgement, and never asserted the right of every man to interpret
the written word for himself. The Bible as interpreted by himself,
Martin Luther, was to be taken in all cases as the supreme and only
authority, and he would tolerate no dissent from his interpretation.
He assumed for himself more than papal authority; for he confessedly
assumed authority to alter the written word, which assuredly no pope
ever did. He never admitted any right of dissent from his dicta, and
wherever he could, he suppressed it by the strong arm of power.

John Calvin was not more tolerant, as the burning of Michael Servetus
over a slow fire made of green wood, and his pamphlet justifying
the burning of heretics, amply prove. Henry VIII. of England put
to death Catholics and Lollards, beheaded Cardinal Fisher and Sir
Thomas More, because they refused to take the oath of the royal
supremacy, except with the qualification, "as far as the law of
Christ permits." In Sweden, the peasants were entrapped into the
support of the Reformation by the infamous Gustavus Vasa, under
pretence of recovering and reestablishing the national independence;
and after the prince had regained by their aid his throne and been
crowned king, were massacred by thousands because they wished still
to adhere to the Catholic Church, and resisted its abolition. In
Geneva, Protestantism gained a footing in much the same way.
Protestants came from Berne and other places to assist the citizens
in a political rebellion against their prince, who was also their
bishop, and afterward drove out the Catholics who could not be forced
to accept the Reformation.

We need not pursue the history of the establishment of Protestantism,
which is written in blood. Suffice it to say, that in no country was
the Reformation introduced but by the aid of the civil power, and in
no state in which it gained the mastery did it fail to be established
as the religion of the state, and to obtain the suppression by force
or civil pains and penalties of the old religion, and of all forms
even of Protestant dissent. The state religion was bound hand and
foot, and could move only by permission of the temporal sovereign,
and no other religion was tolerated. We all know the penal laws
against Catholics in England, Ireland, and Scotland, reenacted with
additional severity under William and Mary, almost in the eighteenth
century. James II., it is equally well known, lost the crown of his
three kingdoms by an edict of toleration, which, as it tolerated
Catholics, was denounced as an act of outrageous tyranny. The penal
laws against Catholics were adopted by the Episcopalian colony of
Virginia, and the Puritan colony of Massachusetts made it an offence
punishable with banishment from the colony for a citizen to harbor a
Catholic priest for a single night, or to give him a single meal of
victuals. It was only in 1788 that the Presbyterian Assembly of the
United States expunged from their confession of faith the article
which declares it the duty of the civil magistrate to extirpate
heretics and idolaters--an article still retained by their brethren
in Scotland, and by the United Presbyterians in this country.

Indeed, toleration is quite a recent discovery. Old John Cotton, the
first minister of Boston, took care to warn his hearers or readers
that he did not defend "that _devil's_ doctrine, toleration."
Toleration to a limited extent first began to be practised among
Protestants on the acquisition of provinces whose religion was
different from that of the state making the acquisition. The example
was followed of the pagan Romans, who tolerated the national religion
of every conquered, tributary, or allied nation, though they
tolerated no religion which was not national, and for three hundred
years martyred Christians because their religion was not national,
but Catholic. It is only since Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists
preached toleration as the most effective weapon in their arsenal,
as they supposed, against Christianity, or the beginnings of the
French Revolution of 1789, that Protestants have taken up the strain,
professed toleration, and claimed to be, and, in the face and eyes of
all history, always to have been, the champions of religious liberty
and the freedom of conscience. It was not till 1829 that the very
imperfect Catholic Relief Bill passed in the British parliament,
and the complete disestablishment of Congregationalism as the state
religion in Massachusetts did not take place till 1835, though
dissenters had for some time previous been tolerated.

Yet in no Protestant state has complete liberty been extended to
Catholics. The French Revolution, with its high-flown phrases of
liberty, equality, brotherhood, and religious freedom, suppressed
the Catholic religion, and imprisoned, deported, or massacred the
bishops and priests who would not abandon it for the civil church
it ordained. We ourselves, though very young at the time, remember
the exultation of our Protestant neighbors when the first Napoleon
dragged the venerable and saintly Pius VII. from his throne and held
him a prisoner, first at Savona, and afterward at Fontainebleau.
"Babylon is fallen," they cried; "the man-child has slain the beast
with seven heads and ten horns." The revolutions, ostensibly social
and political, which have been going on in the Catholic nations of
Europe, and are still in process, and which everywhere are hostile to
the church, have the warm sympathy of Protestants of every nation,
and in Italy and Spain have been aided and abetted by Protestant
associations and contributions, as part and parcel of the Protestant
programme for the abolition of the papacy and the destruction of our
holy religion.

Protestants now tolerate Protestant dissenters, and allow Jews and
infidels equal rights with themselves; but they find great difficulty
in regarding any outrage on the freedom of the church as an outrage
on religious liberty. She is Catholic, not national, over all
nations, and subject to none; therefore no nation should tolerate
her. Even in this country Protestants very reluctantly suffer her
presence, and the liberal Dr. Bellows, a Protestant of Protestants,
warns, as we have seen, Catholics not to attempt to act as if they
stood on an equality with Protestants. It is only a few years since
the whole country was agitated by the Know-Nothing movement, got up
in secret lodges, for the purpose, if not of outlawing or banishing
Catholics, at least of depriving them of civil and political
citizenship. The movement professed to be a movement in part
against naturalizing persons of foreign birth, but really for the
exclusion of such persons only in so far as they were Catholics. The
controversy now raging on the school question proves that Protestants
are very far from feeling that Catholics have equal rights with
themselves, or that the Catholic conscience is entitled to any
respect or consideration from the state. Public opinion proscribes
us, and no Catholic could be chosen to represent a purely Protestant
constituency in any legislative body, if known to be such and to be
devoted to his religion. Our only protection, under God, is the fact
that we have votes which the leaders of all parties want; yet there
is a movement now going on for female suffrage, which, if successful,
will, it is hoped, swamp our votes by bringing to the polls swarms
of fanatical women, the creatures of fanatical preachers, together
with other swarms of infidel, lewd, or shameless women, who detest
Catholic marriage and wish to be relieved of its restraints, as
well as of their duties as mothers. This may turn the scale against
us; for Catholic women have too much delicacy, and too much of that
retiring modesty that becomes the sex, to be seen at the polls.

But the imperfect toleration practised by Protestants is by no
means due to their Protestantism, but to their growing indifference
to religion, and to the conviction of Protestant and non-Catholic
governments, that their supremacy over the spiritual order is so
well established, their victory so complete, that all danger of its
renewing the struggle to bring them again under its law is past.
Let come what may, the spiritual order can never regain its former
supremacy, or Caesar tremble again at the bar of Peter. Caesar fancies
that he has shorn the church so completely of her Catholicity, except
as an empty name, and so fully subjected her to his own or the
national authority, that he has no longer any need to be intolerant.
Why not, indeed, amnesty the poor Catholics, who can no longer be
dangerous to the national sovereign, or interfere with the policy of
the state?

For ourselves, we do not pretend that the church is or ever has been
tolerant. She is undeniably intolerant in her own order, as the law,
as truth is intolerant, though she does not necessarily require
the state to be intolerant. She certainly is opposed to what the
nineteenth century calls religious liberty, which, we have seen, is
simply the liberty of infidelity or irreligion. She does not teach
views or opinions, but presents the independent truth, the reality
itself; proclaims, declares, and applies the law of God, always and
everywhere one and the same. She cannot, then, while faithful to
her trust, allow the truth to be denied without censuring those who
knowingly deny it, or the law to be disobeyed without condemning
those who disobey it. But always and everywhere does the church
assert, and, as far as she can, maintain the full and perfect liberty
of religion, the entire freedom and independence of the spiritual
order, to be itself and to act according to its own laws--that is,
religious liberty in her sense, and, if the words mean any thing,
religious liberty in its only true and legitimate sense.

The nineteenth century may not be able to understand it, or, if
understanding it, to accept it; yet it is true that the spiritual
is the superior, and the law of the temporal. The supremacy belongs
in all things of right to God, represented on earth by the church
or the spiritual order. The temporal has no rights, no legitimacy
save as subordinated to the spiritual--that is, to the end for which
man is created and exists. The end for which all creatures are made
and exist is not temporal, but spiritual and eternal; for it is
God himself who is the final cause as well as the first cause of
creation. The end, or God as final cause, prescribes the law which
all men must obey, or fail of attaining their end, which is their
supreme good. This law all men and nations, kings and peoples,
sovereigns and subjects, are alike bound to obey; it is for all men,
for states and empires, no less than for individuals, the supreme
law, the law and the only law that binds the conscience.

Now, religion is this law, and includes all that it commands to
be done, all that it forbids to be done, and all the means and
conditions of its fulfilment. The church, as all Catholics hold, is
the embodiment of this law, and is therefore in her very nature and
constitution teleological. She speaks always and everywhere with
the authority of God, as the final cause of creation, and therefore
her words are law, her commands are the commands of God. Christ,
who is God as well as man, is her personality, and therefore she
lives, teaches, and governs in him, and he in her. This being so,
it is clear that religious liberty must consist in the unrestrained
freedom and independence of the church to teach and govern all men
and nations, princes and people, rulers and ruled, in all things
enjoined by the teleological law of man's existence, and therefore in
the recognition and maintenance for the church of that very supreme
authority which the popes have always claimed, and against which
the Reformation protested, and which secular princes are generally
disposed to resist when it crosses their pride, their policy, their
ambition, or their love of power. Manifestly, then, religious liberty
and Protestantism are mutually antagonistic, each warring against the
other.

The church asserts and vindicates the rights of God in the
government of men, and hence is she called the kingdom of God on
earth. The rights of God are the foundation of all human rights; for
man cannot create or originate rights, since he is a creature, not
his own, and belongs, all he is and all he has, to his Creator. God's
rights being perfect and absolute, extend to all his creatures; and
he has therefore the right that no one of his creatures oppress or
wrong another, and that justice be done alike by all men to all men.
We can wrong no man, deprive no man of life, liberty, or the pursuit
of happiness, without violating the rights of God and offending our
Maker. "Inasmuch as ye did it to the least of my brethren, ye did it
unto me." Hence, the church in asserting and vindicating the rights
of God, asserts and protects in the fullest manner possible the
so-called inalienable rights of man, opposes with divine authority
all tyranny, all despotism, all arbitrary power, all wrong, all
oppression, every species of slavery, and asserts the fullest
liberty, political, civil, social, and individual, that is possible
without confounding liberty with license. The liberty she sustains is
true liberty; for it is that of which our Lord speaks when he says,
"If the Son makes you free, ye shall be free indeed." The church
keeps, guards, declares, and applies the divine law, of which human
laws must be transcripts in order to have the force or vigor of laws.
Man has in his own right no power to legislate for man, and the state
can rightfully govern only by virtue of authority from God. Hence,
St. Paul says, _Non est potestas nisi a Deo_. "There is no power
except from God."

The church in asserting the supremacy of the law of God or of the
spiritual order, asserts not only religious liberty, but all true
liberty, civil, political, social, and individual; and we have
seen that liberty, the basis and condition of civilization, was
steadily advancing in all these respects during the middle ages till
interrupted by the revival of paganism in the fifteenth century and
the outbreak of Protestantism in the sixteenth. The Reformation
did not emancipate society from spiritual thraldom, but raised it
up in revolt against legitimate authority, and deprived it of all
protection, on the one hand, against arbitrary power, and, on the
other, against anarchy and unbounded lawlessness, as the experience
of more than three centuries has proved. There is not a government
in Europe that is not daily conspired against, and it requires five
millions of armed soldiers even in time of peace to maintain internal
order, and give some little security to property and life. To pretend
that the authority of the church, as the organ of the spiritual
order, is despotic, is to use words without understanding their
meaning. Her authority is only that of the law of God, and she uses
it only to maintain the rights of God, the basis and condition of the
rights of individuals and of society. Man's rights, whether social
or individual, civil or political, are the rights of God in and over
man, and they can be maintained only by maintaining the rights of
God, or, what is the same thing, the authority of the church of God
in the government of human affairs. Atheism is the denial of liberty,
as also is pantheism, which denies God as creator.

There is no liberty where there is no authority competent to assert
and maintain it, or where there is no authority derived from God,
who only hath dominion. The men who seek to get rid of authority as
the condition of asserting liberty are bereft of reason, and more
in need of physic and good regimen than of argument. Liberty is not
in being exempt from obedience, but in being held to obey only the
rightful or legitimate authority. God's right to govern his creatures
is full and perfect, and any authority he delegates or authorizes to
be exercised in his name, is legitimate, and in no sense abridges
or interferes with liberty--unless by liberty you mean license--but
is the sole condition of its maintenance. God's dominion over man
is absolute, but is not despotic or tyrannical, since it is only
his absolute right. The authority of the church, however extended
it may be, and she is the judge of its extent and its limitations,
as the court is the judge of its own jurisdiction, is not despotic,
tyrannical, or oppressive, because it is the authority of God
exercised through her.

The pretension of Protestants that Protestantism favors liberty, and
the church despotism, is based on the supposition that authority
negatives liberty and liberty negatives authority, that whatever is
given to the one is taken from the other; a supposition refuted some
time since, in the magazine for October last, in an article entitled
_An Imaginary Contradiction_, and need detain us no longer at
present. Just or legitimate authority, founded on the rights of God,
and instituted to assert and maintain them in human affairs, confirms
and protects liberty instead of impairing it.

Yet there is no doubt that the church condemns liberty in the sense
of the Reformation, and especially in that of the nineteenth century.
Protestantism denies infallibility to the church and assumes it for
the age, for the state, for public opinion--that is, for the world.
The most shocking blasphemy in its eyes is to assert that the age
is fallible and cannot be relied on as a safe or sure guide. We
differ from the Protestant; we attribute infallibility to the church,
and deny it to the age, even though the age be this enlightened
nineteenth century. We do not believe it is always wise or prudent
to suffer one's self to be carried away by the dominant tendency or
passion of this or any other age. It is characteristic of every age
to fix upon one special object or class of objects, and to pursue
them with an exclusiveness and a concentrated passion and energy that
render them practically evil, even though good when taken in their
place and wisely pursued. Even maternal affection becomes evil and
destructive, if not guided or restrained by wisdom and prudence.
Philanthropy is a noble sentiment; yet men and women in our own age,
carried away, dazzled, and blinded by it, only produce evils they
would avoid, defeat the very good they would effect. The spirit of
our age is that of the production, accumulation, and possession of
material goods. Material goods in their proper measure and place
are needed; but when their production and accumulation become with
an individual or an age an engrossing passion that excludes the
spiritual and the eternal, they are evil, and lead only to ruin, both
spiritual and material, as daily experience proves.

The church, then, instituted to teach the truth and to secure
obedience to the law of God, directed always by her divine ideal,
is forced to resist always and everywhere the age, that is, the
world, instead of following its spirit, and to labor for its
correction, not for its encouragement. Hence always is there more
or less opposition between the church and what is called the spirit
of the age, and their mutual concordance is never to be looked for
so long as the world stands. Hence the church in this world is the
church militant, and her normal life one of never-ending struggle
with the world--spirit of the age, _der Welt-Geist_--the flesh, and
the devil. It is only by this struggle that she makes conquests
for heaven, and prevents civil governments from degenerating into
intolerable tyrannies, and society from lapsing into pagan darkness
and superstition.

We have, we think, sufficiently disposed of the Protestant
pretension, and if any of our readers think we have not fully done
it, we refer them to the work before us. There is no doubt that the
boldness, not to say impudence, with which the Protestant pretension
is urged, and the support it receives from the rationalistic
journalism and literature which form contemporary public opinion
in Catholic nations, coupled with the general ignorance of history
and the shortness of men's memories, accounts for the chief success
of Protestant missions in unmaking Catholics, which, though very
limited, is yet much greater than it is pleasant to think. Yet
gradually the truth will find its way to the public; even Protestants
themselves will by and by tell it, piece by piece, as they are now
doing. They have already refuted many of the falsehoods and calumnies
they began by inventing and publishing against the church, and in due
time they will refute the rest.

The abbe shows very clearly that the toleration now accepted and to
some extent practised, and the liberty now allowed to the various
sects, will most likely have a disastrous effect on the future of
Protestantism. It must sooner or later, he thinks, lead to the
demolition of the Protestant national establishments. National
churches cannot coexist with unlimited freedom of dissent. The
English Church must soon follow the fate of the Anglican Church in
Ireland. Its disestablishment is only a question of time. So it
will be before long in all Protestant nations that have a national
church. The doctrine of toleration and freedom for all sects and
opinions not only tends to produce indifference to dogmatic theology,
but is itself a result of that indifference; and indifference
to dogmatic truth is a more formidable enemy to deal with than
out-and-out disbelief or positive infidelity. A soul breathing
forth threatenings, and filled with rage against Christians, can be
converted, and became Paul the apostle and doctor of the Gentiles;
but the conversion of a Gallio, who cares for none of these things,
is a rare event.

With the several sects, doctrinal differences are daily becoming
matters of less and less importance. Who hears now of controversies
between Calvinists and Arminians? Even the New School and the Old
School Presbyterians, though separated by grave dogmatic differences,
unite and form one and the same ecclesiastical body; Presbyterians
and Methodists work together in harmony; Orthodox Congregationalists
show signs of fraternizing with Unitarians, and Unitarians fraternize
with Radicals who reject the very name of Christian, and can hardly
be said to believe even in God. One need not any longer believe any
thing, except that Catholicity is a gross superstition, and the
church a spiritual despotism, the grand enemy of the human race,
in order to be a good and acceptable Protestant. A certain inward
sentiment, emotion, or affection, which even a pantheist or an
atheist may experience, suffices. The dread presence of the church,
hatred of Catholicity, the zeal inspired by party attachment, and
the hope of finally arriving at some solid footing, may keep up
appearances for some time to come; the eloquence, the polished
manners, the personal influence, and the demagogic arts and address
of the preacher may continue for a while to fill a few fashionable
meeting-houses; but when success depends on the personal character
and address of the minister, as is rapidly becoming the fact in all
Protestant sects, we may take it for granted that Protestantism has
seen its best days, is going the way of all the earth, and soon the
place that has known it shall know it no more for ever.

Protestantism, with all deference to our author, who pronounces it
imperishable, we venture to say, has well-nigh run its course. It
began by divorcing the church from the papacy and subjecting religion
to the national authority, subordinating the spiritual to the
temporal, the priest to the magistrate, the representative of heaven
to the representative of earth. It constituted the national sovereign
the supreme head and governor, the pontifex maximus, after the manner
of the Gentiles, of the national religion, or the national church,
and punished dissent as treason against the prince. It was at first,
and for over two centuries, bitterly intolerant, especially against
Catholics, whom it persecuted with a refined cruelty which recalled,
if it did not surpass, that practised by paganism on Christians in
the martyr ages.

Tired of persecution, or finding it impotent to prevent dissent,
Protestantism tried after a while its hand at civil toleration.
The state tolerated, to a greater or less extent, at first only
Protestant dissenters from the established church; but at last,
though with many restrictions, and with the sword ever suspended over
their heads, even Catholics themselves. From civil toleration, from
ceasing to cut the throats and confiscate the goods of Catholics, and
of Protestant recusants, it is passing now to theological tolerance,
or what it calls complete religious liberty, though as yet only its
advanced-guard have reached it.

The state, unless in the American republic, does not, indeed,
disclaim its supremacy over the church; but it leaves religion to
take care of itself, as a thing beneath the notice of the civil
magistrate, so long as it abstains from interfering with state
policy, or meddling with politics. To-day Protestantism divorces,
or is seeking to divorce, the church from the state, as it began
by divorcing both her and the state from the papacy; it divorces
religion from the church and from morality, Christianity from
Christ, faith from dogma, piety from reason, and it resolves into an
affection of man's emotional or sentimental nature. We find persons
calling themselves Christians who do not believe in Christ, or regard
him as a myth, and godly, who do not even believe in God. We have
men, and women too, who demand the disruption of the marriage tie in
the name of morality, and free love in the name of purity. Words lose
their meaning. The churl is called liberal, things bitter are called
sweet, and things profane are called holy. Not many years since,
there was published in England, and republished here, an earnest
and ingenious poem, designed to rehabilitate Satan, and chanting
his merits as man's noblest, best, and truest friend. In the mean
time, every thing regarded as religion loses its hold on the new
generations; moral corruption of all sorts in public, domestic, and
private life is making fearful progress throughout the Anglo-Saxon
world, the mainstay of Protestantism; and society seems tottering on
the verge of dissolution. Such is the career Protestantism has run,
is running, or, by the merciless logic to which it is subjected,
will be forced to run. What hope, then, can Protestants have for its
future?

As to the future of Catholicity, we are under no apprehensions.
We know that never can the church be in this world the church
triumphant, and that she and the world will always be in a state of
mutual hostility; but the hostility can never harm her, though it
may cause the spiritual ruin of the individuals and nations that
war against her. The Protestant world have for over three hundred
years been trying to get on without her, and have succeeded but
indifferently. Sensible and earnest-minded men among Protestants
themselves boldly pronounce that the experiment has failed, which
most Protestants inwardly feel, and sadly deplore; but like the poor
man in Balzac's novel, who has spent his own patrimony, his wife's
dower, the portion of his daughter, with all he could borrow, beg,
or steal, and reduced his wife, his children, and himself to utter
destitution, in the _recherche d'absolu_, they are buoyed up by the
feeling that they are just a-going to succeed. But even this feeling
cannot last always. Hope too long "deferred maketh the heart sick."
It may be long yet, and many souls for whom Christ has died be
lost, before the nations that have apostatized learn wisdom enough
to abandon the delusive hope, and turn again to Him whom they have
rejected, or look again, weeping, on the face of Him whom they have
crucified. But the church will stand, whether they return or not; for
she is founded on a rock that cannot be shaken, on the eternal truth
of God, that cannot fail.

The Protestant experiment has demonstrated beyond question that
the very things in the Catholic Church which are most offensive to
this age, and for which it wages unrelenting war against her, are
precisely those things it most needs for its own protection and
safety. It needs, first of all, the Catholic Church--nay, the papacy
itself--to declare and apply the law of God to states and empires,
to sovereigns and subjects, kings and peoples, that politics may no
longer be divorced from religion, but be rendered subsidiary to the
spiritual, the eternal end of man, for which both individuals and
society exist and civil governments are instituted. It needs the
church to declare and enforce the law, by such means as she judges
proper, that should govern the relation of the sexes; to hallow
and protect marriage, the basis of the family, as the family is of
society, that great sacrament or mysterious union, typical of the
union of Christ with the church, which is indissoluble; to take
charge of education, and to train up, or cause to be trained up, the
young in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, or in the way they
should go, that when old they shall not depart from it; to teach
maidens modesty and reserve, and wives and mothers due submission
to their husbands and proper care of their children; to assert and
protect the rights of women; to train them to be contented to be
women, and not to aspire to be men, or to usurp the functions of men,
and to bid them stay at home, and not be gadding abroad, running over
the country and spouting nonsense, free love, infidelity, impiety,
and blasphemy, at suffrage conventions and other gatherings, at which
it is a shame for a woman to open her mouth, or even to be present;
and, most of all, to exercise a vigilant censorship over ideas,
whether vented in books, journals, or lectures, and to keep from the
public those which tend to mislead the mind or corrupt the heart, as
a prudent father strives to keep them from his children.

The age needs for this the _Catholic_ Church. A national church
cannot do it; far less can the sects do it. These all depend on the
public opinion of the age, the nation, or the sect, and have no
power to withstand that opinion. This is perhaps better understood
here than elsewhere. The sects, being creatures of opinion, have
no power to control it, and their tendency is invariably to seize
upon every opinion, excitement, or movement that is, or is likely
to be, popular, and help it on as the means of swelling, when it
is at flood-tide, their own respective numbers. A national church
has undoubtedly more stability, and is not so easily wrested from
its moorings. But it has only the stability of the government that
ordains it, and the most absolute government must sooner or later
yield to the force of opinion. Opinion has disestablished and
disendowed the state church in Ireland, and will, as is most likely,
do it ere long in both England and Scotland. The Protestant sects
have no alternative; they must either yield to the dominant opinion,
tendency, or passion of the times and move on with it, or be swept
away by it.

It is only a church truly catholic, that depends on no nation, that
extends to all, and is over all, that derives not its being or its
strength from the opinion of courts or of peoples, but rests on
God for her being, her law, and her support, that can maintain her
integrity, or have the courage to stand before an age or a nation,
denounce its errors, and condemn its dominant passion or tendency, or
that would be heeded, if she did. It was only the visible head of the
Catholic Church, the vicar of Christ, that could perform the heroic
act of publishing in this century the Syllabus; and if, as we are
confident they have, the prelates assembled in the Council of the
Vatican have some share of the courage of their chief, their decrees
will not only draw the attention of the world anew to the church, but
go far to prove to apostate nations and truculent governments that
she takes counsel of God, not of the weakness and timidity of men.

A few more such acts as the publication of the Syllabus and the
convocation of the council now sitting at Rome, joined to the
manifest failure of Protestantism, will serve to open the eyes of the
people, disabuse non-Catholics of the delusions under which they are
led away to their own destruction. The very freedom, though false in
principle, which is suffered in Protestant nations, while it removes
all restraints from infidelity, immorality, and blasphemy, aids the
victory of the church over her enemies. It ruins them by suffering
them to run into all manner of excesses; but she can use it without
danger and with advantage where there are minds to be convinced or
hearts to be won; for she can abide the freest examination, the most
rigid investigation and scrutiny, while the indwelling Holy Ghost
cannot fail to protect her from all error on either side. The present
delusions of the loud-boasting nineteenth century must give way
before her as she once more stands forth in her true light, and her
present enemies be vanquished.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] _De l'Avenir du Protestantisme et du Catholicisme._ Par M. l'Abbe
F. Martin. Paris: Tobra et Haton. 1869. 8vo, pp. 608.




DION AND THE SIBYLS.

A CLASSIC, CHRISTIAN NOVEL.

BY MILES GERALD KEON, COLONIAL SECRETARY, BERMUDA, AUTHOR OF "HARDING,
THE MONEY-SPINNER," ETC.


DEDICATION.

I dedicate the following work to Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton, not
only in appreciation of one of the most searching, comprehensive,
independent, and indefatigable thinkers, and one of the truest and
highest men of genius, of whom it has ever been the lot of his own
country and of the English-speaking races to be proud, and the fate
of contemporary nations to feel honorably jealous; not only in
admiration of a mind which nature made great, and which study has to
the last degree cultivated, whose influence and authority have been
steadily rising since he first began to labor in literary fields more
varied than almost any into which ONE person had previously dared to
carry the efforts of the intellect; but still more as an humble token
of the grateful love which I feel in return for the faithful and
consistent friendship and the innumerable services with which a great
genius and a great man has honored me during twenty years.

                                          MILES GERALD KEON.
    PARIS, Jan. 18, 1870.


INTRODUCTION.

The historical romance of Mr. Keon, now republished with the author's
most cordial permission and his latest corrections, was first printed
in London, in 1866, by Mr. Bentley, publisher in ordinary to the
Queen. The edition was brought out in a very handsome style, and
sold at the high price of a guinea. Notwithstanding the heavy price
at which the work was furnished to our transpontine kinsfolk, (or at
least to the "upper ten thousand" of them,) it is at this moment out
of print, and an effort made about two years ago to procure copies
for sale in this country was unsuccessful. The copy kindly sent
us by the author was accidentally mislaid for several months, and
this circumstance, together with the desire to give our readers the
opportunity of perusing the work as soon as their attention should be
directed to it by a notice such as its high merit demands, caused
us to delay the proper public acknowledgment to the author until the
present moment. Its success in England, in spite of the nationality
and religion of the writer, is no slight proof of its intrinsic
excellence, especially when we consider that he ventured into a field
which the subject-matter of the book would turn into the very home
and headquarters of English prejudice.

To every effect adequate cause; and, in this instance, to those who
take up the story of _Dion_, one cause of its success will, before
they have gone half way through its events and adventures, speak for
itself. Yet, however light to read, the work has, we feel convinced,
been in the last degree laborious both to plan and to execute.
"Easy writing," said Thomas Moore, "very often makes fearfully hard
reading." We believe the converse has often proved equally true.

We are glad to learn that Mr. Keon has recently received a far more
gratifying recognition of his distinguished merit than any other to
which a Catholic author can aspire. At a private audience granted
him by Pius IX., His Holiness complimented him on his services to
literature and religion, and gave him a beautiful rosary of pearl as
a token of his august favor.

One word more, and we shall let the story itself begin to be heard.
The epoch of _Dion_ was the turning-point of all human history--the
hinge of the fateful gates, the moment of the mightiest and most
stupendous transition our world has ever known, the transition
of transitions; the moment on this earth of a superplanetary,
supercosmic drama. There were two suns in the heavens; one rising,
never to set; the other going down to rise no more. At no epoch had
human genius blazed so luminous, or human pride poised itself on
wings so wide, in a sphere so sublime; but this genius was for the
first time confronted in its own sphere by divine inspiration and a
supernatural authority. The setting of a classic though pagan day
saw the dawning day of Christianity. There were two suns in one sky
at the same moment. The doubtful cross-lights of two civilizations
over-arched the world with a vault of shifting, contending, contrary,
and awful splendors--those of one order in the utmost intensity
of their radiance, those of the other in their first, glimmering
beginnings; a seeming confusion; an internecine war; a hazy mingling
of embattled glories as full of meaning as it was of mystery.

                                            ED. CATH. WORLD.


CHAPTER I.

It was a fair evening in autumn, toward the end of the year eleven
of our Lord. Augustus Caesar was a white-haired, olive-complexioned,
and somewhat frail-featured, though stately man of more than
seventy-three. At the beginning of the century in which this was
written, the face of the first Napoleon recalled to the minds of
antiquaries and students of numismatic remains the lineaments,
engraved upon the extant coins of Augustus. Indeed, at this moment
there is in the Vatican a beautiful marble bust in excellent
preservation, representing one of these two emperors as he was while
yet young; and this bust almost invariably produces a curious effect
upon the stranger who contemplates it for the first time. "That is
certainly a beautiful artistic work," he says, "but the likeness is
hardly perfect."

"Likeness of whom?" replies some Italian friend. "Of the emperor,"
says the stranger. "_Sicuro!_ But which emperor?" asks the Italian,
smiling. "Of course, the first," says the visitor; "_not this_ one."
"But that represents Augustus Caesar, not Napoleon Bonaparte," is
the answer. Whereupon the stranger, who, a moment before had very
justly pronounced the resemblance to Bonaparte to be hardly perfect,
exclaims, not less justly, What an amazing likeness to Napoleon!
That sort of admiring surprise is intelligible. Had the bust been
designed as an image of the great modern conqueror, there had been
something to censure. But the work which, at one and the same time,
delineates the second Caesar, and yet now after 1800 years recalls to
mind the first Napoleon, has become a curious monument indeed.

The second Roman emperor, however, had not a forehead so broad
and commanding nor so marble smooth as Napoleon's, and the whole
countenance, at the time when our narrative begins, offered a more
decisively aquiline curve, with more numerous and much thinner lines
about the mouth. Still, even at the age which he had then reached--in
the year eleven of our Lord--he showed traces of that amazing beauty
which had enchanted the whole classic world in the days of his youth.
Three years more, and his reign and life were to go down in a great,
broad, calm, treacherous sunset together.

After the senate had rewarded the histrionic and purely make-believe
moderation of its master--and in truth its destroyer--by giving to
one who had named himself _Princeps_ the greater name of Augustus,
the former title, like a left-off robe, too good to be thrown away,
was carefully picked up, brushed into all its gloss, and appropriated
by a second performer. We allude, of course, to Drusus Tiberius
Claudius Nero, the future emperor, best known by his second name
of Tiberius. The first and third names had belonged to his brother
also. Tiberius was then "Prince and Caesar," as the new slang of
flattery termed him; he was stepson of Augustus and already adopted
heir, solemnly _designatus_. He was verging upon the close of his
fifty-third year of cautious profligacy, clandestine vindictiveness,
and strictly-regulated vices. History has not accused him of
murdering Agrippa Vespasianus; but had Agrippa survived, he would
have held all Tiberius's present offices. AElius Sejanus, commander of
the praetorian guards, was occupied in watching the monthly, watching
even the daily, decay of strength in the living emperor, and was
pandering to the passions of his probable successor. Up to this time
Sejanus had been, and still was, thus employed. More dangerous hopes
had not arisen in his bosom; he had not yet indulged in the vision
of becoming master of the known world--a dream which, some twenty
years afterward, consigned him to cruel and sudden destruction.
No conspirator, perhaps, ever exercised more craft and patience
in preparing, or betrayed more stupidity at last in executing, an
attempt at treason on so great a scale. It was forty-six years since
Sallust had expired amid the luxuries which cruelty and rapine
accumulated, after profligacy had first brought him acquainted with
want.

Ovid had just been sent into exile at Temesvar in Turkey--then
called Tomos in Scythia. Cornelius Nepos was ending his days in the
personal privacy and literary notoriety in which he had lived. Virgil
had been dead a whole generation; so had Tibullus; Catullus, half a
century; Propertius, some twenty years; Horace and Maecenas, about
as long. The grateful master of the _curiosa felicitas verborum_
had followed in three weeks to--not the grave, indeed, but--the
urn, the patron whom he had immortalized in the first of his odes,
the first of his epodes, the first of his satires, and the first of
his epistles; and the mighty sovereign upon whose youthful court
those three characters--a wise, mild, clement, yet firm minister, a
glorious epic poet, and an unsurpassed lyrist--have reflected so much
and such enduring lustre, had faithfully and unceasingly lamented
their irreparable loss. Lucius Varius was the fashionable poet,
the laureate of the day; and Maecenas being removed, Tiberius sought
to govern indirectly, as minister, all those matters which he did
not control directly and immediately, as one of the two Caesars whom
Augustus had appointed. Velleius Paterculus, the cavalry colonel,
or military tribune, (chiliarch,) a prosperous and accomplished
patrician, was beginning to shine at once in letters and at the
court. The grandson of Livia, grandson also of Augustus by his
marriage with her, but really grand-nephew of that emperor--we mean
the son of Antonia, the celebrated _Germanicus_, second and more
worthy bearer of that surname--a youth full of fire and genius, and
tingling with noble blood--was preparing to atone for the disgraces
and to repair the disasters which Quintilius Varus, one year before,
amidst the uncleared forests of Germany, had brought upon the
imperial arms and the Roman name. Germanicus, indeed, was about to
fulfil the more important part of a celebrated classic injunction;
he was going to do things worthy to be written, "while the supple
courtier of all Caesars, Paterculus, was endeavoring to _write
something worthy to be read_." Strabo had not long before commenced
his system of geography, which, for about thirty years yet to come,
was to engage his attention and dictate his travels. Livy, of the
"pictured page," who doubtless may be called, next to Tacitus, the
most eloquent without being set down as quite the most credulous
of classic historians--I venture to say so, _pace Niebuhr_--was
over sixty-eight years of age, but scarcely looked sixty. He was
even then thoroughly and universally appreciated. No man living had
received more genuine marks of honor--not even the emperor. His
hundred and forty-two books of Roman history had filled the known
world with his praises, a glory which length of days allowed him
fully to enjoy. Modern readers appreciate and admire the thirty-five
books which alone are left, and linger over the beauties, _quasi
stellis_, with which they shine. Yet who knows but these may be
among the poorest productions of Livy's genius? A very simple sum in
arithmetic would satisfy an actuary that we must have lost the most
valuable emanations of the Paduan's great mind. Given a salvage of
five-and-thirty out of a hundred and forty-two, and yet the whole of
this wreck so marvellous in beauty! surely that which is gone for
ever must have included much that is equal, probably something far
superior to what time has spared.

There is a curious fact recorded by Pliny the younger, which speaks
for itself. A Spaniard of Cadiz had, only some five months before
the date of our story, journeyed from the ends of the earth to Rome
merely to obtain a sight of Livy. There were imperial shows in the
forum and hippodrome and circus at the time; there were races on
foot, and on horseback, and in chariots; fights there were of all
kinds--men against wild animals, men against each other; with the
sword, with the deadly cestus; wrestling matches, and the dreadful
battles of gladiators, five hundred a side; in short, all the glitter
and the glories and the horrors of the old classic arena in its
culminating days. There was also a strange new Greek fence, since
inherited by Naples, and preserved all through the middle ages down
to this hour, with the straight, pliant, three-edged rapier, to
witness which even ladies thronged with interest and partisanship.
But the Spaniard from Gades (Cervantes might surely have had such an
ancestor) asked only to be shown Titus Livius. Which in yonder group
is Livy? The wayfarer cared for nothing else that Roman civilization
or Roman vanity could show him. The great writer was pointed out, and
then the traveller, having satisfied the motive which had brought
him to Rome, went back to Ostia, where his lugger, if I may so call
it, lay, (I picture it a kind of "wing-and-wing" rigged vessel;)
and, refusing to profane his eyes with any meaner spectacle, set
sail again for Spain, where his youth had been illumined with the
visions presented to a sympathetic imagination by the most charming
of classical historians. The Spaniards from an immemorial age are
deemed to have been heroes and appreciators of heroes; and no doubt
this literary pilgrim, once more at home, recurred many a time, long
pondering, to the glorious deeds of the _Fabia Gens_.

How many other similar examples Livy may have recorded for him we
moderns cannot say. Before his gaze arose the finished column from
the fragments whereof we have gathered up some scattered bricks and
marbles. Niebuhr had to deal with a ruin, and he who ought to have
guessed at and reconstructed the plan of it, has contented himself
with trying to demolish its form.

Long previously to the date of our tale, Augustus, trembling
under the despotism of his wife Livia, had begun to repeat those
lamentations (with which scholars are familiar) for the times
when Maecenas had guided his active day, and Virgil and Horace had
beguiled his lettered evenings. Virgil, as is well known, had been
tormented with asthma, and ought possibly to have lived much longer
but for some unrecorded imprudence. Horace, as is likewise well
known, had been tormented with sore eyelids--and with wine; he was
"blear-eyed," (_lippus_.) Augustus, therefore, used to say wittily,
as he placed them on each hand of him at the _symposium_, which had
been recently borrowed in Italy from the Greeks, but had not yet
degenerated into the debauchery and extravagance into which they
afterward sank more and more deeply during successive reigns, "I sit
between sighs and tears." _In suspiriis sedeo et in lachrymis._ But
he had long lost these so-called sighs and tears at either hand of
him. The sighs and tears were now his own.


CHAPTER II.

Our chronicle commences in Campania, with the Tyrrhenian Sea (now the
southerly waters of the Gulf of Genoa) on a traveller's left hand if
he looks north. It was a fair evening in autumn, as we have remarked,
during that age and state of the world the broad outlines of which we
have briefly given. Along the Appian, or, as it long afterward came
to be also called, the Trajan Way, the queen of roads, a conveyance
drawn by two horses, a carriage of the common hackney description,
not unlike one species of the _vettura_ used by the modern Italians,
was rolling swiftly northward between the stage of Minturnae and
the next stage, which was a lonely post-house a few miles south of
the interesting town of Formiae--not _Forum Appii_, or the _Three
Taverns_, a place more than fifty miles away in the direction of
Rome, and upon the same road.

Inside the carriage were a lady in middle life, whose face, once
lovely, was still sweet and charming, and a very pale, beautiful
female child, each dressed in a black _ricinium_,[2] or mourning
robe, drawn over the top of the head. The girl was about twelve
years old, or a little more, and seemed to be suffering much and
grievously. She faced the horses, and on her side sat the lady
fanning her and watching her with a look which always spoke love,
and now and again anguish. Opposite to them, with his back to the
horses, wearing a sort of dark _lacerna_, or thin, light great-coat,
of costly material, but of a fashion which was deemed in Italy at
that day either foreign or vulgar, as the case might be, sat a youth
of about eighteen. The child was leaning back with her eyes closed.
The youth, as he watched her, sighed now and then. At last he put
both hands to his face, and, leaning his head forward, suffered tears
to flow silently through his fingers. The _lacerna_ which he wore was
fastened at the breast by two _fibulae_, or clasps of silver, and girt
round his waist with a broad, brown, sheeny leather belt, stamped
and traced after some Asiatic mode. In a loop of this belt, at his
left side, was secured within its black scabbard an unfamiliar,
outlandish-looking, long, straight, three-edged sword, which he had
pulled round so as to rest the point before his feet, bringing the
blade between his knees, and the hilt, which was gay with emeralds,
in front of his chest.

The Romans still very generally went bare-headed,[3] even out of
doors, except that those who continued to wear the toga drew it over
their heads as the weather needed, and those who wore the _penula_
used the hood of it in the same way. But upon the hilt of the sword
we have described the youth had flung a sort of _petasus_, or
deep-rimmed hat, with a flat top, and one black feather at the side,
not stuck perpendicularly into the band, but so trained half round
it as to produce a reckless, rakish effect, of which the owner was
unconscious.

"Agatha," said the lady, in a low, tender voice, the delicate Greek
ring of which was full of persuasion, "look up, beloved child!
Your brother and I, at least, are left. Think no more of the past.
The gods have taken your father, after men had taken his and your
inheritance. But our part in life is not yet over. Did not your
parents too, in times past--did not we too, I say, lose ours? Did you
not know you were probably to live longer than your poor father? Are
you not to survive me also? Perhaps soon."

With a cry of dismay the young girl threw her arms round the lady's
neck and sobbed. The other, while she shed tears, exclaimed:

"I thank that unknown power, of whom Dionysius the Athenian, my
young countryman, so sublimely speaks, that the child weeps at last!
Weep, Agatha, weep; but mourn not mute in the cowardice of despair!
Mourn not for your father in a way unbecoming of his child and mine.
Mourn not as though indeed you were not ours. My husband is gone
for ever, but he went in honor. The courageless grief, that canker
without voice or tears, which would slay his child, will not bring
back to me the partner of my days, nor to you your father. We must
not dishearten but cheer your brother Paulus for the battle which is
before him."

"I wish to do so, my mother," said Agatha.

"When I recover my rights," broke in the youth at this point, "my
father will come and sit among the _lares_, round the ever-burning
fire in the _atrium_ of our hereditary house, Agatha; and therefore
courage! You are ill; but Charicles, the great physician of Tiberius
Caesar, is our countryman, and he will attend you. He can cure almost
any thing, they say. And if you feel fatigued, no wonder, so help me!
_Minime mirum mehercle!_ Have we not travelled without intermission,
by land and by sea, all the way from Thrace? But now, one more change
of horses brings us to Formiae, and then we shall be at our journey's
end. Meantime, dear child, look up; see yonder woods, and the
garden-like shore."

And having first tried in vain to brighten the horn window at the
side of the vehicle, _specular corneum_, (glass was used only in the
private carriages of the rich,) he stood up, and calling over the
hide roof of the carriage, which was open in front--the horses being
driven from behind--he ordered the _rhedarius_, or coachman, to open
the panels. The man, evidently a former slave of the family, now
their freedman, quickly obeyed, and descending from his bench, pushed
back into grooves contrived to receive them the coarsely-figured and
gaudily colored sides of the travelling _carruca_.

"Is _parvula_ better?" he then cried, with the privileged
freedom of an old and attached domestic, or of one who, in the
far more endearing parlance of classic times, was a faithful
_familiaris_--that is, a member of the family. "Is the little one
better? The dust is laid now, little one; the evening comes; the
light slants; the sun smiles not higher than yourself, instead of
burning overhead. See, the beautiful country! See, the sweet land!
Let the breeze bring a bloom to your cheeks, as it brings the
perfumes to your mouth. Ah! the _parvula_ smiles. Fate is not always
angry!"

"Dear old Philip!" said the child; and then, turning to her mother,
she added,

"Just now, mother, you waked me from a frightful dream. I thought
that the man who has our father's estates was dead; but he came from
the dead, and was trying to kill Paulus, my brother there; and for
that purpose was striving to wrest the sword from Paulus's hand;
and that the man, or _lar_, laughed in a hideous manner, and cried
out, 'It is with his own sword we will slay him! Nothing but his own
sword!'"

The old freedman turned pale, and muttered something to himself, as
he stood by the side of the vehicle; and while he kept the horses
steady, with the long reins in his left hand, glanced awfully toward
Paulus.

"Brother," continued the child, "I forget that man's name. What _is_
the name?"

"Never mind the name now," said Paulus; "a dead person cannot kill a
living one; and that man is not in Italy who will kill me with my own
sword, if I be not asleep. Look at the beautiful land! See, as Philip
tells you, the beautiful land where you are going to be so happy."

The river Liris, now the Garigliano, flowed all gold in the western
sun; some dozen of meadows behind them, between rows of linden-trees,
oleanders, and pomegranates, with laurel, bay, and long bamboo-like
reeds of the _arundo donax_, varying the rich beauty of its banks:
"_Daphrones, platanones, et aeriae cyparissi._" A thin and irregular
forest of great contemplative trees; flowerless and sad beech,
cornel, alder, ash, hornbeam, and yew towered over savannahs of
scented herbs, and glades of many-tinted grasses. Some clumps of
chestnut-trees, hereafter to spread into forests, but then rare,
and cultivated as we cultivate oranges and citrons, stood proudly
apart. A vegetation, which has partly vanished, gave its own physical
aspect to an Italy the social conditions of which have vanished
altogether; and were even then passing, and about to pass, through
their last appearances. But much also that we in our days have seen,
both there and elsewhere, was there then. The flower or blossom of
the pomegranate lifted its scarlet light amidst vines and olives;
miles of oleander trees waved their masses of flame under the tender
green filigree of almond groves, and seemed to laugh in scorn at the
mourning groups of yew, and the bowed head of the dark, widow-like,
and inconsolable cypress. All over the leaves of the woods autumn
had strewn its innumerable hues. In the west, the sky was hung with
those glories which no painter ever reproduced and no poet ever sang;
it was one of the sunsets which make all persons of sensibility who
contemplate them dumb, by making all that can be said of them worse
than useless. A magnificent and enormous villa, or _castellum_, or
country mansion--palace it seemed--showed parts of its walls, glass
windows, and Ionic columns, through the woods on the banks of the
Liris; and upon the roof of this palace a great company of gilt,
tinted, and white statues, much larger than life, in various groups
and attitudes, as they conversed, lifted their arms, knelt, prayed,
stooped, stood up, threatened, and acted, were glittering above the
tree-tops in the many-colored lights of the setting sun.

"Ah! let us stop; let us rest a few moments," cried the child,
smiling through her tears at the smiles of nature and the enchanting
beauty of the scene; "only a few moments under the great trees,
mother."

It was a group of chestnuts, a few yards from the side of the road;
and beneath them came to join the highway through the meadows, and
vineyards, and forest-land, a broad beaten track from the direction
of the splendid villa that stood on the Liris.

Paulus instantly sprang from the _carruca_, and, having first helped
his mother to alight, took his sister in his arms and placed her
sitting under the green shade. A Thracian woman, a slave, descended
meantime from the box, and the driver drew his vehicle to the side of
the highway.

While they thus reposed, with no sound about them, as they thought,
save the rustle of the leaves, the distant ripple of the waters, and
the vehement shrill call of the cicala, hidden in the grass somewhere
near, their destinies were coming. The freedman suddenly held up his
hand, and drew their attention by that peculiar sound through the
teeth, (_st_,) which in all nations signifies _listen!_

And, indeed, a distant, dull, vague noise was now heard southward,
and seemed to increase and approach along the Appian road. Every
eye in our little group of travellers was turned in the direction
mentioned, and they could see a white cloud of dust coming swiftly
northward. Soon they distinguished the tramp of many horses at the
trot. Then, over the top of a hill which had intercepted the view,
came the gleam of arms, filling the whole width of the way, and
advancing like a torrent of light. The ground trembled; and, headed
by a troop or two of Numidian riders, and then a couple of troops
or _turmae_ of Batavian cavalry, a thousand horse, at least, of the
Praetorian Guards, arrayed, as usual, magnificently, swept along in
a column two hundred deep, with a rattle and ring of metal rising
treble upon the ear over the continuous bass of the beating hoofs, as
the foam floats above the roll of the waves.

The young girl was at once startled from the sense of sickness and
grief, and gazed with big eyes at the pageant. Six hundred yards
further on a trumpet-note, clear and long, gave some sudden signal,
and the whole body instantly halted. From a detached group in the
rear an officer now rode toward the front; a loud word or two of
command was heard, a slight movement followed, and then, as if the
column were some monstrous yellow-scaled serpent with an elastic
neck and a black head, the swarthy troops which had led the advance
wheeled slowly backward, two instead of five abreast, while the main
column simultaneously stretched itself forward on a narrower face,
and with a deeper file, occupying thus less than half the width of
the road, which they had before nearly filled, and extending much
further onward. Meantime the squadrons which had led it continued
to defile to the rear; and when their last rank had passed the last
of those fronting in the opposite direction, they suddenly faced to
their own right, and, standing like statues, lined the way on the
side opposite to that where our travellers were reposing, but some
forty or fifty yards higher up the road, or more north.

In front of the line of horsemen, who, after wheeling back, had been
thus faced to their own right, or the proper left of the line of
march, was now collected a small group of mounted officers. One of
them wore a steel corselet, a casque of the same metal, with a few
short black feathers in its crest, and the _chlamys_, or a better
sort of _sagum_, the scarlet mantle of a military tribune, over
a black tunic, upon which two broad red stripes or ribbons were
diagonally sewn. This costume denoted him one of the _Laticlavii_, or
broad-ribboned tribunes; in other words--although, to judge by the
massive gold ring which glittered on the forefinger of his bridle
hand, he might have been originally and personally only a knight--he
had received either from the emperor, or from one of the two Caesars
then governing with and under Augustus, the senatorial rank.

The chlamys was fastened across the top of his chest with a silver
clasp, and the tunic a little lower down with another, both being
open below as far as the waist, and disclosing a tight-fitting
chain-mail corselet, or shirt of steel rings. The chlamys was
otherwise thrown loose over his shoulders, but the tunic was belted
round the corselet at his waist by a buff girdle, wherein hung the
intricately-figured brass scabbard of a straight, flat, not very
long cut-and-thrust sword, which he now held drawn in his right
hand. In his belt were stuck a pair of _manicae_ or _chirothecae_, as
gloves were called, which seemed to be made of the same material as
the girdle; buffalo-skin greaves on his legs and half-boots (the
_calcei_, not the _soleae_ or sandals) completed his dress. He was a
handsome man, about five-and-thirty years old, brown hair, an open
but thoughtful face, and an observant eye. He it was who had ridden
to the front, and given those orders the execution of which we have
noticed. He had now returned, and kept his horse a neck or so behind
that of an officer far more splendidly attired, who seemed to pay no
attention whatever to the little operation that had occurred, but,
shading his eyes with one hand from the rays of the setting sun,
gazed over the fields toward the villa or mansion on the Liris.

He was clad in the _paludamentum_, the long scarlet cloak of
a _legatus_ or general, the borders being deeply fringed with
twice-dyed Tyrian purple, (_Tyria bis tincta_, or _dibapha_, as it is
called by Pliny;) the long folds of which flowed over his charger's
haunches. This magnificent mantle was buckled round the wearer's neck
with a jewel. His corselet, unlike that of the colonel or tribune
already mentioned, was of plate-steel, (instead of rings,) and shone
like a looking-glass, except where it was inlaid with broad lines of
gold. He wore a chain of twisted gold round his neck, and his belt
as well as the hilt of his sword, which remained undrawn by his side
in a silver scabbard, glittered with sardonyx and jasper stones. He
had no tunic. His gloves happening, like those of his subordinate,
to be thrust into the belt round his waist, left visible a pair of
hands so white and delicate as to be almost effeminate. His helmet
was thin steel, and the crest was surmounted by a profuse plume of
scarlet cock's feathers. But perhaps the most curious particular of
his costume was a pair of shoes or half-boots of red leather, the
points of the toes turned upward. These boots were encrusted with
gems, which formed the patrician crescent, or letter C, on the top of
each foot, and then wandered into a fanciful tracery of sparkles up
the leg. The _stapedae_, or stirrups, in which his feet rested, were
either of gold or gilt.

The countenance of the evidently important personage whose dress
has been stated was remarkable. He had regular features, a handsome
straight nose, eyes half closed with what seemed at first a languid
look, but yet a look which, if observed more closely, was almost
startling from the extreme attention it evinced, and from the
contrast between such an expression and the indolent indifference
or superciliousness upon the surface, if I may so say, of the
physiognomy. There was something sinister and cruel about the
mouth. He wore no whiskers or beard, but a black, carefully-trimmed
moustache.

After a steady gaze across the fields in the direction we have
already more than once mentioned, he half turned his head toward
the tribune, and at the same time, pointing to our travellers, said
something. The tribune, in his turn, addressed the first centurion,
(_dux legionis_,) an officer whose sword, like that of the legatus,
was undrawn, but who carried in his right hand a thin wand made
of vine-wood. In an instant this officer turned his horse's head
and trotted smartly toward our travellers, upon reaching whom he
addressed Paulus thus:

"Tell me, I pray you, have you been long here?"

"Not a quarter of an hour," answered Paulus, wondering why such a
question was asked.

"And have any persons passed into the road by this pathway?" the
centurion then inquired.

"Not since we came," said Paulus.

The officer thanked him and trotted back.

Meanwhile, Paulus and his mother and the freedman Philip had not
been so absorbed in watching the occurrence and scene just described
as to remove their eyes for more than a moment at a time from their
dearly-loved charge, the interesting little mourner who had begged
to be allowed to rest under the chestnut-trees. It was not so with
Agatha herself. The child was at once astonished, bewildered, and
enraptured. Had the spectacle and review before her been commanded
by some monarch, or rather some magician, on purpose to snatch
her from the possibility of dwelling longer amidst the gloom, the
regrets, and the terrors under which she had appeared to be sinking,
neither the wonder of the spectacle, nor the amenity of the evening
when it occurred, nor the loveliness of the landscape which formed
its theatre, could have been more opportunely combined. She had not
only never beheld any thing so magnificent, but her curiosity was
violently aroused.

Paulus exchanged with his mother and the old freedman a glance of
intelligence and of intense satisfaction, as they both noted the
parted lips and dilated eyes with which the child, half an hour
ago so alarmingly ill, contemplated the drama at which she was
accidentally assisting.

"_That's a rare doctor_," whispered Philip, pointing to the general
of the Praetorian Guards.

"No doctor," replied Paulus in the same low tones, "could have
prescribed for our darling better."

"Paulus," said Agatha, "what are these mighty beings? Are these the
genii, and the demons of the mistress-land, the gods of Italy?"

"They are a handful of Italy's troops, dear," he said.

She looked from her brother to the lady, and then to the freedman,
and this last, with a healing instinct which would have done honor
to Hippocrates, began to stimulate her interest by the agency of
suspense and mystery.

"Master Paulus, and Lady Aglais, and my little one too," he said, in
a most impressive and solemn voice, "these be the genii and these be
the demons indeed; but I tell you that you have not yet seen all the
secret. _Something is going to happen._ Attend to me well! You behold
a most singular thing! Are you aware of what you behold? Yonder,
Master Paulus, is the allotted portion of horse for more than three
legions: the _justus equitatus_, I say, for a Roman army of twenty
thousand men. Yes, I attest all the gods," continued Philip in a low
voice, but with great earnestness, and glancing from the brother to
the sister as if his prospects in life were contingent upon his being
believed in this. "I was at the battle of Philippi, and I aver that
yonder is more than the right allotment of horse for three legions.
Observe the squadrons, the _turmae_; they do not consist of the same
arm; and instead of being distributed in bodies of three or four
hundred each to a legion, they are all together before you without
their legions. Why is that, Master Paulus?"

"I know not," said Paulus.

"Ah!" resumed the freedman, "you know not, but you _will_ know
presently. Mark that, little Mistress Agatha, and bear in mind that
Philip the freedman has said to your brother that he will know all
presently."

The child gazed wonderingly at the troops as she heard these
mysterious words. "Who are those?" asked she, pointing to the
squadrons of those still in column. "Who are those in leather
jerkins, covered with the iron scales, and riding the large, heavy
horses?"

"Batavians from the mouths of the Rhine and the Scheldt," answered
the freedman, with a mysterious shake of the head.

"And those," pursued she, with increasing interest; "who are those
whose faces shine like dusky copper, and whose eyes glitter like the
eyes of the wild animals in the arena, when the proconsul of Greece
gives the shows? I mean those who ride the small, long-tailed horses
without any _ephippia_ (saddle-cloths,) and even without bridles--the
soldiers in flowing dress, with rolls of linen round their heads?"

"They are the Numidians," replied Philip. "Ah! Rome dreaded those
horsemen once, when Hannibal the Carthaginian and his motley hordes
had their will in these fair plains."

As he spoke, a strange movement occurred. The general or _legatus_
dismounted, and, giving the bridle of his horse to a soldier, began
to walk slowly up and down the side of the road. No sooner had his
foot touched the ground than the whole of the Numidian squadron
seemed to rise like a covey out of a stubble field; with little clang
of arms, but with one short, sharp cry, or whoop, it burst from
the high road into the meadow land. There the evolutions which they
performed seemed at first to be all confusion, only for the fact
that, although the horsemen had the air of riding capriciously in
every direction, crossing, intermingling, separating, galloping upon
opposite curves, and tracing every figure which the whim and fancy
of each might dictate, yet no two of them ever came into collision.
Indeed, fantastic and wild as that rhapsody of manoeuvres into
which they had broken appeared to be, some principle which was
thoroughly understood by every one of them governed their mazy
gallop. It was as accurate and exact as some stately dance of slaves
at the imperial court. It was, in short, itself a wild dance of
the Numidian cavalry, in which their reinless horses, guided only
by the flashing blades and the voices of their riders, manifested
the most vehement spirit and a sort of sympathetic frenzy. These
steeds, which never knew the bridle, and went thus mouth-free even
into battle--these horses, which their masters turned loose at night
into the fields, and which came back bounding and neighing at the
first call, were now madly plunging, wheeling, racing, and charging,
like gigantic dogs at sport. Presently they began to play a strange
species of leap-frog. A Numidian boy, who carried a trumpet and rode
a pony, or at least a horse smaller and lower than the rest of the
barbs, ("Berber horses,") suddenly halted upon the outside of the
mad cavalry whirlpool which had been formed, and flung himself flat
at full length upon the back of the diminutive animal. Instantly the
whirl, as it circled toward him, straightened itself into a column,
and every horseman rode full upon the stationary pony, and cleared
both steed and rider at a bound, a torrent of cavalry rushing over
the obstruction with wild shouts.

"That is Numidian sport, Master Paulus," said the freedman; "but
there is not a rider among them to be compared to yourself."

"Certainly I can ride," said the youth; "but I pretend not to be
superior to these Centaurs."

"Be these, then, the Centaurs I have heard of?" asked Agatha; "be
these the wild powers?"

The hubbub had prevented her, and all with her, from noticing
something. Before an answer could be given, the Numidians had
returned to the highway as suddenly as they had quitted it, and the
noise of their dance was succeeded by a pause of attention. The
general was again on horseback, and our travellers perceived that
two litters, one of carved ivory and gold, the other of sculptured
bronze, borne on the shoulders of slaves, were beside them.

Two gentlemen on foot had arrived with the litters along the broad
pathway already noticed, and a group of attendants at a little
distance were following.

This new party were now halting with our travellers beneath the
far-spreading shade of the same trees. In the ivory litter reclined
a girl of about seventeen, dressed in a long _palla_ of blue silk,
a material then only just introduced from India, through Arabia
and Egypt, and so expensive as to be beyond the reach of any but
the richest class. Her hair, which was of a bright gold color,
was dressed in the fashionable form of a helmet, (_galerus_,) and
was inclosed behind in a gauze net. She wore large _inaures_, or
ear-rings, of some jewel, a gold chain, in every ring of which was
set a gem, and scarlet shoes embroidered with pearls. The lady in
the bronze litter was attired in the _stola_ of a matron, with a
_cyclas_, or circular robe, thrown back from the neck, and a tunic
of dark purple which descended to her feet. Her brown hair was
restrained by bands, _vittae_, which had an honorable significance
among the Roman ladies, ("_Nil mihi cum vitta_," says the profligate
author of the _Ars Amandi_.) She seemed somewhat past thirty years of
age; she had a very sweet, calm, and matronly air; her countenance
was as beautiful in features and general effect as it was modest in
its tone and character.

Her companion,[4] in the litter of ivory and gold, was not more
than half her age, was even more beautiful, with an immense wreath
of golden hair, and with large blue eyes, darkening to the likeness
of black as she gazed earnestly upon any object. But she had a
less gentle physiognomical expression. Frequently her look was
penetrating, brief, impatient, sarcastic, disdainful. She had a
bewitching smile, however, and her numerous admirers made Italy echo
with their ravings.

Lucius Varius, said the fashionable world, was at that very time
engaged upon a kind of sapphic ode, of which she was to be the
subject.

Scarcely had these litters or palanquins arrived and halted, when
the general officer dismounted once more, and walked quickly toward
the spot with his helmet in his hand. At a few yards' distance he
stopped, and first bowed low to the elder of the two gentlemen who
had accompanied the litters on foot, and then, almost entirely
disregarding the other gentleman, made an obeisance not quite so long
or so deep to the ladies. The man whom so splendid a personage as the
legatus, wearing his flaming paludamentum, and at the head of his
troops, thus treated with so obsequious a veneration, did not return
the salute except by a slight nod and a momentary, absent-minded
smile. His gaze had been riveted upon our travellers, and chiefly
upon the youth and his young, suffering sister, upon both of whom,
after it had quickly taken in Philip the freedman, the Thracian
woman, and the Athenian lady, it rested long--longest and last upon
Agatha.

"Sejanus," said he finally, "who are these?"

"I never saw them until just now, my commander and Caesar; they were
here when we halted, and while we waited for our master, the favorite
of the gods, these travellers seemed to be resting where you behold
them."

"As those gods favor me," said the other, "this is a fine youth.
Can we not _edit_[5] him? And yonder girl--have you ever seen, my
Sejanus, such eyes? But she is deadly pale. Are you always thus pale,
pretty one, or are you merely ill? If but ill, as I guess, Charicles,
my Greek physician, shall cure you."

Before this man had even spoken, the moment, indeed, when first his
eyes fell upon her, Agatha had sidled close to her mother; and while
he was expressing himself in that way to Sejanus, she returned his
gaze with panic-stricken, dilated eyes, as the South American bird
returns that of the reptile; but when he directly questioned her,
she, reaching out her hand to Paulus, clutched his arm with a woman's
grasp, and said in an affrighted voice,

"My brother, let us go."

Paulus, in a manner naturally easy, and marked by the elegance and
grace which the athletic training of Athens had given to one so
well endowed physically, first, merely saying to the stranger, "I
crave your pardon," (_veniam posco_,) lifted Agatha with one arm,
and placed her in the travelling carriage. Then, while the freedman
and the Thracian slave mounted to their bench, he returned to where
his mother stood, signed to her to follow Agatha, and, seeing her
move calmly but quickly toward the vehicle, he took the broad-rimmed
_petasus_ from his head, and bowing slowly and lowly to the stranger,
said,

"Powerful sir, for I observe you are a man of great authority, my
sister is too ill to converse. You rightly guessed this; permit us to
take her to her destination."

The man whom he had thus balked, and to whom he now thus spoke,
merits a word of description. He appeared to be more than fifty years
old. The mask of his face and the frame of his head were large, but
not fat. His complexion was vivid brick-red all over the cheeks, with
a deeper flush in one spot on each side, just below the outer corners
of the eyes. The eyes were bloodshot, large, rather prominent, and
were closely set together. The nose was large, long, bony, somewhat
aquiline. The forehead was not high, not low; it was much developed
above the eyes, and it was broad. A deep and perpetual dint just over
the nose reached half-way up the forehead. His hair was grizzled and
close cut. His lips were full and fleshy, and the mouth was wide; the
jaws were large and massive. His face was shaven of all hair. The
chin was very handsome and large, and the whole head was set upon a
thick, strong throat, not stunted, however, of its proper length.
In person this man was far from ungainly, nor yet was he handsome.
In carriage and bearing, without much majesty, he had nevertheless
something steadfast, weighty, unshrinking, and commanding. His
outer garment, not a toga, was all one color and material; it was a
long, thick wadded silk mantle, of that purple dye which is nearly
black--the hue, indeed, of clotted gore under a strong light. He wore
gloves, and instead of the usual short sword of the Romans, had a
long steel stylus[6] for writing on wax thrust into a black leathern
belt. This instrument seemed to show that he lived much in Rome,
where it was not the custom, when otherwise in civilian dress, to go
armed.

As the reader will have guessed, this man was to be the next emperor
of the Roman world.

"Permit you to take her to her destination?" he repeated slowly. "My
Greek physician, I tell you, shall cure her. I will give directions
about your destination." A slight pause; then, "Are you a Roman
citizen?"

"I am a Roman knight as well as citizen," answered Paulus proudly;
"and my family is not only equestrian, but patrician."

"What is your name?"

"Paulus AEmilius Lepidus."

The man in the black or gore-colored purple glanced at Sejanus, who,
still unconcerned, stood with his splendid helmet in the left hand,
while he smoothed his moustache with the right; otherwise perfectly
still, his handsome face, cruel mouth, and intelligent eyes all alive
with the keenest attention.

"And the destination to which you allude is--?" pursued the man in
black purple.

"Formiae," said Paulus.

"What relation or kinship exists between you and Marcus AEmilius
Lepidus, formerly the triumvir, who still enjoys the life which he
owes to the clemency of Augustus?"

Paulus hesitated. When he had given his name, the younger of the
two ladies had raised herself suddenly in the litter of ivory and
gold, and fastened upon him a searching gaze, which she had not
since removed. The other lady had also at that instant looked at
him fixedly. We have already stated that, when Sejanus approached
the group, he had not deigned in any very cordial manner to salute
or notice the second of the two gentlemen who had accompanied the
litters on foot. This gentleman was very sallow, had hollow eyes, and
a habit of gnawing his under lip between his teeth. He had unbuckled
his sword, and had given it, calling out, "_Lygdus, carry this_," to
a man with an exceedingly sinister and repulsive countenance. The man
in question had now taken a step or two forward, and was standing on
the left of Paulus, fronting the Caesar, his shoulders stooping, his
neck bent forward, his eyes without any motion of the head rolling
incessantly from person to person, and face to face, but at once
falling before and avoiding any glance which happened to meet his. He
looked askant and furtively at every object with an eager, unhappy,
and malign expression. Paulus did not need to turn his head to feel
that this man was now intently peering at him. Behind the two courtly
palanquins, and beyond the shade of the trees, was a third litter
still more costly, being covered in parts with plate gold. Here sat
a woman with a face as white as alabaster, and large prominent black
eyes, watching the scene, and apparently trying to catch every word
that was said.

Paulus, as we have observed, hesitated. The training of youth in
the days of classic antiquity soon obliterated the inferiority of
unreasoning, nervous shyness. But the strange catechism which Paulus
was now undergoing, with all this gaze upon him from so many eyes,
began to be a nuisance, and to tell upon a spirit singularly high.

"Have you heard my question?" inquired Tiberius.

"I have heard it," replied Paulus; "and have heard and answered
several others, without knowing who he is that asks them. However,
the former triumvir, now living at Circaei, about forty thousand paces
from here, is my father's brother." (Circaei, as the reader knows, is
now called Monte Circello, a promontory just opposite Gaeta.)

When Paulus had given his last answer, the ladies glanced at each
other, and the younger looked long and hard at Tiberius. Getting some
momentary signal from him, she threw herself back in her palanquin
and smiled meaningly at the stooping, sinister-faced man, who had
stationed himself in the manner already mentioned near Paulus's left
hand.

"Your father," rejoined Tiberius, after a pause, "was a very
distinguished soldier, and, as I always heard when a boy, he
contributed eminently to the victory of Philippi. But I knew not that
he had children; and, moreover, was he not slain, pray, at Philippi,
toward the end of the battle, which he certainly helped to gain?"

"I hope," said Paulus, somewhat softened by the praise of his father,
"I hope that Augustus supposed him to have died of his wounds, and
that it was only under this delusion he gave our estates--which were
situated somewhere in this very province of Campania, with a noble
mansion like the castellum upon the river yonder--to that brave and
able soldier Agrippa Vespasianus."

At this name a deep red flush over-spread the brow of Tiberius, and
Paulus innocently proceeded.

"Certainly, the noble Agrippa, who was to have been Caesar, had he
lived, never would have accepted so unfair a bounty had he known that
my father really survived his wounds, but that--despairing of the
generosity, or rather despairing of the equity of Augustus--he was
living a melancholy, exheridated exile, near that very battle-field
of Philippi, in Thrace, where he had fought so well and had been left
for dead."

"You dare to term the act of Augustus," slowly said the man in the
gore-colored purple cloak, "_so unfair a bounty_, and Augustus
himself _ungenerous, or rather unjust_?"

At this terrible rejoinder from such a man, the down-looking person
whom we have mentioned passed his right hand stealthily to the hilt
of the sword which he was carrying for his master, and half drew it.
Paulus, who for some time had had this person standing at his left,
could observe the action without turning his head. He was perfectly
aware, moreover, that, should the other draw his weapon upon him,
the very act of drawing it would itself become a blow, on account
of their respective places, whereas to escape it required more
distance between them, and to parry it in a regular way would demand
quite a different position, besides the needful moment or two for
disengaging his own rather long blade. Yet the youth stood completely
still; he never even turned his head. However, he just shifted the
wide-rimmed hat from his left to his right hand (the hand for the
sword) and thereby seemed to be only more encumbered, unprepared, and
defenceless than before. His left hand, with the back inward, fell
also meantime in an easy and natural way upon the emerald haft of the
outlandish-looking three-edged rapier, which, as he played with it,
became loose in the scabbard, and _came and went_ some fraction of an
inch.

"I never termed him so," said Paulus. "I said not this of Augustus. I
am at this moment on my way to Augustus himself, who is, I am told,
to be at Formiae with his court for a week or two. I must, therefore,
again ask your leave, mighty office-bearer, to continue my journey. I
know not so much as who you are."

"I am Tiberius Caesar," said the other, bending upon him those
closely-set, prominent, bloodshot eyes with no very assuring
expression. "I am Tiberius Caesar, and you will be pleased to wait one
moment before you continue the journey in question. The accusation
against your father was this: that, after Philippi, he labored for
the interests first of Sextus, the son of Pompey, and afterward of
Mark Antony, in their respective impious and parricidal struggles;
and the answer to this charge (a charge to which witnesses neither
were nor are wanting) has always been, that it was simply impossible,
seeing that Paulus Lepidus, your father, perished at Philippi before
the alleged treasons had occurred. Wherefore, as your father had
done good service, especially in the great battle where he was thus
supposed to have fallen, not only was his innocence declared certain,
but, for his memory's sake, Marcus Lepidus, the triumvir, your uncle,
was forgiven. Yet now we learn from you, the son of the accused,
that the only defence ever made for him is positively false; that
your father, were he still living, would probably merit to be put to
death; and that your uncle, at the same time, is stripped of the one
protecting circumstance which has preserved his head. I must order
your arrest, and that of all your party, in order that these things
may be at least fully investigated."

As this was said, the lady in the litter of ivory and gold
contemplated Paulus with that bewitching smile which she was
accustomed to bestow upon dying gladiators in the hippodrome; while
the other lady gazed at him with a compassionate, forecasting and
muse-like look.

"I mean no disrespect whatever to so great a man as you, sir; but I
will," said Paulus, "appeal from Tiberius Caesar to Caesar Augustus; to
whom, I again remind you, I am on my way."

No sooner had he uttered the words, "I appeal from Tiberius," than,
before he could finish the sentence, the malign-faced man on his left
with great suddenness drew the sword hew as carrying for Cneius Piso,
and, availing himself of the first natural sweep of the weapon as it
left the scabbard, sought to bring the edge of it backward across
the face of Paulus, exclaiming, while he did so, "_Speak you thus to
Caesar?_"

Had this man, who was the future assassin of Drusus, and slave to
Cneius Piso, who was the future assassin of Germanicus, succeeded in
delivering that well-meant stroke, the sentence which our hero was
addressing to Tiberius could never have been said out; but said out,
as we see, it was, and said, too, with due propriety of emphasis,
although with a singular accompanying delivery. In fact, though not
deigning to look round toward this man, Paulus had been vividly
aware of his movements, and, swift as was the attack, the defence
was truly electrical. Paulus's rapier, the hilt of which, as we have
remarked, had been for some time in his left hand, leapt from its
sheath, and being first held almost perpendicularly for one moment,
the point down and the hilt a little higher than his forehead, met
the murderous blow at right angles; after which the delicate long
blade flashed upward, with graceful ease but irresistible violence,
bearing the assassin's weapon backward upon a small semi-circle, and
remaining inside of it, or, in other words, nearer to Lygdus's body
than Piso's own sword, which he carried, was. It looked like a mere
continuation of this dazzling parry, but was, in truth, a vigorous
deviation from it, which none but a very pliant and powerful wrist
could have executed; when the emerald pommel fell like a hammer upon
the forehead of Lygdus the slave, whom that disdainful blow stretched
at his length upon the ground, motionless, and to all appearance
dead. As Piso was standing close, the steel guard of the hilt, in
passing, tore open his brow and cheek.

The whole occurrence occupied only five or seven seconds, and
meanwhile the youth finished his sentence with the words already
recorded, "From Tiberius Caesar to Caesar Augustus, to whom, I again
remind you, I am on my way."

An exclamation of astonishment, and perhaps some other feeling,
escaped from Tiberius. Sejanus smiled; the woman with the pale face
and black eyes, who sat in the unadorned plate-of-gold palanquin,
screamed; and the other ladies laughed loudly. Among the praetorian
guards, who from the road were watching with attention the group
where they saw their general and the Caesar, a long, low murmur of
approbation ran. At this, Tiberius turned and looked steadily and
musingly toward them. Paulus, instantly sheathing his weapon, said,

"I ask Caesar's pardon, but there was no time to obtain his permission
for what I have just done. My head must have been in two pieces had I
waited but one moment."

"Just half a moment for each piece," said Tiberius; "but your left
hand seems well able to keep your head. Are you left-handed?"

"No, great Caesar," said Paulus; "I am what my Greek teacher of fence
used to call two-handed, _dimachaerus_; he tried to make all his
pupils so, but my right remains far better than my left."

"Then I should like to see your right thoroughly exercised," said
Tiberius.

Paulus heard a sweet voice here say, "As a favor to me, do not
order the arrest of this brave youth;" and, turning, he beheld the
beautiful creature in the litter of ivory and gold plead for him with
Tiberius. The large blue eyes, darkening as she supplicated, smote
the youth, and he could hardly take away his gaze.

"Young man, go forward with your mother and sister to Formiae, under
the charge of Velleius Paterculus, the military tribune whom you see
yonder upon the road. Remain in Formiae till I give you leave to quit
it. Report your place of residence to the tribune. Go!"

The last word was pronounced harshly. Tiberius made a signal with his
hand to Paterculus. Then passing his arm through that of Sejanus,
and speaking to him in a low tone, he led the general aside into
the fields to a little distance; while--with the exception of two
mounted troopers, (each leading a horse,) who remained behind, but
considerably out of hearing--the praetorian guards, the three litters,
and the travelling _biga_ began to move toward Formiae, leaving the
road to silence, and the evening landscape to peace.

    TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Cicero, Legg. ii. 23.

[3] Plutarch in Pompey. Seneca, Epis. 64.

[4] Mother of Caligula, and grandmother of Nero, by her daughter
Agrippina Julia.

[5] To produce a gladiator in the arena was to _edit_ him.

[6] Pliny, Epis. iii. 21.




MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.[7]


There is, after all, but slight exaggeration in the old saying, that
a lie travels leagues while truth is putting on boots to pursue and
overtake it. And even when overtaken, caught, and choked, how hard
it dies! In our daily experience, how often does truthful exposure
utterly extinguish false and evil report? Certainly not always, and
probably but very seldom. In the intercourse of society, one may
partially crush out a calumny by going straight to those who should
know the truth and compelling them to listen to it.

But the lie historical cannot be so met. People in this busy world
have no time to spend in reading long documents in vindication of men
or women long since dead. But they have read the calumny? Certainly.
The calumny is not so long as the refutation, and is more readable.
It is attractive; it is piquant. Mary Stuart as an adulteress and a
murderess is an interesting character. People never tire of hearing
of her. But Mary Stuart, the upright queen, the noble and true
woman, the faithful spouse and affectionate mother, has but slight
attractions for the mass of readers. To hear her so proven must be
dull reading. Nevertheless, with time comes truth; for although

    "The mills of the gods grind slowly,
    They grind exceedingly fine;"

which we take to be only a modern, heathenish way of saying, as we
chant every Sunday at vespers,

    "_Et justitia ejus manet in seculum seculi._"

Look at the Galileo story. Galileo died more than two hundred years
ago. Yet it is only within a lifetime that the truth concerning him
began to dawn upon the English mind.

Mary Queen of Scots surrendered her soul to God and her head
to Elizabeth nearly three centuries ago, and the combat over
her reputation to-day rages as hot as ever. In the case of the
Florentine astronomer, there has been no strongly decided hereditary
transmission of the falsehood. In that of the Queen of Scotland every
inch of ground is obstinately fought, because her innocence means
the shame of England, the disgrace of Knox, the condemnation of the
ornaments of the Anglican and Puritan churches, and the infamy of
Elizabeth.

These enemies of Mary yet live in transmitted prejudices and powerful
hereditary interests. The very existence of all the boasting, pride,
false reputation, hypocritical piety, and national vanity represented
by the familiar catchwords of "Our Noble Harry," "Glorious Queen
Bess," "The Virgin Queen," "Our Sainted Reformers," has its
inspiration and life-breath in the maintenance of every calumny
against Mary Stuart and the Catholic Church of that day; and we must
do these supporters the credit of admitting that they are instant in
season and out of season, and never weary in their work.

But their case was long since made up. They have said their last
word, and shot all the arrows of their quiver. With each succeeding
year Elizabeth's reputation fails, and is rapidly passing into
disgrace. With the same rapidity Mary's fame grows brighter.

The books and pamphlets written in attack or defence of Mary would
of themselves form a library. For the attack, the key-note is to
be found in Cecil's avowed principle concerning the treatment of
the dethroned queen, that _their purpose could not be obtained
without disgracing her_. Hence, the silver-casket letters, and the
so-called confessions of Paris. Hence, the issue, during every year
of her long imprisonment of eighteen years, of some vile pamphlet,
under Cecil's instructions, calculated to blast her character. Two
men in particular powerfully contributed to defame the Queen of
Scots--John Knox and George Buchanan. Knox by his sermons, in which,
says Russel, (_History of the Reformation_, vol. i. p. 292,) "lying
strives with rage;" Buchanan, by his writings, which have been
made by Mary's enemies one of the sources of history. Buchanan was
an apostate monk, saved from the gallows by Mary, and loaded with
her favors. An eye-witness of her dignity, her goodness, and her
purity, he afterward described her as the vilest of women. He sold
his pen to Elizabeth, and has been properly described as "unrivalled
in baseness, peerless in falsehood, supreme in ingratitude."
His _Detection_ was published (1570) in Latin, and copies were
immediately sent by Cecil to Elizabeth's ambassador in Paris with
instructions to circulate them; "_for they will come to good effect
to disgrace her, which must be done before other purposes can be
obtained_."

This shameful work has been the inspiration of most of the portraits
drawn of Mary. De Thou in France, Spotiswoode, Jebb, and many others
in England, have all followed him. Holinshed too was deceived by
Buchanan; but it is doubtful if he dared write otherwise than he did,
between the terrors of Cecil's spies and Elizabeth's mace.

An English translation of Buchanan was first published in 1690, being
called forth by the revolution of 1688. Jebb's two folio volumes
appeared in 1725.

Two additional lives of Mary, by Heywood (1725) and Freebairn, were
little more than translations from the French. In 1726, Edward
Simmons published Mary's forged letters as genuine. Anderson's
voluminous collection of papers (four large volumes) appeared in
1727 and 1728. Meantime, from the accession of a new dynasty and the
rebellion of 1715, there arose in Edinburgh a sort of society having
for its principal object the work of supporting Buchanan's credit and
vilifying the Scottish queen. Later came the well-known and widely
published histories of Scotland and of England by Robertson and Hume,
which, read wherever the English language was known, may be said to
have popularized the culpability of Mary. Until within comparatively
few years, Hume's work was the only history of England generally read
in the United States. Then came Malcolm Laing, who imagined he had
closed the controversy against Mary in his bitter _Dissertation_.
Mignet, in France, went further than Laing, while Froude, in his
history of England, distancing all previous writers, portrays Mary
in the blackest colors as one of the most criminal and devilish of
women. For his material there is no statement so absurd, no invention
so gross, no lie so palpable, no calumny so vile, provided only that
it be to the prejudice of Mary Stuart, that does not find favor in
his eyes. In his blind hatred of the Catholic queen, forgetting all
historic dignity and even personal decency, he showers upon her such
epithets as "panther," "ferocious animal," "wild-cat," "brute;" her
persecutors being white-robed saints, such as "the pious Cecil,"
and "the noble and stainless Murray," and the virgin Queen Elizabeth
appearing "as a beneficent fairy coming out of the clouds to rescue
an erring sister."

But Mary's cause has not wanted defenders. Among the best known
are, John Leslie, Bishop of Ross; Camden and Carte, the English
historians; Herrera, the Spanish bishop; Robert Keith; Goodall,
(1754,) who made the first searching analysis of the silver-casket
letters, showing that the French text of the pretended Bothwell
love-letters, until then supposed to be original, was a poor
translation from the Latin or Scotch. William Tytler (1759) and
John Whitaker (1788) proved that the letters were forged by those
who produced them. Stuart, in his history of Scotland, (1762,) and
Mademoiselle Keraglio, in her _Life of Elizabeth_, (1786,) both
protested against the conclusions of Hume and Robertson. In 1818,
George Chalmers took up Laing's book, and proved conclusively, with
a mass of newly-discovered testimony, that the accusers of Mary were
themselves the murderers of Darnley. Then followed the learned Dr.
Lingard, Guthrie, and H. Glassford Bell. But all these works were
either too heavy and cumbrous for popular reading, or too narrow
in their scope; most of them being better prepared for reference
than for reading, and of but slight effective service in the field
occupied by Hume and Robertson. Miss Strickland's work is well known
to all our readers, and has done much good. In 1866, Mr. McNeel
Caird published _Mary Stuart, her Guilt or Innocence_, in which he
effectively defends Mary and seriously damages Mr. Froude's veracity.

A most valuable historical contribution is the late work (1869) of
M. Jules Gauthier. The first volume is out and the second will be
issued in a few months. M. Gauthier says that after reading the
work of M. Mignet, he had no doubt that Queen Mary had assassinated
her husband in order to avenge the death of Riccio. "I was,
therefore, surprised," he continues, "on arriving at Edinburgh, in
1861, to hear Mary warmly defended, and reference made to documents
recently discovered that were strongly in her favor. I then formed
the resolution to study for myself this historical problem and to
discover the truth. I had no idea of writing a book, and no motive
but that of satisfying my own curiosity. I have devoted several
years solely to this object in Scotland, England, and Spain." M.
Gauthier then gives a formidable list of authorities and manuscripts
not usually quoted, acknowledges the aid of the librarians of the
legal library at Edinburgh, the learned Mr. Robertson of the Register
House, Robert Chambers, and the archivist of Simancas, Don Emanuel
Gonzalez, and announces the result to be a complete change of
opinion. He goes on to say that, before examining all the documents
of the trial, he had no doubt of the guilt of Mary Stuart; but after
having scrutinized and compared them, he remained and still remains
convinced that it was solely to assure the fruit of their shameful
victory that the barons, who had dethroned their queen with England's
help, sought to throw upon her the crimes of which they themselves
were the authors or the accomplices, and in which their auxiliaries
were Elizabeth and her ministers.

But what is of far greater importance, M. Gauthier announces the
discovery among the Simancas MSS. of documents that prove beyond
all question that the silver-casket letters were forgeries. This
important revelation he promises for the second volume. Preceding
M. Gauthier in time, M. Wiesener, another French writer, had, in an
admirable _critique_, demolished the foundations on which rest most
of the calumnies against Mary Stuart.

And now we have Mr. Hosack's work. There is a beautiful poetic
justice in the fact that the most effective defences of Mary
Stuart, in the English language, come from Protestant pens, and
that in Scotland among the sons of the Puritans are found her most
enthusiastic advocates. Mr. Hosack is an Edinburgh lawyer, and a
Protestant.

His book, written in a tone of legal calmness and dignity, stands
in refreshing contrast with Mr. Froude's savage bitterness and
repulsive violence, and seriously damages any credit that may be
claimed for the latter as a historian. Entirely at home in the
customs, localities, laws, and history of Scotland, he throws
unexpected light on a hundred interesting points heretofore left in
obscurity by foreign, and even English historians. Mr. Hosack also
produces many valuable documents never before published. Among these
are the specific charges preferred against Mary at the conference
at Westminster in 1568. The "Articles" produced by Mary's accusers
before they exhibited their proofs to the commissioners of Queen
Elizabeth, although constantly referred to by historians, are nowhere
to be found among all the voluminous collections heretofore published
on the subject. Mr. Hosack discovered this valuable paper in the
collection known as the Hopetoun Manuscripts, which are now in the
custody of the lord clerk register. Another most interesting document
presented by Mr. Hosack is one long supposed to be lost, namely,
the journal of the proceedings at Westminster on the day upon which
the silver casket containing the alleged letters of Queen Mary to
Bothwell was produced. Then comes the inventory of the jewels of the
Queen of Scots, attached to her last will and testament, made in
1566, when Mary was supposed to be dying. This paper has been but
recently discovered in the Register House, Edinburgh. It is of high
importance, as throwing light on a disputed point concerning Darnley.
Finally, with the aid of Professor Schiern, of Copenhagen, Mr. Hosack
has succeeded in ascertaining the date of the capture of Nicholas
Hubert, commonly called "French Paris." This point is also weighty in
connection with the question of the authenticity of the deposition
ascribed to him. The English critics of Mr. Hosack's book--many of
them partisans of Froude, and armed in the triple steel of their
national prejudice--are unanimous in praise of his research, and the
able presentation of his argument. Mr. Hosack distinctly charges Mr.
Froude with "inventing fictions," and, moreover, sustains the charge.
The aim of Mr. Hosack's work is not so much to write the life of Mary
Stuart as to demonstrate that her accusers were guilty of the very
crime (the murder of Darnley) of which they charge her, and that she
was innocent, not only of that, but of any intrigue with Bothwell.
Passing over in silence the period of Mary's residence in France, our
author rapidly glances at the salient points in the administration of
Mary of Lorraine, the mother of Mary Stuart, an admirable character,
whose energy, integrity, resolution, and fortitude would have adorned
the character of the greatest sovereign that ever reigned. Mr. Hosack
thus speaks of her death:

    "The words of the dying princess, at once so magnanimous and
    gentle, were listened to with deep emotion by the Protestant
    chiefs, who, though in arms against her authority, all
    acknowledged and admired her private virtues. Amidst the tears
    of her enemies, thus died the best and wisest woman of the age."

Knox alone, adds Mr. Hosack, sought by means of the most loathsome
slanders to vilify the character of this excellent princess; and it
was no doubt at his instigation that the rites of Christian burial
were denied to her remains in Scotland. Mr. Hosack then takes up the
history of Mary from the period of her arrival in Scotland, and ends
with the commencement of her imprisonment in England.

Mary came to reign over a country virtually in the power of a band of
violent and rapacious lords, long in rebellion against their king.
Of the five royal Jameses, three had perished, victims of their
aristocratic anarchy. The personal piety of these rebellious lords
was infinitesimal; but they had an enormous appreciation of Henry
VIII.'s plunder of the monasteries and division of the church lands
among the nobles, and desired to see Scotland submitted to the same
regimen--they, of course, becoming ardent reformers. The young queen
soon won the hearts of the people of Edinburgh by her sweetness and
grace. One of her first experiences was the remarkable interview with
Knox, in which he bore himself as properly became "the ruffian of
the Reformation," while Mary, a girl of nineteen, utterly overcame
him in self-possession, logic, and command of citation from the Old
Testament. The man was brimful of vanity. The wound rankled, and from
that moment he was Mary Stuart's personal enemy.

Long before Mary's arrival, Knox and his friends had obtained full
sway. The reformers had destroyed the monastic establishments in the
central counties, and, under the influence of Knox, had an "act"
passed for the total destruction of what they called "monuments
of superstition;" the monuments of superstition in question being
all that Scotland possessed of what was most valuable in art and
venerable in architecture.

"The registers of the church, and the libraries," says Spotiswoode,
"were cast into the fire. In a word, all was ruined; and what had
escaped in the time of the first tumult, did now undergo the common
calamity." In his sermons, Knox openly denounced Mary, not only as
an incorrigible idolatress, but as an enemy whose death would be
a public boon. In equally savage style he fulminated against the
amusements of the court, and dwelt especially on the deadly sin of
dancing. And yet Knox--we must in candor admit it--was not totally
indifferent to some social amenities, for he was then paying his
addresses to a young girl of sixteen, whom he afterward married.
Mary had freely accorded to her Protestant subjects the privilege
of worshipping God according to their own creed; but it did not
enter into the views of Knox and his co-religionists that the same
privilege should be accorded to Mary in the land of which she was
sovereign, and with great difficulty could she obtain the right
to a private chapel at Holyrood--even this being interfered with,
and the officiating priest afterward insulted, beaten, and driven
away. And these Christian gentlemen did not stop here. They had the
insolence and inhumanity to present to the queen what they called a
"supplication," in which they declared that the practice of idolatry
could not be tolerated in the sovereign any more than in the subject,
and that the "papistical and blasphemous mass" should be wholly
abolished. To this, Mary's reply was that, answering for herself,
she was noways persuaded that there was any impiety in the mass,
and trusted her subjects would not press her to act against her
conscience; for, not to dissemble, but to deal plainly with them, she
neither might nor would forsake the religion wherein she had been
educated and brought up, believing the same to be the true religion,
and grounded on the word of God. She further advised her "loving
subjects" that she, "neither in times past nor yet in time coming,
did intend to force the conscience of any person; but to permit every
one to serve God in such a manner as they are persuaded to be the
best." On this, Mr. Hosack remarks, "Nothing could exceed the savage
rudeness of the language of the assembly. Nothing could exceed the
dignity and moderation of the queen's reply."

The enemies of Mary Stuart always seek to find excuse for the
rebellious outrages of the lords and the kirk in the design
attributed to Mary Stuart of introducing Catholicity to the
exclusion of Protestantism. Mr. Hosack handles this portion of
his subject with great ease and success, showing conclusively the
admirable spirit of toleration that animated Mary throughout. Then
follow the marriage of Mary with Darnley; the rebellion of Murray,
Argyll, and others to deprive the queen of her crown; the energy,
ability, and admirable judgment of Mary in dealing with them, and
the consummate hypocrisy and falsehood of Elizabeth in feigning
good-will to Mary while furnishing the rebels money and assistance.
The French ambassador in London had discovered that six thousand
crowns had been sent from the English treasury to the Scotch rebels.
The fact was positive. He mentioned it to Elizabeth in person; but
she solemnly assured him, with an oath, (_elle nia avec serment_,)
that he was misinformed. There were strong reasons why Elizabeth
would not have it believed that she had lent the rebel lords any
countenance, and she therefore got up a remarkable scene for the
purpose. The French and Spanish ambassadors had charged her in plain
terms with stirring up dissensions in Scotland, and she desired to
reply to the imputation in the most public and emphatic manner.
Murray and Hamilton were summoned to appear, and in presence of the
ambassadors and her own ministers she asked them whether she had ever
encouraged them in their rebellion. Murray began to reply in Scotch,
when Elizabeth stopped him, bidding him speak in French, which she
better understood. The scene was arranged beforehand. Murray fell
on his knees and declared "that her majesty had never moved them to
any opposition or resistance against the queen's marriage." "Now,"
exclaimed Elizabeth in her most triumphant tone, "you have told the
truth; for neither did I, nor any one in my name, stir you up against
your queen; for your abominable treason may serve for example to
my own subjects to rebel against me. Therefore get you out of my
presence; ye are but unworthy traitors." This astounding exhibition
of meanness, and falsehood, and folly, which it is certain, says Mr.
Hosack, imposed upon no one who witnessed it, is without a parallel
in history.

Mary's energy and prudence in suppressing this dangerous rebellion
sufficiently refute a prevalent notion that she was indebted to the
counsels of Murray for the previous success of her administration.
Even Robertson admits that at no period of her career were her
abilities and address more conspicuous. And more remarkable than her
ability in gaining success was the moderation with which she used it.
Not one of the rebels suffered death, and her speedy pardon of the
Duke of Chatelherault, a conspirator against her crown, of which he
was the presumptive heir, was an instance of generosity unexampled in
the history of princes.

The accusation against Mary of having signed the Catholic League,
put forward by so many historians--Froude, of course, among them--is
clearly shown by Mr. Hosack to be utterly untrue. She never joined
it. By this refusal she maintained her solemn promises to her
Protestant subjects--the chief of whom remained her staunchest friend
in the days of her misfortune. She averted religious discord from
her dominions, and posterity will applaud the wisdom as well as the
magnitude of the sacrifice which she made at this momentous crisis.

Then comes the murder of Riccio, which is generally attributed to
the jealousy of Darnley and the personal hatred of the nobles. These
motives, if they ever existed at all, were but secondary with the
conspirators who contrived Riccio's death.

Their main objects were the restoration of the rebel lords, the
deposition of the queen, and the elevation of Darnley to the vacant
throne, on which he would have been their puppet.

Mr. Hosack traces, step by step, the progress of the conspiracy, and
the bargaining and traffic among the conspirators for their several
rewards. There was a bond of the conspirators among themselves, a
bond with Darnley, and one with the rebel leaders who waited events
at Newcastle. Elizabeth's ministers in Scotland were taken into their
confidence and counsels, as was also John Knox, while Elizabeth was
advised of and approved it. Many years ago, a Catholic convent was
burned in Boston--with what circumstances of atrocity we do not
now desire to recall. On the Sunday preceding the outrage, exciting
sermons were delivered on the horrors of popery from more than one
Protestant pulpit. So, also, on the Sunday preceding the murder of
Riccio, the denunciations of idolatry from the pulpits of Edinburgh
were more than usually violent, and the texts were chosen from
those portions of Scripture which describe the vengeance incurred
by the persecutors of God's people. The 12th of March was the day
fixed for the parliament before which the rebel lords were cited to
appear, under pain of the forfeiture of their titles and estates.
This forfeiture the conspirators were resolved to prevent, and chose
the 9th of March to kill Riccio. They could have assassinated him
at any time on the street, in the grounds, in his own room; but the
lords selected the hour just after supper when Riccio would be in
attendance upon the queen, in order to kill him in her presence,
doubtless with hope of the result of her death and that of her unborn
babe from the agitation and affright that must ensue from such a
scene. _The contingency of Mary's death was provided for in the
bond._ We need not here repeat the horrible details of the scene in
which, while a ruffian (Ker of Faudonside) pressed a cocked pistol
to her breast until she felt the cold iron through her dress, the
hapless victim of brutal prejudice and bigotry, whose only crime was
fidelity to his queen, was dragged from her presence and instantly
butchered. Nor need we describe the fiendish exultation and savage
conduct of the assassins toward a sick, defenceless woman.

    "Machiavelli," remarks Mr. Hosack, "never conceived--he has
    certainly not described--a plot more devilish in its designs
    than that which was devised ostensibly for the death of Riccio,
    but in reality for the destruction both of Mary Stuart and her
    husband."

For two days the noble assassins appeared to have been entirely
successful. Riccio was killed, the parliament was dissolved, the
banished lords recalled, and the queen a prisoner. But her amazing
spirit and resolution scattered all their plans to the winds. The
poor fool Darnley began to see the treachery of the men who had made
him their tool, and Mary fully opened his eyes to his danger. At
midnight on the Tuesday after the murder, the queen and Darnley crept
down through a secret passage to the cemetery of the royal chapel
of Holyrood and made their way "through the charnel house, among
the bones and skulls of the ancient kings," to where horses and a
small escort stood waiting for them. Twenty miles away Mary galloped
to Dunbar, where, within three days, eight thousand border spears
assembled to defend her.

The assassins, Morton, Ruthven, and their associates, fled to
England, where, under Elizabeth's wing, they were of course safe.
Maitland went to the Highlands, and Knox, grieving deeply over the
discomfiture of his friends, took his departure for the west.

The complicity of Murray,

    "The head of many a felon plot,
    But never once the arm,"

was not known, and he was pardoned his rebellion, and again received
by Mary into her confidence. This is the Murray constantly referred
to by Mr. Froude in his History of England as "the noble Murray,"
"the stainless Murray"--a man who, for systematic, thorough-going
villainy and treachery has not his superior in history.

Darnley, with an audacity and recklessness of consequences which
seem hardly compatible with sanity, made a solemn declaration to the
effect that he was wholly innocent of the late murderous plot.

The indignation of his associates in the crime knew no bounds. He
alone, they said, had caused the failure of the enterprise; he had
deserted them, and now sought to purchase his safety in their ruin.
From that moment his fate was sealed.

Buchanan's famous lie concerning Mary's visit to the Castle of Alloa,
which, to his shame, Mr. Froude substantially repeats, is disposed of
effectually in a few words by Mr. Hosack.

The ride from Jedburg, too, as recounted by Buchanan in his own
peculiar style, repeated by Robertson and by Froude, as far as he
dares, in the teeth of the testimony on the subject, also receives
its _quietus_ at Mr. Hosack's hands.

Then follow the dangerous illness of Mary, the aggravating and fatal
misconduct of Darnley, the poor queen's mental suffering and anxiety,
the preliminary plotting by Murray, Maitland, Argyll, and Huntly to
put Darnley out of the way, the signing of the bond among them for
the murder of the "young fool and tyrant," and the insidious attempt
by these scoundrels to entrap the poor heart-broken Mary into some
such expression of impatience or violence against Darnley as would
enable them to set up the charge of guilty knowledge against her. The
conspirators themselves have put on record the noble and Christian
reply of Mary Stuart, "I will that ye do nothing through which any
spot may be laid on my honor or conscience; and therefore, I pray
you, rather let the matter be in the state that it is, abiding till
God of his goodness put remedy thereto."

Following upon the baptism of the infant prince, who afterward
became James VI. of Scotland, came the unfortunately too successful
endeavors of Murray, Maitland, Bothwell, and Queen Elizabeth to
obtain the pardon of the Riccio murderers.

Poor Mary's political success would have been assured if she had
possessed but a small share of Elizabeth's hardness of heart and
vindictiveness. Always generous, always noble, always forgiving,
she allowed herself to be persuaded to grant a pardon to these
villains--seventy-six in number--excepting only George Douglas, who
stabbed Riccio in presence of the queen, and Ker of Faudonside, who
held his pistol at her breast during the perpetration of the murder.
This ruffian remained safely in England until Mary's downfall, when
he returned to Scotland and married the widow of John Knox.

It was about this period that Buchanan was extolling to the skies, in
such Latin verses as those beginning

    "Virtute ingenio, regina, et munere formae
    Felicibus felicior majoribus,"

the virtues of a sovereign whom he afterward told us every one knew
at the time to be a monster of lust and cruelty! His libel was
written when Mary was a fugitive in England, to serve the purposes
of his employers, who had driven her from her native kingdom. The
most assiduous of her flatterers as long as she was on the throne,
he pursued her with the malice of a demon when she became a helpless
prisoner. His slanders were addressed not to his own countrymen, for
whom they would have been too gross, but to Englishmen, for the great
majority of whom Scotland was a _terra incognita_. His monstrous
fictions were copied by Knox and De Thou, and later by Robertson,
Laing, and Mignet, who, while using his material, carefully abstained
from quoting him as authority. Mr. Froude, the author of that popular
serial novel which he strangely entitles _The History of England_,
with delicious _naivete_ declares his belief in the truth of
Buchanan's _Detection_, and makes its transparent mendacity a leading
feature of his work.

According to Buchanan, the Queen of Scots was, at the period above
referred to, leading a life of the most notorious profligacy. Mr.
Hosack, in his calm, lawyer-like manner, shows conclusively that
at that very time she never stood higher in the estimation both
of her own subjects and of her partisans in England. Considering
the difficulties of her position, he adds, Mary had conducted the
government of Scotland with remarkable prudence and success; and her
moderation in matters of religion induced even the most powerful of
the Protestant nobility to regard her claims with favor.

And still the plotting went on. Motives enough, for them, had
Murray, Morton, Maitland, and the rest to seek the destruction of
Darnley--revenge and greed of gain. These men had imposed upon the
generous nature of the queen in the disposal of the crown lands, and
they well knew that Darnley had made no secret of his disapproval of
the improvident bounty of his wife. These grants of the crown lands,
under the law of Scotland, could be revoked at any time before the
queen attained the age of twenty-five. That period was now at hand,
and the danger of their losing their spoils under the influence of
Darnley was imminent.

He had just been taken down with the small-pox at Glasgow, and the
conspirators, well knowing Mary's forgiving temper, feared, as well
they might, that his illness would lead to a reconciliation between
them.

Although Bothwell had shared less in the bounty of the queen than
the others, his motive was no less powerful for seeking the death of
Darnley. He aspired to Darnley's place as the queen's husband, and
his ambition was no secret to Murray and the others. Full willingly
they lent themselves to aid him, knowing that, if successful, his
plans would be fatal both to the queen and to himself.

Queen Mary went from Edinburgh to Glasgow, to visit Darnley on his
sick-bed. On this visit hinges a mass of accusations against Mary
by her enemies. We regret that the passages of Mr. Hosack's book in
which he dissects and analyzes all the evidence covering the period
from the journey to Glasgow down to the explosion at Kirk-a-field are
too long to be copied here. They are masterly, and more thoroughly
dispose of the slanders than any statement we have seen. He moreover
demonstrates that the queen's journey to Glasgow, heretofore
relied on as a proof of her duplicity because she went uninvited,
was undertaken at Darnley's own urgent request. It is during this
visit to Glasgow that Mary is charged with having written the two
casket letters, which, if genuine, certainly would prove her to be
accessory to the murder of her husband. With thorough knowledge of
Scotch localities, language, customs, and peculiarities, and with a
perfect mastery of all the details of testimony, _pro_ and _con_,
in existence on the subject--a mastery which Mr. Froude is far
from possessing--Mr. Hosack makes the examination of this question
of the genuineness of the Glasgow letters with an application of
the laws of evidence that enables him--if we may be permitted the
homely phrase--to turn them inside out. Contrasted with the sweet,
trusting, child-like confidence with which the letters are received
by Mr. Froude, Mr. Hosack's treatment of them is shockingly cool. In
commenting upon Hume's opinion that the style of the second Glasgow
letter was inelegant but "natural," Mr. Hosack remarks that human
depravity surely has its limits, and the most hardened wretches
do not boast, and least of all in writing, of their treachery and
cruelty. Even in the realm of fiction we find no such revolting
picture.

Of the third letter, the historian Robertson long since remarked
that, "if Mary's adversaries forged her letters, they were certainly
employed very idly when they produced this." And this remark may
correctly be applied to the fourth letter. The difference between
the two first and the two last is the most striking. The Glasgow
letters breathe only lust and murder; but these are written, to all
appearance, by a wife to her husband, in very modest and becoming
language. She gently reproaches him with his forgetfulness, and
with the coldness of his writings, sends him a gift in testimony of
her unchangeable affection, and finally describes herself as his
obedient, lawful wife. This is not the language of a murderess, and
these simple and tender thoughts were not traced by the same hand
that composed the Glasgow letters. They are the genuine letters of
Mary, not to Bothwell, but to her husband Darnley, and they are here
by result of an ingenious device to mix up a few genuine letters
of Mary with those intended to prove her guilty of the murder. The
only letters of importance as testimony against the queen are the
two first, and they were conclusively proven by Goodall, more than a
century ago, to have been written originally in Scotch.

Concerning Paris, whose testimony is strongly relied on by Mary's
enemies, Mr. Hosack has made a very important discovery. According
to a letter of Murray to Queen Elizabeth, Paris arrived in Leith (a
prisoner) about the middle of June, 1569. But Professor Schiern, of
Copenhagen, in compliance with a request made by Mr. Hosack to search
the Danish archives for any papers relating to Scotland, found the
receipt of Clark, Murray's agent, acknowledging the delivery to him
of the prisoner Paris on the 30th of October, 1568. So that Paris
was delivered up nearly a year before his so-called deposition was
produced. The authenticity of his deposition, monstrous though it be,
has been stoutly maintained by several of Mary's enemies. Even Hume
remarks upon it,

    "It is in vain at present to seek improbabilities in Nicolas
    Hubert's dying confession, and to magnify the smallest
    difficulty into a contradiction. It was certainly a regular
    judicial paper, given in regularly and judicially, and ought
    to have been canvassed at the time, if the persons whom it
    concerned had been assured of their own innocence."

Mr. Hume is an attractive writer, but as a historian it is long since
people ceased to rely upon him for facts. The passage here quoted is
a characteristic exemplification of his extraordinary carelessness.
According to Mr. Hosack, the short sentence cited contains three
distinct and palpable mistakes. In the first place, the paper
containing the depositions of Paris was authenticated by no judicial
authority. Secondly, it was not given in regularly and judicially;
for it was secretly sent to London in October, 1569, many months
after the termination of the Westminster conferences. Lastly, it was
impossible that it could have been canvassed at the time by those
whom it concerned; for it was not only kept a profound secret from
the queen and her friends during her life, but it was not made public
for nearly a century and a half after her death. The depositions of
Paris were first given to the world in the collections of Anderson in
1725.

It did not at all suit Murray's purpose to produce Paris in open
court. So, after being tortured, he was executed, and in place of
a witness who might have told what he saw and heard, was produced
a so-called deposition professedly written by a servant of Murray,
and attested by two of his creatures, Buchanan and Wood, both
pensioners of Cecil, and both enemies of the Queen of Scotland.
Buchanan, of course, had full cognizance of the Paris deposition,
for he subscribed it as a witness; and yet we have the singular fact
that, although he appended to his _Detectio_ the depositions of Hay,
Hepburn, and Dalgleish, that of Paris is omitted. Again, in his
_History of Scotland_, published subsequently, although he refers to
Paris in several passages, he is still silent as to his deposition.
The solution of this seeming singularity is simple. He rejected
it for its manifest extravagance and absurdity, which, he wisely
concluded, could not impose on the worst enemies of the queen.

Fable and fiction answering Mr. Froude's purpose just as well
as authentic history, he of course accepts the "Paris" paper as
perfectly true. A successful writer of the romance of history, Mr.
Froude deserves great credit for his industry in gathering every
variety of material for his novel without any absurd sentimental
squeamishness as to its origin.

And now, little by little, the truth begins to come out. For full
two years after the murder of Darnley, no one was publicly charged
with the crime but Bothwell and the queen. And this because it was
the interest of the ruling faction in Scotland, (themselves the
murderers,) to confine the accusation to these two persons. But as in
time events develop, we find the leaders of this faction, quarrelling
among themselves, begin to accuse each other of the crime, until the
principal nobility of Scotland are implicated in it. Mr. Hosack's
conclusion, from a searching analysis of all the evidence on record,
is, that the mysterious assassination of Darnley was not a domestic
but a political crime; and it was one which for many a day secured
political power to that faction which from the first had opposed
his marriage, and had never ceased from the time of his arrival in
Scotland to lay plots for his destruction.

As might be expected, Mary's enemies accuse her of a criminal degree
of inactivity after the death of her husband. But what could she do?
Who were the murderers? No one could tell. The whole affair was then
involved in impenetrable mystery. Her chief officers of justice,
Huntly the chancellor, and Argyll the lord-justice, were both in the
plot; Bothwell, the sheriff of the county, on whom should devolve
the pursuit and arrest of the criminal, had taken an active share in
the perpetration of the murder, and Maitland, the secretary, who had
first proposed to get rid of Darnley, was probably the most guilty
of all. In a memorial afterward addressed by Mary to the different
European courts, she thus describes the situation: "Her majesty could
not but marvel at the little diligence they used, and that they
looked at one another as men who wist not what they say or do."

And now calumny ran riot. Slanderous tongues and pens were busy.
Since Mary had dismissed the insolent Randolph from her court,
Elizabeth had maintained no ambassador there, so that the usual
official _espionage_ could not be carried on. Instead thereof, Sir
William Drury, stationed on the Scotch border, transmitted day by
day a current of scandalous stories. Mary was a woman, and her
enemies might effect by slander what they could not accomplish by
force. Then, too, a bigoted religious prejudice made the work easy.
No matter, says our author, what was the nature of the accusation
against a Catholic queen; so long as it was boldly made and
frequently repeated, it was sure to gain a certain amount of credit
in the end. Here follows, in Mr. Hosack's pages, an able presentation
of contemporary testimony going to show the falsehood of the
accusations that the queen was at this time on a footing of intimate
understanding with Bothwell. Under the circumstances his trial was,
of course, a farce.

The most powerful men in Scotland were his associates in guilt.
One of his noble accomplices in the murder rode by his side to
the Talbooth. Another accomplice, the Earl of Argyll, hereditary
lord-justice, presided at the trial; and the Earl of Caithness, a
near connection of Bothwell by marriage, was foreman of the jury.
The parliament which met soon after did little, besides passing the
Act of Toleration, but enact statutes confirming Maitland, Huntly,
Morton, and Murray in their titles and estates. As we have seen, this
was precisely the main object sought by these men in the murder of
Darnley, an object passed over in silence by most historians, and
not understood by others. Their common interest in his death was the
strongest bond of union among the noble assassins. If Darnley had
lived, he would have prevented the confirmation of these grants; for
he had made significant threats on that subject, especially as to the
gifts to Murray. Murray and the others wanted the lands and titles.
They obtained them. Bothwell had his own designs, and these were
insolent in their ambition. He wanted the queen's hand in marriage
as a step to the throne. It was but just that his companions should
help him as he had aided them. On the evening of the day on which
parliament rose, (April 19th,) Both well gave an entertainment at
a tavern in Edinburgh to a large party of the nobility. After wine
had circulated freely, he laid before his guests a bond for their
signatures. This document recited that it was prejudicial to the
realm that the queen should remain a widow; and it recommended
him, (Bothwell,) a married man, as the fittest husband she could
obtain among her subjects. With a solitary exception--the Earl of
Eglinton--all the lords present signed this infamous bond, and
thereby bound themselves to "further advance and set forward the
said marriage," and to risk their lives and goods against all who
should seek to hinder or oppose it. It is claimed by Mr. Froude that
his special saint, "the noble and stainless Murray," did not sign
this bond; but it is now made plain that he did. Meantime calumny
had free scope, and no invention was too gross for belief by many,
if it but carried with it some injury to Mary's reputation. Thus,
she is accused of journeying to Stirling for the express purpose
of poisoning her infant son. Poor Marie Antoinette in after years,
as we know, was accused of something worse than taking the life
of her child. The answer of these two Catholic queens, great in
their sufferings, and grand in their resignation, was, in each
case, an eloquent burst of nature and queenly dignity. "The natural
love," said Mary Stuart, "which the mother bears to her only bairn
is sufficient to confound them, and needs no other answer." She
afterward added, that all the world knew that the very men who now
charged her with this atrocious crime had wronged her son even before
his birth; for they would have slain him in her womb, although they
now pretended in his name to exercise their usurped authority.

On the 23d of April, while travelling from Linlithgow to Edinburgh,
with a few attendants, the queen was stopped by Bothwell, at the head
of one thousand horse. Bothwell rode up, caught her bridle-rein,
and assured her that "she was in the greatest possible danger," and
forthwith escorted her to one of her own castles, Dunbar. Here she
was kept a prisoner. Melville, who accompanied her, was sent away,
having heard Bothwell boast that he would marry the queen, even
"whether she would herself or not." No woman was allowed near her but
Bothwell's sister.

Although our readers are familiar with the horrible story, the best
account of it is, after all, Mary's own simple and modest narrative
of the abominable outrage. It is found in Keith, vol. ii. p. 599,
and in Hosack, p. 313. After referring to the great services and
unshaken loyalty of Bothwell, she says that, previous to her visit to
Stirling, he had made certain advances, "to which her answer was in
no degree correspondent to his desire;" but that, having previously
obtained the consent of the nobility to the marriage, he did not
hesitate to carry her off to the castle of Dunbar; that when she
reproached him for his audacity, he implored her to attribute his
conduct to the ardor of his affection, and to condescend to accept
him as her husband, in accordance with the wishes of his brother
nobles; that he then, to her amazement, laid before her the bond
of the nobility, declaring that it was essential to the peace and
welfare of the kingdom that she should choose another husband, and
that, of all her subjects, Bothwell was best deserving of that honor;
that she still, notwithstanding, refused to listen to his proposals,
believing that, as on her former visit to Dunbar, an army of loyal
subjects would speedily appear for her deliverance; but that, as day
after day passed without a sword being drawn in her defence, she was
forced to conclude that the bond was genuine, and that her chief
nobility were all in league with Bothwell; and finally, that, finding
her a helpless captive, he assumed a bolder tone, and "so ceased he
never till, by persuasion and importunate suit, _accompanied not the
less by force_, he has finally driven us to end the work begun."
Forced to marry Bothwell Mary was, to all who saw her, an utterly
wretched woman, and longed only for death. The testimony on this
point is very ample, and her behavior at this crisis of her history,
concludes Mr. Hosack, can only be explained by her rooted aversion
to a marriage which was forced upon her by the daring ambition of
Bothwell and the matchless perfidy of his brother nobles.

But already a fresh plot was on foot. Melville wrote to Cecil
concerning it, on the 7th of May; and on the following day, Kirkaldy
of Grange sent to the Earl of Bedford a letter intended for
Elizabeth's eye. Kirkaldy, the Laird of Grange, an ardent Protestant,
who, at the age of nineteen, was one of the men who murdered Cardinal
Beaton, enjoyed among his fellow-nobles the reputation of being
a man of honor, and the best and bravest soldier in Scotland. He
advised Bedford of the signing of a "bond" by "the most part of the
nobility," one head of which was, "to seek the liberty of the queen,
who is ravished and detained by the Earl of Bothwell;" another, "to
pursue them that murdered the king." The letter concludes by asking
Elizabeth's aid and support for "suppressing of the cruel murtherer
Bothwell." But Elizabeth had lost not only much money, but all credit
for veracity, by her last interference in Scottish affairs, and
refused to have any thing to do with this plot.

For three weeks after her marriage the queen remained at Holyrood;
the prisoner, to all appearance, rather than the wife of Bothwell.
She was continually surrounded with guards; and the description of
her situation given by Melville, who was at court at the time, agrees
entirely with that of the French ambassador. Not a day passed, he
says, in which she did not shed tears; and he adds that many, even of
Bothwell's followers, "believed that her majesty would fain have been
quit of him." The insurgent leaders--Morton, Maitland, and Hume--were
busy, and soon in the field with their forces. Bothwell raised a
small levy to oppose them, and the two armies met at Carberry Hill on
the 15th of June, 1567, exactly one month after the marriage. There
was no fighting. Dangerous as it was, Mary preferred to trust herself
to the rebel lords than to remain with Bothwell. She received their
pledge--that, in case she would separate herself from Bothwell, they
were ready "to serve her upon their knees, as her most humble and
obedient subjects and servants"--through Kirkaldy of Grange, the only
man among them whose word she would take. They kept their pledge as
they usually observed such obligations. What followed is too horrible
to dwell upon. It is wonderful that any human being could have
lived through the physical exhaustion, the insults, and the brutal
treatment this poor woman was subjected to during the next two days.
The people of Edinburgh grew indignant; and Kirkaldy of Grange swore
the lords should not violate their promises. But they quieted him
by showing a forged letter of the queen to Bothwell. It was not the
first time some among them had forged Mary's signature. With every
circumstance of force and brutality, Mary was then imprisoned in
Lochleven, whose guardian was the mother of the bastard Murray.

And now, while the friends of Mary, numerous as they were, remained
irresolute and inactive, the dominant faction made the most strenuous
efforts to strengthen itself. In the towns, where its strength
chiefly lay, and especially in Edinburgh, says Mr. Hosack, the
Protestant preachers rendered the most valuable aid. By indulging
in furious invectives against the queen, and charging her directly
with the murder, they prepared their hearers for the prospect of her
speedy deposition, and the _establishment of a regency in the name of
the infant prince_. It is clear that Murray was not forgotten by his
friends the preachers.

Strange as it may appear, there can be but little doubt that
Elizabeth was sincerely indignant on hearing of the outrageous
treatment of Mary by the lords. In her whole history, she never
appeared to so much advantage as a woman and a queen. She would
not stand tamely by, she said, and see her cousin murdered; and if
remonstrances proved ineffectual, she would send an army to chastise
and reduce them to obedience. Such conduct, and her messages to
Mary while a prisoner at Lochleven, no doubt inspired the Scottish
queen with the fatal confidence which induced her, a few months
afterward, to seek refuge in England. Unfortunately for Elizabeth,
and perhaps more unfortunately for Mary, the Queen of England's
reputation for duplicity was now so well established that no one but
her own ministers believed she was now sincere. Maitland, for the
Scotch nobles, plainly told Elizabeth's ambassador that, after what
had occurred in times past, "they could place no reliance on his
mistress;" and the King of France said to Sir Henry Norris, "I do not
greatly trust her." Meantime, the ministers daily denounced Mary as a
murderess in their sermons, and demanded that she should be brought
to justice like an ordinary criminal. Elizabeth's ambassador tried
to induce the confederate lords to restrain the savage license of
the preachers; but we cannot doubt, says Mr. Hosack, that they were
secretly encouraged by their noble patrons to prepare the minds of
the people for the deposition, if not for the murder, of the queen.
Throgmorton's opinion was that, but for his presence in Scotland, she
would have been sacrificed to the ambition and the bigotry of her
subjects.

Still a prisoner at Lochleven, Mary had to suffer the brutality of
the ruffian Lindsay, and the infamous hypocrisy of Mr. Froude's
"stainless Murray," who, with money in both pockets from France and
England, now came, with characteristic deceit, to defraud his sister
of her crown. Mr. Hosack thus estimates his performance:

    "First, to terrify his sister with the prospect of immediate
    death, then to soothe her with false promises of safety, and
    finally, with well-feigned reluctance, to accept the dignity
    he was longing to grasp, displayed a mixture of brutality and
    cunning of which he alone was capable."

Murray was proclaimed regent on the 22d of August. Soon afterward
began the machinations for accusing Mary of Darnley's murder; and
Murray's first care was to put out of the way every witness whose
testimony could be of any importance. Hay, Hepburn, and Powrie and
Dalgleish, on whom the queen's letters were said to have been found,
were all tried, convicted, and executed on the same day. It was
remarked that the proceedings were conducted with extraordinary and
indecent haste. Hay and Hepburn, from the scaffold, denounced the
nobles who had "made a bond for the king's murder." Public confidence
was shaken in the regent, and the discontent of the people was
expressed in plain speech and satirical ballads. Murray began to feel
the need of Elizabeth's assistance. Mary, in her trusting confidence,
had voluntarily placed all her valuable jewels in Murray's hands, for
safe keeping. From among them he selected a set of rare pearls, the
most valuable in Europe, which he sent by an agent to Elizabeth, who
agreed to purchase what she well knew he had no right to sell. Under
such circumstances, as is the custom among thieves and receivers, she
expected a bargain, and got it. It was a very pretty transaction.
In May, 1568, Mary escaped from Lochleven castle, and in a few days
found herself at the head of an army of six thousand men. Of the ten
earls and lords who flew to her support, nine were Protestants; and
our Puritan historian finds it remarkable that, in spite of all the
efforts of Murray and his faction, and in spite of all the violence
of the preachers, she--the Catholic Queen of Scotland, the daughter
of the hated house of Guise, the reputed mortal enemy of their
religion--should now, after being maligned as the most abandoned of
her sex, find her best friends among her own Protestant subjects,
appears at first sight inexplicable. A phenomenon so strange, he
adds, admits of only one explanation. If, throughout her reign, she
had not loyally kept her promises of security and toleration to her
Protestant subjects, they assuredly would not, in her hour of need,
have risked their lives and fortunes in her defence.

Against her better judgment, Mary was induced to fight the battle
of Langside, and lost the field. And now the queen made the great
mistake of her life. Instead of trusting to the loyalty of the Scotch
borderers, she determined to throw herself on the hospitality of the
Queen of England. In vain did her trusty counsellors and strongest
supporters seek to dissuade her. The warm professions of friendship
and attachment made to her by Elizabeth, when she was a prisoner
at Lochleven, had completely captivated her; and, insisting on her
project, she crossed the Solway, in an open boat, to the English
shore. She was received by Mr. Lowther, deputy warden, with all the
respect due to her rank and misfortunes. Although she did not yet
know it, Mary was from this moment a prisoner. Here Mr. Hosack, in
a few eloquent passages, sets forth the reasons why the forcible
detention of Mary, independently of all considerations of morality
and justice, was a political blunder of the first magnitude. As
the inmate of an English prison, she proved a far more formidable
enemy to Elizabeth than when she wore the crowns both of France
and Scotland. Never did a political crime entail a heavier measure
of retribution than the captivity and murder of the Queen of Scots
entailed on England.

Mary was first taken to the castle of Carlisle. Here Queen Elizabeth
was represented by Lord Scrope, the warden of the marches, and Sir
Francis Knollys, the queen's vice-chamberlain. These noblemen appear
to have been more impressed with the mental and moral qualities of
the Scottish queen than with her external graces. They describe her,
after their first interview, as possessing "an eloquent tongue and a
discreet head, with stout courage and a liberal heart;" and, in a
subsequent letter, Knollys says, "Surely, she is a rare woman; for
as no flattery can abuse her, so no plain speech seems to offend
her, if she thinks the speaker an honest man." All this was written
to Elizabeth, to whom, of course, it was gall and wormwood. A more
remarkable passage of their letter is that in which, speaking in
simple candor as English gentlemen and men of honor, they ask their
royal mistress whether

    "it were not honorable for you, in the sight of your own
    subjects and of all foreign princes, to put her grace to the
    choice, whether she will depart freely back into her country
    without your highness's impeachment, or whether she will remain
    at your highness's devotion within your realm here, with her
    necessary servants only to attend her?"

To a sovereign whose policy was synonymous with fraud, the
unconscious sarcasm of this honorable advice must have been biting.

Elizabeth pledged her word to Mary that she should be restored to her
throne. She at the same time pledged her word to Murray that Mary
should never be permitted to return to Scotland. Then began the long
nineteen years' martyrdom of Mary. The conference at York and the
commission at Westminster were mockeries of justice. It was pretended
there were two parties present before them--Murray and his associates
on one side, Mary on the other. Mary was kept a prisoner in a distant
castle, while Murray, received with honor at court, held private
and secret consultations with members of both these quasi-judicial
bodies, showed them the testimony he intended to produce, and
obtained their judgment as to the sufficiency of his proofs before
he publicly produced them; these proofs being the forged letters of
the silver casket. These letters were never seen by Mary Stuart, and
even copies of them were repeatedly and persistently refused her.
Mr. Froude makes a lame attempt to show that _some one_ secretly
furnished her copies; but even if his attempt were successful, it
does not affect the fact that the copies were officially refused her.
By the time the scales had fallen from Mary's eyes, Elizabeth's art
and duplicity had woven a web from which she could not be extricated.
Her remaining years of life were one long, heart-sickening struggle
against treachery, spies, insult to her person, her reputation,
and her faith; confinement, cold, sickness, neuralgic agony, want;
deprivation of all luxuries, of medical attendance, and of the
consolations of religion. At every fresh spasm of alarm on the
part of Elizabeth, Mary's prison was changed; frequently in dead
of winter, and generally without any provision for the commonest
conveniences of life. More than once, taken into a naked, cold
castle, Mary's jailers had to rely on the charity of the neighbors
for even a bed for their royal prisoner. At Tutbury, her rooms were
so dark and comfortless, and the surroundings so filthy--there is
no other word for it--that the English physician refused to charge
himself with her health. But enough. We all know the sad story, and
we trustingly believe the poor martyred queen has her recompense in
heaven.

Mr. Hosack's treatment of the question of the authenticity of the
silver-casket letters is exhaustive. More than a century ago, Goodall
fully exposed the forgery, and he has never been satisfactorily
answered. Mr. Froude, of course, accepts them without discussion.
The conferences at York and the proceedings at Westminster are
presented as only a lawyer can present them. Mary's cause gains by
the most rigid scrutiny. Mr. Froude does not know enough to analyze
and intelligibly present serious matters like these. He prefers a
series of sensational _tableaux_ and highly-colored dissolving views,
producing for authorities garbled citations and his own fictions. Mr.
Hosack's testimony, independently of its great intrinsic merit, is
valuable because of his nationality and of his religion, and we hope
to see his work republished in the United States. His closing page
concludes thus:

    "In the darkest hours of her existence--even when she hailed
    the prospect of a scaffold as a blessed relief from her
    protracted sufferings--she never once expressed a doubt as
    to the verdict that would be finally pronounced between her
    and her enemies. 'The theatre of the world,' she calmly
    reminded her judges at Fotheringay, 'is wider than the realm
    of England.' She appealed from the tyranny of her persecutors
    to the whole human race; and she has not appealed in vain. The
    history of no woman that ever lived approaches in interest
    to that of Mary Stuart; and so long as beauty and intellect,
    a kindly spirit in prosperity, and matchless heroism in
    misfortune attract the sympathies of men, this illustrious
    victim of sectarian violence and barbarous statecraft will ever
    occupy the most prominent place in the annals of her sex."

FOOTNOTE:

[7] _Mary Queen of Scots and her Accusers._ Embracing a Narrative of
Events from the Death of James V., in 1542, until the Death of the
Regent Murray, in 1570. By John Hosack, Barrister-at law. William
Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and London. 1869.

_Histoire de Marie Stuart._ Par Jules Gauthier. Vol. i. Paris. 1869.




STABAT MATER.


    Stabat Mater dolorosa,
    Juxta crucem lacrymosa,
      Dum pendebat Filius:
    Cujus animam gementem,
    Contristatam et dolentem,
      Pertransivit gladius.

            ENGLISH TRANSLATION[8]

            Broken-hearted, lo, and tearful,
            Bowed before that Cross so fearful,
              Stands the Mother by the Son!
            Through her bosom sympathizing
            In his mortal agonizing
              Deep and keen the steel has gone.

                     GREEK TRANSLATION.[9]

                    ~Histe Meter algeousa
                     para stauro dakryousa,
                       ekremnato hos Teknon;
                     hes ten psychen stenachousan,
                     polystonon, pentheousan
                       diepeire phasganon.~

    O quam tristis et afflicta
    Fuit illa benedicta
      Mater Unigeniti!
    Quae moerebat et dolebat,
    Pia Mater, dum videbat
      Nati poenas inclyti.

            How afflicted, how distressed,
            Stands she now, that Virgin blessed,
              By that tree of woe and scorn;
            Mark her tremble, droop, and languish,
            Gazing on that awful anguish
              Of her Child, her Only-Born!

                    ~Pheu tou achthous tes te lypes
                     eulogemenes ekeines
                       Metros tou Monogenous;
                     he elgei kai eniato,
                     theosebes, hos horato
                       Huiou t' alge eukleous.~

    Quis est homo qui non fleret,
    Matrem Christi si videret
      In tanto supplicio?
    Quis non posset contristari,
    Christi Matrem contemplari
      Dolentem cum Filio?

            Who may see, nor share her weeping,
            Christ the Saviour's mother keeping
              Grief's wild watch, so sad and lone?
            Who behold her bosom sharing
            Every pang his soul is bearing,
              Nor receive them in his own?

                    ~Tis anthropon ouk an klaioi,
                     ei ten Christou Meter' idoi
                       toiaut' anechomenen?
                     tis dynait' han ouk achthesthai
                     to ten Christou Meter' idesthai
                       syn Huio lypoumenen?~

    Pro peccatis suae gentis,
    Vidit Jesum in tormentis,
      Et flagellis subditum.
    Vidit suum dulcem Natum
    Moriendo desolatum,
      Dum emisit spiritum.

            Ransom for a world's offending,
            Lo, her Son and God is bending
              That dear head to wounds and blows;
            'Mid the body's laceration,
            And the spirit's desolation,
              As his life-blood darkly flows.

                    ~Pro ton kakon hoio genous
                     'phan' aute hybristheis Iesous
                       kai mastixin ekdotos;
                     eiden heon glykyn paida
                     ekthneskonta, monothenta,
                       hos exepnei athlios.~

    Eia Mater, fons amoris,
    Me sentire vim doloris
      Fac ut tecum lugeam;
    Fac ut ardeat cor meum
    In amando Christum Deum,
      Ut sibi complaceam.

            Fount of love, in that dread hour,
            Teach me all thy sorrow's power,
              Bid me share its grievous load;
            O'er my heart thy spirit pouring,
            Bid it burn in meet adoring
              Of its martyred Christ and God!

                    ~O sy Meter, pege erotos,
                     tes lypes me pathein achthos
                       dos, soi hina sympatho;
                     dos phlegesthai ker to emon
                     to philein ton Christon Theon,
                       hopos hoi eudokeo.~

    Sancta Mater! istud agas,
    Crucifixi fige plagas
      Cordi meo valide.
    Tui Nati vulnerati,
    Tam dignati pro me pati,
      Poenas mecum divide.

            Be my prayer, O Mother! granted,
            And within my heart implanted
              Every gash whose crimson tide,
            From that spotless victim streaming,
            Deigns to flow for my redeeming,
              Mother of the crucified!

                    ~Hagne Meter, tode drason;
                     Staurothentos plegas pexon
                       moi en keri krateros;
                     soio tou trothentos Teknou,
                     hos pro emou paschein exiou,
                       meros poinon moi didous.~

    Fac me tecum pie flere,
    Crucifixo condolere,
      Donec ego vixero.
    Juxta crucem tecum stare,
    Et me tibi sociare
      In planctu desidero.

            Every sigh of thy affliction,
            Every pang of crucifixion--
              Teach me all their agony!
            At his cross for ever bending,
            In thy grief for ever blending,
              Mother, let me live and die!

                    ~Dos soi m' eusebos syllypein,
                     Staurothenti dos synalgein,
                       heos moi biosetai;
                     pros stauro soi synistasthai,
                     soi te moiras metechesthai
                       tou penthein oregomai.~

    Virgo virginum praeclara,
    Mihi jam non sis amara,
      Fac me tecum plangere.
    Fac ut portem Christi mortem,
    Passionis fac consortem,
      Et plagas recolere.

            Virgin of all virgins highest,
            Humble prayer who ne'er deniest,
              Teach me how to share thy woe!
            All Christ's Passion's depth revealing,
            Quicken every quivering feeling
              All its bitterness to know!

                    ~Parthene, ton koron lampra,
                     ede me moi isthi pikra,
                       dos me soi synalgeein;
                     dos bastazein Christou potmon,
                     tou pathous poiei me metochon,
                       tas te plegas ennoein.~

    Fac me plagis vulnerari,
    Cruce hac inebriari,
      Et cruore Filii.
    Flammis ne urar succensus,
    Per te, Virgo, sim defensus,
      In die judicii.

            Bid me drink that heavenly madness,
            Mingled bliss of grief and gladness,
              Of the Cross of thy dear Son!
            With his love my soul inflaming,
            Plead for it, O Virgin! claiming
              Mercy at his judgment throne!

                    ~Dos tais plegais me trothenai,
                     tode stauro methysthenai
                       kai tou Huiou haimati.
                     pyri aphthenta me kauthenai,
                     alla dia sou sothenai
                       kriseos eph' hemati.~

    Christe, cum sit hinc exire,
    Da per matrem me venire
      Ad palmam victoriae.[10]
    Quando corpus morietur,
    Fac ut animae donetur
      Paradisi gloria.

            Shelter at that Cross, oh! yield me!
            By the death of Christ, oh! shield me!
              Comfort with thy grace and aid!
            And, O Mother! bid my spirit
            Joys of Paradise inherit,
              When its clay to rest is laid!

                    ~Hopoth' hora m' aperchesthai,
                     dia Metros dos pheresthai,
                       Christe, niketeria;
                     tethneotos chrotos emou,
                     euchomai moi psyche didou
                       ouranou ta charmata.~

FOOTNOTES:

[8] This translation, which first appeared in the _Democratic
Magazine_ thirty years ago, is now republished at the request of the
author, G. J. G.

[9] By the late Otto George Mayer, student of the Congregation of St.
Paul.

[10] Instead of these three lines we sometimes find the following:

    Fac me cruce custodiri,
    Morte Christi praemuniri,
      Confoveri gratia.

The former version of the Latin is followed in the Greek, the latter
in the English translation.




THE BRIGAND'S GOD-CHILD.

A LEGEND OF SPAIN.


Once upon a time, as the legends say, there lived in good old Spain a
poor workman, to whom destiny had given twelve children, and nothing
for them to live upon. Now his wife was expecting a thirteenth, and
perhaps with it would appear a fourteenth also, to run about loved
but unclothed and unfed, as the others had before them. The bread was
almost gone, work not to be had, and the poor man, to hide his sighs
and his misery from the patient partner of his misfortunes, wandered
far from home and into the woods, calling upon paradise to assist
him, until he came to the ill-reputed cavern and stronghold of the
bandits.

He almost fell over their captain, and came very near receiving a
sabre-thrust for his pains; but his extreme misery made him no object
for a robbery, so he was simply catechised as to his condition.

He told his story, moved even the brigand heart to pity, and was
invited to supper; a bag of gold and a fine horse were given him,
and he was sent home with the assurance that, be the new-comer
boy or girl, the robber-chief would stand as god-father. The poor
man, in ecstasy at such good fortune, flew rather than rode to his
well-filled dwelling, and arrived there just in time to welcome
number thirteen.

A boy! He gave his wife the money and a caress, and, although the
night was far advanced, mounted his charger and galloped back to the
cave. The brigand was astonished at his speedy return; but true to
his word, appeared with him in the neighboring church in disguise
of a rich old gossip, made every requisite promise for the new-born
babe, and disappeared, leaving a bag of golden crowns and another
purse of gold.

The angels, however, claimed the baby, and the brigand's
god-child flew to paradise on golden wings, and in the splendid
swaddling-clothes that his charity had provided for it.

St. Peter, porter at the gates celestial, stirred himself to welcome
the little fellow to heaven; but no! he would not enter unless
accompanied by his god-father.

"And who may he be?" asked St. Peter.

"Who?" responded the god-child; "The chief of the brigands."

"My poor little innocent," said the saint, "you know not what you
ask! Come in yourself; but heaven was not made for such as he."

The child sat down by the door resolved not to enter, and planning in
his little head all sorts of schemes to accomplish his purpose, when
the Blessed Mary passed that way.

"Why do you not enter, my angel?" she said.

"I would be ungrateful," he answered, "to partake of heavenly joys if
my good god-father did not share them with me."

St. Peter interposed, and appealed to the Holy Mother, saying,

"If he had only been a wax-carrier! but this man, Satan's own
emissary--impossible! An incarnate demon; a robber, healthy and
robust, who has taken every opportunity to do mischief! Holy Mother!
could such a thing be thought of?"

But the god-child insisted, bent his pretty blonde head, joined his
little hands, fell on his knees, prayed and wept. The Virgin had
compassion on him and bringing a golden chalice from the heavenly
inclosure, said,

"Take this; go and seek your god-father; tell him that he may come
with you to heaven; but he must first fill this cup with repentant
tears."

Just then, by the clear moonlight, reposing on a rock, and fully
armed, lay the brigand. In his dream his dagger trembled in his
hands. As he awoke, he saw near his couch a beautiful winged infant.
With no fear of the savage man, it approached and presented the
golden chalice. He rubbed his eyes, and thought he still dreamed; but
the infant angel reassured him, saying,

"No; it is not a fancy. I have come to invite thee to go with me.
Leave this earth. I am thy god-child, and I will conduct thy steps."

Then the little fellow related his marvellous story: his arrival at
heaven's gate, St. Peter's refusal, and how the Blessed Mother, ever
merciful, had come to his assistance and granted his request. The
bandit listened, and breathed with difficulty, while, bewildered he
gazed on the angelic figure, and held out his hand for the golden
chalice.

Suddenly his heart seemed to burst, two fountains of tears gushed
from his eyes. The cup was filled, and the radiant infant mounted
with him to the skies.

Into heaven the little one entered, carrying the well-filled cup to
St. Peter--who was astonished to see who followed him--and proceeded
to offer it at the feet of the beautiful Queen.

She smiled on the sinner who through her compassion had been saved,
while he threw himself in reverence at her feet. God himself had
acquitted the debt of the child. Besides, we know that to the
repentant there is always grace--and the infant had declared it would
not enter alone.




MOLECULAR MECHANICS.


Among the theories proposed to explain the constitution of material
substance, and to account for the facts relative to it disclosed by
modern science, one developed in a recent work with the above title,
by Rev. Joseph Bayma, of Stonyhurst, is specially worthy of notice
for its ingenuity and the field which it opens to the mathematician.
Whether it be true or not, it is at any rate such that its truth can
be tested; and though this may be somewhat difficult, on account of
the complexity of the necessary formulas and calculations, still the
difficulty can probably be overcome in course of time, should the
undertaking seem promising enough.

It is briefly as follows. Matter is not continuous, even in very
small parts of its volume, but is composed of a definite number of
ultimate elements, each of which occupies a mere point, and may
be considered simply as a centre of force. This force is actually
exerted by each of them following the law of gravitation as to its
change of intensity with the distance; but is attractive for some
elements and repulsive for others, which is obviously necessary to
preserve equilibrium. These elements are arranged in regularly formed
groups, in which the balance of the attractive and repulsive forces
is such that each group, as well as the whole mass, is preserved
from collapse or indefinite expansion; these are what are known
chemically as molecules; and in the simple substances they probably
have the shape of one of the five regular polyhedrons.

The simplest possible construction of a molecule would be one of
the polyhedrons, with an element at each vertex, and one at the
centre, whose action must be of an opposite character to that of
those at the vertices; for these last must all exert the same kind
of action, attractive or repulsive, for any kind of equilibrium to
be maintained, and the centre must act in the opposite direction to
prevent collapse or expansion of the mass. Furthermore, the absolute
attractive power, or that which the molecule would have if all
collected at one point, must exceed the repulsive, slightly at any
rate, since the force exerted at distances compared with which its
dimensions are insignificant is known to have this former character.

This system admits of two varieties, according as the centre is
attractive or repulsive. In either case, for the maintenance of
equilibrium the force of the centre must always be less than half
that of the vertices combined, as the author shows, (giving the
values for each polyhedron;) and it would seem that the first
supposition would therefore be untenable, since the attractive force
in each molecule, as just stated, necessarily exceeds the repulsive.
Equilibrium certainly cannot be maintained in this case; but this
will not involve the permanent collapse of the molecule, but merely
a continual vibration of its elements back and forward through the
centre.

The second hypothesis, on the other hand, requires either a centre so
weak as to produce very little repulsion outside of the molecule, or
else a continual tendency to expand under a central power too great
for equilibrium. Both will tend to bring the molecular envelopes near
to each other, and produce adhesion or mixing among them; also, it
may perhaps be added, that the envelopes themselves will, on account
of the mutual attraction of their elements, be unstable.

Of these two constructions, then, the first would seem most probable;
but both are open to objection on account of there being no internal
resistance in the individual molecules to a change of diameter
proportional to a change produced by external action in that of a
mass of them; and if such a change should take place, the mass would
be in just the same statical conditions as before, only differing in
the relative dimensions of its parts, and the resistance to pressure
which is exhibited more or less by all matter would not be accounted
for. But it does not seem quite certain that pressure or traction of
the mass would operate upon the separate molecules in the same sense.

We are not, however, restricted to such a simple structure; for there
may be several envelopes instead of only one, and of these some may
be attractive and others repulsive; the centre also may be repulsive.
There would have to be an absolute predominance of attractivity, of
course, as in the previous more simple supposition. It seems probable
that in this supposition the envelopes would be all tetrahedric, or
that either the cube and octahedron, or the other two, which are
similarly counterparts of each other, would alternate. Many of these
forms are examined mathematically by the author, as to their internal
action.

The exact discussion of their external action, however, would
be exceedingly intricate, and would not be worth undertaking
without a more definite idea than we yet have of the actual shapes
presented by the molecules of the various known substances. The
forms of crystallization may throw some light upon this, and they
seem to indicate, as the author acknowledges, that the elements
are not always grouped in regular polyhedrons; if they are not,
they must have unequal powers, and this may be sometimes the
case. But irregular crystalline forms are not impossible, or even
improbable, with regular molecules. He also suggests and applies a
method for obtaining the forms of the simple chemical substances
by considering what combinations with others each polyhedron is
capable of, and comparing these results with the actual combinations
into which these various substances are known to enter, and deduces
the shapes, with some plausibility, of the molecules of oxygen,
nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, phosphorus, chlorine, sulphur, arsenic,
and iodine. Whether we shall ever be able to obtain more positive
proof of these interesting conclusions remains to be seen; but if
any molecules have really the number of envelopes that would be
indicated by their chemical equivalents, the perfect determination of
their exact mechanical conditions of combination, and even of their
separate construction, will probably, as F. Bayma remarks, be a
problem always above the power of the human mind. If mathematicians
are at all inclined to plume themselves on having unravelled the
complications of the solar system, they can find sufficient matter
for humiliation in not being able to understand the status of a
material particle less than the hundred millionth of an inch in
diameter; for to this extent subdivision has actually been carried.

One of the most remarkable points in this theory is that part of
it which relates to the ethereal medium which seems to pervade all
space, if the undulatory theory of light is true, as is now perhaps
universally believed. Instead of assuming it to be extremely rare,
as is usually done without hesitation, the author regards it as
excessively dense; "immensely denser than atmospheric air," to
use his own words. Of course this seems absurd at first sight, as
such a medium apparently would exert an immense resistance to the
movements of the heavenly bodies, and in fact to all movements on
their surfaces or elsewhere. This would certainly be the case if it
were similar to ordinary matter; and to avoid this difficulty, it
is assumed to be entirely attractive. The reason for supposing a
great density for this substance is its immense elasticity and power
of transmitting vibrations; which seems incompatible with great
distances between its particles, unless these particles are extremely
energetic in their action, which comes to the same thing; and this
argument has considerable force.

But it does not seem evident that an attractive medium would not
also interfere with the passage of bodies through it, though not
in the same way as a repulsive one; and the oscillation through
its centre necessary for its preservation complicates the theory
somewhat. Also, any marked accumulation of a powerfully acting
medium round the various celestial bodies would cause, if varied
in any way by their changes of relative position, perturbations in
their movements. The very fact, however, that its own action was so
energetic might make the disturbance in its arrangement produced by
other masses small, especially if it penetrates those masses, as is
probably generally maintained. The subject is, of course, one of
great difficulty, and objections readily suggest themselves to any
hypothesis regarding it; still, it would appear that on some accounts
it might be better, instead of assuming the medium to be wholly or
predominantly attractive or repulsive, to suppose it to have the two
forces equally balanced in its constitution; and if it be, like other
matter, grouped in molecules, the balance would naturally exist in
each molecule, making it inert at any but very small distances, and
exerting at these very small distances a force the character of which
would vary according to the direction.

We have said that the discussion of the exterior action of the
molecules--that is, of their action on each other, or on exterior
points in general--would be exceedingly complicated. The only way
in which it seems practicable is that in which the mutual actions
of the planets have been investigated, namely, a development of the
force in the form of a series; but this cannot be done advantageously
unless the distances between the molecules are considerably greater
than the molecular diameters. If, however, we make the development of
the ratio of the attraction (or repulsion) exerted by the vertices
of a regular polyhedron in the direction of its centre, to what it
would exert if concentrated at that centre, in a series of the powers
of the ratio of the molecular radius to the distance of the point
acted on from the centre, it will be found that the coefficients
of the first and second powers vanish in all cases; and that in
all, except that of the tetrahedron, those of all the odd powers
also disappear, as well as that of the fourth in the dodecahedron
and icosahedron. If, then, the absolute attractive or repulsive
power of any envelope is very nearly compensated by that of an
opposite character prevailing in the rest of the molecule, (as seems
probable,) the whole series can be reduced, at any distance which is
very great compared with the molecular diameter, to two terms--one
a constant with a very small value, and the other containing the
third, fourth, or sixth power of the small quantity which the ratio
of the diameter to the distance has now become. This should have a
negative multiplier, in order that the force should become zero; and
this it will have for a considerable distance around the vertices
of all the polyhedrons, the negative value always covering as much
as two fifths of the spherical surface about the centre of the
molecule, and compensating even in this case for its less extent by
a greater intensity, as the mean of this coefficient over the whole
surface is always exactly zero. Within this distance of no action,
for some space about the centre of the prevailing polyhedric face,
attraction would prevail till the higher powers became sensible,
and even (as it would seem) quite up to the centre in the case of
a single envelope, the repulsive action of which, when combined
with the slight force of the centre, would apparently be limited
to quasi-ellipsoidal spaces extending out from each vertex, and
having a longer axis equal to this outer distance of no action.
But this limitation of the repulsive action will be still greater
if the excess of the absolute attractive power in the molecule is
more considerable, as long as the distribution of the force in the
different envelopes remains unaltered; and though the molecules can
approach within tolerably short distances of each other in certain
directions, this is not objectionable, since such an approach may
even be required for chemical union and cohesion. Introsusception
would hardly be probable, unless they were very different in size.
The compound molecule once formed, whether its components were of
the same or of different substance, might exercise a repulsive
force at a considerable distance in all or nearly all directions;
nevertheless, it might still admit of further increase or of
disruption by an agitation among the molecules, due to heat, light,
or electricity. Of course, even on this theory, for the maintenance
of physical equilibrium the mean distance of the molecules would
have to be considerably less than that of no action, in order that
a repulsion should be produced to balance the attraction of those
beyond this distance. Still, if the excess of attractive force in
each molecule, and consequently the size of each, be made small
enough, their dimensions may still be small compared even with this
mean distance; so that in no case, except that of chemical union,
would it be necessary to take account of the higher powers. Any
motion communicated from one molecule to another would then probably
be by means of an actual relative movement of the centres of gravity,
instead of by internal vibrations.

It may be worth noticing that a regular polyhedron--the elements of
which exert a force not varying at all with the distance, and in
which the absolute energy of the centre is precisely equal to that of
the vertices combined--gives a resulting force following the law of
gravitation, at any distance compared with which its own dimensions
can be neglected; and within this distance the force will change
its sign under the same conditions of direction as specified in the
previous case. But, as the intensity of this force will change with
the size of the molecule, it does not appear that a system of this
kind would be admissible, since, besides the periodical change due
to its own internal vibration, it would probably be changed in size,
or even in shape, which would be worse, by compression or expansion
of the mass; which would be the more likely, as the molecules could
approach much nearer than in the former supposition. The law followed
by gravitation also seems to be almost or quite necessary for forces
radiating from a point.

The author's theory seems, on the whole, extremely plausible.
That each element of matter exerts a force following the law of
gravitation, is almost demonstrable _a priori_; that the elements
are mere points, will also generally be admitted; that some of
the actions should be repulsive, is obviously necessary; that each
molecule is composed of a definite number of atoms, is suggested
by chemical laws; and the polyhedric forms seem certainly the most
reasonable, though crystalline forms would indicate that others
may be occasionally found. The possibility of the construction of
irregular molecules out of elements of unequal powers seems, by the
way, to be worth examining.

Further developments of the theory may have recently been made; of
course, the author does not claim in this work to have laid down more
than its first principles. At present, it seems, to say the least,
to furnish the best basis for the mathematical investigation of the
internal constitution of matter that has been suggested, and such
investigations would be almost certain to lead to valuable results,
whether confirmatory or otherwise.




THE HOLY-WEEK OF 1869 IN HAVANA.

PALM-SUNDAY. THE TENEBRAE. MAUNDY-THURSDAY.


So much had been told me of the antiquated observances of the
Holy-Week in Havana, of the religious processions presenting to us
of the nineteenth century an image of the _naif_ faith of the middle
ages, of the rare spectacle of a whole city in mourning for the death
of the Saviour, that even had my duty not called me to the church,
my curiosity would have carried me thither. As it was, I resolved
this Lent that, although I resided at an inconvenient distance from
town, and ladies who have no carriage of their own find it sometimes
unpleasant to go on foot in a country where walking is unfashionable,
and considered even unfeminine, yet I would disregard disagreeables
of every kind, and attend all the impressive ceremonies of this great
week in the cathedral.


PALM-SUNDAY.

On Palm-Sunday, then, at six o'clock in the morning, I got into
the nice, clean, well-managed cars that pass our door every few
minutes all day long. The blessing of the palm branches was not to
commence until a quarter after eight; but I like to "take time by
the forelock," and I also feared that, as the "superior political
governor of Havana" had invited "the grandees of Spain, the titled
of Castile, the knights grand crosses, the gentlemen, (_gentiles
hombres_,) and civil and military functionaries to contribute their
assistance to render the religious acts more solemn," there _might_
be somewhat of a crowd, and so I determined to arrive betimes and
secure for myself a seat where I could both see and hear well.

The early morning in Cuba is always delightful, and this 21st
of March was very bright and lovely, the sky intensely blue and
without a cloud, and a cool breeze gently waving the tall tops of
the cocoa-nut trees, and rustling the light, feathery sprays of the
graceful bamboos. The white colonnaded houses of the _Cerro_ looked
very pleasant among their palms and laurels. _La Carolina_ was in
full bloom in some of the gardens, its spreading, leafless branches
covered with great plumy tufts of rose-colored filaments; honeysuckle
vines and the yellow jasmine climbed about the railings, and the
large, brilliant flowers of the _mar pacifico_ completed the floral
landscape with that bright "bit" of scarlet so agreeable to the
artistic eye.

As we approached the city, however, the pretty houses became fewer,
and the mean suburban shops and _fondas_ appeared more grimy than
ever in the bright sunlight; their dirty awnings hanging in rags
over the badly-paved, broken sidewalk. The houses, all of one or
two stories, their exteriors washed with blue, yellow, lilac, or
apple-green, wore a general look of never being repaired, and their
gay coloring was faded, spotted, stained, and smeared by the
exceeding dampness of the climate. I had glimpses, too, as we passed,
into narrow streets so frightfully gullied and filthy that they made
me shudder. The population of this part of extra-mural Havana was not
more prepossessing in appearance than its haunt.

In about half an hour we reached the _Campo de Marte_, (Field of
Mars,) a fine square which would be handsomer if it were bordered
with shade-trees. Now it is an arid plain, with a few straggling
blades of grass in patches here and there. On one of the sides of
this place stands the magnificent mansion of the Aldamas, one of
the richest families in the island; on another side, the principal
railway station. A great number of volunteers, fine, stout,
strong-looking men generally, dressed in a blue and white striped
drill uniform, and armed with short swords and bayoneted muskets,
were mustering in the middle of the _Campo_, and a great rabble of
little blackies surrounded them, gaping with admiration. At the
eastern extremity of the square we cut across the commencement of
what used to be called the _Parque de Ysabel Segunda_; but her statue
has been pulled down from its pedestal, and the promenade has now no
name. Here again, around the pretty fountain that represents Havana
under the form of an Indian maiden supporting a shield that bears
the arms of the city, and surrounded by tropical fruits and graceful
plants, were plenty of flowers; the blue, crimson, and purple
morning-glories, that had just opened their radiant petals to the
sun, were the most vividly-colored I have ever seen.

Passing the Tacon Theatre, we soon reached the breach in the city
walls by which the cars enter. These old fortifications, built by the
Spaniards to keep out the Indians and the English, are being slowly
demolished. A very fine white stone church is in progress of erection
close by.

The streets within the walls are well paved and clean; the houses
mostly large and very strongly built. They usually form a hollow
square, the centre being an open yard, containing a few shrubs. The
windows of all the rooms reach from the floor to the ceiling; they
are without glass and protected by iron bars; thick inside shutters,
into which two or three glazed panes are inserted to admit the
light, close out any very bad weather, wind or rain. The sidewalks
are usually not more than a foot and a half wide; they look like
ledges running along the sides of the houses, and are exceedingly
uncomfortable for pedestrians, as I found when I descended from the
car at its stopping-place in front of the church _San Juan de Dios_,
and proceeded on foot to the cathedral.

_San Cristobal de la Habana_, the metropolitan cathedral, is a large
and handsome edifice; it dates from 1724, and although it has at
the present moment a very time-worn appearance, it was repaired
and beautified only a few years since. Two towers and three doors
give an imposing air to the front; the arched nave within is lofty
and spacious, and separated from the aisles by massive pillars of
masonry. The whole of the interior is painted in fresco, but is much
deteriorated by the excessive humidity of the climate. The high
altar, constructed of beautiful jasper, under a dome of porphyry,
supported by columns of the same material, was built in Rome. On the
gospel side of the chancel is the tomb of Christopher Columbus, whose
ashes, inclosed in a leaden box, rest within the very wall of the
sacred edifice.

Few persons had yet assembled in the church, and I quickly obtained
a seat on one of the benches that are placed along each side of the
nave. I was much pleased to find myself exactly opposite to the
crimson velvet-covered arm-chair and reading-desk reserved for the
captain-general, and to the less imposing but handsome seats intended
for the governor, grandees, and municipality. I was also just behind
a row of arm-chairs allotted to the civil and military functionaries.

In the chancel, concealing from view the honored tomb, was raised a
purple velvet dais; beneath it stood the purple velvet-covered throne
and reading-desk of the bishop. A great black flag with a blood-red
cross in its centre leaned against the side of the altar, on which
was seen the emblem of our faith swathed in violet crape. An immense
white curtain, very artistically draped, was suspended across the
southern transept.

As the time passed, colored servants made their appearance every now
and then, bringing their mistresses' small low chairs and little
carpets; for the Havana churches, like the Catholic churches of
the European continent, have no pews. These servants wore the most
brilliant liveries, such as orange-tinted indispensables, bright
green waistcoat, and red swallow-tail coat, forcibly reminding one
of the parrots of the Cuban woods. A complete canary-colored suit,
surmounted by a round, woolly, black head, produced a very droll
effect. The little chairs were placed and the little carpets spread
wherever it was possible, so that the marble floor of the space
between the official seats was soon nearly covered. The greater
number of ladies, however, had no chairs, but knelt, sometimes three
on the same carpet, during the whole of the ceremony; that is, from
eight till twelve, only changing their posture occasionally to
sitting on the ground, with their feet doubled up on one side.

A little before eight o'clock, the ladies began to arrive. Each one,
after she had knelt down and arranged the folds of her voluminous
train to her satisfaction, dotted herself over rapidly with a great
number of little crosses, and ended by kissing her thumb. This
ungraceful performance is only a hasty, careless way of making the
three signs taught by the church, which ought to be done thus: The
thumb of the right hand is placed across the middle of the index,
to represent the cross. The first sign is then made with it on the
forehead, _Por la senal de la Santa Cruz_--"By the sign of the holy
cross;" the second on the mouth, _De nuestros enemigos_--"From
our enemies;" the third on the heart, _Libra nos, Senor, dios
nuestro_--"Deliver us, Lord, our God." The sign as it is made usually
with us, and a kiss on the cross represented by the thumb and index,
terminate this Spanish process of blessing one's self.

The toilettes of some of the fair Spanish and Cuban ladies present
on this occasion were of rich black silk, with a black lace mantilla
over the head, half shading the face and shoulders. There was an
elegant simplicity in this costume that seemed to me to make it fit
to be adopted in all countries as a dress for public worship. But
the great majority were attired in showy, expensive materials, quite
devoid of taste, especially in the choice and harmony of colors.
Black grenadine and lace dresses, with light belts, were numerous;
satin stripes of the deepest orange color were worn by tall, slender,
sallow damsels; _vert d'eau_, that delicate water-green which demands
so imperiously the contrast of lilies and roses, was donned by a
stout dame, _couleur de cafe au lait_; and one lady displayed an
ample, sweeping robe of that bright hue the French call _Bismark
content_, which imparted an unearthly lustre to her natural green
tinge that made my flesh creep. Lace mantillas over the head were
universal. Most were black; but some young girls wore white ones,
fastened to their hair with a bunch of rose-buds. There were a great
many blue silk bodices, of the style affected by Swiss maidens; and
I remarked that the fat ladies were very partial to low dresses and
short sleeves, with handsome necklaces and bracelets. No one wore
gloves, and every one carried a fan.

There was a great majority of expressive, intelligent faces among
these belles, and there were plenty of large black eyes, some very
beautiful; and there were pretty lips, which disclosed with every
smile two even rows of pearly teeth; but there was also a total
absence of that fresh, healthy look which, when united to youth,
constitutes beauty, whatever be the shape of the features, and
without which no woman can be truly lovely. As I contemplated, from
my somewhat high bench, the colorless cheeks of the maidens, and the
sallow, withered skins of the matrons kneeling on the marble floor
before me, I remembered the temperate zone with heart-sick longing.
"It seems," thought I, "very delightful, when one reads of it, to
inhabit a clime where the trees are ever green, and the flowers in
perpetual bloom; where snow and ice are unknown; but look at these
pallid girls and their faded mothers--poor, enervated victims of
continual heat! And oh! the many physical miseries arising from want
of active exercise, and the sluggish torpor that seems to invade
the soul as well as the body." And then the days long gone by came
back to me; the days when "life went a-Maying with nature, hope,
and poesy;" the days when I was young. "How I pity you," I murmured,
"pale Cuban girls, who have never run free in the daisied meadows
to gather spring violets and primroses; who have never rambled with
laughing youths and maidens in the leafy woods of summer, or sported
among the dried fallen leaves in the cool, bright days of autumn, or
made one in a merry evening party around the sparkling, crackling,
glowing winter fire!"

A startling yelp, accompanied by the whistling sound of a
well-applied whip, recalled my wandering thoughts. The _perrero_, in
the exercise of his duties, was ejecting a recalcitrant dog, which
had contrived to reach the chancel unobserved. This functionary, the
_perrero_--_anglice_, dog-man--is peculiar to the cathedral. In all
the other churches of Havana, the faithful are constantly grieved
by the unseemly spectacle of dogs roaming at will within the sacred
precincts, even on the very steps of the altar. The _perrero_ is
distinguished by a dark blue serge robe, descending to his feet, and
very much resembling a gentleman's dressing-gown in form. Around his
neck he wears, as a finish, a wide white frill. He carries, concealed
in the folds of this unpretending and rather unbecoming costume,
a serviceable cowhide, which he uses with a will upon all canine
intruders; and if he can, he concludes his admonishment with a kick,
it being generally believed that a dog which has received this final
humiliation eschews the cathedral for the rest of his days.

In the mean time, a considerable number of persons had assembled in
the church, and the preparations for the blessing of the palms were
completed. The highly ornamented branches had been brought in, piled
up on great trays; the bishop's pastoral crook had been placed
leaning against his throne, and the wax tapers were lighted. The
clergy, hastening in procession to the great central door, which was
presently thrown wide open, letting in a flood of light and warm air,
announced the arrival of the prelate. It was rather difficult to make
a passage for him up to the altar; for some good nuns had come with a
shoal of little girls, who had been arranged so as to fill up every
interstice left by the occupants of the chairs and carpets; but it
was done at last, and he advanced slowly and with great dignity up
the nave, blessing all as he passed.

The prelate had scarcely taken his seat under the dais, when the
doors, opening wide again, gave entrance to the grandees, the
municipality, and a number of military and civil functionaries. They
were ushered to the places assigned to them by four mace-bearers,
habited in the Spanish mace-bearing costume of three hundred years
ago, and much resembling in general appearance the tremendous Queen
Elizabeth's beef-eaters, who seemed to my childish eyes the most
wonderful sight in the Tower of London. They wore loose red velvet
tunics, trimmed with gold lace and fringe; the castles of Castile
were embroidered on the breast, and the lions of Leon adorned the
sleeves; an immense double ruff around the throat; big, high, black
boots and buckskin small-clothes, and a wide-brimmed hat turned up on
one side, with a red and yellow feather, completed the costume.

The military and civil officers were in full uniform, wearing their
orders and decorations; the noblemen and gentlemen in evening dress,
and displaying on their breasts numerous ribbons and brilliant stars.
They were nearly all venerable-looking, gray-haired men, with that
pensive, dignified gravity of demeanor peculiar to the Spaniard.

The religious ceremony now began. The palm-branches blessed were all
curiously plaited and lopped, until they were but little more than
a yard high, only two or three small leaves being left at the top.
They were ornamented with bows of bright-colored ribbons, bunches
of artificial flowers, and gold and silver tinsel butterflies. That
intended for the prelate was covered with elegant gold devices and
arabesques. Each of the grandees in turn ascended the steps of the
altar, and, kneeling, received one from the bishop, whose hand
he kissed, and then retired. When all had been distributed, the
procession was formed; but I must confess that it disappointed me
exceedingly. I had expected to see a grove of green, waving palms
moving along amidst the hosannas of the multitude; but, as it was,
all devotional and picturesque effect was totally wanting. I have
since been told that in the poorer churches, which cannot afford to
buy the plaited, lopped, and gilded sticks that the bad taste of
the people prefer, the simple branch, so exquisitely graceful, is
perforce adopted, and the procession, consequently, a very pretty
sight.

In the cathedral, the whole ceremony was cold and unimposing. There
was no summons from the outside, with response from within. There
was no triumphal burst from the organ when the Victor over sin and
death made his entry; no anthem to remind us how the chosen will be
welcomed to heaven. The procession descended by the southern wing,
and went out into the church porch, where the psalms appointed were
sung; the great central door was then opened, and it returned up the
nave to the altar.

The mass followed, and the bishop delivered a short sermon. His
voice was very agreeable, and his manner impressive.

As soon as the service concluded, every one hastened away. There were
no loiterers--not even to see the prelate leave the cathedral, which
he did on foot, his violet silk train borne by one of the priests. It
is, however, but just to remark--if excuse be needed for the haste
with which the church was cleared--that it was twelve o'clock, and no
one had breakfasted.

I was pleased to meet a friend at the door, who insisted on my going
home with her, and I gratefully accepted the invitation; for I felt
tired and faint. We accordingly got into her _quitrin_, and in a few
minutes reached the welcome door.

The _quitrin_, the _private_ conveyance of Cuba, and an improvement
on the well-known _volante_, is a carriage somewhat resembling the
victoria, but with two immense wheels; it is swung, too, so easily
that a person not accustomed to the vehicle finds it difficult to
enter. The shafts are exceedingly long, and the horse in them trots,
while a second horse, upon which the _calesero_ rides, canters. This
second horse is attached to the carriage by long traces at the left
side, and a little ahead of the shaft-horse. The effect produced by
the different paces of the animals is very curious.

The _calesero_, or driver, is always a colored man; he is usually
dressed in a blue jacket, (though green, yellow, and red are not
unfrequent,) white drill waistcoat and trowsers, and high black
leathern leggings, hollowed out under the knee and standing up
stiff above it, resembling, in fact, the great boots worn by French
postilions, minus the feet. These leggings are fastened down the
sides with straps and silver buckles, and ornamented with large
silver plates. No stockings, but low-cut shoes, leaving visible
the naked instep, heavy silver spurs and a stove-pipe hat, and the
_calesero_ is considered an elegant turn-out.

The breakfast was waiting; a Creole one, composed of soup made of the
water in which beef-bones, and especially beef knee-caps, had been
boiled, flavored with onions fried in lard; of _vaca frita_--fried
cow--little pieces of beef of all shapes, fried also in lard; of
_ropa vieja_--old clothes--slices of cold meat warmed up with sauce;
of _aporeado_--beef torn into shreds of an inch and a half long and
stewed with a little tomato, green peppers, garlic, and onions, (this
dish looks very like boiled twine;) of _picadillo_--meat minced as
fine as possible and scrambled in eggs, chopped onions and peppers;
of rice cooked with little pieces of fat pork and colored with
saffron; of very nice pork-chops, the best meat in Cuba, and very
different and far superior to Northern pork; of boiled _yucca_, and
ripe plantains, very delicious to the taste, resembling in flavor a
well-made apple charlotte. The bread was very good, and more baked
than it usually is in the United States. Claret and water was the
general beverage, and the meal finished with a cup of hot coffee
enriched with creamy milk, boiled _without_ the salt and aniseed that
Creoles almost invariably put into it. We were waited on at table by
two admirably-trained Chinese, a people much and justly esteemed in
Havana as house-servants and cooks.

It was nearly three o'clock when I at last reached home; but not
until the next day did I hear of the four unfortunate men shot that
afternoon in the streets, during the embarkation of the two hundred
and fifty political prisoners for Fernando Po.


THE TENEBRAE.

The following Wednesday morning, I reached the cathedral just as
the gospel was commenced. At the conclusion of the mass the service
of the _Tenebrae_ was very impressively chanted. As I listened, my
heart realized all the grief and desolation of that sad time. I could
hear David bewailing his outraged Lord and Son; Jeremias lamenting
over the ruins of Jerusalem, over the crucified Victim; dear mother
church calling her children to repentance in supplicating, tender
strains; and the three devoted Marys sighing and weeping as they
climbed the steep of Calvary among the crowd that followed our
blessed Saviour to the cross. At the termination of this mournful
music, just as the confused murmur that recalled the noise of the
tumultuous masses who, led on by Judas, came armed with sticks to
seize Jesus, died away, a number of priests, completely enveloped in
ample black silk robes with long pointed trains, their faces entirely
concealed beneath high-peaked black silk hoods, advanced to the front
of the altar and knelt in a row on the step before it. After a short,
whispered prayer, one of them arose, and taking the black banner with
the blood-red cross, which I have already mentioned, waved it for
several minutes in silence over his companions, while they prostrated
themselves on their faces before the altar. It is impossible to
imagine a scene more lugubrious; the black-robed figures lying
motionless, the mysterious hooded form that seemed to tower above
them, the sinister flag, the deep silence--all contributed to inspire
a sentiment of undefinable fear. Every one present knelt, and in
unbroken silence the black banner was waved over us. When we raised
our heads, the sombre assembly had disappeared and the chancel was
empty.

This, I was told, is a ceremony that has been handed down from the
time of the primitive Christians of Rome; but no one was able to
explain the meaning of it to my satisfaction.


MAUNDY-THURSDAY.

Maundy-Thursday found me bright and early in the cathedral, and well
placed; for I was again just opposite the seats reserved for the
captain-general and the governor, and just behind those intended for
the military and civil officers.

With the exception of the bishop's dais, throne, reading-desk, and
cushion, which were now of white damask and gold, every thing was the
same as on Palm-Sunday. But the great white curtain had been removed
from before the southern transept, and there was now to be seen a
magnificent golden sepulchre, under a white and gilded dome supported
by columns. The statue of a kneeling angel adorned each side of this
monument, to which the officiating priest ascended by six carpeted
steps. Innumerable wax tapers in silver candlesticks were arranged on
each side, their soft light reflected by the silver and gold drapery
that lined the vault.

As on Palm-Sunday, the floor of the nave was soon covered with
carpets and little chairs, all occupied an hour before the mass began
by women and children, white and colored, of every social grade,
from the delicate marchioness to the coarse black cook. Not even the
most elegant lady present seemed in the slightest degree annoyed by
being elbowed, and her satin dress rumpled, by some pushing, saucy
_morena_, (colored woman,) who planted her chair or stool just where
she could contrive to squeeze it in, with the most perfect assurance
that no one would question her right to do so. I remarked, too, that
in the crowd of men who stood in the aisles, the whites and blacks,
the rich and the poor, were on the same terms and acting in precisely
the same manner toward one another; and I felt convinced that nowhere
on earth was such social equality to be met with as I witnessed in
the cathedral church of Havana.

I was admiring this absence of all invidious distinctions in the
house of God, and rejoicing in the thought that here, at least, the
master had to confess himself weak and humble as the slave, the rich
powerless as the poor, when two men forced room for themselves on my
bench and by my side. One had the look of a low grog-shop keeper, the
other of a whining street-beggar; both were shockingly, disgustingly
filthy; both snorted and spat in the most frightful manner, and in
the discomfort they caused me, I arrived at the conclusion that all
men are equal--yes, _except_ the clean and the dirty; and I fretted
and fumed against the church officials who thus abandoned the
faithful washed to the inroads of the faithless unwashed. _Faithless
unwashed!_--it is written wittingly; for I cannot credit that piety
will exist with filthiness of its own free will. No, sin and dirt
are too often bosom friends; but cleanliness goes hand in hand with
godliness.

I had, however, to bear and forbear with my unpleasant neighbors,
whose propinquity induced a train of thoughts somewhat at variance
with the solemnity I had come to witness. I remembered, among other
discrepant subjects, the nickname given to the Spaniards by the
Cubans, _Patones_--"Big-Feet"--which appellation has frequently been
used in skirmishes between the insurgents and the Spanish troops as a
battle-cry. _Viva Cuba, y mueren los Patones!_ "Long live Cuba, and
death to the Big-Feet!" the rebels would shout, and the soldiers,
very naturally enraged at a personal defect being alluded to in
such terms, would fight like insulted heroes. So I improved this
opportunity, having a long row of Spaniards before me, to examine
their lower extremities and judge for myself what truth there was
in the discourteous designation. After a careful and impartial
investigation, I believe that I can say with justice that, though
they do not possess the exquisitely-formed, fairy-like little feet
with which every Cuban, male and female, trips into this world, they
yet cannot be accused of having large or clumsy ones. Most of the
Spanish feet I saw were certainly much smaller than those of the
English or Germans, resembling, perhaps, those of the French.

The toilettes of the ladies were even more ball-like than on
Palm-Sunday; nearly every one wore low-necked dresses and short
sleeves, and many white kid gloves. Rose-colored, pale blue, yellow,
and white silk robes trimmed with lace and a multitude of bows,
and sometimes disfigured by preposterous _paniers_, were general.
The hair was artistically dressed and adorned with flowers, golden
fillets, and bright ribbons, and the white or black lace mantilla
thrown over the head was as small and transparent as possible.

At a quarter past eight, the bishop arrived with a numerous suite
of clergy: as on Sunday, it was with difficulty he made his way
through the sitting, kneeling, becrinolined, and betrained crowd that
encumbered the centre of the church.

Very shortly after, a flourish of trumpets outside announced the
coming of the captain-general. The great door was again thrown open,
and he entered, preceded by the mace-bearers, and attended by Senor
Don Dionisio Lopez Roberts, superior political governor of Havana,
and a brilliant _cortege_ of noblemen, gentlemen, and military and
civil chiefs. When all were seated, the scene as viewed from my
bench was very striking. The resplendent sepulchre; the illuminated
altar, at which the mitred prelate and his assistant priests were
officiating, all robed in white and gold; the long row of handsome
uniforms on each side of the nave; the gay _parterre_ of fair ladies,
and the crowd of spectators of every shade of color from white to
black that filled the spaces between the massive pillars and served
as a background, all contributed to form a whole most picturesque and
unique.

The beautiful service of Maundy-Thursday now commenced; during
the celebration of it, the ceremony of blessing the holy oils was
performed; and when the _Gloria in excelsis_ was chanted, the bell
was rung for the last time until Holy Saturday. At the elevation, I
heard the silver staff of the _pertiguero_ resound several times upon
the pavement. The _pertiguero_ is, like the _perrero_, a functionary
peculiar to the cathedral; his duty is to enforce _kneeling_ at the
elevation on all strangers visiting that church at the moment. He
carries a long silver staff, called a _pertiga_, which he strikes
with a clang upon the marble floor when he perceives any one
inattentive to the strict rule of the church--prostration in presence
of the host.

After the mass, the blessed sacrament was carried in solemn
procession to the sepulchre, the captain-general and the governor
bearing the banner of the _Agnus Dei_, and all the grandees and
municipality joining in it. The staves and cross-rods of the banner
and of the magnificent dais held over the holy sacrament were all of
silver, and appeared to be very heavy. The host was deposited in the
sepulchre, which was then locked, and the golden key fastened to a
chain suspended by the bishop around the neck of the captain-general,
to be brought back to the church by him on Good-Friday. The
beautiful hymn, _Pange lingua_, was sung very sweetly the whole
time; the Latin, which seems so hard and harsh in our English
pronunciation, sounding very grand and harmonious in these Spanish
mouths.

The church cleared very rapidly after the mass; and when the last
carriage had conveyed its last occupant home, no vehicle of any kind
was permitted to pass through the streets of Havana. The soldiers now
carried their arms reversed, and all Spanish flags were at half-mast.
The city was in mourning.

I was taken possession of by some kind friends as I left the
cathedral, and accompanied them to their house close by, where we
found a welcome breakfast awaiting us. It consisted of fish and
vegetables. We commenced with turtle-soup; but not of the kind so
loved by Cockney aldermen, redolent of spiced force-meat balls and
luscious green fat; this was an orthodox meagre soup, incapable of
doing harm. Then came a nice fried fish called _rabi rubio_--red
tail, and fried lobster, all hot, which, however, I did not like
as well as boiled lobster cold with a _mayonnaise_ sauce. To these
succeeded shrimp fritters, roast turtle, and a very delicate fish,
the _pargo_, the best in these seas, and sometimes caught as large
as a large salmon, which it is not unlike in form. Our vegetables
were white rice, eaten with black Mexican beans stewed; yam, yucca,
and slices of green plantain fried of a fine gold color, and very
delicious. Good bread, excellent claret, and native coffee with an
aroma resembling that of the best Mocha, completed this agreeable
repast, which had been enlivened by the pleasant conversation of an
intelligent, generous-hearted Spaniard, and the smiles and jests of
his pretty Cuban wife and children.

Breakfast over, my friend Pepilla and I, with the two eldest girls,
Dolores and Luisita, sallied forth into the silent streets to visit
some of the churches, previous to attending the ceremony of the
_Lavatorio_--washing of feet--which was to be performed in the
cathedral at three o'clock.

The quaint old church of _San Juan de Dios_ was the first we
entered. Its floor of hard-beaten earth was encumbered with kneeling
worshippers, mostly colored, in earnest prayer before a figure as
large as life, representing our blessed Saviour dressed in a dark
purple velvet robe, embroidered with gold; his hands tied together
with a rope; his head crowned with a gilded crown of thorns. Long
black ringlets of shiny hair shaded his emaciated cheeks and fell far
down on his shoulders behind.

The high altar, which is a curious work of bad taste, decorated with
little carved wooden angels wearing black Hessian boots, was screened
by hangings of gold and silver tinsel; and a gilded sepulchre,
surrounded by a great number of wax tapers, to be lighted in the
evening, was placed in front of it.

As we came out of the poor little church, a dirty negro boy, followed
by a dozen others, ran by us in the street, making a great noise with
a _matraca_, to the delight of his suite. This _matraca_ is a piece
of wood about eighteen inches long and ten wide; on each side of it
are affixed one or two thick iron wires of the usual size and shape
of those old-fashioned metal handles to drawers and trunks, which
always used to slip out of their sockets when one gave a strong pull.
When the instrument is shaken, these rattle against the wood, and in
the hands of an adept, and all colored boys are such, made a terrible
clatter. From the _Gloria_ on Maundy-Thursday until the _Gloria_ on
Holy Saturday, _matracas_ are employed instead of bells and clocks,
and boys from the churches run through the streets with them, to
announce each hour of the day.

The sepulchre at _San Felipe_, a church whose interior is remarkable
for its air of bright cleanliness, was very tastefully arranged with
flowers and tapers, and promised to look very brilliant when lighted
up. There also was an image of our Saviour similar to that we had
just seen.

At _Santo Domingo_, a large, handsome edifice, we found a magnificent
sepulchre, in severer taste than the two we had visited. In one of
the aisles, also, there was a group large as life, and painfully
life-like. It represented our blessed Lord on the cross, the blood
streaming from his nose and down his pale, thin cheeks from the
wounds inflicted by the cruel thorns of his crown; a ghastly gash in
his side; his hands tom by the dreadful nails; his wrists bruised and
cut by the cords with which he had been bound; his knees so horribly
scarified by being dragged over the rough ground that the bones of
the joints were visible; his feet mangled, his whole body cut and
scratched and discolored by stones and blows. At the foot of the
cross stood the holy Virgin, tearless, but with so heart-broken an
expression that to look at her was to weep. St. Mary Magdalen, her
face pale, her eyes swollen and red, was kneeling near her. I could
not bear the sight of this agony, and turned away, saying to myself,
"Yes, it must have been like this!"

In each of these three churches a nun was sitting at a small table
with a tray before her, to collect the charitable, voluntary
offerings of visitors. This was the first time I had seen the
slightest approach to money-asking in the Cuban churches. During
the rest of the year there never are collections of any kind made
in them. Nevertheless, the ladies of Havana are very ready to
contribute, and do contribute liberally toward all religious and
charitable purposes; but privately, not publicly. Indeed, both
Spaniards and Cubans are remarkably compassionate and generous to the
begging poor, whom they gently style _Pordioseros_--"For-God-sakers;"
and whom they never send harshly away when unpleasantly importuned
or unable to give, as we Anglo-Saxons so often do; but refuse with
a soft _Perdone, por Dios, hermano_--"Pardon me, for God's sake,
brother;" or, _Perdone, por Dios, hermanita_--"Pardon me, for God's
sake, little sister."

It was now time to return to the cathedral to secure places to see
the _Lavatorio_. We found but few persons there yet, and consequently
had a choice of seats. Some colored men were busy placing an image
of our Saviour, similar to that we had seen in the church of _San
Juan de Dios_, on one of the altars in the southern aisle, and it was
touching to see the veneration and love with which one or other of
them would raise from time to time a ringlet of the shiny black hair
and kiss it.

Just before three o'clock two long benches were set on the epistle
side of the altar, and presently a large number of youths, attired in
dark red robes, entered the chancel--students from the _Seminario de
San Carlos_, the theological college attached to the cathedral.

The beautiful anthem that is chanted during the ceremony of the
washing of feet, _Mandatum novum do vobis_, "A new command I give
unto you," contains the distinctive precept of our pure and holy
religion, "Love one another;" and I could not help thinking, when
the Bishop of Havana girded himself with a linen napkin and knelt
humbly to do his lowly task, that he looked as if it were to him a
real labor of love, so charitable an expression was there in his
eyes, such venerable grace in his manner. He was assisted by several
priests, one of whom carried a large silver basin, another a silver
ewer full of water. The water was poured over one foot only; the
prelate knelt as he wiped it, and then kissing it, rose and passed to
the foot of the next boy, and so on. When all were washed and wiped,
the bishop, looking heated and tired, resumed the white and gold
chasuble he had laid aside, and, crowned with his mitre, took his
seat in front of the high altar, surrounded by his clergy.

The sermon then commenced; the subject was, as always on this day,
the institution of the holy eucharist. The preacher was a rather
young man, of agreeable aspect, earnest in gesture and manner. His
voice was loud and clear, and the magnificent Spanish language
resounded in harmonious and eloquent periods through the vaulted
nave. I remembered, as I listened admiringly, the old Spanish
boast that theirs is the tongue in which the Almighty can be least
unworthily addressed, and it did not seem to me so vain and unmeaning
as I once deemed it.

With the conclusion of the sermon, all the joy and love that had
marked the first part of the services of Holy Thursday disappeared,
and grief and mourning now began again. Vespers and the _Tenebrae_
were chanted, and then the faithful withdrew.

In the evening all the inhabitants of Havana poured into the streets:
the captain-general, attended by his staff; the bishop, followed
by his clergy; the governor and the municipality; the various
corporations; large family parties, and bands of young men and boys;
all went from one illuminated church to another, seven being the
prescribed number, to kneel before the splendid sepulchres, and pray
with more or less devotion. And having accomplished this duty, all
adjourned to the _Plaza de Armas_, a handsome square, on one side of
which is the palace of the captain-general, for the _retreta_; that
is, to promenade while they listened to the military band, which
played some sacred music very finely, and to eat ices, the pious
taking care that theirs were _water-ices_.

The brilliant moon of the tropics lighted up the scene, making all
visible as in the day, but with softer tones; beneath her beams the
beautiful eyes of the ladies seemed of a more velvety black, and
their white teeth glistened whiter between their smiling lips. A
gentle breeze, laden with the sweet odors peculiar to night in Cuba,
sighed in the leafy boughs of the _Laurel de India_, and all seemed
to me peace and good-will among men, until I overheard one Creole
lady say to another, "Your husband was a Spaniard, I believe?"

"I have been the wife of two Spaniards," replied the _Cubana_; "but I
am happy to say that I have buried them both!"

So I returned to my home deeply meditating on the loveliness of
nature and the perversity of mankind.




GOULD'S ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF.[11]


In this book the author considers what are the natural religious
wants of man's soul; he shows how these cravings have given birth
to various religious systems; he considers to what extent these
systems are capable of satisfying man's moral nature, including in
this survey every ancient and modern belief except Christianity;
and proves that they have all failed in a greater or less degree.
In a second volume he intends "to show how that Christianity by its
fundamental postulate--the Incarnation--assumes to meet all these
instincts; how it actually does so meet them; and how failure is due
to counteracting political or social causes." (P. 6.)

In other words, we have here a treatise on religion from the _a
priori_, rationalistic or philosophic stand-point. The work is done
as well as we could expect from a non-Catholic author. But like
most other books of the same stamp, written by those outside of the
church, it contains many errors and false statements of facts. As it
has attracted no little attention, and may be considered as a type
of a large class, we will give some quotations from it, to show how
cautiously these books are to be read, and how little confidence can
be placed in their assertions.

In his preface, the author says that, besides the historical
revelation, "We have a revelation in our own nature.... On this
revelation the church of the future must establish its claims to
acceptance." (P. 6.) If Christ was God, as we firmly believe, or even
an inspired teacher sent by God, the first and only thing necessary
is to know _what he taught_. We must examine extrinsic evidence
which bears on the inspiration, authenticity, and genuineness of the
historical documents in which his teaching is contained. Intrinsic
evidence derived from the examination of that teaching, and the
consideration of its complete harmony with man's spiritual nature,
must be assigned a second, not a first place.

In the following passages, which are certainly not a little
ridiculous, we have naturalism and materialism:

    "Mysticism is produced by the combustion of the gray vascular
    matter in the sensorium--the thalami optici and the corpora
    striata." (P. 355.)

    "Prayer is a liberation of force. When the emotions are
    excited, rapid combustion of nervous tissue ensues, and the
    desire that inevitably follows to do something is the signal
    that an amount of power has been generated, and equilibrium is
    disturbed." (P. 387.)

"Pantheism," we are told, p. 292, "is the philosophy of reason--of
reason, it may be, in its impotence," (most assuredly!) "but of such
reason as man is gifted with here."

On page 319, speaking of Kant, he says, "All the arguments advanced
by metaphysicians to prove the existence of God crumbled into
dust beneath his touch." The truth is precisely the opposite.
Kant has "crumbled into dust," and "all the arguments adduced by
metaphysicians to prove the existence of God" remain as unshaken as
before he was born.

We are told, on page 79, that the chief reason why all men have
believed in the immortality of the soul, is because they could not
form even a conception of its annihilation. On the contrary, any one
who has ever slept soundly can conceive its annihilation without any
difficulty, though he might experience a good deal in endeavoring
to picture to himself an existence without end. The doctrine of the
immortality of the soul, however, even in philosophy, does not rest
on any such weak arguments.

That most wonderful fact of history, in which the finger of God
evidently appears, namely, the preservation of the Jewish people and
their belief for the past eighteen hundred years, in the face of
causes which, according to every natural law, ought long ago to have
destroyed both creed and nation, is accounted for (p. 205) simply by
their possession of "the Talmud, which is a minute rule of life,"
etc. _Credat Judaeus Apella._

"A man of thought will not steal, because he knows he is violating
a law of sciology." (P. 278.) Were all the men in the world
"sciologists," and "men of thought," we would not be in the least
inclined to trust our property to the slender protection afforded by
a law of "sciology."

Every native of the "Gem of the Ocean" will be delighted to learn
that "The suffering Celt has his Brian Boroimhe, ... who will come
again ... to inaugurate a Fenian millennium," (p. 407;) and students
of history will be surprised to know that

    "Marie Antoinette was informed of the execution of Robespierre
    by a woman in the street below the prison putting stones in her
    apron, and then, with her hand falling on them, scattering them
    on the ground." (P. 187.)

Marie Antoinette was not alive when Robespierre was executed. The
above incident occurred in the life of Josephine Beauharnais.

On pages 133-134, we are told substantially that for the first three
or four centuries after Christ, God governed the Christian world
directly! Then, for a time, through the priests alone! Afterward,
for several centuries, through kings alone! Now the whole Christian
world is ruled solely by "the open Bible!" This is a good example of
how most non-Catholic writers, when speaking of religion, are always
ready to sacrifice historical truth for the sake of a generalization
or a rhetorical flourish.

"Its primitive organization (that is, of the church) was purely
democratic. It recognized the right of the governed to choose their
governor." (P. 201.) We never knew before that the people of Ephesus
elected Timothy to be their ruler, or the people of Crete, Titus. We
thought St. Paul appointed both of them, and that he told Timothy,
"The things which thou hast heard from me before many witnesses, the
same commend to faithful men who shall be fit to teach others also,"
(Epis. to Timothy ii. 2;) and that he wrote to Titus, "... ordain
priests in every city, as I also appointed thee." (Epis. to Titus i.
5.)

    "When Hildebrand gathered up the reins of government in
    his powerful hand to transmit them to his successors, the
    ecclesiastical elective primacy became an absolute supremacy."
    (P. 201.)

In the _Arabian Nights_, if any difficulty occurs to interfere with
the plot of a story, genii or fairies are straightway introduced,
perform very coolly some astounding act, and _presto!_ all goes
smoothly again. So, when Protestant authors, in writing history,
come across any fact that stands in the way of their preconceived
anti-Catholic theories, and logic cannot remove it, they introduce
"priestcraft," "Hildebrand," "the cunning Jesuits," etc.; these
prodigies shoulder the difficulty, walk off with it, and then "it is
all perfectly clear." "Priestcraft," for instance, invented the whole
sacramental system and foisted it on the church, _no one knows when,
where, or how_. "Hildebrand" created the papal power. It did not
exist before his time. "The cunning Jesuits"--ah! it would require
more than a _Thousand and One Arabian Nights_ to recount all the
wondrous achievements of these mythological characters. Their latest
act has been the convocation of the present oecumenical council,
which they rule with an iron hand. In fact, the editor of this
magazine, who is a member of the council, has written to us privately
that now their power and tyranny have become so great that when the
council is in full session you have to ask a special permission of
"the cunning Jesuits" _if you desire to sneeze or even wink_! (Isn't
it awful, reader? But this, you know, is strictly _entre nous_. You
mustn't mention it to any body on any consideration, unless, of
course--as is not at all impossible--you should hereafter learn the
same thing from the Atlantic Cable!)

The saints of the Catholic Church in modern times, we read, (p. 362,)
"are ecstatics, crazy nuns, and sentimental boys." Such, therefore,
were Sts. Alphonsus Liguori, Ignatius, Francis Xavier, Vincent de
Paul, Charles Borromeo, Francis of Sales, Theresa, Jane de Chantal,
and the two Catherines! Well, we live to learn!

Mr. Gould, in order, it would appear, to give an air of
originality--or, more correctly, aboriginality--to his book,
chooses to employ the term _idol_ as signifying any representation
of the Deity, (whether it receive divine worship or not,) even the
intellectual conception or purely philosophic idea! "Idolatry,
then, is the outward expression of the belief in a personal God."
(P. 176.) According to this new nomenclature, we must style all
Christians _idolaters_!

"A fetish is a concentration of spirit or deity upon one point."
(P. 177.) So with sticks, stones, and snakes, he ranks the Sacred
Host--the _Catholic fetish_!

"The attribution to the Deity of wisdom and goodness is every whit as
much anthropomorphosis as the attribution of limbs and passions." (P.
175.) So all worshippers of the Deity (for the impersonal "God" of
pantheism is simply no God at all) are _anthropomorphists_ as well as
"idolaters"!

The last remark we have quoted from the author is not true. The
soul _alone_ is not the man; neither is the body alone; but _soul
and body_ together. Whoever, therefore, attributes to God only
the spiritual attributes of man, cannot be properly termed an
anthropomorphist. In any case, however, we most decidedly object to
any one's applying to sacred things terms rendered opprobrious by
long and correct usage. The effect of such an act is to confuse the
reader, and its tendency is to bring what is holy into contempt.
Perhaps this was the author's intention.

As might easily be supposed from the foregoing examples, the writer
of this book is one of the nineteenth century _illuminati_, and in
favor of "unrestrained freedom of thought," etc., (the chief enemies
of which are historical facts, sound logic, and common-sense.) We
will now listen for a moment while, in good orthodox Protestant
fashion, he is "shouting the battle-cry of freedom."

    "Sacerdotal despotism succeeded in the middle ages in
    concentrating all power over consciences and intelligences in
    the hands of an order whose centre was in Rome." (P. 138.)

    "The Reformation was a revolt against that oppressive despotism
    of the Roman theocracy which crushed the human intellect and
    paralyzed freedom of action." (P. 139.)

    "Under an infallible guide, regulating every moral and
    theological item of his (man's) spiritual being, his mental
    faculties are given him that they may be atrophied, like the
    eyes of the oyster, which, being useless in the sludge of its
    bed, are reabsorbed." (P. 140.)

    "Theocratic legislation hampers every man's action from the
    cradle to the grave.... The Israelites are a case in point.
    They were tied down ... lest they should desert monotheism for
    idolatry." (P. 204.)

    "In a theocracy there is neither individuality, personality,
    nor originality.... It has restrained independence, shackled
    commerce, conventionalized art, mummified science, cramped
    literature, and stifled thought," etc. (Pp. 207, 208.)

What a pity that we poor "Romanists" are so "benighted," etc., etc.,
that we don't in the least appreciate these modern Solons, who seem
to think that every one should be "progressive;" that is, spend his
life in dragging himself out of one humbug only to fall into another;
or, as the wise critic of _The Nation_ put it a short time ago, in
speaking of a story in THE CATHOLIC WORLD, a young man ought to be
_like a ship_, and devote his existence to _sailing about_--on the
boundless ocean, we suppose, of infidel nonsense![12]

Finally, we read, (pp. 138, 139.)

    "'Strange destiny, that of theology, to be condemned to be for
    ever attaching itself to those systems which are crumbling
    away,' writes M. Maury; 'to be essentially hostile to all
    science that is novel, and to all progress!'"

We shall only remark that, were religion to spend her time in pinning
her faith to all the "novel," "scientific," "progressive" systems
that spring up every day and straightway begin to crumble, even
while these learned "sciologists" are tossing high their caps in air
and shouting out in impressive chorus, "Where now is theology?"--it
would, we think, be even stranger still.

We have devoted this much space to showing up some of the falsehoods
in this book because it is not all false nor all stupid; it is a
philosophic and, to some extent, a learned work; it is written in
a brilliant and attractive style. This class of works dazzle; but
when written by non-Catholics, they are not to be trusted. _The only
deep, and, at the same time, sound scholarship in the world is in
the Catholic Church._ Those who protest against her protest against
the truth; even the most learned among them, on many most essential
matters, are surprisingly ignorant; but what they want in knowledge
they make up generally in flash rhetoric and humbug novelty, and that
suits this enlightened age just as well.

Too many persons, however, when they see much that is true in a book,
are inclined to believe it all true; and so with a considerable
amount of food they will swallow a great deal of poison. This is a
mistake. No author is ever wholly wrong. The falsest say many things
that are true.

To show how error and truth may be found side by side in the same
work, we will give some quotations from our author in which his ideas
are sufficiently, or even strikingly, correct.

He thus speaks of asceticism:

    "From whatever motive an ascetic life is undertaken, the result
    is accumulation of force. The ascetic cuts himself off, as much
    as possible, from all means of liberating force. His voluntary
    celibacy and abstinence from active work place at his disposal
    all that force which would be discharged by a man in the world
    in muscular action and in domestic affection.... Withdrawal
    from society intensifies his individuality, and, unless the
    ideas formed in his brain be such as can excite his emotion,
    he becomes completely self-centred. But if the object of his
    contemplation be one which is calculated to draw out his
    affections, the result is a coordinate accumulation of mental
    and affectional power." (P. 348.)

"Luther, a man of coarse and vigorous animalism, was no ascetic." (P.
350.)

The doctrine of Zwinglius, he tells us, was simply pantheism, and
that of Calvin he considers undeserving the name of Christianity.

    "Alongside of Mohammedanism must be placed a parallel
    development in Europe, which, though nominally Christian, is
    intrinsically deistic. Consciously it was not so, but logically
    it was; and in its evolution it proved a striking counterpart
    to Islamism.

    "Zwinglius had taught that God was infinite essence, absolute
    being, (~to~ Esse.) The being of creatures, he said, was not
    opposed to the being of God, but was in and by him. Not man
    only, but all creation, was of divine race. Nature was the
    force of God in action, and every thing is one. Sin he held to
    be the necessary consequence of the development of man, and to
    be, not a disturbance of moral order, but the necessary process
    in the development of man, who has no free-will.

    "Calvin's idea of God was quite as absolute as that formed
    by Zwinglius, but it was not so pantheistic, though he did
    not shrink from calling nature God. The Deity was to him the
    great autocrat, whose absolute will allotted to man his place
    in time and in eternity. Beyond the pale of the church, he
    taught, there was no remission to be hoped for, nor any chance
    of salvation; for the church was the number of the predestined,
    and God could not alter his decision without abrogating his
    divinity." (P. 266.)

    "He swept away the sacramental system; if he held to
    Christianity, it was in name, not in theory, for his doctrine
    excluded it as a necessary article. He deprived the atonement
    of its efficacy and significance, and he left the Incarnation
    unaccounted for, save by the absolute decree of the divine and
    arbitrary will which he worshipped as God." (P. 267.)

He thus speaks of the Reformation and of its cardinal principle:

    "But what was the result of the Reformation? The establishment
    of a royal along side of a biblical theocracy. The crown became
    the supreme head to order what religion is to consist of, how
    worship is to be conducted, and what articles of faith are to
    be believed." (P. 139.)

    "The Scriptures were then assumed to be the ultimate authority
    on doctrine and ethics; they were supposed to contain 'all
    things necessary to salvation, so that whatsoever is not read
    therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of
    any man, that it be believed as an article of the faith, or be
    thought requisite or necessary to salvation.'

    "This mode of arresting modification is not, however, final,
    and cannot in the nature of things be final; for, firstly, the
    significance of the terms in which the revelation is couched
    must be subject to the most conflicting interpretations; and
    secondly, the authority of the revelation will be constantly
    exposed to be questioned, and the genuineness of the documents
    to be disputed." (P. 134.)

Buddhism he calls the _Protestantism_ of the East.

    "Its cold philosophy and thin abstractions, however they might
    exercise the faculties of anchorites, have proved insufficient
    of themselves to arrest man in his career of passion and
    pursuit; and the bold experiment of influencing the heart and
    regulating the conduct of mankind by the external decencies
    and the mutual dependencies of morality, unsustained by higher
    hopes, has proved in this instance an unredeemed and hopeless
    failure." (P. 353.)

    "In confiding all to the mere strength of the human intellect,
    and the enthusiastic self-reliance and determination of the
    human heart, it makes no provision for defence against those
    powerful temptations before which ordinary resolution must give
    way." (P. 354.)

    "The mass of the population are profoundly ignorant of, and
    utterly indifferent to, the tenets of their creed.... 'The
    same results appear in the phases of Buddhism beyond India,'
    says M. Maupied; 'in the north of Asia and in China it has
    arrived at a sort of speculative atheism, which has not only
    arrested proselytism, but which is self-destructive, and which
    in the end will completely ruin it.' It is not a religion but a
    philosophy. (P. 355.)

    "This close resemblance seems to have been felt on first
    contact of Calvinism and Buddhism; for we find in 1684 the
    Dutch government _importing at its own expense Buddhist
    missionaries_ from Arracan to Ceylon to oppose the progress of
    Catholicism." (P. 353.)

He is not in line with those, so numerous in this age and country,
who hold to the Chinese notion that intellectual and material
progress is every thing.

    "On the whole, it will be found that the amount of happiness in
    a race not highly civilized is far more general, and its sum
    total far higher, than that of an over-civilized race. The rude
    and simple Swiss peasantry are thoroughly happy, while in a
    large city like London, the upper stratum of society is engaged
    in nervous quest of pleasure which ever eludes them, while
    the lower is plunged in misery. Besides, what is really meant
    by the progress of the species? The only tangible superiority
    of a generation over that which has preceded it, appears to
    consist in its having within its reach a larger accumulation
    of scientific or literary materials for thought, or a greater
    mastery over the forces of inanimate nature; advantages
    not without their drawbacks, and at any rate of a somewhat
    superficial kind. Genius is not progressive from age to age;
    nor yet the practice, however it may be with the science, of
    moral excellence. And, as this progress of the species is only
    supposed, after all, to be an improvement of its condition
    during men's first lifetime, the belief--call it, if you will,
    but a dream--of a prolonged existence after death _reduces the
    whole progress to insignificance_. _There is more_, even as
    regards quantity of sensation, _in the spiritual well-being of
    one single soul_, with an existence thus continuous, _than in
    the increased physical or intellectual prosperity_, during one
    lifetime, _of the entire human race_." (P. 59-60.)

Nor does he appear to believe in the Protestant method of converting
people, and causing them to "experience religion." We read on page
358 that, while Wesley was preaching at Bristol,

    "'one, and another, and another,' we are told, 'sank to the
    earth. They dropped on every side as thunderstruck.' Men and
    women by 'scores were sometimes strewed on the ground at
    once, insensible as dead men.' During a Methodist revival in
    Cornwall, four thousand people, it is computed, fell into
    convulsions. 'They remained during this condition so abstracted
    from every earthly thought, that they staid two, and sometimes
    three days and nights together in the chapels, agitated all
    the time by spasmodic movements, and taking neither repose
    nor refreshment. The symptoms followed each other usually
    as follows: A sense of faintness and oppression, shrieks as
    if in the agony of death or the pains of labor, convulsions
    of the muscles of the eyelids--the eyes being fixed and
    staring--and of the muscles of the neck, trunk, and arms;
    sobbing respiration, tremors, and general agitation, and all
    sorts of strange gestures. When exhaustion came on, patients
    usually fainted, and remained stiff and motionless until their
    recovery.'" (P. 358.)

Finally, in speaking of the "diverse forms of ceremonial expression,"
he says,

    "Jacob leans on his staff to pray, Moses falls flat on his
    face, the Catholic bows his knee, and _the Protestant settles
    himself into a seat_." (P. 114.)

We don't know whether to prefer Protestant taste, or Feejee, or
Hindoo.

    "Thus, out of love to a mother, _the Feejee eats her_, and the
    European erects a mausoleum. The sentiment is the same, but the
    mode of exhibition is different." (P. 115.)

    "The Hindoo represents Brahm, the Great Absolute, absorbed
    in self-contemplation, as a man wrapped in a mantle, _with
    his foot in his mouth_, to symbolize his eternity and _his
    self-satisfaction_." (P. 188.)

We remarked before that the author of this book displays considerable
learning. Here is a specimen which gives some pleasant information
about the old Saxon laws:

    "Three shillings were deemed sufficient compensation for a
    broken rib, while a fine of twenty shillings was inflicted
    for a dislocation of the shoulder. If a man cut off the foot
    or struck out the eye of another, he was compelled to make
    satisfaction with fifty shillings. Each tooth had its fixed
    price: for a front tooth, six shillings were demanded; for a
    canine tooth, four; and for a molar, only one shilling; the
    pain incurred by a loss of a double tooth, however, led King
    Alfred to alter this portion of the law, as unjust, and he
    raised the price of a molar to fifteen shillings." (P. 364.)

He thinks that the idea of compensation, which is here certainly
clearly set forth, gave rise to the religious idea of sacrifice.

We will close with a favorable specimen of his style. He thus
describes Greece:

    "Under a blue sky, in which the clouds lie tranquil like
    lodged avalanches, in the midst of a twinkling sea, strewed
    with fairy groups of islands, is a little mulberry-leaf of
    land attached to a continental bough, a little land ribbed
    with mountain-chains of rough-hewn marble, veined with purple
    gorges, pierced with winding gulfs; a land of vineyards and
    olive-groves, where roses bloom all the year, and where the
    pomegranate holds its glowing cheek to a sun that is never
    shorn of its rays." (P. 148.)

We have given these quotations at length, partly because they are
a little remarkable as coming from such a source, but chiefly to
show that a book may be excellent in some respects, and nevertheless
contain very many most false things. Our end will have been attained
if we have shown that whatever comes from non-Catholic pens, _even
the best, is not to be trusted_, whenever, directly or indirectly,
matters pertaining to philosophy, theology, or ecclesiastical history
are treated of. These books at best are half-blind guides; and such
are never desirable, and generally dangerous.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] _The Origin and Development of Religious Belief._ By S.
Baring-Gould, M.A., author of _Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_,
_The Silver Store_, etc. Part I. Heathenism and Mosaism. New York: D.
Appleton & Co., 90, 92, and 94 Grand street. 1870.

[12] "And some indeed he gave to be apostles, and some prophets and
others evangelists, and others pastors and teachers."

"_That we may not now be_ CHILDREN, _tossed to and fro, and carried
about with every wind of doctrine_, in the wickedness of men, in
craftiness by which they lie in wait to deceive." (St. Paul to the
Ephesians, iv. 11, 14.)




PLANGE FILIA SION.


    Lone in the dreary wilderness,
      Meek, by the Spirit led,
    For forty days and forty nights,
      Our Saviour hungered.

    O night winds! did ye fold your wings
      Ere, on that brow so pure,
    Ye roughly smote the uncovered head
      That all things did endure?

    O rude winds! did ye on those eves
      Only the flowers fill;
    Or, with the drops of night, his locks
      And sacred body chill?

    He, the most lovely, most divine,
      So lost in love for us!
    Our evil-starred, sin-stricken race,
      By him redeemed thus!

    We hear the audacious tempter's words--
      Amazed, we hold our breath;
    We follow him, the Holy One,
      Sorrowful unto death!

    Thus, may we to the wilderness
      Close follow thee, dear Lord,
    These forty days and forty nights,
      Obedient to thy word:

    Renounce the world, and Satan's wiles,
      In blest retreat of prayer,
    Self-abnegation, vigilance,
      And find our Saviour there.

    For vain the sackcloth, ashes, fast,
      In vain retreat in prayer,
    Unless the sackcloth gird the heart,
      True penitence be there;

    Sorrow for sins that helped to point
      The spear, the thorn, the nail.
    O Lord! have mercy upon us,
      While we those sins bewail.

    And in the lonely wilderness,
      From world and sin withdrawn,
    Our hearts shall cloistered be in thine
      Till glows glad Easter's dawn!

                                          SOPHIA MAY ECKLEY.




UNTYING GORDIAN KNOTS.


X.

LADY SACKVIL'S JOURNAL.

"I have been playing the part of a peri at the gates of paradise.
I have been watching Mary Vane with her child. My life looks to me
unbearable. I am a blunder on the part of nature. I have the passions
of a man and the follies of a woman. This is the last entry I shall
make in this book. Once for all I will put my agony into words, and
then throw this wretched record of three months into the canal, to
rot with the other impurities thrown daily into the sluggish flood.

When first I allowed myself to exercise my power over Vane, it was
from mere coquetry and love of excitement. I wished to reassert my
sway and punish his former cruelty. Later I dreamed of a Platonic
love, _a la_ Recamier and Chateaubriand. True, one pities Mesdames
de Chateaubriand, viewing them as a class; but they must suffer for
their bad management. I did not recognize, I do not recognize the
claims of so-called duty; I lack motive. Virtue as virtue does not
attract me; neither does sin as sin attract me. I want to have my own
way. Gratified self-will has afforded me the only permanent enjoyment
of my life; but it has this disadvantage. While you rule your will
and indulge it for fancy's sake, the pleasure is unquestionable.
When your will begins to rule you, there is no slavery so galling. I
had not thought of this; I know it now.

Once for all, I put my torture into words. _I love him._ Ten years
ago I buried my heart--in sand or sawdust, or something else,
where grass and flowers cannot grow. It has risen now in an awful
resurrection, and taken possession of me. He might have been all
mine. I wish to hate his wife, and am forced to honor her profoundly.
I _cannot_ leave this place. My will refuses to let me go. Oh! if
I stay here and do not say one word, where is the harm? And if he
should utter the word I dare not say--"

       *       *       *       *       *

Amelia paused shuddering. "O subtle--O inexorable horror!" she said.
Then, enveloping the book in paper, she carried it out onto the
balcony, and dropped it into the canal, and heard the splash, and
marked with satisfaction its disappearance beneath the dull green
water.

"There--that's gone!" she said, and reentered the room. Her face,
which reflected every change of mood, grew very white.

"It is _not_ gone!" she cried; and pressing her hands to her breast
exclaimed, "It is here; it is my double--my bosom serpent! O God! how
it gnaws!"

She went to a press, and pulling open drawers and slides, sought
something eagerly. Then, as if forgetting the object of her search,
paused in deep thought, and finally rang the bell violently.

Josephine came promptly, but unsurprised, being used to vehemence on
the part of her mistress.

"You may pack my trunks. I shall leave Venice to-morrow."

The maid proceeded to take out dress after dress and fold them. When
one trunk was packed, Lady Sackvil who had been standing on the
balcony in the blazing sun, looking down into the water, glanced over
her shoulder.

"You may pack the other boxes another day," she remarked calmly; "I
shall not go to-morrow. Your dinner-bell is ringing; you can go."

She locked the door behind Josephine, and then returned to her
researches in the press. At last she produced a small vial of
laudanum, and, sitting down before the toilette-table, poured a
little into a glass and paused. "I wish I knew how much to take," she
said ponderingly; "it would be so tiresome to take too little or too
much." Then she fell to considering herself in the mirror--looked
anxiously at the faint commencement of a wrinkle between her
eyebrows; and pushing back her hair, revealed a gray hair or two
hidden beneath the dark locks so full of sunny gleams. "I will do
it," she said, and then took a few drops; then paused again. "I
can't--I won't!" she said violently. "I'm afraid; I'm afraid of
hell--I'm afraid of that horrid, clammy thing they call death! I'm
afraid of making poor, good little Flora miserable! Oh! I'm afraid of
myself, dead or alive," she moaned, rocking herself to and fro, in a
passion of regret and pain.

At last the paroxysm passed. She poured back the laudanum, washed
the glass, replaced every thing accurately, and threw herself on the
couch. There, overcome by the drug, to which her healthy frame was
wholly unaccustomed, she fell into a heavy sleep.

The plea of weariness afforded an excuse for going early to bed. When
she awoke the second time, the Campanile clock was striking two. A
rain was falling, pattering on the canal, dripping and trickling from
the eaves and from the pointed traceries above the windows. She
got up, put on a white wrapper, and went out onto the balcony. The
rain felt cool on her burning head. It drenched her to the skin, and
dripped from her hair. Yet still she stood there, crying bitter tears
that brought no relief, shaken with sobs that she with difficulty
prevented from becoming cries. She wrung her hands with grief, and
passion, and pain. Night added nothing to the darkness in her soul;
dawn brought neither light nor hope of change; and when at last she
went in from the cold, gray morning light, to change her wet clothes
and creep into bed, it was to a second dose of laudanum that she owed
the temporary bliss of oblivion.


XI.

"If you're looking for Mr. Nicholas, Miss Vane, he's gone down to the
first floor," said Deborah, the morning after Lady Sackvil's visit.

Mary went to Mr. Holston's writing-room; no one was there; passed
on through drawing-rooms, dining-room, and ante-chambers, without
meeting a soul, and at last found herself standing outside Lady
Sackvil's music-room. Knocking and receiving no answer, she opened
the door, which moved noiselessly on its hinges, and lifted the heavy
crimson curtain. Her husband was standing with his back to the door,
leaning against the mantel-piece. Lady Sackvil stood before him, her
face buried in her hands. He spoke, but in a voice so hoarse and
dissonant that Mary fancied for an instant there was a third person
with them.

"Be satisfied with your success, Amelia," he said. "You have lighted
the fire of hell in my heart. You have turned my affections away from
my wife, who is too pure for things like you and me to love. It may
add to your satisfaction to know that there is one person on earth I
despise more than Lady Sackvil, and that person is myself."

He turned, and saw his wife standing in the doorway.

"How much have you heard?" he asked calmly, without showing either
surprise or annoyance.

"Enough to make me say, 'God help us both,'" she replied.

"Amen," he said, and left the room. Mary was about to follow him,
when a look of entreaty from Lady Sackvil checked her. In another
instant Amelia was crouching on the ground, her face buried in
the folds of Mary's gown. There was dead silence in the room. The
ticking of the Louis Quatorze clock on the mantel and the flap of
a window-curtain were the only sounds to be heard. Charity pleaded
for the wretched woman kneeling at her feet. Nature cried, "Follow
him; tear from him some consolation; make him wake you from this
nightmare, and say he loves you!" Charity conquered. Mary bent over
Lady Sackvil to raise her from the ground; but at the first touch,
Amelia lifted her head, exclaiming, "I will never rise; I will die
here unless you say you forgive me!"

"How can you ask pardon," replied Mary "for an injury you have only
just completed?"

Amelia crouched still nearer to the ground.

"So help me heaven!" she said in a voice of agony, "I never meant
to speak. He came to-day--oh! you who possess him, can't you see
how it happened; how I forgot every thing--resolutions, dignity,
decency--and spoke?"

"Why do you say I possess him?" asked Mary bitterly. "You heard him
say that you had turned away his heart from me."

"I have not turned it toward myself. He repulsed me like a dog. Oh!
if there were a hole underground where I could hide, I would crawl
into it." And she flung herself on her face with a despairing groan.

Mary knelt down beside her. "We are both in the presence of God," she
said; "and I forgive you now even as I hope to be forgiven."

Amelia rose with difficulty, made an effort to reach the bedroom
door, tottered, and would have fallen but for Mary's assistance, who
unlocked the door and helped her to a sofa. Then, looking round the
room for some restorative, her eye rested on a little vial standing
in a crimson wine-glass. She took it up and saw that it was labelled
"laudanum."

"Have you taken any of this?" she asked, carrying it to the sofa.

"Only yesterday--never before," Lady Sackvil answered feebly. "It
would make me sleep now and do me good. You might give me a few
drops; or rather, no, leave it with me," she said, holding out her
trembling hand. "I can take it, if necessary, myself."

"Wait a moment," said Mary, and going to the window, she threw the
bottle over the railing. Then sitting down beside Amelia, she took
the feverish hand in both her own. "Promise me, swear to me, that you
will not take that or any other narcotic or stimulant."

"You have prevented me from doing you the only kindness in my
power," said Amelia, sitting up and pushing the hair back from her
crimson temples. "You have forgiven me; you have treated me like the
Christian you profess to be. I meant to repay you by taking myself
out of this loathsome world."

"Repay me by living and repenting," answered Mary earnestly. "Promise
me not to make an eternity of this passing anguish. There is work
for you to do; there is heaven for you to win. Promise me to live,
and to live for God."

Lady Sackvil looked at her silently for several minutes. Then she
said, "I acknowledge one thing--I acknowledge that you are good, in
spite of circumstances." She lay down and turned her face to the
wall. "I will live," she said wearily, "if you will help me to live;
otherwise I shall die."

"I will help you," Mary said. "Now I must go. Shall I ring for your
maid?"

"No. If Flora can come, I will have her; otherwise, I would rather be
alone. I feel wretched and heavy, and shall fall asleep presently."

Mary found Mrs. Holston in her sitting-room. "Lady Sackvil is ill,
and wants you," she said breathlessly; for, now that her duty was
done, every minute seemed an age until she could see Nicholas. "Don't
stop me, please; I _must_ go." As she put her hand on the hall door,
Mr. Holston opened it from outside. She brushed by him without a
word; but he saw her blanched face, and followed her with his eyes as
she ran up-stairs. "The blow has fallen," he said to himself, as he
hung his hat in the hall. "Poor, poor child!"

She went to the study door and turned the handle. It was locked. She
paused a moment, thinking her husband would admit her; then walked
on through the gallery to her own room, shut the door, and sat down
in her little sewing-chair. She was stunned; mercifully stunned. It
all seemed a dream, from which there would soon be an awakening. Of
course, it could not be true that her husband had shut her out from
his confidence. She felt too dull to understand all this. "God knows
what it means," she said half-aloud; "I don't." How far from her
eyes seemed the tears, crowded back, as it were, to make the weight
on her heart more unbearable. "Some women faint or cry out when they
are hurt," she thought idly; "I wonder why I don't? I feel so dumb,
so gray, so smothered."

A knock came at the nursery door. Dragging one foot after the other,
she went and opened it. Deborah started at sight of her face, but
made no comment. "It is time to take baby," she said cheerfully. "The
cap'n's asking for you. He can't think what's become of you." Mary
darted past her and ran out into the gallery.


XII.

Nicholas was sitting at the study table, looking over papers. He rose
and drew forward a chair for her, and then sat down again.

"The best thing that could happen, under the circumstances," he said,
"has come to pass. I am appointed to join the French army in the
Crimea, for purposes of study. Here is the appointment. These are
letters from General Scott and from the Secretary of War. Just glance
at them, if you please."

She read them, almost without comprehending their meaning. "When do
you go?"

"To-morrow morning. It is the best thing to do, under the
circumstances."

"Yes, the best under the circumstances," she repeated after him. He
looked at her anxiously, but said nothing.

"What are you to take with you?" she asked, rising from her chair. "I
must go and look over your clothes."

"All the military traps I have here, of course; not much besides, for
I would rather buy what I want. Don't trouble yourself, my--" He
paused. "I will see to every thing."

"No, I want to do it myself," she said.

"I must go and speak to Holston about your money matters while I am
gone. He will do every thing a brother could do."

"Every thing," she said. He looked at her again uneasily, and seemed
about to speak; then left the room. "I've killed her," he thought;
"but words are mere insults now."

He was gone, and without one word of explanation. It was, then, no
nightmare, to be dispelled by a change of posture. There was no
awakening for her. It was all true!


XIII.

Mary was alone with the baby. Georgina's tiny hand was clasped
around her mother's finger; rosy cheek and dewy lip invited many a
loving maternal caress. At least here was love, without anxiety or
heart-ache. "My love for this child, to whom I have given life, is
faint in comparison to God's love for his creatures," she thought.
"My soul shall rest on him, as Georgie rests in my arms. He knows the
way out of this blackness. I will follow him trustfully."

The day was hard to bear; wife's work without wife's consolation.
Sewing, sorting, packing, filled the hours too closely to leave much
time for active grief. They were services that could easily have been
performed by a servant; but Mary, amid the perplexity which clouded
her life, kept one purpose clearly before her--to fulfil her duties
thoroughly toward her husband, and even toward the unhappy woman who
had poisoned her happiness, and thus prevent further entanglement.

The dinner hour, whose claims prevail over every other external
circumstance in life, was lived through, thanks to the presence of
Italian servants, who do not expect friends to look happy on the eve
of separation, and are ready to melt into tears of sympathy at a
moment's warning. Vane passed the evening in his study, transacting
business with Mr. Holston and a lawyer; Mary in his dressing-room,
attending to "last things."

At intervals through the weary night she heard him moving about in
the library. About five o'clock, the peculiar click of the hall door
told her that he had gone out. Then came two hours of sleep, and
memory's dreadful reckoning when she awoke.

Breakfast was served at nine o'clock. After going through the dismal
form which represents eating on such occasions, Nicholas went to the
window to watch for the gondola. "Will you come here, Mary?" he said.

She went to him, and measured despairingly, as he talked to her, the
gulf which separated them spiritually while they stood side by side.

After giving various directions as to material arrangements during
his absence, he said, "I went to confession this morning, and to your
Padre Giulio." She looked up eagerly into his sad face, stern with
the rigidity of repressed emotion. "After confession, I saw him in
his own room, and told him all the circumstances of the last three
months, out of the confessional, in order that you may feel free to
seek from him the advice and consolation I have shown myself unfit to
give you."

"I don't want to speak of these things to any one," Mary answered.

"I have no right to urge you," he said; "but you will oblige me
very much by speaking to him once, at least, upon the subject. I
cannot tell you the weight it added to my self-reproach to find him
ignorant of the wrongs you have suffered, knowing as I do the entire
confidence you repose in him personally. You have been very loyal to
me, Mary; I shall never forget it."

"Of course, I told him nothing concerning any one but myself."

"I have another favor to ask, which I should not ask if you were like
other women."

"What is it?"

He took a note from his desk, and gave it to her unfolded. "After
reading that, I beg you to give it to Lady Sackvil."

She flushed, and a slight trembling passed over her. Then she folded
the note and put it into her pocket. "I will give it to her without
reading it. I trust you."

Nicholas looked at her with an expression of reverence in his face.
"I will earn the right to tell you how deeply I honor you," he said.
"Any thing I could say now would appear like a new phase of moral
weakness; but I will earn the right to speak."

As Mary met his eyes, fixed upon her with a look of reverential
tenderness, her heart cried out for him. She longed to throw herself
upon his breast; to urge him to put off this dreadful parting,
and treat the wretched delusion he had yielded to as a dream. But
something unanswerable within her soul warned her to let him leave
her, that his resolutions might grow strong in solitude; that he
might learn by aching experience the worth of the love and sympathy
he had slighted. Therefore, she only said, "All will be well; I know
it, I feel it." And he answered, "I accept your words as a prophecy,
and thank God for them. One favor still I must ask. Mary, you will
write to me?"

"Constantly."

"God bless you. Holston will find out when the mails go. It will be
the one happiness of my life to look forward to your letters, which
must give me every detail about yourself and about our child. Mary,
it will be my one earthly hope to look forward to the time which
shall end my exile."

The gondola was at the door, and George Holston had already taken
his place in it. Vane clasped his wife's hands in his, kissed them
passionately, and rushed from the room.


XIV.

"I never knew her to faint before," Deborah's voice was saying, as
Mary emerged from an abyss of peaceful oblivion, to find herself
deluged with _eau de Cologne_, and lying on the bed in her own room.

"Poor little soul!" answered Mrs. Holston's gentle voice. "It was a
terrible shock, his going so suddenly. But, hush now, she is coming
to herself."

No, not to herself; to a consciousness of nameless agony; to a sense
of restlessness, without physical strength for action; to a crushing
weight of misery which she must ask no living soul to share.

After some minutes, which seemed like hours of struggling to recover
breath, and voice, and senses, she succeeded in thanking her kind
nurses, and asking them to leave her alone for a little while.

An hour's solitude had restored her to complete consciousness, when
a servant knocked on the door and asked whether she had any further
occasion for the gondola, which had returned from carrying Captain
Vane to the steamer. Her husband's request that she would see Padre
Giulio occurred to her. Life must be taken up somewhere; why not in
the performance of that duty, which would become harder with every
day it should be deferred?

If she called upon Deborah for assistance, she would be prevented
from leaving the house; so her preparations must be made alone.
Giving orders for the gondola to wait, she put on hat and shawl with
trembling hands, and walked down the long flights of marble stairs,
holding on to the balustrade for support. It was useless to attempt
her mission in that condition; perhaps an hour's row that soft, gray,
overshadowed morning might restore her nerves to equilibrium. "Put
up the awning and row on the lagoon for an hour," she said to the
gondoliers. "Then take me to the Piazza San Marco without my giving
you any further directions."

Through the open windows of the ducal palace she could see tourists
wandering about, _Murray_ in hand. Soldiers were lolling under
the arcades; sight-seers were hurrying through to and fro, taking
advantage of the cool day to get through a double amount of work. A
sacristan was cleaning down the steps of Santa Maria della Salute,
flinging away the broom, and sitting down to rest after the labor of
sweeping each step.

Then came a long period of quiet, broken only by the steady dip of
oars, and an occasional remark in gondolier slang made by the two
boatmen. Pearly sky and pearly sea, a soft breeze and monotonous
motion exercised a soothing influence over poor Mary, who never
resisted comfort, no matter in how homely a form it might come. On
the steps behind the Armenian convent sat a monk, looking over the
lagoon. He was a commonplace old man enough in appearance, some
insignificant lay brother resting from his labors in the garden.
He saw the boat approach, and noticed probably the expression of
suffering on Mary's face; for as she passed, a look of kindness,
that was in itself a benediction, came into his wrinkled, brown face,
and sank into her poor wounded heart, never to be forgotten. From
that day she remembered the old Armenian in her prayers as one who
had helped her in the sorest trial of her life.


XV.

In the afternoon came Mrs. Holston, for once in her life in a hurry.
"I am ashamed to disturb you," she said to Mary. "I am ashamed to say
why I have come. Amelia is behaving in the most extraordinary manner.
She refuses to get up, and refuses to see the doctor. She says no one
can do her any good except you. I told her she was very selfish, and
she said she didn't care; so now I can only ask you, for charity's
sake, to come down and speak to her."

"Certainly," said Mary, by a stupendous effort speaking in a natural
tone; "I will come in a few minutes. I have a little note for your
sister from my husband that she may be glad to get. Did he find time
to come and bid you good by?"

"Yes, indeed, but he looked dreadfully worried and unhappy, of
course. I think it extremely ill-natured of the War Department to
make him leave home so suddenly. That must have been what made you
look so frightfully ill yesterday morning. I was very much alarmed
about you."

"I will follow you directly," said Mary, escaping to her own room for
a moment of preparation before facing the enemy of her peace.

But that her peace was hopelessly shaken, she no longer feared. The
interview with Padre Giulio had been full of consolation; for to this
impartial listener Vane had said many things that the fear of seeming
insincere had prevented him from expressing to his wife. It was
plain that delicacy toward herself and compassion for Lady Sackvil
had made him leave Venice. She now felt that it would show a lack of
faith to doubt that the future would bring happiness to them both;
that their reunion would be one such as death itself confirms instead
of severing.

She found Lady Sackvil looking enchantingly lovely. Her hair, dark
brown, with golden red lights in it, was plaited in two great braids;
her cheeks were flushed; her eyes were closed, showing their long
lashes and large, full lids to advantage. By the quivering of her
lips, Mary knew that she felt who was with her; but it was some
minutes before she opened her eyes.

"It was kind in you to come," she said at last, looking up into
Mary's face. "I am very grateful. Flora says I'm horribly selfish to
send for you, and no doubt I am; but it is better than going crazy, I
suppose."

Mary laid her hand on the throbbing forehead, and felt the quick
pulses. "Do you feel really ill?" she asked; "or is this merely a
state of nervous excitement?"

"I'm not ill. I was never seriously ill in my life. I am only going
distracted. I had an idea you might do something for me."

"The first thing to be done is to quiet your nerves and reduce the
fever. Then we will think of other remedies. I will get Flora's
little medicine-chest, and see what its resources are."

The morning passed quietly in tending Lady Sackvil, varied by
occasional visits to the nursery. It was hard to bear, "but no harder
than any thing else would be now," thought Mary. "If I can save this
poor soul, it will be worth suffering great as this."

By two o'clock, Amelia was physically more tranquil. Her health
had always been excellent, and her temperament, though utterly
undisciplined, by no means inclined to morbid excitability.

"I have a note for you," said Mary; "will you read it?"

"From whom?"

"From my husband."

Lady Sackvil shuddered, and turned away.

"Don't give it to me," she said. "Read it, and tell me what it says."

Mary read it through to herself; then, mastering her voice, read
aloud the following words:

"I was unjust to you yesterday. I treated you with cruelty. For what
has happened, I am more responsible than you, because I have been
under better influences. We shall never meet again. God bless you,
and grant us both genuine repentance!"

Amelia made no comment or reply. A quarter of an hour later, she
said, "You go to confession very often, I suppose?"

"Once a week."

"Who is your confessor?"

"Padre Giulio, at St. Mark's."

"Is he old?"

"Yes."

"Wise?"

"Yes."

"Kind?"

"Very kind."

"I should like to see him. I don't suppose that I intend going to
confession, but I want to talk with such a man. Has he had much to do
with making you what you are?"

"He has given me good advice, and I have tried to follow it, if that
is what you mean."

Lady Sackvil looked at Mary fixedly for some time.

"I made up my mind, a short time ago," she said, "that the thing
most likely to convince me of the direct influence of God would be
to see a Christian whose character would bear scrutiny under the
severest test. I have seen such a Christian in you. Most women would
have spurned me away in disdain; you have treated me like a sister. I
thank you for it, and I should like to believe what you believe."

Mary smiled at the reasoning, but thanked God for the conclusion.
"You would find Padre Giulio very sympathizing," she said; "I think
it would soothe you to see him. Shall I send for him to come here?"

"On no account. I will go to him if you will come with me. Do come
with me; I will bless you all my life," she added pleadingly.

"Of course I will go, but not to-day. If you were to take cold now,
it might be the death of you. To-morrow morning we will go to St.
Mark's, and I will send him word, that we may be sure of finding him
at home."

Lady Sackvil looked disappointed. "I would rather go to-day. I want
to have it over."

"There's no occasion to wish to have it over," said Mary soothingly.
"An experienced confessor is too well used to dealing with mental
suffering to wonder at it, no matter in what shape it comes."

Lady Sackvil lay with her eyes shut a long time. At last she said,
"I've not been much of a Bible reader, but I remember well that it
required only the sight of one miracle to convert sinners in those
days. I suppose sinners are very much the same in the nineteenth
century that they were in the first."

"No doubt," said Mary, and waited to hear more.

"Your conduct toward me is, in my opinion, a greater miracle than the
raising of the dead. Nothing but supernatural strength could have
sustained you."

"If I have done any thing remarkable, it has certainly been God's
doing, not mine."

Lady Sackvil lay still some time longer. Then she said abruptly,
"I am clever, I know, but I am not intellectual; and intellectual
satisfaction is not what I demand in order to become a Christian. If
you were to lay before me all the tomes of all the theologians, they
would not convey to my mind one single definite idea."

"You were educated a Catholic, weren't you?"

"Yes, after a fashion. I was carefully prepared for confirmation in
a convent school, where I spent six months, while my aunt was in
Europe."

"Then you feel more inclined toward Catholicity than to any other
form of religion?"

"Certainly. If I am going to be good, I mean to be decidedly so. The
church demands more than any sect, and I respect her for that reason.
Like St. Christopher, I wish to serve the strongest master. Then,
too, the teaching at the convent made a deeper impression on me than
I supposed; and now that I need support, it all comes back to me.
Last, and not least, I wish to believe as you do. You are the best
Christian I have ever seen."

"Your experience in Christians must have been limited, I think," said
Mary, smiling.

"Perhaps so; but I am quite satisfied to have you for my standard.
Why, are you going? Oh! please don't leave me. I can't bear to be
alone."

"I must go now. I will come to-morrow at eleven o'clock, and if you
feel equal to the effort, we will go to San Marco."

"I shall feel equal to it physically," said Lady Sackvil. "It's very
provoking. I meant to have a brain-fever and die, and I feel better
every minute. I wish you had not come to take care of me."

"This is the beginning of your heroic virtue, I suppose," said Mary;
"these are the first fruits of conversion. Good-by, neophyte! Disturb
yourself about nothing; remember only that God loves us with a love
too deep to be fathomed."

And then she went home, and sat down by the ashes that Lady Sackvil
had left on her domestic hearth.


XVI.

In the morning, she found Lady Sackvil taking breakfast in her own
room, looking pale and worn from the effects of reaction from fever
and excitement. "How do you feel?" she asked.

"Horribly cross. I think all other sensations are merged in
ill-temper."

"A certain sign of convalescence. I am glad to see it."

Amelia laid down her egg-spoon, and sank back in her chair. "I wish,"
she remarked, "that it had pleased Heaven to make some variety in the
shape of hen's eggs. I am so tired of seeing them always oval."

"You don't want any of these things, do you?" asked Mary, surveying
the rather solid repast on the table.

"No--I can't bear the sight of it," said Amelia wearily.

"Rest on the couch until I come back." And Mary arranged the cushions
with a skilful hand, and left the room noiselessly.

Presently she returned, bearing on a pretty little tray a glass
filled with some frothy preparation, and two transparent wafers.
Amelia revived at the sight. "I have dreamed of such things," she
said. "This is the very apotheosis of breakfast!"


XVII.

Mary left Lady Sackvil with Padre Giulio, and went into the church to
pray for the happy result of the interview. She had passed some time
at the Lady chapel, with its brazen gates and oriental lamps, and
before the jewel-incrusted high altar, and was kneeling in the chapel
of the Blessed Sacrament, when she heard the door of the confessional
behind her open. She looked round. Padre Giulio had entered the
confessional; Lady Sackvil was kneeling at the grating.

She was sitting within the railing of the chapel when Amelia joined
her. Mary looked at the beautiful creature; there was a peaceful
smile on her lips, a holy light in her eyes; the pride, the caprice,
the egotism were not there; she looked like a penitent child.

As they passed through one of the sombre side aisles, Amelia paused
before the crucifix hanging on the wall. "I have confessed my sins
and received absolution," she said; "are you willing to kiss me?"

And so the sign of peace was exchanged before the image of the great
reconciler; and they passed out from the shadows of those grand old
arches into the sunshine of the Piazza.




THE IRON MASK.


Through an oversight, the article on the Iron Mask in our March
number, which had been lying on hand several months, was sent to the
printer without its necessary complement, which we now publish.

In January, 1869, it was announced in the _Moniteur Universel_ that
M. Marius Topin, a young author who had already distinguished himself
by a work of remarkable historical research, had succeeded, by dint
of laborious examination and the intelligent study of a mass of
old official documents, in unearthing the secret of that sphinx of
history--the Man with the Iron Mask.

M. Topin did not at once make known the result of what he claimed
to be his entirely triumphant solution of the enigma, and publish
his work in book form. He doubtless reflected that, as the world
had waited in patient expectation more than a hundred and fifty
years for the revelation of the mystery, it might readily summon up
sufficient resignation to wait a few months longer. He accordingly
announced that the successive chapters of his work would appear
from time to time in _Le Correspondant_, a highly respectable Paris
semi-monthly. The first number of his series was published on the
25th of February, 1869, and the last, making seven in all, on the
11th of November. We have received, as they appeared, all the numbers
of the _Correspondant_, and are therefore enabled to present from the
author's own articles the following statement of the result of what
he has written.

M. Topin could not deny himself that universal enjoyment of the
story-teller--to hold his auditors in suspense and on tiptoe of
expectation by proposing a varied succession of solutions of the
mystery in hand, and dismissing them in turn with a--"Well, that's
not it." He takes up, one after the other, the various _pretendants_
to the honor of the Iron Mask's living martyrdom, discusses all the
claims in their favor, presents the objections, demonstrates that
their position is untenable, orders them off the stage, and passes on
to the next; thus successively eliminating them until he reaches his
objective point.

M. Topin's first article is preceded by a sort of device, or motto,
in the shape of a short extract from an order of Louis XIV.: _Il
faudra que personne ne sache ce que cet homme sera devenu_, (no one
must know what has become of this man.) It was noticed that the date
of the order is not given. The article opens with a statement of
the arrival of M. Saint Mars at the Bastille (Paris) at three P.M.,
on the 18th of September, 1698. St. Mars was the newly-appointed
governor of that prison, and came accompanied by a prisoner whose
face was concealed by a mask of black velvet. This prisoner died,
and was buried on the 20th of November, 1703, under the name of
Marchialy. The extraordinary precautions taken after the death of
Marchialy are narrated in our previous number. The dates above given
are important in determining the claims of other candidates, inasmuch
as the facts and dates connected with the arrival, death, and
burial of a masked prisoner at the Bastille are established beyond
controversy by official documents, and must be considered in any case
presented.

Our author then dilates upon the difficulties of the question, the
fact that it has been unsuccessfully treated by fifty-two authors,
and finally abandoned as hopeless by historians like Michelet, with
the conclusion that the problem of the Man with the Iron Mask will
never be solved. Betraying no anxiety whatever to make haste, M.
Topin then discusses the merits of several of the most prominent
theories and the manner in which they have been presented. The
claim that longest held its ground, and enlisted in its advocacy the
greatest number of writers, was that made for a supposed and, as has
been shown, entirely imaginary twin-brother of Louis XIV., the son of
Anne of Austria, wife of Louis XIII. It is easy to understand why,
in France, such a version as this should be the favorite one. It
possessed every possible element of popularity, intrigue, mystery,
illegitimacy, crime, a rightful heir defrauded of his throne, and the
association of illustrious names. All these lent their fascinations;
and from Voltaire to Alexander Dumas, from the _Dictionnaire
Philosophique_ to the _Vicomte de Bragelonne_, all the resources of
writers of their tendency and calibre were called into play to give
it currency.

M. Topin devotes nearly the whole of his first article to the
demonstration of the fact that the prisoner of the Iron Mask was not
and could not have been a son of Anne of Austria. The discussion is
thorough, and the demonstration complete. Outside of the question of
the Mask one good result is thus obtained. The innocence of Anne of
Austria is fully established.

Time brings roses--and justice. Marie Antoinette was first vindicated
from the foul aspersions of the "progeny of Voltaire." Now, Anne
of Austria is acquitted; and going further back in time--the most
distant case being, of course, the most difficult--next comes the
turn of Mary Stuart, and her day, we believe, is not far distant.

The claim made for the Count of Vermandois, a son of Louis XIV.
and Louise de la Valliere, is next taken up. As all the details of
the last illness, death, and burial of the Count of Vermandois are
matters of profuse official record, M. Topin has very little trouble
in disposing of this case. Then we have the Duke of Monmouth, a
natural son of Charles II. of England. Defeated at the battle of
Sedgemoor, where the forces under his command were arrayed in armed
rebellion against James II., and afterward taken prisoner, he was
beheaded in the Tower of London July 15th, 1685. The dispatches of
various foreign ministers in London at the time fully establish the
fact of his death.

To Monmouth succeeds Francis of Vendome, Duke of Beaufort. As grand
admiral of France, Beaufort commanded the naval expedition sent out
to aid the Venetians in their defence of Candia against the Turks in
1669. As in the cases of the two sons of Louis XIV., and Monmouth,
the surrounding circumstances give M. Topin the fullest opportunity
of indulging in court anecdotes, intrigues, and festivities, mingled
with biographical sketches of distinguished personages, so in the
case of Beaufort, his history warrants our author in going into all
the details of the siege and military and naval operations against
the army of the sultan. Beaufort is believed to have been killed in
an attack upon the enemy's works, and was last seen in the thickest
of a hand-to-hand struggle in the intrenchments. As his body was
never recovered, this fact gave the mystery-mongers an advantageous
margin. But Beaufort was born in 1616, and the Iron Mask was buried
in 1703. Supposing him to be the "Mask," this would make him
eighty-seven years old at his death, which, of itself, puts him out
of the question.

In his third number, M. Topin introduces the so-called Armenian
Patriarch, _Avedick_. Why he did so is best known to himself; for
the case of Avedick has never been presented as one that would give
him any right to rank among the claimants for the distinction of the
Iron Mask. Taules, and the German historian Hammer, are referred
to as authorities for Avedick's claim; but on being examined, they
are found totally insufficient as warrants for such a theory. The
essential pivot of the question of identity of the Iron Mask is
the death and burial of its wearer in 1703. Now, Avedick was still
in Turkey in 1706, and that settles his claim beyond question.
Avedick was seized by order of the Marquis of Ferriol in the Grecian
Archipelago, May, 1706, carried forcibly to France, retained in
confinement in various places until September, 1710, when he was
liberated. He died in Paris in July, 1711. This was most certainly a
case of shameful violation of the law of nations, of power, and of
humanity. A case of abominable personal cruelty it also certainly
was--but it was not a case of "Iron Mask." Two such outrages as
those on the persons of Marchialy and Avedick are quite enough of
themselves; to say nothing of certain diplomatic arrangements with
the Grand Turk which endangered Christianity and the public peace in
Europe--to settle one's opinion as to the genuineness of the glories
of the reign of Louis XIV., a Grand Monarque who was not great.

But to return, M. Topin's chapter on the Avedick case, appearing in
_Le Correspondant_ of the 10th June, 1869, was followed by an article
from the pen of Rev. Father Turquand, S.J., in the September (10th)
number of the same periodical, severely attacking the statements of
Avedick's case by M. Topin, and vindicating his (Turquand's) society
from certain imputations cast upon it in connection with the seizure
of Avedick.

In his fourth number, (Oct. 10th,) M. Topin takes up the claim made
for Fouquet, whose case differs from all the others in the fact
that he was a prisoner of state by sentence of a judicial tribunal.
Fouquet's claims were warmly pressed by a very able literary
advocate, Paul Lacroix, (Bibliophile Jacob,) in a work published
in 1830. But here again the difficulty of dates is insurmountable.
Fouquet died in 1680, and there is no proof of the appearance of the
Man with the Iron Mask until after that period.

We pass on to another. In the year 1677, the Duke of Mantua was
Charles IV. of the illustrious house of Gonzaga. He was young,
careless, dissipated, and extravagant. Spending most of his time
in Venice, he seldom visited his duchy, except for the purpose of
raising money. He gradually fell into the hands of usurious lenders,
and continued to obtain the sums he wanted by anticipating, through
them, the receipt of the taxes and imposts of his duchy by several
years. The Marquisate of Montferrat was among his dependencies. Its
little capital, Casal, a fortified place on the Po, fifteen leagues
east of Turin, was a point of great strategic importance, and
essential to the safety of Piedmont. The court of Turin would not, of
course, consent to its possession by France. But to France it was of
the highest value, as with Pignerol and Casal it would be master of
the situation. This place Louis XIV. wanted to buy, and Charles IV.
was perfectly willing to sell it. Ercolo (Hercules) Antonio Mattioli,
a young nobleman of the court of Mantua, at this time thirty-seven
years of age, was high in favor with the reigning duke. Through
Giuliani, an Italian journalist, D'Estrades, Louis XIV.'s ambassador
at Venice, sounded Mattioli, and finally, through him, succeeded in
opening a negotiation with the duke for the sale of Casal to France.

All three met at Venice in March, 1678, discussed terms, and agreed
upon one hundred thousand crowns as the price of the cession.
Mattioli then went to Paris to sign the treaty in the name of his
master the duke. The treaty was completed in December, 1678, and
after its signature, Mattioli was received by Louis XIV. in secret
audience, presented by the king with a rich diamond ring and four
hundred double _Louis d'or_, with the promise of a far greater amount
of money, the appointment of his son among the royal pages, and a
valuable endowment for his mother. The intrigue and negotiation had
been admirably managed and crowned with perfect success. Of all who
had any interest opposed to the French possession of Casal, not
one had the slightest suspicion, and it would have been difficult
to imagine the existence of the smallest element of failure in the
enterprise.

But the best-laid schemes of men, mice, and monarchs here below oft
come to naught. Two months after Mattioli's visit to Paris, the
courts of Turin, of Madrid, and of Vienna, the Spanish governor of
the Milanese provinces, and the state inquisitors of the Venetian
republic--that is to say, all and every one most interested against
the execution of the treaty--not only knew of its existence, but
were fully advised of every detail concerning it, the names of the
negotiators, the date of the instruments, the price of cession, when
it was to be made, etc. In short, they knew every thing concerning
it. Well they might. Mattioli himself had told them! His motive is
a subject of dispute. One theory is, interested motive; another,
patriotism. Certain it is he had more to gain--as a mere question of
interest--by keeping than by betraying the secret. On this point,
though, we do not undertake to judge him. In February, 1679, the
Duchess of Savoy advised Louis XIV. that she was in possession of
Mattioli's information. The disappointment, the mortification, and
the anger of the French king can easily be imagined. He was placed in
a position not only dangerous; but what was almost worse, ludicrous.
Mattioli had the king's signature to the treaty in his possession,
and it was all-important to recover it. The king in Paris, and his
minister D'Estrades, both conceived the same idea for remedy in the
matter. On the 28th of April, 1679, Louis sent the order to have
Mattioli arrested, and on arrival of the order, Mattioli had already
(May 2d) been carried off a prisoner. D'Estrades had managed to decoy
him across the frontier, at a point where he had a detachment of
dragoons waiting, and in a few hours the Italian was a prisoner at
Pignerol, the commencement of a captivity that was to endure four
and twenty long years. M. Topin then continues the discussion of
Mattioli's case, and closes the article, leaving the reader under the
impression that he decides against the claim of Mattioli.

Indeed he goes further; for he more than intimates that there is very
little probability of ever penetrating the mystery surrounding the
Man with the Iron Mask.

The case made for Mattioli has always been the strongest, even before
the publication of the work of Mr. J. Delort, which was mostly
appropriated by Ellis in his _True History of the State Prisoner_.
Mr. Loiseleur has also discussed the Mattioli claim with great
force; so successfully, indeed, that a very large number of critical
scholars were satisfied with his adverse demonstration.

M. Topin discusses at great length the facts and the reasoning of
Mr. Loiseleur, and, as we have just stated, concludes his sixth
article by a decision against Mattioli. But in his concluding chapter
(_Correspondant_, Nov. 10th) he comes to a right-about face, takes up
some of Mr. Loiseleur's proofs, adds some new dispatches, and decides
that--Mattioli is the French prisoner of state known as the Man with
the Iron Mask.

We fear that after all the solution of M. Topin is no solution, and
that the only result of his labor is to narrow the discussion down to
the claims of Mattioli and another prisoner of unknown name.




THE SCHOOL QUESTION.[13]


The number of _The Christian World_, the organ of the American
and Foreign Christian Union, for February last is entirely taken
up with the school question, and professes to give "a carefully
digested summary of the views and reasonings of all parties to the
controversy." The views and reasonings of the Catholic party are
not misstated, but are very inadequately presented; those of the
other parties are given more fully, and, we presume, as correctly
and as authoritatively as possible. The number does not dispose
of the subject; but furnishes us a fitting occasion to make some
observations which will at least set forth correctly our views of the
school question as Catholics and American citizens.

It is to the credit of the American people that they have, at least
the Calvinistic portion of them, from the earliest colonial times,
taken a deep interest in the education of the young, and made
considerable sacrifices to secure it. The American Congregationalists
and Presbyterians, who were the only original settlers of the eastern
and middle colonies, have from the first taken the lead in education,
and founded, sustained, and conducted most of our institutions of
learning. The Episcopalians, following the Anglican Church, have
never taken much interest in the education of the people, having been
chiefly solicitous about the higher class of schools and seminaries.
The Baptists and Methodists have, until recently, been quite
indifferent to education. They have now some respectable schools;
but the writer of this was accustomed in his youth to hear both
Baptists and Methodists preach against college-bred parsons, and a
_larned_ ministry. In those States which had as colonies proprietary
governments, and in which the Episcopalians, Baptists, and Methodists
have predominated, universal education has been, and still is, more
or less neglected. Even the Presbyterians, while they have insisted
on a learned ministry and the education of the easy classes, have not
insisted so earnestly on the education of the children of all classes
as have the Congregationalists; and, indeed, it is hardly too much to
say that our present system of common schools at the public expense
owes its origin to Congregationalists and the influence they have
exerted. The system, whatever may be thought of it, has undeniably
had a religious, not a secular origin.

The system originated in New England; strictly speaking, in
Massachusetts. As originally established in Massachusetts, it was
simply a system of parochial schools. The parish and the town
were coincident, and the schools of the several school-districts
into which the parish was divided were supported by a tax on the
population and property of the town, levied according to the grand
list or state assessment roll. The parish, at its annual town
meeting, voted the amount of money it would raise for schools during
the ensuing year, which was collected by the town collector, and
expended under the direction of a school committee chosen at the same
meeting. Substantially the same system was adopted and followed in
New Hampshire and Connecticut. In Vermont, the towns were divided
or divisible, under a general law, into school-districts, and each
school-district decided for itself the amount of money it would raise
for its school, and the mode of raising it. It might raise it by tax
levied on the property of the district, or, as it was said, on "the
grand list," or _per capita_ on the scholars attending and according
to the length of their attendance. In this latter method, which was
generally followed, only those who used the schools were taxed to
support them. This latter method was, in its essential features,
adopted in all, or nearly all, the other States that had a common
school system established by law. In Rhode Island and most of the
Southern States, the inhabitants were left to their own discretion,
to have schools or not as they saw proper, and those who wanted them
founded and supported them at their own expense. In none of the
States, however, was there developed at first a system of free public
schools supported either by a school fund or by a general tax on
property levied by the State, though Massachusetts contained such a
system in germ.

Gradually, from the proceeds of public lands, from lots of land
reserved in each township, especially in the new States, for common
schools, and from various other sources, several of the States
accumulated a school fund, the income of which, in some instances,
sufficed, or nearly sufficed, for the support of free public schools
for all the children in the State. This gave a new impulse to the
movement for free schools and universal education, or schools founded
and supported for all the children of the State at the public expense
in whole or in part, either from the income of the school fund or by
a public tax. This is not yet carried out universally, but is that
to which public sentiment in all the States is tending; and now that
slavery is abolished, and the necessity of educating the freedmen is
deeply felt, there can be little doubt that it will soon become the
policy of every State in the Union.

The schools were originally founded by a religious people for a
religious end, not by seculars for a purely secular end. The people
at so early a day had not advanced so far as they have now, and
did not dream of divorcing secular education from religion. The
schools were intended to give both religious and secular education
in their natural union, and there was no thought of the feasibility
of separating what God had joined together. The Bible was read as a
class-book, the catechism was taught as a regular school exercise,
and the pastor of the parish visited the schools and instructed them
in religion as often as he saw proper. Indeed, he was, it might be
said, _ex officio_ the superintendent of the parish schools; and
whether he was chosen as committee-man or not, his voice was all
potent in the management of the school, in the selection of studies,
and in the appointment and dismissal of teachers. The superiority in
a religious and moral point of view to the schools as now developed
may be seen by contrasting the present moral and religious state of
New England with what it was then.

The religion, as we Catholics hold, was defective, and even false;
but the principle on which the schools were founded was sound, and
worked well in the beginning, did no injustice to any one, and
violated no conscience; for Congregationalism was the established
religion, and the people were all Congregationalists. Even where
there was no established religion and different denominations
obtained, conscience was respected; for the character of the
school, as well as the religion taught in it, was determined by the
inhabitants of the school district, and nobody was obliged to send
his children to it, and those only who did send were taxed for its
support.

But in none of the States is there now an established religion, and
in all there are a great variety of denominations, all invested with
equal rights before the state. It is obvious, then, the Massachusetts
system cannot in any of them be adopted or continued, and the
other system of taxing only those who use the schools cannot be
maintained, if the schools are to be supported from the income of
public funds, or by a public tax levied alike on the whole population
of the district, town, municipality, or State. Here commences the
difficulty--and a grave one it is, too--which has as yet received no
practical solution, and which the legislatures of the several States
are now called upon to solve.

Hitherto the attempt has been made to meet the difficulty
by excluding from the public schools what the state calls
sectarianism--that is, whatever is distinctive of any particular
denomination or peculiar to it--and allowing to be introduced
only what is common to all, or, as it is called, "our common
Christianity." This would, perhaps, meet the difficulty, if the
several denominations were only different varieties of Protestantism.
The several Protestant denominations differ from one another only in
details or particulars, which can easily be supplied at home in the
family, or in the Sunday-school. But this solution is impracticable
where the division is not one between Protestant sects only, but
between Catholics and Protestants. The difference between Catholics
and Protestants is not a difference in details or particulars only,
but a difference in principle. Catholicity must be taught as a whole,
in its unity and its integrity, or it is not taught at all. It must
everywhere be all or nothing. It is not a simple theory of truth or
a collection of doctrines; it is an organism, a living body, living
and operating from its own central life, and is necessarily one and
indivisible, and cannot have any thing in common with any other body.
To exclude from the schools all that is distinctive or peculiar in
Catholicity, is simply to exclude Catholicity itself, and to make the
schools either purely Protestant or purely secular, and therefore
hostile to our religion, and such as we cannot in conscience support.

Yet this is the system adopted, and while the law enables
non-Catholics to use the public schools with the approbation of their
consciences, it excludes the children of Catholics, unless their
parents are willing to violate their Catholic conscience, to neglect
their duty as fathers and mothers, and expose their children to the
danger of losing their faith, and with it the chance of salvation.
We are not free to expose our children to so great a danger, and are
bound in conscience to do all in our power to guard them against
it, and to bring them up in the faith of the church, to be good and
exemplary Catholics.

Evidently, then, the rule of allowing only our supposed "common
Christianity" to be taught in schools does not solve the difficulty,
or secure to the Catholic his freedom of conscience.

The exclusion of the Bible would not help the matter. This would
only make the schools purely secular, which were worse than making
them purely Protestant; for, as it regards the state, society,
morality, all the interests of this world, Protestantism we hold to
be far better than no religion--unless you include under its name
free-lovism, free-religion, woman's-rightsism, and the various other
similar _isms_ struggling to get themselves recognized and adopted,
and to which the more respectable Protestants, we presume, are hardly
less opposed than we are. If some Catholics in particular localities
have supposed that the exclusion of the Protestant Bible from the
public schools would remove the objection to them as schools for
Catholic children, they have, in our opinion, fallen into a very
great mistake. The question lies deeper than reading or not reading
the Bible in the schools, in one version or another. Of course, our
church disapproves the Protestant version of the Bible, as a faulty
translation of a mutilated text; but its exclusion from the public
schools would by no means remove our objections to them. We object
to them not merely because they teach more or less of the Protestant
religion, but also on the ground that we cannot freely and fully
teach our religion and train up our children in them to be true and
unwavering Catholics; and we deny the right of the State, the city,
the town, or the school district, to tax us for schools in which we
are not free to do so.

We value education, and even universal education--which overlooks
no class or child, however rich or however poor, however honored or
however despised--as highly as any of our countrymen do or can; but
we value no education that is divorced from religion and religious
culture. Religion is the supreme law, the one thing to be lived for;
and all in life, individual or social, civil or political, should be
subordinated to it, and esteemed only as means to the eternal end
for which man was created and exists. Religious education is the
chief thing, and we wish our children to be accustomed, from the
first dawning of reason, so to regard it, and to regard whatever
they learn or do as having a bearing on their religious character or
their duty to God. Mr. Bulwer--now Lord Lytton--as well as many other
literary men of eminence, have written much on the danger of a purely
intellectual culture, or of the education of the intellect divorced
from that of the heart, or sentiments and affections. We hold that
education, either of the intellect or of the heart, or of both
combined, divorced from faith and religious discipline, is dangerous
alike to the individual and to society. All education should be
religious, and intended to train the child for a religious end; not
for this life only, but for eternal life; for this life is nothing if
severed from that which is to come.

Even for this world, for civilization itself, the religious education
which the church gives is far better than any so-called secular
education without it. The church has not always been able to secure
universal secular education for all her children; but there can be
no question that the illiterate classes of Catholic nations are far
more civilized and better trained than are the corresponding classes
of Protestant nations. There is no comparison in personal dignity,
manliness, self-respect, courtesy of manner, refined feeling, and
delicate sentiment, between an unlettered Italian, French, Spanish,
or Irish peasant, and an unlettered Protestant German, English, or
American. The one is a cultivated, a civilized man; the other is a
boor, a clown, coarse and brutal, who perpetually mistakes impudence
for independence, and proves his self-respect by his indifference
or insults to others. The difference is due to the difference of
religion and religious culture; not, as is sometimes pretended,
to difference of race. The church civilizes the whole nation that
accepts her; only the upper classes in Protestant nations are
civilized.

Of course, we do not and can not expect, in a state where Protestants
have equal rights with Catholics before the state, to carry our
religion into public schools designed equally for all. We have no
right to do it. But Protestants have no more right to carry their
religion into them than we have to carry ours; and carry theirs they
do, when ours is excluded. Their rights are equal to ours, and ours
are equal to theirs; and neither does nor can, in the eyes of the
state, override the other. As the question is a matter of conscience,
and therefore of the rights of God, there can be no compromise, no
splitting of differences, or yielding of the one party to the other.
Here comes up the precise difficulty. The state is bound equally to
recognize and respect the conscience of Protestants and of Catholics,
and has no right to restrain the conscience of either. There must,
then, be a dead-lock, unless some method can be discovered or devised
by which the public schools can be saved without lesion either to the
Protestant or the Catholic.

Three solutions have been suggested: 1. The first is to exclude
the Bible and all religious teaching, or recognition, in any way,
shape, or manner, of religion, from the public schools. This is the
infidel or secular solution, and, so far as Catholics are concerned,
is no solution at all. It is simple mockery. What we demand is, not
that religion be excluded from the schools, but schools in which we
can teach freely and fully our own religion to our own children. It
is precisely these purely secular schools, in which all education
is divorced from religion--from the faith, precepts, services,
and discipline of the church, as well as education combined with
a false religion--that we oppose. Nor will this solution satisfy
the more respectable Protestant denominations, as is evident from
the tenacity with which they insist on reading the Bible in the
schools. They do not believe any more than we do in the utility, or
even practicability, of divorcing what is called secular learning
from religion. All education, they hold, as well as we, that is not
religious, is necessarily anti-religious. This is a case in which
there is and can be no neutrality. We find this conclusively shown
by some remarks in _The Christian World_ before us, credited to
Professor Tayler Lewis, the most learned and able thinker we are
acquainted with among our Protestant contemporaries. The professor's
remarks are so true, so sensible, and so much to our purpose, that,
though not so brief as we could wish, our readers will hardly fail to
thank us for transcribing them:

    "Let us test this specious plea of neutrality. What does it
    imply? If carried strictly out to the exclusion of every
    thing religious, or having a religious tendency, it must
    consistently demand a like exclusion of every thing that in
    the least manifests the opposite tendency, under whatever
    specious disguises it may be veiled. It does not alter the
    case in the least that opinions, regarded as irreligious,
    or as undermining or in any way weakening the grounds of
    belief, take to themselves the specious names of literature,
    or politics, or political economy, or phrenology, or the
    philosophy of history. No such sham pass-words should give
    to Buckle and Combe admittance where Butler and Chalmers are
    shut out. Every thing that makes it less easy for the child
    to believe his catechism, 'taught at home,' as they say, is a
    break of the supposed concordat. The mere objection is to be
    heeded. It is enough that things seem so to serious men, as
    capable of correct reasoning as any on the other side; or that
    it is the opinion, the prejudice, if any choose so to call
    it, of a devout ignorance. The thoughtful religious man might
    be willing to forego his objection if there were or could be
    real impartiality. He might trust a true moral and religious
    training as fully able to counteract any thing of an opposite
    tendency. But to let in the enemy, and then take away the
    weapon of defence--this is a neutrality hard to be understood.

    "Now, there can be no doubt of the fact that there is admitted
    into our schools, our colleges, our educational libraries,
    into the reading-rooms connected with them, much that is
    thus _deemed_ irreligious in its tendency--at least, by the
    holders of our stricter creeds. There is much that is silently
    alienating the minds of their children from the doctrines
    held sacred by their fathers. We might go further: there is
    much that tends to undermine all religious belief, even of
    the freest cast. What young man can have his mind filled
    with the atheistical speculations of Mill and Spencer, or be
    exposed to the uncounteracted theories of Darwin and Huxley,
    and yet retain unimpaired his belief in a providence as taught
    by Christ--a providence that 'numbers the very hairs of our
    heads'--or listen as before to the prayer that ascends from the
    family altar? These writers profess a kind of theism, it is
    said; but wherein, as far as any moral power is concerned, does
    it differ from a belief in quadratic equations, or the dogmas
    of heat and magnetism?

    "The matter, as we have stated it, would be too plain for
    argument were it not for those magical words, _secular_ and
    _sectarian_, that some are so fond of using. 'The state knows
    no religion,' they say; it is wholly 'a private concern'
    between the _individual_ and his Maker. 'The state knows no
    God.' They wonder the zealous bigot cannot see how clear this
    makes every thing. If he would only assent to propositions so
    easy, so self-evident, we should have peace. But set these
    confident logicians to define what they mean by terms so
    fluently employed, or ask them to show us how the state can
    keep clear of all action, direct or indirect, for or against an
    interest so vital as religion, so all-pervading, so intimately
    affecting every other, and how soon they begin to stammer! What
    is secular? The one who attempts to define it would perhaps
    begin with a negative. It is that which has no connection
    with religion; no aspects, no relations, no tendencies, no
    suggestions, beyond this world, or, the narrowest view of it,
    this _age_ or _seculum_. Now, let him apply it to particular
    branches of education. There is the learning of the alphabet,
    spelling, reading. But what shall the child read? It would be
    very difficult to find a mere reading-book--unless its contents
    were an empty gabble, like the nonsense Latin verses of some
    schools--that would not somewhere, and in some way, betray
    moral or immoral, religious or irreligious ideas, according to
    the judgment of some minds. But let us waive this, and go on.
    Arithmetic is secular. Geography is secular; though we have
    seen things under the head of physical geography that some
    classes of religionists might object to as betraying a spirit
    hostile to the idea of the earth's creation in any form. But go
    on. Including the pure mathematics, as being pure mathematics
    and nothing else, we have about got to the end of our
    definition. No thinking man would pretend that the departments
    of life and motion, chemistry, dynamics, physiology, could be
    studied apart from a higher class of ideas. But secularity
    would interfere here in a very strange way. When these roads of
    knowledge thus tend upward toward the eternal light, it would
    shut down the gate and eject the book. Natural philosophy, as
    taught by Newton and Kepler, gets beyond secularity. When,
    on the other hand, after the manner of Humboldt, Lamarck,
    and Darwin, its progress is in the direction of the eternal
    darkness, the study of it becomes entirely _unsectarian_; it
    violates no rights of conscience!

    "In other departments, it is still more difficult to set the
    secular bound. History, the philosophy of history, political
    philosophy, psychology, ethics, however strong the effort
    to dereligionize them, do all, when left to their proper
    expansion, spurn any such bounds. Art, too, when wholly
    secularized; poetry stripped of its religious ideality; how
    long would they resist such a narrowing, suffocating process? A
    lower dogma was never maintained than this of a wholly secular
    education, or one more utterly _impracticable_. The subject
    must inevitably die under the operation, and religion must come
    back again into our schools and colleges, to save them from
    inanity and extinction.

    "There may be stated here some reasons why this plea of
    neutrality, though so false, is yet so specious and misleading.
    It arises from the fact that the statement of moral, religious,
    and theological ideas demands clear and positive language. The
    hostile forms, on the other hand, are disguised under vague and
    endlessly varying negations. They are Protean, too, in their
    appellations. They take to themselves the names of literature,
    art, philosophy, reform. This procedure shows itself in
    reading-books intended for our primary schools; in text-books
    prepared for the higher institutions; in essays and periodicals
    that strew the tables of reading-rooms attached to our colleges
    and academies; and, above all, in the public lecturing, male
    and female, which may be said to have become a part of our
    educational system. For example, should the writer of this
    attempt to explain before such an audience 'the doctrines
    of grace,' as they are called, or that unearthly system of
    ideas which can be traced through the whole line of the
    church--patristic, Roman, and Protestant--in their production
    of a strong unearthly character, then would be immediately
    heard the cry of bigotry, or the senseless yell of church and
    state. And now for the _opposing_ 'dogmas,' as they really are,
    notwithstanding all their disguises. They make their entrance
    under endlessly varied forms. Pantheism has free admittance;
    but that is not dogmatic--it calls itself philosophy. In some
    lecture on progress, or history, the most essential of these
    old 'doctrines of grace' may be sneeringly ignored or covertly
    assailed; but that is literature. Darwinism is expounded, with
    its virtual denial of any thing like creation; or Huxleyism,
    which brings man out of the monkey, and the monkey out of the
    fungus; that is science. Or it may be the whining nonsense
    which glorifies the nineteenth century at the expense of the
    far honester eighteenth, and talks so undogmatically of the
    deep 'yearning' for something better--that is, the 'coming
    faith.' And so goes on this exhibition of impartiality, with
    its exclusion of every thing dogmatic and theological."

Neither Catholics nor Protestants who believe at all in religion will
consent to be taxed to support infidel, pantheistic, or atheistic
education; and all so-called purely secular education is really
nothing else. The temporal separated from the eternal, the universe
from its Creator, is nothing, and can be no object of science.
The first suggested solution must then be abandoned, and not be
entertained for a moment by the state, unless it is bent on suicide;
for the basis of the state itself is religion, and is excluded in
excluding all religious ideas and principles.

2. The second solution suggested is to adopt in education the
voluntary system, as we do in religion, and leave each denomination
to maintain schools for its own children at its own expense. We could
accept this solution, as Catholics, without any serious objection;
but we foresee some trouble in disposing of the educational
funds held by several of the States in trust for common schools,
academies, and colleges, and in determining to whom shall belong
the school-houses, and academy and college buildings and fixtures,
erected, in whole or in part, at the public expense. Besides, this
would break up the whole public school system, and defeat the chief
end it contemplates--that of providing a good common education
for all the children of the land, especially the children of the
poorer classes. Catholics, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and
Episcopalians would establish and support schools, each respectively
for their own children; but some other denominations might not,
and the infidels, and that large class called _nothingarian_, most
certainly would not. Only they who believe in some religion see
enough of dignity in man, or worth in the human soul, to make the
sacrifice of a penny for education. The Darwins, the Huxleys, the
Lyells, and other unbelieving scientists of the day, were never
educated in schools, academies, colleges, or universities founded by
infidels. They graduated from schools founded by the faith and piety
of those who believed in God, in creation, in Christ, in the life
and immortality brought to light in the Gospel; and if they have
devoted themselves to severe studies, it has not been from love of
science, but in the ignoble hope of being able to dispense, in the
explanation of nature, with God the Creator, and to prove that man is
only a monkey developed, a condensed gas, or, as Dr. Cabanis defined
him, simply "a digestive tube open at both ends."

Moreover, though we deny the competency of the state to act as
educator, we hold that its duty toward both religion and education
is something more than negative. We hold that it has positive duties
to perform in regard to each. It cannot decide what religion its
citizens shall accept and obey; but it is bound to protect its
citizens in the free and full enjoyment of the religion they adopt
for themselves. We cannot, for the sake of carrying a point which we
hold to be true and certain to be of great importance, ally ourselves
with infidels, or lay down as a universal principle what our church
has never approved, and what we may in the change of the tide be
ourselves obliged to disavow. The state, with all its powers and
functions, exists for religion, and is in all its action subordinated
to the eternal end of man. As the church teaches, and as the New
England Puritans held, this world is never the end; it is only a
means to an end infinitely above itself. We will never dishonor truth
so much as to concede for a moment that the state is independent
of religion; that it may treat religion, as a coordinate power
with itself, with indifference, or look down upon it with haughty
contempt, as beneath its notice, or to be pushed aside if it comes in
its way. It is as much bound to consult the spiritual end of man,
and to obey the law of God, which overrides all other laws, as is the
individual.

We, of course, deny the competency of the state to educate, to say
what shall or shall not be taught in the public schools, as we deny
its competency to say what shall or shall not be the religious belief
and discipline of its citizens. We, of course, utterly repudiate the
popular doctrine that so-called secular education is the function
of the state. Yet, while we might accept this second solution as an
expedient, we do not approve it, and cannot defend it as sound in
principle. It would break up and utterly destroy the free public
school system, what is good as well as what is evil in it; and
we wish to save the system by simply removing what it contains
repugnant to the Catholic conscience--not to destroy it or lessen
its influence. We are decidedly in favor of free public schools
for all the children of the land, and we hold that the property of
the state should bear the burden of educating the children of the
state--the two great and essential principles of the system, and
which endear it to the hearts of the American people. Universal
suffrage is a mischievous absurdity without universal education; and
universal education is not practicable unless provided for at the
public expense. While, then, we insist that the action of the state
shall be subordinated to the law of conscience, we yet hold that it
has an important part to perform, and that it is its duty, in view
of the common weal, and of its own security as well as that of its
citizens, to provide the means of a good common school education for
all its children, whatever their condition, rich or poor, Catholics
or Protestants. It has taken the American people over two hundred
years to arrive at this conclusion, and never by our advice shall
they abandon it.

3. The first and second solutions must then be dismissed as
unsatisfactory. The first, because it excludes religion, and makes
the public schools nurseries of infidelity and irreligion. The
second, because it breaks up and destroys the whole system of free
public schools, and renders the universal education demanded by our
institutions impracticable, or unlikely to be given, and in so far
endangers the safety, the life, and prosperity of the republic.
We repeat it, what we want is not the destruction of the system,
but simply its modification so far as necessary to protect the
conscience of both Catholics and Protestants in its rightful freedom.
The modification necessary to do this is much slighter than is
supposed, and, instead of destroying or weakening the system, would
really perfect it and render it alike acceptable to Protestants
and to Catholics, and combine both in the efforts necessary to
sustain it. It is simply to adopt the third solution that has been
suggested, namely, that of dividing the schools between Catholics and
Protestants, and assigning to each the number proportioned to the
number of children each has to educate. This would leave Catholics
free to teach their religion and apply their discipline in the
Catholic schools, and Protestants free to teach their religion and
apply their discipline in the Protestant schools. The system, as
a system of free schools at the public expense, with its fixtures
and present machinery, would remain unimpaired; and a religious
education, so necessary to society as well as to the soul, could be
given freely and fully to all, without the slightest lesion to any
one's conscience, or interference with the full and entire religious
freedom which is guaranteed by our constitution to every citizen.
The Catholic will be restored to his rights, and the Protestant will
retain his.

This division was not called for in New England in the beginning;
for then the people were all of one and the same religion; nor when
only those who used the schools were taxed for their support. It was
not needed even when there were only Protestants in the country. In
demanding it now, we cast no censure on the original founders of our
public schools. But now, when the system is so enlarged as to include
free schools for all the children of the state at the public expense,
and Catholics have become and are likely to remain a notable part of
the population of the country, it becomes not only practicable, but
absolutely necessary, if religious liberty or freedom of conscience
for all citizens is to be maintained; and it were an act of injustice
to Catholics, whose conscience chiefly demands the division, and
a gross abuse of power, to withhold it. It may be an annoyance to
Protestants that Catholics are here; but they are here, and here
they will remain; and it is never the part of wisdom to resist
the inevitable. Our population is divided between Catholics and
Protestants, and the only sensible course is for each division to
recognize and respect the equal rights of the other before the State.

One objection of a practical character has been brought against the
division by the New York _Tribune_. That journal says that, if the
division could be made in cities and large towns, it would still
be impracticable in the sparsely settled districts of the country,
where the population is too small to admit, without too great an
expense, of two separate schools, one Catholic and one Protestant.
The objection is one that is likely to diminish in force with time.
In such districts let each school receive its _pro rata_ amount
of the public money: if too little, let Catholic charity make up
the deficiency for the Catholic, and Protestant charity for the
Protestant school. Besides, in these sparsely settled districts there
are few Catholics, and their children are far less exposed than in
cities, large towns, and villages.

The more common objection urged is, that if separate schools are
conceded to Catholics, they must not only be conceded to the
Israelites, but also to each Protestant denomination. To the
Israelites, we grant, if they demand them. To each Protestant
denomination, not at all, unless each denomination can put in
an honest plea of conscience for such division. All Protestant
denominations, without a single exception, unless it be the
Episcopalians, unite in opposing the division we ask for, and in
defending the system as it is, which proves that they have no
conscientious objections to the public schools as they are now
constituted and conducted. The division to meet the demands of
the Catholic conscience would necessitate no change at all in
the schools not set apart for Catholic children; and the several
denominations that are not conscientiously opposed to them now
could not be conscientiously opposed to them after the division. We
cannot suppose that any denomination of Protestants would consent to
support a system of education that offends its own conscience for the
sake of doing violence to the conscience of Catholics. Do not all
American Protestants profess to be the sturdy champions of freedom
of conscience, and maintain that where conscience begins there the
secular authority ends? If the present schools do violence to no
Protestant conscience, as we presume from their defence of them they
do not, no Protestant denomination can demand a division in its
favor on the plea of conscience; and to no other plea is the state or
the public under any obligation to listen. If, however, there be any
denomination that can in good faith demand separate schools on the
plea of conscience, we say at once let it have them, for such a plea,
when honest, overrides every other consideration.

But we are asked what shall be done with the large body of citizens
who are neither Catholic nor Protestant? Such citizens, we reply,
have no religion; and they who have no religion have no conscience
that people who have religion are bound to respect. If they refuse
to send their children either to the Hebrew schools or the Catholic
schools, or, in fine, to the Protestant schools, let them found
schools of their own, at their own expense. The constitutions of
the several States guarantee to each and every citizen the right to
worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience; but this
is not guaranteeing to any one the freedom of not worshipping God,
to deny his existence, to reject his revelation, or to worship a
false God. The liberty guaranteed is the liberty of religion, not the
liberty of infidelity. The infidel has, under our constitution and
laws, the right of protection in his civil and political equality;
but none to protection in his infidelity, since that is not a
religion, but the denial of all religion. He cannot plead conscience
in its behalf, for conscience presupposes religion; and where there
is no religious faith, there is, of course, no conscience. It would
be eminently absurd to ask the state to protect infidelity, or the
denial of all religion; for religion, as we have said, is the only
basis of the state, and for the state to protect infidelity would be
to cut its own throat.

These are, we believe, all the plausible objections that can be urged
against the division of the public schools we demand; for we do not
count as such the pretence of some over-zealous Protestants that it
is necessary to detach the children of Catholics from the Catholic
Church in order that they may grow up thorough Americans; and as
the public schools are very effectual in so detaching them, and
weakening their respect for the religion of their parents, and their
reverence for their clergy, they ought on all patriotic grounds to be
maintained in full vigor as they are. We have heard this objection
from over-zealous Evangelicals, and still oftener from so-called
Liberal Christians and infidels; we have long been told that the
church is anti-American, and can never thrive in the United States;
for she can never withstand the free and enlightened spirit of the
country, and the decatholicizing influence of our common schools;
and we can hardly doubt that some thought of the kind is at the
bottom of much of the opposition the proposed division of the public
schools has encountered. But we cannot treat it as serious; for it is
evidently incompatible with the freedom of conscience which the state
is bound by its constitution to recognize and protect, for Catholics
as well as for Protestants. The state has no right to make itself a
proselyting institution for or against Protestantism, for or against
Catholicity. It is its business to protect us in the free and full
enjoyment of our religion, not to engage in the work of unmaking our
children of their Catholicity. The case is one of conscience, and
conscience is accountable to no civil tribunal. All secular authority
and all secular considerations whatever must yield to conscience.
In questions of conscience the law of God governs, not a plurality
of votes. The state abuses its authority if it sustains the common
schools as they are with a view of detaching our children from their
Catholic faith and love. If Catholics cannot retain their Catholic
faith and practice and still be true, loyal, and exemplary American
citizens, it must be only because Americanism is incompatible with
the rights of conscience, and that would be its condemnation, not the
condemnation of Catholicity. No nationality can override conscience;
for conscience is catholic, not national, and is accountable to
God alone, who is above and over all nations, all principalities
and powers, King of kings and Lord of lords. But the assumption in
the objection is not true. It mistakes the opinion of the American
people individually for the constitution of the American state. The
American state is as much Catholic as it is Protestant, and really
harmonizes far better with Catholicity than with Protestantism. We
hold that, instead of decatholicizing Catholic children, it is far
more necessary, if we are to be governed by reasons of this sort, to
unmake the children of Protestants of their Protestantism. We really
believe that, in order to train them up to be, in the fullest sense,
true, loyal, and exemplary American citizens, such as can alone
arrest the present downward tendency of the republic, and realize the
hopes of its heroic and noble-hearted founders, they must become good
Catholics.

But this is a question of which the state can take no cognizance.
We have under its constitution no right to call upon it to aid us,
directly or indirectly, in unmaking Protestant children of their
Protestantism. Of course, before God, or in the spiritual order, we
recognize no equality between Catholicity and Protestantism. Before
God, no man has any right to be of any religion but the Catholic,
the only true religion, the only religion by which men can be raised
to union with God in the beatific vision. But before the American
state, we recognize in Protestants equal rights with our own. They
have the same right to be protected by the state in the freedom of
their conscience that we have to be protected by it in the freedom
of ours. We should attack the very freedom of conscience the state
guarantees to all her citizens, were we to call upon it to found
or to continue a system of public schools, at the public expense,
intended or fitted to detach Protestant children from the religion of
their parents, and turn them over to be brought up in the Catholic
religion. We should prove ourselves decidedly un-American in so
doing. Yet, we regret to say, this is precisely what the non-catholic
majority, inconsiderately we trust, are doing; and, if the popular
ministers of the several sects, like Dr. R. W. Clark, Dr. Sheldon,
Dr. Bellows, Henry Ward Beecher, and the sectarian and secular press
have their way, they will continue to do to the end of the chapter
to us Catholics. They probably are not aware that they belie the
Americanism they profess, and abuse the power their superiority
of numbers gives them to tyrannize over the consciences of their
fellow-citizens. This strikes us as very un-American, as well as very
unjust.

We place our demand for separate schools on the ground of conscience,
and therefore of right--the right of God as well as of man. Our
conscience forbids us to support schools at the public expense
from which our religion is excluded, and in which our children are
taught either what we hold to be a false or mutilated religion, or
no religion at all. Such schools are perilous to the souls of our
children; and we dare avow, even in this age of secularism and
infidelity, that we place the salvation of the souls of our children
above every other consideration. This plea of conscience, which we
urge from the depth of our souls, and under a fearful sense of our
accountability to our Maker, ought to suffice, especially in an
appeal to a state bound by its own constitution to protect the rights
of conscience for each and all of its citizens, whether Protestant or
Catholic.

One thing must be evident from past experience, that our children
can be brought up to be good and orderly citizens only as Catholics,
and in schools under the supervision and control of their church,
in which her faith is freely and fully taught, and her services,
discipline, and influences are brought to bear in forming their
characters, restraining them from evil, and training them to virtue.
We do not say that, even if trained in Catholic schools, all will
turn out to be good practical Catholics and virtuous members of
society; for the church does not take away free-will, nor eradicate
all the evil propensities of the flesh; but it is certain that they
cannot be made such in schools in which the religion of their parents
is reviled as a besotted superstition, and the very text-books
of history and geography are made to protest against it; or in
which they are accustomed to hear their priests spoken of without
reverence, Protestant nations lauded as the only free and enlightened
nations of the earth, Catholic nations sneered at as ignorant and
enslaved, and the church denounced as a spiritual despotism, full
of craft, and crusted all over with corruption both of faith and
morals. Such schools may weaken their reverence for their parents,
even detach them from their church, obscure, if not destroy their
faith, render them indifferent to religion, indocile to their
parents, disobedient to the laws; but they cannot inspire them with
the love of virtue, restrain their vicious or criminal propensities,
or prevent them from associating with the dangerous classes of our
large towns and cities, and furnishing subjects for the correctional
police, our jails, penitentiaries, state prisons, and the gallows.

We are pointed to the vicious and criminal population of our cities,
of which we furnish more than our due proportion, as a conclusive
argument against the moral tendency of our religion, and a savage
howl of indignation, that rings throughout the land, is set up
against the legislature or the municipality that ventures to grant
us the slightest aid in our struggles to protect our children from
the dangers that beset them, though bearing no proportion to the aid
granted to non-Catholics. Yet it is precisely to meet cases like
ours that a public provision for education is needed and supposed to
be made. Protestants make the great mistake of trying to cure the
evil to which we refer by detaching our children from the church,
and bringing them up bad Protestants, or without any religion. The
thousand and one associations and institutions formed by Protestant
zeal and benevolence for the reformation or the bringing up of
poor Catholic children, and some of which go so far as to kidnap
little papist orphans or half orphans, lock them up in their orphan
asylums, where no priest can enter, change their names so that their
relatives cannot trace them, send them to a distance, and place them
in Protestant families, where it is hoped they will forget their
Catholic origin, all proceed from the same mistake, and all fail
to arrest, or even to lessen, the growing evil. They necessarily
provoke the opposition and resistance of the Catholic pastors, and
of all earnest Catholics, who regard the loss of their faith as the
greatest calamity that can befall Catholic children. So long as faith
remains, however great the vice or the crime, there is something
to build on, and room to hope for repentance, though late, for
reformation and final salvation. Faith once gone, all is gone.

It is necessary to understand that the children of Catholics must be
trained up in the Catholic faith, in the Catholic Church, to be good
exemplary Catholics, or they will grow up bad citizens, the pests
of society. Nothing can be done for them but through the approval
and cooperation of the Catholic clergy and the Catholic community.
The contrary rule, till quite recently, has been adopted, and
public and private benevolence has sought to benefit our children
by disregarding, or seeking to uproot, their Catholic faith, and
rejecting the cooperation of the Catholic clergy. The results are
apparent to all not absolutely blinded by their misdirected zeal.

The public has not sufficiently considered that by the law excluding
our religion from the public schools, the schools as established by
law are Protestant schools, at least so far as they are not pagan
or godless. We do not suppose the state ever intended to establish
Protestantism as the exclusive religion of the schools; but such is
the necessary result of excluding, no matter under what pretext,
the teaching of our religion in them. Exclude Catholicity, and what
is left? Nothing of Christianity but Protestantism, which is simply
Christianity _minus_ the Catholic Church, her faith, precepts, and
sacraments. At present the state makes ample provision for the
children of Protestants, infidels, or pagans; but excludes the
children of Catholics, unless we consent to let them be educated
in Protestant schools, and brought up Protestants, so far as the
schools can bring them up.

Now, we protest in the name of equal rights against this manifest
injustice. There is no class of the community more in need of free
public schools than Catholics, and none are more entitled to their
benefit; for they constitute a large portion of the poorer and
more destitute classes of the community. We can conceive nothing
more unjust than for the state to provide schools for Protestants,
and even infidels, and refuse to do it for Catholics. To say that
Catholics have as free access to the public schools as Protestants,
is bitter mockery. Protestants can send their children to them
without exposing them to lose their Protestantism; but Catholics
cannot send their children to them without exposing them to the loss
of their Catholicity. The law protects their religion in the public
schools by the simple fact of excluding ours. How then say these
schools are as free to us as they are to them? Is conscience of no
account?

We take it for granted that the intention of the state is that
the public schools should be accessible alike to Catholics and
Protestants, and on the same risks and conditions. We presume it
has had no more intention of favoring Protestants at the expense
of Catholics, than Catholics at the expense of Protestants. But it
can no longer fail to see that its intention is not, and cannot be
realized by providing schools which Protestants can use without risk
to their Protestantism, and none which Catholics can use without
risk to their Catholicity. As the case now stands, the law sustains
Protestantism in the schools and excludes Catholicity. This is
unjust to Catholics, and deprives us, in so far as Catholics, of all
benefit to be derived from the public schools supported at the public
expense. Were the law to admit Catholicity, it would necessarily
exclude Protestantism, which would be equally unjust to Protestants.
Since, then, Catholicity and Protestantism mutually exclude each
other, and as the state is bound to treat both with equal respect,
it is not possible for it to carry out its intention and do justice
to both parties, but by dividing the schools, and setting apart for
Catholics their proportion of them, in which the education shall be
determined and controlled by their church, though remaining public
schools supported at the public expense, under the provisions of a
general law as now.

This would be doing for its Catholic citizens only what it now does
for its Protestant citizens only; in fact, only what is done in
France, Austria, and Prussia. The division would enable us to bring
all our children into schools under the influence and management
of our pastors, and to do whatever the church and a thoroughly
religious education can do to train them up to be good Catholics,
and therefore orderly and peaceful members of society, and loyal and
virtuous American citizens. It would also remove some restraint from
the Protestant schools, and allow them more freedom in insisting on
whatever is doctrinal and positive in their religion than they now
exercise. The two classes of schools, though operating separately,
would aid each other in stemming the tide of infidelity and
immorality, now setting in with such fearful rapidity, and apparently
resistless force, threatening the very existence of our republic. The
division would operate in favor of religion, both in a Catholic sense
and in a Protestant sense, and therefore tend to purify and preserve
American society. It would restore the schools to their original
intention, and make them, what they should be, religious schools.

The enemy which the state, which Catholics, and which Protestants
have alike to resist and vanquish by education is the irreligion,
pantheism, atheism, and immorality, disguised as secularism, or
under the specious names of science, humanity, free-religion, and
free-love, which not only strike at all Christian faith and Christian
morals, but at the family, the state, and civilized society itself.
The state has no right to regard this enemy with indifference, and
on this point we accept the able arguments used by the serious
Protestant preachers and writers cited in the number of _The
Christian World_ before us against the exclusion of the Bible and
all recognition of religion from the public schools. The American
state is not infidel or godless, and is bound always to recognize and
actively aid religion as far as in its power. Having no spiritual
or theological competency, it has no right to undertake to say what
shall or shall not be the religion of its citizens; it must accept,
protect, and aid the religion its citizens see proper to adopt, and
without partiality for the religion of the majority any more than the
religion of the minority; for in regard to religion the rights and
powers of minorities and majorities are equal. The state is under
the Christian law, and it is bound to protect and enforce Christian
morals and its laws, whether assailed by Mormonism, spiritism,
free-lovism, pantheism, or atheism.

The modern world has strayed far from this doctrine, which in the
early history of this country nobody questioned. The departure may
be falsely called progress, and boasted of as a result of "the march
of intellect;" but it must be arrested, and men must be recalled to
the truths they have left behind, if republican government is to be
maintained, and Christian society preserved. Protestants who see and
deplore the departure from the old landmarks will find themselves
unable to arrest the downward tendency without our aid, and little
aid shall we be able to render them unless the church be free to use
the public schools--that is, her portion of them--to bring up her
children in her own faith, and train them to be good Catholics. There
is a recrudescence of paganism, a growth of subtle and disguised
infidelity, which it will require all that both they and we can do to
arrest. Fight, therefore, Protestants, no longer us, but the public
enemy.[14]

FOOTNOTES:

[13] _The Christian World._ The Bible in the Schools. February, 1870.
New York: Bible House.

[14] We desire to call attention to another point which could not be
discussed in the foregoing article, and to which we can at present
only allude in the briefest manner. Large sums of money have been
granted by legislatures to universities and colleges which are
controlled by the clergy of different Protestant denominations, in
which they teach their religious opinions without restraint, and
which they make, as far as they can, training-schools for their
theological seminaries. Now, if the outcry against any grant of
public funds to schools in which the Catholic religion is taught is
taken up and sustained by Protestants, it follows that they must
advocate the total secularization of all institutions, without
exception, which enjoy any state subsidies, and, if they wish to
keep control of religious instruction in any of the above-mentioned
colleges, must refund to the state every thing which they now possess
by grant from the state, and give up all claim to receive any
further endowments. Catholics would never disendow or despoil these
Protestant institutions, even if they had full power to do it; but if
the party of infidelity ever gains, by the help of Protestants, full
sway over our legislation, the latter may prepare themselves for a
wholesale spoliation.




THE NEW ENGLANDER ON THE "MORAL RESULTS OF THE ROMISH SYSTEM."[15]


The reply of the _New Englander_ to our articles of September and
October last is bristling with the most palpable and absurd mistakes.
We call them "mistakes" through the utmost stretch of Christian
charity, for there is really no excuse to be made for them. We
cannot excuse them by allowing either their author or the editors
of the _New Englander_ the benefit of the plea of ignorance; for
they were bound to inform themselves on a grave matter which they
profess to treat of; nor that of haste and carelessness. They have
had at least three months for a reply, and were at liberty to take
three months more, if necessary; and to plead carelessness in such
a matter is equivalent to a confession of culpable negligence and
want of moral principle. They were bound by the principles of the
Christian religion not to exaggerate or convey in any way a worse
impression of their fellow-Christians than the exact truth would
warrant, according to the words of St. Paul, "Charity is kind,
thinketh no evil, ... is not puffed up;" which we might paraphrase
in this way: Is not pharisaically inclined to exalt one's self at
the expense of one's neighbor, or at the sacrifice of the truth. The
_New Englander_ has made use of every artifice; and, trusting to
the unsuspecting ignorance or uncritical spirit of the community,
of a shameful perversion of the truth to effect this unworthy and
unchristian object. We speak severely because it is time the public,
both Catholic and Protestant, should frown upon such practices, and
endeavor to approach Christian unity by the practice of the most
ordinary Christian virtues. We shall now proceed to make good our
allegations against the _New Englander_.

1st. The _New Englander_ makes a comparison of the provinces of
Catholic and Protestant countries, prefaced by the following
introduction:

    "The author of _Evenings with the Romanists_, writing in 1854,
    gave the names and official returns of ten principal cities
    of Protestant Prussia and of ten principal cities of Roman
    Catholic Austria.... THE CATHOLIC WORLD admits the statements,
    ... and claims, with that air of injured innocence, which is so
    favorite a weapon in Romish polemics, that, if the returns of
    the provinces were brought into the account, they would more
    than redress the balance of the cities. We proceed to put his
    proposition to experiment."

Would our readers credit it, that he has done nothing of the kind? He
has not compared the Protestant and Catholic provinces of Protestant
Prussia and Roman Catholic Austria, between which, and which alone,
the parallel comparison of cities was made; but substituted another
comparison, entirely his own, introducing provinces belonging to
other countries to weigh down the Catholic scale, and excluding half
the Catholic provinces of Austria for the same purpose. This we will
show to a demonstration. Here is the table of the _New Englander_:

    _Illegitimacy in German Provinces._

    PROTESTANT.   PR. CT.    ROMAN CATHOLIC.           PR. CT.

    Brandenburg    12        Austria (Upper and Lower)  29.3
    Hanover         9.6      Bohemia                    16.3
    Pomerania      10        Baden                      16.2
    Prussia         6.7      Bavaria                    22.5
    Saxony         15.9      Carinthia                  11.7
    Wuertemberg     16.4      Carniola                   45
                             Moravia                    15.1
                             Posen                       6.8
                             Rhineland                   3.4
                             Salzburg                   29.6
                             Styria                     30.6
                             Trieste, Gorz, etc.         9.9
                             Tyrol and Vorarlberg        6
                   ----                                 ----
      Average      11.7            Average              18.6

We repeat, the question as put by the _New Englander_ itself is not
about _German_ provinces, but of the Protestant and Roman Catholic
provinces of Prussia and Austria. Moreover, the table as it stands is
grossly untrue. The rate of illegitimacy of the province of Prussia
is 9 instead of 6.7, which materially alters the general average.

The averages of the table are falsely given as,

    Protestant 11.7       Catholic   18.6

The true averages found by balancing the populations and the rates,
according to the rules of arithmetic, are:

    Protestant 12        Catholic 16.9

Besides these grave blunders, the _New Englander_, professing to give
a statement of the _German_ provinces by taking _Germany_, "province
by province," has omitted many German provinces, which omission very
materially affects the result. We take the liberty of putting them in
to show how "economical" of truth the _New Englander_ has been.

    _Provinces omitted for which returns were given._

    PROTESTANT.          PR. CT.   CATHOLIC.        PR. CT.

    Saxon Prussia         10       Austrian Silesia  13.8
    Brunswick             18.9
    Mecklenburg-Schwerin  20.7
    Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach  15.6
    Saxe Altenburg        16.9
    Hesse                 17.2
    Bremen                 7.2

We shall now proceed to do what the _New Englander_ professed to do,
but merely shifting the question, has not done, namely, compare the
Catholic and Protestant provinces of Protestant Prussia and Roman
Catholic Austria, province by province, as they existed previous to
the last war, to correspond to the comparison of the cities of these
countries which were contained within these limits. Milan, as well as
Lemburg and Zara, are put down among the Austrian cities. We shall
give the corresponding provinces:

    _Illegitimacy in Prussian and Austrian Provinces._

                                 POPULATION
        PROTESTANT.             IN MILLIONS.   PR. CT.

    Brandenburg                     2.62        12
    Pomerania                       1.44        10
    Prussia                         3.01         9
    Saxony (province)               2.04        10
                                    ----        ----
                                    9.11        10.2

                                 POPULATION
         CATHOLIC.              IN MILLIONS.   PR. CT.

    Austria (Upper and Lower)       2.47        29.3
    Bohemia                         5.11        16.3
    Carinthia                        .34        45
    Carniola                         .47        11.7
    Moravia                         1.99        15.1
    Posen                           1.52         6.8
    Rhineland                       3.35         3.4
    Austrian Silesia                 .49        13.8
    Salzburg                         .15        29.6
    Styria                          1.09        30.6
    Trieste, etc.                    .56         9.9
    Tyrol                            .88         6
    Hungary                        10.68         6
    Galicia                         5.10         8
    Dalmatia                         .44         5
    Croatia                          .95         5.5
    Lombardy and Venice             5.55         5.1
                                   -----        ----
                                   41.14        10.3

We have thus shown, by a mathematical demonstration, that the words
which the _New Englander_ found convenient to put in our mouths,
though we really said nothing of the kind, that "if the returns of
the provinces were brought into the account, they would more than
redress the balance of the cities," are sufficiently made good. We
are glad he "proceeded to put our proposition to experiment," and
we caution him when he makes any more experiments of this kind to
reflect that, whatever may be the judgment of an uncritical public
prepared to take his statements without examination, his artifices,
misstatements, and false conclusions are sure to be detected by any
well-informed reader who will take the trouble of examining them.
The result of the comparison of the Protestant and Roman Catholic
provinces of Austria and Prussia sums up in this fashion:

    _False Average of the New Englander._

    Protestant    11.7      Catholic    18.6

    _True Average._

    Protestant    10.2      Catholic    10.3

We have thus finished this part of our task, strictly confining
ourselves to the provinces in question; but as it seems more complete
to add the other German provinces on both sides, of which returns are
given, we do so with the following result:

    _Provinces already given._

                                          POPULATION
                               PR. CT.    IN MILLIONS.

    Protestant                  10.2          9.11
    Wuertemberg                  16.4          1.75
    Smaller German States[16]    14.8          6.40
                                ----         -----
                                12.5         17.26


                                          POPULATION
                               PR. CT.    IN MILLIONS.

    Catholic                    10.3         41.14
    Bavaria                     22.5          4.81
    Baden                       16.2          1.43
                                ----         -----
                                11.7         47.38

We dismiss the _New Englander_ from the examination of provinces with
the conviction that he ought now to become a wiser if not a better
man.

2dly. The _New Englander_ gives us another division of his work,
entitled thus, "3. _Comparison of mixed populations_," the object of
which seems to be two-fold: 1st, To show the wonderful effect of a
little Protestant salt in a mass of Catholic corruption; and 2dly, to
push up the rate of Catholic Austria to a high figure by excluding
the best half of it, and thus to come out with flying colors in the
grand tabular statement of all the European countries. He commences
with the following round but very novel statement: "The empire of
Austria includes a population of 31,655,746; of these, 21,082,801 or
two thirds, are non-Romanists, belonging to the Protestant church or
Greek Church."

The population of the empire of Austria is really divided as follows:

    Catholics      26,728,020
    All others      7,703,976

by which specimen we may form a good judgment of the general
accuracy of the _New Englander_.

He goes on, "In nine of the Austrian provinces the population is
almost exclusively Roman Catholic. In seven, the Roman Catholics
are, on an average, in a minority of 46 per cent." He proves these
assertions by a table of

    _Mixed Provinces._

                      ROMANISTS.   ILLEGITIMATE.

    Hungary          52 per cent.   6 per cent.
    Galicia          44    "        8    "
    Bukowina          9    "        9    "
    Dalmatia         81    "        5    "
    Militaergrenze    42    "        1.4  "
    Croatia, etc.    82    "        5.5  "
    Transylvania     11    "        7    "
                     --             ---
       Average       46    "        6    "

accompanied by the following remark: "This falling of the rate of
illegitimacy from twenty-one to six, when the proportion of Romanists
to the population falls off from ninety-seven to forty-six, indicates
the salutary effect of Protestant Christianity, not only on its own
followers, but also on the working of Romanism itself." But suppose
the population does not fall off from ninety-seven to forty-six per
cent, and that in most of these provinces, and where the rate of
illegitimacy is the lowest, there are no Protestants at all, and
a small proportion in the rest; what is shown, then, unless it be
the ignorance and bad faith of the _New Englander_, which professes
to be the "recognized exponent of those views _of religious life_
which have given character to New England, and its essays to be
among the best fruits of thought and opinion which the education
given at Yale is adapted to foster"? Alas! Messrs. Editors, you have
unceremoniously dropped nearly 4,000,000 of Roman Catholics from
your computation. Are you not aware that the United Greeks are Roman
Catholics? If you are not, we beg leave to enlighten you, and correct
the table you have so ostentatiously paraded before the public:

                                                   _Jews & Schismatic_
                   _Catholics._     _Protestants._      _Greeks._

                   POP. IN    PR.    POP. IN    PR.    POP. IN    PR.
                  THOUS'DS.   CT.   THOUS'DS.   CT.   THOUS'DS.   CT.

    Hungary          5965     61       2349     24       1449     15
    Galicia          4150     90         31      1        449      9
    Bukowina           43     10       none      0        381     90
    Dalmatia          338     81       none      0         77     19
    Militaergrenze     454     43         20      2        587     55
    Croatia, etc.     721     85       none      0        130     15
    Transylvania      775     40        510     27        637     33
                   ------     --       ----     --       ----     --
        Total      12,446     65       2910     15       3760     20

The "salutary effect of Protestant Christianity in" Galicia,
Bukowina, Dalmatia, Militaergrenze, Croatia, etc., is wonderful, and
indeed little short of miraculous, considering how exceedingly small
the quantity of it is. If the presence of one per cent of Protestants
can so ameliorate the condition of things in Galicia, what a land
of heavenly purity Connecticut must be! But we arouse ourselves
to finish our task, or we shall become entirely absorbed in these
sublime reflections.

The _New Englander's_ "experiment" with mixed populations is an
entire failure. We will give a much more reliable table, to show the
influence of the Catholic and Protestant religion among people of the
same race, and living together in the same communities, and under
the same laws. The census of illegitimacy has been taken in Prussia
according to the religious faith of the people.

    _Illegitimacy in Prussia._

                        AMONG                 AMONG
                     PROTESTANTS.           CATHOLICS.
                  Pop. in               Pop. in
                  thous'ds.  pr. ct.    thous'ds.  pr. ct.

    Brandenburg     2509      12.05         66       8.40
    Silesia         1704      12.03       1756      10.07
    Saxony          1903      10.35        130       6.05
    Pomerania       1401      10.35         15       9.31
    Prussia         2137       9.67        815       7.45
    Posen            502       7.06        950       6.82
    Westphalia       740       4.18        907       3.35
    Rhineland        826       3.35       2494       3.67
                  ------      -----       ----       ----
    Total         11,722      10.01       7123        6.4

We take our leave of the "comparison of mixed populations." If the
_New Englander_ is satisfied with our treatment of the subject, we
are sure we are with his; for it enables us to put this matter once
more before an enlightened public, leaving them to form their own
opinions about it.

We now come to the _New Englander's_ final division of the subject:
"4. Comparison of nations."

Here is the grand extinguisher of all Catholic pretensions. The whole
question is to be put in a nut-shell in the following table, and that
according to the very criterion proposed by THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

    _New-Englander's Table of Illegitimacy in European Countries._

    PROTESTANT.      PR. CT.            CATHOLIC.         PR. CT.

    Denmark             11            Baden                16.2
    England, Scotland, and            Bavaria              22.5
      Wales              6.7          Belgium               7.2
    Holland              4            France                7.5
    Prussia, including                German Austria       18.1
      Saxony & Hanover   8.3          ? Italy (defective)    5.1
    Sweden, with Norway. 9.6          ? Spain (defective)    5.5
    Switzerland          5.5
    Wuertemberg          16.4
                        ----                                ----

        Average          8.8              Average           11.7
                                      Or rejecting Italy
                                        and Spain           14.5

What strikes us first of all is the richness of these averages. Dear
_New Englander_, you will be the death of us with your averages. Not
that we shall literally be killed off by them; but when we think of
the "best fruits" of the scholarship of Yale College producing such
averages, by adding up a lot of rates of all sorts of countries, big
and little, and dividing the sum by the number of countries, the idea
is absurd enough to kill any one with laughter. Exuberance of fancy
has evidently exercised an unfavorable influence on the mathematical
ability of the author of this article, and neutralized the effect of
the excellent mathematical course given at Yale College.

We find in the table Italy and Spain marked with a note of
interrogation, as much as to say, "What business have you here with
such low averages? You ought to look a great deal worse than that,
being such black and benighted Romanist countries as you are." And
after them the word "defective" in brackets. No doubt the best of
reasons will be given for this. Let us see. "The returns for Italy
and Spain are utterly defective and untrustworthy. Assuming the
ordinary birth-rate, the returns show that in Italy _more than one
fourth_ of the births fail to be registered." Why does not the _New
Englander_ give the figures, that we may judge for ourselves? What he
has not done we will do for him:

    _Births in Italy._

    1863            881,342
    1864            859,663
    1865            878,952
                    -------
        Average     873,319

The population of Italy is 24,231,860, and the birth-rate of Europe,
according to the _New Englander_, is 1 to 28. Dividing the number of
the population by 28, we get 865,608. The number of actual births
_exceeds_ the number expected, instead of being _defective by "more
than a fourth."_ As the reason alleged proves to be utterly false, we
shall strike off the marks of interrogation from Italy, and leave out
the "defective" in the brackets.

In like manner, the returns for Spain are treated. "As for Spain,
its census returns, if quoted at all among statistics, are quoted at
even a larger discount than its financial securities. The sum of the
Spanish censuses for the last forty years has been up and down after
the following zigzag fashion:

   "1828          13,698,029
    1837          12,222,872
    1842          12,054,000
    1846          12,164,000
    1850          10,942,000
    1861          16,000,000
    1864          15,752,807"

Not having found our friend of the _New Englander_ very precise
heretofore in his figures, we did not exactly take them on trust this
time, but looked in our "Handbuch," and found the following

    _Table of Censuses in Spain._

    1822          11,661,865
    1832          11,158,264
    1846          12,162,872
    1857          15,464,340
    1860          15,673,536

which does not exhibit any great "zigzag" propensity.

The following table of births does not show any mark of being either
untrustworthy or defective, but is uncommonly complete and steady:

                 LEGITIMATE.  ILLEGITIMATE.
    1858           516,118       30,040
    1859           525,243       31,080
    1860           541,231       32,222
    1861           577,484       34,125
    1862           573,646       33,416
    1863           565,144       32,997
    1864           586,993       34,458
    1865           581,686       33,227

So much for the romancing of the _New Englander_, which we might
appropriately designate as building "castles in Spain."

We beg our readers' pardon for these long lists of figures, but they
are really necessary for the correct understanding of the matter.
As to Austria, we shall take the liberty to bring down her figure
from 18.1 to 11.1; not that it would make so very much difference in
the general average of the nations, except in the clap-trap mode of
calculation adopted by the _New Englander_, but because justice, as
we have amply shown, demands it.

We shall now present a true table of the European countries, slightly
modifying some of the rates, to correspond to later and better
information, and inserting all the omitted countries of which returns
are given:

    _Table of Illegitimacy in European Countries._

                                        POPULATION
       PROTESTANT.           PR. CT.    IN MILLIONS.

    Denmark[17]                11            2.73
    England and Wales          6.5         20.07
    Scotland                  10.1          3.06
    Holland                    4            3.53
    Prussia                    8.6         18.94
    Sweden and Norway          9.6          5.81
    Switzerland                5.5          2.51
    Wuertemberg                16.4          1.75
    Other German States[18]    14.8          6.40
                              ----         -----
         Average               8.7         64.80

                                        POPULATION
       CATHOLIC.             PR. CT.    IN MILLIONS.

    Baden                     16.2          1.43
    Bavaria                   22.5          4.81
    Belgium                    7.2          4.98
    France                     7.2         38.07
    Austria                   11.1         34.98
    Italy                      5.1         24.23
    Spain                      5.5         15.67
                              ----        ------
         Average               8.4        124.17

The _New Englander_ has been quite hard on us for classing Holland
and Switzerland, in which there are very large Catholic minorities,
as mixed countries, and remanded them with an air of injured
innocence forthwith into the Protestant column, where it will be
observed they present an uncommonly good appearance, being the lowest
on the list. We have shown by documentary evidence that in Prussia in
1864, when there was a Catholic minority of thirty-eight per cent,
the rate of illegitimacy was brought down by it from 10 to 8.46, or,
in other words, if all the Catholics could be removed at once out of
the land, the rate of Prussia would stand 10, whereas it appears now
8.6. For this reason we thought fit to make some distinction, lest
there should be any strutting around in borrowed plumes, and to form
a table of mixed countries. We shall, therefore, carefully avoiding
any further wounding of the delicate susceptibilities of the _New
Englander_, append a table, making allowances for the minorities on
both sides, coming just as near to the exact truth as it is possible:

    _Table of Illegitimacy, including Majorities and Minorities._

                                     PROT. POP.   CATH. POP.
                           PR. CT.   IN MILL'S.   IN MILL'S.

    Holland                  4.0        2.01         1.23
    Italy                    5.1         .33        23.90
    Spain                    5.5         .12        15.55
    Switzerland              5.5        1.48         1.02
    Catholics in Prussia     6.5         --          7.20
    England and Wales        6.5       19.00         1.20
    France                   7.2         .77        34.93
    Belgium                  7.2         .02         4.97
    Sweden and Norway        9.6        5.81          --
    Protestants in Prussia  10.0       11.74          --
    Scotland                10.1        3.00          .16
    Denmark                 11          2.73          --
    Austria                 11.1        3.45        26.73
    German States           14.8        5.88          .52
    Wuertemberg              16.4        1.20          .53
                            ----       -----       ------
    Mean Protestants         8.3       57.54       117.94
    Mean Catholics           7.4

To sum up, we have for our final result:

    _New Englander's Averages._

    Protestant    8.8
    Catholic     11.7; or, omitting Italy and Spain  14.5

    _True Averages._

    Protestant    8.3
    Catholic      7.4

Here we are glad to end the general investigation, and to show
that, if we are not very much better than our neighbors, we are not
any worse, and are not to be hounded down with the cry of vice and
immorality by a set of Pharisees who are constantly lauding their own
superiority, and thanking God they are so much better than we poor
Catholics.

We must notice, before we conclude, some minor points of the _New
Englander's_ reply to THE CATHOLIC WORLD. He insists that it is
highly improbable that any of the foundlings received into the
hospital at Rome come from the provinces, and says we have not
adduced a particle of proof to the contrary. Well, as far as the
readers of the _New Englander_ are concerned, what is the use of
adducing any proof?--for that very Christian journal takes no notice
of any refutations of its statements, nor concedes any point,
however strongly proved, but is solely occupied in showing, by
fair means or foul, our "total depravity," as if the very life and
breath of the Protestant religion depended on maintaining a deep
and bitter hatred and contempt of Catholics. To our own readers,
we do not think it worth while to adduce any particular proof of a
self-evident proposition. If there be a foundling hospital, receiving
infants left at its door, it requires no proof that it will serve the
adjacent country as well as the city. We have documentary evidence
to prove this point; but the _New Englander_ contains so many errors
which require our attention, that we have not space for so trivial
a matter. We would like, however, to ask our friend of the _New
Englander_ whether he believes any of the _three thousand_ infants
received in the foundling hospital of Amsterdam come from the country.

2d. The _New Englander_ says, "But where do the infants come from that
are received in the multitudes of _country_ nunneries that abound
throughout the rural districts, and commonly have each its _creche_,
or cradle, in which the child of shame may be dropped in secret with
a ring of the bell, and left?"

It is time enough to answer this question when any proof of its truth
is brought forward; but we can assure our friend that if any infants
are so received, they all find their way to the hospital in short
order.

3d. We find the following unique and highly gentlemanly insinuation
in the _New Englander_:

    "'The _Civilta Cattolica_ says, "This proportion of 28.3 of
    legitimate births for every one thousand of the population
    speaks very well for a capital city." And so it does; it shows,
    what we have always understood them to be, that the Romans are
    as virtuous and moral as any people of the world.' Thus THE
    CATHOLIC WORLD; to which it might safely add, that it shows
    that the separation of an enormous mass of the most vigorous
    part of the people under vows of celibacy and continence does
    not necessarily check the multiplication of the population."

Weakness in arithmetic and a prurient imagination have, no doubt,
given rise to the above elegant extract; but we rebut it by informing
our friend of the _New Englander_ that there is a difference between
28.3 to the thousand and 1 to 28.3. Had he noticed this difference,
he would not have digged this pit for himself. The figures prove
nothing more than his own ignorance, putting the most charitable
construction on it.

We must give a specimen of the _New Englander's_ idea of fairness in
controversy:

    "In his _Evenings with the Romanists_, Mr. Seymour,
    anticipating the _tu quoque_ retort of the Roman Catholics,
    said, 'If any man will name the worst of the Protestant
    countries, I care not which, I will name a Roman Catholic
    country still worse.' In this way, he proceeded to compare, in
    1854, Saxony with Carinthia and sundry other regions on either
    side, whereupon THE CATHOLIC WORLD has a violent outbreak of
    mingled indignation and erudition at the extreme trickiness of
    comparing Styria, Upper and Lower Austria, Carinthia, Salzburg,
    Trieste, which are not countries at all, but simply the German
    provinces of the Austrian Empire, and Bavaria, with countries
    so different and wide apart as Norway, Sweden, Saxony, Hanover,
    and Wuertemburg; the regions in question seem to have been
    selected for their approximate equality in population."

Well, as probably most people have not heard of the _countries_ of
Carinthia, Styria, etc., we confess we were "erudite" enough to know
and to point out that they were slices of Austria carved for the
occasion, and we were a little indignant at the carving operation.

"Show me a bad _Protestant country_ where you please, and I will
show you a _Roman Catholic country still worse_." Hence, we have,
according to Mr. Seymour:

    PROTESTANT     ROMAN CATHOLIC
     COUNTRIES.      COUNTRIES.

      Norway,          Austria,
      Sweden,          Austria,
      Saxony,          Austria,
      Denmark,         Austria,
      Hanover,         Austria,

We suppose this is all fair enough; but we cannot see it, our moral
vision being so infirm.

"But these regions seem to have been selected for their approximate
equality in population." So it seems, and our friend, Mr. S., has
_made it seem_ so in this fashion: "We compare Protestant Norway with
1,194,610, and Roman Catholic Styria (Austria) with 1,006,971. Again,
we compare Protestant Sweden with 2,983,144, and Roman Catholic
Upper and Lower (Austria) with 2,244,363." All very good; but now
let us go on: "We compare Protestant Saxony _with its population_,
and Roman Catholic Carinthia _with its population_. And we compare
Hanover _with its Protestant population_, and Salzburg _with its
Roman Catholic population_." "'Of course these countries are selected
_for their approximate equality in population_.'" In order that our
readers may see how much _equality_ there is in the populations of
these countries, we give the following

    _Table of Populations._

        PROTESTANT.                 CATHOLIC.

    Saxony     2,343,994      Carinthia    342,469
    Hanover    1,923,492      Salzburg     147,191

Saxony is only seven times greater than Carinthia. Hanover only
twelve times greater than Salzburg. Very excellent is Mr. Seymour in
"anticipating the _tu quoque_ of the Roman Catholics."

We now desire to call the attention of our readers to one very
remarkable phenomenon of the statistics. In Protestant England the
cities have a lower rate of illegitimacy than the country, while in
France the case is reversed, the countries are low and the cities
high. The following table will show this:

    _Rates of Illegitimacy in City and Country Districts of England._

       CITY.   PR. CT.    COUNTRY.    PR. CT.

    London       4.2    Nottingham      8.9
    Liverpool    4.9    York, N. R.     8.9
    Birmingham   4.7    Salop           9.8
    Manchester   6.7    Westmoreland    9.7
    Sheffield    5.8    Norfolk        10.7
    Leeds        6.4    Cumberland     11.4

    The rate for all England is 6.5.

    _In France._

    Rate in all France   7.2
    Rate in cities      11.4
    Rate in the country  4.4

From this we draw the conclusion that for Protestants city life is
decidedly the best, and it will be the duty of ministers to crowd
as many of their flocks as possible out of the polluted air of the
country into the moral atmosphere of the cities, and in England
to endeavor to concentrate them particularly in the very virtuous
communities of London and Liverpool. But we are sorry the gospel
trumpet gives such a feeble sound in the country districts, and we
hope some of the city clergy will get _a call_ to go into these
benighted districts, (abjuring the brown-stone fronts and high
salaries,) and bring them back at least to the level of the city
population, where there are _so many and varied temptations, and
such surprising purity_. Our Catholic people seem to flourish better
in the country, and we sincerely hope that those who come over from
Europe will get farms out West, instead of settling down in New-York
or other cities. We did have an idea that the influence of religion
was best exerted in the country, where the pastor knows each one
of his flock, and would rather have compared the country people in
Protestant lands with the country people in Catholic lands, to test
the influence of religion upon them; but as the _New Englander_ seems
to think the comparison is best made in the cities, we leave every
reflective person to form his own judgment. If the _New Englander_
is right, we fear our Lord was wrong in asking us to pray, "Lead us
not into temptation;" but Protestants should rather pray, "Lead us
into temptation," because it is precisely in temptation they are most
virtuous.

We did not intend to say a single word on the subject of murders,
etc., because we have not any complete statistics on the subject, and
because we do not like the labor of hunting them up, just at present;
but as this thing is paraded before us like a red rag before a bull,
we will just make one dash at it, and, giving it a blow sufficient to
dispatch it, leave the rest of the matter until we find it convenient
to take it up. Mr. Seymour gave the following items in his book:

    Ireland   19 homicides to the million.
    France    31     "       "       "
    England    4     "       "       "

and we find the following table in the _New Englander_:

    _To the Million of Population._

                                                   ENGLAND.  FRANCE.

    Convictions of murder and attempts              1-1/2     12
    Convictions of infanticide in various degrees   5         10

We give the latest returns on the subject from the "Handbuch" for
France and from _Thom's Official Directory for England and Ireland_,
1869.

                        CONVICTIONS AND
                      SENTENCES TO DEATH.   EXECUTIONS.

    1864. France                9                5
    1867. England and Wales    27               10
    1867. Ireland               3                0

It will not require much ingenuity to see where the truth lies. "_Ex
uno disce omnes._"

We advise the _New Englander_ to subject in future the articles of
its unfortunate correspondent, of whom it is evidently ashamed, to
the revision of a professor of mathematics.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] _New Englander_, January, 1870. Article entitled, "Moral Results
of the Romish System."

_Handbuch der vergleichenden Statistik._ Leipzig. 1868.

_Historisch-politische Blaetter._ Neuntes Heft, Munich. 1867. Article
entitled, "Allgemeine und confessionelle Statistik in Preussen."

[16] Including kingdom of Saxony, Brunswick, Hanover,
Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-Altenburg, Hesse,
and Bremen.

[17] Including Schleswig-Holstein.

[18] Saxony, Brunswick, Hanover, Mecklenburg-Schwerin,
Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-Altenburg, Hesse, and the city of Bremen.




TO THE RAINBOW.


    All-glorious shape that fleet'st, wind-swept,
      Athwart the empurpled, pine-girt steep,
    That sinless, from thy birth hast wept,
      All-gladdening, till thy death must weep;

    That in eterne ablution still
      Thine innocence in shame dost shroud,
    And, washed where stain was none, dost fill
      With light thy penitential cloud;

    Illume with peace our glooming glen;
      O'er-arch with hope yon distant sea,
    To angels whispering, and to men,
      Of her whose lowlier sanctity

    In God's all-cleansing freshness shrined,
      Disclaimed all pureness of her own,
    And aye her lucent brow inclined,
      God's handmaid meek, before his throne.

                                             AUBREY DE VERE.




THE FIRST OECUMENICAL COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN.

NO. THREE.


The second month of the Vatican Council has seen no interruption
of its labors, nor of the intense interest which these labors seem
to excite on every side. In truth, the intensity of this interest,
especially among those who are not friendly to the council, would be
inexplicable, did we not feel that there is in reality a struggle
involved therein between the cause of religion and the cause of
irreligion. The meetings of the prelates are private and quiet. The
subjects under discussion are, at best, only vaguely known outside.
The names of the speakers may be learned. You may ascertain, if
you persist in the effort, that one bishop has a fine voice, and
was well heard; that another has an exceedingly polished delivery;
that a third is remarkable for the fluency, and a fourth for the
classic elegance with which he spoke in Latin. But all your efforts
will fail to elicit a report of the substance of the speech of
any prelate. These speeches are for the council itself--for the
assembled fathers to whom they are delivered--and are not for the
public at large, nor for Buncombe. They are under the guard of the
honor of the bishops and the oath of the officials, and are to be
kept secret until the acts of the council are lawfully published.
And yet "own correspondents," "occasional correspondents," "special
correspondents," and "reliable correspondents" from Rome have failed
not, day after day, to fill the columns of newspapers--Italian,
French, English, German, Belgian, and Spanish, and doubtless others
also, if we saw them--with their guesses and suspicions, their
tiny grains of truth and bushels of fiction. Ponderous columns of
editorial comments are often superadded, as it were, to increase the
amount of mystery and the mass of errors. Even the brief telegraphic
notices seem to be often controlled or made to work in this sense.
The telegrams from Rome itself ought to be, and we presume are,
correct. The author of a flagrant misstatement sent from this city
could be identified and held responsible. But it is said that,
outside of the limits of the Pontifical States, there is a news-agent
who culls from letters sent him for that purpose most of those
wonderful statements about the council which the telegraph wires are
made to flash over Europe, and even across the Atlantic to America.
The result of all this on the mind of one in Rome is ofttimes
amusing. During our civil war, we once found ourselves in a railway
car with an officer who had lost an arm. "Colonel," asked some one,
"in what battle were you wounded?" The colonel laid down the papers
he had been reading, sighed heavily, as if wearied, at least in
mind, and answered, "At the time, I thought it was at the battle
of Chancellorsville; but since I have been reading these newspaper
accounts of that battle, I have come to the conclusion that I was not
there at all." The newspaper reporters of the council labor under
far greater difficulties than did the army correspondents, and are
proportionately inaccurate.

Meanwhile, the council moves on in its direct course, like a
majestic steamer on the ocean, undisturbed by these winds blowing
alternately from every point of the compass, and unheeding the
wavelets they strive to raise. Within the council, every thing is
proceeding smoothly and harmoniously, some think more slowly than was
anticipated. But the fathers of the council feel they have a great
work to do conscientiously, and they are engaged earnestly and in the
fear of God in its performance.

As yet, a third public session of the council has not been held,
nor has any public announcement been made of the day when it may be
looked for. But the time is busily employed. We stated in our last
number that a _schema_ or draft on some doctrinal points had been
given to the prelates early in December, and had been learnedly
discussed, no less than thirty-five speakers having canvassed its
merits. At the conclusion of the discussion, the _schema_ was
referred to the Deputation, or Committee on Faith. All the discourses
had been taken down and written out by stenographers, with an
accuracy which astonished and elicited the commendation of such
bishops as examined the report of their own speeches. These reports
were likewise handed over to the committee, that no remark might be
overlooked or forgotten. All will be taken into consideration and
duly weighed, together with further remarks before the committee,
by the theologians who drew up the _schema_ in the Preparatory
Committee. The committee is charged to present the matured result to
the assembled congregation at the proper time, when it will again be
considered, perhaps discussed, and finally voted on.

On January 14th, the fathers again assembled in a general
congregation in the council-hall, altered and restricted as we have
already described it. Mass was celebrated at nine A.M., as is always
done, by one of the senior prelates. At its conclusion, the five
presiding cardinals took their place. Cardinal De Angelis, the chief
one, took his seat for the first time, and recited the usual opening
prayer.

At the previous congregations, five of the _deputations_ of the
council had been filled by election. The sixth--that on oriental
rites and on missions--still remained to be filled. Twenty-four
members were to be elected by ballot.

The election was held in the usual form. The bishops had brought with
them their ballots already written out. Several attendants passed,
two and two, along the seats of the prelates, one of them bearing a
small wicker-work basket. Each prelate deposited therein his ballot.
In a few moments all had quietly voted. The baskets were borne to the
secretary's table in the middle, in front of the presiding cardinals.
The ballots were placed in boxes prepared to receive them. The boxes
were closed and sealed, to be opened afterward before the regular
committee for this purpose, when the votes would be counted, and the
result ascertained.

The following prelates were elected:

    Most Rev. Peter Bostani, Archbishop of Tyre and Sidon,
    Maronite, Asia.

    Most Rev. Vincent Spaccapietra, Archbishop of Smyrna, Asia.

    Most Rev. Charles Lavigerie, Archbishop of Algiers, Africa.

    Rt. Rev. Cyril Behnam-Benni, Bishop of Moussoul, (Syrian,)
    Mesopotamia.

    Rt. Rev. Basil Abdo, (Greek Melchite,) Bishop of Mariamne, Asia.

    Rt. Rev. Joseph Papp-Szilagyi, (Roumenian,) Bishop of Gross
    Wardein.

    Most Rev. Aloysius Ciurcia, Archbishop of Irenopolis, Egypt.

    Rt. Rev. Aloysius Gabriel de la Place, Bishop of Adrianople,
    Bulgaria.

    Rt. Rev. Stephen Louis Charbonneaux, Bishop of Mysore, India.

    Rt. Rev. Thomas Grant, Bishop of Southwark, England.

    Rt. Rev. Hilary Alcazar, Bishop, Vicar Apostolic of Tonking.

    Rt. Rev. Daniel McGettigan, Bishop of Raphoe, Ireland.

    Rt. Rev. Joseph Pluym, Bishop of Nicopolis, Bulgaria.

    Most Rev. Melchior Nazarian, (Armenian,) Archbishop of Mardin,
    Asia.

    Rt. Rev. Stephen Melchisedeckian, (Armenian,) Bishop of
    Erzeroum, Asia.

    Rt. Rev. Augustin George Bar-Scinu, (Chaldean,) Bishop of
    Salmas, Asia.

    Rt. Rev. John Lynch, Bishop of Toronto, Canada.

    Rt. Rev. John Marango Bishop of Tenos, Greece.

    Rt. Rev. Francis John Laouenan, Bishop, V.A. of Pondicherry,
    India.

    Rt. Rev. Anthony Charles Cousseau, Bishop of Angouleme, France.

    Rt. Rev. Louis De Goesbriand, Bishop of Burlington, United
    States.

    Most Rev. Joseph Valerga, Patriarch of Jerusalem.

    Rt. Rev. James Quin, Bishop of Brisbane, Australia.

    Rt. Rev. Charles Poirier, Bishop of Roseau, West Indies.

    His Eminence Cardinal Alexander Barnabo, Prefect of the
    Propaganda, was appropriately named chairman of this committee.

No one in Rome, or elsewhere, could be found better qualified for
this position than this eminent and well-known cardinal, who has for
so many years, and so ably, presided over the congregation specially
charged with superintending the world-wide missions of the Catholic
Church. Born in the year 1798, he was in his early boyhood when
Napoleon annexed Italy to his empire. When the conqueror, in order
to bind the country to him, ordered that a number of the sons of the
noble and most respectable families of Italy should be sent to the
Ecole Polytechnique at Paris, to be educated, as it were, under his
own eye, the bright-eyed Alessandro Barnabo was selected with others.
He continued in that school until the fall of Napoleon restored
Pius VII. to Rome. The lad could soon return home likewise, and
devote himself, according to the aspirations of earlier years, to
the service of God in the sanctuary. He pursued his ecclesiastical
studies with distinction under De Rossi, Finotti, Graziosi, Palma,
and the giant professors of those years in Rome; became priest; and
naturally, with his learning, his energy, his amiability, was soon
selected to give assistance in the congregations for the transaction
of ecclesiastical business of the church in Rome. In due time he
became secretary to the Congregation of the Propaganda, and made
himself familiar with the affairs and men of the church throughout
the world. Subsequently raised to the cardinalate, amid the applause
of Rome, he succeeded Cardinal Fransoni in the prefectship of the
same Congregation of the Propaganda where he had been secretary, and
over which he, for many years, presided with an executive ability not
equalled since the days of Cardinal Capellaro, afterward Gregory XV.

This election having been finished, the bishops then entered on
the examination of matters of ecclesiastical discipline, several
_schemata_, or draughts, on which had been presented to them for
private study some time before. It is the ordinary usage of councils
to examine matters of faith and matters of discipline as nearly _pari
passu_ as can conveniently be done. It seems this usage will be
observed in the Vatican Council. There is a fundamental difference
between matters of faith and matters of discipline.

The faith of the church is ever one--that originally delivered
to her by the apostles. A council cannot alter it. The errors or
heresies prevailing at any time, the uncertainty in some minds, or
other needs of a period, may render it proper or necessary to give
a fuller, clearer, and more definite expression of that faith on
points controverted or misunderstood. The question always is, What
has really been the faith held in the past, from the beginning, by
the church on these points? The answer is sought in the words of Holy
Writ, in the past declarations of the church, whether in the decrees
of her councils or in the authoritative teachings of her sovereign
pontiffs, and in her traditions, as shown in the liturgies and forms
of prayer, in the testimony of her ancient doctors and fathers, and
in the concurrent teachings of the general body of her pastors and
her theologians. The whole field of evidence is searched, and the
answer stands forth in noon-day light; and the council declares
what really and truly has been and is the belief and teaching of
the Catholic Church on the question before it. And that declaration
is accepted by the Catholic world, not simply on the word of men,
however great their knowledge or accurate and scrutinizing their
research--nor simply on account of their holiness of life, their
sincerity of heart, or the impartiality of their decision. These are,
indeed, high motives, such as the world must always respect, and
perhaps enough ordinarily to satisfy human minds. But, after all,
they are but human motives. The Catholic is taught to base his belief
on a higher motive--the divine assurance of our Saviour himself that
he would always be with his church until the end of time, that he
would send the spirit of truth to teach her all truth and to abide
with her for ever, and that the gates of hell should never prevail
against her. Our ears catch the words of the Saviour, "Whosoever
heareth you, heareth me;--whosoever despiseth you, despiseth me;"
and we know that the church is thus made the pillar and ground of
truth, and that he that will not hear the church is like the heathen
and the publican. Hence on his divine word, which must stand though
the heavens and the earth pass away, we accept the declarations and
teachings of the church, through her councils, as the continuation of
the teaching of Christ himself.

Such was the examination made in the Council of Nice, A.D. 325; such
was the spirit of faith in which its words were received when it
declared the original and true belief of the church on the doctrines
of the trinity and incarnation, and condemned the novelties of Arius
and his followers. Such was the examination made in the councils of
Ephesus, Constantinople first and second, and of Chalcedon; such the
filial faith in which their decrees were received as they declared
more and more fully and explicitly the true Catholic doctrine of the
incarnation, and condemned successively the errors of the Nestorians,
the Monophysites, and the Monothelites. Such was the course pursued
in the various oecumenical councils which followed, down to and
including the Council of Trent. Such was the spirit in which their
declarations of the faith have ever been received. To us, the
Catholic Church of Christ is a living church, possessing, by the gift
of her divine Founder, authority to teach in his name all that he
taught, and ever guarded by his divine power from so falling under
the assaults of hell as to teach error to man in his name, instead of
the divine truth which he established and commissioned her to teach.
Her authority is ever the same--the same in the first and second
centuries as in the fourth and fifth, in the tenth and twelfth, in
the sixteenth, and in this nineteenth century; and it will continue
the same until time shall be no more.

It is thus that the Vatican Council takes up matters of faith, not
to add to the faith, but to declare it and to establish it, where
it has been impugned or doubted or misunderstood. The question is,
What are the points on which the errors and the needs of this age
render it proper and necessary to give a renewed, perhaps a fuller,
clearer, and more emphatic declaration of the doctrine of the church;
and in what form of words shall such declarations be expressed?
To all these questions the bishops are bringing their calmest and
maturest judgment. There will be, as there must and should be, a free
and frank interchange of views and arguments, in all sincerity and
charity, even as in the council of the apostles at Jerusalem there
was a great discussion before the definitive result was declared with
authority: _It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us._ When,
after such a discussion, the council shall give forth its decisions
and decrees, they will be accepted by the children of the church.
They will not be new doctrines. The Catholic heart and conscience
will recognize them as portions of that faith which has heretofore
ever been held. So true will this be, that we feel certain that one
of the points which many of the enemies of the church will bring
against this council, after its conclusion, will be, that it has done
comparatively nothing, that all that it taught was known and believed
among Catholics before it was convened. But the same thing was said
at the time of former councils, even of those which proved to be the
most important and influential in the history of Christianity.

But if faith is one and unchangeable, ecclesiastical discipline, at
least in most of its details, is not. The church has received power
to bind and to loose, and necessarily has authority to establish
a discipline, not simply for the purpose of securing order within
her fold, but to reach the further and higher purpose for which
she herself has been established and exists. Men must not merely
believe the truth speculatively and with a dead faith. They must,
by practical obedience to the law of God, by avoidance of sin
through the assistance of divine grace, by practice of virtue and
by holiness of life, be guided to keep the word which they have
heard, and so come to be saved. This practical guidance is her
discipline. The general principles on which her action is based are
the maxims and precepts of our divine Lord himself, the character
of the holy sacraments which he established in his church to be
the channels of grace, the institutions which came to her from the
apostles, and which she will ever preserve, and those principles of
right and morality which God has planted in the heart of man, and
of which her divine commission makes her the highest and the most
authoritative exponent. These principles are sacred and unchangeable.
But in applying them to men there must be a large body of laws and
regulations in detail. These are of her own institution, and form
her ecclesiastical discipline. She can revoke some, amend or alter
others, and add still others, as she judges such action to be best
adapted, under the ever-varying circumstances of the world, to secure
the great end for which she must ever labor--the salvation of souls.

As in all previous councils, so in this Vatican Council, these
matters of discipline have naturally and unavoidably come up for
consideration.

We said that, in the General Congregation, held on the 14th of
January, immediately after the election of which we have spoken, the
discussion of them commenced. It was continued in other congregations
held on January 15th, 19th, 21st, 22d, 24th, 25th, 27th, 28th, 31st;
February 3d, 4th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 14th, and 15th. It is not yet
closed. So far, ninety-five prelates have addressed the council on
the various points of discipline that came under examination.

If the discussion on matters of faith, of which we spoke in our last
number, was worthy of admiration for the vast learning it displayed,
and the intellectual powers of the speakers, this one on discipline
was even more interesting for its practical bearing and the personal
experience, so to speak, which it recorded. The questions came up
whether this or that law of discipline, established eight hundred
or five hundred or three hundred years ago, however wise and
efficacious at the period of its institution, could now be looked on
as sufficiently accomplishing its original purpose; or whether, on
the contrary, some new law, proposed for the consideration of the
prelates, might not now be wisely substituted for it. Bishops from
every part of the world brought the light of their own experience to
illustrate the subject. They bore, as it were, personal testimony
to the good effects and to the inconveniences of those rules and
laws in their respective dioceses. It was indeed most touching;
and it is said that the assembly was moved to tears as an eloquent
bishop, burning with zeal for the house of the Lord, told, with
accents of apostolic grief, of the woes of religion, and of disorders
that almost broke his heart--disorders against which he struggled,
seemingly in vain, because they arose from, or were supported by, the
intermeddling and abuses, and tyranny of the civil government, which
claims to be "free and progressive," but is ever grasping at things
ecclesiastical, ever striving to wield ecclesiastical power, and at
times pretending to uphold and defend such intrusion by pretext of
the laws and privileges of other times, when rulers and people alike
professed to fear God and to respect his church.

Every portion of the world was heard from. The East, through
Chaldeans, Maronites, and Armenians. The West, through Italian,
French, German, Hungarian, Spanish, Mexican, Peruvian, Brazilian,
English, Irish, and American bishops. The past was interrogated as to
the reasons and motives on which the olden laws were based, and the
special purposes they were intended to effect; and the present, as to
their actual observance and effects in this century. Even the future
was examined, so far as men may look into it, to conjecture what
course the world was taking; and what, on the other hand, would be
the most proper course for the church to pursue in her legislation,
in order to secure the fullest observance of the laws of God, and the
truest promotion of his glory.

We might well be assured that, even humanly speaking, such abundance
of knowledge and experience, such careful examination of all the
past and present bearings of the subjects, such a keen, calm
scrutiny of the future, would secure to the church from such men an
ecclesiastical legislation of the highest practical wisdom, as well
in what is retained as in what is changed or added as new. But, as
Catholics, we should never lose sight of that higher wisdom with
which the Holy Ghost, according to the words of Christ, and in answer
to the prayers of the Catholic world, will not fail to guide the
fathers of the council.[19]

It will thus be seen that during this month the council has steadily
pursued the even tenor of its way, without any public session. In
fact, no day has as yet been assigned even as the proximate date of
the third public session. No one outside the council seems able to
say precisely what progress has been made in discussing and disposing
of matters. Still less can we say when the council will close. There
seems to be a feeling that the discussions will continue until
June, when the almost tropical heat of a Roman summer must set in.
This will, of course, necessitate an adjournment until the close
of October, when the bishops would probably reassemble to continue
their work. Time only can show whether there is any truth in this
prognostication. Some of the bishops, of a more practical turn of
mind, or more desirous of returning soon to their dioceses, are
striving to find a mode of conciliating the most perfect freedom
of discussion with a more rapid progress in the matters before the
council. The most sacred right in a council is freedom to state
one's views on matters in controversy, and to uphold them by all
the arguments in one's power. This right has so far been most fully
enjoyed and freely used. No plan that would take it away would be
entertained.

Every day in Rome now convinces a sojourner more and more strongly of
the unity, the catholicity, and the sanctity of the church of Christ.
Faith that heretofore was almost extinct beneath the ashes of worldly
thoughts, here glows again and bursts into a bright flame. Elsewhere
we believed these truths; here we seem to behold with our eyes, and
to touch with our hands their reality. No one can be privileged
to mingle with the bishops here without being impressed with their
perfect unity in all things declared and taught by the church, and
with the undisguised readiness or rather firm intention of all, to
accept and to hold and to teach all that, under the light of the Holy
Ghost, shall be declared of faith in this Vatican Council. If, during
the discussion and examination, they may take different views, this
does not disturb the cordial affection among them. They can array
their strongest arguments without ever descending to personalities.
They are chary of indulging even in witticism calculated to relieve
the solemnity of the debate by a smile. In all the discussion there
is not only the highest gentlemanly courtesy, but also that true
charity and union of hearts which must accompany that unity of faith
which they solemnly professed to hold, and which must, if possible,
be confirmed and strengthened in this Vatican Council.

To be fully impressed with this perfect unity, one must be privileged
to mingle somewhat with the bishops. But even the cursory glance of a
stranger sees the evidence of the catholicity of the church presented
by the gathering of so many bishops from so many portions of the
world around the central chair of unity. We have already spoken of
this in our former articles. We will now give a summary, almost
official, which has just been made out, classifying the prelates who
have attended, according to their nationalities and dioceses:

        EUROPE.

    Austria and Tyrol,                              10
    Bohemia and Moravia,                             5
    Illyria and Dalmatia,                           13
    Hungary and Gallicia,                           20
    Belgium,                                         6
    France,                                         84
    Germany, North Confederation,                   10
    Germany, South Confederation,                    9
    England,                                        14
    Ireland,                                        20
    Scotland,                                        2
    Greece,                                          5
    Holland,                                         4
    Lombardy,                                        3
    Venice,                                          8
    Naples, Kingdom of,                             65
    Sicily and Malta,                               13
    Sardinia, Kingdom of,                           25
    Tuscany and Modena,                             19
    States of the Church, including cardinals,
      and also all the bishops from sees in
      those portions seized by Victor Emmanuel,    143
    Portugal,                                        2
    Switzerland,                                     8
    Spain,                                          41
    Turkey in Europe,                               12
    Russia, an administrator of a diocese who
      has escaped,                                  1

        ASIA.

    China and Japan,                                15
    Hindostan and Cochin China, etc.,               18
    Persia,                                          1
    Turkey in Asia,                                 49

        AFRICA.

    Algeria,                                         3
    Canary Islands and the Azores,                   3
    Egypt and Tunis,                                 3
    Senegambia,                                      1
    Southern Africa,                                 4

        OCEANICA.

    Australia and the Islands of the Pacific
      Ocean,                                        14

        AMERICA.

    Dominion of Canada, and other British
      Provinces of North America,                   16
    United States,                                  49
    Mexico,                                         10
    Guatemala,                                       4
    West Indies,                                     5
    New Granada,                                     4
    Ecuador,                                         4
    Guyana,                                          1
    Venezuela,                                       2
    Peru,                                            3
    Brazil,                                          6
    Bolivia,                                         2
    Argentine Republic,                              5
    Chili,                                           3

    That is, Europe,   541
             America,  114
             Asia,      83
             Africa,    14
             Oceanica,  14
                       ---
                       766

Divided according to rites, they stand as follows:

    Latin Rite,         706
    Greek Rite,           3
    Greek Bulgarian,      1
    Greek Melchite,      10
    Greek Roumenian,      2
    Greek Ruthenian,      1
    Armenian,            21
    Chaldean,            10
    Syrian,               7
    Maronite,             4
    Coptic,               1
                        ---
                        766

Truly, it is such a gathering as no human power could assemble. Only
the Catholic Church could effect it. No wonder that strangers from
every clime, especially devout Catholics, have flocked to Rome these
months as they never flocked before.

The splendor of the ceremonies of our holy church, as celebrated
in Rome, especially in St. Peter's, is unequalled in the whole
world. A gray-haired ambassador was present some years ago in St.
Peter's at the celebration of high mass by the sovereign pontiff
on Easter-Sunday. He had been present at two imperial and several
royal coronations, where every effort was made to give a national
magnificence to the ceremony; had witnessed several royal marriages,
and grand court celebrations of every character. But he declared
that every thing he had ever seen sank into insignificance before
the grandeur and the sublime magnificence of that high mass. Never
were the religious celebrations of Rome so magnificent as they have
been and are during this council, when the sanctuary is filled with
more than half a thousand prelates, Latin and oriental, in their
rich and varied vestments. Strangers and Romans alike crowd the
grand basilica. Yet the stranger often fails to see, what the Roman
feels, as it were, by instinct, that all this effort at splendor
and magnificence is purely and wholly a tribute of man to honor the
religion which God in his love and mercy has given, and that no
part of it is for man's own honor. If the stranger would realize
this truth, which is the soul of the ceremonial of the church, he
has but to follow these prelates from the sanctuary to their homes,
and witness the simplicity and self-denial of their private lives.
Perhaps he will be shocked at the unexpected discovery of what he
would term discomfort and poverty.

In such personal simplicity and self-denial the sovereign pontiff
himself gives the example in the Vatican. The palace is large--very
large; but the libraries, the archives, the various museums, and
the galleries and halls of paintings, of statuary, and of art,
occupy no small portion of it. Other portions of it are devoted to
the vast workshops of the unrivalled Roman mosaics, others still to
the mint. The offices of the secretary of state, and the bureaus of
other departments are there. The Sixtine, and Pauline, and other
chapels are found in it; and the various officers and attendants of
the court have many of them their special apartments. The pontiff
has his suite of rooms, as well those of state as those that are
private. You enter a large, well-proportioned hall, rich with gilding
and arabesque and fresco paintings. A company of soldiers might
manoeuvre on its marble floor. It is large enough to receive the
fullest suite of a sovereign who would visit the pope. Just now,
eight or ten soldiers in a rich military uniform are lounging here,
as it were, for form's sake. In the next room--a smaller and less
ornamented one, yet in something of the same style, and with a few
benches for furniture--a servant will take your hat and cloak. In
a third room, you find some ecclesiastical attendants. You pass
through a fourth room of considerable size. It is now empty. At times
a consistory or meeting of the cardinals for business is held here;
at other times, an ascetic Capuchin father, with his tonsured head,
his long beard, his coarse brown woollen cassock fastened around the
waist by a cord, and with sandalled feet, preaches to the cardinals
and bishops and officials of the court, and to the pope himself. With
the freedom and bravery of a man who, to follow Christ, has given up
the world, and hopes for nothing from man, and fears nothing save to
fail in his duty, he reminds those whom men honor of their duties and
obligations, and in plain, ofttimes unvarnished language, will not
shrink from speaking the sternest, strongest home truths of religion.
You pass through the silent hall in reverence. A fourth hall, with a
better carpeting, (for it is winter,) and tolerably warmed, is the
ante-chamber proper, where those are waiting who are to be admitted
to an audience of the pope. In another smaller room, opening from
this one, those are waiting whose turn it will be to enter next; or
perhaps a group is assembled, if the pope will come out hither to
receive them, as he sometimes does, when the audience is simply one
not of business, but simply for the honor of being presented to him
and of receiving his blessing. All these which we have enumerated
are the state or ceremonial apartments. From the last one, you pass
to the private office or sitting-room of the sovereign pontiff. It
is a plain room, about fifteen feet by twenty, not lofty, lighted by
a single window, and without a fire-place. Two or three devotional
paintings hang against the walls; a stand supports a small and
exquisitely chiselled statue of the Blessed Virgin. At one side of
the room, on a slight platform, is the pope's arm-chair, in which he
is seated, clothed in his white woollen _soutane_. Before him is his
large writing-table, with well-filled drawers and pigeon-holes. On it
you see pens, ink, sand, and paper, his breviary, perhaps, and one
or two volumes, and an ivory crucifix. A small case in the corner of
the room contains some other books, some objects of _vertu_, medals,
and such articles as he designs to give as mementoes. There is a thin
carpet on the floor, and a couple of plain wooden chairs are near the
table. Here Pius IX. ordinarily spends many hours each day, as hard
worked as any bank clerk. He is exceedingly regular in his habits.
He rises before five in summer, at half-past five in winter. In half
an hour he passes to his private chapel and gives an hour and a half
to his devotions, and to the celebration of two masses; the first
by himself, the second by one of his chaplains. A cup of chocolate
and a small roll of bread suffices for his breakfast. He at once
passes to his office, and works for one hour alone and undisturbed.
Then commence the business audiences of the heads or secretaries
of the various departments, civil and ecclesiastical; a long and
tedious work, in which he gives a conscientious attention to every
detail. By half-past eleven A.M., he commences to receive bishops
and ecclesiastics or strangers from abroad. This usually ends by one
P.M., when he retires for his midday devotions, and for his dinner,
and repose. This may be followed by more work, alone in his office.
At half-past three in winter, at half-past four in summer, if the
weather allows it, he gives an hour and a half to a drive and a walk.
Returning home, he takes a slight repast, and again the audiences
for business or for strangers commence, and last until after eight.
At nine punctually he retires, to commence again the same routine
the next day. Such are his regular days. At other times he must be
in church, or must visit one institution or establishment or another
in the city, spend an hour or two in ceremony or business, and hurry
home. Near this sitting-room is a smaller room where he takes his
meals alone; for the pope neither gives nor accepts entertainments.
His table does not cost more than thirty cents a day. Not far off is
his sleeping chamber, small as the other, with a narrow bed and hard
couch. Truly, his is no life of ease and pampered indulgence. There
is a stern meaning in his title, _Servant of the Servants of God_.

The same simplicity and austereness marks the private life of the
cardinals. There is now, indeed, an outward show, for they rank as
princes of the blood royal. There are the richly-ornamented carriages
drawn by brilliantly-harnessed horses, and attended by servants in
livery. There are the decorated state ante-chambers and halls. All
these things are for the public, and are prescribed by rule. If a
cardinal has not himself the means to support them, he would be
entitled to a state salary for the purpose of keeping them up. But
back of all these may be found a plain, almost unfurnished room, in
which he studies and writes, and a bed-chamber--we have seen some not
ten feet by twelve, carpetless and fireless. Oftentimes, too, the
cardinal lives in the religious house of some community, and then
much of the state can be dispensed with. But for the red calotte
which he wears on his head, you often could not distinguish him from
the other clergymen in the establishment.

The same spirit seems to characterize the bishops who are now
gathered together in Rome. All their splendor is in the church
and for religion. In their private life they certainly do not
belong to that class of strangers from whose lavish expenditures
in fashionable life the Romans will reap a rich harvest. They live
together in groups, mostly in religious houses or colleges, or in
apartments, which several club together to take at moderate rates.
Thus the Chaldean patriarch, a venerable, white-bearded prelate, near
eighty years of age, with the other bishops of his rite, and their
attendant priests, all live together in one monastery, not far from
St. Peter's. Whatever the weather, they go on foot in their oriental
dress to the council, and when the meeting is over, return on foot.
Their stately, oriental walk, their calm, thoughtful countenances,
the colored turbans on their heads, the mixture of purple and black
and green and red, in their flowing robes, set off by the gold of
their massive episcopal chains, and their rich crosses sparkling with
diamonds, never fail to attract attention. But one should see them
in their home, which they have made as Eastern as they could. The
orientals are exceedingly temperate in their meals, and as regards
wine, are almost "teetotalers." But they do love to smoke. As the
visitor is ushered into a room, where the only piece of furniture
is a broad cushioned seat running round along the walls, on which
are seated a dozen or more of long-bearded men, their feet gathered
up under them in oriental fashion, and each one smoking a pipe a
yard long, and filling the atmosphere with the clouds of Latakia, he
almost thinks himself in Mossoul. The pipes are gravely withdrawn on
his entrance, that the right hand may go to the forehead, and the
heads may bow. The welcome, _schalom_, "peace," is gravely spoken,
with perhaps a smile. He takes a seat on the divan and is asked
to take a pipe, if so minded. From time to time, the silence is
interrupted by some remark in a full, sedate voice, and intensely
guttural words of Chaldee or Arabic, whether on the last debate of
the council or on some new phase of the Eastern question, it is
probable the visitor will never learn. But he has caught a glimpse of
quiet Chaldean life. Fourteen or fifteen of the Armenian prelates,
with their patriarch, live in a not very dissimilar manner. But the
Armenians are much more akin to Europeans in their education and
character of thought. They are good linguists. All of them speak
Italian fluently, many of them French, and some a little English.
Their society is agreeable and instructive, and is much sought.

In like manner eighteen of the American bishops are domiciled in the
American College. Some others are with the Lazarists at their mother
house, others again are at St. Bridget's or St. Bartholomew's, or
with the Dominicans. Those that have taken apartments have contrived
with a very few exceptions to live together in groups. The English,
the Irish, in fact, nearly all the bishops, have followed the same
plan. Some laughingly say that their college days have come back to
them, with their regularity and their accommodations. But these are
not quite as agreeable at fifty or sixty as they were at the age
of twenty. Yet all feel, and none more thoroughly than the bishops
themselves, that this life of comparative retirement, of quiet and
study, and of continued and closest intercourse with each other, must
tend to prepare them, and to qualify them for the great work on which
they are engaged.

Another special feature of Rome in this season, dependent on the
council, is the frequency of sermons in various languages, and of
various religious services in the churches. Rome as the centre of
Catholicity is never without a certain number of clergymen from every
nation of Europe. Each winter, too, sees thousands of visitors,
Catholics, Protestants, and unbelievers, crowding her streets, drawn
hither by motives of religion, of science, of curiosity, or of
fashion. It was natural that visitors should be enabled to listen to
the truths of our holy religion preached in their own languages. This
year it could be done much more fully, and the opportunity has not
been allowed to pass by unregarded. For example, "The Pious Society
for Missions," an excellent community of priests, established in
this city over thirty years ago by the saintly Abbate Pallotta, has
the custom of celebrating the festival and octave of Epiphany each
year by appropriate religious exercises, and introducing sermons
in several languages. This year they selected the larger and noble
church of San Andrea della Valle, and continued their exercises for
eleven days. The following was the programme which they followed:
At 5.30 A.M., mass; at 6 A.M., Italian sermon and benediction; at
9 A.M., high mass of the Latin rite; at 10 A.M., high mass in an
oriental rite, (Armenian, Greek, Copt, Chaldean, Roumenian, Melchite,
Bulgarian, Maronite, Armenian again, Syrian, Ambrosian;) at 11 A.M.,
a sermon in some foreign language--that is, Polish once, German
twice, Spanish twice, English six times, (Archbishop Spalding,
Father Hecker, and Bishop McGill, Bishop Moriarty of Kerry, Bishop
Ullathorne, and Archbishop Manning were the English preachers.) At
1.30 P.M. each day, a French sermon by a bishop; at 3.30 P.M., an
Italian sermon and benediction; at 6 P.M., another sermon in Italian
with benediction. The sermons were all, of course, of a high order
of merit. The church was crowded morning, forenoon, afternoon, and
evening.

French sermons have been continued ever since, mostly by the eloquent
Bishop Mermillod, of Geneva, and English sermons on Sundays and
Wednesdays by F. Burke, an eloquent Dominican of St. Clement's, and
by Monsignor Capel. During Lent there will be an additional series of
English sermons, to be delivered by the American bishops.

On the 20th of January, the American episcopate and the American
College received from the Holy Father a very signal and agreeable
mark of his good will. It was meant, one might almost think, as a
return visit on his part, in the only way which court etiquette
allows. He chose the church of the college as the place where he
would pronounce a decree in the cause of the venerable servant of
God, John Juvenal Ancina, Bishop of Saluzzo, in Northern Italy.
In that church he would, of course, be surrounded by the American
prelates, priests, and students, and from the church would pass to
the college.

John Juvenal Ancina was born in Fossano, in Piedmont, in 1545.
Having finished his course of collegiate studies, he graduated in
medicine, and for years practised that profession with great ability,
and greater charity toward the poor, to whom he devoted himself. In
course of time he lost every near relation except one brother. Both
determined with common accord to enter the sanctuary, and came to
Rome for that purpose, and there joined the Oratorians under St.
Philip Neri. John spent years in the priesthood, honored for his
learning, and still more for his piety and sweetness, and zeal in
the ministry, which he exercised in Rome, in Naples, and in Turin.
Much against his will, and only after repeated injunctions from the
pope, he was forced to accept the charge of the diocese of Saluzzo.
He had been the intimate and dear friend of St. Francis de Sales
for years of his priesthood, and their friendship continued until
the close of his short and fruitful episcopacy. He died in 1604,
and St. Francis preached his funeral eulogy. He is the one with
whom the saint had the oft-cited exchange of puns complimentary,
"Tu vere _Sal es_." "Immo, tu _Sal_ et _Lux_." The reputation of
the virtues of such a man could not die with him. Not long after
his death, the episcopal authority of Saluzzo allowed and directed
that full testimony should be taken under oath, from those who lived
with him and knew him well, as to the truth of his holy life. This
was fully and searchingly done throughout the diocess of Saluzzo.
Similar investigations were instituted, under similar authority,
in Rome, in Naples, and in Turin, where at different times he had
lived, and wherever such testimony could be found. The original
depositions--and they are a large mass, and are still extant--were
sent to Rome. The pontiff directed that they should be laid before
the proper tribunal--the Congregation of Rites. They were found to
fulfil the requirements of the canons, and to present such a _prima
facie_ case as would authorize that congregation to proceed. This
meant that, after a certain lapse of time, during which affection and
human feelings might die out, and any hidden truth might work its way
to the light, the congregation should go over the ground a second
time, taking through other persons a second and independent mass of
testimony. This was done, and its results were compared with those of
the first mass of testimony. There was no contradiction; but on the
contrary, full and ample confirmation. Still, the opinion and belief
of the witnesses was not yet deemed of itself sufficient. Taking
the facts of his life, his words and writings, and acts and habits,
as they were thus proved, they were all studied out and carefully
weighed in the scales of the sanctuary. There was no hurry--there
never is at Rome, as this council fully shows--and the decision
of the congregation was not given until the year 1767. Then came
many political vicissitudes; first of northern Italy, as it passed
from the domination of one power to that of another, and later, the
convulsions of all Europe consequent on the French revolution. The
whole matter slumbered until 1855, when it was again taken up. The
examination of the life and acts was gone over again as before. Step
by step matters advanced until last November, at a general meeting
of the Congregation of Rites, held in the presence of his holiness,
it was decided _That the servant of God, John Juvenal Ancina, had in
his lifetime practised the theological virtues of faith, hope, and
charity, toward God and his neighbor, and the cardinal virtues of
prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance, and their accessory
virtues, in an heroic degree_. It was to announce this decision,
in a formal decree, that the pontiff came on the 29th January, the
festival of St. Francis de Sales, to the church of the American
College. He arrived at ten A.M., and was received at the portal
of the college by the rector of the college, and all the American
bishops now at Rome, and by a dozen others, Irish, English, Scotch,
and Italian. He proceeded at once to the church, which, though
small, is one of the handsomest in Rome for its beautiful marbles
and fine statuary. The pontiff knelt, while one of his chaplains
celebrated mass. The bishops, all the American priests in the city,
the students of the college, and many Catholics from the United
States, and some other strangers, filled the little church. After the
mass, the pontiff ascended to the throne prepared for him. Cardinal
Patrizi, prefect of the Congregation of Rites Cardinal Capalti, who
had special charge of this case, and Cardinal Barnabo, protector
of the college, stood next to him. The formal decree was read,
proclaiming the decision in virtue of which we shall henceforth say,
"_the_ VENERABLE _John Juvenal Ancina_."[20] The superior general of
the Oratorians, to which community, as we have said, he belonged,
returned thanks in an eloquent and brief discourse in Latin. The
pope then, taking his theme from the life of the VENERABLE bishop,
addressed to the prelates present a short and feeling discourse, in
Italian, on the character and virtues which should adorn a bishop.
Though he did not mention the council, it was evident that the
thought of it filled his heart. He spoke of the servant of God whom
he had just declared venerable as imitating the apostles. They, from
being fishermen, were called to be fishers of men; and he too, from
being a physician of the body, was called to be a physician of souls.
This holy man he showed to be a model of bishops, and enlarged on the
text of St. Gregory the Great, that a bishop should be "in thought,
pure; in deeds, eminent; in silence, discreet; in word, useful; in
the contemplation of heavenly things, elevated." "Who will ascend
to the mountain of the Lord? Let him be of pure hands and clean
heart." Let him be single-minded, doing every thing for the glory
of God, without any admixture of human motives. Let him be first in
all good works, so as to be a pattern to his flock. He did not speak
of that silence which means cowardice, or indifference to whatever
evil goes on in the world. There is a time to speak, as well as a
time to be silent. The bishop must be useful in words, speaking out
boldly whenever it is for the advantage of the Christian people. He
must be a man of prayer. What is the origin of the evils which we
see in the world? The prophet answers, "Because there is no one who
thinketh in his heart." The pontiff dwelt for a few moments on all
these points, and in conclusion quoted St. Gregory again, who said,
"I have given you a beautiful picture of a bishop, though the painter
be bad." "What the saint says out of humility, I must say," he added,
"of myself in truth. But pray for me that God may give me strength
to bear the heavy weight he has laid upon me. Let us pray for each
other. Do you pray for me; and I call on the Almighty to bless you,
and your dioceses, and your people."

The words of the pontiff were simple, because full of devotion and
truth; and the delivery was exquisitely perfect, in the earnest,
heart-felt, subdued tones of his voice, and the chaste dignity of his
gesture. All felt that the pontiff spoke from his paternal heart.

The Bishop of Saluzzo, the successor in this century of the VENERABLE
_Ancina_, returned thanks; and all proceeded from the church to the
grand hall of the college. The cloister of the court-yard and the
broad stairways and corridors were adorned with drapery, tapestry,
and evergreens. A splendid life-size portrait of his holiness, just
painted by the American artist, Healy, for the exhibition about
to be opened, had been sent to the college for the occasion, and
was placed in a prominent position. In the hall, the pontiff again
spoke a few kind and paternal words, and Archbishop Spalding, in
the name of the American church, clergy and laity, made an address
to the pope in Latin. The discourse was excellent in language and
happy in thought. His grace referred to the fact that Pius VI. had
given us our first bishop, (Dr. Carroll, of Baltimore;) Pius VII. had
multiplied dioceses, and given us our first archiepiscopal see; and
he, Pius IX., had established six other archiepiscopal sees. So that
in a country where sixty years ago there was but one bishop, there
are now sixty, three fourths of whom are here in Rome to attend the
general council. Toward the end of his discourse, the good archbishop
brought in a few touches of true American wit. This is what Italians
would scarcely venture on, on such an occasion, and it was to them
unexpected. Even the pope looked for a moment puzzled, as if he could
not conjecture what was coming; but as he caught the point, a smile
spread over his countenance, and the smile developed into a hearty
laugh. As for the Italian prelates, at first they wondered--as who
would not, at an American joke in the language of Cicero?--but at
last not all their stately dignity could resist its force, and they
laugh yet, as they repeat it.

The bishops, the superiors, and students of the college, the priests
who were present, and the laity, approached to offer their homage to
the pontiff and receive his blessing. This over, he departed, but not
until he had declared that he was delighted, more than delighted,
with his visit.

ROME, February 17, 1870.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] We have studiously avoided entering on the specific subjects
of the debate among the fathers. So far as they have come to our
knowledge, we are of course not allowed to speak of them, at
least at present. But we trust we shall not be held as violating
any confidence when we repeat a statement made to us on the best
authority. Many of the fathers of the Vatican Council seem well
acquainted with our Second Plenary Council of Baltimore. More
than once it was referred to with special commendation as having
thoroughly seized the character of this modern age in which we live.
And the desire was expressed that its special regulations on one
or two points for the church in the United States could be made
universal laws for the whole church.

[20] When it shall have been established with the evidence required
by the Congregation of Rites that it has pleased God to work two
miracles, of the first class, after the death of this venerable
servant, through his intercession, a decree may be issued stating
that fact, and allowing his beatification. When two other miracles of
the same class shall have been proved with the same certainty to have
occurred, after his beatification, the blessed servant of God may be
canonized and enrolled among the saints of the church.




FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.


For the sake of making a point against the Catholic Church,
Protestants and indifferents are frequently so poverty-stricken
in authorities as to quote Voltaire. When told that they cite the
authority of a man who was unprincipled, cynical, and impious, they
answer that such an estimate is simply the result of a bigoted and
narrow-minded prejudice, and that the great French philosopher was
liberal, honorable, and conscientious.

An incident has lately occurred in France to call forth the
deliberate opinion of a body of men eminently fitted from superior
education, elevated position, and freedom from any possible suspicion
of Catholic bias, to form an estimate which to our friends above
referred to must be looked upon as authoritative and decisive,
although open to the objection of being too mild and qualified.

Some fifteen years ago, a proposition was started in a Paris daily
newspaper for the popular collection, in small sums, of a sufficient
amount to erect a statue to Voltaire in the French capital. When the
success of the subscription seemed sufficiently assured, petition
was made to the government to grant a site on some public square on
which to place the statue. After long delay, and some appearance of
unwillingness, the petition was finally granted; but the announcement
of this fact was immediately followed by the presentation of a large
number of protests against the erection of the statue, which came
in from all parts of the empire. One of these protests, signed by a
thousand inhabitants of the departments of Le Gard and the Drome, and
the city of Nismes, and addressed to the senate, was referred to a
committee of senators for consideration and report. The committee has
made a report, which is understood to be written by M. Silvestre de
Sacy, well known as former chief editor of the _Journal des Debats_,
and a distinguished member of the French Academy. From it we learn
something of the petition, but not as much as we would like to
know. After a recital of the facts we have stated, the report goes
on to say: Undoubtedly, the government had authority to refuse the
permission asked, and still has the power to withdraw it. The right
of private persons to award statues to whomsoever they please, and
to meet and raise money to pay for them, is certainly lawful. But
the public streets and squares are not their property. The number
of these persons does not increase their right. They act, in such
a matter, solely for themselves, and not for the whole country, of
which they have no right to pretend to be the representatives. Among
the serious considerations which might have made the government
hesitate, is the very name Voltaire, which has two significations:
the one glorious for the human intellect and for French literature;
the other for which Voltaire himself would now blush, dragging down
as it does the great historian and great poet to the miserable
calling of an impious and cynical pamphleteer. But it appears that
the subscribers have obtained the permission asked for. The site
has been selected, and the statue will be erected in one of the
squares of the new _Rue de Rennes_. The petition before us protests
against this permission, and prays the intervention of the senate
with the government to obtain the withdrawal of a permission which
it characterizes in the strongest terms. These petitioners see but
one Voltaire--an impious, immoral Voltaire, hostile to all religion;
a Voltaire who conspired with all the enemies of France for the
humiliation and ruin of his country; a Voltaire who, Prussian at
Rosbach with King Frederick, Russian with Catherine II., against
unfortunate Poland, the violator of our purest glory in his poem
_Jeanne d'Arc_, the enemy of liberty, equality, and fraternity, as
may be shown from a hundred passages in his correspondence and
writings, an abject courtier and a servile adulator of kings. "I
ask," says the first petitioner, speaking for all the others--"I ask
that the image of this man shall not appear upon our public squares,
to cast insult in the face of the country. I ask that this disgrace
be spared France." The senatorial report then goes on to say that
there are two Voltaires--the Voltaire described in the petition, and
the Voltaire who wrote _La Henriade_, who, by various masterpieces
in poetry and the drama, placed himself near Horace, Corneille, and
Boileau; Voltaire the historian, to whom we are indebted for _Le
Siecle de Louis XIV._, the essay _Sur l'Esprit et sur les Moeurs
des Nations_, and that perfect model of rapid and lively narration,
_L'Histoire de Charles XII._; the Voltaire, in fine, whose name could
not be covered with oblivion without obscuring some of the glories of
French literature. No, continues the report, whatever may be asserted
to the contrary, all of Voltaire is not in some shafts of satire
which fell from the ill-humor of the partisan and the angry writer,
in pamphlets against religion, as poor in good taste and good sense
as in true science, in a poem in which it is most sad to see wit
and talent pressed into the disreputable service of ornamenting the
wretched obscenity of the argument; all of Voltaire is not in single
passages selected from a correspondence of sixty years. If in these
were the whole of Voltaire, his memory would long since have been
accursed or dead, his works long since have been without readers or
publishers, and the idea of raising a statue in his honor would have
occurred to no one. Although the avowal is a painful one, it must be
confessed that Voltaire has himself and the deplorable errors of his
genius alone to blame for the bitterness of the recriminations which
injure his brilliant fame. He has too often been unjust to others not
to expect that others should be unjust to him. It is his own fault
if his name recalls to pious thinkers, to timid hearts, to the faith
of ardent souls, only the writer who would not respect in others the
noble hopes he himself had lost. Voltaire desired to be the leader
of incredulity. He was; and now he pays the penalty for it. Something
equivocal remains, and will ever remain associated with his fame.
Respectable people can consent to award him eulogies and statues
only with distinctions and reserves. The declared enemy of disorder
and demagogism, he is sometimes invoked as a seditious tribune, as
a burner of churches; and one of the most elegant minds has left in
his writings, along with a great many marvellous works, food for
passions which, in his better days, his good taste and his good sense
would energetically condemn. The report concludes against asking the
revocation of the permission granted by the government, on the ground
that it will be understood by all that the honor of a statue is
conceded not to the Voltaire with reason petitioned against, but to
the author whose works are subjects of legitimate national pride.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the year 400, a Buddhist priest, Fah-Hian, commenced the long
journey from China to India and back, and left a narrative of his
travels. A century later, a similar journey was made by another
Buddhist priest, Sung-Yun, who also left an account of his foreign
experiences. Singularly enough, these works have survived all
these centuries, and have long been objects of great interest to
the oriental scholars of Europe. Remusat and Klaproth published a
translation of Fah-Hian at Paris in 1836. This work, in quarto,
was soon followed by an English translation by Laidley. Many
serious errors, especially in geography, were pointed out in these
translations by St. Julien, and Professor Neumann also gave a
translation of the two Buddhist works, in the _Zeitschrift fuer
historische Theologie_, vol. iii., 1833. Meantime, additional light
had been thrown upon the subject by such publications as Edkin's
Notice of Buddhism in China, and General Cunningham's work; and a
full and amended version of the Buddhist priests' travels, together
with an interesting treatise on Buddhism, is now published in London
by Truebner & Co. Its title is, _Travels of Fah-Hian and Sung-Yun,
Buddhist Pilgrims, from China to India_, (400-518 A.D.,) translated
from the Chinese by Samuel Beal.

       *       *       *       *       *

The completion of Alfred von Reumont's History of the City of Rome,
(_Geschichte der Stadt Rom_,) which has now reached its third volume,
is looked for by European scholars with great interest. It is
universally praised as a work of remarkable research, learning, and
unusual impartiality.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Testamenta XII Patriarcharum, ad fidem Cantabrigiensis edita;
accedunt lectiones cod. Oxoniensis. The Testaments of the XII.
Patriarchs; an Attempt to estimate their Historic and Dogmatic
Worth._ By R. Sinker, M.A., Chaplain of Trinity College. Cambridge:
Deighton, Bell. London: Bell & Daldy. 1869.

An elegant edition of this apocryphal work, carefully revised and
annotated from manuscripts preserved at Cambridge and Oxford, with
a learned and judicious treatise. Ecclesiastical antiquity has left
us but little positive information concerning these testaments. We
are certain that the testaments of the twelve patriarchs were known
to Tertullian and to Origen, but we do not know who wrote them. Was
the author a Jew, a Christian from among the Gentiles, or a Christian
of Jewish race? Was he an Ebionite or a Nazarene? Is the work all
from one hand, or is it interpolated? On all these points there is a
difference of opinion. Equally in doubt are the points, When was the
book written? for what class of readers was it specially intended?
and what was the author's object in writing it? Mr. Sinker discusses
the subject with great firmness, and concludes, but without any
dogmatism, that the author was a Jewish Christian of the sect of the
Nazarenes, and that the work was composed at a period between the
taking of Jerusalem by Titus and the revolt of the Jew Barcochba
in 135. One of the most important portions of Mr. Sinker's work
is on the _Christology_ of the Testaments, (pages 88-116.) He is
satisfied that the author expresses his belief in the mystery of the
incarnation, and he sets forth the doctrine of the Testaments on
the Messiah, king and pontiff, descendant of Juda and Levi, priest
and victim, Lamb of God, Saviour of the world, etc. etc. The work
really merits a longer notice, and should be in the hands of all
who can profit by its perusal. Many important questions concerning
the primitive history of Christianity, obscured by the fallacious
conjectures of anti-Christian critics, may have much light thrown
upon them.

       *       *       *       *       *

Some of the English periodicals are not especially brilliant
or profound in their appreciation of and comments upon foreign
literature. Take the London _Athenaeum_, for instance, the same
periodical which last year approved with such an air of wisdom the
author who undertook to revive the old exploded fable of a female
pope. It informs its readers, (number of 6th November last,) "The
Man with the Iron Mask continues to occupy the learned in search of
problematical questions. M. Marius Topin has come to the conclusion
that Lauzun was the man. We believe this theory has already been
advocated." Now, from the most superficial reading of M. Topin's
work, (provided the reader knows a little more French than the
_Athenaeum_,) it is perfectly clear that, although M. Topin speaks
of Lauzun as a prisoner at Pignerol, he expressly says that it is
impossible to think seriously of him as a candidate for the iron
mask, for the simple reason that Lauzun was set at liberty some years
before the death of the masked prisoner.

       *       *       *       *       *

_A Scripture Concordance_, prepared and written by a lawyer, is
something of a novelty in Catholic ecclesiastical literature. And
the concordance is not an ordinary one of words and names. It is
exclusively of texts of Scripture and words relating to our ideas
and sentiments, our virtues and our vices, our duties to God and our
neighbor, our obligations to ourselves, thus strikingly demonstrating
the grandeur of its precepts, the beauty of its teachings, and
the sublimity of its moral. Texts purely doctrinal are rigorously
excluded, and but one name is retained--the divine name of the
Saviour. The book is entitled, _SS. Scripturae Concordantiae Novae, seu
Doctrina moralis et dogmatica e sacris Testamentorum Codicibus ordine
alphabetico desumpta, in qua textus de qualibet materia facilius
promptiusque quam in aliis concordantiis inveniri possunt, auctore
Carolo Mazeran, Advocato_. Paris and Brussels. 1869. 8vo.

       *       *       *       *       *

Two distinguished Catholic artists have lately died at Rome, Overbeck
the painter, and Tenerani the sculptor. Overbeck's graceful and
inspired religious compositions are too well-known to need comment
here. Tenerani was a pupil of Canova and of Thorwaldsen. His "Descent
from the Cross," in the church of St. John Lateran, and his "Angel of
the Last Judgment," sculptured on a tomb in the church of St. Mary of
Rome, have been often admired by many American travellers.

       *       *       *       *       *

_S. Clement of Rome, the two Epistles to the Corinthians._ A revised
Text, with Introduction and Notes, by J. B. Lightfoot, D.D., Hulsean
Professor of Divinity and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
London: Macmillan. 1869. 8vo. Professor Lightfoot appears to have
suspended the publication of his commentaries on the epistles of St.
Paul, and to have taken up the apostolic fathers. The first epistle
of St. Clement, addressed to the Corinthians, is of well-settled
authenticity from the testimony of Hermas, Dionysius, Bishop of
Corinth, Hegesippus, (cited by Eusebius, iv. 22,) and numerous
others. Although not classed among the canonical books, this epistle
has always been highly prized as what may be called a liturgical
document. St. Jerome bears testimony that it was read publicly in
the churches, (_in nonnullis locis publice legitur_.) So also does
Eusebius. Dr. Lightfoot's task is well performed. In his preface
he develops the statements above mentioned, enumerates the various
writings ascribed to St. Clement of Rome, and in speaking of the
_recognitiones_, relates the history of the false decretals. In
this work, as in many others on very ancient manuscripts, the art
of topography has been of the greatest service. The codex from
which these two epistles of St. Clement are taken, is the celebrated
one presented by Cyril Lucar to Charles I., and now preserved in
the British Museum. The authorities of the museum had it carefully
photographed, so that the author could make use of it at his own
pleasure, and at his own house, as, of course, no such manuscript
would be allowed to leave the museum even for an hour. A second
volume of this work of Professor Lightfoot is promised, which will
contain the epistles of St. Ignatius and St. Polycarp.

       *       *       *       *       *

_A Comparative Grammar of Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin_, by William
Hugh Ferrar, Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Dublin. Vol. I.
London: Longman. 1869. 8vo. Studies in philology and comparative
grammar appear to be on the increase in Great Britain, and are now
pursued with great industry. Mr. Ferrar freely uses the labors of
Bopp, Schleicher, Corssen, Curtius, and Max Mueller, but by no means
slavishly. He criticises their various systems with great freedom and
intelligence, and produces a really meritorious work.

       *       *       *       *       *

We remark the publication in Paris of a French translation of the
first volume of the _History of the United Provinces_, by our
countryman, John Lothrop Motley, the work to be completed in eight
volumes.

       *       *       *       *       *

We see announced, and as soon to appear, the first part of a work
entitled, _Alexandre VI. et les Borgia_. The author is the reverend
Father Ollivier, of the order of _Freres Precheurs_.

       *       *       *       *       *

_L'Histoire de la Restauration_, vol. vii., is the last work of
M. Alfred Nettement, a distinguished, conscientious, and talented
journalist and historian, who lately died in France, regretted and
honored by men of all parties. He was sixty-four years of age, and
had been an industrious author for forty years. Count Montalembert
called him the type of the journalist and historian, _sans peur et
sans reproche_.

       *       *       *       *       *

The result of the chronological researches of M. Zumpt concerning
the year of the birth of our Saviour (_Das Geburtsjahr Christi.
Geschichtlich-chronologische Untersuchungen_) is rather severely
commented upon by the German critics, notwithstanding his high
historical reputation. They claim that he has not solved the problems
presented by himself.

       *       *       *       *       *

Volume iii. of the series of _Lives of the Archbishops of
Canterbury_, by Dr. Hook, dean of the cathedral of Chichester,
contains a biography of Cardinal Pole. It is said to contain much new
material on the subject, from the MSS. collections of Simancas and
the Record Office.

       *       *       *       *       *

The readers of Sir Walter Scott are aware that he made frequent use
of an old poetical history of Robert Bruce. Traces of it are frequent
in his _Lord of the Isles_, and he gives an analysis of it in his
_Tales of a Grandfather_. The poem was written in the fifteenth
century by John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, and is lately
published in Scotland, _The Bruce; or, The Metrical History of Robert
I., King of Scots_. By Master John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen.
Published from a MS. dated 1489; with notes and a memoir of the life
of the author. 8vo. Glasgow, 1869.

       *       *       *       *       *

A very remarkable work is one lately published at Milan, _Della
Schiavitu e del servaggio e specialmente dei servi agricoltori_.
Milano. Two vols. in 8vo. It is by the learned Count Cibrario, and
treats of slavery from the period of the Romans down to that of the
rebellion in the United States. His researches among old collections
of MSS. at Venice and Genoa develop the fact that slaves were held in
those cities down to a much later period than is generally supposed.

       *       *       *       *       *

Giovanni Michiel was ambassador of Venice at the court of England
from 1554 to 1557, that is to say, during the reign of Mary. His
dispatches were written in cipher, and during all these years it has
been impossible to copy or use them for want of a key to the cipher.
M. Pasini, an employee in the Venetian archives, has long been
engaged on a complete history of the different ciphers used by the
Venetian ambassadors, and has succeeded in deciphering the letters of
Michiel, which he has lately had published, _I dispacci di Giovanni
Michiel, Ambasciator Veneto in Inghilterra_. Venezia, 1869.

       *       *       *       *       *

Here is a work of remarkable erudition, and unusual interest for
the classical scholar: _Notices sur Rome. Les Noms Romains et les
Dignites mentionnees dans les Legendes des Monnaies Imperiales
Romaines_. Par L'Abbe I. Marchant. Paris, 1869. Imperial 8vo. It is a
learned dissertation upon the origin and signification of the titles,
dignities, and offices mentioned in inscriptions on imperial Roman
coins, the names, surnames, filiation, adoption, and dignities of
emperor, Caesar, Augustus, censor, pontiff, grand pontiff, princeps
juventutis, proconsul, etc., etc.; the surnames taken from vanquished
nations, _Britannicus_, _Germanicus_, _Dacicus_, _Pannonicus_,
_Parthicus_, _Sarmaticus_; titles seldom merited, and grossly
exaggerated, bestowed upon emperors by the servile flattery of senate
or people, such as _Pater Patriae_, _Dominus Noster_, _Senior_,
_Pius_, _Felix_, _Felicissimus_, _Beatissimus_, _Nobilissimus_,
_Optimus_, _Maximus_, _Deus_, _Divus_, _AEternus_, _Invictus_,
_Triumphator Gentium_, _Barbararum_, etc. For empresses, _Augusta_,
_Diva_, _Felix_, _Nobilissima_, _Foemina_, _Mater Castrarum_,
_Mater Augustorum_, etc., etc. Then follow the subordinate titles
of _Questor_, _Triumvir_, _Prefect_, etc., etc. The work is by no
means one of dry nomenclature, and the author, by his fulness of
illustration and attractive style, has produced an admirable work.




NEW PUBLICATIONS.


    CONVERSATIONS ON LIBERALISM AND THE CHURCH. By O. A. Brownson,
    LL.D. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co.

This is the first production of the pen of Dr. Brownson which has
appeared under his own name for several years. During this time he
has been a constant contributor to this magazine, and has furnished
a considerable number of valuable articles to other periodicals,
particularly the _Tablet_, of which he has for some time past had
the principal editorial charge. Those who are familiar with the
leonine style of the great publicist cannot have failed to recognize
it even in his anonymous productions, or to admit, whether with
good or with ill grace, that he still remains _facile princeps_
in that high domain which he has chosen for himself. We welcome
the venerable author most heartily on his reappearance upon the
field of intellectual combat with his visor up, and his own avowed
recognizance upon his shield. He appears as the champion of the
encyclical of Pius IX. against that conglomeration of absurd and
destructive errors which its advocates have decorated with the name
of liberalism, and as the defender of the true, genuine principles
of liberty--that liberty which Catholic training and Christian
civilization prepare the greatest possible number of men to enjoy,
to the greatest possible extent, with the least possible danger to
themselves and society.

The volume is small in size, but weighty and precious in matter,
like a lump of gold. There is enough precious metal in it to keep an
ordinary review-writer a-going for three years. The wretched, flimsy
sophistries and falsehoods with which we are bored to death every day
by the writers for the daily papers, screaming like macaws the few
changes of their scanty vocabulary, Railroads, railroads! progress,
progress! mediaeval fossil! nineteenth century! are all summed up by
Dr. Brownson in a few sentences much better than one of themselves
can do it. These expressions of the maxims of our _soi-disant_
liberal editors are put into the mouth of an imaginary representative
of the class, who is supposed to be conversing with a Catholic
priest at an unfashionable watering-place. The author, by the mouth
of the priest, answers him fully, and makes an exposition of his
own views and opinions. The editor has nothing to say in rejoinder,
except to repeat over his tiresome, oft-refuted platitudes, ignoring
all his antagonist has alleged and proved against him. Perhaps it
will be said that the doctor has purposely put a weak defence into
the editor's mouth. Not at all. It is no sport to such an expert
swordsman to run a tilt against any but an expert and doughty
antagonist. Give him his choice, and he would prefer to contend with
one who would make the best possible fight for liberalism. In this
case, as the doctor has been obliged to play both sides of the game,
one hand against the other, he has carefully avoided the common
fault of collusion between the right and left hand. He has made his
imaginary editor say all that the real editors can say, and in better
fashion than they can say it. Any person who has taken the trouble
to read the comments of the writers for the press on the massive
arguments of Dr. Brownson's articles, or their other lucubrations
on the subjects treated in this book, will perceive that its author
has not diluted them at all, but has rather infused some of his own
strong tea into their tepid dish-water.

The errors of the liberalists have been to a certain extent already
discussed in our pages, and will be probably discussed more fully and
to greater advantage after the decrees of the Council of the Vatican
are published.

We therefore confine ourselves at present to a particular notice
of one point only in Dr. Brownson's argument, to which we desire
to call special attention. We allude to his exposition of his
views in regard to the relation of the Catholic religion to the
principles of the American constitution. Dr. Brownson is a thorough
Catholic and a thorough American. As a Catholic, he condemns all
the errors condemned by the syllabus of Pius IX. As an American,
he accepts all the principles of the constitution of the United
States. As a philosopher, he reconciles and harmonizes the two
documents of the ecclesiastical and political sovereignties to
which he owes allegiance. If he were wavering or dubious in obeying
the instructions of the encyclical, his exposition of the relation
between Catholic and American principles would have no weight
whatever; for it would be merely an exposition of his own private
version of Catholicity and not of the authorized version. If he were
not thoroughly American, his exposition of the Catholic's ideal
conception of the relations of the church and civil society might
be very perfect, but it would rather confirm than shake the common
persuasion that there is a contrariety between the principles of our
political order and those of the Catholic Church. If he were not a
philosopher, he might present both his religious and his political
doctrines, separately, in such a way as to satisfy the claims both
of orthodoxy and of patriotism; but he would not be able to show how
these two hemispheres can be joined together in a complete whole.
It is one of his greatest merits that he is perpetually aiming at
the construction of these synthetic harmonies of what we may call,
for the sake of the figure, the different gospels of truth, and is
perpetually approximating nearer and nearer to that success which
perhaps cannot be fully achieved by any human intellect. We think he
has substantially succeeded in the task undertaken in the present
volume, and we commend it to the perusal of all Americans, whether
Catholics or non-Catholics, in the hope that it may strengthen both
in the determination to do no injustice to each other, and to remain
always faithful to the allegiance we owe to the American republic. We
recommend it also to Dr. Brownson's numerous admirers and friends in
Europe as a valuable aid to the understanding of what are commonly
called American principles.

So far as the exterior is concerned, this is one of the very finest
books which the Sadliers have yet published.

       *       *       *       *       *

    THE END OF THE WORLD, AND THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. Two Discourses
    preached to the Music Hall Society, by their minister, the
    Rev. William Rounseville Alger. Published by request. Boston:
    Roberts Brothers.

Considering what are the contents of these "discourses," for which,
naturally, the preacher failed to find any text, their title seems
like a dismal jest. There is nothing, however, too absurd for the
Music Hall of Boston, not even the amalgamation of puritanism and
pantheism. We have two palmary objections to the argument of these
discourses, which is, of course, intended to disprove the Christian
doctrine respecting the last judgment and the end of the world. The
first is, the boundless credulity which underlies the whole series
of assumptions on which it is founded; the second is, its total
want of scientific method and accuracy. Mr. Alger has an extensive
knowledge of certain departments of literature, a vivid imagination,
a certain nobleness of sentiment, and a considerable power of graphic
delineation and combination of his intellectual conceptions; but no
logic or philosophy, very little discriminative or analytic skill,
and nothing of the judicial faculty. Wherever his imagination leads,
his intellect follows, and willingly lends itself to clothe all the
visions which are met with on the aerial journey with the garb of
real and rational discoveries. Therefore, we say that his argument
in these discourses rests on credulity, a basis of vapor, like that
which supports a castle in the clouds. We proceed to give some
instances. Mr. Alger has fashioned to himself a conception of what
our Lord Jesus Christ ought to have been, and ought to have said and
done. Throughout these discourses, and his other works, he explains
every thing recorded of the sayings and doings of our divine Lord in
the New Testament according to this _a priori_ conception of his own,
without regard to common sense or sound criticism. This is credulity,
and nothing more. As well might we say, Mr. Alger is a man of sense
and honesty, and therefore he can never have meant any of the absurd
things he seems to say against the Catholic doctrine. Another
extraordinary instance of credulity is the theory of accounting for
the similarity to the principal Catholic dogmas which is seen in the
religious beliefs of heathen nations. It is a fanciful conjecture,
and, as a philosophical theory, untenable, that the same myths had
an independent origin and development among distinct races. There
must have been a common cause and origin of religious traditions, as
well as of languages. Another instance of credulity is found in the
following passage: "It is confidently believed that within twenty
years the views adopted in the present writing will be established
beyond all cavil from any fair-minded critic." Here is a heavy strain
indeed on our faith, worse than that which Moses makes upon poor
Colenso! Worse than all is the following, which we will not credit
to the author's credulity any further than he himself warrants us
in doing by his own language, which we will quote entire, that the
reader may judge for himself of the extent to which it shows in the
author a _penchant_ for the marvellous, provided that the marvellous
is in no way connected with revelation. "A brilliant French writer
has suggested that even if the natural course of evolution does
of itself necessitate the final destruction of the world, yet our
race, judging from the magnificent achievements of science and art
already reached, may, within ten thousand centuries, which will be
long before the foreseen end approaches, obtain such a knowledge
and control of the forces of nature as to make collective humanity
master of this planet, able to shape and guide its destinies, ward
off every fatal crisis, and perfect and immortalize the system as now
sustained. It is an audacious fancy. But, like many other incredible
conceptions which have forerun their own still more incredible
fulfilment, the very thought electrifies us with hope and courage."
(P. 18.)

This is indeed brilliant! It surpasses the famous moon-hoax of Mr.
Locke, and the balloon-voyages of that wild genius Edgar A. Poe, from
whom we have some recent and interesting intelligence, contained in
a volume which we recommend to the congregation of Music Hall; the
volume being entitled _Strange Visitors, by a Clairvoyant_. In those
days, probably, our Congress will have a committee on comets, and
make appropriations for a railroad to the Dog-star.

The second objection to Mr. Alger's argument runs partly into the
first. It is, we have said, totally wanting in scientific method and
accuracy. This is true of the entire process by which the thesis
of the discourses is sustained. This thesis is, that the present
constitution of the world and the human race will endure for ever,
or at least for an indefinitely long period. If there were no light
to be had on this point except the light of nature, the opinion
maintained by the author would be at best only a conjecture. It could
not be made even solidly probable, unless some rational theory were
first established concerning the ultimate destiny of the human race,
and the end for which the present miserably imperfect constitution of
the world had been decreed by the Creator, and the perpetuity of the
existing order on the earth were shown to have a reason in this final
cause of man's creation. The author has not done this, and we do not
believe that it is possible to do it, even prescinding all question
of revelation. Even on scientific grounds--that is, reasoning
from all the analogies known to us, and from purely rational and
philosophical data--it is far more probable and reasonable to suppose
that the present state of the world is merely preparatory to a far
higher and more perfect state, and will be swept away to make place
for it. But when we consider the universality and antiquity of this
latter belief, and the solid mountain of historical, miraculous, and
moral evidence on which rests the demonstration that this belief
proceeds from a divine revelation, it is the most unscientific
method that can be conceived to ignore it, or leap over it by the
aid of fanciful hypotheses, as Mr. Alger does. The manner in which
the Catholic doctrine is distorted and misrepresented, in extremely
bad rhetoric, is also unscientific. Nearly all the pith of this
so-called argument consists in a violent invective against the
notion of a partial, unjust, vindictive Divinity, who rewards and
punishes like an ambitious tyrant, without regard to necessary and
eternal principles of truth, right, and moral laws. So far as this
invective is directed against Calvinism, considered in its logical
entity, and apart from the correctives of common sense and sound
moral sentiment which practically modify it, we give the author the
right of the case. But it is palpably false, as the author has had
ample opportunity of knowing, as respects the Catholic doctrine. He
is unscientific, moreover, in confusing the substance of the doctrine
that the generation of the human race will cease, all mankind be
raised from the dead in their bodies immortal, the ways of God to
man be openly vindicated before the universe, and each one assigned
to an immutable state according to his deserts or fitness, this
visible earth also undergoing a corresponding change of condition;
with the scenic act of proclaiming judgment and inaugurating the
new, everlasting order, which is commonly believed in, according to
the literal sense of the New Testament. If Mr. Alger can show good
reasons for substituting a figurative, metaphorical interpretation of
the passages depicting this last grand scene in the drama of human
history for the literal sense, he is welcome to do it; but he has not
touched the substance of the Catholic dogma which he gratuitously
denies. Mr. Alger tells us, (p. 46,) "Loyalty to truth is the first
duty of every man." It is also one in which he himself signally
fails, by a persistent misrepresentation of Catholic doctrines, by
disregarding the evidence which has been clearly set before him
of their truth, subjecting his intellect to his imagination, and
preaching as "truth" opinions which he cannot possibly prove, in the
teeth of arguments which he cannot possibly refute. One who wilfully
sins against "the first duty of man," by rejecting the faith and law
of his Sovereign Creator when sufficiently proposed to him, must
surely be condemned by divine justice; and it is only such who, the
Catholic Church teaches, will be condemned for infidelity or heresy
at the tribunal of Christ. "The judgment of God," says the author,
"is the return of the laws of being on all deeds, actual or ideal."
(P. 66.) God, therefore, will judge all men by acting toward them
throughout eternity in accordance with that revealed law which is
the transcript of his own immutable nature, and which assures us
that beatitude is gained or lost by the acts which every responsible
creature performs during the time of probation, and that every merit
or demerit has its appropriate retribution in another life. Perhaps
the most foolish thing in these discourses is the gleeful assurance
to the congregation of Music Hall that the world will not come to
an end because it has gone on so long already, although many people
expected the end before this. A great pope has already cautioned us
against this error, in an encyclical of the first century, beginning
_Simon Petrus, Servus et Apostolus Jesu Christi_. "In the last days
there shall come scoffers with deceit, walking according to their
own lusts, saying, Where is his promise, or his coming? For since
the fathers slept, all things continue so from the beginning of the
creation," (2 Pet. iii.)

The good people of the Boston Music Hall who requested the
publication of these discourses, no doubt because they were so much
delighted to think that the world may stand for ever, have been a
little premature in their exultation. The publication of Mr. Alger's
manifesto against St. Peter only gives another proof that the first
of the popes was also a prophet. Who is more likely to be infallible,
Mr. Alger or St. Peter?

       *       *       *       *       *

    LIFE DUTIES. By E. E. Marcy, A.M., M.D. New York: D. & J.
    Sadlier & Co. 1870.

This book contains many good things, and is written in a very
pleasing, literary style. The portions of it which treat of moral
and religious duties are likely to be useful to a certain class of
persons who seldom or never read a book containing so much sound
doctrine and wholesome advice. The author, no doubt, wrote with a
good intention, and endeavored to teach what he sincerely thinks to
be Catholic doctrine, and, of course, the publishers have issued
the book in good faith, without any suspicion that it contains any
thing erroneous. The author has, however, made a great mistake in
supposing that he is sufficiently learned in theology to be able
to distinguish, in all cases, sound Catholic doctrine, from his
own imperfect, and frequently incorrect, opinions, or that he is
authorized to teach the faithful in doctrinal and spiritual matters,
without first submitting his book to revision by a competent
authority. He has, in consequence, made some very grave mistakes in
doctrine, or at least in his manner of expressing himself on matters
of doctrine, and also said a number of things which are very rash
and unsuitable in a Catholic writer. On page 13 he says, "It is
doubtful whether any human being has ever passed through a life of
ordinary duration without an occasional violation of them"--that
is, of the commandments of God. If this refers to grievous sins,
it is contrary to the universal sentiment of Catholics, that very
many persons have passed through even a long life without committing
any grievous sin; if it refers to venial sin, it is false, at
least as respects the blessed Virgin Mary, who was wholly sinless.
The phraseology employed respecting the sacraments of penance and
extreme unction is altogether deficient, diverse from that which
is sanctioned by ecclesiastical usage, and suggestive of errors.
The sacrament of penance is called, "repentance, acknowledgment,
reformation," without express mention of sacramental absolution, and
extreme unction is designated as "prayer for the sick," whereas
the holy oil is the matter of the sacrament which was prescribed by
the command of Jesus Christ. The fathers, doctors, and scholastic
theologians, and the methods of scholastic theology, are criticised
with an air of superior wisdom unbefitting any Catholic writer,
but especially a tyro in theological science. After saying that
the disbelief of the real presence is partly due to the neglect of
religious teachers "to make such clear and just explanations as
the Holy Scriptures authorize them to make," (p. 250,) the author
undertakes to correct the method of St. Thomas, Suarez, Bellarmine,
and the other theologians who have hitherto been considered as our
masters and teachers, to supply for their defects, and to explain the
mystery of transubstantiation in such a clear manner as to remove
all difficulty out of the way of believing it. The good doctor
has unfortunately, however, proposed a theory which subverts the
Catholic doctrine of the incarnation, and that of the resurrection
of the body. So far as we can understand his meaning, he holds
that the spiritual or glorified body is the same thing with the
spirit or soul. In other words, the spirit or soul is an ethereal
substance which is called spirit, inasmuch as it is intelligent;
and body, inasmuch as it is visible and subsisting under a certain
configuration. This is the doctrine of the spiritists, and not that
of the Catholic Church. The Catholic doctrine is, that soul and body
are distinct, diverse substances; that the souls of the departed are
existing now in a separate state, and that they will receive again
their bodies at the resurrection. The author of course explains the
resurrection and present state of our Lord in harmony with this
notion; but in contradiction to the Catholic doctrine that our Lord
raised up, glorified, and elevated to heaven that same flesh and
blood which he took of the Virgin in the incarnation. He moreover
confuses the human with the divine nature of Christ, by affirming,
with the Lutherans, the ubiquity of the sacred humanity of Christ,
whom he calls the "spirit Christ," and affirms to be everywhere by
virtue of his divine omnipresence. This again is erroneous doctrine.
The way is prepared by these statements for an explanation of the
presence of Christ in the eucharist, and transubstantiation. It is
not difficult to believe that God annihilates the bread and wine,
but still causes a miraculous appearance to make the same impression
on our senses which the bread and wine made before the consecration.
Christ, being everywhere present, imparts the special effects of his
grace at the time of consecration and communion. The only trouble
in the matter is, that the theory is not true or orthodox. The body
and blood of Christ are made present under the sacred species by the
force of the consecrating words, _not_ his soul or divinity. The
soul and divinity of our blessed Lord are present by concomitance;
but transubstantiation is the change of the substance of the bread
into the body, and of the wine into the blood of Christ, and here is
the chief mystery of the dogma which the author, in endeavoring to
explain, has explained away. It is possible that the author's sense
is more orthodox than his language, and no doubt his intention is
more orthodox than either. His language, however, bears on the face
of it the appearance of a sense which is, in itself, contrary in some
points to definitions of faith, and in others to the common doctrine
of theologians.

It is very necessary that all Catholics should understand that they
are not at liberty to interpret either the scripture, tradition, or
the definitions of councils in contradiction to the Catholic sense
and acceptation made known by the living voice of the pastors and
teachers who are authorized by the church. Those who desire to feed
on the pure milk of sound doctrine will find their best security
against error in selecting for their theological or spiritual reading
those books which they are well assured have the sanction and
approbation of their pastors.

       *       *       *       *       *

    THE VISIBLE UNITY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH MAINTAINED AGAINST
    OPPOSITE THEORIES. With an explanation of certain passages
    in Ecclesiastical History erroneously appealed to in their
    support. By M. J. Rhodes, Esq., M.A. Dedicated by permission
    to the Right Rev. William Delany, D.D., Lord Bishop of
    Cork. London: Longmans, Green & Co. New York: The Catholic
    Publication Society.

The superb exterior of this book, published in the best English
style, leads the reader to expect something unusually excellent in
the contents. Nor will he be disappointed. This work is no mere
repetition of other books. It is learned, original, carefully
prepared, well written, and has undergone an examination by competent
theologians, not only in England, but also at Rome. The genuine
doctrine of Catholic unity, as opposed to the pseudo-catholicity of
Anglicans, is exposed in it, with a refutation of the objections of
Bishop Forbes, Dr. Pusey, and others. The questions of the Easter
controversy, the dispute between St. Cyprian and Pope St. Stephen,
the dispute between Paulinus and St. Meletius of Antioch, the Celtic
controversies, etc., are fully discussed. The only criticism we have
to make is concerning the manner of treating the question of the
divided obediences at the epoch between the pontificate of Urban VI.
and that of Martin V. The author thinks that the adherents of Peter
de Luna, called Benedict XIII., were really in schism, although
most of them were innocent of any sin. We think otherwise, and our
opinion has been derived from the most approved Catholic authors.
Without doubt, the authors of the division were formal schismatics.
Yet they were able to make out such a plausible case against Urban
and in favor of Benedict, that for the time being Urban's right was
doubtful in a large portion of Christendom. Those who refused to
recognize him were not therefore guilty of rebellion against the
Roman pontiff as such, any more than those would be who should refuse
to obey a papal rescript of doubtful authenticity. After the election
of Alexander V. there was much greater reason to doubt which of the
three rival claimants, Gregory XII., Benedict XIII., or Alexander V.,
was the true pope. It is now perfectly certain that Gregory XII. was
canonically elected, and we suppose it is by far the more probable
opinion that he remained in possession of his right as legitimate
pope until his voluntary resignation at the Council of Constance.
Nevertheless, his claim, at the time, was a doubtful one, and the
majority of the cardinals and bishops adhered, after the Council of
Pisa, to Alexander V. and his successor John XXIII. Peter de Luna was
a schismatic in the fullest extent of the word. But what shall we
say of Alexander and John? Their names still appear on the lists of
popes, and some maintain that they were true popes. They undoubtedly
believed that a council could depose doubtful popes, and that
therefore the Council of Pisa could deprive both Gregory and Benedict
of whatever claim either of them might have to the papal throne.
They believed themselves lawfully elected, and were not, therefore,
schismatics, even though they were not lawful popes. If the author
maintains that two of the three obediences which eventually concurred
at Constance in the election of Martin V. were in a state of schism
until that time, we cannot agree with him, and we think we have
the best authorities on our side. For, if these obediences were in
schism, they were no part of the true church, the jurisdiction of
their bishops and priests was forfeited, and the Catholic Church
was limited to the obedience of the legitimate pontiff. This theory
would involve the author in considerable difficulties, and we wonder
that it was allowed to escape the notice of his Roman examiners. The
case is very plain, to our thinking. Neither of these three parties
rebelled against the Roman see, or refused to obey the laws of any
pontiff whose legitimacy was unquestionable. It was a dispute about
the succession, not a revolt against the principle of authority.
There was, therefore, no schism in the case; all were equally members
of the Catholic Church, and jurisdiction remained in the bishops
of all the contending parties. Those who wilfully promoted this
dissension were grievously culpable, but the rest were free from sin,
as long as they acted in good faith. The author devotes only a short
space to this question, and with this exception his work is most
admirable, and worthy of a most extensive circulation.

       *       *       *       *       *

    THE EVIDENCE FOR THE PAPACY. By the Hon. Colin Lindsay. London:
    Longmans & Co. For sale by the Catholic Publication Society,
    New York.

Mr. Lindsay was president of the Anglican Union when, after long
study, he submitted to the authority of the holy Roman Church. His
conversion made a great sensation, and called out the usual amount of
foolish, ill-natured twaddle. In this volume he has given a masterly,
lawyer-like, and extensive summary, richly furnished with evidences
and authorities, of the scriptural and historical argument for the
supremacy of St. Peter and his successors. We welcome and recommend
this admirable work most cordially. The author is a convert of the
old stamp of Newman, Wilberforce, Oakeley, Faber, and Manning; that
is, a convert to genuine and thorough-going Catholicity; and not one
of those who has been spoiled by the fatal influence of Munich. The
spurious coin which dealers in counterfeit Catholicism are seeking
just now to palm off on the unwary is distinguished from the genuine
by its faint delineation of the pope's effigy on its surface. A
primacy in the universal church similar to that of a metropolitan
in a province is all they will admit the pope to possess _jure
divino_. The true Catholicity brings out the divine supremacy of
the successor of St. Peter into bold relief. This is just now the
great question, the criterion of orthodox belief, the touchstone of
faith, the one great fact and doctrine to be insisted on against
every form of anti-Catholic error, from that of the Greeks to that
of the atheists. The pope is the visible representative of Christ on
the earth, of God's law, of revealed religion, of the supernatural,
and of moral and political order. The one question of his supremacy
in the true and full sense of the word being settled, every thing
else follows as a necessary consequence, and is established. It is
very important, therefore, that books should be multiplied on this
topic, and that the utmost pains should be taken by the clergy to
indoctrinate the people and instruct fully converts concerning that
loyal allegiance and unreserved obedience which all Catholics owe to
the vicar of Christ. This book will be found to be one of the best.
We have received also from London a very clever critique on "Janus,"
by F. Keogh, of the Oratory, and are glad to see that the learned Dr.
Hergenroether, of Wuerzburg, is preparing an elaborate refutation of
that mischievous production. The second part of F. Bottalla's work on
the papacy is also announced as soon to appear.

       *       *       *       *       *

    GEOLOGY AND REVELATION; OR, THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EARTH,
    CONSIDERED IN THE LIGHT OF GEOLOGICAL FACTS AND REVEALED
    RELIGION. By the Rev. Gerald Molloy, D.D., Professor of
    Theology in the Royal College of St. Patrick, Maynooth. London:
    Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer. 1870. For sale by the Catholic
    Publication Society, New York.

The author discusses in this volume two interpretations of the Mosaic
account of creation: 1st, that a long interval may have elapsed
between the creation and the work of the six days; 2d, that the six
days themselves may be long periods of time; and shows that they
are both admissible, and that the last corresponds pretty well with
the present state of geological science. In a subsequent work, he
proposes to discuss the question of the antiquity of man.

Though he does not claim to have written a manual of geology, the
first and larger part of the work is in fact an excellent compendium
of the science, and is written in a remarkably interesting and
readable style. A few such books would do much to remove the
dislike and distrust of geology which still prevails to some extent
among religious people, and perhaps also to convince scientific
unbelievers.

       *       *       *       *       *

    REPORTS ON OBSERVATIONS OF THE TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN,
    Aug. 7, 1869. Conducted under the direction of Commodore B.
    F. Sands, U.S.N., Superintendent of the United States Naval
    Observatory, Washington, D.C. Washington: Government Printing
    Office. 1869.

This volume contains the reports of the parties sent from the
Naval Observatory to Des Moines, Iowa, Plover Bay, Siberia, and
Bristol, Tennessee; as well as those of Mr. W. S. Gilman, Jr., and
General Albert J. Myer, at St. Paul Junction, Iowa, and Abingdon,
Va., respectively, who also communicated their observations to the
superintendent. The latter saw the eclipse from the top of White Top
Mountain, 5530 feet high; the effect was, of course, magnificent.
The papers of Professor Harkness on the spectrum, and of Dr. Curtis
on the photographs which they obtained at Des Moines, are specially
interesting. One hundred and twenty-two photographs were taken in
all, two during the totality, fac-similes of which last are appended,
together with other representations of the total phase, and copies of
the spectra observed, etc. Professor Harkness observed what appears
to be a very decided iron line in the spectrum of the corona, which
was otherwise continuous, and he considers it quite probable that
this mysterious halo is to a great extent or even perhaps principally
composed of the vapor of this metal. He saw magnesium and hydrogen in
the prominences, and the unknown substance which has been elsewhere
observed.

Professor Hall, who went to Siberia, was unfortunate, the
weather being cloudy during the eclipse, though clear before and
afterward; but he made what observations were practicable under the
circumstances.

       *       *       *       *       *

    A TEXT-BOOK OF PRACTICAL MEDICINE. By Dr. Felix Von Niemeyer,
    Professor of Pathology and Therapeutics; Director of the
    Medical Clinic of the University of Tuebingen. Translated from
    the seventh German edition, by special permission of the
    author, by George H. Humphreys, M.D., and Charles E. Hackley,
    M.D. In two volumes octavo, 1500 pp. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

These books place at once before the American practitioner the most
advanced scientific knowledge on the general practice of medicine
possessed by the German school, of which Professor Niemeyer is
considered, and justly, one of the most erudite and brilliant
ornaments.

Each subject treated shows the profound and masterly manner in which
its details have been garnered by him from the only reliable source
of such knowledge, the hospital clinic.

The rapidity with which it has passed through seven German editions,
the last two of triple size, and the fact that it has been translated
into most of the principal languages of the old continent, afford
ample proof of its appreciation in Europe.

The medical student is here presented with a solid, comprehensive,
and scientific foundation upon which to rear his future
superstructure of learning, while the over-worked practitioner will
find a never-failing source of gratification in the work for casual
reference and study.

Nothing can so much advance truly Catholic science and literature
as the free interchange of national ideas and opinions, expressed
through the master minds of the various professions and pursuits.

       *       *       *       *       *

    LIFE PICTURES OF THE PASSION OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.
    Translated from the German of Rev. Dr. John Emmanuel Veith,
    formerly Preacher of St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna. By Rev.
    Theodore Noethen, Pastor of the Church of the Holy Cross,
    Albany, N. Y. Boston: P. Donahoe.

The various personages connected with the sufferings and death
of our Saviour--Judas Iscariot, Caiaphas, Malchus, Simon Peter,
etc.--receive each a chapter in this book, in which their characters
are portrayed with appropriate reflections and illustrations drawn
from history, religious and secular.

The author is one of the most distinguished preachers in Europe.
The translator is a clergyman well and favorably known for the many
excellent translations of German religious books which he has given
to the American public.

_Life Pictures_ will be found very suitable reading for this season
of the year.

       *       *       *       *       *

    HEALTH BY GOOD LIVING. By W. W. Hall, M.D. New York: Hurd &
    Houghton. 1870. Pp. 277.

This work is intended to show that good health can be maintained,
and many diseases prevented, by proper care in eating. The doctor
does not use the phrase "good living" in its ordinary meaning; he
defines it to be a good appetite followed by good digestion. His
rules for obtaining this two-fold blessing are generally sensible;
but a few of his statements are somewhat exaggerated. We have no
doubt that the health of the community would be improved by following
the common-sense directions of Dr. Hall; but unfortunately, as the
doctor himself remarks, not one person in a thousand of his readers
will have sufficient control over his appetite to carry out these
suggestions, which require so much self-denial. We are glad to see
the doctor recommends a strict observance of Lent.

       *       *       *       *       *

    A GENERAL HISTORY OF MODERN EUROPE, FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE
    SIXTEENTH CENTURY TO THE COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN. Third edition,
    revised and corrected. By John G. Shea. New York: T. W. Strong,
    (late Edward Dunigan & Brother.)

The merit of this history as a text-book has been long and widely
recognized. The correction, revision, and addenda do not call for any
special notice.

       *       *       *       *       *

    THE FERRYMAN OF THE TIBER. An Historical Tale. Translated from
    the Italian of Madame A. K. De La Grange. New York: P. O'Shea,
    27 Barclay street. 1870.

This is a beautiful story of the early days of the church, when the
effeminacy and luxury of the pagans made the noble virtues of the
Christians shine with the greater splendor; when St. Jerome lived in
Rome, and the Roman matrons and virgins, following his instructions,
gave to the world such beautiful examples of virtue, and to the
church so many saints. It is a book that should be read now; for
though we do not live in a pagan age, we surely are not living in an
age of faith; and the example of a Jerome, a Melania, and a Valeria
are as necessary as when the light of Christianity had but just begun
to shine upon the world.

       *       *       *       *       *

    THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT. By John Henry Newman, D.D.

This is a treatise on the _science_, not the _art_ of logic, with
application to religious belief and faith in the divine revelation.
We have only had time to glance at its contents, and must, therefore,
postpone any critical judgment upon them. What we have seen in
looking over the leaves of the advanced sheets sent us by the
kindness of the author is enough, however, to show that in this book
Dr. Newman has put thought and language under a condenser which has
compressed a folio of sense into a duodecimo of size.

The Catholic Publication Society will issue the work in a few weeks.

       *       *       *       *       *

    THE EARTHLY PARADISE. A Poem by William Morris. Part III.
    Boston: Roberts Brothers. Printed at the Cambridge University
    Press.

An extremely beautiful book, which it is a luxury to handle and
look at. Every body knows, long before now, that Mr. Morris is a
true poet, and there is no need of our saying what will be no news
to any one who loves poetry. We will only say, therefore, that we
like Mr. Morris, because he is antique, classical, and pure, and
it is refreshing to get away from the dusty, hot highway of recent
literature into his pages.

       *       *       *       *       *

    THE DOUBLE SACRIFICE; OR, THE PONTIFICAL ZOUAVES. A Tale of
    Castelfidardo. Translated from the Flemish of the Rev. S.
    Daems. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. Pp. 242.

A well-deserved tribute to those gallant youths who cheerfully
offered up their all, home, friends, life itself, for Peter's chair,
and in defence of holy church. As a story it has no particular merit.

       *       *       *       *       *

BOOKS RECEIVED.

    From SCRIBNER, WELFORD & CO., New York: Sermons bearing on the
    Subjects of the Day. By John Henry Newman, B.D. New edition.
    Rivingtons: London, Oxford, and Cambridge. 1869.

    From ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston: A Day by the Fire; and other
    papers hitherto uncollected. By Leigh Hunt. 1870.

    From CARLETON, New York: Strange Visitors.

    From P. FOX, Publisher, 14 South Fifth street, St. Louis:
    Letters on Public Schools, with special reference to the system
    as conducted in St. Louis. By the Hon. Charles R. Smythe. 1870.

    From the University, Ann Arbor: Report on a Department of
    Hygiene and Physical Culture in the University of Michigan, by
    a Committee of the University Senate. 1870.

    From MURPHY & CO., Baltimore: General Catechism of the
    Christian Doctrine; for the Use of the Catholics of the Diocese
    of Savannah and Vicariate Apostolic of Florida. 1869.--Peabody
    Memorial. January, 1870.

    From JAMES MILLER, 647 Broadway, New York: History of American
    Socialisms. By John Humphrey Noyes.




THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XI., No. 62.--MAY, 1870.


CHURCH AND STATE.[21]


Il Signor Cantu is one of the ablest men and most distinguished
contemporary authors of Italy. He is a layman, and has usually been
reckoned among the better class of so-called liberal Catholics, and
certainly is a warm friend of liberty, civil and religious, a sincere
and earnest Italian patriot, thoroughly devoted to the holy see, and
a firm and fearless defender of the rights, freedom, independence,
and authority of the spiritual order in its relation to the temporal.

We know not where to look for a truer, fuller, more loyal, or more
judicious treatment in so brief a compass of the great and absorbing
question in regard to the relation of church and state, than in his
article from the _Rivista Universale_, the title of which we give at
the foot of the page. He is an erudite rather than a philosopher,
a historian rather than a theologian; yet his article is equally
remarkable for its learning, its history, its philosophy, its
theology, and its canon law, and, with slight reservation, as to
his interpretation of the bull _Unam Sanctam_ of Boniface VIII. and
some views hinted rather than expressed as to the origin and nature
of the _magisterium_ exercised by the popes over sovereigns in the
middle ages, we believe it as true and as exact as it is learned and
profound, full and conclusive, and we recommend its careful study to
all who would master the question it treats.

For ourselves, we have treated the question of church and state so
often, so fully, and so recently, in its principle and in its several
aspects, especially in relation to our own government, that we know
not that we have any thing to add to what we have already said, and
we might dispense ourselves from its further discussion by simply
referring to the articles, _Independence of the Church_, October,
1866; _Church and State_, April, 1867; _Rome and the World_, October
of the same year; and to our more recent articles on _The Future of
Protestantism and Catholicity_, especially the third and fourth,
January, February, March, and April, of the present year; and also to
the article on _The School Question_, in the very last number before
the present. We can do, and we shall attempt, in the present article,
to do, little more than bring together and present as a whole what is
scattered through these several articles, and offer respectfully and
even timidly such suggestions as we think will not be presumptuous
in regard to the means, in the present emergency, of realizing more
perfectly at home and abroad the ideal of Christian society.

We assume in the outset that there really exist in human society
two distinct orders, the spiritual and the temporal, each with its
own distinctive functions, laws, and sphere of action. In Christian
society, the representative of the spiritual order is the church,
and the representative of the temporal is the state. In the rudest
stages of society the elements of the two orders exist, but are
not clearly apprehended as distinct orders, nor as having each its
distinct and proper representative. It is only in Christian society,
or society enlightened by the Gospel, that the two orders are duly
distinguished, and each in its own representative is placed in its
normal relation with the other.

The type, indeed the reason, of this distinction of two orders in
society is in the double nature of man, or the fact that man exists
only as soul and body, and needs to be cared for in each. The church,
representing the spiritual, has charge of the souls of men, and looks
after their minds, ideas, intelligence, motives, consciences, and
consequently has the supervision of education, morals, literature,
science, and art. The state, representing the temporal, has charge
of men's bodies, and looks after the material wants and interests of
individuals and society. We take this illustration from the fathers
and mediaeval doctors. It is perfect. The analogy of church and state
in the moral order, with the soul and body in the physical order,
commends itself to the common sense of every one, and carries in
itself the evidence of its justness, especially when it is seen to
correspond strictly in the moral order, to the distinction of soul
and body in the physical order. We shall take, then, the relation of
soul and body as the type throughout of the ideal relation of church
and state.

Man lives not as body alone, nor as soul alone, but as the union of
the two, in reciprocal commerce. Soul and body are distinct, but not
separate. Each has its own distinctive properties and functions,
and neither can replace the other; but their separation is death,
the death of the body only, not of the soul indeed, for that is
immortal. The body is material, and, separated from the soul, is dust
and ashes, mere slime of the earth, from which it was formed. It is
the same in the moral order with society, which is not state alone,
nor church alone, but the union of the two in reciprocal commerce.
The two are distinct, each has its distinctive nature, laws, and
functions, and neither can perform the functions of the other, or
take the other's place. But though distinct, they cannot in the
normal state of society be separated. The separation of the state
from the church is in the moral order what the separation of the
body from the soul is in the physical order. It is death, the death
of the state, not indeed of the church; for she, like the soul, nay,
like God himself, is immortal. The separation of the state from the
church destroys its moral life, and leaves society to become a mass
of moral rottenness and corruption. Hence, the holy father includes
the proposition to separate church and state, in his syllabus of
condemned propositions.

The soul is defined by the church as the _forma corporis_, the
informing or vital principle of the body. The church in the moral
order is _forma civitatis_, the informing, the vital principle of the
state or civil society, which has no moral life of its own, since
all moral life, by its very term, proceeds from the spiritual order.
There is in the physical order no existence, but from God through the
medium of his creative act; so is there no moral life in society,
but from the spiritual order which is founded by God as supreme
law-giver, and represented by the church, the guardian and judge
alike of the natural law and the revealed law.

The soul is the nobler and superior part of man, and it belongs to
it, not to make away with the body, or to assume its functions,
but to exercise the _magisterium_ over it, to direct and govern it
according to the law of God; not to the body to assume the mastery
over the soul, and to bring the law of the mind into captivity to
law in the members. So is the church, as representing the spiritual
order, and charged with the care of souls, the nobler and superior
part of society, and to her belongs the _magisterium_ of entire human
society; and it is for her in the moral order to direct and control
civil society, by judicially declaring, and applying to its action,
the law of God, of which she is, as we have just said, the guardian
and judge, and to which it is bound by the Supreme Law-Giver to
subordinate its entire official conduct.

We note here that this view condemns alike the absorption of the
state in the church, and the absorption of the church in the state,
and requires each to remain distinct from the other, each with its
own organization, organs, faculties, and sphere of action. It favors,
therefore, neither what is called theocracy, or _clerocracy_, rather,
to which Calvinistic Protestantism is strongly inclined, nor the
supremacy of the state, to which the age tends, and which was assumed
in all the states of Gentile antiquity, whence came the persecution
of Christians by the pagan emperors. We note farther, that the
church does not make the law; she only promulgates, declares, and
applies it, and is herself as much bound by it as is the state
itself. The law itself is prescribed for the government of all men
and nations, by God himself as supreme law-giver, or the end or
final cause of creation, and binds equally states and individuals,
churchmen and statesmen, sovereigns and subjects.

Such, as we have learned it, is the Catholic doctrine of the relation
of church and state, and such is the relation that in the divine
order really exists between the two orders, and which the church
has always and everywhere labored with all her zeal and energy to
introduce and maintain in society. It is her ideal of catholic or
truly Christian society, but which has never yet been perfectly
realized, though an approach to its realization, the author thinks,
was made under the Christian Roman emperors. The chronic condition
of the two orders in society, instead of union and cooperation, or
reciprocal commerce, has been that of mutual distrust or undisguised
hostility. During the first three centuries, the relation between
them was that of open antagonism, and the blood of Christians made
the greater part of the world then known hallowed ground, and the
Christians, as Lactantius remarks, conquered the world, not by
slaughtering, but by being slaughtered. The pagan sovereign of Rome
claimed, and was held to unite both powers in himself, and was at
once _imperator_, _pontifix maximus_, and _divus_, or god. The
state, even after the conversion of the empire and of the barbarians
that overturned it and seated themselves on its ruins, never fully
disclaimed the spiritual faculties conceded it by Graeco-Roman or
Italo-Greek civilization.

All through the middle ages, Kenelm Digby's ages of faith, when it
is pretended the church had every thing her own way, and the haughty
power of her supreme pontiffs and their tyranny over such meek and
lamb-like temporal princes as Henry IV., Frederick Barbarossa, and
Frederick II. of Germany, Philip Augustus of France, Henry II. and
John Lackland of England, have been the theme of many a school-boy
declamation against her, and adduced by grave statesmen as an excuse
for depriving Catholics of their liberty, confiscating their goods,
and cutting their throats--all through those ages, we say, she
enjoyed not a moment's peace, hardly a truce, and was obliged to
sustain an unceasing struggle with the civil authority against its
encroachments on the spiritual order, and for her own independence
and freedom of action as the church of God. In this struggle, the
struggle of mind against matter, of moral power against physical
force, the church was far from being, at least to human eyes, always
victorious, and she experienced more than one disastrous defeat.
In the sixteenth century, Caesar carried away from her the north of
Europe, as he had long since carried away the whole east, and forced
her, in the nations that professed to recognize her as representing
the spiritual order, to make him such large concessions as left her
little more than the shadow of independence; and the people and
their rulers are now almost everywhere conspiring to take away even
that shadow, and to render her completely subject to the state, or
representative of the temporal order.

There is no opinion more firmly fixed in the minds of the people
of to-day, at least according to the journals, than that the union
of church and state is execrable and ought not to be suffered to
exist. The words cannot be pronounced without sending a thrill of
horror through society, and calling forth the most vigorous and
indignant protest from every self-appointed defender of modern
civilization, progress, liberty, equality, and fraternity. What is
called the "Liberal party," sometimes "the movement party," but what
we call "the revolution," has everywhere for its _primum mobile_,
its impulse and its motive, the dissolution of what remains of the
union of church and state, the total separation of the state from
the church and its assertion as the supreme and only legitimate
authority in society, to which all orders and classes of men, and
all matters, whether temporal or spiritual, must be subjected. The
great words of the party, as pronounced by its apostles and chiefs,
are "people-king," "people-priest," "people-God." There is no denying
the fact. Science, or what passes for science, denies the double
nature of man, the distinction between soul and body, and makes the
soul the product of material organization, or a mere function of the
body; and the more popular philosophy suppresses the spiritual order
in society, and therefore rejects its pretended representative; and
the progress of intelligence suppresses God, and leaves for society
only political atheism pure and simple, as is evident from the savage
war-whoop set up throughout the civilized world against the syllabus
of condemned propositions published by our holy father, December,
1864. This syllabus touched the deep wound of modern society, probed
it to the quick, and hence the writhings and contortions, the groans
and screechings it occasioned. May God grant that it touched to heal,
exposed the wound only to apply the remedy.

But the remedy--what is it, where shall we seek it, and how shall
it be applied? The question is delicate as well as grave, let it
be answered as it may. The principles of the church are inflexible
and unalterable, and must be preserved inviolate; and even the
susceptibilities of both statesmen and churchmen, in regard to
changes in old customs and usages, even when not unchangeable in
their nature, are to be gently treated. The church is not less
bound by the law of God than is the state; for she does not, as we
have said, make the law, she only administers it. Undoubtedly, she
has in a secondary sense legislative authority or power to enact
canons or rules and regulations for preserving, carrying out, and
applying the law, as the court adopts its own rules and regulations,
or as does the executive authority, even in a government like ours,
for executing the law enacted by the legislative power. These may
no doubt be changed from time to time by the church as she judges
necessary, proper, or expedient in order the better to meet the
changing circumstances in relation to which she is obliged to act.
But even in these respects, changes must be made in strict conformity
to law; and although they may be so made and leave the law intact,
and affect only the modes or forms of its administration, they are
not without a certain danger. The faithful may mistake them for
changes or innovations in the law itself, and enemies may represent
them as such, and sophistically adduce them against the church as
disproving her immutability and infallibility.

There have been, and no doubt are still, abuses in the church
growing out of its human side, which need changes in discipline to
reform them; but these abuses have always been exaggerated by the
best and holiest men in the church, and the necessity of a change
in discipline or ecclesiastical law, as distinguished from the law
of God, is seldom, if ever, created by them. When evils exist that
menace both faith and society, it is not the church that is in fault,
but the world that refuses to conform to the law as she declares
and applies it. It was not abuses in the church that were the chief
cause of the revolt, the heresy, and schism of the reformers in the
sixteenth century; for they were far less then than they had been
one, two, three, or even four centuries previous. The worst abuses
and greatest scandals which had previously obtained had already been
corrected, and Leo X. had assembled the Fifth Council of the Lateran
for the purpose of restoring discipline and rendering it still more
effective. The evil originated in the temporal order as represented
by the state, and grew out of secular changes and abuses. It was so
then, it is so now, always was and always will be so. Why, then,
demand changes or reform in the church, which cannot reach them? The
church causes none of the evils at any time complained of, and offers
no obstacle to their removal, or the redress of social grievances.
It is for the temporal to yield to the spiritual, not for the
spiritual to yield to the temporal. Very true; and yet the church may
condescend to the world in its weakness for the sake of elevating
it to harmony with her own ideal. God, when he would take away sin,
and save the souls he had created and which he loved, did not stand
aloof, or, so to speak, on his dignity, and bid the sinner cease
sinning and obey him, without stretching forth his hand to help him;
but made himself man, humbled himself, took the form of a servant,
and came to the world lying in wickedness and festering in iniquity,
took it by the hand, and sweetly and gently led the sinner away from
sin to virtue and holiness.

For four hundred years, the church has sought to maintain peace and
concord between herself and the state by concordats, as the wisest
and best expedient she found practicable. But concordats, however
useful or necessary, do not realize the ideal of Christian society.
They do not effect the true union of church and state, and cannot
be needed where that union exists. They imply not the union, but
the separation of church and state, and are neither necessary nor
admissible, except where the state claims to be separate from and
independent of the church. They are a compromise in which the church
concedes the exercise of certain rights to the state in consideration
of its pledge to secure her in the free and peaceable exercise of the
rest, and to render her the material force in the execution of her
spiritual canons, which she may need but does not herself possess.
They are defensible only as necessary expedients, to save the church
and the state from falling into the relation of direct and open
antagonism.

Yet even as expedients concordats have been at best only partially
successful, and now seem on the point of failing altogether. While
the church faithfully observes their stipulations so far as they bind
her, the state seldom observes them in the respect that they bind it,
and violates them as often as they interfere with its own ambitious
projects or policy. The church has concordats with the greater part
of the European states, and yet while in certain respects they
trammel her freedom, they afford her little or no protection. The
state everywhere claims the right to violate or abrogate them at
will, without consulting her, the other party to the contract. It
has done so in Spain, in Italy, and in Austria; and if France at
present observes the concordat of 1801, she does it only in the sense
of the "organic articles," never inserted in it, but added by the
First Consul on his authority alone, and always protested against by
the supreme pontiff and vicar of Christ; and there is no foreseeing
what the present or a new ministry may do. Even if the governments
were disposed to observe them, their people would not suffer them
to do so, as we see in Spain and Austria. Times have changed, and
the governments no longer govern the people, but the people, or the
demagogues who lead them, now govern the governments. The European
governments sustain their power, even their existence, only by the
physical force of five millions of armed soldiers.

There is evidently, then, little reliance to be placed on the
governments; for they are liable, any day, to be changed or
overthrown. The strongest of them hope to sustain themselves and
keep the revolution in check only by concessions, as we see in the
extension of suffrage in England, and the adoption of parliamentary
government, under a constitutional monarch, in Austria, France, North
Germany, and elsewhere. But as yet the concessions of the governments
have nowhere strengthened them or weakened the revolution. One
concession becomes the precedent for another, and one demand
satisfied only leads to another and a greater demand, while it
diminishes the power of the government to resist. What is more, the
closer the union of the church with the government the more helpless
it becomes, and the greater the hostility it incurs. The _primum
mobile_ of the movement party, as we now find it, is not the love of
honest liberty, or a liberty compatible with stable government, or
the establishment of a democratic or republican constitution; and it
is not hostile to the church only because she exerts her power to
sustain the governments it would reform or revolutionize, but rather,
because it regards them as upholding the church, which they detest
and would annihilate. The _primum mobile_ is hatred of the church.
This is the reason why, even when the governments are well disposed,
as sometimes they are, the people will not suffer them to observe
faithfully their engagements to the church.

Here was the mistake of the brilliant but unhappy De la Mennais.
He called upon the church to cut herself loose from her entangling
alliance with the state, and throw herself back on the people; which
would have been not bad counsel, if the people were hostile to her
only because they supposed her allied with despotic governments, or
if they were less hostile to her than the governments themselves. But
such is not the fact at present. The people are to-day controlled
by Catholics who care little for any world but the present, by
Protestants, rationalists, Jews, infidels, and humanitarians; and to
act on the Lamennaisian counsel would seem very much like abandoning
weak, timid, and too exacting friends, to throw one's self into the
arms of powerful and implacable enemies. When, in the beginning of
his reign, the holy father adopted some popular measures, he was
universally applauded, but he did not win those who applauded him
to the church; and his measures were applauded by the outside world
only because believed to be such as would tend to undermine his
own authority, and pave the way for the downfall of Catholicity.
The movement party applauded, because they thought they could use
him as an instrument for the destruction of the church. In the
French Revolution of February, 1848, originating in deep-seated and
inveterate hostility to the church, the ready acceptance of the
republic, the next day after its proclamation, by the French bishops
and clergy, did not for a moment conciliate the hostility in which
the revolution had its origin. They were applauded indeed, but only
in the hope of making use of them to democratize, or secularize, and
therefore to destroy the church as the authoritative representative
of the spiritual order. The bishops and priests, all but a very
small minority, showed that they understood and appreciated the
applause they received, by abandoning the revolution at the earliest
practicable moment, and lending their support to the movement for
the Establishment of imperialism; for they felt that they could more
safely rely on the emperor than on the republic.

These facts and the reminiscences of the old French Revolution, have
created in the great majority of intelligent and earnest Catholics,
wisely or unwisely, we say not, a profound distrust of the movement
party, which professes to be the party of liberty, and which carries
in its train, if not the numerical majority, at least the active,
energetic, and leading minds of their respective nations, those
that form public opinion and give its direction, and make them
honestly believe that Catholic interests, which are not separable
from the interests of society, will be best protected and promoted
by the church's standing by the governments and aiding them in their
repressive measures. Perhaps they are right. The church, of course,
cannot abandon society; but in times like ours, it is not easy to say
on which side lie the interests of society. Is it certain that they
lie on either side, either with the governments as they are, or with
the party opposed to them? At present the church neither directs the
governments nor controls the popular or so-called liberal movement;
and we confess it is difficult to say from which she and society have
most to dread. Governments without her direction want morality,
and can govern only by force; and popular movements not inspired or
controlled by her are blind and lawless, and tend only to anarchy,
and the destruction of liberty as well as of order, of morality as
well as of religion as a directing and governing power. We distrust
both.

For ourselves personally, we are partial to our own American system,
which, unless we are blinded by our national prejudices, comes nearer
to the realization of the true union as well as distinction of church
and state than has heretofore or elsewhere been effected; and we
own we should like to see it, if practicable there, introduced--by
lawful means only--into the nations of Europe. The American system
may not be practicable in Europe; but, if so, we think it would be an
improvement. Foreigners do not generally, nor even do all Americans
themselves fully understand the relation of church and state, as it
really subsists in the fundamental constitution of American society.
Abroad and at home there is a strong disposition to interpret it by
the theory of European liberalism, and both they who defend and they
who oppose the union of church and state, regard it as based on their
total separation. But the reverse of this, as we understand it, is
the fact. American society is based on the principle of their union;
and union, while it implies distinction, denies separation. Modern
infidelity or secularism is, no doubt, at work here as elsewhere to
effect their separation; but as yet the two orders are distinct, each
with its distinct organization, sphere of action, representative, and
functions, but not separate. Here the rights of neither are held to
be grants from the other. The rights of the church are not franchises
or concessions from the state, but are recognized by the state as
held under a higher law than its own, and therefore rights prior to
and above itself, which it is bound by the law constituting it to
respect, obey, and, whenever necessary, to use its physical force to
protect and vindicate.

The original settlers of the Anglo-American colonies were not
infidels, but, for the most part, sincerely religious and Christian
in their way, and in organizing society aimed not simply to escape
the oppression of conscience, of which they had been the victims in
the mother country, but to found a truly Christian commonwealth; and
such commonwealth they actually founded, as perfect as was possible
with their imperfect and often erroneous views of Christianity. The
colonies of New England inclined, no doubt, to a theocracy, and
tended to absorb the state in the church; in the Southern colonies,
the tendency was, as in England, to establish the supremacy of the
civil order, and to make the church a function of the state. These
two opposite tendencies meeting in the formation of American society,
to a great extent, counterbalanced each other, and resulted in the
assertion of the supremacy of the Christian idea, or the union and
distinction under the law of God, of the two orders. In principle, at
least, each order exists in American society in its normal relation
to the other; and also in its integrity, with its own distinctive
nature, laws, and functions, and therefore the temporal in its proper
subordination to the spiritual.

This subordination is, indeed, not always observed in practice,
nor always even theoretically admitted. Many Americans, at first
thought, when it is broadly stated, will indignantly deny it. We
shall find even Catholics who do not accept it, and gravely tell us
that their religion has nothing to do with their politics; that is,
their politics are independent of their religion; that is, again,
politics are independent of God, and there is no God in the political
order; as if a man could be an atheist in the state, and a devout
Catholic in the church. But too many Catholics, at home and abroad,
act as if this were indeed possible, and very reasonable, nay, their
duty; and hence the political world is given over to the violence and
corruption in which Satan finds a rich harvest. But let the state
pass some act that openly and undisguisedly attacks the rights,
the freedom, or independence of the church, in a practical way, it
will be hard to find a single Catholic, in this country at least,
who would not denounce it as an outrage on his conscience, which
shows that the assertion of the separation of politics from religion
so thoughtlessly made, really means only the distinction, not the
separation of the two orders, or that politics are independent, so
long as they do not run counter to the freedom and independence of
religion, or fail to respect and protect the rights of the church.
Inexactness of expression, and bad logic do not necessarily indicate
unsound faith.

Most non-Catholics will deny that the American state is founded on
the recognition of the independence and superiority of the spiritual
order, and therefore, of the church, and the confession of its own
subordination to the spiritual, not only in the order of logic, as
Il Signor Cantu maintains, but also in the order of authority; yet a
little reflection ought to satisfy every one that such is the fact,
and if it does not, it will be owing to a misconception of what is
spiritual. The basis of the American state or constitution, the real,
unwritten, providential constitution, we mean, is what are called
the natural and inalienable rights of man; and we know no American
citizen who does not hold that these rights are prior to civil
society, above it, and held independently of it; or that does not
maintain that the great end for which civil society is instituted
is to protect, defend, and vindicate, if need be, with its whole
physical force, these sacred and inviolable rights for each and every
citizen, however high, however low. This is our American boast,
our American conception of political justice, glory. These rights,
among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are the
higher, the supreme law for civil society, which the state, however
constituted, is bound to recognize and obey. They deny the absolutism
of the state, define its sphere, restrict its power, and prescribe
its duty.

But whence come these rights? and how can they bind the state, and
prescribe its duty? We hold these rights by virtue, of our manhood,
it is said; they are inherent in it, and constitute it. But my
rights bind you, and yours bind me, and yet you and I are equal; our
manhoods are equal. How, then, can the manhood of either bind or
morally oblige the other? Of things equal one cannot be superior to
another. They are in our nature as men, it is said again, or, simply,
we hold them from nature. They are said to be natural rights and
inalienable, and what is natural must be in or from nature. Nature
is taken in two senses; as the physical order or the physical laws
constitutive of the physical universe, and as the moral law under
which all creatures endowed with reason and free-will are placed by
the Creator, and which is cognizable by natural reason or the reason
common to all men. In the first sense, these rights are not inherent
in our nature as men, nor from nature, or in nature; for they are not
physical. Physical rights are a contradiction in terms. They can be
inherent in our nature only in the second sense, and in our moral
nature only, and consequently are held under the law which founds
and sustains moral nature, or the moral order as distinct from the
physical order.

But the moral law, the so-called law of nature, _droit naturel_,
which founds and sustains the moral order, the order of right, of
justice, is not a law founded or prescribed by nature, but the law
for the moral government of nature, under which all moral natures
are placed by the Author of nature as supreme law-giver. The law of
nature is God's law; and whatever rights it founds or are held from
it are his rights, and ours only because they are his. My rights, in
relation to you, are your duties, what God prescribes as the law of
your conduct to me; and your rights are, in relation to me, my duties
to you, what God prescribes as the rule of my conduct to you. But
what God prescribes he has the right to prescribe, and therefore can
command me to respect no rights in you, and you to respect no rights
in me, that are not his; and being his, civil society is bound by
them, and cannot alienate them or deny them without violating his
law, and robbing him of his rights. Hence, he who does an injury to
another wrongs not him only, but wrongs his Maker, his Sovereign, and
his Judge.

Take any of the rights enumerated as inalienable in the preamble to
the Declaration of Independence. Among these is the right to life.
This right all men and civil society itself are bound to treat as
sacred and inviolable. But all men are created equal, and under the
law of nature have equal rights. But how can equals bind one another?
By mutual compact. But whence the obligation of the compact? Why am
I obliged to keep my word? Certainly not by the word itself; but
because I should deprive him of his right to whom I have pledged
it. But I have given my word to assist in committing a murder. Am I
bound to keep it? Not at all. Why not? Because I have pledged myself
to commit a crime, to do a wrong or unjust act. Evidently, then,
compacts or pledged words do not create justice, they presuppose it;
and it is only in virtue of the law of justice that compacts are
obligatory, and no compacts not conformable to that law can bind.
Why, then, am I bound to respect your life? It is not you who can
bind me; for you and I are equals, and neither in his own name can
bind the other. To take your life would be an unjust act; that is,
I should rob justice of its right to your life. The right to life
is then the right of justice. But justice is not an abstraction; it
is not a mental conception, but a reality, and therefore God; and
hence the right for you or me to live is the right of him who hath
made us and whose we are, with all that we are, all that we have,
and all that we can do. Hence, the right to life is inalienable even
by myself, and suicide is not only a crime against society, but a
sin against God; for God owns it as his right, and therefore he has
the right to command all men to hold it in every man sacred and
inviolable, and never to be taken by other men or even civil society,
but at his order. So of all the other rights of man.

If the rights of man are the rights of God in and over man as his
creature, as they undeniably are, they lie in the spiritual order,
are spiritual, not temporal. The American state, then, in recognizing
the independence, superiority, and inviolability of the rights of
man, does recognize, in principle, the independence, superiority,
and inviolability of the spiritual order, and its own subordination
to it, and obligation to consult it and conform to it. It then
recognizes the church divinely appointed and commissioned by God with
plenary authority to represent it, and apply the law of God to the
government of the people as the state no less than to the people as
individuals. This follows as a necessary consequence. If God has made
a supernatural revelation, we are bound by the natural law to believe
it; and if he has instituted a church to represent the spiritual, or
concreted the spiritual in a visible organism, with plenary authority
to teach his word to all men and nations, and to declare and apply
his law in the government of human affairs, we are bound to accept
and obey her the moment the fact is brought sufficiently to our
knowledge. This shows that the true church, if such church there be,
is sacred and inviolable, and that what she declares to be the law
of God is his law, which binds every conscience; and all sovereigns
and subjects, states and citizens are alike bound to obey her. He who
refuses to obey her refuses to obey God; he who spurns her spurns
God; he who despises her despises God; and he who despoils her of
any of her rights or possessions despoils God. Kings and the great
of the earth, statesmen and courtiers, demagogues and politicians
are apt to forget this, and because God does not instantly punish
their sacrilege with a visible and material punishment, conclude that
they may outrage her to their heart's content with impunity. But the
punishment is sure to follow in due course, and so far as it concerns
states, dynasties, and society, in the shape of moral weakness,
imbecility, corruption, and death.

That the American state is true to the order it acknowledges, and
never usurps any spiritual functions, we do not pretend. The American
state copies in but too many instances the bad legislation of
Europe. It from the outset showed the original vice of the American
people; for while they very justly subjected the state to the law
of God, they could subject it to that law only as they understood
it, and their understanding of it was in many respects faulty, which
was no wonder, since they had no infallible, no authoritative, in
fact, no representative at all of the spiritual order, and knew the
law of God only so far as taught it by natural reason, and spelled
out by their imperfect light from an imperfect and mutilated text
of the written word. They had a good major proposition, namely, the
spiritual order duly represented is supreme, and should govern all
men collectively and individually, as states and as citizens; but
their minor was bad. But we with our reading of the Bible do duly
represent that order. Therefore, etc. Now, we willingly admit that
a people reverencing and reading the Bible as the word of God, will
in most respects have a far truer and more adequate knowledge of
the law of God than those who have neither church nor Bible, and
only their reason and the mutilated, perverted, and even travestied
traditions of the primitive revelation retained and transmitted by
Gentilism, and therefore that Protestantism as understood by the
American colonists is much better for society than the liberalism
asserted by the movement party either here or in Europe; but its
knowledge will still be defective, and leave many painful gaps on
many important points; and the state, having no better knowledge,
will almost inevitably misconceive what on various matters the law of
God actually prescribes or forbids.

The American state, misled by public opinion, usurps the functions
of the church in some very grave matters. It assumes the control
of marriage and education, therefore of all family relations, of
the family itself, and of ideas, intelligence, opinions, which we
have seen are functions of the church, and both are included in the
two sacraments of marriage and orders. It also fails to recognize
the freedom and independence of the spiritual order in refusing to
recognize the church as a corporation, a moral person, as capable of
possessing property as any natural or private person, and therefore
denies to the spiritual order the inalienable right of property. The
American state denies to the church all possessory rights unless
incorporated by itself. This is all wrong; but if no better, it is no
worse than what is assumed by the state in every European nation; and
the most that can be said is, that in these matters the state forgets
the Christian commonwealth for the pagan, as is done everywhere else.

But except in these instances, the American state is, we believe,
true to the Christian principle on which it is based, as true,
that is, as it can be in a mixed community of Catholics, Jews, and
Protestants. The state has no spiritual competency, and cannot
decide either for itself or for its citizens which is or is not
the church that authoritatively represents the spiritual order.
The responsibility of that decision it does and must leave to its
citizens, who must decide for themselves, and answer to God for the
rectitude of their decision. Their decision is law for the state,
and it must respect and obey it in the case alike of majorities and
minorities; for it recognizes the equal rights of all its citizens,
and cannot discriminate between them. The church that represents for
the state the spiritual order is the church adopted by its citizens;
and as they adopt different churches, it can recognize and enforce,
through the civil courts, the canons and decrees of each only on its
own members, and on them only so far as they do not infringe on the
equal rights of the others. This is not all the state would do or
ought to do in a perfect Christian society, but it is all that it
can do where these different churches exist, and exist for it with
equal rights. It can only recognize them, and protect and vindicate
the rights of each only in relation to those citizens who acknowledge
its authority. This recognizes and protects the Catholic Church in
her entire freedom and independence and in teaching her faith, and in
governing and disciplining Catholics according to her own canons and
decrees, which, unless we are greatly misinformed, is more than the
state does for her, in any old Catholic nation in the world.

This is not tolerance or indifference; it only means that the state
does not arrogate to itself the right to decide which is the true
church, and holds itself bound to respect and protect equally the
church or churches acknowledged as such by its citizens. The doctrine
that a man is free before God to be of any religion, or of no
religion as he pleases, or the liberty of conscience, as understood
by the so-called liberals throughout the world, and which was
condemned by Gregory XVI. of immortal memory, in his encyclical of
August 15th, 1832, receives no countenance from the American state,
and is repugnant to its fundamental constitution. Heretical and
schismatic sects have, indeed, no rights; for they have no authority
from God to represent the spiritual order, and their existence is,
no doubt, repugnant to the real interests of society as well as
destructive to souls; but in a community where they exist along with
the true church, the state must respect and protect in them the
rights of the spiritual order, not indeed because they claim to be
the church, but because they are held to be such by its citizens,
and all its citizens have equal rights in the civil order, and the
equal right to have their conscience, if they have a conscience,
respected and protected. The church of God exacts nothing more of it
in this respect than to be protected in her freedom to combat and
vanquish the adherents of false churches or false religions with her
own spiritual weapons. More she might exact of the state in perfect
Christian society; but this is all that she can exact in an imperfect
and divided Christian society, as is the case in nearly all modern
nations.

This is the American system. Is it practicable in the old Catholic
nations of Europe? Would it be a gain to religion, if suffered to
be introduced there? Would the government, if it were accepted by
the church, understand it as implying its obligation to respect and
protect all churches equally as representing the spiritual order, or
as asserting its freedom to govern and oppress all at will, the true
church as the false? There is danger of the latter, because European
society is not based on the Christian principle of the independence
and inviolability of the rights of man, that is, the rights of God,
but on the pagan principle of the state, that all rights, even the
rights of the church, and society emanate from the state, and are
revocable at its will. Hence the reason why the church has found
concordats with the secular powers so necessary. In the sense of
the secular authority, these concordats are acts of incorporation,
and surrendering them by the church would be the surrender of its
charter by a corporation. It would be to abandon all her goods to
the state, leave her without a legal _status_, and with no rights
which the state holds itself bound to recognize, protect, or enforce
through its courts, any more than she had under the persecuting
Roman emperors. This would be the farthest remove possible from the
American system. Before the American system could be introduced into
European states in the respect that it affords freedom and protection
to the church in the discharge of her spiritual functions, the whole
structure of European society would need to be reconstructed on
the Christian foundation, or the basis of the inherent rights and
supremacy of the spiritual order, instead of its present pagan or
_Graeco-Roman_ basis of the supremacy of the city or state.

Undoubtedly, the liberals, or movement party, are, and have been, for
nearly a century, struggling by all the means in their power, fair or
foul, to overthrow European society, and reconstruct it after what
they suppose to be the American model, but in reality on a basis,
if possible, more pagan and less Christian than its present basis.
They assert the absolute supremacy of the state in all things; only,
instead of saying with Louis XIV., "L'etat, c'est moi," they say
"L'etat, c'est le peuple," but they make the people, as the state, as
absolute as any king or kaiser-state ever pretended to be. The church
would, in their reconstructed society, not have secured to her the
rights that she holds under our system, by the fact that it is based
on the equal and antecedent rights of all citizens, really the rights
of God, which limit the power of state, of the people in a democratic
state, and prescribe both its province and its duty.

Even with us, the American system has its enemies, and perhaps only
a minority of the people understand it as we do, and some of the
courts are beginning to render decisions which, if in one part, they
sustain it, in another part flatly contradict it. The Supreme Court
of Ohio, in the recent case of the School Board of Cincinnati, has
decided very properly that the board could not exclude religion;
but, on the other hand, it maintains that a majority of the people
in any locality may introduce what religion they please, and teach
it to the children of the minority as well as to their own, which is
manifestly wrong; for it gives the majority of the people the power
to establish their own religion, and exclude that of the minority
when, in matters of religion, that is, in matters of conscience,
votes do not count. My conscience, though in a minority of one, is as
sacred and inviolable as it would be if all the rest of the community
were with me. As in the Polish Diet, a single veto suffices to arrest
the whole action of the state. The American democracy is not what it
was in 1776. It was then Christian after a Protestant fashion; it is
now infected with European liberalism, or popular absolutism; and if
we had to introduce the American system now, we should not be able to
do it.

There are serious difficulties on both sides. The church cannot
confide in the revolution, and the governments cannot or will not
protect her, save at the expense of her independence and freedom of
action. They, if we may believe any thing the journals say, threaten
her with their vengeance, if she dares to make and publish such or
such a dogmatic decision, or to define on certain points which they
think touch them, what her faith is and always has been. This is
a manifest invasion of her right to teach the word of God in its
integrity, and simply tells her, with the sword suspended over her
head, that she shall teach only what is agreeable to them, whether
in God's word or not. This insolence, this arrogant assumption,
applauded by the universal sectarian and secular press, if submitted
to, would make the church the mere tool of the secular authority, and
destroy all confidence in her teaching.

We know not how these difficulties on either side are to be overcome.
The church cannot continue to be shorn of her freedom by the secular
governments, and made to conform to their ambitious or timid
politics, without losing more and more her hold on the European
populations. Nor can she side with the revolution without perilling
the interests of society from which her own cannot be separated. We
see no way out of the dilemma but for her, trusting in the divine
protection, to assert simply and energetically her independence of
both parties alike, and confide in the faithful, as she did in the
martyr ages, and as she does now in every heathen land.

We do not assume the propriety or necessity of trying to introduce
the American system into the old world, nor do we urge the church to
break either with the governments or with the people; but we may,
we hope, be permitted to say that what seems to us to be needed is,
for the church to assert her independence of both so far as either
attempts to control her in the free discharge of her functions as
the church of God; and we think the faithful should be prepared
for the consequences of such assertion, whatever they may prove to
be. The church cannot fulfil her mission, which is not confined to
the Catholic nations of Europe, but embraces the whole world, if
she is thus denied her independence and crippled in her freedom of
action. If the assertion of her independence in face of the temporal
order deprives her of her legal status, and places her out of the
protection of the civil law, it perhaps will, in the end, prove to be
no serious calamity, or at least a less evil than her present cramped
and crippled condition. She has held that position heretofore, and,
aided by Him whose spouse she is, and who hath purchased her with his
precious blood, she in that very condition conquered and subdued the
world against the hostility of the most powerful empire that ever
existed. What she has done once, she is no less able to do again. The
worst that the state can do is to strip her of her temporalities, and
forbid her to preach in the name of Jesus. The worst the revolution
can do is the same, and in its fury to massacre bishops and priests,
monks and nuns, men and women, because they choose to obey God rather
than men.

Well, all this has been more than once. We have seen it in Ireland,
where the church was despoiled of her revenues, the people of their
churches, schools, colleges, and religious houses, and only not of
the use of the graveyard; where Catholic worship was prohibited
under pain of death, and armed soldiers hunted and shot down as a
wild beast the priest who ventured to say mass in a private house,
in a remote morass, or a cave in the mountain, and the faithful were
slaughtered as sheep by fiery zealots or the graceless myrmidons of
power; where not only the church was despoiled and left naked and
destitute, but her children were also despoiled of their estates and
reduced to poverty, while laws were devised with satanic ingenuity
and enforced with savage ferocity to degrade and debase them, and
to prevent them from escaping from their poverty or their enforced
secular ignorance. Yet we have seen the faith in spite of all live
and gain on its enemies, the church survive and even prosper; and
only the last year, when offered freely a government subsidy for her
clergy and her services, we have seen the noble Irish hierarchy,
without a dissenting voice, refuse it, and prefer to rely on the
voluntary offerings of the faithful to coming under any obligation to
the temporal power.

In this country the people were, in the outset, as hostile to the
church as they could be anywhere or in any age, and they are not
even yet converted, very generally, into warm and eager friends;
yet without any public provision, relying solely on the alms of the
faithful at home and abroad, principally at home, the missionaries
of the cross have been sustained, the widow's handful of meal and
cruse of oil have not failed; and yet we have founded and sustained
schools, colleges, universities, erected convents for men and for
women, and are erecting throughout the whole country churches, the
finest in it, and some of which may be regarded as architectural
ornaments; and nearly all this has been achieved within a single
lifetime.

Men who sit at their ease in Zion, and find their most engrossing
occupation in solving an antiquarian problem, or disserting on some
heathen relic just dug up, though the world is breaking up and
falling to pieces around them, may be frightened at the prospect of
being deprived of comforts they are used to; but let governments
and peoples do their worst, they cannot do worse than heathen Rome
did, worse than France did in the revolution of 1789, or England has
been doing in Ireland for three hundred years. Fear! What is there
to fear? If God be for us, who can be against us? The danger seems
great, no doubt, to many; but let Catholics have the courage of their
faith, and they will no longer fear him who can kill the body, and
after that hath no more power. The danger before men of Christian
courage will disappear as the morning mist before the rising sun. Can
a Catholic fear poverty, want, labor, suffering, torture, or death
in His cause who for our sakes became poor, and had not where to lay
his head; who took the form of a servant, and obeyed unto death, even
the death of the cross? Know we not that Catholic faith and Catholic
charity can weary out the most cruel and envenomed persecutors,
and in the end gain the victory over them? If the church finds it
necessary, then, in order to maintain her independence, to incur the
hostility of kings or peoples, and the loss of her goods, there need
be no fear; God will not forsake her, and the charity of the faithful
never faileth.

FOOTNOTE:

[21] _Chiesa e Stato_: Rapsodie di C. Cantu, dalla _Rivista
Universale_. Corretto e riveduto dall' Autore. 1867. 8vo, pp. 94.




DION AND THE SIBYLS.

A CLASSIC, CHRISTIAN NOVEL.

BY MILES GERALD KEON, COLONIAL SECRETARY, BERMUDA, AUTHOR OF "HARDING
THE MONEY-SPINNER," ETC.


CHAPTER III.

Tiberius, when all had disappeared along the road, suddenly stopped
in his walk.

His companion, toward whom he had turned, did the same, and looked at
him with an air of expectation.

"I leave all details to you," said the Caesar; "but what has to be
done is this--that youth who calls himself Paulus Lepidus AEmilius
must be produced as a gladiator either in the Circus Maximus or the
Statilian Amphitheatre,[22] as the number of victims may dictate. Men
of noble birth have been seen ere now upon the sand. We will then
make him show against the best swordsmen in the world--against Gauls,
Britons, and Cappadocians--what that Greek fence is worth of which
he seems a master. The girl, his sister, must be carried off, either
beforehand or afterward, as your skill may dictate, and softly and
safely lodged at Rome in that two-storied brick house of Cneius Piso
and his precious wife, Plancina, which is not known to be mine; (I
believe and hope, and am given to understand, that it is not known to
be theirs neither.)"

Tiberius paused, and Sejanus, with an intent look, slightly inclined
his head. He was a keen man, a subtle man, but not a very profound
man. He observed,

"I have heard something of this Greek widow and of her son and
daughter. They have (it seems to me as if I had heard this) friends
near the person of Augustus, or, at least, in the court. I can easily
cause the girl to be so carried off that no rumor about the place of
her residence will ever more sound among men. But the very mystery of
it will sound, and that loudly; and her mother and brother will never
cease to pierce the ears of Augustus with their cries. But, before I
say a word more, I wish to know two things--first, whether this youth
Paulus is to be included in one of those great shows of gladiators
which are rendering you, my Caesar, so beloved by the Roman people?"

"Am I beloved, think you?" asked Tiberius.

"The master-passion of the people is for the shows, and, above all,
the fights of the amphitheatre," answered Sejanus. "Whoever has, for
a hundred years and more, obtained the mastery of the world, has thus
won the Romans; each succeeding dictator of the globe, from Caius
Marius, and Sylla, and Pompey, and the invincible Caius Julius, and
Mark Antony, to our present happy Emperor Augustus, has surpassed his
predecessors in the magnificence of these entertainments given to
people, populace, common legionaries, and praetorians; and in exact
proportion also, it is remarkable, has each surpassed his forerunners
in permanent power, until that power has at last become nearly
absolute, nearly unlimited."

"You say true," replied Tiberius; "and I excel all former examples in
the extent, splendor, and novelty of my shows. Augustus has abandoned
that department; but even when he was courting the Romans, he never
_edited_ like me. People would now smile at the old-fashioned
meanness of the spectacles which he formerly made acceptable to them.
He is breaking very fast in health too, I fear, my Sejanus."

"He is, I fear, drawing toward his end," replied the commander of the
praetorians.

"As to your question concerning this youth," resumed Tiberius,
"my object is partly to add a novel and curious feature to the
fight--this strange sword-play. Yet, why should he not afterward be
included in some great slaughter-match, three or four hundred a
side, care being taken that he should be finished? We might first pit
him fairly against six or a dozen single antagonists in succession.
If he conquer them all, it will be unprecedentedly amusing; the
people will be in ecstasies, and then the victor can be made to
disappear in the general conflict. I shall thus have the undisturbed
management of his sister's education."

Grave as a statue, Sejanus replied,

"He is a proud youth, an equestrian, a patrician, son of an eminent
warrior, nephew of one who once shared in the government of the
whole globe. Well, not being a slave, if he found himself in the
arena by virtue of having been violently seized and trepanned, I
firmly believe that, either before or after fighting, he would make a
speech, appealing to the justice of the emperor and the sympathy of
the people, not to say any thing about the soldiers.[23] The plan you
propose, my Caesar, seems like furnishing him with an immense audience
and a gigantic tribunal, before which to tell that pathetic story
about his father and the battle of Philippi, and those family estates
which are now in the possession of the two beautiful ladies whose
litters have just preceded us on the road to Formiae."

Tiberius smiled, as with his head bent down he looked at the speaker,
and thus he continued stooping, looking, and smiling for a moment or
two, after which he said,

"The Tuscans are subtle, and you are the subtlest of Tuscans; what is
best?"

Sejanus said, "Let the girl first be carried away; let the mother and
brother break their hearts for her; then let the Lanista Thellus,
who is not known to be one of your men, but is supposed to hire
out his gladiators on his own account, invite the youth to join
his _familia_,[24] or company, and when Paulus refuses, as he will
refuse, let Thellus say that he knows money would not bribe Paulus,
but that he has seen Paulus's sister; that he can guide him to her,
if Paulus consents to fight in the next great forthcoming shows. And,
in short, in order to make all this more specious, let Thellus have
formed the acquaintance of the half-Greek family, mother, sister,
brother, before the girl is abducted, in order that Paulus may think
he speaks the truth when afterward saying that he has seen the sister
and knows her, and can guide Paulus to where she is detained. If this
plan be adopted, Paulus will fight in the arena of _his own accord_,
and will make no speeches, no disturbance, but will disappear for
ever in a decorous and legitimate manner."

"You are a man of immense merit, my Sejanus," replied the personage
in gore-colored purple, "and I will some day reward you more than
I can do while merely the Caesar of an Augustus, whom may the gods
protect. The mother perhaps we can let alone, or she could be put
on board a corsair as an offering to some god, to procure me good
fortune in other things. We shall see. Meanwhile, execute all
the rest with as little delay as the order and priority of the
several matters, one before the other, will allow, and report to me
punctually at every step."

Beckoning to one of the troopers, who approached with the spare
horse, Tiberius now mounted. The soldier immediately withdrew again,
and Tiberius said to the praetorian commander, "Be upon your guard
with Paterculus; he is doubtless devoted to me, but is a squeamish
man; clever, indeed, too. Still there are clever fools, my Sejanus."

Then waving his hand, he rode slowly away, but came to a halt at a
distance of twenty paces, and turned his horse's head round. Sejanus
strode quickly toward his master.

"You know, of course, that the Germans, encouraged by the slaughter
of Varus and his legions, are swarming over the Julian Alps into the
north-east of Italy from Illyricum.[25] How many legions are there
available to meet them?"

"We have within reach, at this moment, twelve," said Sejanus,
"besides my praetorians."

"Half the present forces of the whole empire," replied the other.
"Germanicus is to drive back the barbarians. He will become more
popular than ever with the troops generally. But the praetorians do
not care for him, I suppose?"

"Even the praetorians revere him," answered Sejanus.

"Why, how so? They have so little to do with him."

"They know a soldier--" began Sejanus.

"And am not I a soldier?" interrupted his master.

"They love you too, my Caesar, and dearly."

"Peace! Tell me exactly; what think the praetorians of Germanicus?"

"They foolishly think that, since the day when Caius Julius was
murdered, no such soldier--"

"Enough! Foolishly, say you? Remember my instructions. _Vale!_" And
Tiberius galloped north, his face ablaze with a brick-red flush
deeper than ordinary.


CHAPTER IV.

Sejanus, when left alone, motioned to the two troopers. He who had
brought Tiberius his horse rode furiously after the Caesar; the
other attended the general, who slowly mounted his own steed, and,
pursuing the same direction, began to trot leisurely toward Formiae.
The sun had gone down; the short twilight had passed away; clouds
had gathered, and the moon, not having yet risen, the night was very
black. In a few minutes Sejanus slackened his horse's pace from a
trot to a walk, and the orderly, as his military attendant would in
modern times be called, nearly rode against him in the dark. The man
made some natural excuse, and fell back again about thirty paces.

Sejanus hardly noticed him.

"At present," he muttered, when again alone, "Tiberius, though a
Caesar, needs me; Germanicus is Caesar too, and may become emperor.
If Germanicus wished it, right or wrong--if _per fas et nefas_--he
would win. He has much of the genius of Caius Julius and his defect
of overtrustfulness; but none of his many vices. I doubt if he
will ever be emperor; he is too Athenian, and also too honorable,
too disinterested. Somehow I feel, too, as if he were going to be
assassinated; he believes readily in men. Tiberius has smaller
abilities, worse qualities, and better chances. He will rule the
world, and AElius Sejanus will rule him."

As Sejanus said these things to himself in an indistinct murmur, of
which none could have heard the precise words, a voice at his elbow
astonished him. Said the voice,

"How far is it, illustrious general, to Formiae?"

The praetorian chief turned with a start, and saw that the speaker was
a mounted traveller, attended by two servants, also on horseback;
but there was so little light that he could not distinguish the
stranger's features, nor more of his dress and appointments than that
they were not, as it seemed, Italian.

"About five thousand paces," he answered. "However, there is no inn
at Formiae. Some eight hundred paces from here is a good wayside
tavern, (_mansio_.) But you call me general, for I wear the dress.
You do not, however, know me."

"Not know the distinguished chief of the praetorians? Not know the
happy and unhappy, the fortunate and unfortunate Sejanus?"

"Happy and unhappy," reechoed the latter, "fortunate and unfortunate!
What means this jargon? You could use that language of every mortal.
What you say you unsay."

While thus replying, he endeavored to discern the dim features of his
new companion.

"Think you so?" said the man. "Then, pray, would it be the same
if I were to say, for example, unhappy and happy, unfortunate and
fortunate?"

"Yes."

"Alas! no."

"What!" said Sejanus. "The happiness is present, the good fortune is
present, but the misfortune and unhappiness are to come. Is this your
meaning?"

"As I always say what I mean," rejoined the other, "so I never
explain what I say."

"Then at least," observed Sejanus, with great haughtiness of tone and
manner, "you will be good enough to say who you are. As the _Praetor
Peregrinus_,[26] especially charged to look after foreigners, I
demand your name. Remember, friend, that six lictors, as well as
twenty thousand soldiers, obey Sejanus."

"I am the god Hermes," replied the other, riding suddenly ahead,
followed by both his attendants.

The movement was so unexpected that the figure of the stranger had
become almost indistinguishable in the obscurity, before Sejanus
urged his fleet Numidian steed forward at a bound in pursuit.

"Take care," said a voice in his front, "that your horse do not throw
you, impious man!"

At the same time, the praetorian leader heard something roll upon the
paved road, and immediately a vivid flash blazed under his horse's
eyes, and a sharp report followed. Nearly thrown, indeed, he was,
as the voice had warned him. When he had recovered his balance and
quieted the startled beast he was riding, he halted to listen; but
the only sound he could now hear was that of the mounted trooper
trotting after him along the Appian Way. He waited for this man to
come up, and inquired what he had observed in the three strangers who
had previously passed him on the road.

"No stranger," said the man, "had passed him; he had seen no one."

Then Sejanus remembered what he had not at the moment adverted to,
that neither when first accosted by the stranger, nor afterward while
this person with his two attendants rode by his side, nor finally
when they all galloped forward and were lost in the darkness, had any
clatter of hoofs been audible.

He resumed his journey in silent thought, and soon arrived, without
further adventure, at the large and famous post-house, standing in
those days four or five miles south of Formiae.


CHAPTER V.

The post house, or _mansio_,[27] to which allusion has been made,
situated about four or five miles south of Formiae, on the Appian
road, was a large, rambling, two-storied _brick_ house, capable of
accommodating a vast number of travellers. It was not, therefore,
merely one of the many relay-houses where the imperial couriers, as
well as all who could produce a special warrant for the purpose,
from a consul, or a praetor, or even a quaestor, were allowed to
obtain a change of horses; still less was it one of the low
canal-town taverns, whose keepers Horace abused; but it was a regular
country inn, where man and beast found shelter for the apparently
infinitesimal charge of one _as_, (or not quite a penny,) and good
cheer at proportionably moderate cost. It was well supplied from its
own farm-yards, olive-groves, orchards, vineyards, pastures, and
tilled fields, with vegetables, beef, mutton, poultry, geese, ducks,
attagens, and other meats; eggs, wine, butter, cheese, milk, honey,
bread, and fruit; a delicious plate of fish occasionally, an equally
delicious array of quail, produced upon table in a state aromatic and
frothy with their own fat juices.

This excellent and celebrated house of entertainment for belated or
way-worn travellers, as well as for all who desired a change from the
monotony of their usual life, was kept by a remarkably worthy old
couple, formerly slaves, a freedman and freedwoman of the illustrious
AEmilian family. The reader will have noticed that the youth whom it
is necessary, we suppose, to acknowledge in the capacity of our hero,
has been called Paulus AEmilius Lepidus; that his father had borne
the same style; and likewise that his father's brother, the former
sovereign magistrate or triumvir in the second and great triumvirate,
was named Marcus AEmilius Lepidus. In all these names, that of AEmilius
occurs; and AEmilius was the noblest of the patronymics which once
this great family boasted. Now, theirs had been the house in which
Crispus and Crispina, the good innkeeper and his wife, at present
free and prosperous, had been boy and girl slaves. The wife, indeed,
had been nurse to a son of Marcus Lepidus, the triumvir.

That son, some years before the date of our narrative, had been
engaged in a conspiracy against Augustus; and the conspiracy having
been discovered by Maecenas, the youth had been put to death. Marcus
AEmilius Lepidus, the father, was exculpated from all knowledge of
this attempt on the part of his son, but had ever since lived in
profound retirement at a lonely sea-shore castle some twenty or
thirty miles from Crispus's inn, near Monte Circello; a silent,
brooding, timid man, no longer very wealthy, entirely without weight
in the society which he had abandoned, and without any visible
influence in the political world, from which he had fled in some
terror and immense disgust.

As Sejanus rode slowly up to the inn-door, a centurion came out of
the porch with the air of one who had been waiting for him. Saluting
the general, this officer said that he had been left behind by
Velleius Paterculus to say that the sister of the youth whom Tiberius
had placed under the charge of Paterculus had fainted on the road;
that being unable to proceed, she and her mother had taken a lodging
in the inn; that the youth had at once begged Paterculus to allow
him to remain instead of proceeding to Formiae, in order that he
might attend to his poor sister, for whose life he was alarmed,
giving his promise that he would faithfully report himself, and not
attempt to escape; that Paterculus considered himself justified,
under the circumstances, in acceding to so natural a request;
consequently, that the young man was now in the inn, along with his
mother and sister; and that he, the centurion, had been ordered to
await Sejanus's arrival, and inform him of what had occurred, so that
he might either confirm his subordinate's decision, or repair the
mistake, if it was one, and cause the youth to go forward at once to
Formiae according to the letter of Tiberius's original command.

"It is well," said Sejanus, after a moment's reflection. "This is not
the sort of lad who will break his word. Carthaginians, and rubbish
like them, knew long ago how to believe a Roman knight and patrician,
and this lad seems to be of the Regulus breed. Does the Caesar
himself, however, know of this?"

"I had no orders to tell him," answered the centurion; "and if I had
had, it would have been difficult; he passed at full gallop a quarter
of an hour ago, his head down, not so much as looking aside."

Sejanus then put the following question with a sneer,

"Has a god, or a stranger, with two attendants on horseback, passed
this way?"

"No god, unless he be a god, and he had no attendants," said the
astonished centurion.

"You have not seen three figures on horseback, nor a flash of bluish
light?"

"I certainly thought I saw three figures on horseback, but I could
not be sure. It was on the farther side of the way, general, which is
broad," continued the man apologetically, "and there was no sound
of hoofs; my impression, too, was gone in a moment. As to a flash of
bluish light, there are several flashes of red and white light inside
the inn kitchen, and they make the road outside all the darker; but
there has been no flash in the road."

"Good! now follow me."

And Sejanus rode on in the direction of Formiae, the centurion and the
soldier behind him.


CHAPTER VI.

The inn, it is well ascertained, never became a common institution
in classic antiquity. It was utterly unknown in any thing like its
modern shape among the Greeks; one cause being that the literary
Greeks gave less care to their roads and communications than the
administrating, fighting, conquering, and colonizing Romans always
did. Even among the Romans the army trusted to its city-like
encampments from stage to stage. Centuries passed away, during which
the private traveller found few indeed, and far between, any better
public resting-houses along the magnificent and stupendous highways,
whose remains we still behold indestructible, from England to Asia
Minor, than the half-day relay-posts, or _mutationes_. At these the
wayfarer, by producing[28] his _diploma_ from the proper authorities,
obtained a change of horses.

Travelling, in short, was a thousand-fold less practised than it
is among us; and those who did travel, or who deemed it likely
they ever should, trusted to that hospitality which necessity had
made universal, and the poetry of daily life had raised by repute
into one of the greatest virtues. Years before any member of your
family, supposing you to belong to the age through which the events
of this narrative are carrying and to carry us, years before any
of your circle quitted your roof, you knew to what house, to what
smoky hearth in each foreign land, to what threshold in Spain, Gaul,
Syria, Egypt, Greece, the wanderer would eventually resort. A certain
family in each of these and other lands was your _hospes_, and you
were theirs; and very often you carried round your neck, attached
to a gold or silver chain, a bit of elder or oak (_robur_) notched
and marked by the natural breakage, the corresponding half of which
hung day and night round the neck of some friend living thousands
of miles away, beyond rivers, mountains, wild forests, and raging
seas. These tokens were the cheap lodging-money of friendship. Very
often they were interchanged and put on in boyhood, and not presented
till advanced age. He who had thrown the sacred symbol round the
curly head of his playmate on the banks of the Tiber, saw an old
man with scanty white hair approach him, half a century afterward,
at Alexandria, or Numantia, or Athens, and offer him a little bit
of wood, the fracture? of which were found to fit into those of
a similar piece worn upon his own bosom. Or the son brought the
father's token; or a son received what a father had given. And the
stranger was forthwith joyfully made welcome, and took rank among
dear friends. Forthwith the bath and the supper introduced him to
his remote home amid foreign faces. To be once unfaithful to these
pledges, was to become irreparably infamous. The caitiff who thus
sundered the lies of traditionary and necessity-caused and world-wide
kindness, became an object of scorn and reprobation to all. It
was enough to mention of him,[29] _tesseram confregit hospitalem_,
("_that man has broken his token-word of hospitality_;") with that
all was said. Traces of this touching custom appear to survive in
some of the ceremonials of rustic love, amid many a population
ignorant that the ancient Romans ever reigned over Europe.

But if inns, in year eleven, were not what they have been in mediaeval
and modern Europe, nevertheless a few existed even then, (_cauponae_;)
and a more notable establishment of this kind never flourished in any
part of the Roman empire than that to which our story has now brought
us. It was the exception to manners then prevalent, and the presage
of manners to come long afterward. It used to be commonly called the
_Post-House of the Hundredth Milestone_, or, more briefly, _Crispus's
Inn_.

The public room of this place of entertainment was not unlike the
coffee-room of a good modern inn, except that it was necessarily far
more full of incident and interest, because the ancients were beyond
comparison more addicted to living in public than any modern nation
has ever been.

An Englishman who makes a similar remark of the French, in comparison
with his own countrymen, has only to remember that the modern French
as much excel the ancient Romans in fondness for retirement and
privacy and domestic life as the English believe themselves to excel
the French in the same particular.

An inn did not trouble itself much with the _triclinium_, a chamber
seldom used by its frequenters. Even the manners of the _triclinium_
were out of vogue here.

In Crispus's public room, for instance, there was one and only one
table arranged with couches around it, upon which some three or four
customers, while eating and drinking, could recline according to the
fashion adopted in the private houses of the rich and noble. All the
other tables stood round the walls of the apartment, with benches
and settees on each side, offering seats for the guests. The inner
seats at these tables were generally preferred, for two reasons; the
occupants saw all that passed in the room, and besides, had the wall,
against which they could lean back.

When Velleius Paterculus, having left Tiberius and Sejanus in the
meadows near the Liris, took charge of the praetorian squadrons and of
Paulus, he directed a Batavian trooper to dismount and give his horse
to the prisoner. Paulus willingly sprung upon the big Flemish beast,
and rode by the side of the obliging officer who had given him that
conveyance. Thus they proceeded at an easy amble until they reached
the post-house, to the porch of which the noise of four thousand
hoofs, suddenly approaching along the paved road, had brought a group
of curious gazers. Among these was the landlord, Crispus himself.

A halt, as the reader must have inferred from a former incident, was
occasioned at the door by the intimation conveyed to Paterculus that
Paulus's sister had fainted, that she and her mother intended to seek
a lodging at the inn, and that the mother and brother of the invalid
would both feel grateful to the commanding officer if he could permit
Paulus, upon pledging his word not to make any attempt to escape, to
remain there with them.

"As to the ladies," said the urbane literary soldier, "I have neither
the wish nor any orders to interfere with their movements. But
you, young sir, what say you? Will you give me your word to regard
yourself as being in my custody till I expressly release you? Will
you promise not to _abire_, _evadere_, _excedere_, or _erumpere_, as
our friend Tully said?"

"Tully! Who is that?" asked our hero.

"What, you a half Greek and not know who Tully was! Is this the
manner in which Greek youths, or at least youths in Greece, are
educated! Is it thus they are taught in Greece, to which we go
ourselves for education! In that Greece which has forbidden
gladiatorial shows, and diminished the training of the body to have
more time for that of the intellect!"

Paulus blushed, seeing he must have betrayed some gross degree of
rusticity, and answered,

"I know I am ignorant: I have been so much occupied in athletic
sports. But I will give you the promise you ask, and keep it most
truly and faithfully."

"I will trust you, then. Go a little, my friend, into the athletic
sports of the mind, which are precisely those Greece most cultivates.
You are of a great family now fallen down. The muscles of the arm,
the strength of the body, a blow from a cestus, never yet raised
that kind of burden off the ground. You fence astonishingly well--I
noted your parry just now; but the fence of the mind is every thing,
believe me. By the way, I see the excellent Piso, whom you hammered
down after the parry, as one puts a full stop to a pretty sentence,
is being carried into this same post-house."

"By your leave, illustrious sir," interposed the innkeeper, rather
nervously, "it is scarcely the custom, is it, to drop guests at
Crispus's door, without first asking Crispus has he room for them?
The expected visit of the divine Augustus to the neighboring palace
of the most excellent and valiant knight Mamurra, in Formiae, has
choked and strangled this poor house. There is no place where the
multitude of guests can lodge in the town, so they come hither, as
to a spot at a convenient distance. Troops of players, troops of
gladiators, troops of fortune-tellers, troops of geese, pigs, beeves,
attagens, alive and dead, night and day, for the last week, with
mighty personages from a distance, make the road noisy, I assure you,
even after my house is full. I believe they would wish me to put up
the very oxen intended for sacrifice."

"Have you no chambers whatever vacant?" asked Velleius.

"I did not say that, most excellent sir; vacant is one thing,
disengaged is another. I have received an express letter from
Brundusium, to say that a certain queen out of the East, with her son
and her train, are coming to pay their homage to the emperor: and
here we have already the servants of that Jew king, as they say, one
King Alexander, who wants his cause to be heard and his title settled
by Augustus himself, and I am obliged to listen to loud outcries that
he, too, must have apartments."

At this moment, the travelling carriage carrying poor Agatha and her
mother had been drawn nearly opposite to the porch, but a little in
rear of the tribune, so as not to intercept his conversation with the
innkeeper. Paterculus threw a quick glance at the beautiful pallid
face of the girl, and the anxious and frightened look of her mother.

"By what you tell me, worthy Crispus," he replied, "you are so far
from having your justly celebrated house full, that you are keeping
two sets of apartments still vacant, in expectation, first, of some
queen from the east, with her son and train, and secondly, of this
Jewish king, one Alexander. Worthy Libertinus,[30] the fair damsel
whom you see so pale, is very sick, and has just swooned away from
sheer fatigue. Will you turn such a daughter in such health, with her
noble mother, from your door? A queen can take care of herself, it
seems to me. But what will become of these excellent Roman ladies,
(your own countrywomen,) if you now bid them begone from your
threshold? You have assured me that they can obtain no shelter at
all in Formiae. Look at the child! She seems likely to faint again.
Are you to let this daughter of a Roman knight die in the fields,
in order that you may have room for a barbarian queen? You have a
daughter of your own, I am told."

"Die!" groaned the innkeeper: "all this did not come into my mind,
most illustrious tribune and quaestor. Come, little lady, let me help
you down. This lady and her daughter, sir, shall have the queen's own
apartments--may all the gods destroy me otherwise! Here, Crispina."

Velleius Paterculus smiled, and having whispered some order to a
centurion, who remained behind in watch for Sejanus, the tribune
waved his hand, crying out _vale_ to whom it might concern, and rode
forward with the praetorians at a much smarter pace than they had come.


CHAPTER VII.

Meanwhile the innkeeper's wife, Crispina, had appeared, and had led
Aglais and her daughter through the group in the porch into the
house, and passing by a little _zothecula_,[31] behind the curtain
of which they heard the sound of flutes,[32] as the carvers carved,
and many voices, loud and low, denoting the apartment called _dieta_
or public room of the inn, they soon arrived at the _compluvium_, an
open space or small court, in the middle of which was a cistern, and
in the middle of the cistern a splashing fountain. The cistern was
railed by a circular wooden balustrade, against which some creeping
plants grew. This cistern was supplied from the sky; for the whole
space or court in which it lay was open and unroofed. Between the
circular wooden balustrade and the walls of the house was, on every
side, a large quadrangular walk, lightly gravelled, and flashing back
under the lantern which Crispina carried, an almost metallic glint
and sparkle. Of course this walk presented its quadrangular form on
the outer edge, next the house only; the inside, next the cistern,
was rounded away. This quadrangular walk was at one spot diminished
in width by a staircase in the open air, (but under an awning,) which
led up to the second story of the large brick building. Around the
whole _compluvium_, or court, the four inner faces of the inn, which
had four covered lights in sconces against the walls, were marked at
irregular intervals by windows, some of which were mere holes, with
trap-doors (in every case open at present;) others, lattice-work,
like what, many centuries later, obtained the name of arabesque-work,
having a curtain inside that could be drawn or undrawn. Others
again with perforated slides; others stretched with linen which oil
had rendered diaphanous; others fitted with thin scraped horn; one
only, a tolerably large window, with some kind of mineral panes more
translucent than transparent--a _lapis laminata specularis_.

At the back, or west of the inn, an irregular oblong wing extended,
which of course could not open upon this court, but had its own means
of light and ventilation north and south respectively.

Crispus had followed the group of women, and our friend Paulus had
followed Crispus. In the _compluvium_, the innkeeper took the lantern
from his wife, and begged Aglais and Agatha to follow him up the
awning-covered staircase. As he began to ascend, it happened that
Crispina, looking around, noticed Paulus, who had taken off his
broad-rimmed hat, under one of the sconces. No sooner had her eyes
rested on him than she started violently, and grasped the balustrade
as if she would have fallen but for that support.

"Who are you?" said the woman.

"The brother of that young lady who is ill, and the son of the other
lady."

"And you, too, must want lodgings?"

"Certainly."

The woman seized his arm with a vehement grip, and gazed at him.

"Are you ill?" said Paulus, "or--or--out of your mind? Why do you
clutch my arm and look at me in that fashion?"

"Too young," said she, rather to herself than to him; "besides, I saw
the last act with these eyes. Truly this is wonderful."

Then, like one waking from a dream, she added, "Well, if you want
lodgings, you shall have them. You shall have the apartments of this
king or pretender--the rooms prepared for the Jew Alexander. Come
with me at once." And she unfastened the lamp in the nearest sconce,
and led Paulus up the staircase.

Thus the wanderers, Aglais and her daughter, had the queen's room,
with their Thracian slave Melana to wait upon them, while the
prisoner Paulus had the king's, to which Crispina herself ordered old
Philip, the freedman, to carry his luggage.

A few moments later, the innkeeper, who had returned to the more
public parts of the house to attend to his usual duties, met Philip
laden with parcels in one of the passages, and asked him what he was
doing.

"Carrying young Master Paulus's things to his room."

"You can carry," said the innkeeper, "whatever the ladies require
to _their_ room; but your young master has no room at all, my man,
in this house. And why? For the same reason that will compel you to
sleep in one of the lofts over the stables. There is no space for him
in the inn. You must make him as comfortable as you can in the hay,
just like yourself."

"Humanity is something," muttered Crispus; "but to make a queen
one's enemy on that score, without adding a king, where no humane
consideration intervenes at all, is enough for a poor innkeeper in
a single night. These _tetrarchs_ and rich barbarians can do a poor
man an ugly turn. Who knows but he might complain of my house to
the emperor, or to one of the consuls, or the praetor, or even the
quaestor, and presto! every thing is seized, and I am banished to the
Tauric Chersonese, or to Tomos in Scythia, to drink mare's milk with
the poet Ovid."[33]

"Go on, freedman, with your luggage," here said a peremptory voice,
"and take it whither you have taken the rest."

"And in the name of all the gods, wife," cried Crispus, "whither may
that be?"

"Go on, freedman," she repeated; and then taking her husband aside,
she spoke to him in a low tone.

"Have you remarked this youth's face?" she asked; "and have you any
idea who he is?"

"I know not who any of them are," replied Crispus.

"Look at him then; for here he comes."

Crispus looked, and as he looked his eyes grew bigger; and again he
looked until Paulus noticed it, and smiled.

"Do you know me?" says he.

"No, illustrious sir."

"Alas! I am not illustrious, good landlord, (_institor_,) but hungry
I am. And I believe we all are, except my poor sister, who is not
very strong, and for whom, by and by, I should like to procure the
advice of a physician."

"The poor young thing," said Crispina, "is only tired with her
journey; it is nothing. She will be well to-morrow. Supper you shall
have presently in the ante-chamber of your mother's apartments; and
your freedman and the female slave shall be cared for after they have
waited upon you."

"All this is easy and shall be seen to forthwith," added Crispus;
"but the doctor for your dear sister, _per omnes deos_, where shall
we find him?"

"Understand," said Paulus, "my sister is not in immediate danger,
such as would justify calling in any empiric at once rather than
nobody. She has been ailing for some time, and it is of no use to
send for the first common stupid practitioner that may be in the way.
Is there not some famous doctor procurable in Italy?"

"The most famous in Italy is a Greek physician not five thousand
paces from here at this moment," said the landlord. "But he would
not come to every body; he is Tiberius Caesar's own doctor."

"You mean Charicles," replied Paulus; "I almost think he would come;
my mother is a Greek lady, and he will surely be glad to oblige his
countrywoman."

"Then write you a note to him," said Crispina, "and I will send it
instantly."

Paulus thanked her, said he would, and withdrew.

When he proposed to his mother to dispatch this message to Charicles,
she hesitated much. Agatha was better, he found her in comparatively
good spirits. It would do to send for the doctor next day. An urgent
summons conveyed at night to the palace or residence of the Caesar,
where Charicles would probably of necessity be, would cause Tiberius
to inquire into the matter, and would again draw his attention, and
draw it still more persistently to them. He had already intimated
that he would order his physician to attend Agatha. They did not
desire to establish very close relations with the man in black purple.

It is wonderful even how that very intimation from Tiberius had
diminished both mother's and daughter's anxiety to consult the
celebrated practitioner, to whose advice and assistance they had
previously looked forward. There were parties in the court and cabals
in the political world; and among them, as it happened, was the Greek
faction, at the head of which his ill-wishers alleged Germanicus to
be. Graeculus, or Greek coxcomb, was one of the names flung at him
as a reproach by his enemies. What the Scotch, and subsequently the
Irish interest may have been at various times in modern England,
that the Greek interest was then in Roman society. Of all men, he
who most needed to be cautious and discreet in such a case was an
adventurer who, being himself a Greek, owed to his personal merit
and abilities the position of emolument and credit which he enjoyed;
who was tolerated for his individual qualities as a foreigner, but
who, if suspected of using professional opportunities as a political
partisan, would be of no service to others, and would merely lose his
own advantages.

"Let Tiberius send Charicles to us," continued Aglais; "and our
countryman and friend may be of service to us, even in the suit which
we have to urge at court. But were we now to show the Caesar that we
confide in Charicles, we should only injure our countryman and not
benefit ourselves."

"How injure him?"

"Thus," replied the Greek lady. "If your claim for the restitution of
your father's estates be not granted for justice sake, I must make
interest in order that it may be granted for favor's sake. As a Greek
I shall be likely to induce no powerful person to take our claims
under his protection except Germanicus, the friend of Athenians.
Now, it is a fact which I have learned for certain that Tiberius
hates Germanicus, whom he regards as his rival; and that whoever
is patronized by Germanicus, him Tiberius would gladly destroy.
Behold us in a short while the clients and retainers of this same
Germanicus, and let Tiberius then remember that his own physician has
been, and continues to be, intimate and confidential with this brood
of the Germanicus faction. Would not Charicles be damaged, perhaps
endangered? But if we wait until the Caesar himself sends us the
doctor, as he said he would, we may then gain by it, and our friend
not lose."

"Mother, you are indeed Greek," said Paulus, laughing; "and as
Agatha is in no actual danger, be it as you say. Do you know,
sister, there is nothing the matter with you but fatigue and fright?
I am sure of it. You will recover rapidly now, with rest, peace, and
safety."

"Mother," says Agatha, smiling, "we have forgotten, amid all this
consultation about my health, to tell brother the curious discovery I
have just made."

"True," said Aglais; "your sister has explored a very odd fact
indeed."

"Why, brother," says Agatha, "we found you in this large
sitting-room, when we entered, though we had left you below-stairs,
near the cistern."

"Found me?" said Paulus.

"Yes," added his mother; "found you concealed in this room by
Tiberius."

"Concealed by Tiberius?"

"I will not leave you in suspense any longer," said the young girl,
laughing. "Look here." And she led him to a table behind the bench
on which she had been sitting, and directed his attention to a bust,
or rather a head of Tiberius, modelled or moulded in some sort of
pottery.

"That," said she, "when I first sat down, stood upon yonder table
opposite to us. I recognized the face of the man who had spoken to
me under the chestnut-trees, just before you assisted me back to the
carriage. I abhor the wicked countenance; and not choosing to let it
stare at me like a dream where it was, I rose and went to remove it
to the stand where you now see it, behind my bench. Well, only think!
I took it, so, with my hands, one under each ear, and lifted it;
when, lo! it came away, and left your own dear face looking at us,
thus!"

As she spoke, she again lifted the _terra cotta_ face, and beneath
it a much smaller and more elegant piece of sculpture in white
marble was disclosed, presenting the lineaments and image of Paulus
himself. He started, and then his sister replaced the mask of
Tiberius with a laugh.

"Was I not speaking true when I said that Tiberius had concealed you
here?" said his mother.

"The Caesar, very true, has me in his head, and well secured," said
Paulus.

At that moment the door opened, and Crispina entered to ask whether
the letter for the physician was ready. They told her they had
changed their minds, and would not, at least that night, send any
letter, Agatha felt and looked so much better.

"Then I will at once order your supper to be brought," said Crispina;
"and as you are evidently people of distinction, would you like music
while the meats are carved?"

"Certainly not," said the Greek lady.

"Not a carver neither, mother?" interposed Agatha; and, turning to
the hostess, she begged that they might be treated as quietly and let
alone as much as it was possible.

"That is indeed our desire," said the Greek lady.

"In that case," replied the hostess, "my own daughter, Benigna, shall
attend to you. Nobody shall trouble you. You are in the rear or west
wing of the house, far away from all the noise of our customers, who
are sometimes, I confess, sufficiently uproarious. But Crispus is not
afraid of them. When to-morrow's sun rises, you will be glad to find
what a beautiful country extends beneath your windows, even to the
waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea. You will behold, first, a garden and
bee-hive; beyond these are orchards; beyond them fields of husbandry
and pleasant pasture lands, with not a human figure to be seen except
knots and dots of work-people, a few shepherds, and perhaps an angler
amusing himself on the banks of the Liris in the distance."

"Oh!" said Agatha, "I wish soon to go to sleep, that we may set out
quickly toward that beautiful country to-morrow morning."

"Will you not like a little bit of something very nice for supper
first, my precious little lady?" quoth the good hostess; "and that
will make you sleep all the better, and from the moment when you
close your pretty eyes in rest and comfort under poor Crispina's
roof, to the moment when you open them upon those lovely scenes,
you won't be able to count one, two, three--but just only one--and
presto! there's to-morrow morning for you!"

Agatha declared that this was very nice; and that supper would be
nice; and that every thing was comfortable; the rooms particularly so.

"Then a delicious little supper shall be got ready at once," said
Crispina. "I'll call my brisk Benigna to help me."

Before quitting the room, however, the landlady, whose glance had
rested chiefly upon Paulus during the conversation, threw up her
hands a little way. She then composed herself, and addressing Aglais,
asked,

"What names, lady, shall I put down in my book?"

"I will tell you when you return," replied Aglais; and the landlady
retired.

    TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] Suetonius, Aug. 39. The forum, where gladiators had often bled,
was becoming less and less used for that purpose.

[23] It is well known that Trajan exhibited shows in which ten
thousand gladiators fought, but this monstrous development of cruelty
came long after our date.

[24] A school of gladiators. Suet Jul. 26; Aug. 42; Tacit. Hist. ii.
88.

[25] This German expedition took the same direction as that of the
Austrian armies which endeavored to dislodge Bonaparte from the siege
of Mantua, and came pouring down both sides of Lake Guarda.

[26] Cic. Fam. xiii. 59; Dion. iii. 22; Caesar. Bell. Cir. iii. 20.

[27] The malignant innkeepers mentioned by Horace, "Sat. lib. 1,
Sat. 5," kept a low class of houses in comparison with this notable
hostelry.

[28] Pliny, Ep. x. 14, 121.

[29] Cic. Qu. Fr. ii. 14; Plautus, Poen. v. 1, 22, 2, 92; Cist. 2,
1, 27.

[30] _Libertus_, freedman of such or such a family; _libertinus_,
freedman in general, or son of one.

[31] _Zothecula_, a small apartment, one side of which was formed by
a curtain. Pliny, Epis. ii. 17; v. 6. Suetonius, Claud. 10.

[32] _Flutes_, etc. Juvenal v. 121; xi. 137.

[33] Something in this language may seem out of keeping. I would
therefore remind the reader that the most learned, accomplished,
studious, and highly-cultivated minds among the Romans were very
frequently found in the class of slaves and freedmen.




A MAY CAROL.


        How many a lonely hermit maid
          Hath brightened like a dawn-touched isle
        When--on her breast in vision laid--
          That Babe hath lit her with his smile!

        How many an aged saint hath felt,
          So graced, a second spring renew
        Her wintry breast; with Anna knelt,
          And trembled like the matin dew!

        How oft the unbending monk, no thrall
          In youth of mortal smiles or tears,
        Hath felt that Infant's touch through all
          The armor of his hundred years!

    But Mary's was no transient bliss;
      Nor hers a vision's phantom gleam;
    The hourly need, the voice, the kiss--
      That child was hers! 'Twas not a dream!

        At morning hers, and when the sheen
          Of moonrise crept the cliffs along;
        In silence hers, and hers between
          The pulses of the night-bird's song.

        And as the Child, the love. Its growth
          Was, hour by hour, a growth in grace;
        That Child was God; and love for both
          Advanced perforce with equal pace.

                                             AUBREY DE VERE.




SIR JOHN MAUNDEVILLE.


"Of Paradise I cannot speak properly, for I was not there. It is
far beyond, and I repent not going there; but I was not worthy." So
wrote, more than five hundred years ago, an honest English knight who
had spent some ten years journeying through that "most worthy land,
most excellent and lady and sovereign of all other lands," which was
"blessed and hallowed with the most precious body and blood of our
Lord Jesus Christ;" visiting portions of Africa and Asia; and picking
up from all accessible sources legends and marvels, and scraps
of the geography and history of distant countries. For something
like two centuries the travels of Sir John Maundeville enjoyed a
tremendous popularity; and though time can hardly be said to have
improved the good gentleman's reputation for veracity and judgment,
it has perhaps heightened rather than diminished the interest of his
narrative. Alas! we can never know such travellers again. Men who go
to Palestine in a steamboat, and are whirled by locomotives into the
very presence of the Sphinx, bring us back no wonderful stories of
the mysterious East, with its dragons and enchanters, and its sacred
places miraculously barred against profane footsteps. Travel has no
mysteries now. What is the earthly paradise but a Turkish pashalic?
What is Prester John but a petty negro chieftain? And for dragons and
chimaeras dire, has not any good museum of natural history specimens
of them all, nicely stuffed and labelled, or bottled in alcohol? In
the days of Sir John, however, wonders were plenty; and if he did not
see very many himself, he heard of men who had seen no end of them,
and he described them all the same. It was from hearsay, and not
from personal observation, that he learned of the Lady of the Land,
in the island of Cos, then called Lango. This wonderful lady was the
daughter of Ypocras or Hippocrates, in form and likeness of a great
dragon which is a hundred fathoms in length, "as they say," adds Sir
John, "for I have not seen her." She lies in an old castle in a cave,
appearing twice or thrice in a year, and condemned "by a goddess
named Diana" to remain in that horrible shape until a knight shall
come and kiss her on the mouth; then she shall resume her natural
form, and the knight shall marry her and be lord of the isles. Many
have tempted the adventure, but fled in affright when they have seen
her. And every knight who once looks upon her and flees, must die
anon.

At Ephesus the traveller beheld the tomb of St. John the Evangelist,
and heard the familiar story that the apostle had entered the
sepulchre alive, and was still living, in accordance with the saying
of our Lord, "So I will have him to remain till I come, what is that
to thee?" "And men may see there the earth of the tomb many times
openly stir and move, as though there were living things under."
To say nothing else of this story, it is not fully consistent with
Sir John's other statement, that the tomb contains nothing but
manna, "which is called angels' meat," for the body was translated
to paradise. Quite as great are the wonders of Joppa, "which is one
of the oldest towns in the world; for it was founded _before Noah's
flood_." Strangely confusing the legend of Perseus and Andromeda,
our traveller relates that in a rock near Joppa may still be seen
marks of the iron chains "wherewith Andromeda, a great giant, was
bound and put in prison before Noah's flood; a rib of whose side,
which is forty feet long, is still shown." Sir John spent a long
time in the service of the sultan of Egypt, where he seems to have
anticipated modern researches into the source of the Nile; for he
confidently assures us that it rises in the garden of Eden, and after
descending upon earth, flows through many extensive countries under
ground, coming out beneath a high hill called Alothe, between India
and Ethiopia, and encircling the whole of Ethiopia and Mauritania,
before it enters the land of Egypt. To the best of our belief, the
travels of Dr. Livingstone have not fully confirmed this interesting
geographical statement. The sultan dwells at a city called Babylon,
which is not, however, the great Babylon where the diversity of
languages was first made by the miracle of God. That Babylon is
forty days' journey across the desert, in the territory of the king
of Persia. The Tower of Babel was ten miles square, and included
many mansions and dwellings; "but it is full long since any man dare
approach to the tower, for it is all desert, and full of dragons
and great serpents, and infested by divers venomous beasts." Sir
John, therefore, is probably not responsible for the extraordinary
measurement of its walls. Whether his account of the phoenix is based
upon his personal observations, we are not told; but it is highly
interesting. There is only one phoenix in the world. It is a very
handsome and glorious bird, with a yellow neck, blue beak, purple
wings, and a red and yellow tail, and may often be seen flying about
the country. It lives five hundred years, and at the end of that
time comes to burn itself on the altar of the temple of Heliopolis,
where the priests prepare for the occasion a fire of spices and
sulphur. The next day they find in the ashes a worm. On the second
day the worm becomes a live and perfect bird; and the third day it
flies away. A plenty of fine things, indeed, Egypt could boast of
in those days, far before any thing she has now. There were gardens
bearing fruit seven times a year. There were the apples of paradise,
which, cut them how you would, or as often as you would, always
showed in the middle the figure of the holy cross. There was the
apple-tree of Adam, whose fruit invariably had a mouthful bitten out
of one side. There is a field containing seven wells, which the child
Jesus made with one of his feet while at play with his companions.
There are the granaries in which Joseph stored corn for the season of
famine, (probably the Pyramids.) And passing out of Egypt across the
desert of Arabia, Sir John tells of the wonderful monastery on Mount
Sinai, whither the ravens, crows, and choughs and other fowls of that
country, assembling in great flocks, come every year on pilgrimage to
the tomb of St. Catharine, each bringing a branch of bays or olive,
so that from these offerings the monks have enough to keep themselves
constantly supplied with oil. There are no such foul venomous beasts
as flies, toads, lizards, lice, or fleas in this monastery; for
once upon a time, when the vermin had become too thick there to be
endured, the good brethren made preparations to move away, whereupon
our Lady commanded them to remain and no pest of that sort should
ever again come near them. On Mount Mamre, near Hebron, Sir John saw
an oak-tree which had been standing since the creation of the world.
Oaks nowadays don't live to such a great age. This tree had borne
no leaves since the crucifixion, (when all the trees in the world
withered away,) but it had still so much virtue that a scrap of it
healed the falling-sickness, and prevented founder in horses.

Armed with a letter under the sultan's great seal, Sir John went
to Jerusalem, and was admitted to all the holy shrines from which
Christians and Jews were usually excluded. He saw, or believed he
saw, the spots sanctified by almost all the great events narrated in
the Gospel; and though his credulity, as may be inferred from what
we have already seen of his narrative, often got the better of his
judgment, his piety, at any rate, deserves our genuine respect. We
pass over his legends of this holy city, some of them poetical, some
merely grotesque, and some really sanctioned by the general voice
of the church, and go with him eastward to the valley of Jordan and
the Dead Sea. Of this mysterious body of water he mentions that it
casts out every day "a thing that is called asphalt in pieces as
large as a horse," and neither man, nor beast, nor any thing that
hath life may die in that sea, which hath been proved many times by
the experiment of criminals condemned to death who have been left
therein three or four days, and yet taken out alive. If any man cast
iron therein, it will float; but a feather will sink to the bottom;
"and these things," truly remarks Sir John, "are contrary to nature."
Not more so, perhaps, than an incident of which he speaks at the city
of Tiberias. In that city an unbeliever hurled a burning dart at our
Lord, "and the head smote into the earth, and waxed green, and it
grew to a great tree; and it grows still, and the bark thereof is
all like coals." Then, near Damascus there is a church, and behind
the altar, in the wall, "a table of black wood on which was formerly
painted an image of our Lady which turns into flesh; but now the
image appears but little." As a compensation, however, for its loss,
a certain wonderful oil, as Sir John assures us, drops continually
from the wood and heals many kinds of sickness, and if any one keep
it cleanly for a year, after that year it turns to flesh and blood.
In this same region of marvels he tells us of a river which runs only
on Saturday, and stands still all the rest of the week, and another
which freezes wonderfully fast every night, and is clear of ice in
the morning. These rivers are not known nowadays, or at any rate must
have changed their habits.

After finishing the description of the Holy Land and Babylon, and
reporting a conversation with the sultan, in which the vices of
the Christians, such as drinking at taverns, and fighting, and
perpetually changing the fashion of their clothes, were sharply
satirized, and giving a synopsis of the Mohammedan creed, which we
fear is not altogether authentic, our worthy traveller adds that now
is the time, if it please us, to tell of the borders, and isles,
and divers beasts, and of various peoples beyond these borders.
Accepting his invitation, we bear him company first to the land of
Lybia, which must have been a most uncomfortable region in those
days, for the sea there was higher than the land, and the sun was so
hot that the waters were always boiling. Why the country was not,
therefore, soused in a steaming, hissing flood, we do not know; 'Sir
John himself evidently thinks it strange. In Little Ermony which we
take to be Armenia, he found something almost equally strange. That
was the Castle of the Sparrow-hawk, where a sparrow-hawk perpetually
sat upon a fair perch and a fair lady of fairie guarded it. Whoever
will watch the bird seven days and seven nights without company and
without sleep, shall be granted by the fairy the first earthly wish
that he shall wish; but if sleep overcome him, he will never more
be seen of men. This, adds the careful traveller, hath been proved
oftentimes, and he mentions several persons who performed the long
task and got their wishes. Mount Ararat is another marvellous feature
in this wonderful region; for it is seven miles high, and Noah's
ark still rests upon it, and in clear weather may be seen afar off.
Some men say that they have been up and touched the ark, and even
put their fingers in the parts where the devil went out when Noah
said "Benedicite," (unfortunately we do not know the legend to which
this refers;) but our traveller warns us not to believe such things,
because they are not true! No man ever got up the mountain except one
good monk; and he was miraculously favored, and brought down with
him a plank which is still preserved in the monastery at the foot
of the mountain. It is inexpressibly gratifying to observe that Sir
John did not accept all the stories that were told him, but exercised
a little judicious discrimination; and we shall therefore pay more
respectful attention to the extraordinary things he tells us about
the diamonds of India. They are found most commonly, he says, upon
rocks of the sea, or else in connection with gold. They grow many
together, male and female, and are nourished by the dew of heaven,
so that they engender and bring forth small children that multiply
and grow all the year. "I have oftentimes tried the experiment," he
continues, "that if a man keep them with a little of the rock, and
wet them with May-dew often, they shall grow every year, and the
small will grow great.... And a man should carry the diamond on his
left side, for it is of greater virtue than on the right side; for
the strength of their growing is toward the north, that is the left
side of the world; and the left part of man is, when he turns his
face toward the east." Sir John was not by any means singular in his
views of the nature of diamonds in his day, however much he may be at
variance with modern authorities; and he is only repeating a popular
superstition of the middle ages when he ascribes many wonderful
virtues to this gem, which he says preserves the wearer from poison,
and wild beasts, and the assaults of enemies, and the machinations
of enchanters, gives courage to the heart and strength to the limbs,
heals lunatics, and casts out devils. But it loses its virtue by sin.

From stories of eels thirty feet long, and people of an evil color,
green and yellow, and the well of Perpetual Youth, from which Sir
John avers that he drank, and rats as great as dogs, which they take
with huge mastiffs, because the cats feel unable to manage them,
we pass to a passage of a very different kind, which, considering
the time when it was written, is certainly curious. One hundred
and seventy years before the time of Columbus we find Sir John
Maundeville arguing that "the land and sea are of round shape,
because the part of the firmament appears in one country which is
not seen in another country," and predicting that "if a man found
passages by ships, he might go by ship all round the world, above
and beneath." A rather elaborate essay is devoted to an estimate
of the size of the world, and to the story of an Englishman--name
unknown--who sailed around it once and never knew it; but coming to a
country where the people spoke his own language, was so much amazed
that he turned around and sailed all the way back again. After this,
Sir John gets back without unnecessary delay to the rosy realms of
eastern fable.

We next find him in Java and among the isles of the Indian Ocean,
where he tells us of rich kings, and splendid palaces where all the
steps are of gold and silver alternately, and the walls covered
with plates of precious metals, and halls and chambers paved with
the same; of trees which bear meal, and honey, and wine, and deadly
poison wherewith the Jews once tried to poison all Christendom; of
snails so big that many persons may lodge in their shells; of men who
feed upon serpents, so that they speak naught, but hiss as serpents
do; of men and women who have dogs' heads; and of a mountain in the
island of Silha where Adam and Eve went and cried for one hundred
years after they were driven out of paradise--cried so hard that
their tears formed a deep lake, which may be seen there to this day,
if any body doubts the story. He tells of giants having only one
eye, which is in the middle of the forehead; people of foul stature
and cursed nature who have no heads, but their eyes are in their
shoulders; people who have neither noses nor mouths; people who have
mouths so big that when they sleep in the sun they cover the whole
face with the upper lip; people who have ears hanging down to their
knees; people who have horses' feet; and feathered men who leap from
tree to tree. Passing to India and China, Sir John describes the fair
and fruitful land of Albany, where there are no poor people, and the
men are of very pale complexion and have only about fifty hairs in
their beards. He speaks of having personally visited these regions;
but we are sorry to say that his narrative is palpably borrowed in
many places from Pliny and Marco Polo. As the great town called
Jamchay he seems to have found the prototype of Delmonico, and he
gives an impressive account of the good custom that when a man will
make a feast for his friends he goes to the host of a certain kind of
inn, and says to him, "Array for me to-morrow a good dinner for so
many people;" and says also, "Thus much will I spend, and no more."
And Sir John adds, "Anon the host arrays for him, so fair, and so
well, and so honestly that there shall lack nothing." Of the great
Chan of Cathay, (Emperor of China,) and his wealth and magnificence,
Sir John writes at considerable length, but with an evident
expectation that men will not believe him. "My fellows and I," he
says, "with our yeomen, served this emperor, and were his soldiers
fifteen months against the King of Mancy, who was at war with him,
because we had great desire to see his nobleness and the estate of
his court, and all his government, to know if it were such as we
heard say." How many his fellows were, or what route they followed
in their eastern wanderings, we cannot tell. Sir John gives us no
particulars; we only learn that he must have combined in curious
perfection the characters of a pilgrim and a military adventurer; and
how much of the world he saw, how much he described from hearsay,
we can only determine from the internal evidence of his book. There
is no reasonable doubt that he did spend some time in the dominions
of the great chan; for his description of the country, the manners
of the people, the magnificence of the sovereign and the ceremonies
of the court, though exaggerated sometimes to the heights of the
grotesque, if not of the sublime, keeps near enough to the probable
truth. We cannot say that we are glad of it; for Sir John is vastly
more entertaining when he does not know what he is talking about.

He skips about with the most charming vivacity from Tartary to
Persia, to Asia Minor, and back again to India, and sometimes it is
certain that he tells us of wonders which he did not see with his
own eyes. In Georgia, for instance, there is a marvellous province
called Hanyson, where once upon a time a cursed Persian king named
Saures overtook a multitude of Christians fleeing from persecution.
The fugitives prayed to God for deliverance, and lo! a great cloud
arose, covering the king's host with darkness, out of which they
could not pass, and so the whole province remains dark to this hour,
and no light shall shine there and no man shall enter it till the
day of judgment. Voices may sometimes be heard coming out of the
darkness, and the neighing of horses and crowing of cocks, and a
great river issues from it bearing tokens of human life. Somewhat
similar to this story is the account of a region on the borders of
the Caspian Sea, where "the Jews of ten lineages who are called Gog
and Magog"--namely, the lost tribes--have been shut up for ages
behind impassable mountains. The legend is that King Alexander drove
them in there, and prevailed upon his gods to close the mountains
with immense stone gates. In the days of Antichrist a fox shall
burrow through where Alexander made the gates, and the imprisoned
Jews, who have never seen a fox, shall hunt him, and following the
burrow break down the gates and come out into the world. Then they
shall make great slaughter of the Christians; wherefore Jews all over
the world learn the Hebrew language, so that in that day the ten
tribes may recognize them by their speech. Somewhere in this part
of the world Sir John saw and tasted "a kind of fruit like gourds,
which, when they are ripe, men cut in two, and find within a little
beast, in flesh, bone, and blood, as though it were a little lamb
without wool." Both the fruit and the beast are good to eat. Sir
John confesses that this was a great marvel; but not to be outdone,
he told his entertainers that in England there were trees bearing
a fruit which becomes flying birds, right good for man's meat,
whereat, he says, his listeners had also great marvel, and some even
thought the thing impossible. Sir John, however, was not purposely
cramming the Persians; he only repeated the popular fable of the
barnacle-goose, which was anciently believed to be hatched from the
barnacles growing on ships' bottoms and logs of wood, just as an
ordinary goose is hatched from an egg.

The great mystery and marvel of the age in which Sir John Maundeville
wrote was the Christian empire of Prester John, supposed to extend
over central India, and to be in reality a vast island, separated
from other countries by great branching rivers which flowed out
of Paradise. Many a traveller went in search of this mythical and
magnificent potentate; many a doubtful story of his power and designs
was brought back to Europe; and even a pretended letter from his
majesty to the pope was widely published in Latin, French, and other
languages. Except the Chan of Cathay, there was no other monarch in
the world so great and so rich. The chan, therefore, always married
the daughter of Prester John, and Prester John always married
the daughter of the chan, which naturally made confusion in the
genealogical records of the reigning families. Of course, Sir John
Maundeville was too gallant a traveller to go home without a full
account of the empire of Prester John. He says he went to it, and
the catalogue of things he saw and the history of things he did are
wonderful enough to satisfy the most exacting reader. As it is quite
certain that no potentate ever existed who bore even a resemblence
to the Prester John of mediaeval legend, it is more than usually
difficult to estimate the honesty of Sir John in these particular
portions of his narrative, wherein fable and superstition seem to
reach their climax. The glories of the Indian court are almost beyond
enumeration. The precious stones are so large that plates, dishes,
and cups are made of them. There is a river, rising in paradise,
whose waves are entirely of jewels, without a drop of water, and it
runs only three days of the week, flowing to the Gravelly Sea, where
it is lost from sight. The Gravelly Sea has billows of sand without
a drop of water. It ebbs and flows in great waves, like other seas,
and contains very good fish; but, adds Sir John, "men cannot pass
it in ships." The emperor lives in unspeakably gorgeous state, in a
palace of gems and gold, and upon the top of the highest tower of
the palace are two huge carbuncles which give great light by night
to all people. He is served by seven kings, seventy-two dukes, and
three hundred and sixty earls. Every day he entertains at dinner
twelve archbishops and twenty bishops; and all the archbishops,
bishops, and abbots in the country are kings. There is a gorgeous
artificial paradise in the dominions of Prester John, the legend of
which seems to have been used by Tasso long after Sir John's time
in his famous description of the enchanted gardens of Armida. In
this false Paradise "a rich man named Gatholonabes, who was full of
tricks and subtle deceits," had placed the fairest trees, and fruits,
and flowers, constructed the most beautiful halls and palaces,
all painted with gold and azure, with youths and fair damsels
attired like angels, birds which "sung full delectably and moved by
craft," and artificial rivers of milk, and wine, and honey. When he
had brought good and noble knights into this place, they were so
captivated by the charming sights and sounds, so deceived by the fair
speeches of Gatholonabes, and so inflamed with a certain drink which
he gave them to drink that they became his willing henchmen, and at
his bidding went out from the mountain where this garden stood and
slew whomsoever the impostor marked out for slaughter. To the knights
who lost their lives in his service, he promised a still fairer
Paradise and still more enticing pleasures. Our readers will not
fail to trace the resemblance between this fable and the history of
the Old Man of the Mountain, with whose extraordinary fanatical sect
of Assassins the crusaders had recently made Europe acquainted. Sir
John's story is probably founded upon exaggerated accounts of this
famous personage.

To his description of the perilous Vale of Devils we fear no such
respectable origin can be attributed. "This vale," he says, "is full
of devils, and has been always;" and horrible noises are heard in it
day and night, as though Satan and his crew were holding an infernal
feast. Many daring men have entered in quest of the gold and silver
which are known to abound therein; but few have come out again, for
the devils strangle the misbelieving. We regret to say that Sir John
assures us that he actually saw this vale and went through it with
several of his company. They heard mass first and confessed their
sins, and, trusting in God, fourteen men marched into the valley; but
when they came out at the other end they were only nine. Whether the
five were strangled by devils or turned back, Sir John did not know;
he never saw them again. The vale was full of horrible sights and
sounds. Corpses covered the ground, storms filled the air. The face
and shoulders of an appalling devil terrified them, belching forth
smoke and stench from beneath a huge rock, and several times the
travellers were cast down to the ground and buffeted by tempests. Our
author unfortunately was afraid to pick up any of the treasures which
strewed the way; he did not know what they might really be; for the
devils are very cunning in getting up imitation gems and metals; and
besides, he adds, "I would not be put out of my devotion; for I was
more devout then than ever I was before or after."

When one has passed through the Vale of Devils, other marvels are
encountered beyond. There are giants twenty-eight or thirty feet
in height, and Sir John heard of others whose stature was as much
as fifty feet; but he candidly avows that he "had no lust to go
into those parts," because when the giants see a ship sailing by
the island on which they live, they wade out to seize it, and bring
the men to land, two in each hand, eating them all alive and raw
as they walk. In another island toward the north are people quite
as dangerous, but not quite so shocking; these are women who have
precious stones in their eyes, and when they are angry they slay a
man with a look. Still more marvellous and incredible than any of
these tales is the account of that country, unnamed and undescribed,
where kings are chosen for their virtue and ability alone, and
justice is done in every cause to rich and poor alike, and no
evil-doer, be he the king, himself, ever escapes punishment. There is
an isle besides, called Bragman, or the Land of Faith, where all men
eschew vice, and care not for money; where there is neither wrath,
envy, lechery, nor deceit; where no man lies, or steals, or deceives
his neighbor; where never a murder has been done since the beginning
of time; where there is no poverty, no drunkenness, no pestilence,
tempest, or sickness, no war, and no oppression. All these fine
countries are under the sway of the magnificent Prester John.

Here, on the borders of that Land of Perpetual Darkness, which
stretches away to the Terrestrial Paradise, we take leave of our good
knight, now near the end of his travels. "Rheumatic gouts" began to
torture his wandering limbs and warn him to go home. He has, indeed,
a few more stories to tell; but they are dull in comparison with the
wonders we have already recounted. Much more, indeed, he might have
written; but he gives a truly ingenuous reason for checking his pen:

    "And therefore, now that I have devised you of certain
    countries which I have spoken of before, I beseech your worthy
    and excellent nobleness that it suffice to you at this time;
    for if I told you all that is beyond the sea, another man
    perhaps, who would labor to go into those parts to seek those
    countries, might be blamed by my words in rehearsing many
    strange things; for he might not say any thing new, in which
    the hearers might have either solace or pleasure."




HOME SCENES IN NEW ENGLAND.


CHAPTER I.

MY AUNT AND THE CATECHISM.

"There sister! I told you what would come of letting that dear child
hear little Mary Ann recite the Romanist catechism. Here we have our
little Kitty setting herself up as a judge in matters of religion,
and quoting the answers she has learned by hearing them repeated! Not
but that she is as good a child as her auntie or her mother could
desire; but her brain is too thoroughly American, too much given to
going to the bottom of any subject it is once interested in, to stop
half-way in a matter of this kind. I knew all the time how it would
end."

Here my maiden aunt paused, more in sorrow than in anger, and little
Kitty remarked playfully,

"If _truth_ lies at the bottom of a well, as you once told me,
auntie, how could we ever reach it without going to the bottom?"
While Kitty's mother replied to her sister in a half-apologizing
manner,

"Why, Laura, I consented to let her hear Mary Ann's catechism, simply
because Kitty told me that the poor mother was so much occupied
in striving to earn a living for her little fatherless ones that
she could not hear it herself; and then the priest was expected to
come here soon, to prepare the children for confirmation, which is
to be given shortly by the bishop. So there was no time to lose. I
certainly did not think there could be any danger in a mere act of
kindness."

"Danger!" exclaimed grandmamma, in defence of her little pet. "If
there's danger in a little knowledge of the Catholic catechism,
it must be because our house is built on a sandy foundation, and
hence we fear it will be destroyed by a little outside religious
information. For my part, I have no objection to full examination in
these matters; nor have I any fear for the result."

A long-drawn sigh and an ejaculation of grief from the corner of the
room called our attention to where grandmamma's sister--"Aunt Ruby,"
the widow of a Congregational minister--sat knitting, removed from
the light of the evening lamps because of the weakness of her eyes.

"O sister! sister! how can you talk so. The old adversary goeth about
everywhere like a roaring lion. He lies hid even in that dish of
meal. If he can only get our folks to questioning and examining, then
the mischief is done; and we shall have popish priests coming here,
carrying on their crossings and their blessings, offering to sell
pardons for our sins, and making us all bow the knee to Baal, and
pray to their graven images. I shudder to think of it!"

"They do not pray to graven images, Aunt Ruby; the catechism
expressly forbids it!" replied Kitty.

"There comes that old catechism again!" exclaimed Aunt Laura. "If
Mary Ann's catechism forbids it, then the book was trumped up to
deceive American children, and is entirely different from the
catechisms used in Ireland or France."

"As for that, auntie, Mary Ann's mother has one she brought from
Ireland many years ago, and it teaches just the same things.
But there is one thing in both that you will acknowledge as
binding--'Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor;'
and the catechism explains that it forbids 'all false testimonies,
rash judgments, and lies.' It seems to me that good people should be
careful not to accuse the Catholic Church--"

"Romanist, if you please!"

"Well, the Roman Catholic Church, of things they do not know to be
true; and I see no harm in inquiring what is true, and what false, in
all that is brought against it. Here is our neighbor across the road,
a pious Methodist, will not let her little girl, who was my best
friend, play with me any more, because I said I thought lies about
Catholics were just as bad as lies about Methodists. But I shall
always think so, if I lose the friendship of every body."

A sigh and a groan were heard from the dark corner, and a voice, "O
poor child! the poison is beginning to work, and there's no knowing
where it will end. If things are to go on in this way, it is just as
likely as any thing in the world that we shall have the Pope of Rome
and all his cardinals down among us before we know it, letting folks
out of purgatory, selling indulgences to commit sin, and doing so
many other awful things!"

"Ha! ha!" laughed Kitty's father, who had just come in. "Never mind,
Aunt Ruby, the pope will never take you, so you need not stand in
fear of him. You are too much in the dark, and I fear never could
bear the light sufficiently to become one of the children of holy
church."

Kitty's eldest brother, who had been educated in a Catholic college,
had come in with his father, and now whispered slyly to grandmamma,

"I don't know about that; I have great hopes for Aunt Ruby yet. When
she left the Episcopal Church, and was propounded for admission into
the Congregational, before she married the minister, you remember how
the old deacons groaned in spirit over her because they could not get
her to say she was 'willing to be damned.'[34] They insisted that the
'old carnal heart' was still too strong in her, and they protested
with one voice that it would never do for their minister to marry a
woman who was not 'willing to be damned.' Perhaps the dear old lady
remains yet of the same mind. If so, she may escape, after all."


CHAPTER II.

WHAT OUR NEIGHBORS THOUGHT OF IT.

"So you have all heard of this affair! Then I suppose it must be
true. Well, for my part, I never could have thought it possible
here in New England, and in the light of this nineteenth century!"
exclaimed a grave-looking, elderly lady, who sat in the centre of
a group of women who had met together to spend the afternoon in
chatting and knitting. "I never could have believed that a woman so
well-informed and so good as Mrs. S---- would allow her child to
be ensnared and deceived by these wicked papists. I was perfectly
astonished when I heard of it."

"And so was I," rejoined another and younger individual of the group.
"I called to inquire of Mrs. S---- herself, to ask if the report was
true. She said it was true; and, what do you think? she even went so
far as to say that she hoped her Kitty would never read a worse book
than that awful Romanist catechism! What is to become of us when good
people and professing Christians talk in this way? I am afraid the
poor woman is in great danger herself."

"Of course she is," said another; "but if she has a craving for error
herself, she has no right to expose her child to the influence of it.
I am told she openly maintains, and in Kitty's presence too, that
good works are necessary to salvation, and even dares to talk about
penance and all those popish abominations. Only the other day, Kitty
told me she thought lies about Catholics were just as bad as lies
about Methodists. I informed the young lady that I should have no
more visiting between her and my daughter. I was sorry to grieve poor
Kitty, she is such a good little girl; but I could not have the mind
of my child poisoned by such dangerous doctrines."

A little woman, whose knitting-needles had been clicking with
marvellous rapidity and energy, and whose countenance had indicated
the most earnest attention and interest during this colloquy, here
ventured to remark that she thought Kitty's opinion was very just,
and she would really like to know what there was so very dangerous in
the Catholic catechism. She had become acquainted with many Catholics
while visiting her friends in Canada, and they seemed to be as good
people as there are anywhere. She wished she could be informed as to
the particular and alarming errors taught by this church.

All voices were raised at once in expressions of surprise at such
astounding ignorance. "Is it possible there is any one who does
not know that the Roman church is a mass of errors, corruptions,
superstitious mummeries and idolatries? that Romanists pray to saints
and graven images instead of praying to God? that the priests keep
the people in darkness and ignorance in order to domineer over them
at their pleasure. Errors, to be sure!"

The minute individual whose remarks had raised this storm of
indignation, here interposed by saying emphatically, "I confess I
do not know much about this church, except that in this country
it is everywhere denounced in the strongest terms. But it is not
necessarily as bad as its enemies represent it to be, any more than
the primitive church was. I do not dare to condemn any body of
Christians--"

"Christians!" interrupted an old lady with more acid than honey in
her aspect and manner; "Christians!" with an unmistakable sneer.

"Yes, Christians!" resumed the other; "for I am told they believe
in our Lord Jesus Christ; and, as I was saying, I would not dare
to condemn them without knowing from themselves, instead of their
enemies, what their doctrines are."

The conversation was here interrupted by the entrance of Kitty's
mother, who was received with a cold reserve that revealed to her at
once what the subject of their discussion had been. Being of a frank
and fearless disposition, and possessing much of that American candor
of soul which insists on fair play in every contest, she opened the
subject without hesitation, by saying,

"I have been informed, ladies, that my neighbors are greatly alarmed
because I allowed my little girl to hear a Catholic child recite the
catechism. I have examined the little book carefully, and cannot find
any thing in it to justify such fears. I am not at all afraid it will
hurt my child."

A solemn silence followed this declaration, when an excited
individual inquired with much vehemence, "What does it say about
priests pardoning sins, about praying to saints, and praying souls
out of purgatory?"

"As to the power of the priests to pardon sins, it merely repeats the
words of our Lord, 'Whose sins ye shall forgive, they are forgiven;'
and I confess I never before noticed how very clear and decisive they
were, especially when he added, 'And lo! I am with you always, even
unto the end of the world.' As to praying to saints, it asserts that
the saints in glory pray to God for us, and help us by their prayers,
and that the souls in purgatory are assisted by our prayers for them."

"There's no such place as purgatory!" indignantly exclaimed an old
lady. "I don't believe a word of it."

"Unfortunately for you, my dear friend," replied Kitty's mother,
"your believing or disbelieving does not make the least difference
in this matter. If there is a purgatory, as was always held by the
Jewish church and has been by many Protestants, your opinion will
not change the fact or abolish the institution. I really think the
Catholic doctrine, that the church triumphant prays for the church
militant, (for what is the true Christian but a soldier of Christ
engaged in a life-long conflict with the world, the flesh, and the
devil?) and that the church militant supplicates the mercy of God
on behalf of the church suffering, is a beautiful and a consoling
one. It is a golden chain that binds the souls of the redeemed in
holy communion with each other. The grave that has closed over the
precious form of a dear friend no longer places an inseparable
barrier between us and the departed soul, but serves rather to bring
us into closer and more tender sympathy with it. Whether true or not,
I think it is a beautiful idea."

"And so do I," added the energetic little knitter; "and I would like
to know more about this doctrine."

The gentleman of the house, an able lawyer of the place, who had
entered during this conversation, here declared his intention of
procuring from the priest on his next visit some books explaining
Catholic doctrines.

"For," he remarked, "it certainly is not just to hear all the
accusing party has to say, and then refuse to listen to the defence."

Countenances expressive of indignation and alarm, with sighs and
groans from most of the party, were the only remonstrances offered to
this bold proposition.


CHAPTER III.

THE OPINION OF THE SEWING-CIRCLE.

"I am sure I don't know what will happen next in our village!
What would have been said thirty years ago of such outrageous
performances?"

These were the words that greeted my ears as I entered the sewing
society at Mrs. B----'s, on a fine afternoon in August, 18--. The
speaker, who was an energetic middle-aged lady, continued, "First
there was the S---- family, with their Romish catechism and their
inquiring into forbidden things, all going on the broad road to
destruction as rapidly as possible, with ever so many more fascinated
and entangled in the same net; and now here Mr. W---- and his whole
family have fairly rushed through the gate and joined those children
of perdition, the Romanists. It is too bad; too much for human
patience!"

"Nothing more than might be expected of those Episcopalians!"
exclaimed a prim-looking young lady. "It is but a step from their
church to Rome. I am not at all surprised."

"I am not so sure of that," remarked Mrs. J----. "I suspect the
Episcopalians differ just as much from the Romanists, after all,
as the Congregationalists or any other Protestant sect. They are
Protestants, you know, as well as we. You remember Miss E----, who
was the principal of our female seminary for some time, a lady of
remarkable intelligence and rare culture, and a very dear friend of
mine in Massachusetts, before she came here. She was always a devoted
Congregationalist from the time she first experienced religion; but
she has lately become, I am sorry to say, a Romanist; and, what
is still worse, she is about to join their Sisters of Charity! I
received from her, not long ago, a letter explaining her reasons,
and speaking of what she calls our 'misapprehensions of Catholic
doctrine.' She says she has not laid aside any part of her former
belief; but has only made such additions as complete the system, and
render portions which before were dubious, discordant, and perplexing
fragments the clear, harmonious, distinct, and necessary members
of a perfect whole. I assure you she has more to say for herself
than you would believe possible, and she knows how to say it, too,
in a most impressive manner. She told me, also, of many others of
our persuasion who will probably join the Catholic Church. So the
Episcopalians are not alone, you see, in this movement."

"True," said Mrs. G----; "for there is Mrs. H---- and her daughter,
who were leading Methodists. They have joined this popish rabble,
and are so very happy in their new home that it is past belief, and
quite amusing to people of common sense. I don't believe it makes
any difference what body of Protestant Christians folks belong to;
if they once get to pondering on these things, they are almost sure
to follow their noses into the Roman Church before they stop. When
the mind gets fairly waked up, it does not seem possible to quiet it
in any other way. And then, as you say, they are all so perfectly
contented and joyous when they have once entered the 'fold,' as they
call it, that it is a puzzle to sober-minded Christians! I think this
new priest who has lately come among us is doing immense mischief
already."

"Of course he is!" chimed in another lady with much asperity. "He is
so very agreeable and polite, so gentle and easy to get acquainted
with, that every one is attracted by him. Then he is an American, and
knows so much better how to make himself acceptable to our people
than the other one did, that he is a great deal more dangerous on
that account. My son George, who would not speak to Kitty S----,
Jennie H----, and the W----s, you know, after they began to patronize
Romanism--though he thought every thing of them before--is already
quite at home with this new priest; takes long walks with him, and
even went to the church last Sunday, just to see how they get on over
there."

"Oh! yes, he told me all about it," said Miss Mary B----. He said it
was perfectly astonishing to see Mr. W---- singing and chanting with
those shabby Canadians; and there were the W----s, the H----s, and
the S----s, kneeling right in the midst of that rabble, and to all
appearance as intent on their prayers, and as much absorbed in what
was going on, as any one present. They seemed quite at home, and to
understand every thing as well as if they had been accustomed to it
all their lifetime. George said he placed himself where they couldn't
help seeing him; but they were not disconcerted in the least. Even
the girls never seemed to notice him at all. He said they doubtless
understood the service, but he didn't. I think, Mrs. G----, that it
will not be very safe for George to go there often; for he told
me that there was a wonderful solemnity and fascination about the
place--which is not much better than a mere shanty--and about the
service, though he didn't understand a word of it. He never felt so
solemn in all his life, he said; and that was a great deal for such a
scatterbrain as George to say."

"I have heard others older and wiser than he say the same," remarked
a thoughtful-looking widow with a sigh. "My brother, who is a
deacon, and a man of very cool temperament and calm judgment, says
he never was in a Catholic place of worship but once, and then he
was almost frightened at the sensation of awe that came over him. He
said it seemed to him that the impression it made was what one would
naturally expect if their doctrine of the real presence were true,
and the sight of the solemn assurance which a great many apparently
devout and good people evidently possessed of their near approach
to their Redeemer, really present in that place, affected him so
sensibly that he could not shake the feeling off. It was a very plain
little chapel, by no means equal to our churches; but he said it
seemed as if something whispered to him that he was standing on holy
ground. He has been very painfully exercised about these matters ever
since, and he says that the sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel, which
never troubled him before, now appears to be all in favor of their
doctrine."

"For my part, I don't see why Protestants want to go near them at
all!" exclaimed another indignantly. "It only brings about mischief;
and the only way to put down such things is to set our faces
resolutely against every one that countenances any thing pertaining
to Romanism. We must be determined that we will have nothing to
do with such people in any way. We must keep entirely aloof from
Romanists and from Romanizers."

"Well, I confess that I am very much puzzled about all these
matters," quietly observed a lady of very gentle manners, in a low
voice. "I cannot help having misgivings that a system which carries
into its minutest circumstances and details such almost irresistible
power may perhaps, after all, owe it to the force of truth. It is
certainly sustained and animated by some principle not possessed or
exerted by Protestantism in any of its branches."

"It is a principle of evil, then," cried the former austere speaker.
"The Prince of Darkness knows how to appear as an 'angel of light'!"

"Ah!" resumed the other; "but you know our Lord said, 'If they have
called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more those of his
household!' We ought to be careful how we bring such accusations
against a church which certainly numbers some very good people among
its members. One thing may be said of it, that the poor are tenderly
cherished and cared for within its pale; and I can never believe that
the evil one is the dispenser or instigator of so many charities as
are instituted and supported by this church."

"All done for effect, and to lead poor Protestants astray! Take care,
my dear friend; for these misgivings are the beginning of danger, and
if you follow them, they will surely lead you into the Romish Church.
That is the way all those who have lost the light of Protestantism
have been ensnared."

"If it should prove that they gave up an _ignis fatuus_ for the light
of the star that guided the wise men of old to the crib of the Infant
Redeemer, did they not do well rather than ill?" suggested the quiet
speaker, and was answered only by a murmur of indignation at her bold
conjecture, as the party withdrew to another room where the tea-table
was spread for their refreshment.


CHAPTER IV.

WHAT HAPPENED AT THE DONATION-PARTY.

"Did you go to the donation party at our minister's last night,
sister C----? I was so sorry that I couldn't go! My little girl had
such a bad cold, I did not dare to leave her."

"Yes, I was there; and, don't you think! Mrs. H---- was there too,
with her daughter. Would you have believed she would dare to show her
face among the Methodists, after what has happened?"

"No, indeed, I should not! But wonders will never cease. How did she
appear?"

"As pleasant and gentle as ever; and just as much at home as if she
had never left us to join the Catholics. Sister J---- would not speak
to her at first, or look at her; and our good old brother L----, who
used to be her class-leader, you know, quite turned the cold shoulder
upon her; but she was not to be put off so easily; and after a little
while, her kind and winning ways had thawed all the ice, and we
couldn't help being pleasant with her."

"Well, I always did love sister H----; hence I don't want to meet her
now. I am glad I was not there! Did any one speak to her about her
change?"

"Yes; brother L---- could not help telling her how sorry we were to
lose her; and she said, 'You have not lost me, brother L----; I shall
never forget my dear Methodist friends, and shall never cease to
love and pray for them!' 'Pray for them!' brother L---- said with
great contempt; 'we don't thank people for praying to the saints
for us; we can pray to God for ourselves. Ah Sister H----! if you
would only pray to him as you used to, when you were a warm-hearted
Methodist, that would do!' Her answer to this was what puzzled me.
I remember every word of it, she looked so grieved, and so sweetly
earnest, while the tears fairly came to her eyes as she said, 'Pray
to God as I used to, Brother L----! Why, I never knew the meaning
of the word prayer until I was a Catholic! I then entered the very
atmosphere of prayer! My life, my breath, my every thought, my every
action, became one continual prayer to an ever-present God from that
hour. The saints united with me, assisted me--at my request prayed
for me--and for those for whom I desired their prayers in union
with my own; and of that perfect union and communion with them, I
can give you no idea. O brother L----! believe me, there is no home
for a 'warm-hearted Methodist' but the Catholic Church! Don't you
remember, in our class conferences, how I used to say I was happy,
but not satisfied; I felt that I was still a seeker. I had been first
a Congregationalist, then an Episcopalian, and at last a Methodist;
but had not found all I was seeking for. You thought I never would
until I reached heaven; but'--and how I wish, dear friend, you could
have seen and heard her as she said it, for I cannot describe her
impressive manner--'but brother, I have found it all in the Catholic
Church! The blank is filled. The yearning of my soul is satisfied so
entirely that there is nothing left to desire!'

"'All a delusion, sister H----!' exclaimed brother L----. 'You'll
wake up some time and find it so, and then you'll come back!' She
looked perfectly dismayed at the very thought, as she replied,
'Come back to what? To content myself with the shadow, when I have
possessed the substance? to satisfy my hunger with the husks of
the stranger, when I have feasted at the continual and overflowing
banquet of my Father's table! O my Methodist friends! if you could
but taste for once the sweetness and fulness of that banquet, you
would never cast one backward look upon what you had left, except
to mourn for those who remain contented there, when they might be
feasting on the bread of angels!' I confess to you, Mrs. M----, that
I could not help being moved by her earnestness to wish that I was
even as she is! No one can doubt her entire sincerity who listens
to her. Brother L---- asked her if it could be possible that she
believed all the absurdities taught by the Romish Church? She replied
that she believed no absurdities, and that he had not the slightest
idea as to what the Catholic Church really did teach; a tissue of
absurdities had been invented by its enemies, and palmed off upon the
too credulous Protestants as its teachings, when they were entirely
foreign to it, and baseless misrepresentations. 'But,' she added, 'I
believe all that my church really does offer to my belief, as firmly
as I believe that there is a sun in the firmament of heaven!'"

"Well, how strange it all is, to be sure! Now, I met Mrs. L---- the
other day, and I was so provoked at the way they are going on, that
I could not for my life help asking her why, in the name of common
sense, if they wanted to be Romanists, they didn't all go together
like sensible people, and not string along, one to-day, another
to-morrow, and so on, as they do? And what do you think was her
reply? 'Why, you know, Mrs. M----,' she said; 'that we read of the
olden time that, "The Lord added _daily_ unto the church of such as
should be saved"!' There is one thing, as you say, that cannot be
doubted or denied: right or wrong, they are solemnly in earnest, and
heartily sincere. You know little Kitty S---- had a terrible fit
of sickness before they became Catholics, (some think her sickness
hastened that event,) and has been a great sufferer ever since.
Sister W---- has taken care of her through it all, and I should not
wonder if she should go off on the same road. She is all taken up
with it now, and justifies their course; says all the evils we have
been accustomed to hear of the Catholic religion are slanders, and
that if the S----s, and especially little Kitty, are not Christians
of the true stamp, she does not rightly understand the gospel of
Christ."


CHAPTER V.

REMINISCENCES OF THE PAST.

After an absence of over twenty years, we returned to the pleasant
village in New England which had formerly exercised over us the charm
that pertains to the magic name of HOME.

Seeking out one of the few old neighbors who were left, on the
morning after our arrival, I was met with the surprised and joyful
exclamation,

"Why, my dear Mrs. J----! can it be possible that this is your own
self? I had no hopes of ever seeing you again in this world."

"It is indeed myself," I replied. "We have long been wanderers by
'field and flood;' but have at length returned to remain a short time
among the scenes of other years. If you are at leisure, I want to
settle down into my own cosy corner of the dear old sitting-room,
just as if I had never been away, and ask you as many questions about
village affairs and those of the olden time as you will want to
answer."

"You could not furnish me with a greater pleasure, I assure you! But
O my friend! what changes have taken place since you left! Very few
of those who were with us then still remain. Many have died, some
have gone 'West,' and some have found their way to San Francisco and
other parts of California."

"Where are the W----s?" I inquired.

"They removed to another place some years ago, and their family is
widely scattered; but they remain united in spirit, and steadfast in
the faith."

"And the S----s?"

"Only three of them are living. One has gone to the far West, and the
others have left this place. Little Kitty, after years of patient
suffering, during which she never ceased to thank God for having
permitted her to find in the holy Catholic Church 'the path over
which so many saints and martyrs have passed to heaven'--as she
expressed it--at length meekly and joyfully resigned her youthful
spirit to her Maker; leaving the light of a beautiful example to
shine around the lonely home, and console the bereaved family. Her
grandmother, who embraced the faith soon after her granddaughter made
profession of it, followed her to the other world in a few months,
consoled by all the rites of the church, in which, though she entered
its blessed inclosure late in life, she had in a 'short space,' by
her good words and works, acquired the merit of many years. Then
'Aunt Laura' and Kitty's younger sister joined them, 'rejoicing
in hope.' 'Aunt Ruby' survived them some years, and was often
heard to wish, with a sigh, that she could be sure she was as well
prepared to leave the world as her Catholic sister; but she never
had the courage to brave the ill-opinion of her own little world of
Congregationalism--over the modern innovations and delinquencies of
which she never ceased to mourn--by following that sister into the
only 'ark of safety.'"

"Ah!" I exclaimed; "how many changes indeed. Then I shall never see
those dear friends whom I had so fondly hoped to meet again. And
where is Mrs. L----, our energetic little knitter, who was so true to
every impulse of divine grace and truth?"

"She has long slept in the village cemetery. 'Faithful unto death!'
might well have been the inscription upon her grave. She passed
through severe and bitter trials, and was made to feel that there
are tortures as cruel as those of the rack or wheel, to a sensitive
spirit, in the cold contempt and neglect of those who should have
been her protectors, as they were her only earthly support. But she
never wavered for a moment in her firm trust, or ceased to rejoice
that she had been called to the profession of the true faith, which
abundantly sustained her under all her griefs and sufferings."

"And dear, gentle Mrs. N----? I felt sure she would forsake the
_ignis fatuus_ of Protestantism at last for 'the light of the star
that guided the wise men' of old, though she was so long in making up
her mind."

"She did so; and died rejoicing in its light, by the crib of
Bethlehem!"

"Do Mrs. H---- and her daughter still live?"

"The daughter died some years ago, and was laid near little Kitty
S----, whom she tenderly loved, and regarded as the chief instrument
of her conversion. Her mother has removed to some distance; but is
as fervently thankful to-day for the great gift of faith as she was
on that memorable one when she first accepted it, and turned from old
and dear associations to find the 'only home for the warm-hearted
Methodist,' in the bosom of the Catholic Church."

"I heard, soon after I left, that the G----s became Catholics. Was it
true?"

"Yes; and very faithful and fervent children of the church they were;
illustrating the beauty of Catholic truths by the shining virtues of
their lives. But, alas! of the whole family--father, mother, and five
children--but one survives. They departed followed by the prayers and
benedictions of the whole Catholic congregation, to whose service
they had devoted their best efforts."

"Then there were the B----s, the K----s, and the C----s, who were
deeply interested in Catholic truths when I left. Did they follow out
their convictions?"

"No; they were 'almost persuaded' to cast in their lot with the happy
band of converts; but the storm of obloquy and reproach which soon
gathered around the devoted company--without in the least disturbing
their peace--so appalled those outside, that they did not dare to
follow the inspiration, or ever again to seek its aid. Some became
Spiritualists, some Second Adventists, and those who remain nominally
as they were before, have fallen into hopeless indifference to all
religion, and intense worldliness; seeking in petty ambitions and
trifling pursuits the comfort they are no longer able to find in
the bosom of any sect. The glimmering of Catholic light which they
accepted had served only to reveal to them the utter emptiness of
Protestantism, when they steadfastly closed their eyes to any further
illumination. While life remains there is hope; but such cases as
these seem as nearly hopeless as any in this world can be."

We visited the cemetery, where reposed the mortal remains of so many
friends who had been the theme of our conversation; and I found
familiar names more numerous there than were familiar faces among
the living. We also sought together the spacious church which had
been erected during my absence, and which is a beautiful and enduring
evidence of the active zeal of a congregation which is richer in holy
memories, and in faith, hope, and charity, than in the goods of this
world.

FOOTNOTE:

[34] A question that used to be urged as a test of fitness for
membership, and an affirmative answer required. The custom has now
become obsolete.




SONNET.

TO ITALY.


    All-radiant region! would that thou wert free!
    Free 'mid thine Alpine realm of cloud and pine,
    Free 'mid the rich vales of thine Apennine,
    Free to the Adrian and the Tyrrhene Sea!
    God with a two-fold freedom franchise thee!
    Freedom from alien bonds, so often thine,
    Freedom from Gentile hopes--death-fires that shine
    O'er the foul grave of pagan liberty,
    With pagan empire side by side interred;
    Then round the fixed throne of their Roman sire
    Thy sister states should hang, a pleiad choir,
    With saintly beam unblunted and unblurred,
    A splendor to the Christian splendor clinging,
    A lyre star-strung, ever the "new song" singing!

                                             AUBREY DE VERE.




IRELAND'S MISSION.

BY W. MAZIERE BRADY, D.D., AN IRISH PROTESTANT CLERGYMAN.


Few persons expected that the passing of Mr. Gladstone's
disestablishment bill would have immediately introduced a golden
age into Ireland. The leading promoters of that measure never
regarded it as one which was final and complete; but rather as a
necessary prelude to certain reconstructive measures more powerful
and important than itself. The abolition of the ascendency of an
alien church did not restore--and did not affect to restore--to the
Catholic Church its ancient status and endowments. The attempt would
be entirely vain to regather the _disjecta membra_ of the great body
of Irish church temporalities long since dispersed and broken up by
successive spoliations and alienations. The property dealt with by
the recent legislation is but a small fraction of what once belonged
to the Irish Church. Restitution, unhappily, is often impossible to
the statesman. He may build up an edifice upon ruins, and create new
empires out of revolutions. But he can no more give back to outraged
nationalities their unsullied honor, or to plundered kingdoms their
squandered treasures, than he can restore to those fallen from purity
their virgin crown or reendow criminals with a conscience void of
offence and free from sear of guilt. And therefore the removal of
the alien church led to no replacement of the old Catholic Church in
the position vacated by its Protestant rival; but merely paved the
way for the introduction of constructive measures upon the nature
of which will depend the future, not of Ireland merely, but of the
British empire. Amidst these constructive measures the statesman will
not reckon any provisions for the maintenance or aggrandisement of
the Catholic Church in Ireland. A church which withstood calamity
and survived the loss of its possessions, and flourished under three
hundred years of bitter persecution, may safely be left to itself.
State patronage, in any extended form, might corrupt, but could
not strengthen, Irish Catholicism. Catholics in many countries are
beginning to feel that freedom of action and development is of far
greater value than endowments to the church. In Ireland, Catholics
have long since perceived and acknowledged that liberty--not the
enervating influence of court favor--is the true bulwark of Catholic
worship.

Legislators have, in fact, no occasion to take into their
consideration the Irish Catholic Church, except in so far as its
power and interests intermingle with the educational and other
social and political problems which demand deep and impartial
inquiry. Whoever examines, without prejudice or passion, the actual
position of Ireland as an integral part of the British empire must
confess that Ireland forms at this time, more than at any other,
the cardinal point of English policy. Gibraltar was once the key
to the Mediterranean and to political supremacy in Europe. Ireland
is to England another Gibraltar, on whose rock British power must
be either consolidated or riven. The Ireland of 1870 is rapidly
entering on a new phase of existence, which is none the less
worthy of the statesman's study because it is the result of causes
altogether beyond his control. Ireland is no longer an island
lying within a few hours' sail of the English navy, inhabited by
men whose interests may be disposed of without reference to the
wishes of any save the inhabitants of Great Britain. The people of
Ireland are by no means confined within the territorial limits of
that country. The Irish nation has two homes. The one is in Ireland,
the other is in America. Misgovernment sent half Ireland into
exile, and those exiles have prospered and multiplied to an extent
far exceeding any known examples of similar transmigrations. But
although there are two homes, there is but one nation of Irishmen.
Five millions of men occupy Irish soil, but far more than twice five
millions of Irishmen dwelling in foreign lands not only claim but
exercise an ever-increasing influence on Irish politics. Some few
among the ultra-conservative statesmen of England--and among them
one no less distinguished than the great chief of the late Tory
administration--looked with eyes of cruel satisfaction on the exodus
which wiser men regarded with awe as a hemorrhage draining away the
life-blood of their kingdom. The famine was to these bigoted men a
God-gift, which swept off what they flippantly termed a superabundant
population. Emigration was, in their eyes, a more tedious and costly
process for the decimation of Irish Catholics. Protestants, belonging
chiefly to the dominant and richer class, were in proportion to
their numbers less exposed than Catholics to the severity of the
famine and the necessity of expatriation. Famine and emigration,
if only Providence would prolong and intensify their action, would
alter--so they thought--the numerical proportions between Catholics
and Protestants make Ireland a Protestant country and render the
church establishment less anomalous. Let a few more years pass--so
argued these reasoners--and instead of having to legislate for a
Catholic, discontented, Ireland, over-populated and half-pauperized,
we shall have to deal with one comparatively Protestant, which
will be prosperous, happy, and loyal to the British crown. It is
recorded of an English statesman that he once expressed a wish--in
jest, no doubt--that Ireland were for an hour submerged in the
Atlantic, that it might rise again stripped of its inhabitants, a
fresh field for the importation of English Protestant colonists.
The folly of wishing for either a flood or a famine to repair the
defects of English legislation for Ireland, is now as apparent as
the cruelty. Even though the island of Ireland were reduced to such
a _tabula rasa_ as some bigots would desire, England must take into
account the thousands and millions of Irishmen in various lands who
constitute part of the Irish nation, and who think, plan, and pray
for the happiness of their traditional fatherland. And fortunately
for the interests of England, no less than of Ireland, a policy has
of late been adopted by the leaders of the great liberal party which
professes to deal with Catholic Ireland, not as with a venomous
thing to be guarded against, kept down, and, if possible, crushed,
but as a country to be tenderly regarded, carefully cherished, and
legislated for with a view to the contentment and preservation of
its Catholic people. The policy of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Bright, and
the party of which they are now the recognized chiefs, is at present
but partially developed, yet has already produced good fruits.
Righteousness exalteth a nation, and England has risen immensely
in the opinion of wise and good men in Europe and America by that
great though tardy--the greater, perhaps, because so tardy--act of
righteousness, namely, the abolition of an English Protestant church
establishment for Irish Catholics. The sympathies of all honest men
in every quarter of the globe are with the English government in its
endeavor to stay the tide of Irish emigration, and retain Irishmen
upon their native soil as contented occupiers and owners of farms.
But admiration and sympathy are not the only rewards which England
may reap by steadily following out the policy begun by Mr. Gladstone.
The integrity of the British empire may be shown to depend upon the
continued development of the principles which carried the Irish
church bill of 1869 and introduced an Irish land bill in 1870. If it
be too presumptuous to attempt to forecast a triumphant progress for
those principles, it will yet be not wholly profitless to denote the
perils and obstructions which beset the way.

The disturbances and outrages which in Ireland preceded and followed
the passing of the disestablishment bill, were the natural result of
the violent harangues uttered by the fanatic debaters of the Church
Defence Association, many of whom announced to their excited auditors
that the land bill of Mr. Gladstone would confiscate the property
of Protestant land-owners in Ireland. The evil passions of men thus
deceived into a belief that a wrong was intended not only to their
church but to their lands, found vent not merely in hard words and
cruel threats, but in merciless deeds. Some Protestant landlords
withheld the accustomed local charitable contributions which, as
owners of property, they had hitherto given to various institutions.
Others issued notices of ejection against their tenants, and these
attempted ejections produced--as capricious injustice is certain
to do--ill-will and resistance. Outrages, even assassinations,
occurred. But such offences against public order may be expected to
cease when the causes of them are removed. Time will allay the heat
of bygone party conflicts. Agrarian outrages will, if the land bill
be good for any thing, occur as rarely in Ireland as in America.
Industrious laborers will, it is to be hoped, find it easy to rent
or purchase small holdings on which they may expend their toil, and
in which they may invest their savings without fear of their being
appropriated to the use of felonious landlords by means of notices
to quit. It is when the excitement of the land and church questions
shall have yielded to the pressure of other momentous questions, that
the real danger will threaten the onward march of those principles
which, in the opinion of many, can alone safely guide the mutual
relations between England and Ireland. The education question will
be a highly perilous one. If the liberal party put forward a scheme
for compulsory, or secular, or sectarian education, which shall, on
whatever pretext, either nominally or practically, tend to withdraw
the education of Catholic children from the immediate control of
the priests, the result will be disappointment and disaster. Free
education, in the sense of an education independent of religion,
has great charms in the eyes of English and Irish liberals. Some
Catholics are inclined to favor any scheme which would place a
superior system of secular instruction within the reach of the great
bulk of the poorer and middle class, even though it should not
provide for that religious training which is a characteristic of a
strictly Catholic education. But the Catholic clergy of Ireland, to
a man, and those members of Parliament who represent Irish Catholic
constituencies, will give strenuous and effectual opposition to
undenominational or secular education under its open guise, although
they may prove unable to resist the employment, in a modified shape,
of the principle which they regard as pernicious. It will be much
to the advantage of Great Britain if the education of Catholics in
England, as well as in Ireland, be made thoroughly Catholic. The
vast, and in many respects admirable system of national education in
Ireland, which, twenty or thirty years ago, was favorably regarded
by very many of the Irish Catholic bishops and clergy, has long
since been declared unsatisfactory by the Catholic hierarchy.
The elementary national schools are now merely tolerated. The
national model schools are loudly denounced. The national system
aimed at giving to all children a combined secular instruction and
at affording opportunities for separate religious instruction.
The priest and the parson were invited to become joint patrons
of schools. The board of education were to supply school-rooms,
teachers, books, and requisites for a secular instruction in which
all the pupils were to share. The ministers of various denominations
were to supply, either personally or by deputy, a religious teaching
to their respective pupils. Thus an hour or more was to be set apart
for religious teaching. During that hour the Catholic children were
to be taught the Catholic religion by the priest, or by one of the
masters under the priest's direction, and the Protestant children
were similarly to be taught the principles of Protestantism in
another room by the parson, or by one of the teachers under his
control. It was supposed that all ministers of religion would join in
carrying out a system which thus provided for the general education
of the poor, without interfering with the conscientious discharge
of that part of the ministerial duty of clergymen which relates
to the religious teaching of the young. The idea of instructing
Catholic and Protestant children together and bringing them up in
habits of mutual affection and esteem, was specious and captivating.
Who could withhold his quota of aid toward realizing the prospect
thus held out of future generations of educated Irishmen of various
creeds, each respecting the religious principles of the others while
strong in his own, and all loyal to the impartial government of the
British crown? Yet, at its very outset, the clergy and bishops of the
Protestant establishment held aloof from the national board. They
refused any partnership with Catholic priests in the management of
schools, and declared that their consciences would not permit them
to consent to support a system which set limits to the free use of
the holy Scriptures during secular instruction. In vain was it shown
that in Protestant universities, colleges, and higher schools, nay,
that in the very order for divine service according to the ritual
of the establishment, a limit was actually set to the use of the
holy Scriptures by the appointment of fixed times and places for the
study and reading and exposition of the sacred word. In vain was
it demonstrated that neither insult nor disparagement was intended
by regulations which might be looked on as scarcely different from
those which prevented a lecturer in mathematics from giving his
class a dissertation upon Isaiah, and denied a clergyman of the
establishment the privilege of interpolating his reading of the
litany with a chapter from the Apocalypse. The establishment clergy,
with a few notable exceptions, asserted it as their right and duty
to use the Scriptures at all times in their schools, and declared it
to be a sin to consent to suspend, even during the hours of combined
secular instruction, their office of teachers of divine truth. By
adopting this course they lost whatever claim to public estimation
they might otherwise have had as helpers of education, and hastened,
undoubtedly, the fall of their establishment. It has lately, through
the publication of Archbishop Whately's biography by his daughter and
of the journals of Mr. Senior, been fully disclosed that a desire
for proselytism, although in his lifetime he publicly professed
the contrary, was at the bottom of that able prelate's energetic
support of the national system. The religious and moral teaching
of the books used for combined secular instruction had, so argued
Whately in private, a strong tendency to implant truths which must
lead to the reception of Protestantism. Give free scope, so reasoned
the archbishop, to the national system, and, although the priests
may not perceive their danger, Ireland must cease to be a Catholic
country. When publicly advocating the national system, Whately's
language was, of course, far different. Then he maintained stoutly
that the books were thoroughly impartial, he repudiated with affected
loathing any dishonorable desire to make converts to Protestantism,
and he professed the most scrupulous respect for the consciences of
those who differed from him in religion. The posthumous publication
of Whately's real sentiments--destructive as that publication is
of much of his reputation, and especially of his character for
straightforwardness--forms a valuable vindication, not merely of
the behaviour of those more honest commissioners of education whose
refusal to adopt the Whately tactics led to Whately's retirement
from the board, but also of the conduct of the Catholic bishops and
clergy who have found it necessary emphatically to demand a radical
change in the system of national instruction so far as Catholics are
concerned.

It is, however, for the interests of Protestantism and of Great
Britain, as well as of Catholicism, that the education of Catholics
should be carried on more perfectly in accord with the desires of the
Catholic people. The principle of religious neutrality in education
has been tried in Ireland, and found wanting. It has not resulted
in bringing into the same school-rooms the young of various creeds,
and educating them in mutual love. Three or four Protestants may be
found in the same school with a hundred Catholics; or three or four
Catholics may attend a school frequented by a hundred Protestants.
But nowhere in Ireland is it possible to find a school where one half
of the pupils are Protestants and the other half Catholics, or where
the Protestant clergyman and the Catholic priest, as joint patrons,
superintend their respective classes. It is true, indeed, that
proselytism is discouraged by the rules of the board, and that no
favor is shown to one denomination more than to another. But with all
this endeavor after impartiality by its administrators, the system
inflicts a serious wound upon Catholicity. The authority of the board
is substituted for that of the Catholic Church. The national school
teacher, when in training for his office, learns his duties from
men of various religious denominations, who are not permitted, even
were they desirous, to impart a devotional color to what they teach.
The virtues must be commended on moral, not on religious grounds.
Patriotism may take root in ignorance; for no book of Irish history
is to be found in the list of Irish national school books. When the
trained teacher is set over a school, he still regards himself as
dependent upon the board which is his paymaster. Catholic teachers
may, and sometimes do, hold opinions different from those of the
priest, and even upon occasions refuse to carry out the priest's
directions in the matter of religious teaching. The influence of
the priest upon his flock is weakened by that very separation
between secular and religious instruction which is the basis of the
system of national education. Protestantism may flourish under the
impartiality, neutrality, and secularization of education at which
the originators of that system aimed; but Catholicism must inevitably
become deteriorated.

It was in past years the almost universal belief of Protestant
governments, that an Irish Catholic, in proportion as he ceased
to be loyal to his spiritual, would advance in loyalty toward his
temporal sovereign. Toleration was offered, even under Elizabeth
and James, to Catholics who would abjure the spiritual supremacy
of the pope. In modern times the same spirit of distrust shows
itself in the endeavor, on the part of some Protestant statesmen,
to offer to Catholics educational and other advantages upon
conditions inconsistent with Catholic practices. Those greatly err
who thus fancy that Great Britain will gain--either politically or
religiously--by the undermining of the influence of the Catholic
priesthood, or by leavening the education of Catholics with the
spirit of secularization. The Irish Catholic may be taught to unlearn
his faith, to neglect confession, and disobey the injunctions of his
priest; but no one will say that thereby he becomes, necessarily,
either a better Christian or a better subject to his sovereign. Such
a one may, or may not, become a Protestant or an infidel. When the
influence of the priest is weakened or destroyed, the Irish Catholic
becomes an easy victim to those who teach disloyalty and rebellion.
But his lapse into treason should be ascribed to the fact not of his
being a Catholic, but of his being a bad one. No good Catholic who
values the sacraments, and respects the precepts of his church, could
possibly join the treasonable brotherhoods denounced by the Catholic
priest from the altar, by the bishops in pastorals, and by the pope
himself. There are, however, too many Irish Catholics whose obedience
to their church is partial, or but nominal. Perhaps these men first
learnt in Irish national schools the lesson that religion, like
every thing else, has its appointed time and place; that Catholic
devotion forms no indispensable portion of secular studies, and that
priestly intervention in affairs not strictly religious is intrusive
and impertinent. The want of a truly Catholic training in early
life doubtless has led many an adult Catholic to hold that a priest
out-steps the proper sphere of his office, when he cautions his flock
against revolutionary excesses.

If misdirected and uncatholic teaching occasions many Irish Catholics
to become rebels in thought if not in deed, their education has
advanced and is advancing in another point, so as to render their
treason more dangerous. Irishmen in former years were prompt to seize
occasions for the overthrow of British rule, but lacked certain
qualities requisite for permanent success. They seemed incapable, for
any length of time, of combined action and resolution in the field or
the cabinet. They carried into battle the dissensions and jealousies
of their divided council-chambers. Brilliant displays of military
valor served only to mark more distinctly the fatal effects of
indecision and insubordination. Victory itself was often the prelude
to that demoralization of forces which is the worst consequence
of defeat. But now the Irish are swiftly learning to acquire those
qualities of organization and self-government which will render their
revolts more formidable and disastrous to England than hitherto they
have proved. Irishmen have shown themselves in American campaigns
not soldiers merely, but generals, and not merely skilful tacticians
in handling masses of troops before the enemy, but also able
organizers, clever in moulding and disciplining untrained materials
into effective battalions. Habits of promptitude, self-control, and
self-reliance belong to the Irish-American in perhaps even a higher
degree than to the Anglo-Saxon. The number is rapidly increasing
of Irishmen who, having acquired those habits in America, repair
to Ireland and communicate them in some degree to their brethren
at home. The peasantry of Ireland--already familiarized with
trans-Atlantic ideas of independence and republicanism--are apt to
become Americanized. Their sympathies are with the United States
rather than with England. If war broke out between Great Britain and
the States, no one doubts but that the first American army flung upon
Irish shores would find Ireland one vast recruiting field, and that
swarms of soldiers of Irish descent would fly from distant lands to
Ireland to lend their aid in rendering it, throughout its length and
breadth, a garrison impregnable to British attacks. And no one doubts
but that England--even though eventually victorious by land and
sea--would depart from such a conflict crippled in half her strength.
Ireland, alienated irrevocably, would be to England like a paralyzed
limb to the combatant, both a sign and a source of weakness. At no
very distant period from the termination of such a war, Ireland would
virtually become an American outpost, and would cease to be an
integral part of Great Britain. Without Ireland to rely upon, England
could scarcely be expected to maintain a position as a first-class
power in the event of war among European nations. Mercenary troops
might, indeed, for a time supply the want of Irish soldiers and
sailors. But the nation which has to hire foreign troops to fight its
battles is already in decay.

It is possible, however, that Ireland, instead of becoming the
occasion of ruin and dismemberment to the British empire, may prove
its mainstay and the bond of its integrity. If Ireland shall become
prosperous and contented under the changed policy of England, if its
population shall increase under prosperity, and if its nationality
shall be recognized and fostered--then no combination of European
foes, unaided by America, can hope to prevail against the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. But why should America withhold
her hand, when opportunity shall have presented itself for dealing
a blow in repayment of old wrongs aggravated by recent disputes?
France may demand the armed assistance of the States, whose existence
as an independent government she so powerfully helped to create. He
reads ill the face of nations who fails to perceive that the great
body of Americans desire to see the pride of England humbled, and
that they are treasuring up their wrath against the day of wrath.
The native-born Americans are moved by the transmitted rancor of
past injustice. Those of Irish and Catholic descent have the wrongs
of Ireland and of the Catholic Church to avenge. All the traditions
of faith and patriotism are now arrayed against England, and the
influence of the Irish and Catholic population of the States is
sufficient to decide the political action of Congress in the
eventuality of the reasonableness of war with Great Britain becoming
a subject for discussion. Yet the Irish and Catholic element in
the American population might, under circumstances to be created
by English policy, prove the means of restraining from an almost
fratricidal contest the two great empires. Ireland may become
so linked to England that any blow struck against England would
equally harm Ireland. An enlightened legislation concerning the
soil of Ireland may lead to the break-up of absentee landlordism,
and substitute tens of thousands of owners and occupiers in place
of the few hundred feudal proprietors who now exact rack-rents from
an impoverished tenantry. The multiplication of resident working
farm-owners may afford remunerative and permanent occupation to
numerous agricultural laborers for whom there now offers only an
intermittent and precarious employment. The agricultural prosperity
of Ireland is a powerful bond of union with England, the nearest and
best market for Irish produce. Another bond of union may be found
in the grant of legislative independence, or such a modification of
the present parliamentary system as may place the disposal of purely
Irish interests in the hands of Irish representatives, satisfy the
just desires of the patriotic, and leave no room for sentimental
grievances to fester into international feuds. The Catholic religion,
subjected to no disabilities in either kingdom, and overshadowed by
no hostile establishment--for Englishmen themselves in a few years
will remove their present church establishment in the interests of
their church and of Protestantism--will form another tie between the
countries. English Catholics have always been loyal to the British
government. Irish Catholics may become just as loyal. Education may
render the rough Irish laborers, who frequent the centres of English
commerce and manufacture, as loyal as the most loyal in England, and
a valuable counterpoise to the ultra-democratic semi-infidels who
form the dangerous mobs of London, Liverpool, and other vast trading
and industrial cities. And if the social and political interests of
Catholic Irishmen and of Catholics in England become recognized as
identical with those of English Protestants, then the union between
Great Britain and Ireland will be completely consolidated, and the
Irish party in America will have neither excuse nor opportunity for
joining any other party which may desire, disregarding the welfare
of Ireland, to inflict a wound upon Great Britain. On the contrary,
the Irish and Catholic element in the States will be both able
and willing to throw its effective influence into the scale upon
the side of peace and good-will, whenever the differences between
the cabinets of London and Washington demand settlement. Ireland
will thus indirectly become the mediator between the contending
empires--the arbiter to reconcile the angry parent and the aggrieved
son. But Ireland, to be enabled to act this part, must be cherished
as Irish and Catholic, with its nationality unimpaired and its
faith untrammelled. And if the political interests of Great Britain
shall be served by the flourishing condition of Irish Catholicism,
the religious interests of Protestant England will not necessarily
be damaged. Nay, it may prove an advantage to Protestantism to be
brought upon equal terms into close and harmonious relations with
the fervent faith of the Catholic Church, which nowhere appears to
greater advantage than in Ireland. Rationalism and scepticism are on
the increase in Great Britain and elsewhere, and will prove far more
dangerous neighbors than the Church of Rome to the Church of England.
Infidelity is an enemy against whom both would do well, if not to
unite their strength, at least to direct their separate attacks. As
rivals in opposing vice and unbelief, they may learn to respect each
other, and, alas! have before them a field only too ample for their
most vigorous exertions.




MARY.


    Sweet name of Mary, name of names save One--
      And that, my Queen, so wedded unto thine
      Our hearts hear both in either, and enshrine
    Instinctively the Mother with the Son--
    The lisping child's new accent has begun,
      Heaven-taught, with thee; first-fervent happy youth
      Makes thee the watchword of its maiden truth;
    Repentant age the hope of the undone.
    To me, known late but timely, thou hast been
      The noon-day freshness of a wooded height;
      A vale of soothing waters; the delight
    Of fadeless verdure in a desert scene;
    And when, ere long, my day shall set serene,
      Be Hesper[35] to an eve without a night.

                                                    B. D. H.

FOOTNOTE:

[35] The evening star.




EMERSON'S PROSE WORKS.[36]


Mr. Emerson's literary reputation is established, and placed beyond
the reach of criticism. No living writer surpasses him in his mastery
of pure and classic English, or equals him in the exquisite delicacy
and finish of his chiselled sentences, or the metallic ring of his
style. It is only as a thinker and teacher that we can venture any
inquiry into his merits; and as such we cannot suffer ourselves to be
imposed upon by his oracular manner, nor by the apparent originality
either of his views or his expressions.

Mr. Emerson has had a swarm both of admirers and of detractors. With
many he is a philosopher and sage, almost a god; while with others
he is regarded as an unintelligible mystic, babbling nonsense just
fitted to captivate beardless young men and silly maidens with pretty
curls, who constituted years ago the great body of his hearers and
worshippers. We rank ourselves in neither class, though we regard
him as no ordinary man, and as one of the deepest thinkers, as
well as one of the first poets, of our country. We know him as a
polished gentleman, a genial companion, and a warm-hearted friend,
whose kindness does not pass over individuals and waste itself in a
vague philanthropy. So much, at least, we can say of the man, and
from former personal acquaintance as well as from the study of his
writings.

Mr. Emerson is no theorist, and is rather of a practical than of
a speculative turn of mind. What he has sought all his life, and
perhaps is still seeking, is the real, the universal, and the
permanent in the events of life and the objects of experience. The
son of a Protestant minister, brought up in a Protestant community,
and himself for some years a Protestant minister, he early learned
that the real, the universal, and permanent are not to be found in
Protestantism; and assuming that Protestantism, in some or all its
forms, is the truest exponent of the Christian religion, he very
naturally came to the conclusion that they are not to be found in
Christianity. He saw that Protestantism is narrow, hollow, unreal,
a sham, a humbug, and, ignorant of the Catholic Church and her
teaching, he considered that she must have less of reality, be even
more of a sham or humbug, than Protestantism itself. He passed then
naturally to the conclusion that all pretensions to a supernaturally
revealed religion are founded only in ignorance or craft, and
rejected all of all religions, except what may be found in them that
accords with the soul or the natural reason of all men. This may be
gathered from his brief essay, entitled _Nature_, first published in
1836. We quote a few paragraphs from the introduction:

    "Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the
    fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The
    foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we
    through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original
    relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and
    a philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion
    by revelation to us, and not a history of theirs?... The sun
    shines to-day also. There is more wool and flax in the fields.
    There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our
    own works, and laws, and worship.

    "Undoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are
    unanswerable. We must trust the perfection of creation so far
    as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things
    has awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy.
    Every man's condition is a solution in hieroglyphic to those
    inquiries he would put. He acts it as life before he apprehends
    it as truth. In like manner, nature is already, in its forms
    and tendencies, describing its own design. Let us interrogate
    the great apparition that shines so peacefully around us. Let
    us inquire, To what end is nature?

    "All science has one aim, to find a theory of nature. We have
    theories of races and of functions, but scarcely yet a remote
    approach to an idea of creation. We are now so far from the
    road to truth that religious teachers dispute and hate each
    other, and speculative men are deemed unsound and frivolous.
    But to a sound judgment, the most abstract truth is the most
    practical. Whenever a true theory appears, it will be its own
    evidence. Its test is, that it will explain all phenomena. Now
    many are thought not only unexplained, but inexplicable--as
    language, sleep, madness, dreams, beasts, sex." (Vol. i. pp. 5,
    6.)

These extracts give us the key to Mr. Emerson's thought, which runs
through all his writings, whether in prose or poetry; though more
fully mastered and better defined in his later productions, essays,
and lectures, than it was in his earliest production from which
we have quoted. In studying these volumes, we are convinced that
what the writer is after is reality, of which this outward, visible
universe, both as a whole and in all its parts, symbolizes. He seeks
life, not death; the living present, not the corpse of the past.
Under this visible world, its various and ever-varying phenomena,
lies the real world, one, identical, universal, and immutable, which
it copies, mimics, or symbolizes. He agrees with Plato that the
real thing is in the methexis, not in the mimesis; that is, in the
idea, not in the individual and the sensible, the variable and the
perishable. He wants unity and catholicity, and the science that does
not attain to them is no real science at all. But as the mimesis, in
his language the hieroglyphic, copies or imitates the methexic, we
can, by studying it, arrive at the methexic, the reality copied or
imitated.

We do not pretend to understand Plato throughout, nor to reconcile
him always with himself; but as far as we do understand him, the
reality, what must be known in order to have real science, is the
idea, and it is only by ideas that real science is attained. Ideas
are, then, both the object and the medium of knowledge. As the medium
of knowledge, the idea may be regarded as the image it impresses on
the mimetic, or the individual and the sensible, as the seal on the
wax. This image or impression is an exact _fac-simile_ of the idea as
object. Hence by studying it we arrive at the exact knowledge of the
idea, or what is real, invariable, universal, and permanent in the
object we would know. The lower copies and reveals the next higher,
and thus we may rise, step by step, from the lowest to the highest,
to "the first good and the first fair," to the good, the beautiful,
or Being that is being in itself. Thus is it in science. But the
soul has two wings on which it soars to the empyrean, intelligence
and love. The lowest form or stage of love is that of the sexes, a
love of the senses only; but this lowest love symbolizes a higher or
ideal love, rising stage by stage to the pure ideal, or the love of
absolute beauty, the beautiful in itself, the love to which the sage
aspires, and the only love in which he can rest or find repose.

We do not say that Mr. Emerson follows Plato in all respects; for
he occasionally deviates from him, sometimes for the better, and
sometimes for the worse; but no one not tolerably well versed in the
Platonic philosophy can understand him. In his two essays on Plato,
in his second volume, he calls him the Philosopher, and asserts that
all who talk philosophy talk Plato. He also maintains that Plato
represented all the ages that went before him, possessed all the
science of his contemporaries, and that none who have come after him
have been able to add any thing new to what he taught. He includes
Christianity, Judaism, and Mohammedanism in Plato, who is far broader
and more comprehensive than them all. Plato of all men born of woman
stood nearest the truth of things, and in his intellectual and moral
doctrines surpassed all who went before or have come after him.

We find many things in Plato that we like, and we entirely agree with
him that the ideal is real; but we do not agree with Mr. Emerson,
that nothing in science has been added to the Platonic doctrine.
We think Aristotle made an important addition in his doctrine of
entelechia; Leibnitz, in his definition of substance, making it a
_vis activa_, and thus exploding the notion of passive or inert
substances; and finally, Gioberti, by his doctrine of creation as a
doctrine, or rather principle, of science. Plato had no conception of
the creative act asserted by Moses in the first verse of _Genesis_.
Plato never rose above the conception of the production of existences
by way of formation, or the operation of the plastic force on a
preexisting and often intractable matter. He never conceived of the
creation of existences from nothing by the sole energy or power of
the creator. He held to the eternal existence of spirit and matter,
and we owe to him principally the dualism and antagonism that have
originated the false asceticism which many attribute to Christian
teaching; but which Christianity rejects, as is evident from its
doctrine of the Incarnation and that of the resurrection of the
flesh. Gioberti has shown, as the writer thinks, that creation is no
less a scientific principle than a Christian dogma. He has shown
that the creative act is the nexus between being and existences,
and that it enters as the copula into the _primum philosophicum_,
without which there could be no human mind, and consequently no
human science. There are various other instances we might adduce
in which people talk very good sense, even profound philosophical
and theological truth, and yet do not talk Plato. We hardly think
Mr. Emerson himself will accept all the moral doctrines of Plato's
Republic, especially those relating to marriage and the promiscuous
intercourse of the sexes; for Plato goes a little beyond what our
free-lovers have as yet proposed.

Aristotle gives us, undoubtedly, a philosophy, such as it is, and
a philosophy that enters largely into modern modes of thought and
expression; but we can hardly say as much of Plato. He has profound
thoughts, no doubt, and many glimpses of a high--if you will, the
highest order of truth; but only when he avowedly follows tradition,
and speaks according to the wisdom of the ancients. He seems to us
to give us a method rather than a philosophy, and very little of
our modern philosophical language is derived from him. Several of
the Greek fathers, and St. Augustine among the Latins, incline to
Platonism; but none of them, so far as we are acquainted with them,
followed him throughout. The mediaeval doctors, though not ignorant of
Plato, almost without an exception prefer Aristotle. The revival of
Platonism in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries brought with it a
revival of heathenism; and Plato has since been held in much higher
esteem with the heterodox and makers of fanciful systems than with
the orthodox and simple believers. We trace his influence in what
the romancers call chivalry, which is of pagan origin, though some
people are ill-informed enough to accredit it to the church; and we
trace to his doctrine of love, so attractive to many writers not in
other respects without merit, the modern babble about "the heart,"
the confusion of charity with philanthropy, and the immoral doctrines
of free love, which strike at Christian marriage and the Christian
family. The "heart," in the language of the Holy Scriptures,
means the affections of the will, and the love they enjoin as the
fulfilment of the law and the bond of perfection is charity, a
supernatural virtue, in which both the will and the understanding
are operative, not a simple, natural sentiment, or affection of the
sensibility, or the love of the beautiful, and dependent on the
imagination.

Mr. Emerson is right enough in making the sensible copy or imitate
the intelligible, what there is true in Swedenborg's doctrine of
correspondences; but wrong in making the mimetic purely phenomenal,
unreal, a mere sense-show. The mimetic, the mimesis, by which
Plato means the individual and the sensible, the variable and the
transitory, is not the only real, nor the highest real, as sensists
and materialists hold; but is as real in its order and degree as
the methexic or ideal. Hence, St. Thomas is able to maintain that
the sensible species, or accidents, as he calls them, can subsist
without their subject, or, as we would say, the sensible body
without the intelligible body; and therefore, that the doctrine
of transubstantiation involves no contradiction; for it is not
pretended that the sensible body undergoes any change, or that the
sensible body of our Lord is present in the blessed eucharist.
So St. Augustine distinguishes the visible--the sensible--body
and the spiritual--intelligible--body, and holds both to be real.
The individual is as real as the species--the _socratitas_, in
the language of the schoolmen, as the _humanitas_--for neither is
possible without the other. The sort of idealism, as it is called,
that resolves the individual into the species, or the sensible
into the intelligible, and thus denies the external world, is as
unphilosophical as the opposite doctrine, that resolves the species
into the individual and the intelligible into the sensible. Even
Plato, the supposed father of idealism, does not make the mimesis
absolutely unreal. For, to say nothing of the preexistent matter, the
image, picture, which is the exact copy of its ideal prototype, is a
real image, picture, or copy.

But Mr. Emerson, if he recognizes the methexis at all, either
confounds it with real and necessary being, or makes it purely
phenomenal, and therefore unreal, as distinguished from real and
necessary being. Methexis is a Greek word, and means, etymologically
and as used by Plato, participation. Plato's doctrine is, that all
inferior existences exist by participation of the higher, through
the medium of what he calls the plastic soul, whence the Demiourgos
of the Gnostics. His error was in making the plastic soul instead
of the creative act of God the medium of the participation. Still,
Plato made it the participation of ideas or the ideal, and, in the
last analysis, of Him who is being in himself. Hence, he made a
distinction, if not the proper distinction, between the methexis and
God, or being by participation and the absolute underived being, or
being in itself.

Mr. Emerson recognizes no real participation, and either excludes
the methexis or identifies it with God, or absolute being. He thus
reduces the categories, as does Cousin, to being and phenomenon, or,
in the only barbarism in language he permits himself, the ME--_le
moi_--and the NOT ME--_le non moi_--the root-error, so to speak, of
Fichte. He takes himself as the central force, and holds it to be the
reality expressed in the NOT ME. The NOT ME being purely phenomenal,
only the ME is real. By the ME he, of course, does not mean his own
personality, but the reality which underlies and expresses itself
in it. The absolute ICH, or ego, of Fichte is identical in all men,
is the real man, the "one man," as Mr. Emerson says; and this "one
man" is the reality, the being, the substance, the force of the whole
phenomenal universe. There is, then, no methexis imitated, copied,
or mimicked by the mimesis, or the individual and sensible universe.
The mimesis copies not a participated or created intelligible, but,
however it may be diversified by degrees, it copies directly God
himself, the one real being and only substance of all things. If
we regard ourselves as phenomenal, we are unreal, and therefore
nothing; if as real, as substantive, as force, we do not participate,
_mediante_ the creative act, of real being, but are identically it,
or identical with it; which makes the author not only a pantheist,
but a more unmitigated pantheist than Plato himself.

Neither Plato nor Mr. Emerson recognizes any causative force in the
mimesis. Plato recognizes causative force only in ideas, though he
concedes a power of resistance to the preexistent matter, and finds
in its intractableness the cause of evil; Mr. Emerson recognizes
causative or productive force only in the absolute, and therefore
denies the existence of second causes, as he does all distinction
between first cause and final cause; which is the very essence of
pantheism, which Gioberti rightly terms the "supreme sophism."

We have used the Greek terms _methexis_ and _mimesis_ after Plato,
as Gioberti has done in his posthumous works, but not precisely
in Gioberti's sense. Gioberti identifies the methexis with the
plastic soul asserted by Plato, and revived by old Ralph Cudworth,
an Anglican divine of the seventeenth century; but though we make
the methexis causative in the order of second causes, we do not
make it productive of the mimesis. It means what are called genera
and species; but even in the order of second causes, genera are
generative or productive only as specificated, and species only as
individualized. God must have created the genus specificated and the
species individualized before either could be active or productive
as second cause. The genus does not and cannot exist without
specification, nor the species without individualization, any more
than the individual can exist without the species, or the species
without the genus. For instance, man is the species, according to
the schoolmen, the genus is animal, the _differentia_ is reason, and
hence man is defined a rational animal. But the genus animal, though
necessary to its existence, cannot generate the species man, any more
than it could have generated itself. The species can exist only as
immediately individuated by the first cause, and hence the pretence
of some scientists--more properly sciolists,--that new species are
formed either by development or by natural selection, is simply
absurd, as has been well shown by the Duke of Argyll. God creates the
species as well as the genera; and it is fairly inferred from the
Scriptures that he creates all things in their genera and species
"after their kind." Furthermore, if God had not created the human
species individualized in Adam, male and female, there could have
been no men by natural generation, any more than if there had been
no human species at all.

This, as we understand it, excludes alike the plastic soul of the
Platonists and the Demiourgos of the Gnostics, and teaches that the
mimesis is as directly created by God himself as the methexis. Mr.
Emerson, indeed, uses neither of these Platonic terms, though if
he had, he would, with his knowledge of the Christian doctrine of
creation, have detected the error of Plato, and most likely have
escaped his own. The term _methexis_--participation--excludes the old
error that God generates the universe, which is rather favored by
the terms genera and species. We use the term _mimesis_ because it
serves to us to express the fact that the lower copies or imitates
the higher, and therefore the doctrine of St. Thomas, that "Deus
est similitudo rerum omnium," or that God is himself the type or
model after which the universe is created, and which each and every
existence in its own order and degree strives to copy or represent.
The error of Plato is, that he makes the methexis an emanation rather
than a creature, and the plastic power that produces the mimesis;
the error of Mr. Emerson, as we view the matter, is, that he makes
the mimetic purely phenomenal, therefore unreal, sinks it in the
methexic, and the methexis itself in God, as the one only being or
substance, the _natura naturans_ of Spinoza.

With Plato, the mimesis is the product of the methexic, but is itself
passive, and the sooner the soul is emancipated from it the better;
though what is the soul in his system of ideas we understand not.
With Mr. Emerson, it is neither active nor passive, for it is purely
phenomenal, therefore nothing. With us it is real, and, like all
real existences, it is active, and is not a simple image or copy of
the methexic or the ideal, but is in its order and degree a _vis
activa_, and copies or imitates actively the divine type or the _idea
exemplaris_ in the divine mind, after which it is created.

Mr. Emerson says, in the introduction to his essay on _Nature_,
"Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of nature and
soul." But all activity is in the soul, and what is distinguishable
from the soul is purely phenomenal, and, if we may take his essay on
the _Over-soul_, not republished in these volumes, is but the soul's
own projection of itself. The soul alone is active, productive, and
it is myself, my own ego; not indeed in its personal limitations and
feebleness, but in its absoluteness, as the absolute or impersonal
_Ich_ of Fichte, and identically God, who is the great, the absolute
I AM.

The error is obvious. It consists in the denial or in the overlooking
of the fact that God creates substances, and that every substance
is, as Leibnitz defines it, a force, a _vis activa_, acting always
from its own centre outward. Whatever actually exists is active,
and there is and can be no passivity in nature. Hence, Aristotle
and the schoolmen after him call God, who is being and being in its
plenitude, _actus purissimus_, or most pure act, in whom there are
no possibilities to be actualized. Mr. Emerson errs in his first
principles, in not recognizing the fact that God creates substances,
and that every substance is an activity, therefore causative
either _ad intra_ or _ad extra_, and that every created substance
is causative in the order of second causes. What we maintain in
opposition both to him and Plato is, that these created substances
are at once methexic and mimetic in their activity.

It were an easy task to show that whatever errors there may be, or
may be supposed to be, in Mr. Emerson's works grow out of the two
fundamental errors we have indicated--the identification of soul,
freed from its personal limitations, as in Adam, John, and Richard,
with God, or the real being, substance, force, or activity, and
the assumption that whatever is distinguishable from God is purely
phenomenal, an apparition, a sense-show, a mere bubble on the
surface of the ocean of being, as we pointed out in our comments on
the proceedings of the Free Religionists, in the magazine for last
November, and to which we beg leave to refer our readers.

Yet, though we have known Mr. Emerson personally ever since 1836,
have held more than one conversation with him, listened to several
courses of lectures from him, and read and even studied the greater
part, if not all of his works, as they issued from the press, we must
confess that, in reperusing them preparatory to writing this brief
notice, we have been struck, as we never were before, with the depth
and breadth of his thought, as well as with the singular force and
beauty of his expression. We appreciate him much higher both as a
thinker and as an observer, and we give him credit for a depth of
feeling, an honesty of purpose, an earnest seeking after truth, we
had not previously awarded him in so great a degree, either publicly
or privately. We are also struck with his near approach to the truth
as we are taught it. He seems to us to come as near to the truth as
one can who is so unhappy as to miss it.

We regard it as Mr. Emerson's great misfortune, that his early
Protestant training led him to regard the Catholic question as
_res adjucata_, and to take Protestantism, in some one or all
of its forms, as the truest and best exponent of Christianity.
Protestantism is narrow, superficial, unintellectual, vague,
indefinite, sectarian, and it was easy for a mind like his to
pierce through its hollow pretensions, to discover its unspiritual
character, its want of life, its formality, and its emptiness. It
was not difficult to comprehend that it was only a dead corse, and
a mutilated corse at that. The Christian mysteries it professed to
retain, as it held them, were lifeless dogmas, with no practical
bearing on life, and no reason in the world for believing them.
Such a system, having no relation with the living and moving world,
and no reason in the nature or constitution of things, could not
satisfy a living and thinking man, in downright earnest for a truth
at least as broad and as living as his own soul. It was too little,
too insignificant, too _mesquine_, too much of a dead and putrefying
body to satisfy either his intellect or his heart. If that is the
true exponent of Christianity, and the most enlightened portion of
mankind say it is, why shall I belie my own understanding, my own
better nature, by professing to believe and reverence it? No; let me
be a man, be true to myself, to my own reason and instincts, not a
miserable time-server or a contemptible hypocrite.

If Mr. Emerson had not been led to regard the Catholic question as
closed, except to the dwellers among tombs, and to the ignorant and
superstitious, and had studied the church with half the diligence
he has Plato, Mohammed, or Swedenborg, it is possible that he would
have found in Christianity the life and truth, the reality, unity,
and catholicity he has so long and so earnestly sought elsewhere and
found not. Certain it is, that whatever affirmative truth he holds
is held and taught by the church in its proper place, its real
relations, and in its integrity. The church does not live in the past
nor dwell only among tombs; she is an ever-present and ever-living
church, and presents to us not a dead historical Christ, but the
ever-living and ever-present Christ, as really and truly present to
us as he was to the disciples and apostles with whom he conversed
when he went about in Judea doing good, without having where to
lay his head, and not more veiled from our sight now than he was
then from theirs. Does she not hold the sublime mystery of the Real
Presence, which, if an individual fact, is also a universal principle?

The Christian system, if we may so speak, is not an after-thought
in creation, or something superinduced on the Creator's works. It
has its ground and reason in the very constitution of things. All
the mysteries taught or dogmas enjoined by the church are universal
principles; they are truly catholic, the very principles according
to which the universe, visible or invisible, is constructed, and
not one of them can be denied without denying a first principle of
life and of science. Mr. Emerson says, in a passage we have quoted,
"All science has one aim, namely, to find a theory of nature," and
seems to concede that it has not yet succeeded in finding it. The
church goes beyond even the aim of science, and gives, at least
professes to give, not a theory of truth, but the truth itself; she
is not a method, but that to which the true method leads. She is the
body of Him who is "the way, the truth, and the life;" she gives
us, not as the philosophers, her views of the truth, but the truth
itself, in its reality, its unity, its integrity, its universality,
its immutability. At least such is her profession; for the faith
she teaches is the substance--hypostasis--of the things to be hoped
for, and the evidence of things not seen--_substantia sperandarum,
argumentum non apparentium_.

Such being her profession, made long before Protestantism was
born, and continued to be made since with no stammering tongue or
abatement of confidence, the pretence that judgment has gone against
her is unfounded. Many have condemned her, as the Jewish Sanhedrim
condemned our Lord, and called on the Roman Procurator to execute
judgment against him; but she has no more staid condemned than he
staid confined in the new tomb hewn from the rock in which his body
was laid, and far more are they who admit her professions among the
enlightened and civilized than they who deny them. No man has a
right to be regarded as a philosopher or sage who has not at least
thoroughly examined her titles, and made up his mind with a full
knowledge of the cause.

In the Catholic Church we have found the real presence, and unity,
and catholicity which we sought long and earnestly, and could find
nowhere else, and which Mr. Emerson, after a still longer and equally
earnest search, has not found at all. He looks not beyond nature,
and nature is not catholic, universal, or the whole. It is not one,
but manifold and variable. It cannot tell its origin, medium, or
end. With all the light Mr. Emerson has derived from nature, or
from nature and soul united, there is infinite darkness behind,
infinite darkness before, and infinite darkness all around him. He
says, "Every man's condition is a solution in hieroglyphic of those
inquiries he would put." Suppose it is so, what avail is that to him
who has lost or never had the key to the hieroglyph? Knows he to
interpret the hieroglyph in which the solution is concealed? Can he
read the riddle of the sphinx? He has tried his hand at it in his
poem of the Sphinx, and has only been able to answer that

    "Each answer is a lie."

It avails us little to be told where the solution is, if we are not
told what it is, or if only told that every solution is false as soon
as told. Hear him; to man he says,

    "Thou art the unanswered question;
      Couldst see thy proper eye,
    Alway it asketh, asketh;
      And each answer is a lie:
    So take thy quest through nature,
      It through a thousand natures ply;
    Ask on, thou clothed eternity;
      Time is the false reply."

The answer, if it means any thing, means that man is "a clothed
eternity," whatever that may mean, eternally seeking an answer to the
mystery of his own being, and each answer he can obtain is a lie; for
only eternity can comprehend eternity and tell what it is. Whence
has he learned that man, the man-child, is "a clothed eternity," and
therefore God, who only is eternal?

Now, eternity is above time, and above the world of time,
consequently above nature. Catholicity, by the very force of the
term, must include all truth, and therefore the truth of the
supernatural as well as of the natural. But Mr. Emerson denies the
supernatural, and does not, of course, even profess to have any
knowledge that transcends nature. How, then, can he pretend to have
attained to catholic truth? He himself restricts nature to the
external universe, which is phenomenal, and to soul, by which he
means himself. But are there no phenomena without being or substance
which appears or which shows itself in them? Is this being or
substance the soul, or, in the barbarism he adopts, the ME? If so,
the NOT-ME is only the phenomena of the ME, and of course identical
with myself, as he implies in what he says of the "one man." Then in
me, and emanating from me, are all men, and the whole of nature. How
does he know this? Does he learn it from nature?

Of course, Mr. Emerson means not this, even if his various utterances
imply it. He uses the word _creation_, and we suppose he intends,
notwithstanding his systematic views, if such he has, contradict
it, to use it in its proper sense. Then he must hold the universe,
including, according to his division, nature and soul, has been
created, and if created, it has a creator. The creator must be
superior, above nature and soul, and therefore in the strictest sense
of the word supernatural; and as reason is the highest faculty of the
soul, the supernatural must also be supra-rational.

Does the creator create for a purpose, for an end? and if so, what
is that end or purpose, and the medium or means of fulfilling it,
whether on his part or on the part of the creature? Here, then,
we have the assertion of a whole order of truth, very real and
very important to be known, which transcends the truth Mr. Emerson
professes to have, and which is not included in it. We say again,
then, that he has not attained to catholicity, and we also say that,
by the only method he admits, he cannot attain to it. How can he
pretend to have attained to catholicity, and that he has already a
truth more universal than Christianity reveals, when he must confess
that without the knowledge of a supernatural and supra-rational truth
he cannot explain his origin or end, or know the conditions of his
existence, or the means of gaining his end?

Mr. Emerson says, as we have quoted him,

    "Undoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are
    unanswerable. We must trust the perfection of the creation so
    far as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things
    has awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy."

    Alway it asketh, asketh,
    And each answer is a lie.

There is here a grand mistake. If he had said the Creator instead
of creation, there would have been truth and great propriety in
the author's assertion. Nature--and we mean by nature the whole
created order--excites us to ask many very troublesome questions,
which nature is quite incompetent to answer. The fact that nature is
created, proves that she is, both as a whole and in all her parts,
dependent, not independent, and therefore does not and cannot suffice
for herself. Unable to suffice for herself, she cannot suffice for
the science of herself; for science must be of that which is, not of
that which is not.

Mr. Emerson, we presume, struck with the narrowness and
inconsistencies of all the religions he had studied, and finding that
they are all variable and transitory in their forms, yet thought
that he also discovered something in them, or underlying them all,
which is universal, invariable, and permanent, and which they are
all honest efforts of the great soul to realize. He therefore came
to the conclusion that the sage can accept none of these narrow,
variable, and transitory forms, and yet can reject none of them as
to the great, invariable, and underlying principles, which in fact
is all they have that is real or profitable. To distinguish between
the transient and permanent in religion was the common aim of the
Boston movement from 1830 to 1841, when we ourselves began to turn
our own mind, though very timidly and at a great distance, toward
the church. Mr. Emerson, Miss Margaret Fuller, A. Bronson Alcott, and
Mr. Theodore Parker regarded the permanent elements of all religions
as the natural patrimony or products of human nature. The present
writer differed from them, by ascribing their origin to supernatural
revelation made to our first parents in the garden, universally
diffused by the dispersion of the race, and transmitted to us by the
traditions of all nations. Following out this view, the grace of God
moving and assisting, we found our way to the Catholic Church, in
which the form and the invariable and permanent principle, or rather,
the form growing out of the principle, are inseparable, and are
fitted by the divine hand to each other.

The others, falling back on a sort of transcendental illuminism, sunk
into pure naturalism, where such of them as are still living, and
a whole brood of young disciples who have sprung up since, remain,
and, like the old Gnostics, suppose themselves spiritual men and
women in possession of the secret of the universe. There was much
life, mental activity, and honest purpose in the movement; but those
who had the most influence in directing its course could not believe
that any thing good could come out of Nazareth, and so turned their
backs on the church. They thought they could find something deeper,
broader, and more living than Christianity, and have lost not only
the transient, but even the permanent in religion.

FOOTNOTE:

[36] _The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson_, New and revised
edition. Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co. 1870. 2 vols. 16mo.




THE HOLY-WEEK OF 1869 IN HAVANA.

GOOD-FRIDAY. HOLY-SATURDAY. EASTER-SUNDAY.


GOOD-FRIDAY.

Sad indeed was the aspect of all things within the cathedral
on Good-Friday morning. Black draperies covered the pulpit,
reading-desks, and seats reserved for the authorities, and every
one was attired in mourning. Instead of the rose-color and blue of
Holy-Thursday, the ladies now wore black or violet silks and satins
with jet ornaments.

All the personages of the preceding day were present, and the
religious services were in nowise different from those of the
Catholic Church in other lands, with the exception that, in the
reading of the passion, at the words "_gave up the ghost_," all
knelt, but did not kiss the ground, as is the custom in France.

During the adoration of the cross, in which the captain-general,
apparently almost too ill to stand, and the other gentlemen took
part, the choir sang the beautiful hymn _Pange lingua_, with its
tender burden of _Crux fidelis_. Never did it sound to me more
touching.

    "Sing, O my tongue! the Victor's praise;
    For him the noblest trophy raise,
    The victory of his cross proclaim,
    His glory and his laurelled fame;
    Sing of his conquests, when he proved
    The Saviour of the souls he loved.

    O faithful cross! thou stand'st alone;
    None like thee in our woods is grown,
    None can with thy rich growth compare,
    Or leaves like thine, or flowerets bear.
    Sweet wood, sweet nails, both sweet and fair,
    Sweet is the precious weight ye bear."

The adoration terminated, the procession was formed, exactly as
on the day before, to bring back the Blessed Sacrament from the
sepulchre. On reaching the foot of the steps, the captain-general
delivered up to the bishop the key he had worn suspended from his
neck since the preceding morning. As the procession returned, the
noble strains of the _Vexilla regis_ resounded through the great
church.

    "The standard of our King unfurled
    Proclaims triumphant to the world
    The cross, where Life would suffer death
    To gain life with his dying breath!"

My heart beat faster as I listened to the glorious hymn!

The communion made, vespers were chanted in grave and mournful tones,
and the service was concluded. As the bishop descended the nave to
leave the cathedral, the little girls of the nuns' schools crowded
around him to kiss his hand; and it was very pretty to see them clasp
his fingers, and look up in his kind face with a confiding smile.

       *       *       *       *       *

As it had been officially announced that the meditation on the seven
words of Jesus on the cross, with the ceremony of the descent from
the cross, to be followed by the procession of the interment, were to
take place, as is usual every year, that afternoon in the church of
_San Juan de Dios_, I determined to be present.

At three o'clock, accordingly, I stationed myself in a shady
corner, not far from the principal entrance of _San Juan_, among
a crowd of soldiers, volunteers, and colored people. All gazed at
me inquisitively. I looked like a lady; but my somewhat Andalusian
physiognomy, shaded by the black lace mantilla, put them out a
little. I heard them at last decide that I was an _estranjera_,
(stranger,) and consequently considered capable of, and permitted,
any eccentricity, without derogating from my claim to respect.
Twenty minutes passed away thus; a south wind was blowing, and great
water-laden clouds were fast covering the sky; the heat was very
oppressive, and soon heavy drops of rain began to fall, and every one
rushed to shelter. I ran back to the cathedral, my nearest refuge.
The _Tenebrae_ had just commenced, and I sat there and listened to the
doleful lamentations of Jeremiah, and the wails of the holy women,
mingling with the thunder-crashes and the noise of the pouring rain,
which fell as it only falls within the tropics. It was a combination
of sounds not easily to be forgotten.

At half-past four, the storm was over, and the sky clear and blue
once more, so I determined to hasten to _San Juan_, and, though too
late to hear the meditation, still witness the descent from the
cross. To my surprise, on going to the door I found it impossible
to leave the church; the whole place in front of the cathedral was
knee-deep in water, and all the streets leading from it looked like
swift-flowing rivers! Not until five o'clock did the water subside
sufficiently to permit me to cross the street conducting to _San
Juan_, where, however, I fortunately arrived in time for the ceremony
I so much wished to see.

The high altar had been removed, and in its place, on an elevated
platform, were erected three great crosses, the centre one bearing
the image, large as life, of our Saviour, the other two those of the
thieves crucified with him; the face of the repentant sinner was
turned lovingly toward his Lord, that of the unrepentant looked away
with a scowl.

The figure of the victim was fearfully natural--the pallor of death
was on his blood-stained brow, the gash in his side, and his mangled
hands and feet were livid. Two priests, mounted on ladders placed
against the arms of the cross, were in the act of taking down the
writing when I got near enough to see well. At the command of the
preacher, who had just finished the meditation, and who directed them
from the pulpit, they then proceeded to draw out the nail from the
right hand; when loosened from the tree, the arm fell stiffly and as
if dead; before the other was freed, long and wide linen bands were
passed under both, and around the body, to sustain it and prevent
it from falling forward. _Llorad lagrimas de sangre_--"Weep tears
of blood," cried the preacher while this was being done amid the
breathless silence of the spectators, "he died for you!" So solemnly,
so tenderly did the priests perform their office, that it seemed no
representation, but dreadful reality, and my cheeks grew cold, and
my heart throbbed painfully when the pale, bruised body was gently
lowered and borne to the bier waiting to receive it.

Yes, this cruel death He died for us; but, O true and loving women!
one sweet and proud remembrance will be ours for all eternity--_our_
kiss betrayed him not, nor _our_ tongue denied--

    "While even the apostle left him to his doom,
    _We_ lingered round his cross, and watched his tomb!"

The preacher now descended from the pulpit, and quitted the church in
company with the other assistant priests; and the direction seemed
to be left in the hands of a fraternity called _los Hermanos de la
Soledad_--the Brethren of Solitude--a set of tall, fine-looking black
men, many with thin lips and _almost_ Roman noses. They were dressed
in robes of black glazed calico, with white lace tippets.

A quarter of an hour elapsed; the church remained crowded, but
there were no signs of preparation for the procession. Presently a
handsome, authoritative-mannered personage, evidently a Spaniard,
entered hastily, and, pushing his way unceremoniously through the
people, sought the members of the brotherhood, to whom he evidently
gave some orders, and then went away. A great silence prevailed, and
every one seemed to be waiting for something. I at last mustered up
courage to ask a brother when the procession would commence.

_No hay procesion hasta el ano que viene_--"There will be no
procession until next year"--he answered in a very loud voice.

_Pero, senor, en el diario_--"But, sir, in the newspaper--" I began.
"_No hay procesion hasta el ano que viene_," he repeated louder still.

The women broke forth in murmurs; but not a man spoke, though
compressed lips and scowling brows showed sufficiently what was
passing within. I must not omit to remark that the congregation
consisted almost entirely of colored creoles.

By dint of soft but firmly continued pushing, and a pleasant smile
when the individual I elbowed looked grimly at me, I forced my way
out of the disagreeable pack of volunteers and negroes, men and
boys, that surrounded me, to the chancel, where I found a number
of well-dressed and respectable-looking colored ladies seated on
the platform. There the discontent was louder, and I understood
distinctly that the disappointment was attributed more to the
ill-will of their rulers than to the bad state of the weather.
One woman, particularly, exclaimed angrily several times, and
sufficiently loud to be heard by all in that end of the building,
_Hay procesion para los Espanoles, pero no para nosotros_--"There are
processions for the Spaniards, but not for us."

However, there was nothing to be done but to submit; so a few
persons went quietly away, and I at last succeeded in obtaining a
close view of the bier. It was in the form of a sarcophagus with
open sides, placed on a trestle concealed by black velvet drapery
spotted with silver stars; the upper part very tastefully decorated
with white and lilac flowers. The image lying within was covered
with a cloth of silver tissue, the head and feet left bare. Close by
stood another trestle, also covered with ornamented black velvet,
and supporting a small platform, on which stood the figures of the
Blessed Virgin, in deep grief, holding in her hand a very handsome
lace pocket-handkerchief, and of St. John, with a profusion of fair
ringlets, sustaining her in his arms. The bier, followed by the
Virgin and St. John, carried by the members of the black _Hermandad_,
escorted by soldiers and military music, and accompanied by a vast
number of people, constitutes the "procession of the interment,"
which every Good-Friday (when permitted) leaves the old church of
_San Juan de Dios_, passes through many streets of the city, and
before the palace of the captain-general, and stops at the cathedral,
into which it enters, and where the images are finally deposited with
great solemnity. This year, as we have seen, the procession did not
take place.

While examining with interest these curious remains of the piety
of the first settlers in the island, I heard some one cry out, _No
deja ninguno salir_--"Let no one go out"--and at the same moment saw
some soldiers lifting up and looking under the velvet draperies as
if searching for some one. Five very uncomfortable minutes followed;
the door by which I had entered was blocked up with soldiers and
volunteers, every one was frightfully silent--and I am not a heroine!
At last the people were allowed to go out by one door, while the
soldiers and volunteers slowly filled up the church by the other.

Exceedingly great was the relief I felt when I found myself safely
seated in the cars, (which in consequence of the rain had been
permitted to enter the city and station themselves in their usual
place,) and on my way home, where I arrived very tired and almost
disgusted with sight-seeing.


HOLY-SATURDAY.

At seven o'clock in the morning of the "_Sabado de Gloria_," the
"Saturday of Glory," as the Spaniards beautifully and expressively
call this great day, I was already established in my usual place
in the nave of the cathedral, though the religious ceremonies were
not to commence until eight. The attendance of the public generally
was less than on Maundy-Thursday and Good-Friday, and none of the
superior authorities of Havana, nor military and civil functionaries,
were present.

The new fire was lighted and blessed precisely as is done with us,
and the five grains of incense placed on the paschal candle; which,
however, was not a tall, thick taper, as in other countries, but
a veritable _pillar_ of wax, about a yard high and six inches in
diameter; transmitting to us most probably an exact resemblance of
that column of wax upon which the patriarch of Alexandria used to
inscribe the paschal epoch and the movable feasts, and which in
progress of time was employed as a torch during the paschal night,
and at last came to be regarded as the symbol of the resuscitated
Saviour, the true light of the world.

After reading the prophecies, the deacon, preceded by the holy cross
and the paschal candle, and accompanied by the clergy and many of
the faithful present, went in procession to bless the new water and
the baptismal fonts. This ceremony also was performed exactly as it
is with us. At its conclusion the deacon returned to the high altar,
and after sprinkling it and the congregation with the newly-blessed
water, the short mass of the day commenced.

Scarcely had the officiating priest begun to intone the _Gloria_,
when the central door of the church burst open, letting in a flood
of golden light; the cannon fired, the drums beat, the bells rang
out, and the loud organ pealed forth a triumphant strain, while
voices that seemed to come from heaven repeated high and clear, with
delicious harmony, _Gloria in excelsis Deo!_

We all simultaneously fell on our knees; for myself, I can say that
never in my life before had I experienced such rapturous emotion.
Never before had I so perfectly realized the triumph of life over
death! Never before, O my God! had I felt so deeply what it was to
praise thee, to bless thee, to adore thee, to glorify thee with my
whole heart. _Gloria in excelsis Deo!_

    "God the Redeemer liveth! He who took
    Man's nature on him, and in human shroud
    Veiled his immortal glory! He is risen--
    God the Redeemer liveth! And behold
    The gates of life and immortality
    Opened to all that breathe!"

The Alleluia was chanted in the same spirit of joy and exultation,
and the services concluded.

       *       *       *       *       *

Without the church all was now gayety and bustle. The streets were
crowded as if by magic with vehicles of every description. The shops
were all open; the sweetmeat and fruit-sellers at their posts,
looking as if they had never been absent; the lottery-ticket venders
in full cry. The horses and mules had their heads decorated with
bows and rosettes and streamers of bright-colored ribbons, and their
tails elegantly plaited and tied up to one side of their saddle or
harness, with scarlet braid. Even the quiet, patient oxen sported a
bit of finery, and wore flowers on the ponderous yoke that weighed
down their gentle heads. Crowds of busy men hurried hither and
thither; gayly-dressed ladies drove about in their stylish quitrins;
loud talking and laughing was the order of the day among the colored
population; a riff-raff of little blackies pervaded the city, happily
_without_ the squibs, crackers, and fire-arms permitted them until
this year, but quite sufficiently boisterous to be intolerable; while
the church-bells kept ringing out, adding their clang to the noisy
confusion, and _not_ with that merry musical chime we are accustomed
to hear in England, the land of the scientific, well-trained
bell-ringer. But, indeed, nowhere since I listened years ago to the
bells of Saint Mary's in dear old smoky Manchester have I heard a
regular triple bob-major!


EASTER-SUNDAY.

The sun was not yet up when I started for town on Easter morning.
The procession of the resurrection--called, to distinguish it from
other processions of the resurrection, _del encuentro_, "of the
meeting"--was to commence at six o'clock, and I was determined that
no tardiness on my part should prevent my seeing the whole of this
singular relic of bygone ages. The transition from darkness to light
is so wonderfully sudden, however, in these latitudes, that it was
broad day when I reached the cathedral, which I found brilliantly
illuminated with wax tapers, and hung with crimson damask draperies.
Mass had just begun, and there was a considerable number of persons
present, most of them ladies, as is always the case in the churches
of Havana. How the sight of the men-crowded churches of the United
States would astonish these Cubans, who seem to believe that religion
is made for ignorant women and children, and that the less they
profess to have, the more enlightened they appear! As if the really
enlightened man were not he who most deeply feels the necessity of
his Maker's care and love--the consolation of addressing him in
prayer!

As soon as the service was ended, I hastened to the _Calle
Empedrado_, the street leading directly from the cathedral to _San
Juan_, and took up my station on the edge of the sidewalk, about
half-way between the two churches. The balconies of the houses and
the sides of the great barred, glassless windows were hung with red
and yellow draperies; and gayly-dressed ladies and children, and
crowds of colored people, with the inevitable volunteers, thronged
the streets. While thus waiting, I was struck by the appearance of
the dresses of the greater part of the colored creole women; nearly
all wore red, white, and blue, the antagonistic colors to red and
yellow. Their wearers, in all probability, intended by this show of
their political opinions to revenge themselves upon the Spaniards for
the loss of their much-loved procession on Good-Friday.

There was soon a murmur of expectation in the crowd around me, and
presently there appeared coming toward us from _San Juan_ the image,
large as life, of St. Mary Magdalen, dressed in a skirt of silver
tinsel, and an open dress of blue satin, trimmed with silver lace.
A profusion of long auburn ringlets flowed down each side of the
smiling face, and a very elaborate gilded glory was affixed to the
back of the head. The arms were slightly raised, and the hand held
out. This figure stood on a small platform supported on the shoulders
of four of the Brethren of Solitude, such tall men that the saint,
as she advanced rapidly, her curls streaming out behind her, seemed
to be running over the heads of the spectators. As she passed, all
the men took off their hats respectfully. The bearers halted just
in front of me, the Magdalen being supposed to look toward the
sepulchre; after a few minutes' pause, she suddenly turned and ran
back to the church of _San Juan_. In order, probably, to give a more
natural appearance to the image, the men who carried it, and who
evidently took extreme delight and pride in the duty, waddled as they
ran, and so communicated a most ludicrous deportment to the saint.
Every one laughed loud as they watched her roll from side to side,
plunging forward from time to time, and then recovering herself with
a jerk, her hair flopping up and down or streaming out on the air.

_Que bien corre, meneandose_--"How well she runs, shaking
herself!"--was the admiring exclamation of several persons near
me, and they laughed; yes, men, women, and children, black and
white, roared with laughter, and yet, I verily believe, not one
among them all laughed in derision, or felt the slightest sentiment
of disrespect. "Perfect love casteth out fear," says the apostle;
and it never entered into their heads that the good saint could be
displeased because, like simple children, they laughed at so artless
a representation of her. The grotesque movements excited their
hilarity, and they were hilarious on the impulse of the moment, and
without _arriere pensee_. The Latin race is sometimes remarkable for
a child-like simplicity in its actions which too often is mistaken by
colder temperaments for a lack of veneration and propriety.

In a little while the saint came running down the street again,
saluted respectfully again by the merry crowd. A halt of five
minutes, while she looked earnestly in the direction of the
sepulchre, and then she turned and rushed back, more violently
agitated than before, and amidst reiterated shouts of laughter, to
_San Juan de Dios_, to tell the Blessed Virgin the good tidings that
her Son was alive again.

And now the loud strains of martial music reached our ears, and we
saw emerging from the square in front of the cathedral, and slowly
advancing toward us, a high, handsome structure carried on the
shoulders of a member of the black _Hermandad_. In the centre of it
stood the image of the risen Saviour, crowned with a radiant glory;
his right hand extended as if to welcome, his left grasping a white
and gold banner, which displayed, when the breeze unfurled its folds,
a blood-red cross. A little angel with outspread wings seemed to
hover in front of the gorgeous fabric, as if to herald the coming
Lord. A regiment of colored soldiers, wearing white drill uniforms
with red facings, escorted this triumphal car, the band playing its
gayest airs.

At the same moment the Holy Virgin, attired in gold-colored silk
damask, with a magnificent halo around her head, appeared at the
opposite end of the street coming to meet him. She was followed at
a short distance by St. Mary Magdalen, now more subdued in manner.
The Virgin's arms were raised as if about to clasp them around her
beloved Son, and her face wore an expression of ecstatic joy.

The two processions met where I stood, and after a short pause,
St. Mary Magdalen, who was the nearest to the church of _San Juan
de Dios_, turned round and led the way thither, the Virgin turning
also, and the two processions now forming but one. Slowly, but to
the liveliest music, in which mingled the strains of Riesgo's hymn,
the whole mass of us--for we spectators fell into the ranks--moved
onward, every one looking glad and gay, and so we at last reached the
old church, which was far too small to contain one half of us, and
the images entered one after the other with all the assistants who
could force their way in. We weaker vessels, left outside, seeing it
hopeless to try to get in, soon dispersed. I have since learnt that
no kind of religious ceremony took place; the images were simply set
down, and after a while the church was cleared of the people and
closed for an hour or two.

There are processions of the resurrection from a great number of
churches perambulating the city every Easter-Sunday; but this one "of
the Meeting," is by far the most curious and interesting. That of the
church of the _Espiritu Santo_ is considered one of the prettiest,
because of the children in fancy dresses that take part in it.
This year, I was told, a great majority of them wore volunteer or
_cantinera_ (canteen-women, or sutler) costumes, to the great disgust
of Cuban mothers.

       *       *       *       *       *

There was, of course, much festivity going on in the city and suburbs
all that day. There were family meetings and the pleasant _retreta_
in the evening for some; the theatre and public balls for others;
and, I am sorry to say, there was cock-fighting for that brutal
minority which in all countries seems to seek its greatest enjoyment
in the contemplation of bloody strife.

Yet, in sad truth, there had been strife enough in the streets of
Havana during the past week to have contented the most sanguinary
temper, and sorrow enough to have softened the hardest. Palm-Sunday
had witnessed the farewell to all that was dear to them of two
hundred and fifty unfortunate men; had witnessed, also, the wretched
end of the two youths about to embark with the other prisoners, and
the noble death of the courageous commissary of police, shot down
while he sought to protect them from the vengeance of the volunteers,
whom their mad bravadoes, as they were marched down to the ship, had
infuriated. In the course of the week a colored man had been killed
in the streets for seditious cries, and several others stabbed at
night by unknown hands. And as if to keep up the constant anxiety and
fear that overcast Havana like a lurid cloud, the Cubans by every
possible covert insult, and only just avoiding the most terrible
consequences, had shown their hatred of their Spanish rulers.

One trifling incident became a subject of interest and excitement
that would have been absurd under any other circumstances than the
present. On Good-Friday a _gorrion_ (sparrow) was found dead in the
_Plaza de Armas_ by a volunteer. Some say, though others contradict
the report, that the poor little bird had its eyes torn out, its
heart transfixed with pins, and a paper attached to one of its feet
containing the words, _Asi mueran todos los gorriones_--"May all
sparrows die thus!" Now, it must be understood that _gorrion_ is
another of the appellations bestowed on the Spaniards by the Cubans.
A few sparrows having been brought from Europe to the island by some
ship-captain, they prospered and multiplied in such a degree that
they soon outnumbered and domineered over the _Bijirita_, a native
bird somewhat smaller, but much resembling the sparrow in form,
color, and habits. An analogy being imagined between the Spaniards
and the new-comer--the name of _gorrion_ was given to all the
natives of the peninsula of Spain, while the Cubans adopted that of
_Bijirita_.

The little dead _gorrion_ found on Good-Friday was placed with much
ceremony in a glass coffin, and laid in state in a room of one of the
barracks, on a lofty catafalque, with velvet pall and lighted tapers
and a guard of honor. Crowns of fresh flowers, and of red and yellow
"everlastings," were suspended around and above the remains of the
typical bird, and two exquisite nosegays, each more than three feet
high, and as much in circumference, the gifts of the captain-general
and of the _generala_ his wife, stood one at the head, the other at
the foot of the mimic tomb. All the volunteers paid their respects
with much ceremony to the little representative of their race, and so
many people crowded to visit it on Holy-Saturday that it was at last
determined to utilize public curiosity.

On Easter-Sunday every person who wished to see the _gorrion_ was
obliged to pay ten cents, which were to go to the fund destined
to aid the volunteers disabled in the present terrible struggle.
On Easter morning the sum received amounted to three hundred and
fifty-one dollars!

A great number of songs, sonnets, and odes were composed in honor
of the poor little bird, and the manuscripts were tied by colored
ribbons to the crowns suspended above it. They have since been
collected and printed, and sold for the benefit of the same fund.
Many of them were published in the _Diario de la Marina_, the
official daily paper of Havana. The following are specimens of the
effusions:


    AL GORRION.

    Gloria al Gorrion que aqui veis
      Inanimado y marchito,
    Ya jamas de su piquito
      El dulce canto oireis.
    Pero en cambio no olvideis
      Los que lo mireis con sana,
    Que si ya la muerte empana
      Su mirada inteligente,
    De su raza prepotente
      Hay millones in Espana!

                _La Compania de Cazadores del 7^o Batallon._


    TO THE SPARROW.

    Glory to the Sparrow that you see here
      Lifeless and blighted,
    Never more from his little bill
      Will you hear a sweet song.
    But in exchange, do not forget,
      You who look at him with ill-will,
    That if indeed death has dimmed
      His intelligent glance,
    Of his most powerful race
      There are millions in Spain!

            _The Company of Cazadores of the 7th Battalion._

    Aqui reposa un Gorrion
      Que esta tarde se le entierra
    Y otros cien en pie de guerra
      La sirven de guarnicion,
    Bijiritas, en tropel
      Furiosas aleteais
    ?Por ventura no observais
      Que estais ya mas muertas que el?
    Descansa en paz, oh gorrion,
      Y admite esta ofrenda fria
    De la cuarta compania
      De este quinto batallon!


    TRANSLATION.

    Here rests a Sparrow,
      To be buried this afternoon,
    And a hundred more in warlike trim
      Serve him as a guard.

    You crowds of Bijiritas
      Who beat your wings with fury,
    Do you not by chance remark
      That you are already more dead than he is?

    Rest in peace, O sparrow!
      And accept this cold offering
    From the fourth company
      Of the fifth battalion.

The gorrion was buried, and Havana left once more without other
thought than that which had occupied Spaniards and Cubans for the
several months previous. It is said that in former days ships which
approached the tropic of Cancer, knew when they were nearing the
shores of Cuba by the sweet odor of flowers and honey borne to them
on the breeze; now, alas! the beautiful island is recognized from
afar rather by the light of her burning plantations--by the smell of
gunpowder and of blood! To all who have lived in Havana and who have
friends among both parties; to all who know and appreciate the proud
sense of honor and unshrinking courage of the one, and the quick
intelligence and high aspirations of the other, the present struggle
must and does give the deepest pain.

But while they sympathize sincerely with those who sorrow, they
believe that "behind a frowning providence God hides a smiling face,"
and that, the strife ended, Cuba will rise again from her ashes,
purified and regenerated; for it is written that "they who sow in
tears shall reap in joy"!




THORNS.

HOMAGE TO THE CROSS, GOOD-FRIDAY, 1870.


    Here his head rested,
      Crimsoned with blood;
    Jesus' hard slumber-place,
      Pillow of wood!

    Here his eye clouded;
      Dwell there, my gaze,
    Where the dear light of love
      Dyingly plays!

    Here the nails rankled;
      There the lance tore,
    While strove the water-tide
      Vainly with gore!

    Here the heart agonized,
      Hid from the glance;
    Pierced with ingratitude
      Worse than the lance!

    Here his soul parted--
      Break not, my heart!
    Oh! what a deadly hurt,
      Sinning, thou art.

    Here the feet turn to thee;
      Press them, my lips!
    While a love-agony
      Through my heart creeps!

                                      RICHARD STORRS WILLIS.




MARY STUART.


It is at once a remarkable fact and a striking exemplification of the
vitality of poetic justice in history that, from among modern Scotch
Puritans, from the spiritual descendants of John Knox, should have
come three of the noblest and most effective modern vindications of
Mary Stuart.

We refer to the work by Mr. Hosack noticed in our last number, to
that which we make the subject of the present article,[37] and to
the poem of Bothwell,[38] one of the finest in the entire range of
English literature. Professor Aytoun's poem is accompanied by a
body of historical notes, which are in themselves a model of legal
argument and dialectic power, covering the entire period of the
history of Mary Stuart in Scotland. And yet these three writers are
very far from being looked upon by their countrymen as the holders
of singular opinions. It may be news to many persons, but it is,
nevertheless, the fact that they merely reflect the prevailing
feeling in Scotland concerning its unfortunate queen of three
centuries agone, murdered in an English prison. The sentiment of
the great body of the Scotch people, gentle and simple, Puritan and
Catholic, is to this day decidedly in her favor, and the superficial
reader who, trusting to a superficial Froude, sneers at Mary Stuart,
is safer from reproof in New York than in Edinburgh.

Mr. Caird's work, of which the second edition was published last
year, appears to be made up of the material of a series of lectures
delivered by him in some of the Scotch cities, and, like Mr. Hosack's
work, is marked with evidences of great research, ability, and a
thorough knowledge of the country, the people, and the times under
discussion.

Like Mr. Hosack, Mr. Caird convicts the late English historian,
Froude, of numerous disgraceful blunders, and several--well we can
find no term properly to describe the performance but--palpable
falsehoods. Mr. Caird does not undertake to write a full and
connected history of Mary Stuart or of her reign in Scotland. He
seeks mainly to unravel the mystery of the intrigues, plots, and
conspirations by which that unfortunate queen was surrounded and
pursued from the moment she set foot in her kingdom. And he does
it successfully. In all history, there is no record of a band of
greater villains than the nobles who surrounded Mary's throne, or of
more devilish abettors than their English allies. The time is not
far off when, in spite of falsified history, Mary Stuart must be
held innocent of the crimes of which her very accusers themselves
were alone guilty. Mr. Caird enters gracefully on his subject. Three
centuries ago, a French fleet sailed up the Frith of Clyde, and cast
anchor at Dumbarton. It took on board a little girl, six years of
age--a merry creature who had not a care in the world--hoisted the
flag of Scotland, and bore her away to the coast of France. There
passed with her in the same ship a stripling of seventeen, her
illegitimate brother, (afterward known as the Earl of Murray,) who,
though incapable of inheritance, was brought up in the most intimate
family intercourse with her; young enough to engage the sisterly
affection of her warm heart, old enough to be already her trusted
counsellor and guide. His life was to be a continued betrayal of her
confidence. But whatever wild thoughts may have passed through his
busy brain, neither of them could have dreamed in those early days
of the frightful tragedies in which they were to become the chief
actors. In the yet distant future he was to usurp her place and
power, she to become his miserable prisoner; and it was all to end
at last in his being shot down, without law, at the summit of his
greatness, and in her being doomed to die, under the forms of law,
on an English scaffold. Yet, though their hearts were light on this
summer voyage, it was not without its dangers.

Twelve years later, a fleet sailed from sunny France, again bearing
the same girl, now budding toward womanhood. It steered for the
Frith of Forth. There is no laughter now. Her first great sorrow
has come upon her early. She is deeply clothed in mourning--a widow
at eighteen. Again an English fleet watched to intercept her. Again
she escaped narrowly, losing one of her vessels. She has been queen
of France. One blow has deprived her of a husband and a crown. She
claims to be queen of England. That claim rests on strong grounds of
law. It is to be the dream of her life, and she is never to realize
it. She is the acknowledged queen of Scotland; but she lands on her
native shore with sad forebodings and a heavy heart. No one has
ever charged her with having misconducted herself before that time;
yet such was the distracted state of her country, such the weakness
of her authority, that she said before she set out on this voyage,
"Perhaps it were better for me to die than to live."

Less than six busy years of troubled government and we see her
again--on the Frith of Solway. She has been despoiled of her Scottish
crown. She is flying for her life in a fishing-boat. "For ninety
miles," she writes, "I rode across the country without lighting or
drawing bridle; slept on the bare floor; no food but oatmeal; without
the company of a female; not daring to travel except by stealth at
night." And now the die is cast, and, in spite of many warnings, she
this time throws herself on the generosity of England.

Then follow nineteen years of bitter captivity:

    "Now blooms the lily by the bank,
      The primrose on the brae;
    The hawthorn's budding in the glen,
      And milk-white is the slae;
    The meanest hind in fair Scotland
      May rove their sweets amang;
    But I, the Queen o' a' Scotland,
      Maun lie in prison strang."

At last we see a long hall in the old castle of Fotheringay; a
platform laid with black--the actors and spectators all clothed in
black. There comes in, unsupported, to die, a lady of noble presence.
She has been wickedly denied the aid of her spiritual comforter,
and, alone with God, has administered to herself the last sacrament
of her religion, without the blessing or counsel of a minister. Even
her latest moments are disturbed by theological dispute. But she is
calm, and resigned to God's will. She lays her head on the block.
The executioner strikes and makes a ghastly wound. She does not even
stir. He strikes again, but his work is incomplete; and with a third
blow the life and sorrows of Mary Stuart are brought to an end.

It is one of the great problems of history, says Mr. Caird, whether
these terrible calamities were brought upon her by her own wickedness
or by the contrivance of others.

We have reason to believe that the child is now living who, as man
or woman, will hear and see the last mention in history of _Good
Queen Bess_.

Of all the humbugs of history, the reputation manufactured for
Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, is at once
the most insolent and the most disgusting. We do not care to give a
personal opinion of this woman, and will accept, for the present,
her character as mildly described by the historian Robertson, which
is to the effect that she was an habitual and mean liar, a peevish,
bad-tempered, vacillating, untrustworthy sovereign, whose parsimony,
and variableness, and small economy would have ruined herself and
her kingdom but for the fact that she had a great statesman by her,
and that good luck continually picked her out of the imbroglios into
which she had fallen. She was a vain, bad-tempered, irresolute,
deceitful old woman. And this is as lenient a view of Elizabeth as
could be taken of her with the historic lights possessed by Robertson.

But, compared with what we now know her to have been from the results
of modern discoveries among official and state paper records,
Robertson has here painted an angel of loveliness.

And just in proportion as Elizabeth has fallen on the historic
page, Mary Stuart is elevated by every fresh discovery of original
documentary evidence. She was, indeed, as Mr. Caird writes, a
winning, gentle-hearted woman, and the correspondence of her own
time, before men's hearts were hardened against her by passion, bears
much testimony to her virtues.

Throckmorton, the English ambassador in France, even during her war
with England, wrote of "her great wisdom for her years, her modesty,
her judgment in the wise handling of herself and her matters." And
another of the English ambassadors, who became one of her deadliest
enemies, says of her only a few months before her grievous
calamities were brought upon her, "There is one cheer and one
countenance always on the queen." Even after she was imprisoned in
Lochleven, Throckmorton wrote of her to Elizabeth, "The lords speak
of the queen with respect and reverence." Lord Scrope said, "She has
an eloquent tongue and a discreet head, stout courage, and a liberal
heart." And Sir Francis Knollys reported of her, "She desireth much
to hear of hardiness and valiancy, commending by name all approved
hardy men of her country, although her enemies, and she concealeth no
cowardness, even in her friends." Lethington wrote of her soon after
her return to Scotland, "She doth declare a wisdom far exceeding her
age."

After she was uncrowned, Murray and his council recorded of her, that
"God had endowed her with many good and excellent gifts and virtues;"
and he spoke of her in the same way in private.

The Earl of Shrewsbury, after having had the custody of the Queen
of Scots during fifteen years of her imprisonment in England, was
consulted by Elizabeth on the subject of a treaty for her liberation.
She desired especially to know from him for her guidance, whether
Mary's promises could be relied on if she were free. Shrewsbury's
answer was, "I believe that if the Queen of Scots promises any thing,
she will not break her word."

Her frequent and earnest pleadings with foreign powers for justice
and mercy to her subjects cannot be read without interest and
admiration. Her letters have been gathered from every corner of the
earth, and every page of them marks the elegance and simplicity
of her thoughts. If any man who has a prejudice against her will
sit down and read that correspondence, in which she treats of
all the incidents of life, he will rise from the perusal with a
different notion, not of her mind only, but her heart. These are
the records which we can read now, exactly as they dropped from her
pen, untainted by the bitterness of party, as so little else which
concerns her was permitted to be. And we can see her there as she
disclosed herself to her most confidential friends, whether in the
highest business of state or in the trivial affairs of daily life.

Mr. Caird's plan does not embrace a connected narrative of Mary's
reign, and we regret that he has found it necessary to omit a
narrative of the treacherous manner in which the destruction of the
Earl of Huntly was brought about. On Mary's arrival in Scotland,
every one was surprised that Mary should select for her chief state
councillor her half-brother, the Lord James, instead of the Earl of
Huntly. No one knew that Mary had been craftily persuaded by James
that Huntly was not loyal. The plan of her brother was as wicked as
it was deep. It was at once to deprive Mary of a loyal adviser and a
powerful friend, and to raise his own fortunes on Huntly's ruin. It
is curious to see how all this affair is ingeniously misrepresented
by Mr. Froude in his so-called history. Yielding to James's
solicitations, begun years before, Mary, after creating him Earl of
Mar, created him Earl of Murray. But this latter title he did not
wish to assert until he could obtain the lands appertaining to the
title, which he had procured while living in ostensible friendship
with the man he had doomed to ruin. The lands were in Huntly's
possession, and Murray made up his mind to have them. "But Huntly,"
says Mr. Froude, "had refused to part with them." Who was Huntly? He
was earl chancellor of the kingdom, a man aged fifty-two, a powerful
Catholic nobleman, who could bring twenty thousand spears into
the field. He had done good service for Mary's mother against the
English. English gold had not stained his palm. He was a man marked
for saying that he liked not the "manner of Henry VIII.'s wooing."
He had wanted Mary to land at Aberdeen, was at the head of the loyal
party on Mary's arrival, and had sought to warn her of her brother's
craft and ambition. Mr. Froude thus describes him, (vol. vii. p. 454:)

    "Of all the reactionary noblemen in Scotland the most powerful
    and dangerous[39] was notoriously the Earl of Huntly. It was
    Huntly who had proposed the landing at Aberdeen. In his own
    house the chief of the house of Gordon had never so much as
    affected to comply with the change of religion," etc.

What depravity! Would not change his religion, nor even have the
decency _to affect to comply_! Positively an atrocious character!
Nevertheless, so perfect is the command of a philosophical historian
over his feelings that these dreadful facts are recorded without
comment. It is evident that the lands of such a wretch as Huntly
ought to be given to one so "God-fearing" as Murray. "A number of
causes combined at this moment to draw attention to Huntly." But,
all counted, the number is just two--one of them utterly frivolous,
and the other, "he had refused to give up the lands." Mr. Froude
is now candid, and tells us that Murray "resolved to anticipate
attack, (none was dreamed of,) to carry the queen with him to visit
the recusant lord in his own stronghold, and either to drive him
into a premature rebellion or force him to submit to the existing
government."

"Murray's reasons for such a step," continues Mr. Froude, "are
intelligible." Perfectly. "It is less easy," he continues, "to
understand why Mary Stuart consented to it." And then Mr. Froude
proceeds to wonder over it with John Knox's guesses, and his own
"if," "perhaps," and "may be." Less easy indeed! It is utterly
impossible, unless one consents to look at Mary Stuart as she
was--a young woman easily influenced through her affections, and
with a sincere sisterly attachment for the man in whom she failed
to recognize her worst enemy. Difficult indeed to understand the
suicidal measure of ruining the most powerful Catholic nobleman
in Scotland, and strengthening the hands of the most powerful
Protestant leader. "Huntly's family," says Mr. Froude, "affirmed that
the trouble which happened to the Gordons was for the sincere and
loyal affection which they had to the queen's preservation," (vii.
456.) And they were right. We leave Mr. Froude to speculate on the
malicious motive Mary Stuart must have had for thus lopping off her
right hand. Murray now manages to draw the queen and her attendants
over moor and mountain two hundred and fifty miles to Tarnway, within
the lands of the earldom of Murray. She was entirely guided by him,
and he used her authority to compass his personal ends and weaken her
throne.

Alexander Gordon at first refused to open the gates of Inverness
Castle to the queen, but complied the next day, on the order of
Huntly. Murray had Gordon immediately hung, and his head set on the
castle wall. Mr. Froude describes this brutal murder as "strangling
a wolf-cub in the heart of the den," (vol. vii. p. 457,) all that
Murray does being of course lovely. Mary was now surrounded by Murray
and his friends, who poisoned her mind against the Huntlys with
stories that the earl meant to force her into a marriage with his
son, and had other designs against her person and royal authority;
and Mary believed them. "Whereupon," writes Randolph to Cecil--for
Murray had brought his English friend, Elizabeth's servant, along
with him--"whereupon there was good pastime." Huntly yielded all that
was demanded of him. His castles and houses were seized, plundered,
stripped, and he was a ruined man. Lady Huntly spoke sad truth when,
leading Murray's messenger into the chapel of the house, she said to
him before the altar, "Good friend, you see here the envy that is
borne unto my husband; would he have forsaken God and his religion,
as those that are now about the queen, my husband would never have
been put as he now is," (vol. vii. p. 458.) Mr. Froude reports this
incident, and very properly spoils its effect by the statement that
Lady Huntly was "reported by the Protestants to be a witch." Huntly
was driven to take up arms. "Swift as lightning," says Mr. Froude,
with yellow-cover tinge of phrase, "Murray was on his track." And now
"swift as lightning"--sure sign of mischief meant--Mr. Froude moves
on with his narrative, omitting essential facts, but not omitting
a characteristic piece of handiwork. News came from the south that
Bothwell had escaped out of Edinburgh Castle; "not," glides in our
philosophic historian--"not, it was supposed, without the queen's
knowledge," (vol. vii. p. 459.) After a wonderful victory of his two
thousand men over Huntly's five hundred--a mere slaughter--Murray
brought the queen certain letters of the Earl of Sutherland, found,
he said, in the pockets of the dead Earl of Huntly, and showing
treasonable correspondence. They were forgeries; but they answered
his purpose. "Lord John, (Huntly's son,) after a full confession, was
beheaded in the market-place at Aberdeen," (vol. vii. p. 459.) There
was no confession but that which _Murray told the queen_ he made,
and Mr. Froude forgets to tell us that Murray caused young Gordon's
scaffold to be erected in front of the queen's lodging, and had her
placed in a chair of state at an open window, deluding her with some
specious reason as to the necessity of her presence.

When the noble young man was brought out to die, Mary burst into a
flood of tears; and when the headsman did his work, she swooned and
was borne off insensible. Here is Mr. Froude's short version of these
facts: "Her brother read her a cruel lesson by compelling her to be
present at the execution." Mr. Froude also forgets to tell us that
Murray had six gentlemen of the house of Gordon hung at Aberdeen
on the same day. But a few pages further on, he has the insolent
coolness to tell us of a prize that Mary "trusted to have purchased
with Huntly's blood"! (vol. vii. p. 463.) After all, you thus
perceive that it was not Murray, but Mary, who wrought all this ruin.


THE RICCIO MURDER.

Mr. Caird presents with great force the result of modern discoveries
in the State Paper Office touching the details of the Riccio
conspiracy, and shows conclusively that Murray was its real head,
and also the chief organ of communication between the conspirators
and the English government. The previous knowledge of the intent to
murder Riccio, and the probable danger to Mary's life, is brought
home to Elizabeth. She could not have been accounted guiltless,
even if she had remained passive, merely concealing from her royal
sister the bloody tragedy which was being prepared for her with
the knowledge of her agent in Scotland. This agent (Randolph)
she supported vehemently, protected the assassins, negotiated and
trafficked until she got them restored, supplied Murray with large
sums of money immediately before and immediately after Riccio's
death, and took the first opportunity to gratify her vindictiveness
against Darnley by open insult.

In the conspiracy for the murder of Riccio, no one was more deeply
implicated than Darnley. He had allowed himself to be flattered and
tempted by Murray, Maitland, and the rest with the prospect of a
royal crown. But while these crafty men used him in this way for
their own ends, they had not the slightest idea of allowing him to
be more than a puppet in their hands. The knowledge of Darnley's
complicity in the murder had wrung Mary's heart; but after the first
burst of grief, she saw clearly that he was the dupe and tool of
others. Her respect for him could not be otherwise than shaken; but
her affection preserved him from the punishment which he richly
merited. And for his sake she spared his father (Lenox) also, whom
she justly blamed most; but she never permitted _him_ to enter her
presence again. Considering that she had released him from the
consequences of treason only twelve months before, and that he had
now repeated the offence under such aggravated circumstances, and
had beguiled his son into the same evil course, bringing misery upon
her household, her forbearance can be attributed only to surviving
tenderness for her husband.

Mr. Caird places in a very clear light the development of the
contempt and hatred of the conspirators for Darnley, which gradually
hardened and intensified into the conspiracy to murder him; and as we
watch its growth, it is sad to witness the suffering, sacrifices, and
self-denial of a noble-hearted woman all wasted in vain, and upon
a most unworthy object. And yet more sad is it when we see, in such
falsifiers of history as Mr. Froude, the very clearest and highest
proofs of womanly goodness and wifely devotion wrenched and perverted
into evidence of crime and murder.

In connection with this subject, Mr. Caird draws attention to the
record of the Scotch Privy Council--an account the more valuable
because the very men composing the council attempted at a later
period to cast discredit on the queen. Here is their testimony: "So
far as things could come to their knowledge, the king (Darnley)
had no ground of complaints; but, on the contrary, that he had
reason to look upon himself as one of the most fortunate princes
in Christendom, could he but know his own happiness." And they
added, "That although they who did perpetrate the murder of her
faithful servant had entered her chamber with his knowledge, having
followed him close at the back, and had named him the chief of their
enterprise, yet would she never accuse him thereof, but did always
excuse him, and willed to appear as if she believed it not; and so
far was she from ministering to him occasion of discontent, that, on
the contrary, he had all the reason in the world to thank God for
giving him so wise and virtuous a person as she had showed herself in
all her actions."

There are few points in the history of this period on which writers
are so thoroughly agreed as the utter worthlessness and incapacity
of Darnley, and there are also few cases which so completely as that
of Darnley exemplify the too common weakness of the superior woman
for the inferior man who possesses her affection. Trafficking on her
affection, and seeking to wring from her a consent to his demands,
he came very tardily to what was by all supposed to be her dying-bed
at Jedburg. His bearing shocked all beholders. It was at this time
Mary made her will, the inventory attached to which is a modern
discovery. She left Darnley twenty-five jewels of great value, and
opposite one cherished ring wrote with her own hand, "It is the ring
with which I was betrothed. I leave it to the king who gave it to
me." And yet Mr. James Anthony Froude informs us that Mary was then
planning this husband's murder!

The most admirable chapters of Mr. Caird's work are those which treat
of


THE MURDER OF DARNLEY.

The author shows conclusively, from an array of original testimony
which cannot be disputed, the precise nature, extent, and composition
of the conspiracy to effect this assassination, and presents the
whole question in an entirely new light.

As revealed by Mr. Caird, the conspiracy, by the time the moment was
reached for execution, had trebled itself. That is to say, there were
in the field on the eventful night of the murder, three separate
and independent bands of assassins, one of which most certainly
acted independently of the other two. Bothwell and his party, thrust
forward to do the work by associates quite as guilty as he, but
possessed of more brains, were, materially, innocent of Darnley's
killing, although fully guilty in intent. They blew up the house at
Kirk o' Field, supposing that Darnley went with it. There can now
be but little doubt that when the explosion took place Darnley was
already a dead man, smothered or _burked_ by a special band.

For some hours after the explosion, no trace of Darnley's body
could be found; but as morning dawned, it was discovered in a garden
eighty yards from the house. The attendant who slept in the room
with him was lying dead at a short distance further away. Each had
on a night-shirt. There was not a fracture, contusion, or livid
mark, nor any trace of fire on their bodies, and the king's clothes
were lying folded beside him. A fur pelisse, open as if dropped, was
lying near him. Now, if we are to suppose that Darnley was blown up
in the air, we must believe it possible that a human body could be
thrown a distance of eighty yards without any marks of violence; that
another body was thrown the same distance with the same results;
and--stranger than all--that Darnley's fur pelisse and slippers were
also blown uninjured to his side by the explosion, while five other
inmates of the house were buried in the ruins.


ELIZABETH'S GUILTY KNOWLEDGE.

One fact of equal importance and interest is well established by
modern investigation. It is the guilty knowledge, and actual or
implied association of Queen Elizabeth of England in all the secret
plots set on foot by the nobility of Scotland against Mary and her
interests.

She was fully advised of the murder of Riccio three weeks before it
took place, and Mr. Caird establishes, we think, conclusively, that
she was quite as well advised concerning the Darnley murder.

Fourteen years after the occurrence, one of the first acts of King
James, on his freedom from tutelage, was to commit the Earl of Morton
to the Castle of Edinburgh, charged with the murder of Darnley.

Morton was one of the very few surviving conspirators. Bothwell was
dead in exile; Maitland had poisoned himself, and Murray had been
shot down in the streets of Linlithgow.

As soon as Queen Elizabeth heard of Morton's arrest, she made the
most frantic efforts to prevent his trial. She endeavored to stir up
insurrection in Scotland; she threatened war; she moved an army to
the frontier; she sent back to Scotland as her ambassador, Randolph,
so thoroughly familiar with all its murderous plots. Leicester, her
lover, wrote to Randolph with a suggestion scantily veiled that the
young king might follow his father--"He will not long tarry in that
soil. Let the fate of his predecessor be his warning." And close on
the heels of that, came official notice that Elizabeth would assist
and maintain the Scots in protection of Morton. But James owed a debt
to the memory of his murdered father, to the name of his captive
mother, who was then pining in her English prison, and, in spite of
Elizabeth's threats and violence, Morton was brought to trial, found
guilty, and sentenced to death. Mr. Caird cites and refers to a mass
of dispatches connected with Elizabeth's movements in this Morton
matter which we have never seen elsewhere alluded to, and adds Queen
Elizabeth's violence before Morton's trial and execution was not more
remarkable than her sudden attitude of acquiescence as soon as his
mouth was shut. "Did he hold some terrible secret whose disclosure
she feared?"

The murder of Darnley occurred on the 10th of February, 1567. A full
fortnight before, Mary's ambassador in Paris wrote to her that he had
received a hint from the Spanish ambassador that the queen should
take heed to herself, for there was a plot on foot to her injury. The
letter reached Mary twelve hours too late to be of any service as a
warning. But even if she had received it, to whom could she have
turned for aid or information? All the lords were in the plot, and
she was surrounded by conspirators. The question is asked, Why did
she not bring to justice the murderers of Darnley? Her situation was
such that it was simply impossible for her to get at the knowledge
of any fact dangerous to the conspirators. Denunciatory placards
were issued in Edinburgh. But if shown, she would there find herself
charged with being an accomplice with Bothwell and others in the
murder. Knowing this to be an outrageous slander on herself, she
would naturally conclude that it was equally so on them. And if
herself innocent, Bothwell was the very last of her lords whom she
could suspect of having cause of quarrel with the king. He was almost
the only man who had supported Darnley, and it is certain he was not
of those to whom Darnley had demonstrated antipathy. The wild scheme
of ambition which Bothwell afterward pursued had probably not clearly
developed itself even in his own mind till after Darnley's death.
Dreams he may have had. But the scheme which he finally executed
seems to have been the growth of opportunity.

After the murder, Mary shut herself up in a dark chamber, and kept
it until her physicians compelled her to go to Seaton. A month after
the murder, when Killigrew, the English ambassador, saw her, she
was still in a dark chamber, and seemed in profound grief. Two such
tragedies as had befallen her within a twelve-month were more than
enough to shatter the nerves of any woman.

And now came a fresh warning from Paris that some new plot was in
progress. The Spanish ambassador, by whom the warning of the Darnley
murder had been given, said,

    "Apprise her majesty that I am informed, by the same means as
    I was before, that there is still some notable enterprise in
    hand against her, whereof I wish her to beware in time."

No explanation was given, and the poor queen was of course
bewildered. She had heart and nerve enough for her own risk; but she
at once took precautions for the safety of her child, the heir to
the crown. She at once placed him in charge of the Earl of Mar, and
lodged him in the strong castle of Stirling. And this fact is more
than answer to the assertion that Mary was at this time under the
influence of Bothwell. If any such influence had existed, he would
not have permitted the disposition that was made of the child. His
first effort on coming to power was to get the young prince into his
hands. The Earl of Mar justified Mary's confidence, and withstood the
efforts not only of Bothwell, but of Murray, to get possession of the
child.

Then came the distribution of the crown lands among the conspirators
by the ratification of parliament.

This matter was at once the main cause of Darnley's murder and the
bond of union among the murderers. On the evening of the adjournment
of parliament, its members were entertained at a supper by Bothwell.
After the feast, a bond was produced by Sir James Balfour, by which
they bound themselves to sustain Bothwell's acquittal, recommended
him as the fittest husband for the queen, and engaged to support
him with their whole power, and to hold as enemies any who should
presume to hinder the marriage. They all signed but one, the Earl
of Eglinton. It was at this time that Bothwell began to manifest
his intentions to Mary, and a letter of hers relates that he tried
"if he might by humble suit purchase our good-will, but found our
answer nothing correspondent to his desire." Mary then went to
Stirling to visit her child. She probably wished, says Mr. Caird,
by leaving Edinburgh at this juncture, to indicate to Bothwell that
her rejection of his approaches was decisive; and he acted as if he
thought so. His next step was that of a _desperate man_.


BOTHWELL CARRIES OFF THE QUEEN.

On her return from Stirling, three days later, he suddenly met her
on the road with a large armed force, seized her, made her escort
prisoners, and carried her off to his castle at Dunbar. He kept her
there for eleven or twelve days. When she resisted his insolence,
he produced the bond granted to him by the nobility, and she there
found the signatures of every man from whom she could have expected
help. Not one moved a finger in her defence. Huntly and Lethington,
who were there with Bothwell, would not fail to remind her of the
calamities which she had brought upon herself by opposing the policy
of her nobles in her former marriage. Day after day she held out,
but no help came. Sir James Melville, who had been taken prisoner
with her, records that such violence was at last used that she no
longer had a choice. Bothwell, in his dying confession, said that
he accomplished his purpose "by the use of sweet waters." Morton's
proclamations charged him with using violence to the queen, "and
other more unleisum means." It seems not unlikely, therefore, that he
employed some sweetened potion. Mary herself says that "in the end,
when she saw no hope to be ridd of him, never man in Scotland ance
making a mint for her deliverance, she was driven to the conclusion,
from their hand-writes and silence, that he had won them all."
He partly extorted and partly obtained her consent to marriage.
Bothwell then conveyed the heart-broken queen, surrounded by a great
force, to the Castle of Edinburgh. He next carried her before the
judges, after lining the streets and crowding the courts and passages
with his armed retainers. She there submitted to make a declaration
that she "forgave him of all hatred conceived by her for taking and
imprisoning her;" and also that she was now at liberty. The necessity
for such a declaration implies previous coercion. Mr. Caird explains
that, under the then existing law, Bothwell had committed an offence
punishable with death if he had not obtained this declaration.
A marriage was formally solemnized, and so little was her will
consulted that it was in the Protestant form. Fettered by their bond,
the nobles all looked on and lent no aid. One honest man there was,
though, the Protestant minister Craig, who boldly told Bothwell that
he objected to the marriage because he (Bothwell) had forced the
queen. Called upon to proclaim the banns, Craig denounced it from the
pulpit, and afterward publicly testified in the next general assembly
that he was alone in opposing the marriage, and that "the best part
of the realm did approve it, either by flattery or by their silence."

The SILVER CASKET LETTERS are treated by Mr. Caird as they must be
by every fair-minded man. He says, "These letters, in truth, were as
gross and clumsy fabrications as ever were put forward." His thorough
analysis of the longest letter--a love-letter of fourteen quarto
pages of print--is the most successful we have seen.

Mr. Caird closes his work with two scenes so effectively portrayed
that our readers will thank us for transcribing them:

    "After much earthly glory, and a long reign, the time came
    at last when the great Queen Elizabeth must die. Wealth,
    grandeur, power which none might question--all were hers. But
    a cold hand was on her heart. The shadow of death was creeping
    over her--slow, very slow, but deepening every hour. There
    was not one left who loved her, or whom she could love. Her
    most trusted servants trembled at her passions, and longed
    for a change. Hume tells us she rejected all consolation. She
    refused food. She threw herself on the floor. She remained
    sullen and immovable, feeding her thoughts on her afflictions,
    and declaring her existence an insufferable burden. Few words
    she uttered, and they were all expressive of some inward grief
    which she did not reveal; but sighs and groans were the chief
    vent of her despondency, which discovered her sorrows without
    assuaging them.

    "Oh! the long and unutterable agony of such a time. What is
    there on earth that could bribe one to bear it willingly? How
    bitterly she must have realized the words addressed to her by
    Mary Stuart on the eve of her execution:

    "'Think me not presumptuous, madam, that now, bidding farewell
    to this world, and preparing for a better, I remind you that
    you also must die and account to God for your stewardship as
    well as those who have been sent before you. Your sister and
    cousin, prisoner of wrong,'

                                                    MARIE R.

    "Ten days and nights Queen Elizabeth lay thus upon the carpet;
    then her voice left her, her senses failed, and so she died."

Mary Stuart had gone long before, destroyed and done to death by this
woman; sent to the scaffold in a land where she had been wrongfully
kept a prisoner, to whose law she owed no allegiance, and by virtue
of a law which was passed to compass her death. On her way to
execution, she was met by her old servant, Andrew Melville. He threw
himself on his knees before her, wringing his hands in uncontrollable
agony.

"Woe is me," he cried, "that it should be my hard hap to carry back
such tidings to Scotland!"

"Weep not, Melville, my good and faithful servant," she replied;
"thou shouldst rather rejoice to see the end of the long troubles
of Mary Stuart. This world is vanity, and full of sorrows. I am
Catholic, thou Protestant; but as there is but one Christ, I charge
thee in his name to bear witness that I die firm in my religion.
Commend me to my dearest son. May God forgive them that have thirsted
for my blood."

She then passed to the scaffold. She surveyed it, the block, the axe,
the executioners, and spectators undauntedly as she advanced. She
prayed to God to pardon her sins and forgive her enemies.

The two executioners knelt and prayed her forgiveness.

"I forgive you and all the world with all my heart; for I hope this
death will give an end to all my troubles." She then knelt down and
commended her spirit into God's hands, and the executioners did their
work.

The sad tale is told. All the actors have been nearly three centuries
in their graves; but their story shall stir the hearts of men till
the world's end.

FOOTNOTES:

[37] _Mary Stuart. Her Guilt or Innocence. An Inquiry into the Secret
History of her Times._ By Alexander McNeel Caird. Edinburgh: Adam &
Charles Black. 1869.

[38] _Bothwell: A Poem in Six Parts._ By W. Edmonstoune Aytoun,
D.C.L. Author of _Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers_, _Bon Gaultier's
Ballads_, etc. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

[39] Mr. Froude, by "reactionary," means that he was not a disciple
of John Knox; by "dangerous," that he was a man who would defend his
religion.




A BRIDEMAID'S STORY.


A bridemaid! I had become a necessity. A sense of such importance was
novel to me. It was a pleasant awakening to a consciousness that I
had attained womanhood. To have been a bride would not have filled me
with such unmingled joy; for then I might have been thinking over the
possibilities of the future. Now I had only to play my part in the
bright and bewildering present.

That there had been bridemaids before my time, of the loftiest and
of the lowliest degree, from the jewelled princess to the humble
dairy-maid, rendered my position none the less novel and refreshing.
Then, too, the circumstances of the case were not to be lightly
passed over--I had been chosen from among so many whose claims to
consideration were far above mine.

An imaginative child always seeks and finds some object in which to
concentrate its thoughts and its loves; something real to serve as an
embodiment of its ideal fancies. Hence, all the wealth of my fervent
nature had centred on Marian Howard.

From earliest childhood I had watched and wondered at her rare and
high-born beauty. Every feature in her face seemed to have a distinct
and separate fascination, while every adornment of dress that could
enhance her varied charms was brought into requisition. To look upon
her was a feast of pleasure to my eyes.

The quiet dignity of her manner kept a distance between us, so that
she was a sort of far-off idol, after all. In her company we never
gave way to our outgushing school-girl nature. I sometimes thought
she would be happier if she were only more like us, or if we should
welcome her with a girl's free and fervent greeting. But who dared
try the experiment?

As we grew older, our paths in life diverged. Soon after leaving
school, Marian went to live and to love in a foreign land, while I
returned to the quiet pleasures of a rural home.

Four years passed, and then the fine old house which had so long
remained silent again showed signs of life. They had returned--the
widowed aunt and her beautiful niece.

The preparations for the wedding were immediately commenced, and
Marian repaid my early devotion by offering me the highest mark of
her confidence and regard.

The old tenderness came rushing back when I again beheld her more
stately and more beautiful than ever. She told me it would be a
quiet wedding--only a few friends, and I her only bridemaid. My
arrangements were soon completed, and I awaited anxiously the
appointed time. Soon it was the day before the marriage. I went over
to assist in the final preparations, and was to spend the night with
Marian. The morrow would witness, in the case of my friend, the great
event of a woman's life--to be given away in marriage. I say of a
woman's life, because marriage can hardly have the same significance
for men; they are not given away.

The distinguished stranger who was so soon to call Marian his wife
was certainly unlike any of the men I had ever known; but I had known
so few, and my knowledge of the world was so limited, that I did not
feel competent to pass judgment on him. Then there were such method,
such calmness and system about the man, about the unbending aunt,
about Marian, and about the whole house, that I felt cold with a
chilling sense of not being able to get warm again, though it was a
lovely summer afternoon. More of nature and less of art, I thought,
might have warmed the approaching festivities.

The evening shadows were falling. We had just finished arranging and
rearranging the costly bridal gifts, when Marian was summoned to
attend her aunt.

Among the other presents was that grand conception, Gustave Dore's
_Wandering Jew_. This work of human genius seemed a strange companion
for the rare articles of luxury that surrounded it.

I took up the book and went out upon the balcony. The softly-fading
twilight, the subdued spirit of the house, the reflective turn my own
mind had taken, prepared me for impressions of the awful and sublime.

It is said that "real genius always rises, and in rising it
finds God." Surely the force and truth of this thought were here
exemplified; for who could look upon these scenes, so truthful and
intense, without a feeling of awe and reverence?

I was thus occupied, I know not how long, when suddenly Mr. Gaston
recalled me to myself. "How absorbed you are, Miss Heartly! I have
been watching you with much interest. Pray, has the book any bearing
upon the coming events of to-morrow? Court beauties, I suppose," he
continued carelessly, as he came toward me.

"Why!" said I, "you have returned early, Mr. Gaston. You cannot have
taken that delightful drive Marian proposed to you?"

"No," he answered; "I have no inclination for solitude; but you
ladies are so occupied with these time-killing nothings, these
endless little arrangements so indispensable to your happiness, that
we lonely mortals are entirely ignored and forgotten."

"I think, sir, that calamity seldom befalls you," I replied, thus
adding, perhaps, to vanity already sufficiently great.

"But the book?" he continued, opening it listlessly. "Oh! the old
fable in a new dress. It is strange how women cling to the marvellous
and impossible. They seem to have but two absorbing ideas--love and
religion. Extremes in either usually lead to the same pernicious
result. I suppose an idol is a necessity to them, and it matters
little in which they find it."

"I do not understand you," I replied. "Are you in jest, or are you
seriously denouncing revealed religion?"

"Revealed religion!" he repeated. "Is it possible that, at this stage
of the world's advancement, _you_ still cling to that antiquated idea
of Christianity?"

The modern methods of fashioning a god to suit the impious desires of
vain and conceited mortals was then unknown to me. I looked at the
man with wonder and distrust. He read my confusion and hastened to
explain himself.

"Religion," he said, "as you accept it, makes us cowards instead of
men. My reason is _my_ religion; I acknowledge no other guide."

"Ah! then," I exclaimed, "how often must you stumble by the way."
I turned to the most effective picture in the book. "Here is an
instance of the vanity of human pride. Here we can see the end of
man's boasted strength--the anguish of a lost soul hopelessly looking
for repose and peace."

"An imposing fable," he replied, "wanting only a woman's faith to
give it substance and reality."

I was rising to put an end to this unprofitable and distasteful
conversation, when Marian joined us. My disturbed manner plainly
annoyed her, and she evidently suspected its cause; for she addressed
Mr. Gaston in German quite earnestly. Soon turning to me he said,
"Pray, excuse me, Miss Heartly; I was not aware that you were a
Catholic. I know your people feel most keenly what they profess. Of
course you have already stamped me a condemned heretic."

"It is not for me to pass judgment on you," I replied; "and if I did,
my opinion could be of very little value."

"Come, come!" said Marian, "this is a most unapt and gloomy subject
for my marriage eve; and the sun, too, has gone down sullenly. I hope
there is nothing prophetic in all this."

"What! growing serious now?" I said, as I drew her arm within mine,
and we went to look for the fiftieth time at the final arrangements
for the morrow's festivities.

I could not, however, throw off the feeling of uneasiness that my
interview with Mr. Gaston had left. He had a way of cheapening one,
so that, without knowing why, you fell immeasurably in your own
estimation. This is never a comfortable condition to find one's self
in, and it takes a good deal of nice logic to bring one back to one's
normal state.

Perhaps it was the loftiness of his style that awed me; for he
had a magnificent way of carelessly throwing the world behind him
and walking forth in a sort of solitary dignity. "His manners are
courtly," Marian's aunt said, and certainly they possessed all the
cold stiffness that characterized her particular circle; still, I
felt I had no real grounds for this feeling of distrust and aversion
to Mr. Gaston, and I began to think it was rather ungenerous to
hold him in so unfavorable a light. I could not shake off, however,
an undefined dread of the approaching marriage. The apathy and
indifference which had always been peculiar to my young friend did
not forsake her even now, when apparently on the very threshold of
happiness. I thought that intensity of feeling perhaps kept her thus
silent, for overpowering happiness has this effect sometimes. The
delusion was, however, speedily dispelled.

That night a sealed chapter in Marian's life was laid open to me, and
I saw her as I had never seen or thought of her before.

After locking the chamber-door, she seated herself by my side, and
said, "This is the first time in my life that I have known perfect
freedom; I mean a liberty to do and say what I like with a feeling of
security.

"You remember the 'Greek Slave.' Well, I am not unlike that delicate
girl chained in the market-place. Every inclination of my heart has
been chained down and locked, and my aunt has kept the key.

"I was an uncomplaining, passionless child. In my cradle I received
my first lessons in self-control. As I grew older, I learned
another lesson, too unnatural for even a thoughtful child like me
to understand. I was not needed here; I was considered only as a
desirable ornament for this great house. I might as well have been
placed upon a pinnacle and petrified at once, for all the childhood
that was allowed to take root within me.

"My aunt's domestic misfortunes had embittered her, and she had no
children to soften the natural austerity of her soul. My mother, who
was her only sister, had, contrary to my aunt's wishes, married where
her heart inclined. This was never forgiven or forgotten until she
lay dead, and I was a wailing infant at her side.

"My father soon afterward perished at sea, and my aunt took me to
her home.

"She was not designedly cruel; but she knew nothing of a child's
requirements. The freezing system seemed to her the most effectual
method of crushing out a young, impulsive nature. There was danger I
might become rebellious, and hence she required the utmost meekness
and submission.

"As soon as I came to understand the power of beauty, I saw that
it was to mine I owed food and raiment; for it fed the exhaustless
vanity of my aunt, with whom display was then, and still is, the
moving spring of her existence.

"I was a drawing-room child, kept for exhibition at stated intervals.
The tiny jewels on my neck and arms were hateful to me. My
embroidered robe was a costly thing. I had given a young life for it.

"I had a mortal fear of losing my beauty. Our gardener's daughter--a
comely, cheerful-looking girl, whom I was always glad to see, for she
made the morning brighter with her fresh young face--had caught that
loathsome disease, the small-pox. When she recovered, the change that
had come upon her so terrified me, that I was seized with a sensation
as of coming danger. I shrank from the girl, as if she would be the
cause of some future misery to me.

"She had a mother to whom she seemed infinitely more dear now than
she had ever been. But I, a lonely waif, what would become of me if I
should be transformed like her?

"It was not altogether for my own gratification that I desired to
retain this beauty. It was not my own beauty. It belonged to my aunt,
and was all I had to give her in return for what she gave me.

"I was not a child that saw angels in the skies, or that expected
manna to come down from heaven to feed me.

"Artificial and unsatisfying as my life has always been, I have a
clinging desire to remain with it.

"At times I have had a vaguely conceived notion of one day getting
away from it and of being free; but the bending and breaking system
has so subdued me that I might lose myself if left to the guidance of
my own free-will.

"Marriage is a solemn thing. Would you like to change places with me
to-night, Mary?"

I could not say yes, and I dared not say no; for I saw that she was
losing courage, and beginning to hesitate about the important event
so soon to transpire.

"That is a strange question, Marian dear," I replied. "To-morrow
ought to be, and I hope will be, the happiest day of your life.
Surely you must love this man when you have promised to be his wife?"

"Oh! yes," said she, "as well as I understand what it is to love. I
sometimes tremble for fear I have not the qualities that make woman
lovable and attractive. You forget how little I know of Edward Gaston.

"Our acquaintance began in a little German town, where he was
stopping, for the purpose of establishing his claims to a disputed
inheritance. He is an American by birth and education. He soon became
a constant visitor with us. My aunt and he were on the best of terms.
My own interest in him had never passed beyond the civilities of an
ordinary acquaintance until he again joined us at Naples, where he
lost no time in making known the state of his feelings.

"My aunt seemed to have had some previous knowledge of his
preference; but its announcement was to me a complete surprise.

"She was proud of her nice discrimination in the selection of
her friends, and Mr. Gaston had come into our circle labelled and
indorsed a gentleman.

"Her gracious consideration, however, of his offer, in no wise
obscured her caution. Satisfied as to his worldly affairs, and well
assured of his position at home, there was nothing wanting but my
consent, which was really the most trifling part of the arrangement.
I accepted this marriage engagement as I would have accepted any
other condition so mapped out for me.

"Business of a pressing nature which could be delayed no longer,
called Mr. Gaston to America, and I did not see him again until our
return a month ago.

"You see how little I know of him. Can you wonder that I am
constrained in his presence? Of course, every thing will be different
when I come to know him better.

"But I have one cause of feverish anxiety. I am not above the petty
subterfuges almost incidental to a life like mine. A desire to hide
mistakes committed through childish ignorance made me unscrupulous,
as any member of a household who is watched and suspected must
naturally be. Habit may have made these little irregularities almost
a second nature, but my blood recoils from a wilful and deliberate
deception. I am afraid Edward is misled with regard to my aunt's
pecuniary condition.

"This life of seeming affluence, which has become as necessary to her
as the air she breathes, drains heavily on her slender resources.
Such portion of her time as is not spent in her handsome carriage, or
in drawing-room entertainments, is passed in a most frugal and even
parsimonious mode of living, and it is only by an economy painful to
contemplate that she has kept things floating thus far.

"I cannot acquaint Edward with my aunt's existing embarrassments.
She is my only kinswoman; and misguided as she is, I have a tender
affection for her. I hope to be able to offer her a home with us,
when, as soon must be the case, the last act in this miserable farce
shall have been played.

"Now, perhaps, you can understand why I thus passively submit to a
marriage that I would turn from if I could. I cannot openly say to
Mr. Gaston, 'I have no fortune, I hope you expect none;' even to
covertly approach the subject would be to impugn his motives, and I
certainly have no right to suspect him of harboring mercenary ones.
Still, I wish he were acquainted with the truth; for the world, you
know, looks upon me as sole heiress of my rich aunt.

"I have no knowledge of what passed between Edward and my aunt at
Naples, when our marriage was agreed upon; but I have a constant
dread least he may have been deceived. I once mentioned to him, in
conversation, that he would claim a portionless bride; but he seemed
to take no notice of what I said, and I fear he still thinks my
aunt's circumstances to be in reality what they seem."

"In giving way," I replied, "to such groundless fears, dear Marian,
you underrate your own worth. Think how many noble and honorable
men would be proud to call you wife, and in giving you a life of
happiness make amends for the past." Yet as I looked in the silver
starlight upon that lovely face, which had so attracted me in my
childhood, I could not but regret deeply and sadly that she was not
of my faith; for then she might receive wiser counsel than I could
give from one of those whom Christ in his mercy has ordained to be a
guide and a staff to weak and wavering souls.

The wedding breakfast was all that even Marian's fastidious aunt
could have desired. The few favored guests were of the most approved
type. It would seem as if a judicious instructor had given each
of them a select number of words, which they used with exemplary
caution, and then retired to the contemplation of their own
individual greatness.

As to Marian, the despondency of the night before had quite left
her, and there was a high and noble resolve in her manner that made
me truly happy to behold, while it calmed, if it did not entirely
dispel, my own gloomy forebodings. The serene expression of her sweet
face would have drawn me nearer to her, if that were possible.

How I loved her, as she stood before me, beautiful in the purity
of her white robe, and infinitely more beautiful in the chastened
security of her firm and lofty purpose--to be a true and honorable
wife to Edward Gaston; to meet the conditions of her new life,
whatever they might be, with a woman's trust and confidence, and
better still, with a woman's hope in the never-failing reward of duty
faithfully performed.

I could have been positively gay through desire to sustain Marian,
and to let her know, without telling her in words, how thoroughly I
appreciated and how heartily I approved her noble intentions, her
courage and confidence; but as measured words and actions alone were
allowed, I had to restrain myself. Still, the cooling process did not
diminish my ardor, and when I got Marian all to myself, in her room,
I kissed her so approvingly, and was so extravagant in the expression
of all that I felt, that she folded me with loving tenderness to her
breast, and kept me there so long that I felt with the quick beating
of her warm heart she was giving me some of her own newly-found
courage.

"Whatever happens to me, Mary dear, in the extremity of any darkness
that may come upon me, I shall always know that you are true to me,
that you are still my friend."

The tears that fell upon her hand as she gently raised my head, were
my only answer, and she accepted them in the spirit in which they
were shed.

In returning to my ordinary duties, I had much to reflect upon, much
that made me still uneasy for Marian and her future, where so many
doubts and fears seemed hanging on the will of one human being.

Vague rumors of Mr. Gaston had reached us, that he was a man wholly
without fortune, drifting on the surface of events; darker things,
too, were whispered with an indirectness which gave them an uncertain
coloring. In my love for Marian, and in my fear for her, I could
not credit these suspicions; yet my anxiety to again see her, and
discover for myself the truth or fallacy of these reports, was
intense. Indeed, my state of anxious doubt was becoming intolerable
when I received a letter from Marian, telling me she was already
tired of travelling, and would return soon to make a last visit to
her old home before leaving for her future and distant one.

It was agreed that they should spend the day after their arrival with
us. I was so happy and so occupied in preparing for their reception,
that I had almost forgotten my previous anxiety in my present desire
to have every thing ready and in perfect order.

The pleasure I felt in the prospect of having my darling with me
so soon was dreadfully toned down by the consciousness of my own
inability to satisfy her aunt's critical taste. I trembled as I
thought of her scrutinizing glance; but I had a never-failing source
of hope in my mother. Her good-natured hospitality was of such a
melting kind that I dared hope that even the rigid aunt might thaw
under it, which she really did, greatly to my relief and comfort.

The dinner passed off creditably. My tranquillity was now entirely
restored, and I had time to devote to Marian.

Up to this moment I had viewed her through the medium of my excited
condition; now I was calmed, and, so far as the affairs of the day
went, contented.

Marian's manner was restless and uneasy. My perception was keenly
alive to the slightest difference between what she did and said now
and to what she did and said formerly. So solicitous was I, that I
think the most trifling modulation in her voice had a significance
for me.

Much as I had looked forward to this reunion, much as I had desired
it, now that Marian was with me, I shrank from being alone with her.
I think if we had been that summer evening even in the solitude of a
mountain fastness, an intuitive delicacy would have kept both of us
from speaking one word upon the only subject that filled our hearts.

My mother's humanizing influence was having its effect on the stately
old lady. She was captured without knowing it. Mr. Gaston had gone
out for a walk; so Marian and I were left alone. I tried to talk
about her new home, and repeated some things Mr. Gaston had told me
before the wedding.

"Edward has changed his mind," said Marian, "and has found it
necessary to make some different arrangements; so I really cannot
tell much about our home. It is very far away; don't you think so,
Mary?" I saw that her feelings were beginning to get the upper
hand, and I did not dare trust myself to reply. I turned from her
immediately on the pretext of having forgotten some household duty.
She strolled out to the garden in a spiritless way.

Every thing was revolving itself in my mind, and I was beginning to
reproach myself; perhaps if I had encouraged her to speak, it might
have lifted the load from her heart; another opportunity might not
be permitted us; and yet, bowed down as the poor girl was, it would
not have raised her in my esteem had she even with me disparaged her
husband. To cover him with a wife's forbearance was now one of her
hard but imperative duties, and I knew she would not shrink from
it. This must be a check to our confidence, a bridge over which my
kindliest sympathy must never pass.

Unmistakable evidences of a storm close at hand made me run to
the arbor where I had last seen Marian. She was not there. While
deliberating where I should next go, I heard Mr. Gaston's impatient
tread. He stopped by a clump of trees near me, and in tones of
suppressed anger commenced upbraiding his defenceless wife.

"What did you mean by suggesting such a thing as that?" he began;
"have you any right to dispense hospitalities, to propose or consider
them in that grand style of yours?"

"In expressing the wish," replied Marian, "that my aunt would be
able to spend the winter with us, I had no intention of doing any
thing beyond a natural act of gratitude; and I was not aware, Edward,
that your feelings had so changed toward her. I am sure she has done
nothing to merit your displeasure."

"Nothing to merit my displeasure? You are a most creditable disciple!
She has made you like herself, truly. Is it nothing in your eyes
that she has always lived a life of nicely-arranged deception? Your
accomplished aunt has conducted a forlorn hope with a woman's tact,
and the victims of her trickery are expected to bow to her superior
sagacity. In a burst of universal sympathy you propose to take this
wreck of decayed grandeur to my house. This was a part of the plot, I
suppose."

"Edward," interrupted Marian, "how dare you speak in this way of
my aunt, who has shown you so many marks of sincere regard? That
she has not husbanded her resources, I grant; but that misfortune
rests entirely with her, she is the only sufferer. She made you no
promises, gave you no reason to expect a fortune with me; this I have
learned since our marriage. Have no fear of the incumbrance. Dear as
she is to me, I would rather let her beg from door to door than see
her a recipient of your bounty!"

"Oh! you are proud now," he replied in a voice of withering scorn.
"Take care," he continued; "you have not seen the end yet. Make
yourself ready to depart. I want to leave this house instantly."

"Edward," she said, "however you choose to afflict me, whatever
tortures you have in store for me, do not, I beseech you, subject me
just yet to the pity of those I love, of those who love me. These
people are my truest friends. I would not make them sharers of my
misery. Spare me a little longer."

"Your fine speeches and these people are alike objects of
indifference to me. Make yourself ready; I am going."

She made a movement to obey him; but turning round again, she said,
"Edward"--the voice and tone I shall never forget; it was as if all
she had ever valued in life had whispered a last farewell--"Edward,
as I had hoped to give you a wife's unfailing duty, to be trustful,
loving, and true; so I had hoped you would give me a husband's
protection, and perhaps a husband's love."

"I am not fond of scenes," he interrupted; "your requirements are
of so nice and delicate a nature that I would be quite incapable of
gratifying them; so I shall not trouble myself to make the attempt;
and for the future, spare yourself any unnecessary display of
sentiment."

I could not have left the arbor without being seen. Marian passed
by slowly, not to the house, but in an opposite direction, and Mr.
Gaston started for the lower end of the garden. I caught a glimpse of
him as he turned an angle of the walk. A wicked look had settled on
his handsome face, as if dark spirits were urging him on.

A peal of thunder, prolonged and terrible, startled me. I ran to the
house. The lightning was truly awful, and peal following peal of
thunder made one shudder and long for human companionship. I had lost
Marian in the gloom and darkness. She was not in the house; I did not
see her in the garden. I went out into the storm in search of her.

I found her standing quite alone in sad and listless silence. Can
it be, I thought, that death has no terrors for one so gifted and
so young? She seemed imploring that doom which the most abject and
miserable would flee from if they could. I knew then, as well as I
knew afterward, that she would have welcomed death that night without
one single regret.

"Marian, dear," I said, approaching her, "how can you remain alone,
and exposed in this manner, when every thing about you is quaking
with fear?"

"I do not heed the storm," she answered; "I like it, it is so
wonderful."

"Come, come, darling! Why, the rain has drenched you," I replied,
putting my arm about her and leading her to the house.

The storm had set in furiously. There was no leaving the house that
night. I resolved that Marian should sleep with me; so I went to Mr.
Gaston and told him I regretted our limited accommodations obliged me
to offer him a temporary bed in the parlor.

When I told Marian of this arrangement, she seemed relieved. "I am
glad to spend the night here and with you, Mary," she said. "All is
so quiet and peaceful."

Quiet and peaceful! The greater storm in her own breast made her
forget the contending elements without.

My aversion to Mr. Gaston was, I believe, heartily reciprocated, and
he must have chafed at my influence over Marian. He took her away
from her home, never to return, on the very next day. They sailed for
Cuba shortly afterward.

The crisis Marian had feared for her aunt soon came, and she went,
with the remnant of her fortune, to live in some western town.

Seven years had rolled by since all this, and Marian was fast passing
into the shadows we like to call up when the world is hushed around
us and, we are thinking--thinking.

I was married, and laughing children were crowding out these earlier
remembrances.

An affection of the throat, from which my husband was suffering,
rendered the best medical advice necessary. I accompanied him to New
York, where I found--let me pause in telling it, to do reverence to
the unseen hand that led me there--Marian.

In this lonely stranger how little do I behold of my childhood's
earliest pride!

"From Clifton?" said the physician thoughtfully, after examining my
husband's case. "I have a patient, a strange case; she is paralyzed,
and her mental faculties are stunned. A Cuban family brought her
here and placed her under my care. Her husband had committed a
forgery, and had fled the country to escape arrest. She is an
accomplished lady, I should judge. She was left in Havana quite poor
and friendless. I have been led to speak to you about her because she
is always writing two words--Mary and Clifton. The Spanish lady who
brought her here knew nothing of her former history."

I was silent during this recital, and so white that the doctor
offered me water. I thanked him, and expressed a wish to go to my
friend immediately.

"I cannot return to the hospital this morning," he said; "but I will
give you my card, which will admit you to the lady at once."

There I found her, a silent, faded figure, sitting still, and for all
purposes of life quite dead.

I was awed as I stood before her. I sat down and took her poor,
neglected hand in mine. She looked at me and made a feeble attempt
to gather back her hair which had fallen in great disorder about
her shoulders. I rose to do this for her. It was still glossy and
beautiful as ever. I began to arrange it in the fashion she had worn
it seven years before. She took my hand from her head, laid it in
her lap, chafed it, then reverently raised it to her lips. I could
restrain my tears no longer, and I hid my face in the folds of her
faded dress. She turned me toward her and wiped the tears from my
cheek.

"You are going home with me, Marian darling," I said; "to live always
in our own old home."

"I know it," she whispered; "I have been waiting for you so long, so
very long."

This was the first time she had spoken to me. The nurse had told me
that she spoke occasionally, but always in an absent and incoherent
manner.

Sea-bathing was recommended; but the doctor was of the opinion that
her mind would never recover its original vigor.

I would like him to see her as she left me this morning, calm and
beautiful, when the bell of the convent, where she is teaching
German, summoned attendance.

My religion is no longer strange to her. She has accepted it as the
crowning blessing of her life, and with a thankful spirit she speaks
of the chastening hand that led her to this security and peace.




EXULTENT SION FILIAE.

    "Who is this that cometh from the desert, flowing with
    delights, leaning on the arm of her Beloved?"

                                          CANTICLES viii. 5.

    Who is this from the wilderness coming,
      From the desert so arid and bare,
    On her own most Beloved One leaning--
      Who is this so chaste and so fair?

    Yes, out of a wilderness coming,
      A desert of darkness and sin;
    Lo! the Bridegroom, the promised, the glorious,
      Lo! a Queen who is holy within!

    See! her veil is thrown back from her features,
      Arrayed in the lustre of light,
    Like silver clean washed from the dross of the mine,
      Like a lily she dawns on the sight--

    Like a lily whose fair leaves encompass her stalk,
      With an odor so piercing and sweet,
    That the world, overpowered, feels ashamed of its pride,
      And vanquished kneels down at her feet.

    In the desert had tarried the Bridegroom of old
      Forty days, forty nights, in his love,
    Alone, while she who was dearest to him
      In grief like a silver-winged dove,

    Hid away in the deep, secret clefts of the rock,
      Wailed his absence, and brooded so long,
    And pined for his countenance, pined for his voice
      To answer again to her song--

    "Now winter is past, the rain over and gone;"
      The flowers, too, have their banners unfurled,
    While she waits for his promise; she knows he will come;
      And he comes--the Light of the world!

    To lead back each wandering sheep to his fold,
      Who had waited so long in the porch;
    To bring back to the dim world his darling, his rose,
      His bride in her beauty, the church;

    To open her gates that all may go in,
      Not a wanderer left out in the cold,
    The supper awaiting, the King's marriage feast,
      With its Host and its chalice of gold.

                                          SOPHIA MAY ECKLEY.




MR. GLADSTONE AND THE IRISH FARMERS.


The long-expected bill for the settlement of the land question in
Ireland was introduced into the British Parliament a short time
ago by Mr. Gladstone in an explanatory speech of rare perspicuity
and methodical statement. So fascinating, indeed, is the premier's
eloquence, so candid his confessions of the injustice of English law
as at present existing in Ireland, and of the baleful consequences
which have flowed from its operations in the agricultural interests
of the people of the sister island, that for the time we forget how
far short are the measures he now proposes, in the form of an act of
parliament, of the necessities of the case before him, and to which
all his logic, rhetoric, and pathos form but the graceful prelude.
Turning from the speech and carefully looking over the sixty-eight
clauses of the proposed act, we are forcibly struck by the inadequacy
of the proposed remedy for the terrible and manifold evils which have
so long afflicted the tillers of Irish soil; and if, as Mr. Gladstone
asserts, his object is not only to do justice to this long-oppressed
people, but to silence for ever the clamors and pacify at once the
almost chronic discontent of the country, it requires very little
acumen to foresee that his scheme, even if not modified for the worse
in its passage through either house, will be a failure, particularly
as regards the latter results.

The head of the British cabinet, with all that ability and knowledge
of public affairs which justly entitle him to be ranked foremost
among living English statesmen, seems to have failed alike to
comprehend the magnitude of the abuses he would correct and to
appreciate the wishes and expectations of the great majority of the
Irish people. Whether through that obliquity of mental vision which
has always characterized English public men when attempting to deal
with Irish grievances, or from a dread of failure if he attempted to
inaugurate a more radical change in the present relations between
landlord and tenant--and from a remark in his late speech, the latter
cause would seem to be the most probable--he has been led into a
course of policy which, while gaining him no allies in the opposition
ranks, will undoubtedly lessen his influence with a large portion of
the liberal party in both kingdoms. "By fixity of tenure," says Dr.
Taylor, "is now clearly understood, in Ireland, that the right of the
tenant to his land is to continue as long as the rent is paid, and
that the rent is to be adjusted at fixed periods, according to the
average price of produce;" a statement fully indorsed by the Irish
press and reiterated by the people at their recent numerous public
meetings. But the present bill contemplates no such thing, either in
expression or by implication; and lest it might so be understood, the
premier in his speech devoted much of his time to demonstrate the
fallacy and danger of such doctrines.

    "As I understand it," he says, "the thing itself amounts to
    this--that every occupier, as long as he pays the rent that
    he is now paying, or a rent to be fixed by a public tribunal
    of valuation, is to be assured, for himself and his heirs, an
    occupation of the land that he holds without limit of time,
    subject only to this condition, that with a variation in the
    value of produce--somewhat in the nature of the commutation of
    title act--the rent may vary somewhat slightly and at somewhat
    distant periods. The effect of that is that the landlord would
    become a pensioner and rent-charger upon his own estate.
    The legislature has a perfect right to reduce him to that
    condition, giving him proper compensation for any loss he may
    sustain in money; the state has a perfect right to deal with
    his social status, and to reduce him to that condition, if it
    thinks fit. But then it is bound not to think fit unless it can
    be shown that this is for the public good. Now, is it for the
    public good that the landlords of Ireland, in a body, should be
    reduced by an act of parliament to the condition, practically,
    of fund-holders, entitled to apply on a certain day from year
    to year for a certain sum of money, but entitled to nothing
    more? Are you prepared to denude them of their interest in the
    land? Are you prepared to absolve them from their duties with
    regard to the land? I for one confess that I am not; nor is
    that the sentiment of my colleagues."

Here then is the issue at once raised, and as Mr. Gladstone's
views will receive the sanction of Parliament, we apprehend that
the proposed act, no matter how impartially executed, will fail to
satisfy the popular wants in Ireland. It cannot be denied that the
great underlying principle of the tenant-right agitation is the
conviction among the masses of the farmers and peasants of that
country that the soil whereon they expend their labor, that others
may reap the profits, was and is rightfully their own; that it was
forcibly and treacherously wrested from their ancestors by a foreign
and hostile faction, whose descendants now claim to possess it, and
who wring from them the fruits of their toil, justly belonging to
the cultivators and their families. They do not, however, desire
a reconfiscation of this property; but they do demand a guarantee
from the laws, under which they are content to live, that as long as
they pay a fair rent they shall not be disturbed in their holdings.
The question of leases for a term of years and compensation for
improvements, though very important in itself, is merely secondary to
fixity of tenure. That once guaranteed, in the Irish and not in Mr.
Gladstone's sense, the impetus which would be given to the farming
industry of the country would be so great that time and economy only
would be required to establish a large class of small land _owners_
in fee, thus virtually undoing the spoliations of former days, and
dividing up the large estates now devoted principally to pleasure or
pasturage, and held by a few persons who neither reside in, know,
or care for the nation from which they draw such exorbitant rents.
The entire land of Ireland consists of nearly sixteen million acres
of arable land, and five millions more susceptible of cultivation,
owned absolutely by less than six thousand persons, thus giving to
each proprietary an average of thirty-five hundred acres, independent
of mountain, bog, and riparian lands, all more or less useful for
the sustenance of human life. Then the majority of those owners,
including the representatives of the very large estates almost
without exception, are absentees who in the aggregate draw from the
soil an annual revenue estimated at forty millions of dollars; not a
tithe of it is ever returned to the country in any manner, except in
the form of receipts. We find that the tenants from whom this large
foreign tribute is exacted number over six hundred thousand heads of
families, representing at least three and a half million of souls,
only one in thirty of whom holds a lease of any sort, the remainder
being entirely dependent politically and socially on the will of
the landlord, or his agents and bailiffs. This anomalous state of
affairs in a country supposed to be at least comparatively free is
heightened by the fact that the views and aims of the landlord class
and those of the tenantry, which ought to coincide on all matters
affecting the national good, are decidedly the reverse of each other.
As a whole, the religion, politics, and traditions of the owners of
the soil have always placed them in opposition to their tenants and
dependents; so firmly, indeed, that even the demands of patriotism
and the allurements of pecuniary gain, powerful for most men, have
failed to swerve the Irish landlord from his blind and bigoted
purpose of repressing the laudable enterprise, and of ignoring the
commonest rights, of the people from whom he derives his wealth and
position. In countries like Belgium, Scotland, or Switzerland, where
manufactures are encouraged and capital is abundant, this slavish
relationship between landlord and tenant would be a secondary
grievance; but in Ireland, which is essentially an agricultural
country, the enormity of the evil cannot well be over-estimated.
"About two thirds of the population of England," said the late W.
Smith O'Brien, "are dependent on manufactures and commerce, directly
or indirectly. In this country (Ireland) about nine tenths of the
population are dependent on agriculture, directly or indirectly." "An
ancient vassal," said Van Raumer, a distinguished German traveller,
who some years ago visited Ireland, "is a lord compared with the
present tenant at will, to whom the law affords no defence;" and a
recent decision in chancery declares that "if a tenant holding from
year to year makes permanent improvements in the lands which he
holds, this raises no equity as against the landlord, though he may
have looked on and not have given any warning to the tenant."

But we have a more recent authority on the condition of the Irish
farmers of to-day in the person of the special commissioner of the
_London Times_, who certainly cannot be accused of over-partiality
in describing the condition of that much oppressed class. Writing
from Mullingar under date September 14th, 1869, he says, "By far the
largest portion of the country is still occupied by small farmers,
who legally are merely tenants at will, though they have added much
to the value of the soil by building, draining, fencing, and tillage,
and though they have purchased their interests in numerous instances,
and it is probable they will long maintain their ground, though the
area they hold is being diminished. The existing law is not a rule
of right to this body of men in their actual position; it exposes
what in truth is their property, the benefits they have added to the
land, to be confiscated by a summary process; it sets at naught the
equitable right acquired by a transfer for value with the assent of
the landlord." From Cork, after a month's further investigation, he
again writes, "As for the landed system of the country as a whole,
it is, in its broadest outlines, essentially the same as that which
I have so often described, except that its vices are very prominent.
Speaking generally, the same religious differences divide the owner
and the occupier of the soil; the absenteeism is too prevalent; there
is the same wide-spread insecurity of tenure; the law in the same way
upholds the power of the landlord, and disregards the just claims of
the tenant; there is the same creation of vast rights of property
in the form of improvements, by the peasantry, unprotected by the
least legal sanction, and liable, nay, exposed to confiscation;
vague usage similarly is the only safeguard against frequent and
intolerable injustice." Conceding to Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues
the greatest honesty of intention in the introduction of the present
bill, and aware of the powerful and not over-scrupulous opposition
which any remedial measure advocated by them must encounter from the
tory and landed classes, yet in view of such patent abuses as stated,
as well as from the assurances of Mr. Bright and others--supposed
to be in the confidence of the ministry, we had a right to expect a
measure more general, emphatic, and sweeping in its reforms. Still,
as the bill will be passed substantially as presented, with perhaps
the addition of a few unimportant amendments likely to be offered
by the Irish members, it is important to examine in detail its main
features as far as they relate to what is defined in the preamble as
"security of tenure."

The first subdivision of the bill provides for the loaning of
public moneys to landlords and tenants on the following conditions:
Where the landlord is willing to sell and the tenant to purchase a
particular farm, then in his actual occupancy, at a price agreed
upon between the parties, the government will advance the tenant
the necessary funds; and when the landlord is only willing to part
with his estate in bulk, the actual occupiers of four fifths, and
any person or persons not occupiers joined with them, may become
purchasers of the whole, and a similar advance will be made. In
other words, the government takes the place of the selling landlord,
pays him indirectly the price agreed upon, and reimburses itself by
annual instalments from the tenant, now become the owner, until the
entire purchase money is paid off. This seems favorable enough for
the enterprising tenant, and to any other than Irish landlords would
offer strong inducements to dispose of a portion, at least, of their
unwieldy and often heavily encumbered estates, and would promote the
multiplication of moderate sized and better cultivated farms; but
as we are aware of the hostility of that unpatriotic class to every
thing tending to the elevation of their tenantry to a position of
comparative equality, we have little hope of the efficacy of this
provision. Indeed, Mr. Gladstone seems also of this opinion; for
in his late speech in allusion to the subject, he says, "I myself
have not been one of those who have been disposed to take the most
sanguine view of the extent to which a provision of that kind would
operate." Purchasers of reclaimed land not occupied are to have
the same privileges as occupiers of cultivated lands. The landlord
likewise is to have his share of the public money for the purpose of
reclaiming waste lands adjoining his estate, and in some instances,
for paying off the compensation claims of his out-going tenant. All
these loans, securities, repayments, and annuities are to be under
the direction of the Irish Board of Works at Dublin.

The legal machinery for carrying these and subsequent clauses of
the bill into effect will consist of two classes of courts. One of
arbitration, consisting of appointees of the parties interested,
whose decision shall have all the force of law, and from which there
shall be no appeal. The other will be a regular court of law, with
very extensive equity jurisdiction, composed, in the first instance,
of a civil bill court, presided over by an assistant barrister of
sessions; an appeal court, composed of two judges of assize, who may
reserve important cases for trial before the court for land cess in
Dublin. Taking into consideration the relative wealth and personal
influence of the parties litigant, we might hope for a less expensive
and complicated mode of procedure; but as the law's delays are still
as proverbial on the other side of the Atlantic as on this, it is
perhaps the least objectionable plan that could be devised. Much
certainly will depend on the independence and humanity of the courts;
for while they will be bound by the principles laid down in the bill,
it is authorized--

    "On hearing of any dispute between landlord and tenant in
    respect of compensation under this act, either party may make
    any claim, urge any objection to the claims of the other, or
    plead any set-off such party may see fit, and the court shall
    take into consideration any such claim, objection, or set-off,
    and also any such default or unreasonable conduct of either
    party as may appear to the court to affect any matter in
    dispute between the parties," etc., and give judgment on the
    equities of the same.

The bill then proceeds to secure and define the tenure of all holders
of agricultural land, dividing them into four classes: holders by
the custom of Ulster, by customs analogous to that of Ulster in
the other provinces, tenants from year to year and at will, and
lease-holders generally.

The custom of Ulster, derived strangely enough from the terms
of James I.'s charter to the undertakers in 1613,[40] as well
as from traditional usage, consists mainly of the right of the
out-going tenant to compensation from his landlord for all permanent
improvements he may have made on the land, or that he has actually
paid for to his predecessor, whether with or without the consent
of his landlord; or the tenant may elect to sell the same with his
good-will of the farm to the best purchaser. This custom, covering
about a moiety of the 3,400,000 acres of Ulster, is to be formally
recognized as law only in that portion of the country, and in each
individual case where it now actually exists. But when "the landlord
has, by a deliberate and formal arrangement with an occupier, bought
up the Ulster tenant right, it shall not be pleaded against him;"
and where the tenant has so sold to the landlord or to the incoming
tenant his right, he shall be debarred from all other compensation
under the act. The value of this custom, though heretofore only
partially recognized, will be perceived from the fact that, though
Ulster is by no means the most fertile section, the average annual
value of its lands is from four to four and a half dollars per acre
greater than the other portions of the country. Why this custom, so
manifestly beneficial to all classes, should only be made general in
Ulster, but not throughout the island, it is difficult to determine.

There are also customs in other parts of the country which have
become traditional, and are said to resemble somewhat that of Ulster;
but to what extent they prevail, or of their exact nature, we are
not informed. They are commonly supposed to include the right of
compensation for improvements of a certain sort, and the sale of the
good-will by the out-going tenant. These, however, are not regarded
with the same degree of fairness; for they can only be pleaded when
the landlord by his own act severs the relation between himself and
tenant; and when pleaded, all arrears of rent or damages to the farm
may be claimed as an off-set; they are forfeited by ejectment for
non-payment of rent, or by sub-letting or subdividing the holding,
and are extinguished by the acceptance of a lease of thirty-one years
or upward. This is the first attempt we notice in the bill to induce
the landlords to grant leases, and we regret to find that throughout
its entire length, with the exception of one clause, there is nothing
at all prohibitory in its provisions. What good reason can exist for
the preservation of the custom of Ulster under a lease, while those
of the other three sections are bartered away for that privilege? Is
this not another evidence of the partiality of a reform which should
be as comprehensive as the evils to be eradicated are wide-spread?

The most important part of the bill is that which relates to the
yearly tenant and tenant at will; for it affects by far the largest
and most defenceless class of Irish farmers. Out of six hundred
thousand heads of families who derive their existence directly from
the soil, five hundred and eighty thousand, or nearly ninety-seven
per centum of the whole, are of this class, and are liable at any
time to be thrown on the charity of the world by the edict of a
landlord or his agent, deprived not only of their sole means of
livelihood, but of whatever benefits they may have conferred on their
little holdings by their hard labor and well-earned money. It is
useless now to dwell on the horrible calamities which have resulted
from the wholesale evictions of these unfortunate people, or on what
famine, pestilence, death, and too frequently agrarian crime, have
year after year flowed from the uncontrolled barbarities practised
on them by Irish landlords, armed with the terrors of law. The
wailings and maledictions of the homeless and expatriated have so
long resounded through both hemispheres, that their very echoes have
startled the ears of their persecutors into something like attention.
"We have," says Mr. Gladstone from his place in the House of Commons,
"simplified the law against him, [the tenant,] and made ejectment
cheap and easy."[41] This large class, therefore, if not receiving
that adequate protection to which they are justly entitled, will,
under the operation of the proposed act, have their interests placed
beyond jeopardy in such a manner as, compared with their present
practical outlawry, will commend Mr. Gladstone to their gratitude.
Having no custom to plead, and consequently very little probability
of obtaining leases, the landlord can still eject them; but he must
do so on a year's notice, duly stamped and dated from the previous
gale day, and for proper cause, such as non-payment of rent or the
refusal of the tenant to accept another holding equal in value to
the one desired by the landlord. If the landlord acts without such
cause, the tenant will be entitled to damages against him at the
discretion of the court, exclusive of compensation for improvements
and reclamation of land. The maximum measure of damages for wanton
ejectment is set down in the bill as follows:

    Holdings valued at L10              7 years' rent.
       "        "      L10 to L50       5   "     "
       "        "      L50  to L100     3   "     "
       "        "      L100 and upward  2   "     "

In any case the tenant upon ejectment will be entitled to
compensation for improvements, from which arrears of rent may be
deducted. It is the wise and beneficent intent of the bill to place
this helpless class under the special protection of the court, and
make it the object of large equity jurisdiction conferred; and
it even holds out a release to the landlord of these penalties,
providing he gives to his yearly tenant a lease of at least
twenty-one years' duration.

The regulation of the tenure of lease-holders generally is most
judicious, and the only compulsory one in the bill. In future all
leases shall be submitted to, and the terms, as regards rents and
covenants, approved by, the court, before their validity will be
recognized. Heretofore, Irish leases have been made exclusively
for the benefit of one party, and the ingenuity of the lower grade
of the legal profession seems to have been taxed to the utmost to
devise restrictions on husbandry. We have copies of several of those
instruments of recent execution before us, and they certainly smack
more of the pre-_magna-charta_ era than of the present enlightened
century. A petition presented to the House of Commons at its last
session, from the inhabitants of the parish of Clonard, county of
Meath, set forth that tenants there "are charged with a penalty of L5
for every tree, and every perch of hedge cut, injured, or destroyed;"
they are to break no land without permission of the landlord,
and even then only such land and in such manner as the landlord
specified; a fine of L10 is exacted for "each acre or part of acre
assigned, let, underlet, or let in con-acre or otherwise, or meadowed
without formal written permission;" they are not to remove or cause
to be removed any top-dressing, compost, or manure of any sort, nor
any hay, straw, corn in the straw, holm, or fodder of any sort, nor
any turnips, mangel-wurzel, or other green crop of any kind, under
penalty of L5 per load or part of load; and the top-dressing, manure,
etc., are to remain on the land at the termination of the tenancy,
and are to be the property of the landlord. The Earl of Leitrim, a
very large landed proprietor in the north, probably not considering
the above restrictions sufficiently onerous, has had inserted in
his numerous leases clauses whereby the tenants are required to
preserve his fish and game; and without his permission in writing
they are not to make any new roads, fences, or drains, nor to build
up or alter houses or buildings, nor to grow two white grain crops
in succession, nor to have beyond a certain maximum of tillage, nor
to break up permanent grass-fields, nor to set potatoes where there
has been grass the year before,[42] nor to cut turf, etc.; and to
surrender their leases at _any time_ at six months' notice, or in
case any of them be imprisoned by any civil or criminal process for
a term exceeding fourteen days! But Edward Henry Cooper, who is
supposed sometimes to honor Markie Castle with his presence, requires
not only the observance of all the above conditions on the part
of his serfs, but binds them to become informers and prosecutors
in their _own names_ against any poachers who may be found in the
leaseholds; and they are also to _procure evidence_ (how is not
stated) against their neighbors who might kill a hare or spear a
salmon on their premises. The farmers who have the happiness of
living under this philanthropist are required "to submit all disputes
and differences touching trespass or measuring to, and abide by the
final award of"--Edward Henry Cooper or his agents; a very impartial
tribunal, no doubt! The above extracts may be taken as specimens
of the restrictions which surround even the most favored class of
Irish farmers of the present day, and which, being made with all
the forms of law, backed by the certainty of the strict enforcement
of the penalties, must have a direct and ruinous tendency to check
improvement and limit the scope of improved cultivation of lands.

The term improvements, so frequently met with in the bill, is defined
to mean such as are suitable to the character of the holding and add
to its letting value, such as buildings, reclaimed land, manures, and
tillage, and the old rule of law, which presumed all improvements
made by the landlord unless proved to the contrary, is reversed in
favor of the tenant. No existing improvement will be paid for if not
made within twenty years previous to the passage of the act, except
permanent buildings and reclaimed land, nor where by the terms of a
lease the holder agreed to make the improvements at his own expense.
In the future no claim will be allowed for improvements made contrary
to the terms of the letting, or for such as are not required for
the due cultivation of the farm, nor when the landlord agrees to
make them and does not neglect to do so, nor where the tenant, as
part of the consideration of the lease, agrees to do them at his
own charge. But whatever the tenant pays to the out-going tenant
for compensation, with the sanction of his landlord, he shall be
reimbursed on the termination of his tenancy.

Such, in brief, is an outline of the law under which the farmers of
Ireland will have to live for some years to come. Although not all
they demand and have a right to expect, it is nevertheless a great
improvement on the present system, if system it may be called, under
which they have so long tried to exist. Whatever is valuable in the
local customs will be substantially preserved and legalized; the
tenant will have some remote prospect of becoming a purchaser, and
the tenant at will, a leaseholder. Compensation for improvements is
guaranteed to every one capable of paying his rent, and the luxury of
evictions, if not destroyed, is made an expensive one for landlords.
We cannot expect that this measure, if passed in its best form, will
wholly stop agitation in Ireland, but we trust and believe that it
will largely conduce to the wealth and industry of her people.

FOOTNOTES:

[40] The said undertakers shall not devise or lease any part of their
lands at will, but shall make certain estates for years, for life, in
tail or in fee simple.--_Art._ 12th, _charter_ of A.D. 1613.

[41] "In the number of farms, from one to five acres, the decrease
has been 24,147; from five to fifteen acres, 27,379; from fifteen to
thirty acres, 4274; while of farms above thirty acres, the increase
has been 3670. Seventy thousand occupiers with their families,
numbering about three hundred thousand, were rooted out of the land.
In Leinster, the decrease in the number of holdings not exceeding
one acre, as compared with the decrease of 1847, was 3749; above one
and not exceeding five, was 4026; of five and not exceeding fifteen,
was 2546; of fifteen to thirty, 391; making a total of 10,617. In
Munster, the decrease in the holdings under thirty acres is stated
at 18,814; the increase over thirty acres, 1399. In Ulster, the
decrease was 1502; the increase, 1134. In Connaught, where the labor
of extermination was least, the clearance has been most extensive.
There in particular the roots of holders of the soil were never
planted deep beneath the surface, and consequently were exposed to
every exterminator's hand. There were in 1847, 35,634 holders of from
one to five acres. In the following year there were less by 9703;
there were 76,707 holders of from five to fifteen acres, less in one
year by 12,891; those of from fifteen to thirty acres were reduced
by 2121; a total depopulation of 26,499 holders of land, exclusive
of their families, was effected in Connaught in one year."--Captain
Larcom's report for 1848, as quoted in Mitchel's _Last Conquest of
Ireland_, (_Perhaps_.) Dublin, 1861.

[42] The productiveness of the land when properly tilled is _four_
times greater than when under pasture.




THE ASSOCIATION FOR BEFRIENDING CHILDREN.


A new association has entered the field of charitable labor in this
city bearing the modest title at the head of this article. It has
been organized and is recommended to the public by ladies whose names
are a guarantee of its success. The sphere of its charitable work is
among poor children of degraded parents. It is not known, except to
the few practical workers among the poor, that there exists in New
York a pauper class nearly if not quite as destitute and degraded
as that which is found in the great capitals of Europe. There are
persons here who are born in this lowest social stratum, and will
never rise from it without help. Their lives begin, are passed, and
end in what seems to be hopeless degradation. The portions of the
city where this class of its population will be found are those
bordering on the rivers, on either side, extending as far north as
Fifty-ninth street. Children born in this class inherit the vices and
diseases of their parents, as well as their poverty. They exhibit
a precocity in debauchery which no one can appreciate who has not
been brought into contact with them. They inhale with their first
respiration a fetid atmosphere. They have an instinct for vice and
crime. Many of them escape the penalties of the criminal code simply
because they are so young that the law overlooks them. They come
into the world with the child's instinct to look to its parent as
the source of authority, and a model for imitation. This authority
is, for the most part, exerted to compel the commission of offences,
and the model is a finished example for the grossest sins. With such
influences from without, cooperating with natural and inherited
tendencies to vice, it is easy to see with what fearful rapidity the
child will be driven along in evil courses. If education begins, as
is claimed, with the first outcry of the infant, what a training is
inaugurated here!

There is another class of our population, not strictly a pauper
class, but which is raised but little above it. The persons who
compose it earn a scanty living by fitful labor, and are exposed to
all the temptations which beset extreme poverty. They easily fall
into vicious habits, squander their earnings, and their children
are left without care, to subsist as best they may. These children,
equally with those of the class still lower, are in need of every
thing which a judicious charity can supply. The section of the city
where more of these little outcasts, and their wretched parents,
may be found than in any other of equal dimensions, is that bounded
by Bank street on the south, Sixteenth or Seventeenth street on
the north, the Ninth avenue and the river. Out of this section St.
Bernard's parish has been carved, and it was here that, a few months
ago, the small beginning was made from which the new organization has
sprung. On the seventh day of September last, a few ladies met at
St. Bernard's church, to open an industrial school for girls. Notice
that the school would be commenced on that day had been given in the
church on the Sunday preceding. No children came at the hour named,
and the ladies, with one of the priests of the parish, went out into
the lanes and alleys to compel them to come in. About twenty-five
girls were gathered in the large upper room in the church edifice
during the forenoon. They presented a pitiful spectacle of extreme
poverty and degradation. They were clad in filthy rags, and, young
as they were, the faces of many of them bore traces of a course of
vice and crime in which sad progress had already been made. It was
clear from this first day's experiment that there was an instant and
urgent duty to be performed, in reaching and reclaiming children of
this class. The ladies, therefore, resolved to hold the school on
Tuesday and Friday mornings in each week, from ten to twelve o'clock.
The large room in the church was placed at their disposal. On the
second school-day, fifty girls attended, and the number soon reached
one hundred. The character and magnitude of the work which these
ladies had, almost unconsciously, undertaken began to dawn on them.
The school had filled up with hardly any effort on their part. The
children were in need of every thing. They must be clothed and fed.
They must be gently led away from evil practices and taught the very
alphabet of new and better lives. A few dollars were collected at
once and materials for clothing purchased. Garments were cut out, and
the children soon taught to assist in making them, and the articles
were distributed as they were needed. This has been continued until
every child who has attended the school has received a complete
outfit, including a new pair of shoes. But the girls came hungry
as well, and must be fed. At the close of the school on each day,
a substantial meal was served; and on Thanksgiving and Christmas
days, generous dinners were given to two hundred children, for which
turkeys in abundance were provided. The first step in any efficient
charitable work among the destitute is, of course, to provide for
physical wants. We must begin with the body. "First the natural,"
and "afterward that which is spiritual," is the divine order. The
soul is to be reached through the body, or rather, so closely united
are the two, that they are both acted upon by the care bestowed
upon either. The normal cravings of the body, when unsatisfied,
become diseased and the fruitful source of vicious indulgences. The
hunger which demands but cannot get proper food, will demand and get
sustenance hurtful to body and soul. The little child who leaves a
miserable shelter in the morning, cold and hungry, will spend the
first penny bestowed in charity by a careless giver at a rum-hole
made familiar by errands for liquor at the command of a drunken
parent, where even a penny will buy what, for the moment, answers for
both food and clothing. Little girls of twelve, and even younger,
have come to this school in the morning whose only breakfast has
been the liquor which they could buy for a cent, and who had already
contracted intemperate habits.

With children of this class, then, the first step toward moral
improvement is the self-respect which they put on with their first
warm, clean dress, and the satisfaction which follows a meal of
wholesome food. This first step, however, leads to the next, direct
religious instruction; the "line upon line and precept upon precept"
by which the child's soul is to be instructed and purified.

It is hardly necessary to say that these children are virtually
heathen in the midst of a Christian civilization. They have received
little or no religious instruction. They are the offspring of parents
who, for the most part, are Catholics in name, but who have long
since lost grace and abandoned the sacraments of the church. And yet
they readily take religious impressions, and are not without those
first Christian ideas which expand rapidly with patient teaching.
It has been the practice at the school to spend a little time each
morning in instructing the girls in the catechism; in repeating
appropriate verses of Scripture, in committing simple hymns to memory
and singing them in unison. The ladies who opened, and have conducted
this school for the past six months, have not been discouraged
because they have not already achieved magnificent results. They
knew when they began that the salvation of these children, for this
world and the next, was to be "worked out;" that moral improvement
comes by "little and little;" that no sincere charitable effort is
ever lost; that nothing can be lost but opportunities; and that even
a cup of cold water given to one of these little ones will not fail,
either of its reward or of its effect for good. So far from being
discouraged, what has already been accomplished with limited means
and in a casual way has far exceeded their expectations. The work has
been growing under their hands from the start. The little company of
ragged girls, who came reluctantly the first morning, has expanded
into a school numbering one hundred and fifty, who are eager for the
instruction offered to them. They manifest the utmost affection for
their teachers. They show signs of improvement in every way. Many
of them give unmistakable evidence of having commenced a new and
useful career. One girl who was found wandering in the street on the
first day was asked by one of the ladies if she ever went to mass;
she said "No." "Why not?" said the lady. She replied with a bold
stare, "Oh! I am a _bad_ girl." On being told by the lady that she
did not believe she was so bad, the girl replied, her eyes filling
with tears, "Well, I _would_ go if I had any thing to wear but these
rags; but we've been awfully knocked about since father died, and
mother says we're all going to hell, soul and body." This Maggie is
now one of the best and brightest in the school, and an efficient
assistant of the teachers. Others are emulating her example. In fact,
so much has already been done, that the ladies who commenced are
irresistibly committed to a more efficient prosecution of the work.
They see in it possibilities for good which do not allow them to stop
short of the more thorough organization which they have attempted in
forming "The Association for Befriending Children." They feel that a
necessity is laid upon them to make secure the good already attained,
and that they would be recreant to their duty as Christians if they
did not go on to the more perfect results plainly within their
reach. The necessity of such an organized charity has been shown in
the rough outline which has been given above of the destitution of
these children. Notwithstanding all the charitable associations for
children, under the names of "Industrial Schools," "Protectories,"
"Orphan Asylums," etc., there are at least twenty thousand children
in the city outside of any such institution, whose necessities are
even greater than those within them. In its circular the association
says that it

    "does not intend to relieve parents from their just
    responsibility for their children, simply because they are
    poor. The possession of children, and the duty of maintaining
    them, are conducive among many parents, contending with extreme
    poverty, to habits of industry and sobriety. But any one
    who knows even a little of the very degraded portion of our
    population, is aware that there are multitudes of children in
    this city utterly abandoned by their parents, and exposed to
    every form of vice, or rather who are actually being trained,
    by precept and example, in habits of debauchery. Such children
    the association desires to bring under the influence of daily
    instruction, to minister to their daily necessities, to
    educate them for useful employments."

Such, then, in brief, are the aims of this association.

The first step toward realizing them has already been taken. Aided
by the liberality of a few gentlemen, the association has rented the
building No. 316 West Fourteenth street, which is admirably adapted
to the purposes of a home for those who may be received as inmates,
for a longer or shorter term, combined with a day-school for others.
There is room for fifty of these inmates, and for at least three
hundred more day-scholars. The house is under the charge of a matron
and assistants in every way fitted to care for, control, and teach
the children, who find their highest reward in this opportunity to
rescue and elevate these little girls. The new and most important
feature of this charity is that it combines an asylum, a protectory,
an industrial school, and common school in one institution. It
encircles in its arms those who are so low that they are overlooked
by all other charities. It finds, after all, that "the ninety and
nine" have gone astray, and it seeks to bring them back to the
fold. It completely removes from evil influences those who are most
exposed, and shelters and fosters them till new habits are formed,
and seeds of good are implanted and germinate. It gives to all food
and clothing. It instructs all in the rudiments of knowledge. It
gives the girls such industrial instruction as will enable them
to enter on the various employments which society offers to their
sex. Such a home-school the association plants in the midst of
these utterly necessitous children. There should be one or more of
them established in every parish in the city; and if the Christian
liberality of Catholics be not found wanting, such a result will be
accomplished. At present the association must be sustained in the
immediate attempt which has been made. Responsibilities have been
assumed which must be met by generous donations. Surely the ladies
who are willing to give their best energies to this glorious work,
as well as their portion of the money needed, will not appeal to the
public in vain.




FRA BERNARDINO OCHINO.


The blessed Bernardine, the glory of Sienna and of the Franciscan
order, had a sad counterpart in him who forms the subject of this
sketch. Fra Bernardino Ochino, one of the conspicuous scandals of
the sixteenth century, was a son of Domenico Tommassino, of Sienna.
He received his surname from the Via del Oca, which contained the
residence of his obscure parents. Having taken the habit of the
Observantines, he left his convent to study medicine at Perugia.
He there formed a friendship with Giulio de' Medici, afterwards
Clement VII. Returning to his order, he received successive places
of dignity; but whether dissatisfied with these, or really seeking a
more perfect life, he again left it to embrace the austere rule of
the Capuchins, then for the first time established in Sienna. Few
details remain of this portion of the life of Ochino, and historians
differ in explaining the motives of this change. Whatever they might
have been, it is certain that his fame as a preacher was acquired
shortly after his entrance in the Capuchin order. His reputation
grew daily. The most exacting critics gave him unqualified praise.
Sadoletus ranked him with the greatest orators of antiquity. The
Bishop of Fossombrone addressed him the most flattering sonnets, and
Charles V. was heard to exclaim that the spirit and unction of Fra
Bernardino could melt the very stones. The over-fastidious Bembo had
said of the preachers of his day, "Why should I go to listen to their
sermons? One hears nothing but the subtle doctor disputing with the
angelic, and, finally, Aristotle called in to settle the question."

Nevertheless, Ochino stood even the test of Bembo's criticism. For
the latter wrote from Venice to the Marquis of Pescara, April 23d,
1536:

    "I send inclosed to your illustrious lordship the letters
    of our reverend Fra Bernardino, whom I have heard with
    inexpressible pleasure during the too short period of this
    Lent."

To the parish priest he wrote:

    "Do not neglect to force Fra Bernardino to eat meat. For,
    unless he suspend his Lenten abstinence, he cannot resist the
    fatigue of preaching."

This last remark of Bembo reveals to us something of Ochino's way of
life at that time. He had, indeed, adopted those severe austerities
which, according to the unanimous doctrine of the saints, though
often the means of advancement in the supernatural life, yet, when
undertaken or persevered in from an ill-advised spirit, generally
lead to ruin, and become at once food and clothing for the most
diabolical pride. The famous preacher travelled always on foot,
bare-headed and unshod. He slept at night beneath the trees that
grew on the wayside, or, if under the roof of some noble host, on
the pavement of the guest's chamber. As he begged from door to door,
in the crowded cities, the throng knelt, awed by his wan features
and fiery eye, and the thin emaciated frame, which seemed barely
to support the coarse brown habit of his order. At the tables of
the nobility he did not vary the least detail of his penitential
abstinence, eating from only one dish, and never even tasting wine.

When he preached, says a contemporary, the churches could not contain
his hearers, and a great crowd followed him wherever he went. Nor was
his preaching without fruit. The infamous Aretino either underwent
or feigned a conversion, and wrote to the pope, at the instance of
Ochino, begging pardon for his libels against the papal court. In the
same letter, dated from Venice, April 21st, 1537, he says that Bembo
"has sent a thousand souls to paradise by transferring from Sienna
to this Catholic city Fra Bernardino, a religious as humble as he is
virtuous."

While at Venice, Ochino procured a convent and installed there a
community of Capuchins. In June, 1539, by invitation of the municipal
assembly, he preached at Sienna. This he did again in the following
year, with great success and fruit. It was on this occasion that he
introduced the devotion of the Quarant' Ore. It appears, however,
that instead of the blessed sacrament, the usual object of this
devotion, Fra Bernardino exposed for veneration the crucifix. In
a letter to the confraternity of St. Dominic, preparatory to the
introduction of this pious practice, he writes:

    "You are asked in charity to join with many others in
    accomplishing two very pious and holy works--the first of
    which consists in inviting and encouraging one another, with
    a holy love, to do penance with a true contrition, a sincere
    confession, and entire satisfaction, joining spiritual and
    corporal alms with fasts strictly kept and holy prayer, in
    order to meditate on the transformation of the soul in Christ,
    her well beloved; and, humbly prostrate at his sacred feet, to
    expose to him our particular spiritual wants and those of all
    our brethren, encouraging and aiding our soul, by good will,
    to clothe herself with those divine virtues, faith, hope, and
    charity."

The remainder of the letter sets forth in detail the arrangements for
carrying out the public ceremonies of the Quarant Ore, all breathing
the fragrance of Catholic piety. Yet it is more than probable that
the first plague-spots had already become visible in his character.
Boverio, the Capuchin annalist, still praises him, thus sketches this
portion of our history, and says that Fra Bernardino was

    "endowed with sagacity, good manners, and practical skill in
    management gained by a long and varied experience, gifted with
    a penetration and generosity of soul fit for the greatest
    enterprises, of an exterior so modest and retiring that every
    one recognized in him a rare stamp of virtue and sanctity; an
    admirable preacher, whose eloquence won souls, so that, by
    unanimous approval, in the third chapter of the entire order,
    he was elected general, in 1538. He governed the order with
    such good sense, prudence, and zeal for the observance of the
    rules, himself giving an example of every virtue, that his
    brethren applauded the choice of such a man. He visited all the
    convents, nearly always on foot. His exhortations to poverty,
    to observance of the rule, and other virtues were made with
    such admirable eloquence that the reputation which he had
    acquired both at home and abroad could not but increase; he
    enjoyed such great confidence with kings and princes that they
    employed him in the most difficult undertakings; the pope held
    him in the highest esteem; so much so, that it was necessary to
    have recourse to the pope in order to obtain him for preacher;
    the largest churches did not suffice to hold the throng of his
    hearers, so that temporary porticoes had to be erected, many
    even raising the tiles of the roof and climbing into the church
    to hear him. While preaching at Perugia, in 1540, he settled
    the most angry feuds. At Naples, having recommended from the
    pulpit some pious work, the alms collected amounted to five
    thousand sequins."

To this we may add that when three years, his term of office, had
expired, Fra Bernardino was reelected. Yet, despite all this fair
appearance, things had not gone well in his heart. His passions,
restrained from sensual outbreaks and left more free in other things,
developed pride, and confidence in his own judgment, to the contempt
of others. The desire of gaining souls yielded slowly and almost
imperceptibly to the ambition of the orator. Moreover, he drew
from the works of Luther that fatal tendency to find in Holy Writ
a response to the dictates of private passion and prejudice. It is
said that, while preaching at Naples, in the church of San Giovanni
Maggiore, he had been incited by Valdes to insult Paul III., because
the holy father had not decorated him with the purple. Certain it
seems to be, that Valdes was intimately associated with the friar,
and helped to fill his heart with ambition and his head with the
doctrines of the Swiss and German heretics. The viceroy, Pedro de
Toledo, being informed that he was teaching the Lutheran novelties,
complained to the ecclesiastical authorities; but Ochino either
fairly stood the test of inquiry, or concealed his real opinions
under astute forms of speech. The latter is probably the case; for
the Dominican Caracciolo, in his MS. life of Paul IV., says,

    "Since he"--Ochino--"concealed within himself the venom of his
    doctrines under the appearance of an austere life, (a fair
    cloak,) and because he pretended to thunder against vice, the
    number of persons was small who could detect the cunning of the
    fox. Nevertheless there were some who discovered it; and among
    the first, as I have learned from my elders, could be cited our
    venerable fathers Don Gaetano and Don Giovanni; but they saw it
    more clearly in 1539, when Ochino, preaching in the pulpit of
    the cathedral, uttered many propositions against purgatory,
    indulgences, and the ecclesiastical laws about fasting, etc.;
    and, what is worse, the impious monk was accustomed to present
    as an interrogation that which St. Augustine has said in a
    simply negative form, as in the following passage: _Qui fecit
    te sine te, non salvabit te sine te?_--thus giving his audience
    to understand that faith alone suffices, and that God saves us
    without any good works on our part to cooperate with his; just
    the contrary of that which St. Augustine really teaches."

Caracciolo further narrates that systematic means were secretly taken
to spread these doctrines of Ochino, and that clandestine meetings
of those infected contributed to this end. Yet Fra Bernardino still
kept his fair fame, and maintained perfectly his Catholic exterior;
for the ensuing year witnessed the public devotions at Sienna to
which we have before alluded. It was at Venice, in 1541, that he was
for a time suspended from preaching. This was not due to any plain
and palpable errors of doctrine. For, although accusations against
him had been made by several persons, he had in a private interview
relieved the nuncio's present suspicions, if not his forebodings of
the future. The temporary prohibition to preach was caused by the
distrust of the nuncio, which was greatly aggravated by an allusion
on the part of Ochino to the arrest of Giulio Terenziano. The latter
was a theologian of Milan, an avowed and contumacious preacher of
heresy, whom the nuncio had silenced in the previous year. From the
pulpit Ochino appealed to the Venetians against such an exercise of
authority. He placed himself on the same footing with Terenziano, and
cried, "What have we done, O Venetians? What plots have we arranged
against you? O Bride and Queen of the Sea! if you cast into prison,
if you send to the gallows, those who announce the truth to you, how
shall that truth prevail?" Nevertheless, in three days the nuncio
restored to him his faculties, owing to the pressure brought to bear
by the friends and admirers of the monk.

After the close of Lent in 1542, Ochino gathered at Verona many of
the Capuchins of the Venetian province, and taught them his errors
with all that subtlety of argument and eloquence of persuasion which
seems to have characterized both his private and public speaking.[43]
He had now passed the zenith of his career and was fairly started on
his downward course. The luxury which he had ordered Fra Angelo to
use in rebuilding the convent at Sienna, was so openly against the
letter and spirit of his rule that many devout persons looked for his
speedy punishment. St. Cajetan Tiene had prevented him from preaching
at Rome. Among the number of those greatly alarmed for his safety was
Angela Negri de Gallarate, a friend of the Marquis del Vasto, the
latter at this time an intimate friend and private correspondent of
Ochino. This excellent lady, after hearing Fra Bernardino at Verona,
where he commented on the epistles of St. Paul, predicted that he
would fall into heresy. It soon became only too manifest. His disgust
for prayer, his absence from the choir, his weariness in assisting
at the sacred mysteries shocked his brethren, so long edified by his
pious bearing and assiduity in these good works. Among others, Fra
Agustino, of Sienna, gently reproved him, saying, "When you go to
administer the sacrament without prayer, you remind me of a rider
setting forth without stirrups; take care that you do not fall." Fra
Bernardino, whose soul was withering for want of that celestial dew
which falls only in the calm evening stillness of prayer, all worn
and jaded as he was with earthly labors, and, alas! success, could
only answer, that he did not cease praying who kept on doing good.

He was now engrossed with secular things, giving counsel in the
affairs of princes; and so completely was his time occupied, that he
requested the holy father to be relieved from the daily recitation
of the divine office. At this same period he entered into friendly
relations with the heretics, and eagerly read all their works.

The pope still had hopes of holding him back, invited him to Rome,
and even dreamed of giving him the purple. This brought affairs to
a crisis. Before accepting or rejecting the invitation, Ochino took
council with his friends. Giberti, the holy Bishop of Verona, sent
him to consult Cardinal Contarini, at Bologna. The latter was too
ill to hold a long conversation, and Ochino left him immediately to
seek Peter Martyr Vermigli, at Florence. This visit to Peter Martyr,
who, already rotten to the core, was shortly to fall, convinced the
Capuchin that his doctrines could not stand the censorship of Rome,
and that, if he went there, he must be prepared to renounce them.
This conviction and the urgent advice of Peter Martyr decided him to
leave Italy immediately. On the 22d of August, 1542, he writes to the
Marquis of Pescara, detailing his anxieties and the causes of his
flight.

    "I have learned," he writes, "that Farnese says I have been
    summoned to Rome for having preached heresy and scandalous
    things. The Theatine Puccio, and others whom I do not wish to
    name, have spoken so as to cause people to think that, if I had
    crucified Christ, they could not have made more noise about it."

Further on he shows consciousness of the sensation he is creating.
"These men," he says, "tremble before a poor monk."

Flight being determined upon, he took refuge, first, with Catharine
Cibo, Duchess of Camerino. Thence he fled to Ferrara.

Here he received letters of introduction to the principal heretics
of Geneva. On his way across the Apennines he had taken with him Fra
Mariano, a saintly lay-brother, of whose dove-like tenderness and
simplicity sweet anecdotes are told, recalling the early memories
of Assisi. Mariano, under the impression that they were going to
preach to the heretics, agreed to lay aside the religious habit; but,
on learning the fraud which Ochino had practised on him, sought to
recall his unfortunate superior. The haughty orator was proof to the
tears and entreaties of his humble brother, and the latter finally
turned back alone, carrying the seal of the order, which the apostate
had kept to the last.

Arrived at Geneva, Ochino was welcomed by the heretics as a great
accession.

Calvin wrote to Melancthon, "We have here Fra Bernardino, the famous
orator, whose departure has stirred Italy as it has never been
moved before." Prayers for him, indeed, were offered throughout
Italy. Among the Capuchins--who, it is said, came near being
suppressed--great pains were taken to eradicate the evil germs
sown by Ochino; and Fra Francesco, vicar of Milan, renouncing his
heresies, expiated them by a severe penance. Cardinal Caraffa, who,
a few years later became Paul IV., publicly lamented the apostasy of
Ochino in most eloquent terms, contrasting the austere Capuchin with
the unfrocked preacher, and calling on the erring son to return to
his mother. He promised in this case, moreover, kind treatment from
the pope, who had always shown great favor to Ochino.

In a letter from Geneva, in April, 1543, the apostate sought to
justify his career and to explain his later course of action.
This letter, addressed to Muzio, begins with that allusion to
youthful enthusiasm, which has since become the threadbare apology
of those who fling away the cowl. He describes his life among the
Observantines in the words of the apostle, "I made great progress
in the Jews' religion, above many of my equals in my own nation,
being more zealous for the traditions of my fathers." (Galat. i.
14.) But very soon he was enlightened by the Lord to the following
effect: "That it is Christ who has satisfied for the sins of his
elect, and has merited for them paradise, and that he alone is their
justification; that the vows pronounced in the religious orders are
not only invalid but impious; and that the Roman Church, although of
an exterior splendid to carnal eyes, is none the less an abomination
in the sight of God." This, he would have us believe, took place
before his entering the Capuchin order. This doctrine of the vanity
of good works, of the sinfulness of monastic vows, his excuse for
abandoning both, was rooted in his mind during those years of
rugged asceticism, while he still preached prayer and penance, as
we have seen at Sienna! A liar or a hypocrite? Perhaps neither. For
the remainder of the letter is full of that fanatical declamation
against Antichrist and the harlot of Babylon, and all that railing
cant in which weak brains and over-excited imaginations have, ever
since, found expression and relief. The magistrates of Sienna also
received a pointed letter, in which Ochino set forth his doctrine on
justification. The letter is in very much the same style as that to
Muzio.

Poor, despised Carlstadt, when he saw his hopeful pupil upset (as he
then supposed) the pope and cast the church to the winds, thought
that surely Luther would not assume to himself infallible authority
and supreme jurisdiction. In this he was mistaken, as he found to
his cost. For men who aid in rebellion against lawful authority
too often find themselves a prey to usurpers; and the Bible, torn
from the anointed hands of its only rightful interpreter, became
simply a slave; its sacred text an exordium for every fanatic and an
accomplice to every scoundrel. The position which Ochino took was the
same as that of all other heresiarchs, from him whom St. Polycarp
addressed as "the first born of Satan," down to the very latest. He
constantly applied to himself the language which only one apostle
dared to use. Although he did not profess to have seen the third
heaven, yet he did profess to be thoroughly competent to teach and
determine the Christian revelation. Under these circumstances, it is
not strange that he soon found himself in bad odor at Geneva, where
an authority, equally respectable, and likewise acknowledging the
right of private examination, nevertheless burned alive poor wretches
who were so unfortunate as not to agree with it. After founding the
Italian Church at Geneva, and there publishing several works, so
outrageous in their character as to draw condemnation even from some
Protestant historians, Ochino became embroiled with the Calvinists.
The natural result of these quarrels was his excommunication and
banishment by the latter. He fled with a woman to whom he had been
sacrilegiously married. At Basle, he published his sermons. Thence he
was called to preach at Augsburg, where he enjoyed great popularity
and a salary, until the invasion of Charles V. compelled him to
flee with Stancari of Mantua. Having met, at Strasburg, his old
friend, Peter Martyr, who, meanwhile, had openly apostatized, he
journeyed with him to England, and there preached to the Italian
refugees. On the death of Edward VI., he returned to Switzerland,
and was chosen pastor of the exiles of Locarno, who had obtained
from the Senate the use of a church and their native language. But
as at Geneva, so at Zurich, the right of private judgment involved
not merely the right to believe as one might list, but also the
right, if one were able, to force every body else to believe in
like manner. Ochino was accused of anti-trinitarianism and also of
sanctioning polygamy, and obliged to swear that he would live and
die in the faith of--what? who? The Catholic Church, whose demand on
the human intellect is at once a command to believe and a reason for
believing, backed by the pledged word of Jesus Christ? No! Ochino had
rejected her authority. He now swore to live and die in the teaching
of Zwinglius. This oath, however, seemed to lose its force in a few
days. For he shortly attacked what he had sworn to defend, and, in
his _Laberinto_, denied almost every article of the Christian faith.
Banished from Switzerland, he fled, in the dead of winter, with his
four children, into Poland, where he soon afterward earned universal
contempt, by publicly countenancing King Sigismund in a projected
bigamy. Bullinger, whom Ochino had called the "pope of Zurich," says
of him, "He is far advanced in the science of perdition, and an
ungrateful wretch toward the senate and the ministers, full of malice
and impiety." Beza also characterizes him as "_Bernardinum Ochinum,
monachum magni nominis apud Italos, et auctorem ordinis Capucinorum,
qui in fine se ostendit esse iniquum hypocritam_. Bernardino Ochino,
a monk of great name among the Italians, founder of the Capuchins,"
(this a mistake,) "who finally showed himself to be a wicked
hypocrite."

From these words of Beza, Boverio has sought to infer that the
apostate finally repented and was restored to the Catholic communion.
He has also introduced testimony to prove that Ochino was poniarded
at Geneva, after professing the Catholic faith and confessing to
a priest. But historians seem to favor the tradition recorded by
Graziani, who says, "_Ochinus Polonia excessit, ac omnibus extorris
ac profugus, cum in vili Moraviae pago a vetere amico hospitio esset
acceptus ibi senio fessus cum uxore ac duabus filiabus, filioque una
peste interiit_. Ochino died in Poland a universal outcast, after
having accepted the hospitality of an old friend, in an obscure
village of Moravia. Here, worn out with age, he perished, together
with his wife, two daughters and son, in one pestilence."

To rehearse the various opinions of Ochino would be a difficult
and thankless task. Like most of the reformers, he taught the
total depravity of human nature and human reason, and, in order to
establish the motives of faith, appealed to private illumination,
assuming for the disciple what he denied to the teacher.

Besides this miserable travesty of the Christian distinction between
the natural and supernatural orders, there is in his doctrine
scarcely one point of resemblance to the Catholic faith. Having cast
away the ballast that had steadied his earlier years, the power which
had carried him on such a brilliant course proved his ruin. His
ignominious death did not excite enough pity to cause itself to be
remembered. He disappeared a lonely and abandoned wreck.

FOOTNOTE:

[43] Among those who yielded to his fatal and seductive influence
was Fra Bartolomeo Coni, guardian of the monastery of Verona, who
afterward became a heretic.




OLD BOOKS.


I.

Let the world run after new books; commend me to the enduring
fascination of old ones--not old only in authorship, but old in
imprint, in form and comeliness, or perhaps _un_comeliness!

What value is there in gilded edges and Turkey leather, which must
be handled so gingerly, compared with the sturdy calfskin, ribbed
and bevelled, which has outlived generations of human calves? and
what is tinted hot-press to the page grown yellow in the atmosphere
of centuries? The quaintly spelt word, the ornamented initial
which begins each chapter, and the more elaborate ornamentation of
dedication and title-page--all so poor now as works of art, yet in
their day masterpieces of handicraft--there is a spell in them! till
from that olden time

           ... "a thousand fantasies,
    Begin to throng into my memory."

                                                    _Comus._

A heavy quarto lies here bearing impress on its exterior, _Workes of
Lvcivs Annaevs Seneca. Both Morall and Naturall. Translated by Thomas
Lodge, D. of Physicke_; and within is a long Latin dedication to the
_Illvstrissimo D. Thomae Egertono, Domino de Ellismere, etc., etc.
London, 1614_.

Not so very old either; but within that time what changes have
passed over the world! How often has ambition or popular discontent,
or perchance honest resistance, revolutionized nations, and swept
away the boundaries of kingdoms! How often some power, seemingly
inadequate to the effect, has changed the currents of human thought,
and exalted or degraded not only individuals, but aggregate masses
of humanity, as effectively as the earthquake convulses, and then
depresses or upheaves the visible surface on which they dwell!

What changes also in the especial surroundings of this individual
volume! What improvements in the petty affairs of domestic life,
the little arrangements of the household; in the union of science
and mechanical art to produce necessaries and superfluities;
in refinements of sentiment and manners; in a better relation
between rulers and the ruled; and, to sum up all, in a more just
appreciation by each individual of what he owes to himself and to his
fellow-creatures!

All through the wide extent of this past time history and legends
stretch back their ramifications, like paths through some vast
extended landscape. In some places clear and well defined, and easily
followed; again, leading through tangle and uncertainty, and at more
than one point brought to an abrupt termination, beyond which all
vestige of a way is lost. We tread here in thought a space of time
which has been passed over by millions and millions--that countless
throng of the nameless whose steps have left no foot-print--and where
to a few only has been accorded the privilege of marking, by deed
or word, the spot whereon they stood. It is the buried city of the
immaterial world--where is uncovered to us noble deeds, and lofty
aspirations, and holy purposes; and in darker spots are wrecks of
hopes, and hearts, and immortal souls, to which all the wealth gone
down in ocean counts as nothing.

To retrace again and again these paths, so often indistinct and so
often awakening an interest they fail to gratify; to remove with
patient toil here the doubt and there the untruth which encumber
them, and anon to clear away some obstacle and open to sight a
new vista, has been at all periods the occupation and the richest
intellectual enjoyment of some of the most gifted minds, who accepted
their ample reward in the simple success of their labors. Even the
more humble wanderer through the mazy labyrinth, whose limited scope
it is only to gaze and wonder, finds a charm in such investigations
widely different from any other mental pursuit. It is the charm of
a common humanity--the recognition and acknowledgment of a chain,
invisible and intangible, and in a measure undefinable, but too
strong ever to be broken, which unites each to the other the whole
human family. It is not religion--neither philosophy; for in many a
land, despite the barbarous precepts of a so-called religion, and
where philosophy was never heard of, it vibrates in the savage heart
to the necessities of the stranger. Its first link is riveted in our
common origin; and its mysterious existence widely and wisely asserts
itself in the interest with which, for human creatures, is ever
invested the affairs of human kind.

Furthermore, it is this great social bond which attracts us to the
personages of fiction, and always precisely in proportion as they
assimilate to real life; and since even the most successful creations
of fancy can hardly fail to fall short, in some point, of realities,
so truth itself, properly presented, will always possess attractions
beyond any fiction.

But it is not in battle-fields and conquests, nor yet in the
impassioned eloquence or astute wisdom of senates and council
chambers, that we hold closest communion with the buried of long
ago; it is in that homely every-day life which we are ourselves
living; in the little pleasures, regrets, and loves; in the
annoyances, successes, and failures; in the very mistakes and
imprudences which made up the _ego ipse_ so like our own that we
find companionship. How they return to life again in all these
things! and we enter into their most private chambers--the doors
are all open now--and read their most private thoughts. We know
them better than did their contemporaries; and they suffer a wrong
sometimes in this ruthless unveiling which our heart resents. Now,
it is proper that truth should ultimately, even on earth, prevail;
and that the traitorous soldier and unscrupulous courtier, after
having lived their lives out in ill-gotten wealth and undeserved
honor, should wear in history their true colors; that even a woman's
misdeeds, when they touch public interest, should be brought to meet
a public verdict; but then these little private endurances--the
life-long struggle with poverty here, the unavailing concessions to
unreasonable tyranny by home and hearth there, the martyrdom of life,
as it may be called, which they so carefully guarded from sight--how
it is all paraded now to the world, and passed from book to book!

And yet it takes all this to make up the entire truthful portrait.
Indeed, so very far does it go to modify our opinions of them, that
the judgments formed without it must be oftentimes very erroneous.


II.

Had our old book but a tongue, what tales it might tell of the life
after life which has passed before it!

Since the date of its printing, 1614, twelve sovereigns have worn
the English crown; for in that year James I. was upon the throne of
his mother's enemy. Eleven years before, when a messenger was sent
to him in Scotland with an announcement of the death of Elizabeth
and his own accession, the tidings found him so poor that he was
obliged to apply to the English secretary, Cecil, for money to pay
his expenses to London. His wants multiplied rapidly. From his
first stopping-place he sent a courier forward to demand the crown
jewels for his wife; and a little further on another messenger
was dispatched for coaches, horses, litters, and, "above all, a
chamberlain much needed."

This journey of James was a very unique affair. Honors were scattered
so lavishingly that knighthood was to be had for the asking; and a
little pasquinade appeared in print, advertising itself--_A Help to
Memorie in learning Names of English Nobility_.

    "At Newark-upon-Trent (says Stow) was taken a cut-purse, a
    pilfering thief all gentleman outside, with good stores of
    gold about him, who confessed he had followed the court from
    Berwick; and the king, hearing of this gallant, did direct a
    warrant to have him hanged immediately."[44]

And so began at the very outset the spirit which said afterward,
"Do I make the lords? Do I make the bishops? Then God's grace--I
make what likes me of law and gospel!" So outspoke the king; who
is described by those who went to meet him as "ill-favored in
appearance, slovenly, dirty, and wearing always a wadded dagger-proof
doublet."

These eleven years of his reign had been fruitful in troubles of all
kinds. The death of his son Henry, and the alleged, but never proven
schemes of Lady Arabella Stuart to gain the throne, made a portion
of them; and all were aggravated by that spectre, conjured up by his
reckless extravagance, and which haunted him to the last moment of
his life--an empty purse. When his daughter Elizabeth was married to
the Palatine of Bohemia, the fireworks alone of London cost seven
thousand pounds; and when my Lord Hargrave accompanied the bride to
the Rhine and brought back a bill of thirty thousand pounds, the
king, having neither gold nor silver to pay with, gave him a grant
_to coin base farthings in brass_.

King James, in a book which he wrote on _Sports_, advocates all
active exercises, and one of his own greatest pleasures had always
been hunting. When so engaged, every thing else was forgotten,
and hence arose a grievance by no means trifling to his English
subjects--he and his courtiers, his companions in the chase, not
unfrequently quartered themselves in some district where game
abounded, until the provisions of the locality were absolutely
exhausted. There is a story told of him that, while hunting at
Royston, his favorite hound Jowler was missed one day, and the next
he reappeared with a paper fastened on his neck, upon which was
written--

    "Good Mister Jowler, I pray you speak to the king, for he hears
    you every day, (and he doth not so us,) that it will please his
    majesty to go back to London, for all our provision is spent."
    ... "however, (says the courtier,) from Royston he means to go
    to New-Market, and from thence to Thetford."[45]

How much further he might have been led to hunt, is unknown; for
there Lord Hay, who loved hounds, and horns also, promised no more to
importune his majesty, and his more sedate counsellors succeeded in
getting him back to business. In the mean time, in the more weighty
matters of politics and religion, where the ambitious nobles of
two countries intrigued and plotted for power over a monarch easily
imposed upon, discord and contention reigned, until in 1614 they seem
to have reached their height.

And so stood the world, old book! into which thou wert launched. Guy
Fawkes and his crew had been swept from the earth; but in the Tower
of London this year lay a more noble company, accused of the same
crime--treason. There was Earl Grey, and Lord Cobham, and Sir Walter
Raleigh, besides some others. These three had been tried, convicted,
sentenced to die, and taken to the scaffold; and at the last moment
reprieved and committed to the Tower. At the last moment it was, and
it came near being a minute too late; for James wrote his order in
such haste that he forgot to sign it, and the messenger was called
back; then when this one man on horseback reached the place of
execution, the great crowd gathered there prevented his being seen
or heard for a long time, and the axe was just ready for the fatal
stroke. On what a chance hung three lives! But what availed their
added years? Earl Grey is dying now in that Tower; and Lord Cobham,
never very strong in intellect, has grown weaker still in captivity;
and so, after a little time, he is suffered to wander out; and he
goes to a miserable hovel in the Minories, and climbs a ladder to a
loft, and lies down on straw--to die of very destitution.

Three years hence King James will want money even more than he does
now; and he will call Sir Walter Raleigh from his cell, and place
him at the head of a fleet; for Sir Walter--who has been to the
new world in years long gone by--insinuates that _there_ gold is
to be had for the digging. He fails to get it, though; and on his
return to England, he is seized, and, with only the shadow of a just
trial, executed; partly on the old sentence, but more to please the
Spaniards, whom he came in conflict with abroad.

Another life is this year pining itself away in that Tower--the Lady
Arabella Stuart; a woman descended from royalty, Henry VII., in the
same degree as King James himself, and therefore to be feared. Many
years ago charges of conspiracy against the government were brought
against her, and she was placed in confinement. She contrived to
escape, and with her husband, Lord Seymour, attempted to reach
France. By some mischance they were separated in their flight; he
reached the coast of Flanders in safety, but the little vessel in
which she had embarked was pursued, overtaken, and the unhappy
fugitive compelled to return. Love and hope bore her up bravely for a
time; but she is sinking at last, and it is recorded that September
27th, 1615, she died there.

High above all this misery merry notes were heard; for in 1614, was
a grand marriage and banqueting such as London had not seen--no, not
even at the bridal of the king's own daughter. The story is sadder
than any fiction, a "sad o'er true tale"--as follows:

Some years before this, the Lady Frances Howard, daughter of the Earl
of Suffolk, beautiful and accomplished, though still a mere child
of thirteen years, was married to the Earl of Essex, a few years
older. The ceremony was merely to secure the alliance; for the young
countess returned to her home and her embroidery, and the earl to
the university. Four years after, he went to claim the bride whose
image had doubtless oftentimes stolen between him and his books; "but
(says the chronicle) his joy was overcast: he found her cold and
contemptuous, and altogether averse to him."

A change had come over the lady. She had met her evil genius in the
unprincipled favorite of King James, the Lord Rochester, who on his
side was vain of his conquest. At this point Lady Frances is an
object of pity; for she was the victim of a usage of courts which
makes and mars the most solemn of all contracts without the least
regard to individual bias; a usage which is responsible for some of
the blackest crimes of history; but, O woman! from thy first steps
downward how rapid is the descent; wandering thoughts, folly--crime!
Such was the story of Lady Frances. Pity changes to horror at her
subsequent career, and the unscrupulous vindictiveness which she
displayed toward all those who strove to arrest her course. Most
conspicuous among such was Sir Thomas Overbury, the bosom friend of
Lord Rochester himself. He had more than once aided their meetings,
and--so said gossip--had even penned the epistles which won her;
but he became alarmed at the length to which their ventures were
carried; and when the next step proposed was a divorce from the Earl
Essex, he gave Rochester much good advice and solemn warning that
he withdrew his aid in future. This was reported to the countess,
and his doom was sealed. She failed in several attempts to involve
him in individual disputes, whereby, as she hoped, a duel might
have closed his life; she failed in having him sent in a public
capacity abroad; she succeeded, however, in having him implicated in
disloyalty and committed to the Tower, when shortly after he suddenly
died. A divorce was now sought on some trifling pretext; and as no
remonstrance was offered by Earl Essex, it was soon obtained; and in
order that she might not lose rank, King James created Rochester Earl
of Somerset.

And now, with nothing to mar their felicities, London was ablaze
with bonfires over their marriage celebration.

    "The glorious days were seconded by as glorious nights, when
    masques and dances had a continual motion; the king affecting
    such high-flying festivities and banqueting as might wrap
    up his spirit and keep it from earthly things.... Upon the
    Wednesday following was another grand masque, got up by the
    gentlemen of Prince Charles's household; and this so far
    surpassed the other, that the king caused it to be acted again.
    Then, January 4th, the bride and bridegroom with a crowd of
    nobles were invited to a treat in the city, where my lord mayor
    and aldermen entertained them in scarlet gowns. After supper
    was a wassail, a play, and a dance.... At three in the morning,
    they returned to Whitehall. On Twelfth-day the gentlemen of
    Grey's Inn invited the bride and bridegroom to masque." (Roger
    Coke.)

A brilliant triumph, soon to meet with a dark reverse. Scarcely a
year had passed, when a new candidate for the king's favor appeared
in Villiers, afterward created Duke of Buckingham; and the weak
monarch, readily attracted by a new face, was very soon anxious to
rid himself of Somerset. Enemies of the still beautiful countess were
not slow to avail themselves of the royal mood; nor was it difficult
to find in her questionable career a pretext for suspicion. With
consent of the king, they were conjointly accused of having caused
the death of Sir Thomas Overbury by poison, and sent to the Tower. It
is recorded that Earl Somerset was hunting with the king at Royston,
and actually sitting beside him when the warrant was served; and when
he appealed to his royal master to forbid the indignity, King James
only answered,

"An' ye _must_ go, mon; for if Coke sent for _me_, I must go."

After the examination of some three hundred witnesses, Sir Edward
Coke reported that the countess had used unlawful arts to separate
herself from Earl Essex, and to win the love of Rochester, and that
they had together plotted the death of Sir Thomas Overbury. Some
of the inferior actors in the tragedy were condemned and executed;
among them Mrs. Turner, who had in former years been governess to
the countess, and who had once persuaded her to consult a wizard
or fortune-teller--from whence came the charge of "unlawful arts."
The unhappy principals were repeatedly questioned, and exhorted
to confess; but with no avail. The countess at times made some
admissions, but none which implicated the earl or seriously
convicted herself; and we are fain to believe they arose rather
from her unmitigated misery, and the harassing importunities of her
judges, than from conscious guilt. They were at length restored to
liberty--at least to the liberty of banishment from court; liberty to
return to their country-seat and remain there; and there, a writer of
that day tells us, "they lived in the same house many years without
exchanging a word with each other."

King James seems to have devoted no small portion of his time to
advancing the interests of Cupid--if love it could be called, where
love there was none. Sir Edward Coke had himself an only daughter,
whom the king assigned to Viscount Purbeck, brother of the Duke of
Buckingham. The wife of Coke, Lady Hatton, was a very Xantippe; and
the eloquence of the great jurist, which could sway multitudes, and
check or change the course of political events, was totally powerless
within the walls of his own castle. Lady Hatton wisely opposed this
match, to which her daughter was averse; but in this case the king
as well as Sir Edward had decided, and for once she was obliged to
yield; "the king doing the matter (says an old writer) as if the
safety of the nation depended on its completion." Lady Hatton had
one retaliation within her reach, and she took it; she gave orders
that at the wedding "neither Sir Edward Coke nor any of his servants
be admitted."[46]

How fared at last the hapless Lady Purbeck, the heiress of thousands
and thousands? She had the misery to see the husband _not_ of her
choice become in a short time hopelessly insane; while his brother,
under pretence of looking after his affairs, left her, at times,
almost penniless. Her letters to this unprincipled miscreant, written
oftentimes under bodily as well as mental suffering, are truly
touching. In one of them she says,

    "Think not to send me again to my mother. I will beg my bread
    in the streets, to all your dishonors, rather than more trouble
    my friends." (Letter in the Caballa.)

Such were the tales of wretchedness within the precincts of a court.


III.

The career of King James and his son after the insolent and
unscrupulous Buckingham appeared to lead or drive them, as the case
might be, seems scarcely the actual history of sane men. When the
downfall of Somerset left him supreme master, he seems to have taken
possession of both king and palace. He soon sent for his kindred from
all parts of the country; and their arrival is thus described:

    "... the old countess, his mother, providing a place for them
    to learn to carry themselves in a court-like garb. He desired
    to match them with wives and husbands, inasmuch as his very
    female kindred were enough to stock a plantation. So that King
    James, who in former times so hated women, had his lodgings
    replenished with them; ... little children did run up and down
    the king's lodgings like little rabbits; ... for the kindred
    had all the houses about Whitehall, like bulwarks and flankers
    to a citadel." (Weldon.) #/

The most amusing event--or rather the most amusing absurdity in the
annals of that period, or one might say of any other period--was the
expedition of Prince Charles to Spain, in 1623, to bring home a wife.

Lord Bristol was at the court of Philip IV., negotiating a marriage
between the infanta, his sister, and Prince Charles, and endeavoring
to secure for him her magnificent dower; when Buckingham, thinking
he was gaining too much credit by his labors, felt desirous of going
himself to the spot and taking a part in the matter.

How was this to be accomplished? His wits never failed him. He
approached Charles with a general lamentation over royal marriages,
where the parties meet first at the altar--too late to retreat--and
suggested to him the advantages and romance of presenting himself in
person to the infanta, and bringing her home a bride. Charles was
charmed with the quixotic notion, and they adjourned to the palace
to obtain the king's consent. He at first flatly refused; then
consented. The next day he fell into a passion of tears, and prayed
to be released from his promise; for he feared the dangers of the
journey, and the false reports and suspicions it might give rise to
among his subjects. Charles was persuasive, the duke indignant and
insolent, and once more the king told them to go. In the words of a
historian--

    ... "So he said he would send Sir Francis Cottington and
    Endymion Porter with them; and he called Cottington in and told
    him that baby Charles and Stenie (as he always called them) had
    a mind to go to Spain and bring the infanta; and Cottington
    being pressed to speak of it, said it was both unsafe and
    unwise; whereupon the king wept again, and said, 'I told you
    so! I told you so!' Then Buckingham abused them all."

After another storm of words, it was decided that they should go in
disguise, with only these two attendants. Their incognito was very
poorly carried out; for at Gravesend they were suspected by giving
gold coin, and at Canterbury they would have been arrested, had
not Buckingham taken off his false wig and privately made himself
known to the mayor. Finally they reached Dover, where they found
Cottington, who had gone on before, in readiness with a vessel, and
they set sail for the French coast.

In Paris, a Scottish nobleman who had somehow received intimation of
their being there, called late one night on the English ambassador,
and asked if he had seen the prince. "What prince?" "Prince Charles,"
was the reply; but it was too incredible for belief. Yet while in
Paris, although not considering it worth their while to visit the
British ambassador, they contrived to gain admission, without being
recognized, to a court dancing-party, where Charles saw for the first
time the fascinating Princess Henrietta.[47]

The consternation in England when their departure, so unbefitting
royalty, was discovered, can scarcely be imagined. The king ordered
prayers to be offered for their safe return; but no allusion made to
their destination. A gentleman of that day, named Meade, writing to a
friend, tells this story:

    "The Bishop of London, you know, gave orders, as from the king,
    that they pray for the safe return of the prince to us; and no
    more. An honest, plain preacher here prayed 'that God would
    return our noble prince to us, and no more!' thinking it all a
    piece of the prayer."

Meanwhile these two knights-errant, or, as the king said, "sweet boys
and dear venturous knights, worthy to be put in a new romanzo,"[48]
continued their journey. At last, at the close of an evening in
March, two mules stopped at the house of my Lord Bristol in Madrid,
and the riders alighted. _Mr. Thomas Smith_ went in first with a
portmanteau under his arm--then _Mr. John Smith_ was called in; and
before the amazed diplomatist stood the heir to the British crown and
the Marquis of Buckingham. He stared as if he had seen two ghosts;
but he presently took Prince Charles to a bed-chamber, and dispatched
a courier to inform his father of his safe arrival.

The Spanish court took the matter in its most chivalrous light, as
the impulse of a lover; although rather puzzled how to arrange a
reception in a case which certainly had no precedent. The Spanish
people were enthusiastic. The infanta blushed charmingly at such
unheard-of homage, and began to study English. King James sent over a
troop of courtiers for a retinue, who proved a rough set--"jeering at
the cookery and the religion, and making themselves odious."[49] The
Spanish prime minister was soon disgusted with Buckingham, and would
have been still more so if he could have understood all his swearing
words--"which fortunately he cannot, (says a contemporary,) because
they are done in English."

The letters which passed between this precious couple and the king
at home are amusing. A want of money was his majesty's normal
condition; and the pitiless way in which they seemed to ignore it, by
making constant requisitions on his purse, is surprising and amusing
effrontery. Prince Charles writes,

    "I confess you have sent me more jewels than I'd have use for
    but here, seeing so many. Some that you have appointed me to
    give the infanta, in Stenie's opinion and mine are not fit for
    her. I pray your majesty send more for my own wearing." #/

Then Buckingham defines more precisely their necessities.

    "Though your baby himself hath sent word what needs he hath,
    yet will I give my poor and saucy opinion what will be fittest
    to send. Sire, he hath neither chain, or hat-band; and pray you
    consider how rich they are here, and since your chiefest jewel
    is here, your son, I pray you let loose these after him. First,
    your best hat-band of the Portugal diamond, and the rest of
    the pendants to make up a necklace to give his mistress. Also
    the best rope of pearls, with a rich chain or two for himself,
    and some other jewels, not to deserve that name, that will
    serve for presents and save your purse. They never had so great
    occasion to get out of their boxes as now."

King James found consolation in believing that they would soon return
with the infanta and her dower; so he strove his best to supply them,
and touched on smaller matters. He besought baby Charles and Stenie
not to forget their dancing, though they

    "should whistle or sing, one for the other, for the lack of
    better music; ... but you must be as sparing as you can in your
    spending, for your officers are put to the height of their
    speed.... I pray you, my baby, take care of being hurt if you
    run at tilt." (Letters in Ellis Collec.)

Difficult as it was for the king to satisfy their pecuniary demands,
and desirous though he was to act on Prince Charles's frequent
suggestion, to "consult no counsel, but leave all to Stenie and me,"
he received from them some proposals which rather exceeded his powers
of acceptance; one of which was nothing less than that, to please
Spain, he should acknowledge the pope's spiritual supremacy![50]
Probably at this point some little vision of the people of England
flitted over him; for he replied that he had made a great many
concessions already, and added--

    "Now, I cannot change my religion as a man changes his shirt at
    tennis."

The end of their expedition, and of the negotiations with Spain,
are well known. After meeting the most honorable hospitality, they
raised objections which they never intended to have removed, and made
promises which they never meant to fulfil; and returned home without
the infanta, and without her dower, to reject with insult the Spanish
alliance and lay the blame on Spain.

King James died like any common mortal, in the most literal
acceptation of the phrase. The same slight cold passing into mortal
sickness, the household called up in alarm at day-dawn, the same
hugging on to the dear old life. The countess, mother of Buckingham,
"ran with a draught and a posset;" he took the draught and applied
the posset, but it was too late--and the prince, as Charles I.,
succeeded him.

Charles had married the sister of the French king, the Princess
Henrietta, whose dancing had captivated his youthful fancy on his way
to Spain; but some little discord and confusion had crept into the
music and dancing of their English home. He had promised religious
freedom for herself and her household. Her retinue was very numerous,
and, with different religious creeds and widely different social
habits, it is not surprising that year by year a sort of estrangement
seemed to grow up between them. His majesty ascribed this to foreign
influence; and he resolved to rule his own household, and in that
very expressive phrase--_make a clean sweep_.

    "One fine afternoon the king went unannounced to the queen's
    side of the house, and finding some Frenchmen dancing and
    curvetting in her presence, took her hand and led her to his
    own lodgings; ... then my Lord Conway called forth the French
    bishop and others, and told them the king's pleasure was that
    all her majesty's servants of that nation, men and women, old
    and young, with three or four exceptions, should depart the
    kingdom. The bishop stood on, that he could not go unless the
    king his master commanded; but he was told the king his master
    had nothing to do in England.... The women howled and wept as
    if they were going to execution; but it did no good, they were
    thrust out and the doors locked."[51]

Buckingham was charged with their transportation and shipping at
Dover; and his master wrote--

    "Stick not long in disputing with them, Stenie; but drive them
    away like wild beasts--and the devil go with them."

But an ambassador was dispatched to the French court with
explanations.

The civil wars which desolated the kingdom under Charles I., and
stained the soil of England with English blood, are familiar to all.
Buckingham fell by the knife of an assassin. Whether sadly unwise or
fearfully criminal, the king expiated his mistakes with his life. He
was seized and imprisoned; and after a trial condemned and executed.
His queen, Henrietta, with her children, all except one, were in
France for safety. His little daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, was
in England, and at his request was conducted to him the last evening
of his life. Then, says Whitlock,

    "it was sad to see him--he took the princess in his arms and
    kissed her, and gave her two diamonds; and there was great
    weeping."

There is preserved, in several collections of old poetry, a long and
pathetic elegy, written by King Charles at Carisbrook Castle, where
he was imprisoned; it is entitled, _An Imploration to the King of
Kings_, and he sadly says therein--

    "The fiercest furies that do daily tread
    Upon my grief, my gray, discrowned head,
    Are those that owe my bounty for their bread.

    But sacred Saviour! with thy words I woo
    Thee to forgive, and not be bitter to
    Such as thou knowest do not know what they do."

The _Commonwealth of England_, whose first grand state seal dated
1648, came virtually to its end at the death of its founder in 1658;
and a few years later Charles II. was called from exile to the throne
of his fathers.

He is called the _merrie_ monarch; but very far from _merrie_ was
the nation under his rule--dissensions and discontent pervaded it
in every direction. The truth is, that the prominence given in
brief histories to this epithet, the madcap frolics of his court,
the witty and unprincipled nobles, and the uncommon array of female
beauty which made up the surroundings of his own indolence and love
of pleasure, lead to a sort of general idea that all England was
one grand carousal. A nearer view changes the scene. The religious
contests between conformists and non-conformists, which began in
1662 and lasted some twenty-six years--the fruitful harvest planted
in preceding years of anarchy and fanaticism--present pictures of
persecution and suffering such as enter only into religious warfare;
and which, perhaps, it is most charity to refer to the importance
which the opposing parties attach to their subject. During these
twenty-six years it is computed that the penalties which were
inflicted amounted to between twelve and fourteen millions sterling,
and the sufferers for conscience' sake numbered 60,000. Homeless, and
hungry, and penniless, they wandered about or were immured in jails;
and contemporary writers (Defoe, Penn) assert that from 5000 to 8000
perished "like sheep, in those noisome pest-houses." Surely that was
not the day of _merrie_ old England, beyond the precincts of the
court.

Charles was succeeded by his brother, James II., who was soon
deposed, and William, Prince of Orange, who had married his daughter
Mary, was invited to the throne. Next to these came another daughter
of James, Queen Anne; and with her expired the line of the Stuarts.
The dark fortunes of Mary Stuart rested in some form on all her
descendants.


IV.

In what quiet library, in what lordly mansion, was this old book
safely stored away through all these changing scenes of pageantry
and splendor, of riot and bloodshed? Who was he that first received
it, new and comely, from the hands of _William Stanly, printer_,
(who is saved to fame in a little corner of the title-page,) and
what name is this, written on the margin in ink, embrowned now and
almost obliterated, which evidently was once intended to establish
ownership? The dedication to my Lord of Ellismere bespeaks for it a
place with the noble and learned; who among them found time then to
seek

    "how to liue wel and how to die wel, from our Seneca--whose
    diuine sentences, wholesom counsailes, serious exclamations
    against vices, in being but a heathen, may make us ashamed
    being Christians." (Translator's preface.)

What statesman, by lamplight perhaps, when the toils of the day were
over, turned these very pages, and drew a rule for his steps from
the maxims of the Roman? Hadst thou but a tongue, old book, what
tales thou mightest tell! Where wert thou when that pestilence, the
plague, swept from London 100,000 of its inhabitants? or where when
its career was checked by that other horror, the great conflagration?
when the bells from a hundred steeples tolled their own requiem, and
the number of houses in London was diminished by 13,000.

One hundred years had passed over it when George I. ascended the
English throne; then came Georges II., III., and IV., King William
and Queen Victoria. Under the two first, no small portion of the
troubles, both at home and with foreign nations, were traceable to
the plots and intrigues of the last solitary scion of the house of
Stuart; and with George III. a new war boomed over the Atlantic. At
last it was finished; and at the somewhat mature age of two hundred
and fifty-six years, but still in good condition, our time-honored
volume has crossed the ocean to find a new home under the stripes and
stars. One more exponent, in its silent eloquence, of that

    "Vitae summa brevis"

which the Roman poet warns us is not to be counted on.

FOOTNOTES:

[44] Letters in Sir Henry Ellis's Collec.

[45] Letter of Lascelles to Earl Shrewsbury.

[46] Stratford.

[47] Wotton Reliq. (Sir Henry Wotton, once secretary to Raleigh.)

[48] Ellis Collec.

[49] Howell.

[50] Hardwicke State Papers.

[51] Letter of John Porry in Ellis Col.




THE VATICAN COUNCIL.

NUMBER FOUR.


Another month of the Vatican Council has passed by without any public
session. There has not been a general congregation since February
22d, when the twenty-ninth was held. This absence of grand public
ceremonials has driven some of the newspaper correspondents to turn
elsewhere in search of sensational items. We are no longer inundated,
and at times amused, by column after column of newspaper accounts
narrating speeches and events in the council that had scarcely any
existence, except in the fertile imaginations of the writers. The
outward calm in Rome has produced its effect in no small extent in
the newspaper world.

This calm, however, is by no means the calm of inaction. Quite the
contrary. At no time were the fathers so assiduously engaged in the
deep study of the matters before them, or more earnestly occupied
with their conciliar labors.

We stated in our last number that they were then engaged in the
discussion of the subjects of discipline, on which several
_schemata_, or draughts, had been drawn up by preparatory committees
of theologians, in anticipation of the council. The discussion was
continued, on February 19th, with six speakers, on the 21st with
seven speakers, and was closed on the 22d with seven other speakers,
when the fourth _schema_, or draught, on discipline, was referred,
as the preceding ones had been, to the appropriate committee or
_deputation_ on matters of discipline.

Thus, within two months, since the congregation of December 28th,
when the discussion began, one _schema_ on faith and four on
discipline had come up before the bishops; and there had been in all
one hundred and forty-five speeches delivered on them. The experience
of those two months had made several points very clear:

First, the _schemata_, or draughts, as prepared by the theologians,
did not prove as acceptable to the bishops as perhaps their authors
had expected. On the contrary, the bishops subjected them to a very
searching examination and discussion, criticising and weighing every
point and every expression; and seemed disposed, in measure, to
recast some of them entirely.

Secondly, the mode in which this examination had so far been
conducted might, it was thought, be improved, both in its
thoroughness and in the length of time it occupied. So far, all the
prelates who wished had spoken one after another. The sittings of the
congregations usually lasted from nine A.M. to one P.M., and became a
great trial of the physical endurance of many of these aged men. The
prelates could not refrain from asking each other, What progress are
we making? How long will this series of speeches last?

Again, many of the speakers, unwilling to occupy the attention of the
congregation too long, strove to condense what they wished to say,
and sometimes omitted much that might have thrown additional light on
the subject, or would be material for the support of their views. Yet
how could this be avoided without extending the discussion beyond the
limits of endurance.

Still more, many prelates, whose mature and experienced judgments
would have been most valuable, would not speak; some, because they
were unwilling to increase the already large number of speakers;
others, because their organs of speech were too feeble to assure
their being heard throughout a hall which held over a thousand
persons in by no means crowded seats.

These points had gradually made themselves manifest, and, as we
intimated in our last article, the question had been raised, how
these difficulties could be met. Some suggested a division of
the prelates into a number of sections, in each and all of which
the discussions might go on at the same time. But, after much
consideration, another method was resolved on, and was announced in
the congregation of the 22d of February as the one to be followed in
the examination and discussion of the next _schema_, or draught, to
be taken up by the council.

The main points of these additional regulations are the following:
When a _schema_ comes before the council for examination, instead
of the _viva voce_ discussion, which according to the first system
would take place in the congregations, before sending it to the
proper committee, if necessary, the cardinals presiding shall fix
and announce a suitable time, within which any and every one of
the fathers, who desires to do so, may commit his views on it to
writing, and shall send in the same to the secretary of the council.
Any amendments, additions, and corrections which he may wish to make
must be fully and clearly written out. The secretary must, at the
end of the appointed time, transmit to the appropriate committee,
or _deputation_ of bishops, all the remarks on the _schema_. The
_schema_ will be examined and remodelled, if necessary, by the
committee, under the light of these written statements, precisely
as would be done if the members had before them the full report
of speeches made in the former style before the congregation. The
reformed _schema_ is again presented to the congregation, and with
it a summary exposition of the substance of the remarks and of the
amendments proposed. "When the _schema_, together with the aforesaid
summary, has been distributed to the fathers of the council, the
said presidents shall appoint a day for its discussion in general
congregation." In parliamentary usage, this corresponds to having the
discussion, not on the first, but on the second reading of a bill.

This discussion must proceed in the strict order of topics, first
generally; that is, on the _schema_ wholly or in part, as it may have
been brought before the congregation; then on the several portions of
it, one by one. The speakers who wish to take part in the discussion
must, in giving in their names as before, state also whether they
intend to speak on the _schema_ as a whole, or on some special parts
of it, and which ones. The form of amendment, should a speaker
propose one, must be handed in, in writing, at the conclusion of his
speech. Of course, the speakers must keep to the point in debate.
If any one wanders from it, he will be called to order. The members
of the reporting committee or deputation will, moreover, be free to
speak in reply, during the debate, as they judge it advisable.

The last four of these by-laws are the following:

    XI. "If the discussion be unreasonably protracted, after the
    subject has been sufficiently debated, the cardinals presiding,
    on the written request of at least ten bishops, shall be
    at liberty to put the question to the fathers whether the
    discussion shall continue. The fathers shall vote by rising or
    retaining their seats; and if a majority of the fathers present
    so decide, they shall close the discussion.

    XII. "When the discussion on one part of a _schema_ is closed,
    and before proceeding to another, the presiding cardinals
    shall take the votes of the general congregation, first on the
    amendments proposed during the discussion itself, and then on
    the whole context of the part under consideration.

    XIII. "The votes, both as to the amendments and as to the
    context of such part, will be given by the fathers in the
    following mode: First, the cardinals presiding shall require
    those who assent to the amendment or text to rise; then, by a
    second call, shall require those who dissent to rise in their
    turn; and after the votes have been counted, the decision of
    the majority of the fathers will be recorded.

    XIV. "When all the several parts of a _schema_ have been
    voted on in this mode, the cardinals presiding shall take
    the judgment of the fathers on the entire _schema_ under
    examination as a whole. These votes shall be given _viva
    voce_, by the words, PLACET or NON PLACET. But those who think
    it necessary to add any condition shall give their votes in
    writing."

It is already evident that the first provision of these by-laws or
regulations is attaining its purpose. At the congregation of February
22d, when they went into force, a certain portion of a new _schema_,
or draught, on matters of faith, was announced as the next matter
regularly coming up for examination, and the space of ten days was
assigned within which the fathers might write out their criticisms,
and propose any emendations or amendments to it, and send such
written opinions to the secretary. There was no limit to hamper the
bishops in the fullest expression of their sentiments. They might
write briefly, or at as great length as they deemed proper. Moreover,
in writing, they would naturally be more exact and careful than
perhaps they could be in speeches often made extempore. There would
also be less liability of being misunderstood. Moreover, many more
could and probably would write than would have spoken. It is said
over one hundred and fifty did so write on this first occasion; so
that, in reality, as much was done in those ten days as under the old
system would have occupied two months. The second portion, touching
the debate before the congregation, will of course be effective and
satisfactory. And it is confidently hoped that the third portion, as
to the mode of closing the debate and taking the vote, will, when the
time comes for testing it, be found equally satisfactory.

In our previous numbers we have avoided falling into the very error
of the correspondents which we have repeatedly blamed; we have not
pretended to have succeeded in getting a glimpse behind the curtain
which veils the council, and so to have qualified ourselves to speak
without reserve of the matters treated by the fathers in their
private debates. Even had circumstances brought some knowledge of
this to us, it would be under obligations which would effectually
prevent our touching on it in these articles. But we can be under no
such obligation in regard to questions which, if we are correctly
informed, have not come, at least up to the present time, before
the congregations of the council. There is one such question which
excites universal attention, perhaps we should rather say universal
talk, outside the council--the infallibility of the pope. It has
become in Europe the question of the day. Books have been written
on it, pamphlets discussing it are issued every week, and England,
France, Germany, and Spain have been deluged with newspaper articles
upholding it or attacking it--articles written with every possible
shade of learning and of ignorance, and in every degree of temper,
from the best to the worst. The articles are what might be expected
when the writers are of every class, from erudite theologians down
to penny-a-liners, and when, if some are good and sincere Catholics,
many are by no means such. Protestants have written on it, some in
favor of the doctrine (!), most of them against it. The bitterest and
most unfair articles, however, have been and are those written by the
political opponents of the church; though how this precise question
can come into politics, any more than the existence of religion, the
divinity of the Saviour, the infallibility of the church, or any
other point of doctrine, we cannot see. But in Europe, if religion
does not go into politics, politics, or at least politicians and
political writers, have no scruples in going into religious matters.
In fact, the most advanced party of "_progress, and enlightenment,
and liberty_" proclaim that there should be no religion at all,
that it narrows the intellect by hampering freedom of thought, and
enslaves man by forbidding him to do much that he desires; and
as they think mankind should, on the contrary, be free from all
its trammels; and as they hold it to be their special mission to
effect this liberation, they systematically omit no occasion of
attacking religion. For them, one point is as good as another; the
infallibility of the pope will do as well as the discovery that
a crazy nun, subject to furious mania, was confined in a room so
small that the sides of it only measured twenty feet one way and
twenty-three the other, and so low that one had to stand on a step to
reach the window. Any thing will serve this class of writers. And,
unfortunately for religious news, much of what appears in the press
of Europe, and must gradually be infused, in part at least, into the
press in the United States, is from such pens, and is imbued or is
tinged with their spirit.

We would not do justice to Rome and the council if we omitted to
mention a very interesting event with which the council is connected,
if only as the occasion. We mean the Roman Exposition of Arts, as
applied to religious purposes. It was opened by the pope three weeks
ago.

The traveller arriving in Rome by the railway cannot fail to be
struck with wonder at the view which opens before him the instant
he steps out of the door of the central station. Just across the
square, huge dark masses of rough masonry rise before him. Some are
only twenty or thirty feet high, and their tops are covered with
the herbage or bushes that grow on the soil, wafted thither by the
winds of centuries. Others are still higher, and are connected by
walls equally old, some broken, some nearly entire. Here and there
immense arches of masonry, a hundred feet high in the air, still span
the space from pier to pier, and bear a fringe of green herbage.
Every thing tells you of the immensity of the building, or group
of buildings which men erected here in ages long gone by. But even
still, as you see, portions of these walls and arches are used. Not
every pier is a mere isolated ruin; not under every arch can you
look and see through it a broad expanse of blue Italian sky. Modern
walls are joined to these piers; the ancient walls too are turned to
account; irregular roofs, some high, some low, come against them.
Here, through the high openings in the original wall, men are busy
taking in or delivering bundles of hay from the store-house they
have constructed. There, through doorways and windows of more modern
shape, you see that another portion is made to serve as barracks
for soldiers. Other buildings stretch away northward and westward,
schools, orphanages, and a reformatory, as you see by their various
inscriptions. But though of more recent date, they have not lost all
connection with the ruins; for the ground all along shows traces
of the original constructions in the fragments of broken columns
and in patches of the ancient masonry, which between and beyond
them continues ever and anon to rise in outlying masses. But in the
centre, where the strong masonry rises higher than elsewhere and is
best preserved, there spreads a wide roof surmounted by crosses at
the gables. To the eastward, the ruins seem to die away in a long and
not very high line of buildings, evidently cared for and inhabited.
The walls are covered with plaster, and the windows are glazed, and
protected by shutters. Over the ridge of the roof you may see the
lofty summits of some cedars that are growing in a court-yard or
garden within.

These are the mighty remnants of the Baths of Diocletian, commenced
by that emperor in the year 302. Built at the period when Rome was
at the zenith of her wealth and luxury, it far exceeded all other
buildings of its class in the seven-hilled city, both in vastness
and in grandeur. It was undertaken in a time of the most cruel
persecution of the church, and the Christians who were condemned
to imprisonment and hard labor, because they would not deny their
Lord, were brought here day after day from many a prison, and
fettered like convicts, and were made to labor in erecting this pile
devoted to pride, and luxury, and debauchery. Many an account of the
martyr Christians of that age tells of old and young men and women,
condemned for their faith, and sent to die here a lingering death of
martyrdom. Many a soul passed from this spot straight to heaven. For
who hath greater love than he who giveth his life for his friend?
Many a prayer of Christian faith, of holy resignation, of ardent hope
of a better life, was here uttered day after day, and hour after
hour, all the years the work lasted. The antiquarian still finds
here and there the bricks which believing hands marked with a cross,
the outward expression of the prayer of their hearts, offering their
labors and sufferings, endured for his sake, to Him who for their
sakes labored and suffered on the cross. It is estimated that more
than forty thousand Christians toiled at the work. It was in these
ruins, if we mistake not, that was found one of the marble tablets
inscribed with an encomium of Diocletian, for having purged the world
of that vile and hateful superstition called Christianity.

In this vast pile of buildings, thirteen hundred feet from east to
west, and twelve hundred from north to south, there were halls,
court-yards surrounded by ample porticoes, pools for swimmers,
thousands of baths, libraries, galleries of painting and sculpture,
portions set aside for philosophic discussion, other portions for
gymnastic exercises and games, and every thing that Roman luxury or
Roman debauchery called for, and Roman wealth could provide.

The first dismantling and partial destruction of the buildings seems
to have occurred when Alaric sacked Rome. Yet even a century later
portions of them were still used for the original purpose as baths.

It is needless to say how they suffered still more, by alternate
violence and neglect, for many centuries afterward. Often it was
occupied by soldiers as a stronghold, and it suffered at their hands,
as by alterations here and there they strove to make the place more
defensible. Often it was assailed and taken, and then suffered still
more, as whatever could be was toppled over in anger. And when the
soldiers left it quiet, rain and winds and storms continued the work
of destruction. In the sixteenth century all this property was owned
by Saint Charles Borromeo. He gave it to the pope, Pius IV., who
determined to construct a church, if possible, in the midst of these
ruins, and so put them under the guardianship of that very religion
which gave so many martyrs toward their construction. The pontiff
committed the task to Michael Angelo, who executed it in a manner
which won an admiration next to that gained by his great work at St.
Peter's.

Amid the ruins there stood a vast hall, three hundred and twenty-five
feet long and sixty feet broad. Its massive walls were perfect, and
the vast arch of masonry that covered it, at the height of over one
hundred feet, though weakened by the exposure of centuries, still
stood unbroken. The Caldarium stood near by on one side, and the
old natatio, or swimming room, joined it on the other. Both still
preserved their vaulted roofs. Michael Angelo united them, and,
preserving the walls and the massive monolith columns of red Egyptian
granite, which were all standing, skilfully produced a noble church
in the form of a Greek cross, which is known as St. Mary of the
Angels. One loves to pass an hour in that vast, quiet, and attractive
church, under the olden arch, now protected from the weather by an
additional tiled roof, viewing the exquisite statues of saints,
and the masterpieces of painting, the originals, some of them, of
the mosaics over the altars of St. Peter's, or listening to the
Cistercian monks who serve the church as they slowly and reverently
chant the divine office at their stated hours of day and night.

On the eastern side, toward the Pretorian Camp, war had done its most
destructive work. Here Michael Angelo found the ruins so entirely
beaten down that most of the space had been devoted to gardens,
though encumbered indeed by sundry picturesque mounds of masonry.
Here, using the materials at hand so far as they would serve, he
erected a monastery for the Cistercians, a plain quadrangular
building, inclosing an open space about four hundred feet square.
To each side of this the building presents a portico, or arcade,
which thus forms a cloister, supported by twenty-five columns of
travertine. No work of that great architect and artist exceeds this
cloister in its simplicity, and the exquisite beauty of form and
proportion in all its parts. In the centre of the yard is a majestic,
ever-flowing fountain, throwing its stream of water aloft. This falls
into an ample marble reservoir beneath, whose waters ripple and
sparkle in the sunlight as the gold-fish are darting to and fro into
the shade of water-lilies or out to court the beams of the sun. By
this basin the architect planted with his own hand four young cedars,
which throve apace. Three of them are still standing, historic trees.
Two are strong and vigorous, though three centuries old; a third is
in the decrepitude of old age, shattered and broken by the winds, but
still bravely struggling to the last to raise its topmost branches
upward toward heaven. The fourth perished some years ago, and has
been replaced by another, younger one, which a good Cistercian, they
say, obtained by securing in time and carefully nursing a young shoot
of the old tree itself.

Around the cloister are the cells of the brethren. They seem to have
a curious fancy of fastening placards on their doors. You can see
half a dozen of them of different sizes. On some doors the sheet of
paper is apparently fresh and clean, and is still securely fastened
by four tacks, or by wafers under the corners. On other doors some of
the tacks have fallen out, or the wafers have lost their hold, and
the paper hangs dangling by a single corner. The winds have blown
it until it is torn. The rain has moistened and caused it to curl.
The upper portion hangs loosely over, half hiding the writing on it.
You approach and stretch out your hand to lift it up, that you may
read what a Cistercian had placarded on the door of his cell. It is
all a delusion! There is no paper! Some painter, quitting the world,
retreated to this community. In its quietude and silence, and in its
penitential life, he found again peace and tranquillity of soul, and
the gayety of his youth came back to him. He took a boyish pleasure
in playing this clever artistic practical joke on the strangers whom
curiosity, or other motives, from time to time, brought to look
at the interior of a Carthusian monastery. He died peacefully and
piously years ago, but the brethren have not ceased to enjoy the joke
he perpetrated.

What a practical lesson of the power with which God rules the
world! In this spot where a cruel and sanguinary emperor persecuted
and martyred Christians by the thousands, and boasted that he had
exterminated the Christian church, the ruins of his vast work owe
their preservation to the sacred power of a Christian church. Where
luxury, and the pride of the world, and every form of sensuality were
wont to seek their gratification, now meek and humble white-robed
Cistercians who have renounced the world and its pomps and sins, and
are vowed to poverty, chastity, and obedience, work and study in
silence, fast austerely, and make the hours of day and the hours of
night holy by prayer and chanting of psalms. The heathen empire of
Rome has passed away, but the church it tried to destroy lives in
perpetual youth. Rome has lost her heathen power of ruling with the
sword the bodies of men from the Pillars of Hercules. But through
that very Christianity Rome has received and wields a far higher
power than the sword could give. She guides the consciences and
minds of men, not only through the provinces of her olden temporal
empire, but beyond their limit, in lands where the eagle of a Roman
legion was never raised, and in countries of whose existence the
Roman emperors never dreamed. To the thoughtful mind the Cistercian
monastery and the noble church of St. Mary of the Angels but typify
the glory of Christian Rome, built amid the ruins of her olden
heathen power.

The proposal, made originally by whom we know not, of opening an
exposition of religious art at Rome during the sittings of the
council, was immediately taken up with enthusiasm. His Holiness
assigned the garden of this noble cloister as the best adapted site
to be found in Rome, except at a large expense. The Cistercians
withdrew temporarily to other buildings close by, and gave up their
own beautiful place to architects and workmen. The cloister, or broad
open arcade, which runs round the square garden was chosen to form
the outer gallery or halls, altogether about twelve hundred feet
long by twenty broad. Within this outer gallery, and just touching
each side in the middle, is a series of sixteen rooms, all of the
same size, and of the same irregular, or rather rhomboidal, shape,
forming, as it were, a broad polygon of sixteen sides. Within this
polygon is the central portion of the garden, still unoccupied, with
its gravelled walks, its green sward, its rose-trees and flowering
plants, its ever-gushing fountain, the ample basin receiving the
water, the glistening gold-fish, and the majestic cedars of Michael
Angelo. The arcade has, of course, its own covering. The sixteen
rooms of the polygon are roofed with glass, to let in the flood of
light, and a few feet below the glass is another roofing, or awning,
to soften its intensity and to mitigate the heat of the direct rays
of the sun. Large openings in the partition walls allow free passage
from room to room, all around the polygon; and where it touches the
arcade or outer halls, other doors allow you to pass to them, or by
opposite doors you may pass out to walk in the garden.

The exposition was opened on the 17th of February by the pope
himself, in the presence of the commission for the exposition, a
number of cardinals, some three hundred of the bishops, and a large
concourse of clergy and laity. He made an impromptu discourse,
touching chiefly on the true progress which art has made under the
inspiration of religion and the patronage of the church, and in
illustration referred to some of those unrivalled works of religious
painting and sculpture which are found in Rome.

Nothing could be more appropriate to the assembling of so many
bishops and priests and pious laymen in Rome, drawn by the council,
than this exposition. Go when you will, you will find many of all
these classes spending hours in studying a collection of religious
works of every kind, such as most of them have never seen. In size
and extent this exposition cannot, of course, compare with those vast
ones of London and Paris. They sought and received objects of every
kind. This admits nothing that is not devoted to, or in some way
connected with, religion. It would correspond, therefore, with one
section of the Paris Exposition of 1867. Considered in this light,
it does not, as a whole, fall below it; in several respects it is
superior.

We have not the space now to enter into a detail of the many and
multifarious objects offered for examination. Every art seems
represented. For what is there that cannot be made to give glory to
God? Still, we may glance at a few of the chief groups.

The exterior arcade is chiefly devoted to sculpture and paintings. Of
the former there are here and elsewhere in the exhibition over two
hundred and fifty pieces, in marble, in plaster, or metal, or wood. I
do not count the hundreds of sweet little things in terra cotta, nor
the many objects in ivory. Tadolini, Benzoni, Pettrich, and a hundred
other artists from Rome, and other parts of Italy, Germany, and
France, have sent the work of their chisels. As a whole, this group
of subjects stands far higher in point of good art than was looked
for. Some of the statues are of a high order. We may instance a
group of heroic size by Tadolini, representing the Archangel Michael
overcoming Lucifer, after the painting by Guido, and two life-size
Madonnas by Pettrich, all of which, we understand, will be forwarded
to the United States. There is in one of the French rooms a plaster
copy of the statue of the holy Vianney, curate of the village of
Ars, near Lyons, in France, who died a few years ago in the odor of
sanctity, and who, the Catholics of France are confident, will in due
time be canonized. He is robed in soutane, surplice, and stole, and
is kneeling in prayer, his face turned upward toward heaven. I do not
speak of the style and execution, which are good; but of the face,
which attracts every one. It is said to be a perfect likeness. Thin,
gaunt, with features sharp and exaggerated by the lack of flesh,
rather ugly than otherwise, there is an expression of simplicity,
of piety, of kindness, of earnestness, which makes it far more than
beautiful, a face that grows in sweetness as you look on it. And yet
study the individual features, forehead, eyebrows, nose, mouth, chin,
cheek-bones, the chief lines and wrinkles. They are precisely the
same as on the repulsive face of Voltaire! What different expressions
were given to the same features by the calm piety, the love of God
and our neighbor, the spiritual peace dwelling in the soul of the
saintly priest, and the pride, and envy, and passions, and the
bitter, hopeless or despairing unbelief of the apostle of evil.

As we examine these statues, so good in their execution and so
truly religious in their type, one cannot but feel a regret that in
the United States we are such strangers to the use of them in our
churches and chapels and oratories. Here and there are found, indeed,
casts in plaster of Paris, sometimes in _papier-mache_. But how few
real works of merit in materials and in style! If the clergy who
are at work building our churches, and some of the laymen who are
seconding them in this work, could only see those statues of our Lord
on the cross, or bearing the cross and sinking under its weight,
or healing the blind, or blessing little children; or those sweet
ones of the Mother and Divine Child, in various positions; or of the
Blessed Virgin, of St. Joseph, of Saint Cecilia, Saint Agnes, and
of so many other saints and groups representing religious subjects;
surely among them, in marble, in iron, bronzed, silvered, gilt, or
illuminated with polychrome, and such a variety in size and in cost,
they would understand the void in our churches, and would each do his
part to supply it.

Especially would this be the case with the stations of the way of the
cross. No devotion is more tender and consoling, and at the same time
none more strengthening to true piety and the practice of virtue,
than this pilgrimage of faith, in which we accompany our Lord, and,
as it were, stand by his side, during the several scenes of his
sufferings down to his death on the cross and his burial. No devotion
is more popular, because none better suited to the faithful of every
condition and class. Would it not be well if the engravings of those
different scenes, so often found--we had almost said, disfiguring the
walls of our churches, could give way to some of those basso-relievos
and alto-relievos of France, of Italy, and of Germany, such as we see
here? The love of the beautiful and striking is innate in man. Even
the child feels it; and in manhood, use and education but develop and
increase the satisfaction it gives. While we smiled, we could not
but sympathize in some measure with the Italian sculptor who, on his
dying-bed, pushed away a crucifix which a pious attendant wished to
place in his hands. "Not that, not that! it makes me angry," he said;
"it is horrid! Give me the other one; it is well made. That will
excite devotion." Let children be taught, in a way they will love, to
think often, to know, to realize, even from their tenderest years,
what the loving and merciful Saviour suffered for man. Lessons well
learned at that tender and innocent age seldom fade from the mind
and heart in after years. And no way of teaching that lesson is more
effectual than the one we indicate.

There are more than five hundred paintings in the exposition. Of
these perhaps two hundred are by the old masters, and have been
placed here by their owners.

These embrace paintings by the divine Raffaele, as the Italians
call him, Domenichino, Annibale Carracci, Correggio, Maratta, Carlo
Dolce, Salvator Rosa, Murillo, Leonardo da Vinci, Guido Reni, Rubens,
Vandyke, Ribeyra, Del Sarto, and a host of other old masters,
Italian, German, Flemish, and Spanish, whom we need not name. There
we may gaze with rapture on the excellence of art inspired by
religious thought. It is a fact not to be overlooked or forgotten,
in these days of irreligion, that the best paintings which the best
artists ever painted were all produced when they brought their powers
to represent a religious subject. In painting, and in other things
too, he works best who works in the spirit of religion and the fear
of God.

The larger number of the paintings are of later date, many of them
by living artists. To our eye, certainly not trained to criticism,
many of them appear worthy of high praise. But we believe the general
verdict is not so favorable to them as to the statuary. Still, we
must remember that here they have to compete side by side with
those old paintings of the highest order. The contrast between their
freshly laid colors and the colors of older paintings, toned down by
age, if not somewhat faded, is so strong and striking that this very
difference, often no real difference on the part of the painters, is
set down as a defect to be censured. The portrait of the pope, by our
American artist Healy, is undoubtedly the best likeness of the Holy
Father in the exposition.

What we said of the statuary we may repeat with equal reason of
religious paintings. How easy it would be to adorn our churches
and chapels with these books of the eye, one glance at which often
teaches more than a sermon. The artists at home capable of producing
a religious painting worthy of being placed in a church are few,
perhaps might be counted on one's fingers. European painters capable
of giving an original ask such prices for their work as generally to
put them as far beyond our means as if they were to be painted at
home. Even at that, their conception and treatment of a subject will
scarcely stand comparison with approved works of the best masters who
have already treated the same subjects. But there is a large class
of painters here who devote themselves to copying and reproducing
those old paintings, on every scale as to size. The execution of many
of them is good, and the prices for which the artists are willing
to work seem very low. It is wonderful how much painting, and good
painting, five hundred dollars well laid out in Rome will obtain.
Several of our clerical friends, who have visited Rome this winter,
carry back with them evidences of this fact.

Next to the paintings should come the stained glass, which is superb,
and is offered at a price which seems really astonishing--about five
dollars a square foot for the richest kind, with life-size figures.

The large windows, from several competing manufacturers, are so
mounted that the light shines through them, and you can examine
at full leisure and carefully the wondrous effects of united
brilliancy and softness in these works of peculiarly Christian art.
The art of painting on glass, which many, up to a recent period,
thought entirely lost, has revived in this century, and seems fast
approaching the perfection which it attained in the middle ages.
There is one marked difference observable between the old windows
and some of the work here. The ancients displayed their skill in
combining together thousands of minute pieces of glass of different
colors, so as to make up a picture in its proper colors and its
lights and shadows. The modern artists have attempted the task of
producing the picture on a single large sheet of glass. This would
free it from the single defect almost unavoidable in this work--the
stiffness of the figures. But the earlier attempts presented such
variation in the perfections of the several colors used as to be
failures, in point of that brilliancy and play of light which
constitute the charm of this work. The source of the defect was to
be found in the laws of nature, on which every work, and this work
directly, depends. The general mode of procedure in which glass is
colored is this: The subject is painted on the surface of a sheet
of glass with metallic paints. The glass is placed in an oven and
slowly and carefully raised to that point of heat at which it grows
soft. The particles of metal constituting the colors sink into the
glass and become portions of its substance. The difficulty was found
to spring from the great difference in the rate and manner in which
the colors would sink into the softened substance. What would give
some colors perfectly, would leave others imperfect; and continuing
the work until these were perfect, would often destroy the first. But
patient study and careful work have overcome these difficulties to a
degree which we did not expect. There are full-size figures here in
stained glass rivalling those of the middle ages in brilliancy, and
possessing the freedom of a painting on canvas.

The perfection of the Gobelins tapestry is almost incredible. A
large canvas, twenty-five feet by ten, presents the Assumption by
Titian, and near it is a life-size figure of our Lord in the tomb.
It is a sermon but to look on the cold, rigid body of him who bore
our transgressions. There are specimens of photography, some showing
life-size figures, of oleography, lithography, chromo-lithography,
engravings on copper, for which Rome cannot be excelled, on steel,
and on wood. In many of these branches France and Germany rival, if
they do not surpass Italy. But Rome stands unrivalled in mosaics, of
which there are here exquisite specimens.

In architecture, we find plans of churches and colleges, very full
and clear, but not striking; designs for the interior of chapels and
sanctuaries, of a far higher order of art, several miniatures of
churches; a fac-simile in white marble of the front of St. Peter's,
and another in wood, on the scale of about one inch to ten feet,
showing the entire exterior of the church front and dome in all its
details, the colonnades, fountains, and square before it, and so
constructed that it can be opened in several ways, in order to give
an equally correct and minute view of the interior with all its
ornamentation. You may recognize every painting and statue in the
basilica. It took years of patient labor to make this model, and it
is said to have been sold to an Italian prince for twenty thousand
dollars. What a pity such a work should be shut up in some palace in
the city where every one can go to the real St. Peter's. It should
rather be sent to distant countries, where thousands, who will never
go to Rome, might be able to obtain from it a far clearer conception
than any books can give of the form and splendor of this great
temple, which is deservedly the pride and the glory of the Christian
world.

In music, there are organs with the latest and best improvements,
harmoniums, Alexandre organs of various powers and many stops, and
chimes and church-bells hung on a new patent system, by which a mere
boy can swing easily and ring loudly a bell of nearly a ton weight.
As for texts of church music, you may turn over the parchment leaves
of huge folio graduals and antiphonaries, in which the good old monks
of past ages wrote the Gregorian notes and the words so large and so
clear as to be easily read in the choir, even at the distance of ten
feet. There are later ones printed nearly as large, and collections
of modern church music from Italy, Germany, and from France.

Ecclesiastical vestments abound in the exposition. Rome, Milan, and
other cities of Italy are represented by the most celebrated of
their manufacturers. France has sent a multitude from Paris, Lyons,
Grenoble, Montpellier, Nismes, and elsewhere. Others have come from
Germany and from Spain. Here are copes and chasubles, dalmatics,
antipendiums, and veils, of the richest material and exquisite
workmanship. You can examine the ample yet light and pliable
vestments of Italy, the rich and stiffer ones of France, the narrow
and scantier form of Austria, and the heavier ones from Spain, that
ought never to wear out. In the matter of vestments you are taught
a lesson of history. For here, carefully preserved in large glass
wardrobes, are shown the vestments used six hundred and eight hundred
years ago, if not a thousand years ago, in St. Peter's, in St. Mary
Major's, in St. John Lateran's, and in the cathedral of Anagni.

The emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, as it was called, which sprung
into existence in the ninth century, and died in the convulsions
of Europe consequent on the French revolution, were bound to come,
if circumstances allowed it, to Rome, to receive their royal
consecration in St. Peter's at the hands of the pope. On such
occasions, the emperor was admitted for that time into the sanctuary,
wore a deacon's dalmatic, and chanted a gospel. Here you may look at
the identical dalmatic which they wore a thousand years ago. It is of
silk, and the figures which decorate it were worked with the needle,
in gold thread. Near by are copes, and chasubles, and mitres faded
and worn; which still give evidence of the art and care in making
them, the richness of the materials used, and of the skill of the
embroidery and painting which decorated them. What will the modern
chasubles and copes around us, now so fresh and splendid, look like
in A.D. 2500?

Church vessels of every class are equally abundant. Chalices, pixes,
cruets, censers, incense-cups, crosses, crucifixes, ostensories,
croziers, every thing that can be thought of, are here, often in
their richest forms. There are chapelles for priests, and chapelles
for bishops. Altar candlesticks and candelabra of every size and
graceful form tempt you. Perhaps the most interesting in a scientific
and also a pecuniary view, is the large collection of all those
vessels made of bronze aluminium, of a light gold color, and not
liable to tarnish. The weight is light, and the prices low.

There are altars of marble, of cast-iron, of bronze gilt, and of
wood colored and illuminated, the last-named truly beautiful, and
they would well replace some of those far more costly constructions
sometimes to be met in our churches.

Altars lead us to candelabra, candlesticks, and chandeliers; and
here they are displayed in every size, from an immense chandelier
to be suspended in a church, of metal gilt, ornamented with angels
and religious emblems, and bearing sixty-five lights, down to the
tasteful bongie, or tiny candlestick which an acolyth holds in his
hand when he attends a bishop at the altar. Altar candlesticks and
candelabra seem a specialty with the French artists. The graceful
curve of the outlines, the appropriateness and suggestiveness of the
decoration, and the ease with which all these pieces may be combined
to produce on the altar a whole simple and tasteful, or rich and
splendid, can scarcely be conceived. They bring to their work the
spirit of the children of Israel in the desert, offering their gold
and jewels to Moses for the ornamentation of the tabernacle of the
Most High. Man can never do too much to testify his homage and his
loving obedience to God.

In Christian bibliography the chief Catholic publishers have done
well. The polyglott press of the Propaganda exhibits many of its late
publications; among others an accurate _fac-simile_ of the Codex
Vaticanus of the Scriptures, and a volume containing the Lord's
Prayer in two hundred and fifty languages, in the proper characters
of each language, where it has any. The volume presents one hundred
and eighty different forms of type. Salviucci, of Rome; Pustet, of
Ratisbon; Dessain, of Malines, and many others exhibit well printed
and richly bound copies of their chief publications. Vecco & Co., of
Turin, show the eighteen volumes they have already printed of the new
edition of the _Magnum Bullarium_. Victor Palme, of Paris, displays
an enormous line of folio volumes, the _Acta Sanctorum_ of the great
Bollandists, the republication of which he has just finished in
fifty-eight volumes. To this he adds his edition of the _Ideologia_,
by the professors of Salamanca, his _Gallia Christiana_, his edition
of _Annales Baronii_, and the introductory volume of a new edition of
the _Collectio Maxima Conciliorum_, which he has just commenced.

It was sad not to find the veteran Migne here, and to think of that
sad conflagration which consumed the work of a lifetime. He had
undertaken, and after fifty years of steady persevering labor, was
finishing the greatest bibliographical achievement of the publishers
of this century. The twelve or thirteen hundred large volumes he
had published in his collection, embracing all the fathers, Greek
and Latin, ample courses of Scripture, theology, and canon law,
encyclopaedias, history, theologians, preachers, etc., would have
presented the largest and most imposing array of volumes--almost a
complete theological library in itself. Great as was his loss, that
to the clergy was greater.

We mention last a collection which every visitor to the exposition
hurries to see first, as most deserving of his attention, the
collection of articles which the Holy Father himself directed
should be sent here from the Sixtine Chapel: 1. The famous tiara
presented to him by the Queen of Spain. The three crowns on it are of
brilliants and pearls, the roses are rubies and emeralds, the ball on
the summit is of rubies, and the cross above of diamonds. As a work
of art, it is considered a _chef-d'oeuvre_ of grace and elegance,
and does honor to the artists of Spain. 2. A chalice of gold covered
with brilliants and diamonds. These diamonds and brilliants were a
present from Mehemet Ali. 3. A large golden ostensory, of Byzantine
style, the rays of which are studded with brilliants, from the same
donor. 4. A large processional cross of gold, the staff of silver
gilt. The cross is of an elegantly flowering Gothic form, and is
adorned with precious stones and enamel. It was made to order in
France, and is a present from the Marquis of Bute. Chalices, mitres,
vestments, cruets, an ancient MS. missal, exquisitely illuminated
and richly bound, with many other objects, make up a large list of
articles which His Holiness has sent to give additional interest to
the exposition. Others have acted in the same spirit; and certainly,
if the number, the richness, and the exquisite taste and elegance of
the articles displayed can effect it, the exposition is a success.
The attendance has been pretty fair, and as the governmental outlay
has been but small, may prove remunerative. The exhibitors will
certainly succeed in introducing their works to the religious world
far more generally than they could have ordinarily looked for. And
the visitors seem all satisfied that each repeated visit to the
exposition is a renewed and increased pleasure. We may perhaps
endeavor next month to be able to write more at length of the more
prominent articles in the exposition, with reference to the needs of
our American churches.




NEW PUBLICATIONS.


    AN ESSAY IN AID OF A GRAMMAR OF ASSENT. By John Henry Newman,
    D.D. 1 vol. 12mo. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.
    1870.

It would be quite impossible without exceeding proper limits to give
any thing more than an incomplete sketch of the plan of this able
work; it must, of course, be read in full to be appreciated.

At the outset three states of mind are distinguished, assent,
inference, and doubt, corresponding to the external actions of
assertion, conclusion, and interrogation, though not necessarily
accompanying them. The subject of the essay is, as its name implies,
principally the first of these; doubt being merely alluded to, and
inference treated in its relation to assent, and only that species
being considered at length which is not strictly demonstrative. The
various modes in which assent exists, and in which it is formed, are
the first objects of examination.

The division made here of assent, and which recurs throughout the
work, is into real and notional, the former relating to propositions
whose terms, in the words of the author, "stand for things external
to us, unit and individual," the latter "for what is abstract,
general, and non-existing;" and this last is distinguished under the
names of profession, credence, opinion, presumption, and speculation,
which terms are necessarily used in senses somewhat different from
those ordinarily attached to them.

The strength of real assents in comparison to notional ones is
shown, and the difference in this point of view between assent and
inference; the latter being clearest in purely abstract matters.
Not but that assent is always unconditional or absolute; still, its
material, when real, is so much more vividly apprehended that the
assent elicited is much more energetic and operative. Thus also when
notional assents become real, as they may in consequence of some
special circumstances, their hold upon the mind and control upon
action is much increased.

This subject is illustrated by a discussion of religious assents,
with special reference to the being of God, and to the Holy Trinity;
it is shown that the former truth, and the constituent parts of the
latter, can be, and usually are, the objects of real assent, though
the latter in its completeness or unity can only be notionally
apprehended; and though the definition of the Divine Being may give
only a notional idea. The implicit assent which unlearned Christians
give to all the definitions of the church is also explained.

The absolute and unconditional character of assent is next treated,
and it is shown that it has this character even when given without
good grounds, or when those grounds are forgotten; and that it is not
necessarily conceded to convincing proofs, and may disappear while
the inference which led to it still remains. Without this character
the act is not assent at all, or at least is only that notional form
of it called by the author opinion, which he defines as assent to
the probable truth of a proposition. The possibility and continual
occurrence of full assent without intuition or demonstration is
defended against those who, though really they have no doubt about
some theoretically uncertain matters, yet "think it a duty to remind
us that, since the full etiquette of logical requirements has not
been satisfied, we must believe those truths at our peril."

The distinction is drawn between simple or unconscious assent and the
conscious, reflex, or complex assent, as the author calls it, which,
when the thing believed is true, has the name of certitude, and is
irreversible or indefectible. In simple assent we do not give any
place, or in any way incline mentally to the opposite belief, though
we may examine the grounds of our own for various reasons; but when
we are certain, we explicitly refuse to admit any thing opposed to
it. The occurrence of false or supposed certitudes does not suffice
to prove the non-existence of real ones; and certitude is not to be
confounded with infallibility, which is a faculty applicable "to all
possible propositions in a given subject matter," while certitude is
"directed to this or that particular proposition."

The next part is the discussion of the act of inference. In its most
perfect or formal state it can be used without limitation only upon
abstractions; it "comes short of proof in concrete matters, because
it has not a full command over the objects to which it relates, but
merely assumes its premises." Hence, even when what we do assume is
true, as shown in an earlier part of the work, processes of inference
in concrete matters may easily end in mysteries. In many cases it
cannot profitably be used, owing to the labor required for taking
account of all the circumstances, as well as the real difference
of the first principles from which our syllogisms proceed. We
are, therefore, obliged to resort to informal inference, in which
arguments and probabilities are estimated in the mass, and have a
different force to different individuals, according to the character
in them of what Dr. Newman calls the illative sense. He concludes by
treating of the exercise of this combining and directing faculty in
its application to religious inferences, both in natural and revealed
religion, and shows that by means of it we may fairly arrive at
certitude regarding Christianity, and that such a method is at least
as likely to succeed as more formal demonstrations. The lawfulness
and reasonableness of assent in religious matters, as well as in
others, without such demonstrations, may be regarded as one of the
main objects of the work, though by no means its only one.

       *       *       *       *       *

    DE L'UNITE DANS L'ENSEIGNEMENT DE LA PHILOSOPHIE AU SEIN
    DES ECOLES CATHOLIQUES D'APRES LES RECENTES DECISIONS DES
    CONGREGATIONS ROMAINES. Par le P. H. Ramiere, S.J. Paris, 1862.

F. Ramiere is well known as the head of the admirable confraternity
of "The Apostleship of Prayer," and the author of a number of
excellent works on spiritual subjects, and also on the great
religious questions of the day. We have recently been indebted to
him for some extremely able essays in defence of the rights of the
Holy See, for which he has received the eulogium of the Holy Father
himself. The work whose title is given above has been sent to us by
the reverend father himself, we presume on account of the article
translated, with some preliminary observations of our own, from F.
Vercellone, on the ideology of St. Augustine, which appeared in a
recent number; and we beg to thank him for his kindness. We had not
before had the pleasure of reading it, although it has been eight
years published. We have read it with attention, and, we are happy to
say, with much satisfaction. The learning and logical force of the
author command our respect, and his calmness, candor, impartiality,
and truly Christian charity win our esteem, throughout the whole
course of his argument. The argument is divided into three parts. In
the first part, the author sustains the possibility and the great
importance of unity in philosophical instruction, and lays down the
conditions by which it can be obtained. In all that he says under
this head we fully and cordially concur with him. In the second
part, he discusses traditionalism; and here again we find ourselves
in perfect agreement with all his positions. In the third part, he
attacks the grand difficulty of the origin of rational cognition,
and, of course, discusses the vexed question of ontologism. It would
be a futile effort to attempt a critical appreciation of this part of
F. Ramiere's work in a brief critical notice, and we will not attempt
it. An opinion on these very grave and much controverted topics,
in order to be worth attention, must be supported by elaborate
arguments, and based on deep and patient study of all the principal
authors, ancient and modern, whose works are the great sources
of philosophical knowledge. We agree perfectly with F. Ramiere,
that thorough discussion, carried on in the spirit of moderation,
directed by a pure love of truth, and regulated by obedience to the
authority of the church, is the only road by which we can attain
to that degree of unity in philosophical doctrines which prevails
among all truly orthodox theologians in respect to dogmatic and
moral theology. We desire to see this discussion go on, and hope for
a good result from it; and as a necessary preparation, we cannot
too earnestly insist on the necessity of a more thorough study of
scholastic philosophy than has been common among those who have
written on these subjects in the English language. Both in theology
and philosophy, we hold it as certain that we must follow the great
fathers and doctors of the church as our guides and masters, or go
astray and lose our labor. The essential truths of philosophy must be
contained in that system which the church authorizes, and in which
she trains up her clergy.

As we understand them, there is no difference between F. Vercellone
and F. Ramiere on this point. We are not authorized to speak for
Dr. Brownson, who is the great philosophical writer among American
Catholics; but we think he would agree with us fully in this
judgment; and that the passage in a contrary sense, quoted by F.
Ramiere, is to be regarded as one of those _obiter dicta_ which
his mature, deliberate wisdom would not ratify. We cheerfully
acknowledge that the doctrine which F. Ramiere so lucidly exposes
as the Thomistic doctrine of the origin of cognition is sufficient
as a basis of rational certitude and natural theology, and we
are perfectly agreed with him that this is the main point to be
secured. As for the profound and difficult, and therefore intensely
interesting and attractive, questions which relate to the nature of
the intellectual light itself, and the objective truth seen by its
aid, it does not seem to us that they have yet been as thoroughly
discussed as they need to be, in order to bring the various schools
into a closer agreement. This is certainly so as respects philosophy
in the English language, which is yet in its cradle, and we think it
is true universally. Of course, the great question to be settled
at the outset is, how far the boundary of philosophical doctrine,
as rendered certain by the consent of the great doctors, intrinsic
evidence, and the decisions of the supreme ecclesiastical authority,
extends; and where opinion begins. The true understanding of the
famous decisions of 1861 is absolutely necessary to this end, so far
as ideology is concerned; and F. Ramiere has given an explanation
of their sense and intention which perfectly agrees with that of F.
Vercellone in a supplement to the article which we translated. It is,
namely, the intuition of the essence of God, and created things in
that essence, as the natural, intellectual light of reason, which we
are forbidden to affirm.

Are we, therefore, required, as an only alternative, to adopt the
Peripatetic philosophy as taught by the Thomists? It would seem that
this has not yet been sufficiently proved. The works of Gerdil,
Vercellone, and others, who profess to find in Plato, St. Augustine,
St. Bonaventure, St. Anselm, and other great authors, a philosophical
wisdom which supplies a want not fully satisfied by St. Thomas,
have not yet been marked by any note of disapprobation. It is true
that F. Ramiere tells us that Gerdil changed his opinions in his
later years. But F. Vercellone denies this, on the authority of
Cardinal Lambruschini. F. Ramiere is extremely tolerant of opinions
differing from his own, where he thinks he has only a greater
probability on his side. He does not censure the following of these
great authors, or discourage the study of them; but he thinks they
are misunderstood, and that a better study of them would result in
making us all Peripatetics and Thomists. Let us by all means, then,
especially those who have youth, strength, and leisure, study the old
masters of philosophy more deeply than we have done, and truth and
unity will be the gainers. F. Ramiere protests strongly, however,
against the high esteem which some Catholic writers have expressed
for Gioberti. As it happens that one of our correspondents has done
the same in the present number, we feel bound to assure F. Ramiere,
and our readers generally, that we detest, as much as any one can,
the rebellious conduct of Gioberti toward the sovereign pontiff,
that we have no sympathy with his hatred of the Jesuits, and condemn
every thing in his works which the Holy See intended to censure when
they were placed on the Index. Nevertheless, as F. Perrone has had
the generosity to place his name on the list of illustrious Catholic
writers, we do not think it improper to give him credit for the
genius he undoubtedly possessed, or the true and elevated teachings
which his works may contain. Even if the worst things said against
him be true, there is no reason why we should not make use of every
thing good in his works, as we do in those of Tertullian, Photius,
and the Port Royal divines.

In conclusion, we recommend and applaud F. Ramiere's essay as a
specimen of that kind of discussion which he so strongly advocates,
with the most ardent sympathy in his desire that sound philosophy
may go hand in hand with theology, to deliver the world from the
destructive influence of scepticism, sophistry, and every species of
error.

       *       *       *       *       *

    GUYOT'S GEOGRAPHICAL SERIES. By Professor Arnold Guyot. New
    York: Charles Scribner & Co.

Since Humboldt gave his scientific facts to the world, and Ritter
generalized upon them, the study of geography has been converted from
an exercise of the memory upon unrelated facts to a science whose
laws of mutual dependence of cause and effect hold good in common
with other physical sciences. But it has remained for the American
mind to generalize the later scientific discoveries of Maury, Hugh
Miller, Livingstone, Kane, and others, and, adding them to former
achievements, give the results in the modern school geographies.
The very number of these text-books presented by aspiring authors
and publishers to the public is an encouraging symptom to the lover
of improvement in knowledge, though sadly annoying to the practical
teacher, who is so frequently urged to change the text-books in the
hands of his pupils.

The series before us is evidently the result of the profoundest
research united to a practical knowledge of the best manner of
presenting facts to young minds. None but an enthusiast in physical
science, a good expounder of original ideas, and a polished English
scholar could have given so complete a series of text-books to our
schools and teachers. The language in which the facts are presented
is one of the chief recommendations of the books; for nothing
more certainly impresses itself upon the youthful mind than the
language of the text-books used in schools, affecting the habits
of thought and expression in all after-life. With a view also to
the varied peoples among whom these books would be adopted, and
in answer to the demands of the age and period, a world-wide and
catholic spirit seemed to animate the author when treating the
subject of the governments and religions of different sections and
political divisions. Facts, as generally understood, are fairly
stated. Opinions based upon those facts judiciously withheld. Some
improvements might be made in the execution of the maps, and also in
the text of the primary book, the style of which is weak and careless
compared with the rest of the series. But the illustrations, and
print, and style of getting up are equal, if not superior, to any
books of the kind published.

       *       *       *       *       *

    STATUTES OF THE SECOND SYNOD OF THE DIOCESE OF ALBANY. 1869.
    Troy: Scribner & Co. Received from P. J. Dooley, 182 River
    street, Troy.

We have read this beautifully printed document with great pleasure,
and we will cite several of the statutes, which have in our opinion
a special importance, giving, however, only their import in our own
language, without quoting _verbatim_ the Latin text, which is easily
accessible to those who are interested in ecclesiastical matters.

1. Confessors and pastors are commanded to teach their spiritual
children the evil and danger of attending the sermons and religious
exercises of sectarians, and not to permit it under any pretext.

2. The faithful, especially heads of families, are admonished to
exclude non-Catholic versions of the Bible, and all kinds of noxious
books and papers, from their houses, and to make use of good and
Catholic books and periodicals.

3. All who are concerned in the publication of books relating to
religion and the divine worship are admonished not to venture to
publish any thing without the license of the ordinary. The desire is
also expressed that clergymen will not publish any thing whatever
without the previous consent of the bishop. It is announced that
several members of the episcopal council will be designated as
censors of books. In the recent bull of Pope Pius IX., abrogating all
previous laws inflicting the censure of excommunication reserved to
the pope, and promulgating anew the causes of incurring this censure,
the authors and publishers of books _de rebus sacris_, who put forth
such books without the permission of the ordinary, are declared
to incur the censure of excommunication _latae sententiae_. It is,
therefore, of the utmost importance that regulations should be made
and published in every diocese, prescribing to authors and publishers
the conditions under which the ordinary permits the publication
of books _de rebus sacris_, and the Bishop of Albany has given an
excellent example, which we hope will be universally followed.

4. The faithful are to be seasonably exhorted to sustain the
sovereign pontiff in maintaining his temporal authority by their
contributions.

5. Pastors are earnestly exhorted to use earnest efforts to extirpate
the vice of intemperance, which is the cause of such immense scandals.

6. The necessity of sustaining Catholic schools, and the dangers
of theatrical exhibitions, immodest dances, and festive amusements
or exhibitions intended for the benefit of pious causes, such as
picnics, fairs, and excursions, are noticed.

7. Priests will be subjected to an annual examination _in scriptis_,
before theological examiners, during the first five years after their
ordination.

8. The faithful are to be sedulously warned and exhorted not to
contract mixed marriages.

These are only a few of the great number of excellent statutes,
entirely in accordance with the decrees of general councils, the
plenary and provincial councils of the United States, and the decrees
of the Apostolic See, enacted by this admirable synod, which is
indeed worthy of the best days of the church.

       *       *       *       *       *

    THE SUN. By Anedee Guillemin. From the French, by A. L.
    Phipson, Ph.D. With fifty-eight illustrations.

    WONDERS OF GLASS-MAKING IN ALL AGES. By A. Sanzay. Illustrated
    with sixty-three engravings on wood.

    THE SUBLIME IN NATURE; compiled from the descriptions of
    travellers and celebrated writers. By Ferdinand de Lanoye; with
    large additions. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1870.

The above are the titles of three beautiful volumes, the latest
additions to the "Illustrated Library of Wonders," now being
published by Messrs. Scribner. These little books must prove highly
interesting, especially to the young, and are very well adapted for
premiums. The illustrations are well executed, and give additional
value to the books.

       *       *       *       *       *

    NATURAL HISTORY OF ANIMALS. By Sanborn Tenney and Alby A.
    Tenney. Illustrated by five hundred wood engravings, chiefly of
    North American animals. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1870.

A very useful book, well adapted to aid parents and teachers in
interesting the young in the delightful and important study of
natural history.

       *       *       *       *       *

    DIALOGUES FROM DICKENS. For School and Home Amusement. Arranged
    by W. Eliot Fette, A.M. Boston: Lee & Shepard.

The dialogues contained in this volume have been selected for
the most part, and we think very judiciously, with a view to
thorough, unalloyed amusement. There are, doubtless, other portions
of Dickens's works no less characteristic, full of tenderness and
pathos, over which we fain would linger, and to which we gladly
return again and again; these, however, we prefer to peruse alone,
and at leisure. But for an evening's entertainment in company,
commend us to the good fellowship the compiler has here selected for
us--the Wellers, Dick Swiveller, Bob Sawyer, Mark Tapley, Sairey
Gamp, etc., etc.

       *       *       *       *       *

BOOKS RECEIVED.

    From PATRICK DONOHUE, Boston: The Charlestown Convent; its
    Destruction by a Mob, on the night of August 11th, 1834; with a
    history of the excitement before the burning, and the strange
    and exaggerated reports relating thereto; the feeling of regret
    and indignation afterward; the proceedings of meetings, and
    expressions of the contemporary press. Also, the Trials of
    the Rioters, the testimony, and the speeches of counsel; with
    a review of the incidents, and sketches and record of the
    principal actors; and a contemporary appendix. Compiled from
    authentic sources. Pamphlet: Price, 30 cents.

       *       *       *       *       *

CORRIGENDA.

    In our last number, the English translation of the _Stabat
    Mater_ was ascribed to our unknown correspondent, G. J. G., at
    whose request it was published. A note since received from the
    same correspondent informs us that G. J. G. is not the author,
    as we inferred incorrectly from his previous communication, but
    some other person unknown to him.

    Two errors were also inadvertently passed over in the article
    in reply to _The New Englander_. The first was the omission of
    Baden and Bavaria from the table at the top of page 112. The
    populations of these countries in millions are, respectively,
    Protestant, 0.47; and 1.23; Catholic, 0.93 and 3.18, and their
    rates 16.2 and 22.5, as given in the previous tables. The
    addition of these would increase the Catholic average more than
    the Protestant; but the second error, namely, a wrong placing
    of the decimal point in the product for Sweden and Norway, when
    corrected, more than compensates for this, making the true
    result of this table--

    Protestant                         9.5
    Catholic                           7.9

    The sums of the Catholic and Protestant populations in the
    above cases, as in others also, do not exactly equal the totals
    elsewhere given, on account of the difference of date between
    the latest censuses available, as well as the existence of
    other religious bodies.

    A review of _Janus_, which we had expected to publish in our
    last number, but which was delayed by the illness of the
    writer, will be given in our next. We are also expecting to
    receive soon the English translation of Dr. Hergenroether's
    _Anti-Janus_, by Mr. Robertson.




THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XI., No. 63.--JUNE, 1870.


MR. FROUDE'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.[52]


If we accept general encomium and popular demand as criteria of
excellence, it is evident that Mr. Froude must be the first historian
of the period. That, with a vivid pen, he possesses a style at
once clear and graphic; that his fulness of knowledge and skill
in description are exceptional; that his phrase is brilliant, his
analysis keen, and that with ease and spirit, grace and energy,
pictorial and passionate power, he combines consummate art in imagery
and diction, we have been told so often and by so many writers that
it would seem churlish not to accord him very high merit. Then, too,
Mr. Froude is very much in earnest. Whatever he does he does with
all his might, and in his enthusiasm often fairly carries his reader
along with him.

But, in common with those who seek, not literary excitement, but the
facts of history, we go at once to the vital question, Is the work
truthful? Is it impartial? If not, its author's gifts are perverted,
his attainments abused, and their fruits, so bright and attractive
to the eye, are filled with ashes.

Impartial! Difficult indeed, is the attainment of that admirable
equilibrium of judgment which secures perfect fairness of decision,
and whose essential condition precedent is the thorough elimination
of personal preference and party prejudice. And here is the serious
obstacle in writing a history of England; for there are few, very
few, of the great historical questions of the sixteenth century that
have not left to us living men of to-day a large legacy of hopes,
doubts, and prejudices--nowhere so full of vitality as in England,
and in countries of English tongue. Not that we mean to limit such
a difficulty to one nation or to one period; for it is not certain
that we free ourselves from the spell of prejudice by taking refuge
in a more remote age. It might be thought that, in proportion as we
go back toward antiquity, leaving behind us to-day's interests, the
historian's impartiality would become perfect. And yet, there are
few writers of whom even this is true. Reverting historically to the
cradle of Christianity, it cannot be asserted of Gibbon.

Nor can it be said even of modern historians of nations long extinct,
in common with which one might suppose the people of this century
had not a single prejudice. Take, for instance, all the English
historians of ancient Greece, whose works (that of Grote being an
honorable exception) are so many political pamphlets arguing for
oligarchy against democracy, elevating Sparta at the sacrifice of
Athens, and thrusting at a modern republic through the greatest of
the Hellenic commonwealths. If Merivale is thought to treat Roman
history with impartiality, the same cannot be said of many modern
European writers, who, disguising modern politics in the ancient
toga and helmet, cannot discuss the Roman imperial period without
attacking the Caesars of Paris, St. Petersburg, and Berlin.

The great religious questions which agitated England in the sixteenth
century are not dead. They still live, and for the Anglican, the
Puritan, and the Catholic have all the deep interest of a family
history. It might, therefore, be unreasonable to demand from Mr.
Froude a greater degree of dispassionate inquiry and calm treatment
of subjects that were "burning questions" in the days of Henry and
Elizabeth, than we find in Milman and Gillies, when they discuss the
political life of Athens and Lacedaemon. So far from exacting it, we
should be disposed to be most liberal in the allowance of even a
strongly expressed bias. But after granting all this, and even more,
we might yet not unreasonably demand a system which is not a paradox,
a show at least of fairness, and a due regard for the proprieties of
historical treatment.

Mr. Froude's first four volumes present the history of half the
reign of Henry VIII., a prince "chosen by Providence to conduct the
Reformation," and abolish the iniquities of the papal system.

The historical Tudor king known of all men before the advent of
Mr. Froude with his modern appliances of hero-worship and muscular
Christianity, "melted so completely" in our new historian's hands
that his despotism, persecution, diplomatic assassinations,
confiscations, divorces, legalized murders, bloody vagrancy laws,
tyranny over conscience, and the blasphemous assumption of spiritual
supremacy are made to appear as the praiseworthy measures of an
ascetic monarch striving to regenerate his country and save the world.

There was such a sublimity of impudence in a paradox presented with
so much apparently sincere vehemence that most readers were struck
with dumb astonishment. A fascinated few declared the deodorized
infamy perfectly pure. Some, pleased with pretty writing, were
delighted with poetic passages about "daisies," and "destiny," "wild
spirits" and "August suns" that "shone in autumn." Many liked its
novelty, some admired its daring, and some there were who looked upon
the thing as an enormous joke. All these formed the great body of
readers.

Others there were, though, who declined to accept results which
were violations of morality, and verdicts against evidence obtained
by systematic vilification of some of the best, and the elevation
of some of the worst men who ever lived, and by a blind idolatry
incapable of discerning flaw or stain in the unworthy object
of its worship; who saw Mr. Froude's multifarious ignorance of
matters essential for a historian to know, and his total want of
that judicial quality of mind, without which no one, even though
possessed of all knowledge, can ever be an historian. They resolved
that such an historical system as this was a nuisance to be abated,
and that the new and unworthy man-worship should be put an end to.
Accordingly the idol was smashed;[53] and in the process, the idol's
historian left so badly damaged as to render his future availability
highly problematical.

The Scotch treatment was of instant efficacy; for we find Mr. Froude
coming to his work on the fifth volume in chastened frame of mind
and an evidently corrected demeanor. He narrates the reigns of Mary
and Edward VI. with style and tone subdued, and in what musicians
designate as _tempo moderato_.

With the seventh volume we reach the accession of Queen Elizabeth.
We opened it with some curiosity; for it was understood from Mr.
Froude, at the outset of his historical career, that he intended to
present Elizabeth as "a great nature destined to remould the world,"
and that he was prepared to visit with something like astonishment
and unknown pangs all who should dare question the immaculate purity
of her virtue. It is not improbable that the contemplation of the
strewn and broken fragments of the paternal idol materially modified
this purpose--a change on which Mr. Froude must more than once have
fervently congratulated himself as he gradually penetrated deeper
into the treasures of the State paper collections, and stared with
stiffened jaw at the astounding revelations of Simancas.

We need not wonder that the historian altered his programme; and
that instead of going on to the "death of Elizabeth," to record the
horrors of that most horrible of death-bed scenes, he should close
his work with the wreck of the Spanish Armada.

The researches of our American historian, Motley, were terribly
damaging to Elizabeth; and in the preparation of his seventh volume,
Mr. Froude comes upon discoveries so fatal to her that he is
evidently glad to drop his showy narrative and fill his pages with
letters of the Spanish ambassador, who gives simple but wonderfully
vivid pictures of scenes at the English court.

Future historians will doubtless take heed how they associate with
the reputation of the sovereign any glory they may claim for England
under Elizabeth, remembering that she was ready to marry Leicester
notwithstanding her strong suspicion, too probably assurance, of his
crime, (Amy Robsart's murder,) and that in the language of one of Mr.
Froude's English critics, "She was thus in the eye of heaven, which
judges by the intent and not the act, nearer than Englishmen would
like to believe to the guilt of an adulteress and a murderess."

But Mr. Froude plucks up courage, and, true to his first love, while
appearing to handle Elizabeth with cruel condemnation, treats her
with real kindness.

We have all heard of Alcibiades and his dog, and of what befell
that animal. Mr. Froude assumes an air of stern severity for those
faults of Elizabeth for which concealment is out of the question--her
mean parsimony, her insincerity, her cruelty, her matchless
mendacity--while industriously concealing or artistically draping her
more repulsive offences.

But we have not started out to treat Mr. Froude's work as a whole.
A chorus of repudiation from the most opposite schools of criticism
has so effectually covered his attempted apotheosis of a bad man
with ridicule and contempt that no further remark need be made on
that subject. As to Elizabeth, the less said the better, if we are
friendly to her memory.

Careful perusal of Mr. Froude's first six volumes will convince any
competent judge that he is not a historian, but, as yet, only in
training to become one. He plunged into a great historical subject
without the requisite knowledge or the necessary preparation. In
his earlier volumes his very defective knowledge of all history
before the sixteenth century led him into the most grotesque
blunders--errors in general and in details, in geography,
jurisprudence, titles, offices, and military affairs. So far from
meriting the compliment paid him, of accurate knowledge, acquired in
the "course of his devious theological career," of the tenets and
peculiar observances of the leading religious sects, it is precisely
in such matters that he seriously fails in accuracy.

With a half-grasp of his material, Mr. Froude totally fails to make
it up into an interesting consecutive narrative. He lacks, too,
the all-important power of generalization, and, as has been aptly
remarked, handles a microscope skilfully, but is apparently unable
to see through a telescope. Heroic and muscular, his over haste to
produce some startling result came near wrecking him in the morning
of his career.

While his work was in course of publication, our historian wrote from
Simancas a sensational article for _Fraser's Magazine_, in which he
announced some astounding historical discoveries, which only a few
weeks later he was only too glad to recall. The trouble was that
he had totally misunderstood the Spanish documents on which his
discovery was grounded.

Along with his apparent incapacity for sound and impartial judgment,
there is an evident inability in Mr. Froude to distinguish the
relative value of different state papers, and the most striking proof
that he is still in his apprenticeship as a writer of history, is
his indiscriminate acceptance of written authorities of a certain
class. Historical results long since settled by the unanimous
testimony of Camden, Carte, and Lingard, the three great English
historians of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries
respectively, are thrust aside by Mr. Froude and made to give way
to some MS. of doubtful value or questionable authenticity. The
term "original document" magically invests every writing falling
into his hands with all the attributes of truth. When he finds a
paper three hundred years old, he gives it speech and sets it up as
an oracle. Nor can the simile be arrested here; for, treating his
oracle with the tyrannic familiarity of a heathen priest, the paper
Mumbo Jumbo must speak as ordered, or else be sadly cuffed. It is a
puerile idea to imagine that when the historian has found a mass of
original historical papers, his labor of investigation is ended, and
he has but to transcribe, to put his personages on the stage, let
them act and declaim as these writings relate, and thus place before
the reader the truthful portrait of bygone times. Far from it. It
is at this point that his work really begins. He must ascertain by
comparison, by sifting of evidence, by many precautions, who lies and
who speaks truth. In matters of Elizabethan diplomacy, for instance,
the truth floats not on the surface. A royal dispatch gives orders,
but it does not give motives. And even if the motives are stated, is
it certain they are truly stated? A minister is explicit as to what
he wishes done; but he does not say why he wants it done, nor what
results he looks for. Cases numberless will suggest themselves as to
the difficulties of such documents. Very few of these difficulties
have any terrors for Mr. Froude. Commencing his investigation with
his theory perfected, it is with him a mere choice of papers. Swift
is the fate of facts not suiting his theory. So much the worse for
them, if they are not what he would have them to be; they are cast
forth into outer darkness.

Mr. Froude has fine perceptive and imaginative faculties--admirable
gifts for literature, but not for history. Precious, if history
depended on fiction, not on fact. Invaluable, if historic truth
were subjective. Above all price, where the literary artist has the
privilege of evolving from the inner depths of his own consciousness
the virtues or the vices wherewith it suits him to endow his
characters. But alas! otherwise utterly fatal, because historic truth
is eminently objective.

It is well said that to be a good historical student, a man should
not find it in him to desire that any historical fact should be
otherwise than it is. Now, we cannot consent to a lower standard in
logic and morality for the historian than for the student; and thus
testing Mr. Froude, it is not pleasant to contemplate his sentence
when judged by stern votaries of truth. For we have a well-grounded
belief that not only is it possible for Mr. Froude to desire an
historical fact to be otherwise than it is, but that he is capable
of carrying that desire into effect. It is idle to talk of the
judicial quality of an historian who scarcely puts on a semblance of
impartiality.

In matters of state, Mr. Froude is a pamphleteer; in personal
questions he is an advocate. He holds a brief for Henry. He holds a
brief against Mary Stuart. He is the most effective of advocates,
for he fairly throws himself into his case. He is the friend or the
enemy of all the personages in his history. Their failure and their
success affect his spirits and his style. He rejoices with them or
weeps with them. There are some whose misfortunes uniformly make
him sad. There are others over whose calamities he becomes radiant.
He has no unerring standard of justice, no ethical principle which
estimates actions as they are in themselves, and not in the light of
sympathy or repulsion.

It must be admitted, nevertheless, that Mr. Froude makes up an
attractive-looking page. Foot-notes and citations in quantity,
imposing capitals and inverted commas, like little flags gayly
flying, all combine to give it a typographical vivacity truly
charming. Great as are his rhetorical resources, he does not despise
the cunning devices of print. Quotation-marks are usually supposed
to convey to the reader the conventional assurance that they include
the precise words of the text. But Mr. Froude's system is not so
commonplace. He inserts therein language of his own, and in all these
cases his use of authorities is not only dangerous but deceptive.
He has a way of placing some of the actual words of a document in
his narrative in such a manner as totally to pervert their sense.
The historian who truthfully condenses a page into a paragraph saves
labor for the reader; but Mr. Froude has a trick of giving long
passages in quotation-marks without sign of alteration or omission,
which we may or may not discover from a note to be "abridged."

Other objectionable manipulations of Mr. Froude are the joining
together of two distinct passages of a document, and entirely
changing their original sense; the connection of two phrases from two
different authorities and connecting them as one; and the tacking of
irresponsible or anonymous authorities to one that is responsible,
concealing the first, and avowing the last.

Then his texts, and the rapid boldness with which he disposes of
them; cutting, trimming, clipping, provided only that he produce an
animated dialogue or picturesque effect which may cause the reader to
exclaim, "How beautifully Mr. Froude writes!" "What a painter!" "His
book is as interesting as a novel!" And so it is; for the excellent
reason that it is written precisely as novels are written, and mainly
depends for its interest upon the study of motives. A superior
novelist brings characters before us in startling naturalness--his
treatment, of course, being subjective, not objective; arbitrary, not
historical. Mr. Froude, with his great skill in depicting individual
character and particular events, follows the novel-writer's method,
and may be said to be the originator of what we may designate as the
"psychological school" of history. This power gives him an immense
advantage over all other historians.

While they are burning the midnight lamp in the endeavor to detect
the springs of action by the study of every thing that can throw
light upon the action itself, he has only to look through the window
which, like unto other novelists, he has constructed in the bosom of
every one of his characters, to show us their most secret thoughts
and aspirations. One may open any of Mr. Froude's volumes at random
and find an exemplification of what is here stated. Here is one:

    "It was not thus that Mary Stuart had hoped to meet her
    brother. His head sent home from the border, or himself brought
    back a living prisoner, with the dungeon, the scaffold, and
    the bloody axe--these were the images which a few weeks or
    days before she had associated with the next appearance of her
    father's son. Her feelings had undergone no change; she hated
    him with the hate of hell; but the more deep-set passion paled
    for the moment before a thirst for revenge." (Vol. viii. p.
    267.)

Here are depicted the tumultuous workings of a wicked heart; its
hopes, fears, passions--nay, even the very images that float
before the mind's eye. And this Mr. Froude asks us to accept for
history--ascertained fact.

Our historian takes unprecedented liberties with texts and citations.
Now he totally ignores what a given person says on an important
occasion. Now he puts a speech of his own into the mouth of the same
character. Passages cited from certain documents cannot be found
there, and other documents referred to have no existence. In a word,
Mr. Froude trifles with his readers and plays with his authorities,
as some people play with cards.

There are not many passages of Mr. Froude's work free from some one
of these serious objections. To specify them would require at least
as much matter as he uses; for he offends as often in suppression as
in assertion. Nevertheless, to the extent of our limited space we
will point out a few, and as Mr. Froude's early volumes have been so
amply commented upon, we will confine our examination to the latter
half of the work, with special reference to his treatment of


MARY STUART.

Most historians begin at the beginning. But our latest historical
school has resources heretofore unknown, and quietly anticipates that
ordinary point of departure. Mary Stuart is formally brought on to
Mr. Froude's historical stage in the middle of the seventh volume,
and the reader might be supposed to take up her story without a
single preconceived opinion. Doubtless, the average reader does so
take it up, unsuspicious of the fact that his judgment is already
fettered and led captive. In volume iv. p. 208, Mary of Guise is
described as lifting her baby out of the cradle, in order that Sir
Ralph Sadlier "might admire its health and loveliness."

    "Alas! for the child," says Mr. Froude; "born in sorrow and
    nurtured in treachery! It grew to be Mary Stuart; and Sir Ralph
    Sadlier lived to sit on the commission which investigated the
    murder of Darnley."

There is nothing very startling in this. The reader's mind absorbs
the statement, and goes on. In the next volume, (vol. v. p. 57,)
while deeply interested in the military operations of the Duke of
Somerset, we are told _en passant_:

    "Thursday he again advanced over the ground where, fourteen
    years later, Mary Stuart, the object of his enterprise,
    practiced archery with Bothwell ten days after her husband's
    murder."

Consummately artistic!

The reader has not yet reached Mary Stuart; her history is not yet
commenced; he supposes his mind, as regards her, to be a mere blank
page, and yet our historian has already contrived to inscribe upon
the blank page two facts, namely, she was the murderess of Darnley,
and she was guilty of adultery with Bothwell. No evidence has been
offered, no argument presented. With graceful and almost careless
_disinvoltura_, Mr. Froude has merely alluded to two incidents,
one of which is a fable, and lo! the case against Mary Stuart is
complete. For these are the two great accusations upon which the
entire controversy hinges, a controversy that has raged for three
centuries. Very clever! Very clever indeed!

Give but slight attention to Mr. Froude's system and you will find
that his treatment of the historical characters he dislikes is after
the recipe of Figaro: "Calomniez, calomniez, il en reste toujours
quelque chose;" and that under the sentimentality of his "summer
seas," "pleasant mountain breezes," "murmuring streams," "autumnal
suns," patriotic longings, and pious reveries, there is a vein of
persistent and industrious cunning much resembling that of Mr. Harold
Skimpole, who is a perfect child in all matters concerning money,
who knows nothing of its value, who "loves to see the sunshine,
loves to hear the wind blow; loves to watch the changing lights and
shadows; loves to hear the birds, those choristers in nature's great
cathedral"--but, meantime, keeps a sharp look-out for the main chance.

Indirection and insinuation are effective weapons never out of Mr.
Froude's hands. In an allusion or remark, dropped apparently in the
most careless manner, he will, as we see, lay the foundation of a
system of attack one or two volumes off and many years in historical
advance of his objective point. In like manner, at page 272, vol.
i., we are told "three years later, when the stake recommenced its
hateful activity under the auspices of Sir Thomas More's fanaticism."
Thus the way is prepared for the accusation of personal cruelty,
which Mr. Froude strives, in vol. ii., to lay at More's door.
More's greatness and beautiful elevation of character are evidently
unpleasant subjects for our historian, and he grudgingly yields him
a credit which he seeks to sweep away in the charge of religious
persecution, specifying four particular cases: those of Philipps,
Field, Bilney, and Bainham.

These cases have been taken up _seriatim_ by a competent critic, (the
reader curious to see them may consult the appendix to the October
number _Edinburgh Review_ 1858,) who demonstrates that Mr. Froude's
pretended authorities do _not_ tell the story he undertakes to put
in their mouth, and that he is guilty of such perversions as are
exceedingly damaging to his reputation.

In introducing Mary Stuart, Mr. Froude vouchsafes no information
whatever concerning her mind, manners, disposition, or education.
It is certainly desirable to know something of the early years and
mental development of a character destined to fill so prominent a
part in the great events of the period, and to become one of the most
interesting personages in history. She is thus presented: "She was
not yet nineteen years old; but mind and body had matured amidst the
scenes in which she passed her girlhood." (Vol. vii. p. 268.) This
is at once a very remarkable statement and a mild specimen of Mr.
Froude's command of ambiguous language. Very close and philosophical
observers have, we think, already noticed the phenomenon indicated;
and although it might not at once occur to every one that young girls
usually mature amidst the scenes of their girlhood, yet it was hardly
worth the effort of a philosophic historian to give us information so
trite. But we suspect Mr. Froude of a deeper meaning, namely, that
mind and body were then--at eighteen years--matured, and had attained
their full growth. It means that, or it is mere twaddle.

Thus, we are to understand that Mary Stuart, at the tender age of
eighteen, was abnormal and monstrous.

Mr. Froude drives his entering wedge so noiselessly that you are
scarce aware of it, and in the development of the story he strains
all his faculties to paint the Queen of Scots, not only as the worst
and most abandoned of women, but as absolutely destitute of human
semblance in her superhuman wickedness. That such is the effect of
his portraiture, is well expressed by an English critic--a friend
of Mr. Froude, but not of Mary: "A being so earthly, sensual, and
devilish seems almost beyond the proportions of human nature."
(London _Times_, September 26th, 1866.)

Mr. Froude then gives us a portrait of the young Scottish queen, in
which he says, "In the deeper and nobler emotions she had neither
share nor sympathy;" and herein, Mr. Froude explains, "lay the
difference between the Queen of Scots and Elizabeth." Again we must
regret that our author has told us nothing of Mary Stuart's youth, so
that we might judge this matter for ourselves. Her life in France was
by no means devoid of interest. She was admired and beloved by all.
She had reigned there as queen, and young as she was, her opinions
were respected in high councils.

Throckmorton, a clever and experienced diplomatist, was near Mary in
France, for many years, and, with the fullest means of information,
advised Elizabeth day by day concerning her. She is the subject of
scores of his dispatches, with none of which, however, are we favored
by Mr. Froude. Throckmorton thus announces to Cecil Mary's condition
after the death of King Francis:

    "He departed to God, leaving as heavy and dolorous a wife as
    of good right she had reason to be, who, by long watching with
    him during his sickness, and by painful diligence about him,
    especially the issue thereof, is not in the best time of her
    body, but without danger."

But Mr. Froude, who is ready to reveal for our entertainment the
inmost thoughts of this "dolorous wife," enlightens us with the sole
information that "Mary was speculating before the body was cold on
her next choice." Throckmorton, all unconscious of the annoyance he
must give a nineteenth century historian, again writes to Cecil:

    "Since her husband's death she hath shown, and so continueth,
    that she is of great wisdom for her years, modesty, and also of
    great judgment in the wise handling herself and her matters,
    which, increasing in her with her years, cannot but turn to
    her commendation, reputation, honor, and great profit to her
    country."

He continues:

    "I see her behavior to be such, and her wisdom and queenly
    modesty so great, in that she thinketh herself not too wise,
    but is content to be ruled by good counsel and wise men."

As a general rule, Mr. Froude is not economical of "birth, parentage,
and education" essays. Yet, while managing to bestow them on very
secondary personages, he has none for Mary Stuart. Latimer and John
Knox are favored in this respect, and even to the bastard son of
Henry VIII.--"the young Marcellus," as Mr. Froude proudly calls
him--are devoted nearly three full pages of gushing enthusiasm
concerning his youthful dispositions and early studies. He was, alas!
"illegitimate, unfortunately;" "_but_ of beauty and noble promise."
(Vol. i. 364-6.)

Soon we see the resources of the psychological school. Mr. Froude
informs us (vol. vii. p. 369) that Mary was going to Scotland "to
use her charms as a spell;" "to weave the fibres of a conspiracy;"
to "hide her purpose until the moment came," and "with a purpose as
fixed as the stars to trample down the reformation."

Had it been possible for Mr. Froude to produce one word of testimony
from France concerning Mary Stuart's youth that was not of respect,
praise, and admiration, from friend or foe, he surely would not have
failed to cite it.

In this dilemma, he quotes Randolph, (vol. vii. p. 369,) to show "her
craft and deceit;" adding, "Such was Mary Stuart when, on the 14th of
August, she embarked for Scotland."

But Randolph at that time had never seen Mary Stuart, and the date
of his letter cited by Mr. Froude is _October_ 27th. Under these
circumstances it becomes interesting to know what Randolph's opinion
of Mary really was before she left France. Randolph writes to Cecil,
_August_ 9th, referring to Mary's preparations for departure, "That
will be a stout adventure for a sick, _crazed_ woman."

Even for a sea voyage, Mr. Froude continues to prefer a microscope
to a telescope. The consequence is, that out of an escort of Mary's
three uncles, all her ladies, including the four Marys, more than
a hundred French noblemen, the Mareschal d'Amville, Brantome the
historian, and other distinguished men, a doctor of theology, two
physicians, and all her household retinue, he can discern no one but
Chatelar, who was, as a retainer of d'Amville, in that nobleman's
suite. And so we read, "With adieu, belle France, sentimental verses,
and a passionate Chatelar sighing at her feet in melodious music,
she sailed away over the summer seas." Which we must in candor admit
to be a sweetly pretty passage. But in the next paragraph Mr. Froude
puts away sentimentality, means business, and throws a bright light
on a previous line: "Elizabeth could feel like a man an unselfish
interest in a great cause." Here is the paragraph, it is admirable in
every respect.

    "The English fleet was on her track. There was no command
    to arrest her; yet there was the thought that 'she might be
    met withal;' and if the admiral had sent her ship with its
    freight to the bottom of the North Sea, 'being done unknown,'
    Elizabeth, and perhaps Catharine de' Medicis as well, 'would
    have found it afterward well done.'" (Vol. vii. p. 370.)

Of course, it would have been "well done;" because "in the deeper
and nobler emotions Mary had neither share nor sympathy;" whereas
Elizabeth and Catharine de' Medicis had.

The undisputed record of Mary's arrival in Edinburgh is, that her
surpassing beauty and charm of address, arising not so much from her
courtly training as her kindly heart, created a profound impression
on a people who already reverenced in her the daughter of a popular
king, and of one of the noblest and best of women.

Mr. Froude thus renders this record: "The dreaded harlot of Babylon
seemed only a graceful and innocent girl." (Vol. vii. p. 374.) In
common fairness, Mr. Froude should have given some adequate idea
of the condition of the country this inexperienced young queen was
called to rule. This he fails to do. It was such that the ablest
sovereign, with full supply of money and of soldiers--and Mary Stuart
had neither--would have found its successful government almost
impossible. The power of the feudal aristocracy had declined in
Europe everywhere but in Scotland; and everywhere but in Scotland
royal power had been increased. For centuries the Scottish kings had
striven to break down the power of the nobles, which overshadowed
that of the crown. One of the results of this struggle is quaintly
recorded in the opening entry of Birrel's _Diurnal of Occurrents_:

"_There has been in this realm of Scotland one hundred and five
kings, of whilk there was slaine fyftie-six._"

Another result was greater aristocratic power and increased anarchy.
The Scotch feudal nobles had never known what it was to be under
the rule of law, and there was as yet no middle class to aid the
sovereign. Among their recognized practices and privileges were
private war and armed conspiracy; and the established means of
ridding themselves of personal or public enemies was assassination.
In all history we find few bands of worse men than those who
surrounded the throne of Mary Stuart. Cruelty, treachery, and cunning
were their leading characteristics. Some of them were Protestants
in their own peculiar way, and, as John Knox says, referring to the
disposition of the church lands, "for their own commoditie."

Personally, they are thus described by Burton, the latest historian
of Scotland, a bitter opponent of Mary Stuart:

    "Their dress was that of the camp or stable; they were dirty
    in person, and abrupt and disrespectful in manner, carrying on
    their disputes, and even fighting out their fierce quarrels, in
    the presence of royalty."

In view of the picturesque statement that Mary Stuart went to
Scotland with a "resolution as fixed as the stars to trample down
the Reformation," her first public acts are of great interest. Mr.
Froude states them so imperfectly (vol. vii. p. 374) that they make
but slight impression. The friends of her mother and the Catholic
nobles expected to be called into her councils. Instead of them, she
selected the Lord James (her half-brother) and Maitland as her chief
ministers, with a large majority of Protestant lords in her council.
She threw herself upon the loyalty of her people, and issued a
proclamation forbidding any attempt to interfere with the Protestant
religion which she found established in her realm. She did not plead,
as Mr. Froude states, that she might have her own service in the
royal chapel, but claimed it as a right expressly guaranteed. "The
Lord Lindsay might croak out texts that the idolater should die the
death." (Vol. vii. p. 375.)

That was a truly energetic "croak"! Listen to it, (not in Froude.)
When service in the queen's chapel was about to begin, Lindsay, clad
in full armor and brandishing his sword, rushed forward shouting,
"The idolater priest shall die the death!" The almoner fortunately,
for himself, heard the "croak," took refuge, and after the service
was protected to his home by two lords; "and then," says Knox, "the
godly departed with great grief of heart."

The interview between Queen Mary and John Knox is narrated by Mr.
Froude in such a manner as to tone down the coarseness of Knox's
conduct, and lessen the brilliancy of the dialectic victory of
the young Scotch girl over the old priest and minister. She first
inquired about his _Blast against the Regiment of Women_, in which he
declares--

    "This monstriferous empire of women, among all the enormities
    that do this day abound upon the face of the whole earth, is
    most detestable and damnable. Even men subject to the counsel
    or empire of their wives are unworthy of all public office."

Mr. Froude describes Knox as saying, "Daniel and St. Paul." He ought
to know that a Scotch Puritan could not have said _Saint_ Paul.
Macaulay never makes such mistakes. "Daniel and St. Paul were not
of the religion of Nebuchadnezzar and Nero." (Vol. vii. p. 376.)
Incorrect. Knox having first modestly likened himself unto Plato,
thus states his own language:

"I shall be alse weall content to lyve under your grace as Paull was
to lyve under Nero." It is hard to say which is greater, the man's
vanity in comparing himself to St. Paul, or his intolerable insolence
in likening, to her face, the young queen to the bloodiest of all
Roman tyrants. William Cobbett, a writer of sturdy and unadulterated
English, in referring to some such performance as this on the part
of Knox, calls him "the Ruffian of the Reformation." We strongly
suspect, though, that Knox did not use language so gratuitously
offensive. His account of the interview was written years afterward.
He was self-complacent and boastful, and in other places says that
he caused the queen to weep so bitterly that a page could scarce get
her enough handkerchiefs to dry her eyes. Before Mary, Knox claimed
that Daniel and his fellows, although subjects to Nebuchadnezzar
and to Darius, would not yet be of the religion of the one nor the
other. Mary was ready with her answer, and retorted, "Yea; but none
of these men raised the sword against their princes." Mr. Froude, of
course, reports this reply in such a manner as to spoil it; adding,
"But Knox answered merely that 'God had not given them the power.'"
Not so; for Knox strove by logical play, which he himself records, to
show that resistance and non-compliance were one and the same thing.
"Throughout the whole dialogue," says Burton, "he does not yield the
faintest shred of liberty of conscience." But Mary kept him to his
text, repeating, "But yet they resisted not with the sword." And
then, this young woman, who, Mr. Froude assures us, came to Scotland
with "spells to weave conspiracies," "to control herself and to hide
her purpose," blunderingly tells Knox that she believed "the Church
of Rome was the true church of God."

One would think it no very difficult task for a man of age and
experience to see through an impulsive girl of nineteen, whose face
mirrored her soul. And yet, Mr. Froude informs us triumphantly, three
separate times, that "Knox had looked Mary through and through." In
this connection we have one of our historian's best efforts, to which
we ask special attention.

    "Knox had labored to save Murray from the spell which his
    sister had flung over him; but Murray had only been angry at
    his interference, and, 'they spake not familiarly for more
    than a year and a half.'" (Vol. vii. p. 542.)[54]

Pray notice the cause of this estrangement. Mr. Froude is very
explicit here. Look at it. This innocent Murray is under a spell.
All heart himself, he saw no guile in his sister. But Knox warned
him against the sorceress, _and that was the cause of the coolness
between them_. On this point there can be no mistake, and we now
propose to place John Knox on the stand and with his eyes to look
Mr. Froude "through and through." In the parliament of 1563, Murray
had the "Act of Oblivion" passed, in which he managed to reserve
for himself and his friends the power to say who should or should
not profit by its provisions. With this act he was dangerous to all
who opposed him, and was consequently all-powerful. Under these
circumstances, John Knox pressed Murray, now that he had the power,
to establish the religion, namely, pass in a constitutional manner
the informal act of 1560, and legalize the confession of faith as the
doctrine of the Church of Scotland.

Now call the witness, John Knox:

    "But the erledom of Murray needed confirmation, and many things
    were to be ratified that concerned the help of friends and
    servants--and the matter fell so hote betwix the Erle of Murray
    and John Knox, that familiarlie after that time they spack nott
    together more than a year and a half."[55]

Thus, if we may believe Knox himself, it was Murray's preference for
his own "singular commoditie" over the interests of the kirk of God
which caused that "they spake not familiarly together for more than
a year and a half." Of "spell" and "enchantress" no word. We refrain
from comment.

One remark as to the "spell" Mary had flung over Murray. Even
from Mr. Froude's pages may be wrung the unwilling admission that
"the stainless Murray" was neither more nor less than the paid and
pensioned spy of Elizabeth. Here is another dispatch of Throckmorton,
(Elizabeth's ambassador at Paris,) _not_ referred to by Mr. Froude:

    "The Lord James came to my lodgings _secretly unto me_, and
    declared unto me at good length all that had passed between the
    queen, his sister, and him, and between the Cardinal Lorraine
    and him, the circumstances whereof he will declare to your
    majesty particularly when he cometh to your presence."

This business call of Lord James was made during Mary's preparations
to leave France for Scotland. He followed it up with a confidential
visit of some days to Elizabeth, who allowed him not to depart
empty-handed. Unsuspicious of his treachery, Mary heaped honors and
riches upon him, made him her first lord of council, and created him
successively Earl of Mar and Earl of Murray. And we are asked by Mr.
Froude to believe that over such a personage as this "spells" might
be successfully flung by the victim of his treachery.


THE MURDER OF RICCIO.

The introduction of Riccio by Mr. Froude (vol. viii. p. 120) is a
good specimen of his best art. There is an accusation in every line,
an insinuation in every word; yet when he is through, the reader is
left in total ignorance of the Italian's real position. Mr. Froude
calls him Ritzio, which is a piece of affectation. The name has
heretofore been written Rizzio and Riccio. Ritzio, to the English
eye, it is true, very nearly represents the Italian pronunciation
of Rizzio. The man's name was Riccio, as is well determined by one
letter of his, and two of his brother Joseph, all still in existence
and perfectly accessible to Mr. Froude.

His age, variously stated from thirty to forty, is never put at less
than thirty. Mr. Froude gives no figure, and calls him "the youth;"
by which you may, if you choose, understand eighteen or twenty. His
real employment is concealed, and at p. 247, vol. viii., he is called
"a wandering musician." Riccio was a man of solid acquirements,
able and accomplished. He succeeded to the post formerly held by
Raulet--that of secretary for the queen's French correspondence--and
was thoroughly versed in the languages as well as in the troubled
politics of the day. He was, moreover, devotedly loyal, and inspired
Mary with entire confidence in his integrity. Sir Walter Scott
(_History of Scotland_) says that a person like him, "skilled in
languages and in business," was essential to the queen, and adds,
"No such agent was likely to be found in Scotland, unless she had
chosen a Catholic priest, which would have given more offence to her
Protestant subjects," etc.

"The queen," says Knox, "usit him for secretary in things that
appertainit to her secret affairs in France and elsewhere."

"That he was old, deformed, and strikingly ugly, has been generally
accepted by historians," says Burton.

Having, it appears, no access to these three Scotch historians, Mr.
Froude is thrown on his own resources and evolves, "He became a
favorite of Mary--he was an accomplished musician; he soothed her
hours of solitude with love-songs," etc., etc.

In his statement of the circumstances of the plot for the murder,
Mr. Froude dwells complacently on every injurious insinuation
against Mary Stuart. Referring to a calumnious invention, falsely
attributed to Darnley, (vol. viii. p. 248,) he is of opinion that
"Darnley's word was not a good one; he was capable of inventing
such a story;" that "Mary's treatment of him went, it is likely,
no further than coldness or contempt;" but nevertheless he strives
to convey the worst impression against her. If Mr. Froude has a
"vivid pen," he also has a light one. He glides delicately over the
character of the conspiracy to kill Riccio, and manages to veil the
real motives. Riccio was assassinated on the ninth of March. Nearly
a month previous, on the thirteenth of February, Randolph writes to
Leicester, for Elizabeth's eye, (the letter need not be sought for in
Froude,)

    "I know that there are practices in hand, contrived between
    father and son, (Lennox and Darnley,) to come to the crown
    against her (Mary Stuart's) will. I know that if that take
    effect which is intended, David, (Riccio,) with the consent
    of the king, shall have his throat cut within these ten days.
    Many things grievouser and worse than these are brought to my
    ears; _yea, of things intended against her own person_, which,
    because I think better to keep secret than to write to Mr.
    Secretary, I speak of them but now to your lordship."

And yet all this was but a part of the conspiracy.

Randolph is an authority against whom objection from Mr. Froude is
impossible. Nevertheless, he ignores this letter and many others
fully confirming it, (vol. viii. p. 254,) thrusts out of sight the
real motives, which were political, and industriously works up
notorious inventions aimed at Mary Stuart's character.

Looking at it as a mere work of art, and without reference to the
facts, the murder scene is admirably described by Mr. Froude. (Vol.
viii. p. 257, _et seq._) One serious drawback is his insatiable
desire for embellishment. For the mere purpose of description none is
needed. The subject is full to overflowing of the finest dramatic
material. The result of Mr. Froude's narration is very remarkable. He
skilfully manages to centre the reader's sympathy and admiration on
the assassin Ruthven, and, with device of phrase and glamour of type,
places the sufferer and victim of an infamous brutality in the light
of a woman who is merely undergoing some well-merited chastisement.
The whole scene as pictured rests on the testimony of the leading
assassin, (Ruthven,) from a London _editio expurgata_; for Chalmers
shows (vol. ii. p. 352) that the account given by Ruthven and Morton,
dated April 30th, is the revised and corrected copy of what they
sent to Cecil on the 2d of April, asking him to make such changes
as he saw fit before circulating it in Scotland and England. Their
note of April 2d still exists; but Mr. Froude does not allude to
it. Thus we have the story from the chief murderer, corrected by
Cecil and embellished by Mr. Froude, who, while admitting that "the
recollection of a person who had just been concerned in so tremendous
a scene was not likely to be very exact," (vol. viii. p. 261,)
nevertheless adopts the version of that person in preference to all
others. Why not exercise the most rudimentary prudence and plainest
judgment by controlling Ruthven's recital by that of another?--for
there are several. And if, after all, we must perforce have
Ruthven's, why not give it as it is, sparing us such inventions as
"turning on Darnley as on a snake," and "could she have trampled him
into dust upon the spot, she would have done it." Mr. Froude is all
himself here. "Catching sight of the empty scabbard at his side, she
asked him where his dagger was. He said he did not know. '_It will
be known hereafter; it shall be dear blood to some of you if David's
be spilt._'" This is a specimen of able workmanship. According to
Keith, Mary's answer was, "It will be known hereafter." According to
Ellis, Mary had _previously_ said to Ruthven, "It shall be dear blood
to some of you if David's be spilt." Now, let the reader observe that
Mr. Froude takes these two phrases, found in two different authors,
addressed separately to two different persons, reverses the order
in which they are spoken, and puts them into one sentence, which he
makes Mary address to Darnley! Do you see why so much industry and
ingenuity should be exerted? _Because in this form the phrase is a
threat of murder_; and thus the foundation is laid broad and deep in
the reader's mind for the belief that from that moment Mary has a
design upon Darnley's life.[56]

One thing Mr. Froude does state correctly. We mean Mary's words
when told that Riccio was dead. In her fright, anguish, and horror
she ejaculated, "Poor David! good and faithful servant! May God
have mercy on your soul!" To those who know the human heart, this
involuntary description of the precise place poor David occupied in
Mary's esteem is more than answer to Mr. Froude's indecent note at
page 261, and his malevolent insinuations on all his pages. Mary
struggled to the window to speak to armed citizens who had flocked
to her assistance. "Sit down!" cried one of the ruffian lords to
her. "If you stir, you shall be cut into collops, and flung over the
walls." A prisoner in the hands of these brutal assassins, after the
unspeakable outrages to which she had been subjected, Mr. Froude
yet has the admirable art of placing her before his readers in the
light of a wicked woman deprived of her liberty for her own good.
When night came, Ruthven called Darnley away, and the queen was left
to her rest in the scene of the late tragedy; and, adds Mr. Froude
with beautiful equanimity, "The ladies of her court were forbidden
to enter, and Mary Stuart was locked alone into her room, amidst the
traces of the fray, to seek such repose as she could find." This is
true, and in that blood-stained place she passed the night alone.

"They had caged their bird," goes festively on our historian;
but they "knew little of the temper which they had undertaken to
control." ("Undertaken to control" is here positively delicious!)
"Behind that grace of form there lay a nature like a panther's,
merciless and beautiful." (Vol. viii. 265.) We have seen a panther's
skin admired, but we never before heard that the animal had a
beautiful nature. Such are the reflections suggested to Mr. Froude's
sympathetic mind by the horrible scenes he has just described.[57]
One instinctively trembles for those lambs, the lords, with such a
"panther" near them. All this time Mr. Froude takes no further notice
of Mary's physical condition than to treat the necessary results,
which, almost miraculously, were not fatal, as "trick and policy."
(Vol. viii. 266.) The queen was then in the sixth month of her
pregnancy, and the possible consequences of the horrible tragedy thus
thrust suddenly before her eyes were not unforeseen. The conspirators
in their bonds had _expressly provided for the contingency of her
death_. When Mary escapes from the band of assassins, Mr. Froude
would have been utterly inconsolable but for the fact that her
midnight ride gives him (vol. viii. p. 270) the opportunity of
executing (_tempo agitato_) a spirited fantasia on his historic lyre
in his description of the gallop of the fleeing cavalcade.[58] It
sounds like a faint echo of Buerger's _Lenore_. Then he gives credit
without stint to Mary's iron fortitude and intellectual address. He
is entirely too liberal in this regard. Instead of riding "away,
away, past Seton," she stopped there for refreshments and the escort
of two hundred armed cavaliers under Lord Seton, who was advised of
her coming. Then, too, the letter she "_wrote with her own hand_,
fierce, dauntless, and haughty," to Elizabeth, and which Mr. Froude
so minutely describes--"The strokes thick, and slightly uneven
from excitement, but strong, firm, and without sign of trembling!"
This insanity for the picturesque and romantic would wreck a far
better historian. The prosaic fact is, that although, as Mr. Froude
states, the letter may be seen in the Rolls House, _Mary Stuart did
not write it_. It was written by an amanuensis, the salutation and
signature alone being in her hand. This question was the subject of
some controversy, during the past year, in Paris and London, and
Mr. Wiesener, a distinguished French historical writer, requested
Messrs. Joseph Stevenson and A. Crosby, of the Record Office, to
examine the letter and give their opinion. Their reply was, "The body
of the document is most certainly not in Mary's handwriting." But,
after all, there was no occasion for controversy, and still less
for Mr. Froude's blunder. If he had ever read the letter, he would
have seen that Mary wrote, "Nous pensions vous ecrire cette lettre
de notre propre main afin de vous faire mieux comprendre, etc. _Mais
de fait nous sommes si fatiguee et_ si mal a l'aise, tant pour avoir
couru vingt milles en cinq heures de nuit etc., que _nous ne sommes
pas en etat de le faire_ comme nous l'aurions souhaite." It was her
intention to have written this letter with her own hand, but on
account of fatigue and illness could not as she would have desired.
"Twenty miles in two hours," says Mr. Froude. Twenty miles in five
hours, modestly writes Mary Stuart. Fortunately, we have been warned
by Mr. Froude against testimony from that "suspected source!"

We close, for the present, with one specimen (not by any means the
worst) of Mr. Froude's historical handicraft, which exemplifies his
peculiar system of citation. He professes to give the substance of
a letter of Mary Stuart published in Labanoff. (Vol. vii. p. 300.)
Here is the letter, side by side with Mr. Froude's version of it. We
select this out of numerous cases, for the reason that Labanoff is
here more readily accessible than other authorities treated in like
manner by Mr. Froude.

       *       *       *       *       *

MR. FROUDE'S STATEMENT

_of the contents of a letter of April 4th, 1566, from Mary Stuart to
Queen Elizabeth_. (See vol. viii. p. 282.)

"In an autograph letter of passionate gratitude, Mary Stuart placed
herself, as it were, under her sister's protection; she told her
that, in tracing the history of the late conspiracy, she had found
that the lords had intended to imprison her for life; and if England
or France came to her assistance, they had meant to kill her. She
implored Elizabeth _to shut her ears to the calumnies which they
would spread against her, and with engaging frankness she begged that
the past might be forgotten_; she had experienced too deeply the
ingratitude of those by whom she was surrounded _to allow herself to
be tempted any more into dangerous enterprises_; for her own part,
she was _resolved never to give offence to her good sister again;
nothing should be wanting_ to restore the happy relations which had
once existed between them; and should she recover safely from her
confinement, she hoped that in the summer Elizabeth would make a
progress to the north, and that at last she might have an opportunity
of thanking her in person for her kindness and _forbearance_.

"This letter was sent by the hands of a certain Thornton, a
confidential agent of Mary Stuart, who had been employed on messages
to Rome. 'A very evil and naughty person, whom I pray you not to
believe,' was Bedford's credential for him in a letter of the 1st
of April to Cecil. He was on his way to Rome again on this present
occasion.

"The public in Scotland supposed that he was sent to consult the pope
on the possibility of divorcing Darnley, and it is remarkable that
the Queen of Scots at the close of her own letter desired Elizabeth
to give credit to him on some _secret_ matter which he would
communicate to her. She perhaps hoped that Elizabeth would now assist
her in the dissolution of a marriage which she had been so anxious to
prevent."


TRANSLATION OF THE ORIGINAL LETTER.

                                 "EDINBURGH, April 4, 1566."

[The opening paragraph of formal compliment acknowledges reception of
Elizabeth's "favorable dispatch" by Melville.]

"When Melville arrived, he found me but lately escaped from the hands
of the greatest traitors on earth, in the manner in which the bearer
will communicate, with a true account of their most secret plot,
which was, that even in case the escaped lords and other nobles,
aided by you or by any other prince, undertook to rescue me, they
would cut me in pieces and throw me over the wall. Judge for yourself
the cruel undertakings of subjects against her who can sincerely
boast that she never did them harm. Since then, however, our good
subjects have counselled with us, ready to offer their lives in
support of justice; and we have, therefore, returned to this city to
chastise some of its people guilty of this great crime.

"Meantime, we remain in this castle, as our messenger will more fully
give you to understand.

"_Above all other things_, I would especially pray you carefully to
see that your agents on the Border comply with your good intentions
toward me, and, abiding by our treaty of peace, expel those who
have sought my life from their territory, where the leaders in this
noted act are as well received as if your intention were the worst
possible, (_la pire du monde_,) and the very reverse of what I know
it to be.

"I have also heard that the Count (Earl) of Morton is with you. I
beg of you to arrest and send him to me, or at least compel him
to return to Scotland, by depriving him of safeguard in England.
Doubtless he will not fail to make false statements to excuse
himself; statements which you will find neither true nor probable. I
ask of you, my good sister, to oblige me in all these matters, with
the assurance that I have experienced so much ingratitude from my
own people that _I_ shall never offend by a similar fault. And to
fully affirm our original friendship, I would ask of you in any event
(_quoique Dieu m'envoie_) to add the favor of standing as godmother
for my child. I moreover hope that, if I should recover by the month
of July, and you should make your progress as near to my territory as
I am informed you will, to go, if agreeable, and thank you myself,
which above all things I desire to do. (Then follow apologies for
bad writing, for which, she says, her condition must excuse her, the
usual compliments in closing a letter, and wishes for Elizabeth's
health and prosperity.)

"Postscript. I beseech your kindness in a matter I have charged the
bearer to ask you for me; and furthermore, I will soon write you
specially, (_et au reste je vous depecherai bientot expres_,) to
thank you and to know your intention, if it pleases you, to send me
some other minister, whom I may receive as resident, who would be
more desirous of promoting our friendship than Randal[59] has been
found to be."

       *       *       *       *       *

We leave the reader to form his own estimate of this method of
writing history. Instead of a letter of "passionate gratitude,"
written spontaneously, as insinuated, it turns out to be the answer
to a dispatch (whether written or verbal, it matters not) transmitted
by Elizabeth through Melville. Mary's attitude and language are
dignified and independent, and the missive, so far from having any
prayer for forbearance in its tone, is plainly one of complaint and
warning to Elizabeth, couched, it is true, in terms of politeness.
The main subject, "above all other things," is the hospitable
reception accorded to Riccio's murderers in England, and Elizabeth is
delicately but emphatically reminded of her duty and of the violation
of it by her border agents. The passages of Mr. Froude's version
marked in italics _have no existence_ in Mary's letter, and are of
his own invention. Mary Stuart says that she has experienced so much
ingratitude from her own (people) that _she_ would never offend any
one by similarly sinning. (_J'ai tant eprouve l'ingratitude des miens
que je n'offenserai jamais de semblable peche._) Mr. Froude makes of
this that she had experienced too deeply the ingratitude, etc., "to
_allow herself to be tempted anymore into dangerous enterprises_."

What dangerous enterprises? The murder of Riccio? Was she guilty
of that too? Was it her midnight escape? Mr. Froude alone has the
secret! And then the postscript? Randolph had not only offended, but
deeply injured her, and she wishes Elizabeth to understand that he
must not be sent back to Scotland.

It is found "remarkable" that Mary, in her postscript, desires
Elizabeth to receive communication of some verbal matter (_not
secret_, as Mr. Froude states) from the messenger. But the same
request occurs twice in the body of the letter. Mr. Froude is,
of course, accurately informed as to the hidden meaning of the
postscript, and settles the matter with what "public opinion
supposed," and his usual "perhaps."

This is also an invention of Mr. Froude. He supposes the supposition!
Then, too, his "evil and naughty person" is uncalled for; for we
know that it was Bedford's business, as it is Mr. Froude's calling,
to judge any messenger of Mary Stuart to be "evil and naughty." In
all this, the intelligent reader will see that, as at page 261, vol.
viii., Mr. Froude lays the foundation of a plan of revenge by Mary
against Darnley, so he here strives to fasten upon her the resolution
of obtaining a divorce, all going to make cumulative evidence to be
used when we come to the Darnley murder. "Deep, sir, deep!"

But there is a more serious aspect to this matter. For three
centuries this Mary Stuart question has been a vexed one among
historians, and the never-ending theme of acrimonious controversy.
What prospect is there of reaching any solution if the subject
continues to be treated as we find it in the work before us?

So far from settling any question in dispute, or even solving any
of the numerous secondary problems underlying the main issue, Mr.
Froude, by his violent partisanship, tortured citation, paltering
with the sense while tampering with the text of authorities,
attribution of false motives and a scandalous wealth of abusive
epithets, greatly grieves the most judicious of those who condemn
Mary Stuart, inspires with renewed confidence those who believe
that she was a woman more sinned against than sinning, and begets
the conviction that the cause must be bad indeed which needs such
handling.

FOOTNOTES:

[52] _History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of
Elizabeth._ By James Anthony Froude, late Fellow of Exeter College,
Oxford. 12 vols. New York: Charles Scribner & Co.

[53] See _Edinburgh Review_ for January and October, 1858.

[54] Mr. Froude's reference for this citation is Knox's _History
of the Reformation_, which is somewhat too general. The reader is
advised to look for it in vol. ii. p. 382.

[55] We regret that we have not room for the short discourse Knox
made to Murray on the occasion of their parting.

[56] The reader may see at p. 376, vol. viii., where he tells of the
murder of Darnley, how effectually Mr. Froude cites his own invention
as an historical fact: "So at last came Sunday, eleven months exactly
from the day of Ritzio's murder; and Mary Stuart's words, that she
would never rest until that dark business was revenged, were about to
be fulfilled."

[57] His style is never so sparkling with bright enjoyment as when
recounting some insult or outrage to Mary Stuart.

[58] "The moon was clear and full." "The queen with incredible
animosity was mounted _en croup_ behind Sir Arthur Erskine, upon a
beautiful English double gelding," "the king on a courser of Naples;"
and "then away, away--past Restalriug, past Arthur's Seat, across
the bridge and across the field of Musselburgh, past Seton, past
Prestonpans, fast as their horses could speed;" "six in all--their
majesties, Erskine, Traquair, and a chamberer of the queen." "In two
hours the heavy gates of Dunbar had closed behind them, and Mary
Stuart was safe."

[59] His name was Randall--not Randolph, as he was, and is, usually
called.




DION AND THE SIBYLS.

A CLASSIC, CHRISTIAN NOVEL.

BY MILES GERALD KEON, COLONIAL SECRETARY, BERMUDA, AUTHOR OF "HARDING
THE MONEY-SPINNER," ETC.


CHAPTER VIII.

"Let us show her the marble likeness," suggested Paulus, in an eager
whisper, with the air of a child devising mischief.

While they were discussing this topic, a gentle knock was heard at
the door, and then a very pretty girl of about fifteen, with an
open, sweet countenance, and a remarkably modest, cheerful bearing,
presented herself, carrying a sort of tray with various articles for
supper arranged thereon.

"May I come in? I am Benigna," said the girl, courtesying.

"Come in, Benigna," said the Greek lady.

"Come in," added Agatha, in Latin, but by no means with so good an
accent as her mother's. "You seem like your name; you seem to be
Benigna."

The girl looked at the beautiful child with a sweet, grateful smile,
and immediately proceeded to prepare a table and three covers for
supper.

"Do you know Greek?"[60] asked Aglais.

"No, lady," replied the daughter of the house. "My father is quite a
scholar; he was one of the secretary slaves in the great house before
he got his freedom, and my mother has learnt much from him; but I
have been brought up to help mother in the inn, and never had time to
learn high things."

Agatha clapped her hands, and exclaimed,

"Then I'll talk my bad Latin to Benigna, and she shall make it good."

The girl paused in her operations at the table, and said,

"I thought Latin came naturally to one, like the rain, and that it
was Greek which had to be worked out, and made, just as wine is."

The landlady, carrying various articles, entered as her daughter
uttered this valuable observation, and she joined heartily in the
laugh with which it was greeted. Benigna gazed round for a moment in
amazement, and then resumed her work, laughing through sympathy, but
very red from the forehead to the dimples round her pretty mouth.

The supper-table was soon ready.

Paulus, at whom the hostess had frequently looked wistfully, now
remarked that they all felt much gratitude for the kindness they were
receiving, and never could forget it. Crispina, who was going out at
the moment, did not reply, but lingered with her hand upon the door;
the other hand she passed once across her eyes.

Then the Greek lady observed,

"Good hostess, these are the apartments you intended for some
barbarian queen, I believe?"

"Yes, my lady; for Queen Berenice, daughter-in-law of King Herod
the Idumaean, called Herod the Great, with her son Herod Agrippa, a
wild youth, I understand, about eighteen years old, and her daughter
Herodias."

"I heard the tribune quaestor, who commands the praetorians, plead for
us with your husband," continued Aglais; "and I suppose that the
quaestor's generous eloquence is the cause of our being received into
your house at all. But this does not account for your extraordinary
kindness to us. We expected to be barely tolerated as inconvenient
and unwelcome guests, who kept better customers away."

"Inconvenient and unwelcome!" said Crispina, who seemed ready to cry,
as, looking around the little group, her glance rested again upon
Paulus.

"Whereas," resumed Aglais, "you treat my dear children as if you were
their mother. Why are we so fortunate as to find these feelings in a
stranger?"

The hostess paused a moment. "Honored lady," said she, "the reason
is, that I once was the nurse of a youth whom I loved as if he were
my own child; and it seemed to me as if I saw my brave, beautiful,
affectionate nursling again when I saw your son; but so long a time
had passed, I nearly fell with fright and astonishment."

Agatha went to the bust of Tiberius, lifted it, and, pointing to the
marble image, said in a low, tender voice,

"You nursed him?"

A little cry of dismay escaped the lips of our hostess.

"No one ever thought of looking beneath," said she. "My daughter and
I arrange and dust the room. I must remove my poor boy's image. He is
indeed forgotten by most people now; but it might harm us, and alas!
alas! could not help him, if this silent face, that never smiles at
me, never talks to me any more, were to be discovered. Do not speak
of this to any body, I beg of you, good lady, and my pretty one. You
will not?" added she, smiling, but with tears in her eyes as she
looked at Paulus. "I feel as though I had reared you."

They said they would take care not to allude to the subject at all,
except among themselves, and then Aglais remarked,

"You speak in sorrow of the youth whom you nursed. Is he then dead?"

"_Eheu!_ lady, he is dead nearly twenty years; but he was just about
your son's age when they put him to death."

"Put him to death? Why was he put to death, and by whom?" asked
Aglais.

"Hush! Maecenas and the emperor ordered it to be done. Oh! do take
care. The whole world swarms with spies, and you may be sure an inn
is not free from them. Things have been more quiet of late years.
When I was young, I felt as if my head was but glued to my shoulders,
and would fall off every day. As for Crispus, did I not make him
cautious how he spake?"

"But your foster-son?"

"Ah poor boy! Poor young knight! He was mad about the ancient Roman
liberties; a great student, always reading Tully."

"Was that his crime?" demanded Aglais.

The hostess wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her _stola manicata_,
and said, in a tone little above a whisper, looking round timidly,
and closing the door fast,

"Why, Augustus came suddenly one day into a _triclinium_, where he
caught a nephew of his trying to hide under a cushion some book which
he had been reading. Augustus took the book, and found that it was
one of Tully's. The nephew thought he was lost, remembering that it
was Augustus who had given up Cicero to Mark Antony to be murdered.
There the emperor stood, fastened to the page, and continued reading
and reading till at last he heaved a great breath, and, rolling up
the book on its roller, laid it softly down, and said, '_A great
mind, a very great mind, my nephew_;' and so he left the room."

"Then it was not your foster-son's admiration of Cicero that caused
his death?"

"My foster-son was not Augustus's nephew, you see; but _eheu!_ how
different a case!--the nephew of a former rival of Augustus. Nor
used the emperor's nephew to talk as my poor child would talk. My
foster-son used to say that for Augustus to have given up Tully, his
friend and benefactor, to be murdered by Mark Antony, in order that
he, Augustus, might be allowed to murder somebody else, and then to
discover that neither he nor the human race could enjoy justice, nor
see peace, nor have safety, till this very same Antony should be
himself destroyed, was not a pretty tale. Cicero had sided against,
and had resisted Julius Caesar; yet Julius had given back his life to
a man of whom Rome and the civilized world were proud. The same Tully
had sided _with_, not against, Augustus, and had been the making of
him; yet the life which a noble enemy had spared and left shining
like a star, a base friend stole, and suffered to be quenched; and
this for the sake of a monster who, for the sake of mankind, had to
be very soon himself destroyed. This was not a nice tale, my poor
Paulus used to say."

"Nor was it; but your Paulus?" cried Aglais. The travellers all held
their breath in surprise and suspense.

"Yes."

"What! the youth whom that bust represents, and whom Augustus put to
death, was called Paulus?"

"Yes. They said he had engaged in some conspiracy, the foolish dear!
But now, lady, I have been led, bit by bit, into many disclosures,
and I beseech you--"

"Fear not," interrupted Aglais; "I cannot but cherish a
fellow-feeling with you; for, although I have something to ask of
the emperor, it is justice only. I, too, look back to experiences
which are akin to yours. My son yonder, whom the marble image of your
foster-son so strikingly resembles, bears the same name, Paulus; and
the name of his father was that which headed the first list of those
who, the Triumvirate agreed, should die."

"Permit me, now, to ask once more who you are, lady?" said Crispina.
"I know well the names upon that list."

"My husband," replied the Greek widow, "was brother of the triumvir
Lepidus."

"The triumvir was our master," answered the landlady; "and alas! it
is too true that he, the triumvir, was timid and weak, and his son,
about whose image you have asked me, knew not, poor youth, when he
so bitterly blamed Augustus for sacrificing Tully to Mark Antony,
that his own father had given up a brother--that brother whom you
married--in the same terrible days, and just in the same kind of
way."

"Whose bust, then, do you say is this which is so like my son?" asked
Aglais.

"The bust of your son's first cousin, lady. My foster-son's father
was your husband's brother."

"No wonder," cried Agatha, "that my brother should be like his own
first cousin!"

"No," said Aglais; "but it is as surprising as it is fortunate that
we should have come to this house, and have fallen among kind persons
disposed to be friends, like our hostess, her good husband, and
little Benigna yonder."

"There is nothing which my husband and I would not do," said
Crispina, "for the welfare of all belonging to the great AEmilian
family, in whose service we both were born and spent our childhood;
the family which gave us our freedom in youth, and our launch in life
as a married couple. As for me, you know now how I must feel when I
look upon the face of your son."

A pause ensued, and then Aglais said,

"Your former master, the triumvir, wrote to my husband asking
forgiveness for having consented to let his name appear in the list
of the proscribed, and explaining how he got it erased. Therefore,
let not that subject trouble you."

"I happen, on my side, to know for a fact," answered the hostess,
"that the one circumstance to which you refer has been the great
remorse of the triumvir's life. The old man still mumbles and
maunders, complaining that he never received a reply to that letter.
He would die happy if he could but see you, and learn that all had
been forgiven."

Before Aglais had time to make any answer, the landlord appeared,
carrying a small _cadus_, or cask, marked in large black letters--

    L. CARNIFICIO
     S. POMPEIO
         COS.

Benigna had previously set upon a separate _mensa_, or table,
according to custom, fruits, and fictile or earthen cups.

"I thought so!" cried good Crispus. "Women (excuse me, lady, I mean
my wife and daughter) will jabber and cackle even when ladies may be
tired, and, as I sincerely hope, hungry. Do, Crispina, let me see the
ladies and this young knight enjoy their little supper. This Alban
wine, my lady, is nearly fifty years old, I do assure you; look at
the consul's name on the cask. Benigna, young as she is, might drink
ten _cyathi_ of it without hurt. By the by, I have forgotten the
measure. Run, Benigna, and fetch a _cyathus_ (a ladle-cup) to help
out the wine."

"Jabber and cackle!" said the hostess. "Crispus, this lady is the
widow, and these are the son and daughter of Paulus AEmilius Lepidus."

The landlord, in the full career of his own jabber, was stricken
mute for a moment. He gazed at each of our three travellers in turn,
looking very fixedly at Paulus. At last he said,

"This, then, accounts for the wonderful likeness. My lady, I will
never take one brass coin from you or yours; not an _as_, so help me!
You must command in this house. Do not think otherwise."

And, apparently to prevent Aglais from answering him, he drew his
wife hastily out of the room, and closed the door.

Benigna was left behind, and, with winning smiles and a flutter
of attentions, the young girl now placed the chairs, and began to
cackle, as Crispus would have expressed himself, and to entreat the
wanderers to take that refreshment of which they stood so much
in need. They all had the delicate and graceful tact to feel that
compliance with the kindness which they had so providentially found
was the only way to return it which they at present possessed.

It is historical to add that appetite gave the same advice. Their
hunger was as keen as their tact. During supper the mother and son
spoke little; but Agatha, both during the repast and for some time
afterward, kept up a brisk conversation with Benigna, for whom the
child had taken an inexpressible liking, and from whom she drew,
with unconscious adroitness, the fact that she was engaged to be
married. That sudden affection of sympathy which knit the soul of
David to that of Jonathan seemed to have bound these two together.
The landlady's considerate daughter at length advised Agatha to defer
further communications until she should have a good night's rest.
Paulus seconded the recommendation, and left his mother and sister
with their Greek slave Melena and with Benigna, and retired to his
own bedroom. This chamber overlooked the _impluvium_, or inner court,
whence the incessant plash of the fountain was heard soothingly
through his lattice-window, the horn slide of which he left open. The
bedroom of the ladies, on the other hand, overlooked the garden and
bee-hives, to which Crispina had alluded. The sitting apartments,
opening into each other, in one of which they had supped, stood
between; all these rooms being situated in the projecting west wing,
which they entirely filled. Thus closed the day which had carried to
their destination the travellers from Thrace.


CHAPTER IX.

Next morning when they met at the _jentaculum_, or breakfast, there
was a marvellous improvement in Agatha's looks. She had been the
earliest out of bed; had seen from her window, under a brilliant
sunshine, the beautiful landscape unroll itself in the various forms
which the landlady had truly though inadequately described; and she
then had run down into the garden.

In due time--that is, very soon afterward--she had been chased by
the bees, had fled, screaming and laughing, with the hood of her
_ricinium_ drawn completely over the head by way of helmet against
the terrible darts of her indignant pursuers, and had been received
in the arms of Benigna, who had heard the cry of distress and had
flown to the rescue, brandishing a long, reedy brush, like the
mosquito brushes of modern times. Rallying in a bower of trellis-work
covered with ivy, whence a wooden staircase led up to the first
floor of the house, by way of a landing or platform, over which rose
another bower clad in the same ivy mantle--facing round, I say, upon
her enemy at the foot of this staircase, she had soon ventured once
more into the garden with Benigna, and the two girls, jabbering and
cackling much, had gathered a large nosegay of autumnal flowers.
With this booty, which Benigna had made so big that Agatha could
hardly hold it in her small and elegant hands, the latter damsel
had returned to the bower, had seated herself upon a bench, and had
begun to sort the flowers in the relative positions which best showed
their tints. Here she relied upon gradation, there upon contrast.
Her delicate Greek taste in the performance of this task drew
exclamations of delight from Benigna.

"There!" the innkeeper's daughter would cry; "how pretty! That is the
way! That so, and then that, and that! They look quite different now!
Exactly! I never imagined it!"

When Agatha had finished the arrangement to her own satisfaction, an
exploit which was nimbly achieved, "Now, Benigna," said she, with her
pretty foreign accent, "sit down here; just do, and tell me all about
every thing."

Benigna stared, and Agatha proceeded,

"So you are engaged to become the wife of a very good and handsome
youth, who in himself is every thing that can be admired, except
that, poor young man! he is not very courageous, I understood you to
say. Now, that is not his fault, I suppose. How can he help feeling
afraid if he does feel afraid?"

At this moment the voice of Crispina was heard calling her daughter
to help in preparing the breakfast, and Benigna, whom Agatha's last
words had thrown into some confusion, as the same topic had done the
previous evening, made an excuse and ran away, with the light of
roses vivid in her cheeks.

Agatha remained, and looked out upon the garden, and beyond it upon
the sweet country, with its varied beauty. She remained listening
peacefully and dreamingly to the hum of bees, the twittering of
birds, the voices and footsteps in the inn, and inhaling the perfumes
of the nosegay which she had arranged, and the cool freshness of that
pleasant morning hour, when the sun behind her and behind the house
was throwing the shadows of buildings, sheds, trees, and cattle in
long lines toward the Tyrrhenian Sea. While thus calmly resting,
admiring, and musing, a lady in a dark robe of poil, (_gausapa_,)
with a very pallid face and large black eyes, stood suddenly in
the doorway of the bower, and blocked out the lovely prospect. The
stranger smiled, and, holding out a bunch of flowers, said,

"My pretty young lady, I see that the offering I have been culling
for you has lost its value. You are rich already. May I sit down in
this pleasant shady place a moment to rest?"

"Yes, you may, certainly," said Agatha.

"I suppose," resumed the stranger, "that you belong to this house, my
little friend? I am a stranger, and merely lodging--"

"We are lodging, too, and strangers," answered Agatha.

"From your accent," continued the other, "I judge you to be Greek."

"Mother is," replied Agatha; "but brother calls himself a Roman
knight, and even noble."

"I knew it!" cried the lady; "you have it written in your
countenance. I, too, am a noble lady; my name is Plancina. Have you
ever seen Rome?"

"Never."

"Ah! how you will be enchanted. You must come to see me. I have a
house in Rome; such a pretty house, full of such curious things! Ah!
when you see Rome, you will hold your breath with wonder and delight.
I will make you so happy when you come to see me in my pretty house."

"You are a very kind, good lady, I should think," quoth Agatha,
looking up from her flowers, and gazing long at the pallid face and
the large black eyes; "and if we go to Rome, I and my mother will
visit you, perhaps."

"My house is among the willows and beeches of the Viminal Hill," said
the lady. "Remember two things--_Viminal Hill_, with its beeches
and its willows, and _the Calpurnian House_, where the Piso family
have lived for generations. My husband, Piso, has had great losses
at dice. I am rich enough to spend a fortune every year for half a
century, and we have still at our house all the pleasures that can be
thought of. What pains I will take to amuse you! You cannot conceive
the splendors, dresses, games, sports, shows, and beauties of Rome;
the theatres, the circus, the combats, the great wild beasts of all
sorts from all countries, the dances--"

As she pronounced the word "dances," a youthful male voice was heard
at a little distance, saying, "While they change horses here, we will
stretch our limbs by a stroll in the garden behind the inn. Make
haste, worthy innkeeper; order your servants to be brisk."

And almost at the same moment a brilliantly beautiful, dark,
eastern-looking girl, in a Syrian costume, appeared at the entrance
of the bower. Behind her came sauntering the youth whose voice had
been heard. He was of about Paulus's age, had an olive complexion,
was sumptuously dressed, and exhibited a strong family likeness in
face to the girl. Last followed a woman in middle life, appareled in
costly robes, suited to travel, haughty, languid, and scornful of
mien.

Plancina and Agatha looked up and surveyed the new-comers. The
brilliant damsel remained at the entrance of the bower examining its
occupants with a hardy, unabashed glance; whereupon Plancina, after a
moment's pause, occasioned by the interruption, resumed and concluded
her sentence thus,

"No, you can form no idea of the gayeties of Rome; the games, the
shows, the theatres, the glories, the pleasures, the jests, the
_dances_."

"But all your good dances come from foreign lands--from the east,
indeed," interrupted the damsel, nodding her head repeatedly and
sneeringly; "you must admit that."

"Not _all our good_ alone," answered Plancina sternly, noticing that
the woman in middle life smiled approvingly at the girl who had
obtruded the remark; "not _all our good_ alone, but _all_. The office
of the outside world is to try and amuse Rome."

"And what is Rome's office?" asked the damsel.

"To be amused by them, if she can," answered the Roman.

"Come away, Herodias," said the haughty, languid, and
scornful-looking woman; and the two strolled down the middle walk of
the garden. The youth who had come with them lingered a moment or two
behind, standing in the middle of the gravel-walk and gazing straight
into the bower, while he flirted a sort of horse-whip around the
heads of one or two tall flowers which were growing outside along the
border of the walk.

Plancina looked steadily at him, and he at her. The lad withdrew
after a few moments, without a change of feature.

"What starers!" muttered Agatha.

"They have a talent for it, indeed," said Plancina. "A hardy family,
putting one thing with another. I think I know who they are. The
mother, if she were the mother, called the daughter, if she were
the daughter, Herodias. My husband thinks of going to Syria, and
indeed Tiberius has offered him the procuratorship of Judea; but he
would not condescend to go in any smaller capacity than as prefect
of Syria. An acquaintance of ours, _young Pontius Pilate_, wants
to get the procuratorship. The minor office would be a great thing
for _him_. But my husband, Piso of the Calpurnians, cannot stoop to
_that_. I may meet yonder family again."

"Those people are looking back," observed Agatha, who had paid very
little attention to her companion's speech.

Plancina rose, and, going to the entrance of the bower, honored the
strangers with a steady glance. The scornful-looking foreign woman in
sumptuous apparel met it for a moment, and then turned away. Her son
and daughter turned away at the same time.

"Ah! they are gone," murmured Agatha; "they do not like you to gaze
so at them."

"It is but a Roman," returned Plancina, "looking at barbarians. They
always shrink in that curious manner. And why this Greek lunacy?"
muttered she; "and why this Attic mania?"

"Attic what?" asked the half-Greek girl.

"Nothing, my dear," replied Plancina; "only you are not Greek, you
know; your father's race and the name you bear settle that question;
your very mother is now, and has long since become, a Roman citizen;
you must always prefer Rome to Greece; never forget that rule, or you
and yours will perish."

Agatha opened wide the ingenuous young eyes, and seemed to be most
seriously alarmed.

Plancina smoothed her pale brows, which had been frowning; and
continued with a stern smile,

"I am only giving you a friend's warning. Your mother and brother
have a suit to urge at court. There exists a pestilent Greek faction
which are all doomed to destruction; tell your mother that you must
all beware of being mixed up with them, and you will escape their
perdition. A Greek, like your mother, with something to ask, is
peculiarly liable to make the mistake of seeking Greek friends. If
she do, she is utterly lost, however powerful may seem the prince who
patronizes the accursed cabal."

Agatha shrank and trembled, murmuring like an echo Plancina's last
adjective--_exitiabilis_.

"Do not stare at me so, my little dear," continued Plancina. "There
is the Prince Germanicus. Only for him--every body knows it, and
every body says it; the thing is no secret--Piso, my husband, would
be now prefect of Syria; and like Crispus Sallust, when I was a
little girl, would have recovered ten times the fortune out of which
he has been cheated at dice. I am called a rash, violent, and an
untamable woman. The moment, however, that any body gives you any
information about court parties and political factions, every thing
I am saying will be mentioned. I do not hide my disgust. Foreign
barbarians of all sorts swarm; they creep through postern doors;
they privately influence all the destinies of that world of which
Romans have the name publicly of being masters. We are trodden
under the feet of Greeks, Jews, and Chaldeans; the first beat us by
genius, by eloquence, and artistic skill, by general intellectual
force and subtlety; the second by superstition-inspired obstinacy,
by incredible and unspeakable importunity, by steadfastness in
sordid servility, by sorcery, divination, necromancy, and delusion;
not all delusion, I grant you; for I myself have seen the demons of
Thrasyllus, the Babylonish Greek."

"What!" cried Agatha, "seen demons? And what does a Babylonish Greek
mean?"

"A Greek initiated in the Babylonish mysteries."

"And who is Thrasyllus?"

"A magician."

"What is that?"

"A man who calls demons and spirits of the air, as you would call
your pet birds, and they come to him."

"May the unknown God love me!" cried Agatha, shuddering. "What are
the demons like?"

"Not like our sculptures, believe me," answered Plancina. "I dare not
tell you; I have seen what no words can say."

She paused, shrugged her shoulders, and then added,

"Some forms were like the human, with red fire in the veins
instead of blood, and white fire in the bones instead of marrow;
eyes they possessed that had no comfort in them. They had the air
of being utterly without interest in any thing, only that their
eyes were filled with fear; yet it seemed to me with knowledge,
too: unspeakable fear, immense knowledge; wells and pools they
appeared, full of fear and knowledge. When they glanced upon you,
there were pale rays of hatred strangely combined with an expression
of indifference, fear, knowledge, and hatred. If you looked at the
eyes, when they looked not at you, you saw nothing but an expression
of fear and knowledge; but when they did look at you, you saw fear,
knowledge, and hatred too. All these faces mocked without smiling,
and scoffed without enjoyment. Something, I thought, was dripping
down the wan cheeks, and there was a look of fixed surprise long
ago, of long-past astonishment--the trace left, and the feeling
gone. The emotion of boundless amazement had once been there; the
signs of it were left all over the countenance, but, if I may so
speak, petrified--an immedicable scar, an ineffaceable vestige. The
character of the countenance was that of a dead astonishment--the
astonishment was dead; it was no longer an active sentiment. It had
been some boundless wonder; the greatest which that creature had ever
experienced, and the event which had caused it had apparently been
the most serious which that being had ever known."

"What a truly tremendous description!" exclaimed Agatha.

The other made no reply; and before any further conversation could
occur between them, a young man, in the dark-brown habiliments of a
slave, entered the garden from the inn, and after a hasty glance in
various directions, approached the bower. His features were very
good; he was well made, of a pleasing address, and had a look of
uncommon intelligence. He possessed, in a small degree, and a humble
way, that undefinable air of elegance which mental culture sheds over
the countenance; but with this advantage he betrayed certain symptoms
of awkwardness and timidity. Standing at a little distance from the
door of the arbor, he made a low bow to Plancina, and said he was the
bearer of some commands.

"Commands from whom?" she demanded.

He answered, bowing low again, by merely stating that his name was
Claudius.

Plancina instantly rose, and took leave of Agatha, enjoining her
not to forget the warnings and counsels she had given. Agatha then
saw her hastily reenter the hotel, followed by the handsome slave.
Thereupon, buoyantly recovering her spirits, which the presence and
the words of this woman had depressed, she ascended the staircase to
the landing overhead, where she was joined by her mother from the
room within.

Agatha immediately told Aglais every thing which had passed between
her and Plancina.

"I don't think, my dear child, we shall be likely to trouble her in
her nice house among the willows and beeches of the Viminal Hill,"
said Aglais; and as Paulus now came out upon the landing, a second
edition of the narrative was produced for his information.

"Germanicus," said he, "is more like the last of the Romans than
in any sense reprehensible or degenerate in his tastes. His love
for Greece and his admiration for Athens are an honor to his
understanding. They are nothing else. This has nothing to do with
preferring barbarians and barbarous influences. My education,
_edepol!_ has to be completed; but I am educated enough to know that
Rome goes for schooling to Greece as much as ever she did. Was not
Julius Caesar himself what they call a _Graeculus_? I rather think
he was even deeper than Germanicus in Greek lore; but, therefore,
all the more fitted for Roman command. The Romans continued to be
barbarians long after the Greeks had become the teachers of the
world; and were it not for Greece, they would be barbarians still.
As for warning us not to dare to make friends for ourselves of this
person or that, or of any who appreciate intellect--for this means
to appreciate Greeks--it is like warning us to remain friendless, in
order that we may the more easily be crushed. It is the wolf's advice
to the sheep, to send away her dogs; but I am more dog than that
myself. This pale, beetle-browed lady ought to have enjoined those to
be timid who know how. Dare do this! Dare do that! For my part, I am
not afraid to do any thing that I think right."

His mother pressed Paulus's hand affectionately, and his sister's
high spirit, which had cowered under the dreadful conversation of
Plancina, shone in her eyes as she smiled at him.


CHAPTER X.

Meanwhile, in the large room within, breakfast had been prepared
for the wanderers on a table drawn opposite to and near the open
folding-doors of the arbor where they were conversing; and the
landlady now summoned them to partake of that repast.

After breakfast, at which Crispina herself waited on them, Agatha
asked where Benigna was.

The landlady smiled, and stated that a friend of her daughter's had
called, and was doubtless detaining her, but she would go at once
and bring the girl.

"On no account," interposed Aglais; "Benigna, I dare say, will unfold
to my daughter all about it by and by. Unless you have some pressing
business to take you immediately away, will you kindly inform us of
the news, if there be any, and let us sit in the arbor while you tell
us?"

Accordingly they went into the bower on the landing overlooking the
garden, and Crispina told them the news.

In the first place, she told them that the emperor's expected visit
to Formiae was delayed on account of the state of his health. It was
now thought he would not arrive for two or three days more, whereas
he was to have entered Formiae that very morning. Crispina added, that
it would not surprise her if he did not come for a week yet.

In the second place, Queen Berenice with her son, Herod Agrippa,
and her daughter Herodias, who were to have occupied those very
apartments, had arrived at the inn, but had now gone forward.

"Mother," said Agatha, "those must have been the persons who, an hour
ago, looked into the arbor below this one, when that pale woman was
talking to me. The elder called the younger Herodias."

"The same," continued the landlady. "Finding that they cannot be
accommodated in my house, young Herod has proposed to proceed with
all their train to Formiae, where--royal though they be--they will be
nobody's guests; and as there is not a place of public entertainment
in that town, and the weather is delightful, he says they will pitch
two or three tents, and one splendid pavilion of silk, on the verge
of the green space outside of Formiae, where the games are to be
held."

"Only fancy!" cried Agatha, clapping her little hands.

Thirdly, Crispina told them, with fifty gossiping details, that
the entertainments to be given in honor of the emperor and the
opulent knight Mamurra, from whom the town took its name, would
be stupendous. Formiae, we may mention, was frequently called
_Mamurrarum_, or _urbs mamurrana_, from the colonel or chiliarch
Mamurra. This gentleman had devoted his boyhood and youth to the
cause of Julius Caesar, and afterward of Augustus in the civil wars;
had gained considerable military reputation, and, above all, had
amassed enormous wealth.

He had long since returned to his native Formiae, where he had built a
superb palace of marble, good enough for an emperor. In that palace
the emperor was now to be his guest. He and Agrippa Vipsanius, the
founder of the Pantheon, had long before been among those by whom, in
compliance with the often-announced wish of Augustus, not peculiarly
addressed to them, but generally to all his wealthy countrymen,
Augustus had expended incalculable sums in adorning Rome with public
edifices, for which costly materials, and the science and taste of
the best architects, had alike been employed. As Augustus himself
said, (for himself,) "They had found it of bricks, and were leaving
it of marble."

"I have read verses by Catullus upon this knight Mamurra," said
Aglais.

"So you have, my lady," replied Crispina. "Well, he has just knocked
up a circus in the fields adjoining Formiae, and is preparing to
exhibit magnificent shows to his neighbors and to all comers, in
honor of the emperor's visit to the town of the Mamurras and the
Mamurran palace. Tiberius Caesar, who is also to be the knight's
guest, promises to use this same circus, and to give entertainments
of his own there, and Germanicus Caesar, before marching north to
fight the Germans, and drive them out of north-eastern Italy, is to
review at Formiae the troops destined for that expedition, as well as
the great bulk of the praetorian guards under Sejanus. The guards are
uncertain what portion of them the Caesar may take with him northward."

"Mother, we shall see the shows, we shall see the shows!" cried
Agatha.

"Oh! and I am so slow. There is another ingredient yet in my wallet
of tidings," exclaimed Crispina; "and only think of my almost
forgetting to remember it."

"Remember not to forget it," said the Greek girl, holding up her
finger with an admonishing and censorious look at the landlady.
"What is this particular which you have, after all, not forgotten to
remember?"

"My charming little lady, it is a particular which concerns the land
of your mother, and the people of Greece; for seldom, say they, has
that land or people sent to Rome any body like him."

"You accused yourself of being slow; but now you gallop. Like whom?"

"Like this noble young Athenian."

"Galloping still faster," rejoined Agatha.

"What noble young Athenian?"

"This Athenian, gifted as his countryman Alcibiades, eloquent as our
own Tully, acute and profound as Aristotle, honorable as Fabricius,
truthful as Regulus, and O ladies! with all these other excellencies,
beautiful as a poem, a picture, a statue, or a dream!"

"There's a description," quoth Agatha, laughing.

"More eloquent than precise, I think," said Paulus.

"Yet sufficiently precise," added Aglais, "to leave us in no doubt
at all who is meant by it. It must be young Dionysius; it must be
_Dion_."

"That is the very name!" exclaimed the hostess.

"My mother knows him," said Paulus. "My sister and I have often heard
of him; so have thousands; but we have not seen him. It is he who
carried away all the honors of the great Lyceum at Athens on the left
bank of the Ilissus."

"The right bank, brother," said Agatha; "don't you remember, the day
we embarked at the Piraeus somebody showed it to us, just opposite
Diana Agrotera, which is on the left bank?"

"It is all the same," said Paulus.

"Mother, just tell Paulus if left and right are all the same," said
Agatha. "That is like Paulus. They are not the same; they never were
the same."

"All the ladies at the Mamurran palace," resumed the hostess, "make
toilets against him."

"Toils, you mean," said Paulus.

"Yes, toils," continued the hostess. "They are intended as toils
for him; they are great toils and labors for the poor girls; the
_ornatrius_ and they are toilers for the fair dames themselves."

"It is all the same," again quoth Paulus.

"And how do these toilets prosper against Dionysius the Athenian?"

"They tell me he is not aware of the admiration he excites--is
totally indifferent to it."

"Base, miserable youth!" cried Paulus, laughing. "These Roman dames
and damsels ought to punish him."

"You mean by letting him alone?" asked the landlady.

"No; that would kill him," returned Paulus with a sneer, "being what
he is."

"Then how punish him?" asked she.

"By pursuing him with their blandishments," answered Paulus; "that
is, if they can muster sufficient ferocity. But I fear the women are
too kind here in Italy. I am told that even in the midst of the most
furious passions, and while the deadliest agonies are felt by others
around them, their natural sweetness is so invincible that they
smile and send soft glances to and fro; they look more bewitching at
misery (such is their goodness) than when they see no suffering at
all. Yes, indeed! and as the gladiators fight, they have a lovely
smile for each gash; and when the gladiator dies, their eyes glisten
enchantingly. We have not these entertainments in Greece, and the
Greek Dion must soon feel the superiority of the Roman to the Greek
woman. Pity is a beautiful quality in a woman; and the Greek ladies
do not seek the same frequent opportunities of exercising it as the
Italian ladies possess, and, _eheu!_ enjoy."

"Is Paulus bitter?" asked Aglais. "Is Paulus witty?"

"Talking of wit, my lady," pursued the hostess, "none but our dear
old Plautus could have matched this young Athenian, as Antistius
Labio, the great author of five hundred volumes, has found to his
cost."

"Labio! Why, that must be the son of one of those who murdered
Caesar," exclaimed Paulus. "My father met his father foot to foot at
the battle of Philippi; but he escaped, and slew himself when Brutus
did so."

"That was indeed this man's father," said Crispina. "The son is
a very clever man, and a most successful practitioner in the law
courts. Wishing to mortify Dionysius, he said in his presence, at a
review of the troops at Formiae yesterday, that he was grateful to the
gods he had not been born at Athens, and was no Greek--not he!

"'The Athenians also entertain,' replied Dionysius, 'the idea which
you have just expressed.'

"'What idea?' asked Antistius Labio.

"'_That their gods watch over them_,' replied Dionysius. Ah my lady!
you should have heard the laughter at Labio; the very centurions
turned away to conceal their grins. Some one high at court then took
the Athenian's arm on one side, and Titus Livius's on the other, and
walked off with them. Labio did not say a word."

"Pray can you tell us, good Crispina, whether Germanicus Caesar is to
be a guest of the knight Mamurra?" asked Paulus.

The landlady said she believed he would be for a day or two, and that
she thought it was even he who had taken Dion's and Livy's arm, and
walked with them apart.

"It is some time," said Aglais, "since Catullus indited those
epigrammatic verses against the hospitable and opulent knight. This
Mamurra must be very old."

"Yet, my lady," replied Crispina, "he has a ruddy face, a clear
complexion, and downright black eyebrows."

"There is a wash called _lixirium_," said Aglais with a meaning smile.

"Ah! but," cried Crispina, laughing with no less knowing a look,
"that makes the hair yellow; and the brows of the knight are as black
as the jet ornaments in your daughter's hair."

"You can tell us, no doubt," said Paulus, "who those ladies must be
that came with Tiberius Caesar yesterday from that splendid mansion on
the Liris. They were in beautiful litters; one of sculptured bronze,
the other of ivory, embossed with gold reliefs."

"I know who they are, of course," said the landlady; "they are
half-sisters, the daughters of the late renowned warrior and
statesman, the builder of the Pantheon, Agrippa Vipsanius, but by
different mothers. One of them was the wife of Tiberius Caesar."

"Was!" exclaimed Paulus; "why, she's not a ghost?"

"She is, nevertheless; her husband has another wife," said the
landlady; adding, in a low voice, "a precious one, too; the emperor
has required him to marry the august Julia."

"The august!" murmured Aglais contemptuously, with a shrug of the
shoulders; "getting old, too."

"I am sure," resumed the landlady, "no one can describe the
relationships of that family. Agrippa Vipsanius, you must know,
married three times. His second wife was Marcella, daughter of
Augustus's sister, Octavia; and this Marcella became the mother of
the elder of the two ladies whom you saw. Well, while this Marcella
was still living, but after she had had a daughter called Vipsania,
Augustus made Agrippa put her away to marry, mind you, this very
same august Julia, Augustus's own daughter, and therefore Marcella's
first cousin. This Julia, who had just become a widow, having lost
her first husband Marcellus, is the mother of the other lady whom you
saw, who is called Julia Agrippina, and who thus came into the world
the second cousin of her own half-sister. Well, Agrippa, the father
of both girls, leaving the august Julia a widow for the second time,
Tiberius Caesar marries Agrippa's eldest daughter Vipsania, and has a
son by her, called Drusus; and now, while Vipsania is still living,
Augustus makes Tiberius put her away to marry the aforesaid august
Julia, the mother of the younger daughter, Julia Agrippina, who is
Tiberius's first and likewise second cousin."

"I can hardly follow you in the labyrinth," said Aglais.

"No one can, my lady, except those who make a study of it," said the
landlady, laughing; "but it's all true. Julia, Augustus's daughter,
is the wife of the father of both these girls, first cousin to
the eldest of them, mother and cousin-in-law of the younger, and
has now also been made wife to the husband of the elder, her own
first cousin, and become the sister-in-law of her own daughter and
cousin-in-law to the younger."

"Medius fidius!" cried Paulus, staring stupidly, "what a tremendous
twisted knot! Julia's daughter, half-sister, and second cousin is
put away, that the half-sister's husband may marry the half-sister's
stepmother and second cousin, or something like that."

"Or something like that," continued Crispina; "but there is no end
to it. Tiberius Caesar is now father-in-law and brother-in-law to one
woman, and the husband and stepfather-in-law to another, while the
mother of the younger half-sister becomes the sister-in-law of her
own daughter."

At this moment Agatha, who was opposite the outer door of the
embowered landing, leading down by a flight of stairs into the
garden, through the other arbor before mentioned, suddenly exclaimed,
"There's Benigna walking in the garden with a man!"

They all looked, and saw Benigna and a young man, wearing a brown
tunic and slippers, in a distant alley of fig-trees, talking
earnestly as they strolled together. Crispina smiled and said, "I
must really tell you that my Benigna's betrothed lover came here
unexpectedly at daybreak. He has obtained a week's holiday, and will
spend it, he vows, in the inn. We have had to use some skill, I
promise you, in finding room for him. He is to sleep in a big trunk
with the lid off, stowed away in the angle of a corridor behind a
curtain. He is a very good and well-instructed youth, knows Greek,
and is severely worked as one of the secretaries of Tiberius Caesar,
whose slave he is, as I think Benigna has mentioned to my little Lady
Agatha yonder."

"When is the marriage of dear Benigna to take place?" asked Agatha.

"Of course the poor young man," replied Crispina, "cannot marry until
he gets his freedom. Whenever Tiberius Caesar allows him to shave his
head, and put on the _pileus_, (cap of liberty,) we shall have a
merry wedding."

"What sort of master is Tiberius Caesar?" asked Paulus.

The landlady said she was thankful she did not personally know him;
but she had never heard any complaint of him made by Claudius, her
future son-in-law.

"Your future son-in-law, Claudius!" exclaimed Agatha in amazement.
"Then it was your future son-in-law who had something to say to that
Dame Plancina, with the pale face and black eyebrows?"

"Not that I know of, my little lady," returned the hostess.

"Ah! but he had, though," persisted Agatha. "He came to the arbor
door, and distinctly stated, with a low bow, that he had commands
for that lady; and then she said from whom; and he said, my name
is Claudius; that is what he said; and then she jumped up in a
remarkable fluster and went into the house, and he followed her. But
then why she should jump up in a fluster, because a slave said his
name was Claudius, I can't imagine," concluded Agatha, pondering.

The hostess looked surprised.

"I think it could not be because a slave's name was Claudius," she
said; "nor do I understand it."

"Is that your demon-seeing dame, Agatha?" asked Paulus, stretching
himself; "for I have a notion that when I parried the fellow's blow
who wanted to cut me down in so cowardly a fashion, you know--"

"Yes."

"There was a female scream; do you remember it?"

"Yes."

"Well, I have been thinking the woman who screamed was a woman whom
your description of that fierce dame in the arbor exactly fits. If
so, she was in the train of Tiberius, and of those ladies of whom our
good hostess has just given us such an interesting genealogical and
matrimonial account."

"Then perhaps the commands for Plancina were from Tiberius Caesar,"
quoth Agatha.

Crispina shook her head, but appeared a little serious. A short
silence followed. Paulus broke it by asking the landlady to get
a letter forwarded for him to the military tribune, Velleius
Paterculus, at Formiae. "I wish," he said, "to take advantage of the
delay in the emperor's visit, and to see the country, to fish in the
river, to move about far and near; provided Paterculus, to whom I
have given a promise to report myself, has no objection."

The hostess brought him some _liviana_, or second-class paper, the
best she had, some cuttle-fish ink, and a reed pen, told him to
write his letter, and undertook to transmit it at once by a runner
belonging to the hostelry. She then left the room.


CHAPTER XI.

The letter was sent, and in the course of the forenoon the
_tabellarius_, or letter-carrier of the inn, returned from Formiae.
Crispina brought him to Paulus, who was in an avenue of the garden
watching some players as they contested a game of quoits or _discus_.
This avenue connected the garden proper with the open country
westward, terminating in a cross-hedge of myrtle, through which a
little wicket or trellis gate opened. "The man has brought no letter
back," the hostess said, signing at the same time to the messenger to
deliver the particulars of his errand.

He had found the tribune, he said, and had given him the letter and
asked for an answer. The tribune was at the moment inspecting a
body of troops. He read the note, however, and immediately took out
of his belt both his _stylus_ and _pugillaria_, or hand-tablets;
when the praetorian prefect Sejanus, happening to pass, entered into
conversation with him, and the messenger then saw Velleius Paterculus
hand to Sejanus Paulus's letter. After reading it, the general
gave it back, said something in Greek, and went away. The tribune
thereupon told the bearer that he would send an answer during the day
by a messenger of his own. Paulus thanked the man, who then withdrew.

Our hero, who had prepared his fishing-tackle, a portion of which he
had in his hand, remarked that it was vexatious to lose so fine and
favorable a day. "Moreover, why should I be a prisoner?" he suddenly
exclaimed. "I have a triple right to my personal liberty, as Roman
citizen, knight, and noble. And what have I done to forfeit it? What
have I done except parry the blow of an assassin whom I neither
injured nor provoked?"

"Hush!" murmured Crispina; and just then Cneius Piso, having a
bandage round his head, and leaning on the arm of Plancina, was seen
passing into the inn before them from another part of the garden.

The landlady stood still a moment, till the two figures had
disappeared, when she said, with a slight motion of the thumb in the
direction of Piso, "He reports himself quite well now except for a
headache. He and his lady leave us in an hour for Rome, and I hope I
may say both _vale_ and _salve_. You ask what you have done. Have you
not come to Italy to claim rights which are indisputable?"

"Is that reason?"

"It is a thousand reasons, and another thousand, too. Alas! do
not deceive yourself, as your namesake and cousin did, about the
character of the world."

At the door of the inn they separated, she to attend to the
multifarious business of her household, and he to loiter
purposelessly. After a little reflection, he went quite through the
house by the _impluvium_, and the central corridor beyond it, and
looked into the public room, or _atrium_. At one table a couple of
centurions sat playing dice with the _tesserae_, and shouting the
names of half a dozen gods and goddesses, as their luck fluctuated.
At another table a powerfully built, dark, middle-aged man, having
a long, ruddy beard streaked with gray, upon whom Asiatic slaves
waited, was taking a traveller's repast; his slaves helping him
to costly wine, which he drank with a grimace of dissatisfaction,
but in formidable quantities. Other groups were dotted round the
large apartment. In order not to draw needless notice, for all eyes
turned to him for a moment, except those of the two dice-throwing
and bellowing centurions, Paulus seated himself behind an unoccupied
table near the door. While idly watching the scenes around him, he
thought he heard his name pronounced in the passage outside. He
listened, but the noise in the room made him uncertain, and the voice
outside was already less audible, as of one who had passed the door
while speaking.

Presently he heard, in a much louder tone, the words, "Why, it is
not our carriage, after all. Let us return and wait where we can sit
down." And the speaker again passed the public room, coming back,
apparently, from the porch.

Paulus happened to be sitting close to the door, which was open; a
curtain, as was common, hanging over the entrance. This time, in
spite of the noise in the dieta, a word or two, and a name, though
not his own, struck him. He fancied some one said, "No harm to her;
but still, not the brother--the sister, my trusty Claudius."

Where had Paulus heard those tones before? In itself, what he had
overheard was a sufficiently harmless fragment of a sentence.
Nevertheless, Paulus rose, left his table, lifted aside the
door-curtain, and went into the corridor, where he saw Cneius Piso
and Plancina, with their backs to him, walking toward the end of the
passage opposite the porch, but he nearly stumbled against a young
man going the other way. This person, who was good-looking, in both
senses of the word, wore the sober-colored _exomis_, or tunic, the
long hair, and the slippers of a slave. He had in his right hand a
stylus; in his left, tablets of citron-wood, open and covered with
blue wax, on which he was reading, with his head bent, some note
which he had made there.

"It is my fault, noble sir," said he; "I was stooping over these and
did not observe you; I beg you to pardon my awkwardness." And he
bowed with an air of humility.

"It is I, rather, who am to blame," said Paulus, scanning steadily
the features of the slave, who had made his apology with a look of
alarm, and in exaggerated accents of deprecation.

Shortly after this incident, while Paulus, who had not returned to
the _atrium_, was leaning dreamily over the balustrade of the inn's
central court, and watching the fountain in the impluvium there,
he was struck heavily on the shoulder from behind by an open hand.
Turning round slowly, he beheld a man in the very prime of life, who
was entirely a stranger to him.

"I was told I should find you here, excellent sir," said the stranger.

Paulus took in, at a glance, his dress and general appearance. He
had a thick brown beard, neatly trimmed, and open, daring, large
blue eyes, in which there was nothing whatever sullen or morose; yet
a sort of wildness and fierceness, with a slight but constant gleam
of vigilance, if not subtlety. On the whole, his face was handsome;
it was conspicuously manful, and, perhaps, somewhat obdurate and
pitiless.

His stature was good without being very lofty. He had broad
shoulders, rather long, sinewy arms, a deep chest, and, altogether,
a figure and person not lacking any token of agility, but more
indicative of huge strength.

He wore sandals, the laces of which crossed each other up his mighty
legs, which were otherwise bare, and a white woollen _diphera_
covered his shoulders, and was belted round his waist.

"And who told you that you would find me here?" asked Paulus; "for a
few minutes ago I did not know I should find myself here."

"There goes the youth who told me," answered the other pointing, and
at the same moment Paulus saw the slave, against whom he had walked
in the passage, cross on tiptoe an angle of the court-yard, and
vanish through a door on the opposite side.

"Claudius," continued the stranger, "is an acquaintance of mine, and
chancing to meet him as I entered the hostelry, I asked for you."

"And pray who are you, and what do you want with me?" asked Paulus,
after the slave, who must, he now felt sure, be the Claudius to whom
Benigna was betrothed, had disappeared.

"Who am I?" returned the stranger; "a good many people know my name,
and my person, too. But that matters not for the present. Your second
question is more immediately important. 'What do I want with you?'
To deliver to you a letter; nothing more. Understanding that I meant
to stroll out in this direction, the distinguished tribune, Velleius
Paterculus, requested me to hand you this."

And he produced from a fold in the breast of his white woollen tunic
a letter, having a written address on one side, and a thread round
its four ends, which thread was knotted on the side opposite to that
bearing the superscription. The knot was secured by a waxen seal,
upon which the scholarly writer had, in imitation of the deceased
minister Maecenas, impressed the engraving of a frog.

Paulus opened it and read what follows:

"To the noble Paulus AEmilius Lepidus, the younger, Velleius
Paterculus sends greeting:

"Go where you like, amuse yourself as you like, do as you like--fish,
ride, walk, read, play, sing--provided you sleep each night at the
Post House of the Hundredth Milestone, under the excellent Crispina's
roof. Be careful of your health and welfare."

"So far so good," said Paulus; "I am a prisoner, indeed, but with
a tolerable long tether, at least. I am much obliged to you for
bringing me the letter."

"Imprisonment!" observed the other. "I have heard a knot of
centurions, and also soldiers unnumbered, talk of your imprisonment,
and of the blow with which it seems to be connected. You are a
favorite, without knowing it, among the troops at Formiae. One fierce
fellow swore, by quite a crowd of gods, that your blow deserved to
have freed a slave, instead of enslaving a knight; that is, to have
freed you had you been a slave, instead of enslaving you, who are
already a knight."

"I feel grateful to the soldiers," said Paulus. "You are doubtless an
officer--a centurion, perhaps?"

"Well, they do speak freely," replied the stranger, "and so do I;
therefore you have made a fair guess; but you are wrong."

"Ah! well," said Paulus; "thanks for your trouble, and farewell. I
must go."

"One word," persisted the other. "I am a famous man, though you do
not seem to know it. The conqueror in thirty-nine single combats at
Rome, all of them mortal, and all against the best gladiators that
ever fought in circus or in forum, stands before you. At present I
am no longer obliged to fight in person. I keep the most invincible
_familia_ of gladiators that Rome has hitherto known. You are aware
of the change of morals and fashions; you are aware that even a
senator has been seen in the arena. Some day an emperor will descend
into our lists." (This, as the reader knows, really happened in
the course of time.) "Join my family, my school; I am Thellus, the
lanista."

"What!" cried Paulus, his nostrils dilated, and his eyes flashing.
"In Greece, where I have been bred, gladiatorial shows are not so
much as allowed by law, even though the gladiators should be all
slaves; and because some senator has forgotten the respect due to
the senate and to himself, and has no sense either of decency or
humanity, you dare to propose to me, the nephew of a triumvir, the
son of an honorable and a famous soldier--to me, the last of the
AEmilians, to descend as a gladiator into the arena, and to join
your school, _mehercle!_ of uneducated, base-born, and mercenary
cut-throats!"

The lanista was so astounded by this unexpected burst of lofty
indignation, and felt himself thrust morally to such a sudden
distance from the stripling, at least in the appearance of things,
that he uttered not one word for several instants. He glared in
speechless fury at the speaker, and when at length he found voice and
ideas he said,

"Do you know that I could take you in these unarmed hands, and tear
you limb from limb where you stand, as you would rend a chicken--do
you know that?"

"I do not," said Paulus, in slow and significant accents, facing
round at the same time upon the lanista with deliberate steadiness,
and looking him fixedly in the face; "but if you even could, it would
suit my humor better to be murdered where I am by a gladiator than to
be one."

"By the Capitoline Jove!" cried Thellus, after another rather long,
doubtful pause, laughing vehemently, "when I place your skill of
fence, about which I have heard a particular account, by the side of
your high spirit, you really do make my mouth water to number you
among my pupils. I have not a man in my _familia_ whom you would
not, when a little addition to your years shall have perfected your
bodily vigor, stretch upon the sand in ten minutes. But what mean
you, after all? You do not wish to hurt my feelings, because I make
you a friendly offer in the best shape that my unlucky destiny and
state of life afford me the means of doing? Do you, then, so utterly
despise the gladiator? Have you reflected on it so deeply? Who,
nevertheless, displays in a greater degree many of the severest and
highest virtues? Do you despise the man who despises life itself,
when compared with honor in the only form in which honor is for him
accessible? Answer that. Do you despise abstemiousness, fortitude,
self-control, self-sacrifice, chastity, courage, endurance? Answer
that. Who is more dauntless in the combat, more sublimely unruffled
when defeated, more invincibly silent under the agony of a violent
death, accompanied by the hootings of pitiless derision, and _whose_
derision, whose mockery, is the last sound in his ears? _Let that
pass._

"But who pays a dearer price for the applause of his fellow-men when
it is his? Who serves them more desperately in the way in which they
desire to be, and will needs be, served? Who gives them the safe and
cruel pleasures they demand more ungrudgingly, or under such awful
conditions? Who comes forward to be mangled and destroyed with a
more smiling face, or a more indifferent mien? Who spurns ease, and
sloth, and pleasure, and pain, and the sweet things of life, and
the bitter things of death, in order to show what manhood can dare
and what manfulness can do, and in order to be thoroughly the man
to the last, with the same constant and unconquerable mind, as the
very gladiator whom you thus insult? Women can often show _heroism_
in pain while shrinking from danger; and, on the other hand, amidst
the general excitement and the contagious enthusiasm of an army in
battle, to fight pretty well, and then to howl without restraint in
the surgeon's hands, is the property of nearly all men. Some who face
danger badly endure anguish well; and many, again, who cannot support
pain will confront danger. But if you wish to name him who does both
in perfection, and who practises that perfection habitually, you will
name the gladiator. Nor is it pain of body alone, nor loss of life
alone, which his calling trains him to undergo with alacrity. Are you
sure that our motives are simply and solely that grovelling lust of
gain which you imply? _Mercenary_ you dare to term us? Mercenary! The
gambler is mercenary. Is the gladiator like your high-born voluntary
gambler? Is the gladiator deaf to praise? Indifferent to admiration?
Reckless of your sympathy? Is he without other men's human ties and
affections, as the gambler is? Has the gladiator no parents whom he
feeds with that blood which flows from his gashes? No wife whom he is
all the time protecting with that lacerated and fearless breast? No
children whom his toils, efforts, and sufferings are keeping out of
degradation, out of want, and out of that very arena which he treads
with a spirit that nothing can subdue, in order that those whom he
loves may never enter it?"

While Thellus thus thundered with increasing and increasing
vehemence, the clear-faced youth whom he addressed, and who had
confronted his words of menace without any emotion except that of
instinctive and settled defiance, was and appeared to be quite
overwhelmed. Had Paulus been struck bodily, he could not have felt
any thing like the pain he suffered. The words of the gladiator smote
the lad full to the heart, like stones shot from a catapult.

Thellus gazed thoughtfully at him during the pause which ensued, and
then resumed by exclaiming,

"Mercenary! that is, he takes pay. Does the author take pay? answer
that. Do the lawyer and soldier take pay? Does the magistrate take
pay? Does, or does not, the emperor take pay? Does the vestal virgin
herself take pay? If the gladiator did, and suffered, and was all
he does, all he suffers, all he is, in mere sport, and at his own
personal expense, I suppose you would respect him. But I, Thellus--I,
the gladiator--I, the lanista--would scorn him, and spurn him, and
spit upon him. Blame the community who go to these sports, and sit
in shameless safety; blame the hundreds of thousands who succeed
other hundreds of thousands to applaud us when we kill our beloved
comrades, and, at the same time, to howl and hoot over those same
brave friends whom we kill; blame those who, having cheered us when
we slew our faithful companions, yell at us in our own turn when we
are slain; blame men for taking us when we are little children, and
rearing us expressly to be fit for nothing else; blame men for taking
the little ones of captured warriors who have in vain defended their
native lands against the discipline and skill of Rome; blame men for
mingling these poor infants in one college with the foundlings and
the slaves to whom law and positive necessity bequeath but one lot in
this life; blame those who thus provide for the deadly arena. Blame
your customs, blame your laws, blame your tyrannous institutions,
against which the simplicity and trustfulness of boyish years can
neither physically nor mentally struggle; blame, above all, your fine
dames, more degraded--ay, far more degraded and more abased than the
famishing prostitutes who must perish of starvation, or be what they
are; blame your fine dames, I say, who when, like the august Julia,
they import the thick silks of India, are not satisfied till they
pick them _thin_ and transparent before wearing them, lest their
garments should conceal their shame; and thus attired, pampered with
delicacies, gorged with food, heated with wine, surfeited with every
luxury, reeking and horrible, know not what else to do to beguile the
languid intervals of systematic wickedness, than to come to the arena
and indulge in sweet emotions over the valiant and virtuous fathers
of homes and hopes of families, who perish there in torture and in
ignominy for their pleasure."

"O God!" cried young Paulus.

"Well may you," cried Thellus, "be filled with horror. Ah! then,
when will a god descend from heaven, and give us a new world? I
have one child in my home, a sweet, peaceful, natural-hearted,
conscience-governed, loving little daughter. Her mother has gone
away from me for ever to some world beyond death where more justice
and more mercy prevail. The day when I lost her I had to fight in
the arena. _Eheu!_ She was anxious for me, she could not control
her suspense; she saw the execrable Tiberius. Bah! do you think I'm
afraid to speak? Of what should I be afraid? Thellus has been at the
funeral of fear; yes, this many a day," continued Thellus, raising
his voice; "she came to the Statilian amphitheatre against my express
command; she saw the execrable Tiberius, contrary to every custom,
after I had been victor in four fatal encounters, when I was worn
out with fatigue, order me to meet a fresh antagonist; and looking
up among the hundred thousand spectators, I beheld the sweet, loving
face. I beheld the clasped and convulsive fingers. But, lo, who came
forth to fight against me? Whom had the accursed man provided as
my next antagonist? Her only brother, poor Statius, whom Tiberius
knew to be a gladiator, and whom he had thus selected for the more
refined excitement of the spectators to fight against Thellus; but,
above all, for his own more refined enjoyment, for the monster had
tried and found my poor Alba incorruptible; and this was his revenge
against a wretched gladiator and his faithful wife. Statius was no
match for me; I tried to disarm him; after a while I succeeded,
wounding him at the same time slightly. He fell, and his blood
colored the sand. I looked to the people; they looked to Tiberius,
waiting for the sign of mercy or execution. I was resolved in any
case not to be the slayer of Statius.

"The prince turned up his thumb, to intimate that I was to kill my
wounded opponent. The amphitheatre then rang with a woman's scream,
and the people, with one impulse, turned _down_ their hands. I bore
Statius in my own arms out of the arena; but when I reached home, I
found my wife was near childbirth, delirious, and raving _against me_
as the murderer of her brother. She died so, in my arms and in her
brother's. She left me my poor little Prudentia, who is dearer to me
than all this globe."

After taking breath, he added, quoting Paulus's words,

"But we are a gang of base-born, uneducated, and mercenary
cut-throats."

"Oh! forgive, forgive, forgive my words," exclaimed Paulus,
stretching out both hands toward the gladiator.

Thellus took those hands and said,

"Why, I love you, lad. I love you like a son. I am not high-born
enough to be father to the like of you; but it is not forbidden me to
love a noble youth who hates baseness and is ignorant of fear. I'll
tell you more; but first answer me--are you of opinion, from what has
passed between us, that Thellus is an uneducated man?"

"I am afraid that you are better educated than I am."

"In any case," replied Thellus, "I am ready to confess that the
qualities and virtues exercised by gladiators are exercised for a
wrong purpose, and in a wrong way. But tell me, why is bread made?
You will not say because bakers bake it. That would be a girl's
answer; it would be saying that a thing is because it is, or is made
because it is made. Why is it made? Because it is wanted. Would
bakers bake it if nobody ate it? If nobody wanted to live in a house,
would masons build any? or would there even be any masons? You could
not, I grant, have music if there were no musicians, if none wanted
music. It is the gladiator, unquestionably, who does the fighting
in the arena; but if none wanted the fighting, you would have no
gladiators. I have told you how we are trepanned in helpless infancy;
and not only reared, prepared, and fitted for this calling, but
hopelessly unfitted for every other. We supply the spectacle--but who
desires the spectacle? It is not we; we are the only sufferers by it;
we detest it. But whatever in so dreadful and wicked a pastime can be
noble, courageous, unselfish, heroic, we the same, we the victims,
give and exhibit; and all the selfishness of it, all that is cowardly
in it, all that is cruel, base, despicable, execrable, and accursed,
sits on the benches, and applauds or yells in the wedges;[61] this
you, _you_, who go thither, and bring thither us, your victims, this
you produce, this is your contribution to it. Ours is honor, valor,
skill, and dauntless death; yours, inhumanity, cowardice, baseness,
luxurious ease, and a safe, lazy, and besotted life."

"It is true," said Paulus. "Hideous are the pleasures, detestable
the glories of this gigantic empire; but _unless, as you say, a God
himself were to come down from heaven_, how will it ever be reformed?"

"How, indeed?" answered Thellus.

Little did they dream who a certain Child in Syria was, who had then
entered his eleventh year!

    TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[60] Greek, we may observe, was to the Romans of that age about as
familiar as, and far more necessary than, French is to us. It was the
vehicle of all philosophy, and the condition of all higher education.
The fashionable Romans used Greek phrases in conversation through
vanity.

[61] Juvenal, vi. 61.




THE POPE AND THE COUNCIL, BY JANUS.


Since the apostolic bull convoking the General Council of the
Vatican, now in session, has been issued by Pius IX., an immense
literary activity has manifested itself in most countries about
the great and important questions which are supposed to claim the
attention of that august assembly of the Catholic Church. Not only
Catholic, but also Protestant reviews have engaged in various ways
in the discussion of matters relating to the council. Very numerous,
indeed, are the pamphlets--nay, books and volumes of greater
import--that have been published within the last ten months in Italy,
Belgium, France, England, and Germany. It is particularly in this
latter country that publications concerning more or less the present
council have been most numerous, and prominent reviews have given
able and elaborate notices of most of them. Several publications,
of this character have been rendered accessible to Italian, French,
and English readers, thus exhibiting the importance attached to them
outside of Germany.

It is our present purpose to enter upon a closer examination of a
work which we have already briefly noticed in a former number, we
mean the book, _The Pope and the Council, by Janus_, of which an
authorized translation appeared both in England and in this country.

We adduce this fact as a very peculiar one, which will cause still
greater surprise to the reader when he is informed that an authorized
French translation appeared but a short time after the original
itself.

The reader has already been told what he is to think of the
orthodoxy of _Janus_, when his doctrines are judged by the criterion
established by the church. But let us state here at once that we
have a right to apply the Catholic test to the doctrine set forth by
_Janus_. For they, namely, the authors (p. 14,) expressly profess
to be in communion with the Catholic Church, though "inwardly
separated by a great gulf from those whose ideal of the church is an
universal empire." The translator, too, presents _Janus_ as "a work
of _Catholic authorship_," and declares "_the authors members of a
school, morally if not numerically strong, who yield to none in their
loyal devotion to Catholic truth_!"

In view of such declarations, we may proceed to inquire, What is the
aim of _Janus_? The authors can best answer this question; for, in
their opinion, since the forgery of the Isidorian Decretals, about
the year 845, the primacy has been distorted and transformed.

    "The papacy, such as it has become, presents the appearance
    of a disfiguring, sickly, and choking excrescence on the
    organization of the church, hindering and decomposing the
    action of its vital powers, and bringing manifold diseases in
    its train."

Moreover, _Janus_ boldly asserts _a priori_ that the approaching
council will not enjoy that freedom of deliberation necessary to
make it truly oecumenical.

    "The recently proclaimed council is to be held not only in
    Italy, but in Rome itself; and already it has been announced
    that, as the sixth Lateran Council, it will adhere faithfully
    to the fifth. That is quite enough; it means this: that
    whatever course the synod may take, one quality can never
    be predicated of it, namely, that it has been a really free
    council." (Pp. 345, 346.)

These extracts would be quite sufficient to show the aim of _Janus_,
and his view of the "pope and the council." How such harsh and
preposterous language may be reconciled with _loyal devotion to
Catholic truth_, and that _commendable piety_ which the authors of
_Janus_ profess, we ask candid and impartial readers to decide.

_Janus_ considers it to be true piety "to expose the weak points
of the papacy, denounce its faults, and purposely exhibit their
mischievous results;" appealing to a saying of St. Bernard, _Melius
est ut scandalum oriatur, quam ut veritas relinquatur_. It is this
intense love of truth which prompts _Janus_ "to oppose, frankly
and decisively, every disfigurement" (p. 20) which the church has
undergone for nearly a thousand years. "_To ward off so fatal a
catastrophe_," with which the church is now threatened by the
council, the authors have attempted in this work to contribute to the
awakening and direction of public opinion, (p. 27,) and have entered
this "protest, based on history," and appeal to the "thinkers among
believing Christians," and are modest enough to hope that their
"labors will attract attention in scientific circles, and serve as a
contribution to ecclesiastical history." (Preface.)

We cannot, therefore, be surprised that a work with such a
_scientific_ programme should have caused some sensation, even among
Catholic theologians, many of whom were not slow to unmask the
_historical representations_, and "direct reference to original
authorities," of which _Janus_ makes such great parade. That
_Janus_ was hailed with great delight, not only abroad but also in
this country, by an anti-Catholic press, and nearly all reviews or
periodicals, cannot be a matter of wonder, when we know that such
allies as _Janus_ within our own pale are welcome to the enemies of
the church.

In England, _Janus_ was heralded by a grand preliminary and
concomitant flourish of trumpets. Every thing was done by a certain
very small but very zealous clique to give this book as great a
publicity as possible.[62] The _North British Review_, the _Saturday
Review_, and the _Academy_, have joined in one chorus of eulogy,
exulting over the victory which they think _Janus_ has achieved.
Among the many admirers of _Janus_ in our country, suffice it to say
that one writer has been so fascinated by this "_work, so entirely
made up of facts_," that he triumphantly exclaims, "No one can help
feeling convinced of its veracity." Nay, more than this, the same
reviewer pays a compliment to _Janus_ which, considering the source
it comes from, involves a strange contradiction. It runs thus,

    "The author (_Janus_) shows himself throughout a _thorough_
    Catholic, but an _earnest_ and liberal Christian, a learned
    canonist, a faithful and discriminating historian."

Without further comments, we propose to meet _Janus_ and his admirers
upon equal grounds, since it is their earnest wish

    "that the reader's attention should be exclusively concentrated
    on the matter itself, and that, in the event of its evoking
    controversy, no opportunity should be given for transferring
    the dispute from the sphere of objective and scientific
    investigation of the weighty questions under review." (P. 28.)

We have no reason to dread _that facts and "original authorities"
must and can speak for themselves_, and we too shall hope to see
where the saying of Pope Innocent III. is verified, "_Falsitas sub
velamine sanctitatis tolerari non debet_."

In presence of such a vast amount of matter as _Janus_ gives to his
readers, and we might say _en passant_ with such little semblance of
order and system, it becomes necessary to confine our examination to
three leading points: 1. To the manner in which the investigation
is conducted, or the scientific character of the work; 2. To the
orthodoxy which the authors profess; 3. To the historical and
critical parts of the book.

1. As is correctly stated in the "Translator's Notice," the substance
of the volume already appeared in a series of articles in the
_Allgemeine Zeitung_, or Gazette of Augsburg, in March, 1869, under
the heading of "The Council and the _Civilta_." In these articles,
"historical facts" were brought forward, which called forth prompt
and sharp answers from the Catholic reviews of Germany, where several
falsehoods were exposed and denounced as gross misrepresentations.
When these articles were issued in their present form, the authors
of _Janus_ took no notice of the exposure, but quietly dropped from
their book these three mendacious statements. Not a word of apology
or retractation was offered. An able theologian[63] has pointed out
these tactics of _Janus_; but, to our knowledge, no reply was given.

    "Our _Janus_," says the same critic, "may feel quite at ease;
    he will not be brought to the stake either for his historical
    criticism, or even for his heresies; but he has branded himself
    as a forger by the very act of spiriting away these lies, only
    to come forward with a look of perfect innocence and palm off
    upon the world others more numerous."

Indeed, the new name of _Janus_, assumed by the authors, has also a
figurative meaning, inasmuch as a different face may be exhibited,
just as the case may demand. _Janus_ declares his love and attachment
to the church and the primacy, and regards it as a _complete
misapplication_ of the term _piety_ "to conceal or color historical
facts and faulty institutions." (P. 20.)

Hence the inference will be legitimate to stigmatize as impious a
mode of investigation which misstates and distorts historical facts,
shaking at the very foundation both the church and the primacy. And
this is precisely what _Janus_ would accomplish, even contrary to
his own avowed intention. For, according to him, "The primacy rests
on divine appointment;" and still it has been transformed, and has
become destructive to the church, rending asunder _that unity_ which
to uphold and represent it had been instituted. (Pp. 18, 21.)

    "Since the ninth century, a transformation of the primacy,
    artificial and sickly, the consequences of which have been the
    splitting up of the previously united church into three great
    ecclesiastical bodies, divided and at enmity with each other."

If such is the case, where, may we ask, is that primacy of _divine
institution_ to be found?--that primacy ever-living and indefectible
as the church herself. And yet, we have the word of _Janus_ for
it, the primacy, divinely instituted as the centre of unity, has
virtually become extinct, and has failed to be the source and centre
of unity. Did _Janus_ himself dare to face this inevitable and
logical conclusion?

    "The Roman bishops not only believed themselves to be in
    possession of a divine right, and acted accordingly, but this
    right was actually recognized by others." (P. 22.)

How is this profession to be reconciled with the following one, "that
the form which this primacy took depended on the concessions of the
particular local churches"?

What the privileges were which Christ himself bestowed on the
primacy, _Janus nowhere_ attempts to state. Where, then, is his
reason for asserting that the form which the primacy took depended on
concessions? Wherein consist the privileges inherent in the primacy
by divine right, and which are those conceded by the local churches?
Until _Janus_ has distinctly defined these respective limits, with
what show of logic and scientific process can he pronounce that for
eight centuries the primacy was _legitimately developed_, and since
the ninth century so fatally transformed and totally disfigured?
Truly, if he had committed himself to any _precise_ theory,[64] he
would have exposed himself to an inglorious refutation; as it is now,
he has taken refuge in silence. And yet, in justice to himself, and
in order to save his scientific reputation, _Janus_ was obliged to
define these divine rights of the primacy before he could venture
to say that they had been _fatally_ transformed; thus he is able
to bring forward "a very dark side of the history of the papacy."
Superficial minds may be ensnared by this deceitful procedure, but
fair and scientific thinkers will rise indignantly and enter their
solemn protest against such an abuse of logic and history. Moreover,
it is obvious that a primacy whose form, that is, rights inherent
to it, are made dependent upon the consent of those over whom it
is to be exercised, is illusory, and is a mere shadow. It is very
difficult to understand how such a novel mode of reasoning should
have escaped our authors, who have "written under a deep sense of
anxiety," and we fear that, by pledging their faith to such dogmas as
the infallibility of the church, and the divinely appointed primacy
of St. Peter and his successors, in the person of the bishops of
Rome, they have either deluded themselves or hoped to delude others
by hollow professions of faith and a hypocritical show of piety.

The authors, having thus left a wide and open field in which to lead
astray and bewilder the minds of their readers, do not hesitate
to assert, "No one acquainted with church history will choose to
affirm that the popes ever exercised a fixed primatial right in
the same way" over the churches in different countries. Quite a
captious and vague affirmation in each and every particular. Are
we to understand that, because the same primatial rights were not
everywhere and uniformly exercised, there were no acknowledged rights
of the primacy? And yet to this conclusion, however illogical,
such a proposition would lead. If the Roman bishops have not at
all times exercised the same rights over the churches in Egypt as
over those of Africa or Gaul, it is simply owing to the different
condition of the various churches, where the exercise of such rights
was not necessary, and by the very nature of things varied to meet
the exigencies of the churches. What opinion would we form of a
writer--we may be permitted to use a familiar illustration--who, from
the fact that Congress did not at one time enforce the same article
of our constitution in the State of Ohio as it did in Virginia,
concluded that this legislative body possessed not, or was not
conscious of possessing, the same rights and power granted by the
constitution in Ohio as in Virginia? This is precisely what _Janus_
would induce his readers to believe regarding the rights of the
primacy. That the popes throughout the first centuries of the church
exercised primatial rights, _Janus_ readily grants, and must grant
from the position he assumes. Now, if the exercise of such rights
over the various churches at different periods of the _ancient_
church, taken _collectively_, _involve all those prerogatives_ which
the papacy has since claimed and enjoyed, we must of necessity infer
that the rights of the primacy, as understood and exercised at the
present period, are identical with those of the first eight centuries.

This we could prove by a "work entirely made up of facts, and
supporting all statements by reference to the original authorities."
Yes, this has already been done by able and judicious historians;
among the more modern ones we may appropriately challenge a careful
perusal of the history of Dr. Doellinger,[65] in which a complete
enumeration of the prerogatives exercised by the bishops of Rome
over the whole church, both in the east and in the west, may be
found, together with a direct reference to many and unexceptionable
historical facts. Under the present head we merely refer to the
action of Pope St. Victor, in the second century, against the
churches of Asia Minor concerning the question of paschal celebration
against the Quartodecimans; St. Stephen, against the Anabaptists
in Africa; St. Cornelius, against Novatus and Felicissimus; St.
Dionysius, in the case of Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch,
when the Emperor Aurelian himself would not sustain him, and
referred to the Bishop of Rome for a final decision; all these
statements attested by such writers as Eusebius,[66] Socrates,[67]
and Theodoret.[68] How about the appeal of the Montanists to the
Bishop of Rome, mentioned by Tertullian[69] himself? Did not Marcion
repair to Rome to obtain a reversal of the sentence passed against
him?[70] Did not that illustrious champion of faith, St. Athanasius
of Alexandria, appeal to Pope Julius I. against the Arians, when
the Council of Sardica was convoked at the request of the pope
in the year 343, and the supremacy of the Roman bishop solemnly
acknowledged, to whom all must appeal for final sentence?[71]

_Janus_, however, with this most conspicuous incident of history
before him, says,

    "There is no mention of papal rights, or any reference to a
    legally defined action of the Bishop of Rome in other churches,
    with the single exception of the canon of Sardica, which never
    obtained universally even in the west." (P. 23.)

Having produced one most remarkable instance of the application of
this canon of Sardica, we now must inform our readers that this same
_canon_ of the Synod of Sardica was inserted in a Latin version of
a collection of canons known by the name of "Prisca Collectio,"[72]
as early as the fifth century, and regarded as a code of laws
attesting the tradition of the _ancient_ church, according to the
maxim of St. Vincent of Lerins, _Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab
omnibus creditum est_. In like manner did St. John Chrysostom, that
great doctor of the eastern church, appeal to Pope Innocent I.,
although his adversary, the usurper Theophilus, had sent delegates
to Rome to gain the pontiff, who annulled all the acts of Theophilus
and his party against the illustrious patriarch. The letter which
St. Chrysostom[73] wrote to the pope adds great strength to our
argument. St. Cyprian, too, by whose authority our adversaries would
fain triumph, sent the acts of synods held by himself to the Bishop
of Rome for confirmation, and also asked St. Stephen to _depose_
Marcion, Bishop of Arles, as being a partisan of Novatian, and to
appoint another in his place. But we must ask pardon of the reader
for having already been too long in these references--though as yet
we have said nothing of the many acts and letters of Pope St. Leo
the Great--all of which demonstrate beyond the shadow of doubt that
the most ample exercise of _all primatial_ prerogatives was made
in nearly all the churches of the Christian world. A rapid glance
over the discourses and letters of the distinguished pontiff, in the
voluminous work of Ballerini, will corroborate our assertion in its
whole extent. What are we to think of these words of _Janus_, "No one
acquainted with church history will choose to affirm that the popes
ever exercised a fixed primatial right"? To us, it would seem nothing
less than an appeal to the ignorance of his readers. A similar
proceeding we notice in the following paragraph:

    "The well-known fact speaks clearly enough for itself, that
    throughout the whole ancient canon law, whether in the
    collections preserved in the eastern or the western church,
    there is no mention made of papal rights."

We do not attribute such a confused and inaccurate knowledge to
_Janus_, that he is not fully aware what all these collections
comprise. These collections or codes of law are pretty numerous,[74]
both in the Greek and in the Latin churches, and some of them contain
besides the "Canones Apostolorum," not only many decrees of the
councils, both particular and oecumenical, that were held during
the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, but also the decretals of
the early popes. Thus, for instance, the collection made by the monk
Dionysius[75] comprises, in a chronological order, the decretals or
decrees of all the popes from St. Siricius, in the year 395, to
St. Anastasius II. in 486. Another Spanish collection of canons,
called the _Liber Canonum_, is very comprehensive,[76] embracing the
decrees of all the synods that were held in the eastern and western
churches, together with the decretal letters of twenty popes from
St. Damasus to Gregory the Great. A similar collection of canons in
Africa was approved by the Synod of Carthage in 419. Now, according
to our authors, in _all these collections_ "no mention is made of
papal rights, or any reference to a legally defined action of the
Bishop of Rome in other churches." Truly! we need but challenge an
examination of many decrees of synods, and of the official letters
of the popes contained in these collections, and we shall find all
primatial rights fully exercised and universally acknowledged.
Who does not know the splendid testimonies of the fathers in the
councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, both of which acknowledged in
their acts the supremacy of the see of Rome! As to the many decretal
letters of the popes, there are no more celebrated documents in
early history than the professions of faith given by Pope Celestine
I. to the bishops of Gaul against Semipelagianism,[77] St. Boniface
to the bishops of Illyria, St. Gelasius in a decree on _canonical_
Scripture and the well-known formula of Pope St. Hormisdas,[78]
subscribed to by the eastern bishops. By far the greater number of
these pontifical letters constituting those _collections_ imply one
or another prerogative exercised by the bishops of Rome, who were
ever conscious, even in _those early ages_, of being the supreme
teachers and guardians of faith appointed by Christ himself. With
what mien of self-sufficiency and confidence _Janus_ can style
a "well-known fact," something of which just the very opposite
results from an inspection of historical records, is more than
unintelligible in authors who make such ado about their scientific
fairness. With a desire to save _Janus's_ reputation as a _learned
canonist_ and _faithful historian_, we must presume such a grave
misstatement wilful, and naturally enough he must have reckoned on
readers who have little or no knowledge of the "ancient collections
of the canons." Yet we must not fail to enter an energetic protest
against these self-proclaimed "scientific labors and contributions to
ecclesiastical history." Is it by such unblushing assertions, without
proof to sustain them, that the authors show their "love and honor
for an institution" which forms an essential part of the constitution
of the church?

The whole introduction of this work, covering nearly thirty pages,
exhibits a programme with summary indications, whence _Janus_
infers that with the present council the system of absolutism
is to be crowned, and the church to come within the grasp of a
"powerful coalition." This great danger to the church the anonymous
authors feel in duty bound to avert, and to oppose this "advancing
flood-tide," in which we may discover another characteristic mode
of warfare, since _Janus_ deems it necessary to "assail a powerful
party, with clearly ascertained objects, which has gained a firm
footing through the wide ramifications of the Jesuit order." And this
party he can only attack by "bringing forward a very dark side of the
history of the papacy." Indeed, a singular mode of warfare, but one
which presents no feature of novelty. Have not the Reformers of the
sixteenth century, like most of their forerunners, concealed their
true aim by attacking ostensibly the Curia, or some religious body,
as Luther did the Dominicans, and in the seventeenth century did not
the Jansenists resort to a similar stratagem? Now, with such a clear
profession before us, why these assaults on the hierarchy and the
church in general for the last thousand years? Why make the whole
church accountable for the misdeeds and _menacing coalition_ of a
party? Why, as _faithful Catholics_, appeal, not to the council nor
to the hierarchy, but "to the thinkers among believing Christians"?
_Reformers_ before _Janus_ usually appealed from the popes to
general councils, but he surpasses them all by appealing neither to
the one nor to the other, but to the laity, who may even pronounce
on the "reception or rejection of the council or its decisions."
Assuredly no further arguments need be brought forward to satisfy
candid and discriminating minds that _Janus_ has ill succeeded in
masking his true purpose; nor can his professions of loving truth and
justice stand the test of criticism, or the dignity of scientific
investigation tolerate the insolent treatment it has suffered at the
hands of _Janus_ and his school. For those among our readers who must
be shocked at seeing names of men distinguished for their learning
and piety at a very critical period in Germany, quoted in support of
the opinions of this school of traitors, (pp. 16, 17,) we can say
that _Janus_, by attributing to such men a similarity of views with
himself, makes a gratuitous and bold assertion, corroborated by no
reliable authority; only one name, that of the eccentric Baader,
lends any probability to this impudent statement. But such names
as Walter, Philipps, Hefele, Hagemann, Gfroerer, and even Doellinger
up to a certain time, renowned for their profound researches and
contributions to ecclesiastical history and jurisprudence, are
studiously omitted by _Janus_; nor would it have served his purpose,
since the eminent theologians just mentioned have undermined and
exploded whatever scientific or historical basis Febronianism and
Gallicanism could boast of, and which _Janus_ would reestablish. In
summing up our considerations on this point, we fully concur in the
remarks of an able writer, that _Janus_

    "does his utmost to overthrow what is at present by far man's
    strongest barrier against the rapid and violent inflowing
    atheistic tide, without attempting to substitute another in its
    place. If his book could exercise any real power, that power
    would be put forth in favor of those whom the author agrees
    with us in regarding as the most dangerous enemies of every
    highest human interest."

This serious apprehension has been fully verified by the many
admirers _Janus_ has found in the hostile camp; nay, the apostate
Froschhamer has even complimented _Janus_ publicly,[79] with only one
restriction, namely, that he has only gone half-way, and finds fault
with this inconsistency.

2. We did not propose to content ourselves with the gratuitous
assertion that _Janus_ is not "throughout a thorough Catholic and
earnest Christian;" but we shall make it clear that he has already
seceded from well-established points of doctrine, and even rendered
his scheme of reforming the church an impossible hypothesis. As
we have already stated, _Janus_ directs his attacks against a
"party"--ultramontanism--which, he says, is "essentially papalism."
(P. 34.) But while professing to oppose an "ultramontane scheme,"
he finally arrives, by a very promiscuous array of _historical
facts_ and _scientific investigations_, at the conclusion that the
entire church, led by the popes during the last thousand years, has
been dragged into this gross error and devastating _torrent_ of
ultramontanism. By means of a _huge forgery_ the "whole constitution
and government of the church has been changed"--that is, has become
a human institution, and lost its divine character. What, then, is
the result the writers of _Janus_ arrive at as to their own position?
"Inwardly a great gulf separates" them from such a church and its
chief pastor--that is, from Pius IX. and the episcopacy. For in
another place (p. 3) he affirms that the doctrines he attacks are
"identical with those of the chief head." Does it not follow from
these premises that _Janus_ excludes himself from this "centre of
unity," as the see of Rome has been called by St. Cyprian, Bishop
of Carthage? Likewise St. Jerome, in his book against Rufinus, asks
the latter, "Is your faith the faith of the Church of Rome? If so,"
he adds, "we are both Catholics." During the pontificate of St.
Hormisdas, from the year 514 to 523, two hundred and fifty bishops
signed a formulary sent them by the pope, in which they declared that
they who were not in all things in union with the apostolic see were
cut off from communion with the Catholic Church.[80]

    "Sequentes in omnibus," says the text so forcibly, "Apostolicam
    Sedem et praedicantes ejus omnia constituta, spero ut in una
    communione vobiscum, quam Sedes Apostolica praedicat, esse
    merear, in qua est integra et verax Christianae religionis
    soliditas. Etiam sequestratos a communione Ecclesiae Catholicae,
    id est, non consentientes Sedi Apostolicae."[81]

By what right, then, or by what interpretation, we demand, can
_Janus_ be called a "thorough Catholic"?

The unity and indefectibility of the church of Christ are essential
doctrines, most clearly and distinctly embodied in the sacred
Scriptures. But _Janus_ no longer admits them, as the following
passages will show:

    "The previously united church has been split up into three
    great ecclesiastical bodies, divided and at enmity with each
    other.... When the presidency in the church became an empire,
    ... then the _unity_ of _the church_, so firmly secured before,
    was _broken_ up." (P. 21.)

According to _Janus_, a "great and searching reformation of the
church is necessary;" and, let it be understood, not in matters of
discipline, which can vary, but in matters of faith--yes! in the most
important points touching the divine constitution of the church.

    "The popes possessed none of the three powers which are the
    proper attributes of sovereignty; neither the legislative, the
    administrative, nor the judicial."

    "For a long time nothing was known in Rome of definite rights
    bequeathed by Peter to his successors."

    "The bishops of Rome could neither exclude individuals nor
    churches from the church universal." (Pp. 64, 66.)

Confront these assertions with the few but remarkable facts already
given from history, and what becomes of them?

    "There are many national churches which were never under Rome,
    and never even had any intercourse with Rome." (P. 68.)

_Janus_ then proceeds to give examples of such autonomous churches,
and we confess that it has seldom been our lot to see any thing more
vague and evasive.

In the first place, we refer to the letter of the Syrian bishops,
which was read in the fifth session of the synod held in
Constantinople in the year 536, by the Patriarch Mennas; moreover,
the profession which the Archimandrites and other Syrian monks sent
to Pope Hormisdas, in which they plainly acknowledge and invoke the
Bishop of Rome as supreme guardian of the entire flock of Christ.

If the churches in Persia, in Armenia, and in Abyssinia, before they
were commingled and entangled with the different Gnostic sects
and Monophysites, or Jacobites, were in union with the churches of
Alexandria, of Antioch, and Constantinople, who, in their turn,
recognized the supremacy of the see of Rome, in what possible sense
can they be called _autonomous_? Frumentius had been ordained Bishop
of Axuma, in Abyssinia, by St. Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria,
toward the year 326.[82] Will _Janus_ claim St. Athanasius as
his partisan respecting this autonomy? His attempt to claim the
same autonomy for the early Irish and British churches is no less
hazardous, and we refer to Dr. Doellinger's history[83] for a
refutation of such claims. In this connection, however, it was only
our purpose to prove from _Janus's_ own admission that the "unity of
the church was broken up." Quite natural, too, since the "centre of
unity" no longer preserved its divine mission and character!

We hasten to another grave charge against the orthodoxy of _Janus_,
namely, that he denies the primacy both in its divine institution
and in its rights. The true primacy he reviles as "papalism," and
would substitute a mere primacy of honor or "presidency." For it
was only during a few centuries that the primacy had a _sound_
and _natural_ development; since then it has become disfigured by
human "fabrications," and consequently exists no longer. Such being
the case, we are unable to discover even a supremacy of honor,
lawfully exercised by the pope. We solicit a careful examination
of the primacy as it appears in the _Ancient Constitution of the
Church_, and in the _Teachings of the Fathers_, (pp. 63-75,) and
the inevitable conclusion derived from those assumptions, sounding
like oracles of Delphi, will be this, the plenitude of power assumed
and exercised by the Bishop of Rome over the whole church has no
foundation whatsoever, neither in the Scriptures, as interpreted
by the fathers, nor in ancient tradition, but has been and still
is an encroachment on the privileges of the particular churches, a
usurpation exercised by force and oppression--in fine, an innovation
on the divine constitution given to the church by Christ. Every thing
that is advanced by _Janus_ purporting to trace historically the
origin and causes of papal power and its "unnatural development,"
even with that illustrious pontiff St. Leo the Great, (p. 67,)
taking up nearly two thirds of the volume, proves, if any thing,
that no special prerogative was given to St. Peter by Christ, and
hence could not, of course, be "hereditary in the line of Roman
bishops." (P. 74.) The great _nightmare_ of _Janus_ is, indeed, the
pope's infallibility, or the supremacy of the Roman see in doctrinal
decisions; but while assaulting the former in a _pele-mele_ warfare,
he utterly destroys the primacy itself; though it would seem that
infallibility properly understood is but a corollary of the primacy
itself. While professing to reject the doctrine of the "papacy,"
_Janus_ discards a truly apostolic doctrine of the Catholic Church,
and we cannot but suspect him of well-calculated dissimulation when
he says that the "authors of the book profess their adherence to the
conviction that the primacy rests on divine appointment." Contrast
this with the statements quoted, and we can hardly refrain from
sentiments of abhorrence and indignation at such duplicity, as, on
the one hand, we find it stated that "the ancient church found the
need of a bishop possessed of primatial authority," and, on the other
hand, "nothing was known of definite rights," and the "same powers
were exercised by the bishop of Antioch, Jerusalem, or Alexandria."

The orthodoxy of _Janus_ and his abettors is impeachable in another
no less serious point. The church has ever been conscious of her
own infallibility, whereby she is protected from all error in
teaching "all truth to the nations;" in other words, it has ever
been firmly believed among Catholics that the _ecclesia docens_,
or teaching church, succeeded to the divinely bestowed privilege
of apostolic infallibility, and, whether congregated in council or
dispersed throughout the world, is a true exponent of "unity in faith
and grace" with her divine Founder. If this were not so, in what
possible sense could the church be called "a pillar and ground of
truth"? Where would the assistance and guidance of the Holy Spirit
have any visible action or influence, if it be not to preserve her
"immaculate, holy, and pure"? Hence, those beautiful images employed
by the Apostle St. Paul, of the "union of the body with the head," of
this truly _spiritual alliance of Christ with his spouse_, that is,
the church, through whose ministry the life of Christ descends from
the head to the members, Christ's life being nothing else but truth
and grace.

But if we adopt _Janus's_ idea of the church, she has become as the
"harlot of Babylon," a depositary of falsehood and iniquity. For
he denies the unerring authority of oecumenical councils under
the conditions in which it has always been received as a dogma by
Catholic theologians. The oath of the bishops toward the apostolic
see, prescribed for many past centuries, is pronounced by _Janus_ as
incompatible with "that freedom of deliberation and voting" which
are essential to such an assembly. But, we may ask, does this oath
interfere in the least with the strict obligation of keeping the
faith intact and inviolable? Does this oath imply any violation
of Catholic conscience? You might as well assert that the oath
taken by a member of Congress, or of a particular legislature, to
support and abide by the constitution, interferes with his liberty
of speaking and voting. In keeping with this hypothesis of _Janus_,
all the councils that were held in the west, and universally
acknowledged as oecumenical, "were perverted, and mere tools of
papal domination--shadows of the councils of the ancient church." (P.
154.) But the councils held in the east were truly oecumenical,
because the popes had _nothing_ to do with them, (pp. 63, 64;) but
the emperors, on the contrary, exercised all those prerogatives which
the popes afterward usurped; hence the councils in the west were but
a "sham and mockery" when compared to the _genuine_ oecumenical
councils held by the emperors, "who sometimes trenched too closely
on this freedom." (P. 354.) Yet the weight of imperial power and
domination does not do away with that essential condition of an
oecumenical council. But with the popes the case is quite the
reverse! Truly admirable logic of our _Janus_! He is not content with
unprincipled expositions and illogical hypotheses, but resorts to
positive _falsification_ of history when he says,

    "Neither the dogmatic nor the disciplinary decisions of these
    councils (held in the east) required papal confirmation; for
    their force and authority depended on the consent of the
    church, as expressed in the synod, and afterward in the fact of
    its being generally received."

And again,

    "The popes took no part in convoking councils. All great
    councils were convoked by the emperors; nor were the popes ever
    consulted about it beforehand." (Pp. 63, 64.)

What is the verdict of history on these points? That very
_Latrocinium_ of Ephesus, in 449, which _Janus_ so adroitly would
put among those councils that were regarded as oecumenical, called
forth a protest not only from Pope Leo the Great, but also from the
eastern bishops, because the ambitious Dioscorus assumed to himself
the right of presiding, and, as Prosper and Victor remark in their
chronicles, "usurped the prerogative of the supremacy." The most
ancient historians, Socrates, Sozomenus, and Theodoret, who continued
the church history of Eusebius, attest unanimously those prerogatives
of the Roman bishop, which our authors would so boldly deny. Thus,
Sozomenus, in the third book of his history, chapter 10, says,

    "It is a pontifical law (~nomos ieratikos~) that whatever has
    been done without the judgment of the Roman bishop, be null and
    void."

Socrates, alluding to the Arian Synod of Antioch in "Encaeniis," in
431, by the adherents of Eusebius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and
which pronounced the deposition of St. Athanasius, observes,

    "Neither Julius, the Bishop of Rome, was present, nor did he
    send any one thither to take his place; though it is prohibited
    by ecclesiastical law that any thing be decreed in the church
    without the consent of the Roman pontiff."[84]

When, therefore, St. Athanasius, together with Paul of
Constantinople, Marcellus of Ancyra, and Asclepas of Gaza, sought
the protection of Pope Julius, the latter had their cause examined
in a council held at Rome in 343, at which a great number of eastern
bishops were present. Whereupon the pope declared the accused bishops
innocent, restored them to their sees, and severely censured those
who had concurred in the sentence of deposition against Athanasius
and the other bishops. Let it be understood that the Arian bishops,
too, on their part, had appealed to the same pope. The action taken
by the Pontiff Julius in this grave affair is designated by the
historian Socrates[85] as a "prerogative of the Roman Church." In
like manner, Pelagius appealed to Pope Innocent I.; Nestorius, to
Pope Celestine, to whom St. Cyril of Alexandria had already reported.

Caelestius, a disciple of Pelagius, already condemned by the Synod
of Carthage, invoked the arbitration of Pope Zosimus;[86] Eutyches,
having been excluded from the communion of the church by Flavian,
Patriarch of Constantinople, appeals to Pope St. Leo, who in his turn
calls upon Flavian to give an account, which the latter does without
delay. The correspondence between Leo and Flavian on this point shows
the falsehood of _Janus's_ assertion, that the "fathers had given the
see of Rome the privilege of final decision in appeals," (p. 66,)
and that the "bishops of Rome could exclude neither individuals nor
churches from the communion of the church universal." Who does not
know the remarkable words of St. Augustine, when Pelagius had been
condemned by the synods of Milevis and Carthage in 416, and still
persisted to hold communion with the church? Pope Innocent ratified
the decrees of the synods, and the illustrious champion against
Pelagianism exclaims,

    "Two councils have already been sent to the apostolic see;
    thence answer has been received; the case is terminated; may
    the error too be ended."[87]

Vain, too, is the attempt of our authors to give dark colors to
the transactions between the fathers of the Council of Chalcedon
and Pope St. Leo I. (P. 67.) Let us see what the fathers of this
council say to the pope, when they request him to sanction that
_famous_ twenty-eighth canon, which the legates of Leo had refused
to sanction. They say, "Knowing that your holiness hearing (what has
been decreed) will approve and confirm this synod and close their
petition thus,

    "We therefore pray that by thy decrees thou wilt honor our
    judgment, and we having in all things meet manifested our
    accordance with the head, so also may thy highness fulfil what
    is just. (~outo kai he koryphe tois paisin anaplerosai to
    prepon.~)"[88]

Leo I. did not sanction this twenty-eighth canon, for the very reason
that it implied, though in equivocal terms, that Rome obtained the
primacy on account of its political dignity.

Nor is it true that the fathers by this canon claimed "equal rights"
for the see of Constantinople; but merely _patriarchal_ rights and
exemption from subordination to Alexandria and Antioch, as the
sixth Nicene canon had ordained. Pope Leo I. in his letter[89] to
the Emperor Marcian affirmed that Constantinople was indeed an
"imperial," but no "apostolic city." Compare this with the words of
_Janus_, "But when Leo had to deal with Byzantium and the east, he
no longer dared to plead this argument." Anatolius, Patriarch of
Constantinople at that period, previous to the Council of Chalcedon
was obliged to hold a synod in the presence of the papal legates,
in which Leo's letter to Flavian was read and signed, and Eutyches
sentenced and deposed. Even at the Council of Ephesus, in 431, St.
Cyril presided as plenipotentiary of Pope Celestine, who, upon a
report sent him by St. Cyril, had condemned the Nestorian errors
in a synod held at Rome in 430, and summoned Nestorius to retract
within ten days under pain of excommunication. How trivial, then, and
calculated to confuse the reader, must this remark of _Janus_ seem,
"At the two councils of Ephesus others presided." It is a well-known
fact that the papal legates at the Council of Chalcedon declared that
it was a high misdemeanor of the second assembly of Ephesus, in 449,
and a crime in Dioscorus of Alexandria, that it was presumed to hold
a general council without the authority of the apostolic see; and
Dioscorus was accordingly deposed.

The Council of Chalcedon was not convoked before Pulcheria and
Marcian had requested and obtained the consent of Pope Leo I., and at
its termination the fathers said in their letter to the pope that he
had presided over them by his legates as the "head over the members;"
and that the emperor had been present for the maintenance of decorum.

Why, then, allege such examples as the despotic actions of
Constantius, against whom such great and distinguished bishops as
St. Athanasius, St. Hilary of Poitiers, and Lucifer, raised their
pastoral voice, when this same emperor so harassed the bishops at
Rimini and Seleucia in 359, aided by the cunning of Ursacius and
Valens, that they subscribed to an ambiguous but not heretical
formulary. Wherefore, St. Jerome exclaims, "Ingemuit totus orbis
et Arianum se esse miratus est." The purpose of _Janus_ in placing
these assemblies among other councils universally regarded as
oecumenical, appears, to say the least, suspicious! (P. 354, and
Translator's Notice.)

We might yet quote many examples to exhibit what must be styled
_gross misrepresentation_ and _falsification_ of history on the part
of _Janus_, when he thus plainly states that the popes were never
_consulted_ when councils were convoked, nor _allowed_ to preside,
_personally_ or by _deputy_--and "it is clear that the popes did
not claim this as their exclusive right," (p. 63.) If any thing
were wanting to corroborate our argument, we need but allude to the
declaration of the Patriarch Mennas of Constantinople, and many
other eastern bishops. When the Emperor Justinian would continue the
council which was convoked with the express consent of Pope Vigilius,
who withdrew his permission after the emperor issued an edict on
the _three articles, (tria capitula,)_ the pope fled to Chalcedon,
whence he directed a letter to the whole church,[90] giving an
account of the deplorable state of things, adding that he had deposed
the haughty bishop, Theodorus of Caesarea, and suspended Mennas of
Constantinople, with the bishops who took his part. The declaration
made by Mennas and other bishops, professing their entire submission,
affords a most striking example of the supreme authority of the
apostolic see in the midst of such turmoil and religious disputes,
the pope being an exile and the bishops enjoying the protection of
the emperor; and hence not a vestige of coercion in their unqualified
declaration, which we may be pardoned for subjoining here. It is as
follows,

    "Following the apostolic doctrine, and anxious to maintain
    ecclesiastical unity, we are about to frame the present
    declaration,[91] We receive and acknowledge the four holy
    synods, ... and all other things that were decreed and written
    in these same synods by common consent with the legates and
    representatives of the apostolic see, not only in matters of
    faith, but every thing that was so defined and enacted in all
    other causes, judgments, constitutions, and ordinances we
    promise hereby faithfully and inviolably to observe."[92]

A circumstance which gives greater weight to this whole exposition
is, that these councils were chiefly attended by eastern bishops,
among them the patriarchs of Constantinople; and that the
Roman pontiffs, though not personally present, still by their
representatives, who were not all bishops, exercised such high
prerogatives. The emperors themselves recognized these rights of the
see of Rome both by their laws and public acts.[93]

We have been rather prolix, and have carried our examination further
than we intended; but it seemed necessary to sustain our charges
against _Janus_ and his admirers by various and most unexceptionable
authorities from history, and the canons of the early councils. The
supremacy of the Bishop of Rome in _teaching_ and _governing_ the
universal church, could not be exhibited in a more resplendent light
than in connection with general councils, those grand assemblies
of the hierarchy of the church. Nothing, therefore, was better
calculated than the futile essays of the anonymous authors of _Janus_
to depreciate and obliterate, if possible, these prerogatives of the
Roman pontiffs in connection with oecumenical councils, in order
to lay the foundation of their hypothesis, that since the ninth
century papal usurpation and ambition held high sway in the church,
"hindering and decomposing the action of its vital powers." How far
_Janus_ has succeeded in finding such a _basis_ for _his edifice_ in
history and in ancient canonical collections, how far his statements
are supported by "_reference_ to _original authorities_," the candid
and judicious reader of church history will have been able to
decide. If _Janus_ asks the verdict of history for _his_ "Ancient
Constitution of the Church," that verdict cries aloud against such a
miserable caricature, and his appeal to past tradition is an appeal
to ignorance or wilful prejudice. We have impeached his orthodoxy on
points of the very first importance, and in vain do we look for those
"original authorities" which should verify his hypothesis of the
"ancient church."

Before summing up our arguments on this head, we will be allowed to
point out another serious and most pernicious error of _Janus_. He
says,

    "The force and authority of the decisions of councils depended
    on the consent of the church, and on the fact of being
    generally received." (Pp. 63, 64.)

Yet we must examine what is meant by this consent of the church; here
is his theory:

    "When a council passes sentence on doctrine, it thereby gives
    testimony to its truth. The bishops attest, each for his own
    portion of the church, that a certain defined doctrine has
    hitherto been taught and believed there; or they bear witness
    that the doctrines hitherto believed, involve, as their
    necessary consequence, some truth which may not yet have been
    expressly formalized. As to whether this testimony has been
    rightly given, whether freedom and unbiassed truthfulness
    have prevailed among the assembled bishops--on that point the
    church herself is the ultimate judge, by her _acceptance_ or
    _rejection_ of the council or its decisions." (P. 334.)

What a precious theory indeed of our authors! The teaching body
in the church, or the hierarchy, are _mere_ witnesses in giving
testimony to the truth. But this testimony may ultimately be
rejected; for whether such a testimony has been rightly rendered
or not, is left to the decision of the church--consisting of the
clergy and _laity_. Whence by a rigid conclusion it follows that the
_highest tribunal_ of "acceptance or rejection" of the decisions of a
general council, is with the great mass of the faithful or "thinkers
among believing Christians." In view of such plain propositions,
we should like to be informed how inerrancy or infallibility can
be attributed to an oecumenical council? We may then select any
council and doubt, as _thinking Christians_, "whether freedom and
unbiassed truthfulness have prevailed among the assembled bishops."
All certainty is excluded by such a theory, where the decisions of a
general council are only binding when accepted by the church outside
of the council. This is nothing less than a complete negation of
traditional and sound Catholic doctrine--it is simply proclaiming
the broad Protestant dogma which grants the widest scope to the
private judgment of the individual. In one direction have the authors
of _Janus_ been consistent; for they purpose by their labors "to
contribute to the awakening and direction of public opinion," which
is the tribunal charged by _Janus_ to reject in advance the decrees
of this council. (P. 345.) He himself makes an extensive use of this
great privilege; for, according to him, since the ninth century
there were no truly oecumenical councils; the whole church has
been forced and cajoled into giving a wrong testimony. All councils
since the period just named have proclaimed the views and tenets of
a party as the constant belief of all Catholic Christendom. Such an
issue _Janus_ would fain declare impossible. Alas! for his beautiful
theory, destroying with one hand what he would build up with the
other.

    "The church in its totality is secured against false doctrine."

There is precisely the dilemma in which _Janus_ has involved himself.
The whole work from beginning to end is intended to show that the
church has sunk into a labyrinth of errors, that she has radically
changed her ancient and divine constitution, that her centre of unity
has become disfigured and sickly, that her vital powers are in a
state of decomposition. Does all this not imply false doctrine? Has
the church not thereby fallen away from Christ and the apostles?
Perhaps _Janus_ will say that it is only the _hierarchy_ that
_erred_, not the "thinkers among believing Christians," himself, of
course, among the latter.

Well may we inquire of _Janus_ and his _admirers_, What has become of
the promises made to the church by her divine Founder? Where is that
spirit of truth to guide her through her pastors, the bishops united
with the supreme Head? Where is that firm rock against which the
gates of hell shall not prevail?

These questions are so intimately connected with the whole divinely
reared edifice of the church of Christ, that to deny what the
authors of _Janus_ have done is heresy in its worst form, as much as
Arianism, Pelagianism, or Nestorianism. We cannot withhold from our
readers the appreciation of a candid and thoughtful outsider on the
position _Janus_ has followed throughout his work:

    "If the liberal Catholicism of _Janus_ and his friends is
    an infallible system, it is an infallible system which has
    succumbed at once to a false pretence of infallibility on
    one side and an openly-admitted fallibility on the other.
    Now, infallibility which is beaten for centuries, _both_ by
    a sham infallibility _and_ by admitted incapacity for true
    infallibility, is infallibility of a very novel kind, very
    difficult to imagine. It looks, at first glance, very like a
    rather specially fallible kind of fallibility with a taste
    for calling itself grand names. If _Janus_ and his friends
    are right, no paradox of the Christian faith is half as great
    as theirs, which maintains that the true infallibility of the
    church has not only lain _perdu_ for centuries, but has been
    impersonated by a growth of falsehood without any interposition
    on the part of the divine source of infallibility. That, we
    confess--with all our respect for the wish of _Janus_ to
    enter a protest on behalf of liberty and civilization--we do
    find a hypothesis somewhat hard even to listen to. A dumb
    infallibility that cannot find its voice for centuries, even
    to contradict the potent and ostentatious error that takes its
    name in vain--is that the sort of divine authority to which
    human reason will willingly go into captivity? But we might
    sympathize with the authors of _Janus_, in spite of their
    utterly untenable intellectual position, if they seemed to us
    to have any clear advantage in moral earnestness and simplicity
    over their opponents. But, while there is a certain school
    of ultramontanes that simply and profoundly believes in the
    infallibility of the pope, in spite of all the critical and
    historical difficulties which the liberals ably parade and
    sometimes even overstate, we find it hard to believe that the
    latter believe cordially in any church infallibility at all."
    (Quoted by the _Dublin Review_, January, from the _Spectator_,
    November 6, 1869.)

    TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[62] See _Dublin Review_ for January.

[63] Rev. Dr. Scheeben in his pamphlet. Part iii.

[64] The _negative account_ given in pp. 63-69 as the "ancient
constitution of the church" takes nothing from our argument.

[65] London edition, 1840, vol. ii. pp. 204, 220.

[66] H. E. v. 24, 25.

[67] H. E. v. 22.

[68] Haeret. fab., ii. 8, edit. Mansi, tom. i. p. 1003 sqq.

[69] Adv. Prax. i.

[70] Epiph. Haeres. 42.

[71] Socrat. H. E. ii. 15.

[72] See Philipps's _Compend. of Can. Law_, vol. i. p. 45.

[73] Galland, Bibl. t. viii. p. 569 sq.

[74] See Ballerini, De Antiq. Collect. and Biblioth. Juris-Can. tom.
ii.

[75] Died 536 A.D.

[76] Migne, Patrol. tom. 84, gives this collection.

[77] Denziger's Enchiridion, p. 29.

[78] See Denziger, p. 47.

[79] In the _Augsburg Gazette_, and in a separate pamphlet since
issued.

[80] See Doellinger's _History of the Church_, vol. ii. sect. iii. p.
221.

[81] Denzig. Enchir. p. 48.

[82] Athanas. Apol. ad Constant. n. 31. Le Quien, Oriens Christian.
tom. ii. p. 642.

[83] Vol. ii. pp. 29, 35 sq.

[84] H. E. 8. edit. Vales. tom. ii. p. 70, ch. 415.

[85] H. E. ii. 15.

[86] Cael. Symbol. ad Zosim. Mansi, tom. iv. pp. 325, 370.

[87] August. Serm. 132, n. 10.

[88] Ep. ad. Leon. 98, c. i. iv. Ball. edit. Harduin, tom. ii. pp.
655-660.

[89] Ep. 104, ad. Marc. c. iii.

[90] (Vigil. Epist. ad Univ. Eccles. apud Mansi, tom. ix. pp. 50-61.)

[91] Or petition, _libellus_.

[92] Mansi, tom. ix. p. 62.

[93] See Doelling. Ch. H. vol. ii. pp. 204, 205.




TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF THE REVUE DU MONDE CATHOLIQUE.

THE LITTLE WOODEN SHOE.


Jacques was a fisherman--a lucky one too. He had a little house,
all his own, and, in it Jeanne who had been for seven years his
wife, and Ange, the jolliest little scamp that ever romped about a
fisherman's cottage. But these are not all his treasures. He has,
besides, a store of nets and a boat called the Fine-Anguille. The sea
was never yet too rough for either. For it never stormed until the
Fine-Anguille had come with her crew, snug and dry, to her mooring.
The captain of this frigate was Jacques; the mate--and what a mate he
was!--was Fanor, a Newfoundland, peer and prince of all dogs. Every
body knew the Fine-Anguille. Every body knew Fanor. And well it was
for many of them that they did. They had made his acquaintance under
memorable circumstances. For, when Fanor looked from his kennel at
night along the dark coast, he could see the glow of many a fireside
which would have long been dark and cheerless if he had not rescued
from the waves the strong arms that earned its fuel. Many a mother
felt something queer in her throat and in the corners of her eyes
when she saw the great shaggy brute, and thought of a certain little
head that might long ago have been pillowed in the sea-weeds.

But when the feast of our Lady of Larmor came, ah! then Fanor was in
his glory. Did he walk in the procession? Of course he did! Did he
not know what was the proper thing for a respectable dog to do and
where his right place was, after the banners? "Ah!" said Jacques,
"he's a Christian. He's no dog; he is almost a man."

After Jacques, and Fine-Anguille, and the sea, Ange was the dearest
friend of this dog. Fanor paid the most delicate attentions to this
little fellow. He kept back his strength and refrained from those
boisterous leaps; he gave Ange a thousand tender caresses with his
great cold nose and with his paw; and, when he licked his hands,
he scarcely moistened them. It was plain that he was in love with
this baby. And as for Jeanne, she loved nothing in the world besides
Jacques and Ange and the dog.

For you and me, and the thoughtless or busy world, what a grand sight
to watch the sea in September! so deep, so dark, it falls and rises
with ever-increasing majesty. There is a menace in its ceaseless
roll, its beauty is terribly grand, and from the shore we admire
its strength and its immensity. But how differently it appears to
the poor fisher's wife! For her there is nothing to admire in the
ocean. For her it is only a source of anxiety and dread. How gloomy
to her is the evening as it settles over this ever-tossing plain;
how her heart starts at the vague threats of the wind! This blue and
white-crested mass is perhaps a shroud. Is there no moaning save that
which the listless water makes? And, when the horizon lowers, is the
wild call of the sea-bird the only strange cry that can be heard?
And, as the wind sweeps from the stormy offing, we perhaps think it
beautiful. But to the fisher's wife it is dreadful. She fears for him
who toils in the abyss. What can a little shell like Fine-Anguille
and a man and a dog do against the ocean?

We may say, "How beautiful!" But she cries, "Holy Virgin! the sea is
too high! Sweet Jesus! it blows too, too hard."

One day Jeanne was with Ange on the beach and Jacques was preparing
Fine-Anguille for fishing. Jeanne sat, knitting, by the water's side.
Ange had kicked off one of his little wooden shoes, and with his
rosy little foot was playing in the water. He laughed, he shouted,
he splashed the little waves that ran softly upon the sand. Ah! what
grand fun he was having.

It was evening. The setting sun bathed the entire coast in purple,
and the water, still and peaceful, reflected this scene of splendor.

Ange had tied a string to his little shoe and had thrown it out on
the water.

"Mamma," said he, "look! see my Fine-Anguille! In a minute I am going
to make a storm."

And he splashed away with his bare foot.

The little shoe tossed from one side to another; finally it filled
with water. Jeanne looked up and said. "Naughty boy! put on your
shoe. Quick!"

Just then, somebody touched her shoulder. It was a stranger, from
Paris, perhaps. This seemed probable from the haughty air, which
people from the city always have, and also from his cold, harsh look
and his pale countenance.

Jeanne was frightened.

"I want a boat," said this strange person, "to go out into the
offing." Jacques approached. "If you like, sir, I am ready. Here,
Fanor!"

"What! take that brute along with us? Horrid cur! He is filthy and
smells of old fish. I can't bear him for a companion."

"I will not go without my dog," said Jacques.

"Come!" said the stranger, "this beast is of no use. I will give you
a louis to leave the dog." Jacque looked at his wife hesitatingly.
Jeanne was pale. The stranger tossed the louis in his hand.

Just then Ange cried, "My shoe has gone to the bottom!" And Jeanne
said, "Don't go without the dog."

Soon the Fine-Anguille left the shore, and, breaking through the rosy
water, disappeared in the distance, like a faint cloud.

Jeanne turned again toward the house, carrying her child, whose
little foot hung bare over her dress.

When she reached the heights, she turned to scan the horizon. She saw
a thick gray band stretched along it. Seized with anxious foreboding,
she paused.

"Will it be fair?" she asked of Father Lucas, the cow-herd. "What
sort of a night will they have over by the Thunder Rocks and the
White Mare, and in the offing?"

Father Lucas, in turn, scanned the horizon. "Fine-Anguille is a good
sea boat!" said he; and passed on with his cows.

"It is the wind!" thought Jeanne, as Ange by an unconscious movement
covered his foot with her apron. "It is the wind! God be merciful to
us!" Then she entered the house.

At ten o'clock gusts began to blow. The waves moaned piteously.
Jeanne could not sleep. But neither the moaning of wind nor wave
could disturb Ange as he lay wrapped snugly in his cradle. His mother
struck a light. One is not so much frightened when one can see
clearly. Then it seems as if one could do any thing; but what can one
do against the wind?

"The wind! O my God! the wind," cried Jeanne. "But, at any rate,
Fanor is with him!"

Then, as every thing creaked and moaned around her, she fell into a
light slumber. She saw the great sea with its frightful gulfs, its
white yawning mouth and threatening rocks, and its deceitful shoals.
She saw her child on the beach, splashing the water with his naked
foot. She saw the little wooden shoe which had been ship-wrecked.
Then she heard the voice of Ange murmuring, "I'll make a storm!"

Jeanne trembled.

Then, as the roof of the cottage moved and creaked, she remembered
how the waves had entered the little shoe.

All at once she rose up and took Ange, fast asleep, in her arms. She
threw her cape over her shoulders. It was raining hard and the wind
blew strongly. She lit a lantern; a sudden gust put it out, and she
was left in the black darkness. But the surf made so much noise that
it served as a guide. She reached the beach in safety.

"Ange! O Ange! if Fine-Anguille has perished!"

The belfry of Larmor stood black in the sombre night, and the sea
dashed its white foam at the very steps of the church.

Jeanne seated herself on the damp sill, and, wrapping Ange in her
cloak, waited with longing eyes, counting every wave.

Slowly the day broke, and the storm abated as the sun rose. It
shone first on the fortress of Port-Louis, then along the rest of
the coast; and Jeanne saw the little wooden shoe broken among the
pebbles--"Broken! and yet so light! It ought to have floated!"

Then Jeanne saw the Fine-Anguille. Her sail was rent and tattered.
Her broken mast hung half in the water. All that could be hoped was
that she might come in with the tide, and that Jacques would be able
to avoid the rocks. Perhaps they still preserved their oars! As she
listened, she thought she heard them striking on the row-locks;
but no, it was the wind. The broken mast might still serve to hold
them off the rocks. Already she could hear Fanor's voice. But on
the heaving plain her glance could barely follow the little craft.
Finally, as a sudden gust blew afresh, it disappeared altogether.

Jeanne closed her eyes. And, when they reopened, Jacques and Fanor
were beside her. Jacques was pale; Fanor with red, distended
nostrils, and panting, shook the water from his shaggy coat.

"Wife," said Jacques, "we have been very unlucky! We beat all
night against the wind. I wished to come in last evening after we
had doubled the citadel; I knew it would blow. But that fool of a
Parisian would see the offing! He is dead now. God have mercy on
him! I have never worked so hard in all my life! To lighten the boat
he wanted to drown Fanor. And when he saw the breakers, he would
jump overboard to swim. Fanor went after him and brought him to the
gunwale; and, while I was lending him a hand, puff! we were all in
the water together. Holy Mother! how I did lay about me. I caught a
plank. 'Hold on, Fanor!' said I. But Fanor had left the stranger and
had seized me by the collar. And so I made the shore. O the brave
beast! he's no dog; he is almost a man!"

"And Fine-Anguille?" said Jeanne.

"She will come in with the tide. She is as light as a wooden shoe."




CARDINAL POLE.


Cardinal Pole was a representative man. As Archbishop of Canterbury
he stands in direct contrast to Cranmer. Each of these primates
was at the head of a host during a period of mortal conflict. They
led respectively the forces of the old and of the new faith. Pole
represented the Catholics of England, especially the wiser and better
part of them. Cranmer was one of the feeblest and worst specimens of
the reformers. He had not even the unenviable merit of being true
to his own principles. He could not stand the shock of battle, and
though a standard-bearer, he surrendered his colors in the hope of
saving his life. Pole, on the contrary, suffered persecution for
righteousness' sake, and the cruel fate of his mother and his near
relatives warned him but too plainly of the end that awaited him
if he should ever come within reach of the tyrant. Let us trace
his history, though but in outline; for we shall find it full of
interesting matter, food for reflection, and lessons of piety.
There are many men of less importance and less merit whose lives
are better known than his. One who enjoyed his friendship during
many years--Ludovico Beccatelli, Archbishop of Ragusa--has left us a
record of his acts, and painted his character with a faithful hand.
To him principally, and to Cardinal Pole's own writings, we are
indebted for what we have learned respecting him; for though much is
to be found on the subject of his career in the pages of Lingard,
Strype, Flanagan, Hume, Strickland, and Froude, it is to those higher
sources especially, together with the state papers of the time, that
every one must remount who would obtain reliable information.

It was when Henry VII. had passed the middle of his reign, and
Alexander VI. filled the papal chair, that Reginald Pole was born
at Stowerton Castle in Staffordshire. His father was Sir Richard
Pole, (afterward Lord Montacute, or Montague,) a Welsh knight, and
his mother was Mary, Countess of Salisbury, daughter of that Duke of
Clarence whom Edward IV. drowned in a butt of Malmsey. He was the
cousin also of Elizabeth, Queen of Henry VII. and mother of Henry
VIII. He had thus all the advantages which people attach to high
descent, and no pains were spared to give him an education suited to
his rank and prospects. The monasteries were then schools for the
instruction of boys of good family, and to one of these Reginald was
sent when a child. It was the Carthusian monastery at Shene, from
whence he was removed in time to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he
laid the foundation of his future learning, and was taught by the
celebrated Linacre, the preceptor of Prince Arthur, and physician to
Henry VIII. and the Princess Mary.[94] His education was carried on
at the cost of Henry; for which reason he often in after life spoke
of the king with gratitude. He was but a boy when he obtained his
degree of B.A., and might (like Wolsey, who graduated at Oxford when
fourteen years old) have been called the "Boy Bachelor." He was also
admitted very early into deacons' orders; at seventeen he was made
Prebendary of Salisbury; and at nineteen Dean of Wimborne and Exeter.

The reformation had not yet broken out. England was ruled without a
parliament by the all-powerful minister Cardinal Wolsey; and Henry
VIII., who had in 1513, when Pole was at Oxford, won the battle of
the Spurs and taken Tournay, appeared for a moment as a competitor
for the imperial crown on the death of Maximilian. It was part of
his good pleasure that Reginald Pole should be highly educated, and
accordingly about the year 1520, when the youth was twenty years old,
he caused him to repair to the University of Padua to complete his
studies. Reginald resided in that seat of learning in great splendor.
A numerous retinue attended him, and he enjoyed the society and
esteem of many eminent persons, such as Bembo[95] and Sadolet.[96]
His morals were pure, his manners graceful, and his amiability made
him much beloved.

After five years of university life, he returned to England, and was
received by Henry with many marks of royal favor. But he shunned
the splendors and seductions of the court, and retired to a house
that had belonged to Dean Colet within the Carthusian monastery
at Shene. Henry's erratic career had begun; and he was seeking to
obtain a divorce from his faithful and virtuous wife, Catharine of
Aragon. Reginald earnestly desired to escape the complications that
were likely to ensue. He knew that a storm was gathering; and after
two years of retirement at Shene, he obtained Henry's permission to
pursue his studies at the University of Paris.[97] He was not yet
priests' orders, neither had he taken monastic vows. For this a
curious reason was assigned.

All the contemporaries of Queen Catharine affirm that she earnestly
desired a union in marriage between her daughter, the Princess Mary
and Reginald Pole. His mother, the Countess of Salisbury, had always
resided with Mary, and the biographers of Pole with one voice declare
that Mary had regarded him with favor from earliest childhood. We
ought not, however, to lay too much stress on this fact, since the
disparity of their ages was too great to admit of their being lovers
at an early period of life. Reginald was sixteen years older than
Mary, yet it is not surprising that, when her proposed marriage with
the Emperor of Germany was broken off, and Reginald, having returned
to England, appeared at court in his twenty-fifth year conspicuous
for the culture of his mind and the beauty of his person, the queen
should wish to see him become the husband of her child. He was of
royal blood, and very nearly resembled his ancestor Edward III. and
his great-uncle Edward IV. His portrait was taken by Michael Angelo
for that of the Saviour of men in the grand painting of the Raising
of Lazarus. He revived, therefore, in his carriage and features the
memory of the heroic Plantagenets from whom he descended. Already
renowned for learning, and with a mind enriched with travel and
residence in foreign lands, he had frequent opportunities of seeing
the lovely Mary who would probably one day be Queen of England.
Lady Salisbury still lived with her, and she was both her relative
and friend. The princess showed great partiality for the noble and
accomplished Reginald; and at a much later period a marriage was
proposed between them as a matter of state convenience, but without
its being very long or seriously entertained.[98]

Reginald was not suffered to remain long in peace at the University
of Paris. An order arrived requiring him to procure opinions
favorable to the divorce, in concert with Langet, the brother of the
Bishop of Bayonne. The task was ungrateful to him, full of danger,
and hardly to be executed with a clear conscience. He resigned it
to his colleague, and was soon recalled. He might have succeeded
Wolsey in the see of York, and possibly Warham in that of Canterbury,
had he been willing to pander to the vicious inclinations of his
royal master. He wavered, indeed, for a moment, and fancied he had
found an expedient by which he might satisfy Henry without wounding
his own conscience. He repaired to Whitehall Palace, and there, in
the stately gallery, he stood before the anti-christian king. He
loved that king in spite of his wickedness; for he owed to him his
education, together with many dignities and splendors. He loved
him too well to deceive him. The truth could not be suppressed.
It wrought within him like a pent-up fire. His feelings overcame
him, and he burst into tears. It was enough to stir the king's
displeasure. It revealed the secret workings of Reginald's mind. The
divorce would be a crime--a horrible crime. The reasons assigned in
its favor were flimsy deceits. The helpless queen and her daughter
would be victims moving all hearts to pity. Henry frowned, and his
hand often sought the dagger's hilt; but though Reginald wept,
it was not likely a Plantagenet should fear. Upon quitting the
gallery, Reginald was loaded with the bitterest reproaches by his
brothers, and especially by Lord Montague. He was induced to write
to the king. He explained his motives in language equally firm
and temperate; and Henry, into whom the demons had not yet fully
entered, took the letter, or professed to take it, in good part. He
declared that he loved Pole in spite of his obstinacy, and that, if
his opinion were only favorable to the divorce, he should love him
more than any man in the kingdom. History has taught us how much
his love was worth; for his embraces were sure pledges of ruin and
destruction. He did not, however, withdraw Reginald's pension of five
hundred crowns, but allowed him to leave England again.

Having emphatically declared his dissent from the resolutions of
parliament and convocation, Pole found his position more and more
uneasy. He turned his face again to the south, and in 1532 took up
his residence for a time at Avignon. During his absence the fatal
divorce was completed, and the doom of England as a Catholic country
was sealed. The thought of returning to it became distasteful; and
he retired to the monastery of Carpentras, and subsequently to his
old quarters at Padua. His leave of absence was extended. He was
enabled to visit Venice. His pension was duly paid; he received the
revenues of the deanery of Exeter, and was specially exempted from
the obligation of swearing allegiance to the children of Anne Boleyn.
So far forbearance was shown toward him, and he was not insensible to
the indulgence. He always in after life retained the same feelings,
and even his bitterest invectives were softened with notes of love.

In the year 1535, when he was in his thirty-fifth year, (for, being
born in 1500, his years run with the century,) Pole was requested to
send in his opinion on the authority claimed in England by the see
of Rome. A similar request was made to all other English noblemen and
gentlemen; for Henry in his worst deeds endeavored to fortify himself
by public opinion; and when doctors at the universities resisted his
will, he overcame their scruples by the help of menacing letters.[99]
Mr. Starkey, a personal acquaintance, was commissioned to correspond
with Pole, and he advised him to avoid his previous errors. He was
to say distinctly and honestly whether he approved the divorce and
the separation from Rome--whether they were, in his opinion, right
or wrong in the abstract, and not whether they might be defended on
grounds of expediency. He insisted the more on this distinction,
because, as we have seen, when Pole was first consulted by Henry
about the separation from Catharine, he had hesitated, requested time
for consideration, and tried to discover reasons for complying with
his sovereign's wishes.

But years had passed since that trying occasion. The germs of evils
had rapidly developed. Henry's character had unfolded; Pole's had
matured. Their divergence had become antagonism; and Pole was in no
way disposed to let the opportunity now afforded him escape. It was
the time to write what contemporaries widely scattered, and even
posterity, might read. Brief answers to brief questions would do
for the king; but a volume would do better for Rome, the courts of
Europe, the people of England, and the angry glances of the lawless
prince himself. He intended it, no doubt, for Henry's perusal in the
first instance; but he could hardly doubt that what he might speak in
secret chambers would be proclaimed from the house-tops. He showed
the manuscript in parts to Cardinal Contarini. The language was
impassioned and almost violent. The cardinal advised discretion, and
ended by protesting against what he considered fruitless invective.
To this Reginald replied that he knew the king's character well. He
had been too much flattered. No one had durst tell him the truth.
He could not be moved by gentleness. His eyes ought to be opened by
the plainest speaking, and the censures of the church ought long
ago to have fallen upon him. It was not for his sake only that Pole
wrote; he had the welfare of the flock of Christ in his heart. He was
determined to expose the matter fully, that king and people might be
thoroughly warned.

In the mean time the emperor's designs on England were abandoned; and
the quarrel between him and Henry seemed likely to be brought to a
peaceful issue. Thus one hope which Pole entertained of seeing divine
judgments fall on the king of England was blighted. Yet his book must
be completed. The king must have the first reading of it. He would
not even submit it to Pope Paul III. through Cardinal Contarini.
Perhaps he feared that his holiness would think it ill-timed or
intemperate. We certainly find him lamenting that the pope did not
convince the emperor how much more blessed it would be to fight with
Henry than with the Turks--to be the champion of the Christian faith
in Europe, and drive back the fearful encroachments of heresy.[100]

At length, in May, 1536, Pole's _De Unitate Ecclesiae_, was completed.
His ardent disposition and his indignant piety found vent in this
composition, and it rolled along like a river swollen by rains. The
very passages in it which Mr. Froude holds up to reprobation and
scorn are those which Catholics in general will regard with the most
pleasure; they will strike upon their ears as the voice of one crying
in the wilderness, and denouncing in just and measured terms the
crimes of a royal heresiarch. It will appear to them instinct with
affection rather than hatred. "I will cry in your ears," he says,
"as in the ears of a dead man--dead in your sins. I love you--wicked
as you are, I love you. I hope for you, and may God hear my prayer.
I should be a traitor did I conceal from you the truth. I owe my
learning to your care." He draws a hideous picture of Henry's guilt
and presumption, and then proceeds to dissect a book which Henry
had sent him on the supremacy by Dr. Sampson, Bishop of Chichester.
He inveighs against the abuse which Henry made of his regal power,
maintaining that the king exists for the people, not the people for
the king. He makes the people the source of kingly power; and his
words, _populus regem procreat_, "the people make the king," involve
a distinct denial of

    "The right divine of kings to govern wrong."

He subordinates the regal office to that of the priest, and
in language singularly modern, he asserts that sovereigns are
responsible to their people, and that Henry, by breaking his
coronation oath, has forfeited his right to the crown, and justified
the rebellion of his subjects.

The third and most important section follows. It is addressed to
Henry VIII., to England, to the emperor, and to the Spanish army. He
accuses the king of intriguing with Mary Boleyn before his marriage
with Anne, and brands the "supreme head of the church" as the "vilest
of plunderers, a thief, and a robber." He relates in forcible
language the story of the martyrdom of Sir Thomas More, Bishop
Fisher, and the Charterhouse monks. He calls on England loudly to
rebel.

    "O my country!" he says, "if any memory remains to you of your
    ancient liberties, remember--remember the time when kings who
    ruled over you unjustly were called to account by the authority
    of your laws. They tell you that all is the king's. I tell you
    that all is the commonwealth's. You my country, are all. The
    king is but your servant and minister."

No trumpet of revolt could blow louder, yet Pole did not stop even
here. He proclaimed his intention of exciting the Emperor Charles to
invade England, and to assemble under his banner all those English
who remained true to God and his holy church. This part of the
treatise, when printed, was circulated as a pamphlet in the German
States. It protested that Pole acted in the love of his country, and
"in that love of the church which was given him by the Son of God."
The Spaniards above all men were bound in his view to vindicate the
honor of the noble daughter of Isabella of Castile, whom Henry had
divorced. The king of France, he believed, would make peace with the
emperor, and at the pope's bidding undertake the chastisement of the
towering enemy of God and man.

But the address is not all rebuke and menace; the tones of wrath
melt into tenderness at the last, and die away in exhortation to
repentance and promises of mercy. It effected little. Catharine
of Aragon died in Kimbolton Castle in the same year in which it
came to hand, and Anne Boleyn, four months later, passed from the
bridal-chamber to the scaffold. Henry had broken for ever with the
holy see, and England, torn from the centre of unity, sank and
wandered in an abyss. The book was sent to England from Venice on
the 27th of May, 1536. It was accompanied by two letters, one to
the king, the other to Tunstall, Bishop of Durham. The bishop was to
read for the king what was intended for his majesty only. By which
we must understand that, if the treatise produced the desired effect
on Henry's mind, it would be considered as a secret communication;
but if it failed, the author would then be at liberty to publish
it to the world. It is not certain that Henry ever read it. He
heard reports of it, however, from Tunstall and Starkey, and made
no mystery of his displeasure to those around him. To Pole himself
he wrote briefly, requiring him to return to England and explain
his ideas more fully. Starkey and Tunstall wrote also, pointing out
Reginald's presumption, which, they said, if persevered in would
become a crime, and urging him to return to England, and seek the
king's pardon. Pole was far too astute to obey this summons. Other
letters were addressed to him, and finding that he would not venture
on the English shore, Henry's agents tried to persuade him not to
publish the work, and to give up or burn any copies of it which he
might have retained. But this request was as fruitless as the former.
Pole continued for a time to receive his pension, and his book,
the effects of which were likely to be formidable, was reserved in
manuscript till a fitting occasion for publishing it should arise.

Being an English subject, in the enjoyment of certain emoluments and
dignities, Reginald Pole was not altogether free in his movements
abroad. He could not accept an invitation from the pope to visit him
at Rome without first obtaining Henry's permission, or without, at
least, expressing a hope that his majesty would not be offended if
he repaired to the eternal city. Henry did not deign to reply, but
he induced Reginald's mother and brothers, Cromwell, and his friends
at home, together with some members of both houses of parliament,
to endeavor to deter him from the journey and from accepting any
office that might be offered him in Rome. For a time, therefore, he
resisted the importunities of his friend Contarini, and declined
the purple held out to him by Pope Paul III.; for he knew that in
accepting it he should make the king his implacable enemy and expose
his family to cruel persecution. But other circumstances arose,
which made the cardinalate appear desirable; and he accepted it
about Christmas, 1536,[101] and trusted that it might in the issue
aid him in accomplishing the main purpose of his life. That purpose
was the recovery of England, in part at least, if not entirely, to
the Catholic faith. The rising in England which he had predicted
had taken place. The suppression of the monasteries had filled the
faithful in the north with indignation, and from the Wash to the
borders of Scotland the people in general flew to arms. They bore
on their standards the emblems of faith, and the image of Christ
crucified was carried in their front. The revolt was styled the
"Pilgrimage of Grace," and its object was not the overthrow of
the throne or the sovereign, but the removal from him of all evil
counsellors and "villein's blood." It is deeply to the disgrace of
Englishmen that they did not rise to a man and support the cause of
freedom and religion against the worst of tyrants. Pole was anxious
to afford the insurgents all the assistance in his power, and to
remove from them and from the English in general any pretext for
acquiescence in the changes forced upon them. A legate's commission
was granted him, and he was instructed to land in England, or to
hover over its coasts in France or Flanders as circumstances might
require.[102] He knew not whether the insurrection were crushed, or
whether Henry, on the contrary, were in the power of the rebels. He
therefore manoeuvred with the English government till things should
take a decisive turn, and executed his commission with delicacy and
dexterity. His professed object was to receive in Flanders such
commissioners from the king as he might think proper to send for the
purpose of discussing the points at issue between the government
and the pope. He brought with him as credentials five letters; one
to the Catholic people of England; a second to James of Scotland;
a third to Francis King of France; a fourth to the Regent of the
Netherlands; and a fifth to the Prince Bishop of Liege. He was ready
to treat with Henry on any reasonable terms, and hopes were still
entertained at Rome of England's being reconciled to the holy see. He
was instructed to exhort the emperor and the King of France to cease
hostilities against each other, and to turn their arms against the
Turks. By this means they would forward the supreme pastor's design
of convening a general council for the reformation of manners and the
reconcilement of nations which had fallen from the faith to the unity
of Christendom.

No sooner had Pole entered France than the English ambassador there
required that he should be delivered up, and sent as a prisoner
to England. The lengths to which Henry VIII. had gone altered the
position of his Catholic subjects, and to be faithful to God and
the holy see was to be nothing less than a traitor. Reginald Pole
especially had incurred this charge, and as soon as it suited Henry's
purpose, he preferred it against him without scruple. The king of
France refused to deliver him up, but he requested Pole not to
ask for an audience, and to prosecute his journey as speedily as
possible. A treaty with England obliged the French government to
give no shelter to political offenders, and Pole was compelled to
turn aside from Paris and repair to Cambray. His welcome there was
no warmer than in France. The Regent of the Netherlands had been
terrified by Henry, and Pole was conveyed under an escort to Liege.
A price of fifty thousand crowns was put on his head by the king of
England, and four thousand auxiliaries were offered to the emperor
to aid him in his campaign against France, provided he would deliver
up the person of the cardinal into Henry's hands. The hatred of the
king became implacable, and he pursued Pole ever after with the most
murderous intentions.

From his watch-tower at Liege, Reginald beheld with bitter regret the
failure of every attempt at insurrection in England. Alternate hopes
and fears preyed on his mind. Conspiracy against the king seemed to
offer the only chance of averting the triumph of Protestantism in
England. Rebellion assumed in his eyes a sacred character, and every
insurgent who fell wore the glory of martyrdom. He would willingly
have seen his relations plotting against the author of untold evils
to mankind. But a rumor was spread abroad of his life being in
danger; that assassins were employed by Henry to murder him; and the
holy father, anxious to preserve so valuable a life, recalled him to
Italy. He was bent on publishing his book in defence of the church's
unity, and desired to do so under the pope's auspices. In a letter to
his secretary, Michael Throgmorton, Cromwell, who was then Henry's
chief adviser, heaped reproaches upon Pole for his treason, dared
him to publish his book if he thought fit, defended his master's
resistance of papal authority, and intimated that Henry could find
means to avenge himself on Cardinal Pole, even though he should
be "tied to the pope's girdle." The times, it must be confessed,
were most painful and trying; wickedness in high places forced many
persons from their allegiance against their will who would have
been, under happier circumstances, the most loyal and devoted of
subjects. The mind of Cardinal Pole was deeply imbued with a love of
the Catholic religion, and wherever he might be, whatever he might be
doing, his unique object was its reestablishment in his beloved and
native land.

In June, 1538, we catch a glimpse of Cardinal Pole among the
orange-groves that skirt the water's edge on the beautiful bay of
Nice. Hither he came as attendant on the pope in a congress which
resulted in a truce between France and Spain. But the name of Henry
VIII. was not mentioned in the treaty on which the sovereigns agreed.
The pope and the princes were left free to act toward him or against
him as they might think fit.

In the beginning of the year 1539 Pole's book was printed, and sown
broadcast over Europe. Many additions had been made to it, and the
excesses into which King Henry had rushed increased the vehement
indignation of the author. The pope, also, at the same time, issued
his bull of deposition against the apostate prince. His crimes could
no longer be endured; the putrid member must be lopped off from the
body of the church. Cardinal Pole himself was despatched on another
mission, the object of which was to arouse the Emperor Charles V.
to an invasion of England. He addressed an apology to the emperor
explaining his conduct, lest his majesty should fail to see how
fealty to the King of kings may sometimes oblige a subject to disown
allegiance to an earthly sovereign.

Meanwhile, another rising was meditated in England. The Pilgrimage of
Grace had failed, but the moment was propitious for another attempt.
The Catholic forces of the empire would be stirred against Henry by
the pope and Cardinal Pole, and the pacification of Nice had brought
Europe into the condition most adverse to the schismatic king. The
plot was discovered by the government, and suspicions fell on the
relatives of Pole. He was believed to have been in correspondence
with them, and to have excited them to conspire and rebel. His
brother, Sir Geoffrey Pole, turned king's evidence, and his
accusations were accepted as truthful; though the word of a traitor
to his own party is as much to be despised as himself. Knowing, as
we do, that the heart of Cardinal Pole was burning with a desire of
Henry's overthrow, it will be to us a question of small interest
whether he really instigated his friends to revolt or not. Neither
shall we be very careful to inquire into the validity or invalidity
of the charges against his kinsfolk. If faithful to the king, they
were unfaithful to God; if rebels against his authority, they were
valiant for the truth. The evidence obtained in their disfavor was
presumptive only; it proved, indeed, something as to their general
tendencies; but it was not sufficient for their just condemnation.
They had one crime which could not be pardoned; they were near
relations of Reginald Pole. The king had not a more dangerous enemy
than he beyond the seas; and the accused persons were all of them
more or less of royal blood; all capable, on occasion, of setting
up a rival claim to the throne, and making their descent, titles,
property, and influence means of supplanting the reigning prince.
The Marquis of Exeter, Lord Montague, and Sir Edward Neville were
beheaded on Tower Hill, December 9th, 1538.[103] Lady Salisbury
was made to endure a cruel imprisonment, and deprived of all her
property; nor could she even purchase a warm garment to protect her
aged limbs.[104] When more than seventy years of age, she was brought
to the block. "Blessed are they that suffer for righteousness' sake,"
were her last words. The effect of these judicial murders on Cardinal
Pole's mind may easily be conceived. Other injuries may be forgotten
or forgiven, but this shedding of the blood of innocent and beloved
relatives is a crime that never ceases to cry to heaven for vengeance.

Pole's mission to Charles V. produced little effect. Some warlike
demonstrations were made against Henry, but the emperor soon assured
the legate that it was impossible for him at that time to proceed
further. Reginald Pole was bitterly disappointed. Again his hope of
the church's triumph and Henry's discomfiture was blasted. He saw the
wicked in great prosperity and flourishing like a green bay tree.
But his strength and consolation was in the inner life. "For me," he
wrote, "the heavier the load of my affliction for God and the church,
the higher do I mount upon the ladder of felicity."[105] There were
those who accused him of nourishing a hope that he should one day be
king of England; but perhaps they have ascribed to him what was only
the foolish dream of some fond admirers.

This legation was a mockery and a cross. He was bandied about from
Toledo to Avignon; from Charles V. to Francis. Neither sovereign
could be induced to unite against the king of England. Francis
refused to receive the legate unless he brought with him some written
pledge of the emperor's sincerity, and Charles refused to give that
pledge unless the cardinal had first been received by Francis. Pole
saw that he was cajoled by both.

Once more he vacated diplomatic functions. Once more he retired
within the cloister at Carpentras,[106] to hide his face in mourning
and prayer, to ponder the torments of his saintly mother, and fix
his weeping eyes in solitude on the image of his crucified Lord. The
emperor had tamely declined to fight the battles of Jehovah, and
his supineness added wormwood to Pole's bitter cup. Paul III. had
compassion on his distress, and need of his counsels. He recalled him
from his retreat near Avignon--from the ruins of the Temple of Diana
at Carpentras, to the life and energy of Christian Rome.

The hatred of Henry toward Cardinal Pole was increased by this last
attempt to band the most powerful princes of Europe against him.
"Judgment of treason" was pronounced on him in England; and efforts
were made to induce foreign governments to deliver him up. His steps
were tracked by spies; his goings in and out were watched; and he
believed the poniards of assassins to be often brandished near him.
His aged mother, the venerable Countess of Salisbury, was brought
to the block,[107] as we have already mentioned. No examination had
extracted evidence of her guilt; no ground for a criminal prosecution
could be discovered. She was attainted without previous trial or
confession; for Henry and his abject minion, Cromwell, were as
indifferent to the forms of law as to the substance of justice. Her
name, together with that of Pole's nephew, the son of Lord Montague,
and that of Gertrude the Marchioness of Exeter, was introduced into
a bill of attainder, though neither of them had confessed any crime
or had been placed upon trial with means of defence. The marchioness
was pardoned in six months; of the fate of the young man no record
remains; but the aged countess, who was the last in a direct line of
the Plantagenets, who was the nearest relation in blood that Henry
had, and of whom in former days the king had often said that she was
the holiest woman in Christendom, was dragged from the tower to the
scaffold after a confinement of two years, and commanded to lay her
head on the block.

"My head," she replied, "never committed treason. If you will have
it, you must take it as you can."

The executioner performed his office while the head was held down
by force. Reginald Pole ever after regarded himself as the son of a
martyr, and accounted that a higher honor than to be born of a royal
line.[108]

His long residence abroad after his mother's death was not marked
by events of sufficient importance to require very special record.
At Rome, the pope granted him a guard, that he might be protected
from plots against his life contrived by the revengeful Henry.
He corresponded largely with persons of distinction in various
countries, and his letters, which were published at Brescia (Brixia)
in five volumes quarto, in 1754-57, under the editorship of Cardinal
Quirinus, are highly circumstantial, and contain abundant matter of
historical interest and closely connected with the lives of Pope
Paul III., the Emperor Charles V., the King of Scots, Edward VI.,
Mary, and Elizabeth. In 1562, a work of his appeared, entitled,
_De Concilio Liber_; and in the same year, at Rome, edited by P.
Manutius, _Reformatio Angliae, ex decretis Reginaldi Poli Cardinalis_.
Two volumes, quarto. The book on councils was written by Pole as
president of the Council of Trent in 1545; and Phillips, in his life
of him,[109] speaks of it as

    "A treatise which, for perspicuity, good sense, and solid
    reasoning, is equal to the importance of the occasion on which
    it was written, and shows at once the reach and ease of the
    author's genius, and the goodness of his heart. The preface by
    Manutius is long, and one of the most elegant compositions in
    the Latin language."

Cardinal Pole's life of exile, therefore, was neither idle nor
fruitless. The labors which his hand then wrought remain to this day,
and are highly prized by all who love to trace the stream of history
to its fountain head. The year after Cromwell's disgrace and death
(1541) Pole was appointed Governor of the Province of the Patrimony
of St. Peter--the only part of the States of the Church which is now
left to the Bishop of Rome. By this kindness on the part of Paul
III., the cardinal was relieved of a disagreeable dependence on
foreign princes for his daily expenses. His government was marked by
wisdom, gentleness, and moderation. He always discouraged severity,
though he held firmly the right of the church to punish offenders.
His leisure hours were devoted to literature, and in the writings of
ancient and modern poets and sages he often forgot, for a time, the
miseries of his country, and the dangers which, even in Italy, beset
his own person.[110]

Disorders among the clergy, a general corruption of morals, the
schism of Luther, and the excesses of Calvin conspired to make a
general council the obvious and only remedy that could be applied.
Cardinal Pole and two other legates were nominated by Pope Paul
III. to preside at the Council of Trent in the year 1542. But the
sittings were suspended amid the din of arms, and renewed three years
later in the same city. Cardinal Pole then presided again, having on
his journey been tracked from place to place by ruffians employed
by Henry VIII. to dispatch him at all hazards. Such atrocity,
however, did not exasperate Pole unduly, nor cause him to forfeit
his character for clemency and moderation. It was, on the contrary,
objected to him in Italy, as afterward in England, that he was too
lenient. It was even laid to his charge, and made an argument against
his being raised to the popedom, that during his administration as
governor two persons only had been put to death. He lived, alas! in
an age when laws were sanguinary, and human life was comparatively of
trifling account.

Cardinal Pole rendered valuable assistance in the early stages of
the Council of Trent; but in 1546, he was obliged to discontinue
his sittings and retire, first to Padua, and afterward to Rome, in
consequence of ill health. The decree of the council concerning
justification,[111] as it now stands, was revised and completed by
him. It is a monument of luminous and concise statement of scriptural
truth, and perfectly reconciles passages at first sight discrepant in
the epistles of St. Paul and St. James.

When Henry VIII. was gone to his account, and the young Edward
mounted the vacant throne, Cardinal Pole made two unsuccessful
efforts to incline the thoughts of that young prince favorably toward
the true and ancient religion. But Edward VI. in his tender years
was surrounded by persons who made it their business to misrepresent
every thing connected with the Catholic Church. The boy-king was thus
made the tool and victim of crafty and ambitious men, who reared the
structure of their own fortunes out of a pile of sacrilege.

When Paul III. died in November, 1549, Cardinal Pole was at the head
of his council, and governor of Viterbo. The larger part of the
cardinals were desirous of electing him to the vacant chair; but
the number of votes required being two thirds, the choice did not
ultimately fall on him. It was not the design of Providence that
he should either be pope of Rome or king of England; yet he was
very near being the successor of Paul III. on one occasion, and the
husband of Mary, Queen of England, on others. During the sitting of
the conclave he wrote an essay, which was afterward published, on
the duties of the papacy. But the period was not without its trials.
Envious detractors arose, and charged him not only with being too
lenient in the government of Viterbo, but also with favoring the
modern errors. It often happens that when good men avoid severity,
their clemency is blamed; when they are gentle and charitable toward
heretics, their orthodoxy is impugned.

There was near the lake Benacus, (now Garda,) in the neighborhood
of Verona, a spot named Maguzano, where stood, in Cardinal Pole's
time, a monastery of Benedictine monks. To this retreat the cardinal
turned when, in 1553, he obtained the pope's consent to resign his
government of the province of Viterbo. His duties as governor had
compelled him frequently to visit Rome, and that city, which should
have been the abode of peace and piety, was filled with tumult and
discord, in consequence of the dissensions between Julius and Henry
II. of France. Many of the cardinal's dearest friends were no more.
Contarini, Bembo, Sadolet, Cortesius, Badia, and Giberti, Bishop
of Verona, slept the sleep of death, while Flaminius and Victoria
Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara, had also gone down to the grave.
Cardinal Pole, therefore, was fain to retire beforehand from a
transitory world, and seek once more in the shade of the cloister the
peace that passes all understanding and the prospect of a heaven near
at hand.

But it was with him as with so many others who have betaken
themselves to a spiritual retreat, and bidden farewell to the busy
world at the very moment when Providence intended to call them into
greater publicity and more active service than ever. Edward VI. died
on the 6th of July, 1553, the same day of the same month on which
his father had stained his hands in the blood of Sir Thomas More.
The Princess Mary ascended the throne. She was a zealous Catholic,
and if she had only understood the temper of her subjects; if she
had not attempted to annihilate a too powerful minority; if she had
been content to encourage the ancient faith without persecuting the
adherents of the new religion; if she had married an Englishman,
or indeed any one but a Spaniard, to whom, on account of his
nationality, her people were unalterably averse, she might have
prolonged her life and made her reign happy; she might have been one
of the greatest sovereigns of her age; she might have established
Catholicity in England on a permanent footing; she might have
bequeathed to her sister Elizabeth a system of tolerant government,
and have taken it out of her power to persecute Catholics in her
turn, and to supplant and vitiate entirely the old religion of the
land.

No time was lost by the holy father, Julius III., in sending Cardinal
Pole to England as legate. Before setting out on his journey, he
entered into correspondence with the queen, in order to be certified
of her good dispositions, and received from her the warmest
assurances of welcome and support.[112] She was, in fact, in the
early part of her reign, too eager to announce her future policy,
and would have done more wisely if she had followed the counsel of
the Emperor Charles V., who warned her "not to declare herself too
openly while the issue of affairs was yet uncertain." The successive
rebellions of Northumberland in favor of Lady Jane Grey, and that
of Sir Thomas Wyatt, ought to have made her be prudent, and avoid
above all things pressing matters to extremity. She knew how deeply
the nobles and rich men of her realm were implicated in the crime of
sacrilege, and how tenaciously they clung to the spoils of abbeys
and church lands of which they had become possessed. Scarcely a
day passed without some indication of the insecurity of her tenure
of power--without some warning of the necessity of ruling with
impartiality and moderation.[113]

Cardinal Pole was on his way to England, when he dispatched from
the Tyrol two messengers, one to the King of France, and the other
to the emperor, informing them of his instructions to negotiate, if
possible, a peace between them in the name of the pope. Charles V.,
however, was by no means disposed to let Pole proceed quietly on
his journey. He was bent on marrying his son Philip to Mary, and he
feared that the cardinal might be either a rival of his son or an
adversary of the match. He refused, therefore, to see the legate,
stopped him in the heart of Germany, and caused him to return to
Dillingen, on the Danube. Here he received instructions from Rome
to wait until circumstances should clear his path; and here too he
learned that the articles of the queen's marriage had been agreed
to, and the rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt suppressed. But the chief
obstacle to Pole's presence in England being removed, the emperor
consented to receive him at Brussels,[114] and Mary consulted him by
letter as to the bishops whom she should appoint to fill the sees of
those whom she had removed. The new prelates were carefully selected;
and when the Catholic religion was again proscribed in the succeeding
reign, one of them only, Kitchin of Llandaff--the calamity of his
see--who had changed with every change of the court, abjured the
faith of Christ and adopted that of Queen Elizabeth.

Pole was still unable to obtain the emperor's permission to cross
over to England, because the marriage of Mary with Philip had not
yet been celebrated. The delay was truly afflictive to the cardinal
and the queen, and the negotiations carried on by Pole between the
emperor and the king of France produced little effect. At last the
emperor yielded to Mary's entreaties; Pole's legatine powers, though
already very ample, were enlarged; and he was permitted to accept
the invitation of the Lords Paget and Hastings, with a train of
gentlemen, sent to Brussels for the purpose of escorting him to his
native country. He was empowered to reconcile England to the holy see
on such conditions as he should think proper and feasible, particular
faculties being given to him to dispense with the restitution of
church property and ecclesiastical revenues. His agreeable manners
and amiable address pointed him out as the fittest man in the world
to execute so difficult a commission; and the English ambassador at
Brussels, writing of him to Mary, said,

    "His conversation is much above that of ordinary men, and
    adorned with such qualities that I wish the man who likes
    him the least in the kingdom were to converse with him but
    one half-hour; it must be a stony heart which he does not
    soften."[115]

The bill required for the reversal of Cardinal Pole's attainder was
passed in November, 1554. It stated that the only reason for the
attainder had been the cardinal's refusal to consent to the unlawful
divorce of Queen Mary's father and mother, and its repeal restored
him to all the rights which he had forfeited through his probity. The
legate having taken leave of the emperor, set out the next day in
princely style, accompanied by one hundred and twenty horse. A royal
yacht and six men of war were in readiness to receive him at Calais.
The wind itself was propitious to his voyage, and, having been rough
and contrary for several days, suddenly changed its direction, and
wafted the apostolic messenger safely to the British shore.

The legate, when he landed at Dover, was received and welcomed by his
nephew, Lord Montague. He was treated as one of the royal family, and
on his arrival at Gravesend, he was met by the Earl of Shrewsbury and
the Bishop of Durham. They presented him with the act by which his
attainder was reversed; and in his character as legate he proceeded
with them up the Thames in a royal barge, at the head of which
shone conspicuously his silver cross. Masses of spectators lined
the banks, and a large number of smaller barges followed him up the
river till he arrived at Whitehall, then the residence of the court.
The chancellor with many lords, the king, and the queen with the
ladies of her court, welcomed him with affectionate joy. The palace
of Lambeth, which Cranmer had exchanged for a prison, was richly
furnished for his use, and on the morrow, the 28th of November, the
lords and commons assembled expressly to hear from the legate's own
lips the object of his coming. The address which he delivered was
long and impressive; it dwelt on the dismal condition of nations
cut off from the unity of the church; and it set forth the abundant
blessings which would follow from the purpose of the holy see and
the queen being accomplished in the formal reconciliation of England
to the communion of the Bishop of Rome. On the next day, which was
the feast of St. Andrew, the parliament met again, together with the
king, the queen, and the legate. The nation, like a scattered and
harried flock, was received once more into the fold of the church
by general consent, amid deep emotion, praises, and tears of joy.
Yet many who were present had misgivings about the permanence and
solidity of the union thus affected. They remembered the recent
rebellion in favor of Lady Jane Grey, the rising of Sir Thomas
Wyatt, the countenance supposed to be given to the rebels by the
Princess Elizabeth, the extreme unpopularity of the Spanish alliance,
and the haughty, violent character of Gardiner, the chancellor,
and of Bonner, the Bishop of London.[116] Events unfortunately
justified these apprehensions, and made the short reign of Mary, for
reasons which we shall presently enumerate, a dismal failure and an
instalment of endless disaster.

The day after the reconciliation, the lord mayor and other civic
authorities waited on the legate, and requested him to honor the city
with a visit. Accordingly, on the first Sunday in Advent he went
by water from Lambeth, landed at St. Paul's wharf, and proceeded
in great pomp to the cathedral, where high mass was celebrated in
presence of their majesties and the court. The sermon was preached
by Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester, who took occasion to confess
the share which he had in the national guilt, and to implore his
hearers, who had been influenced by him when he went astray, to
follow him now that he had recovered the right path. It was certainly
asking a good deal, since Gardiner himself had sat with Cranmer and
pronounced the sentence of divorce between the king and Catharine. He
had also maintained the royal supremacy, and sold his pen to Henry's
caprice.[117]

The bill which was framed to effect the restoration of the Catholic
religion in England was very comprehensive and carefully worded.
It distinguished minutely between the civil and ecclesiastical
jurisdictions, and guarded against what legists are accustomed to
consider the encroachments of the latter.[118] It secured to the
owners of church lands the undisturbed possession of their property
wherever it had been legally conveyanced; and without this concession
the legate's mission would have proved fruitless. It was followed by
a release of state prisoners, and by an embassy being sent to the
Roman see. Before it had reached its destination, Pope Julius III.
died,[119] after a pontificate of five years. He was succeeded by
Marcellus, who reigned only three weeks, and by his decease opened
the door for renewed exertions to raise Cardinal Pole to the papal
chair. It was the third time that Pole's friends had used all their
influence in his behalf. In the conclave which elected Julius III.,
Cardinal Farnese had nearly succeeded in procuring his election; in
the proceedings which issued in the choice of Marcellus, the same
cardinal had obtained letters from the king of France in Pole's
favor; and now again, when Caraffa was chosen and took the name of
Paul IV., it was not the fault of Philip, Mary, or Gardiner that the
tiara did not light on the head of Reginald Pole.

Having mediated a peace successfully between France and the emperor,
Pole was appointed, by Philip's special request, chief of the
privy council. He was to be absent from the queen as little as
possible, and nothing of importance was to be undertaken without
his concurrence. Pope Paul IV., however, did not look favorably on
Cardinal Pole, and had, even at this time, some thought of recalling
him to Rome. Meanwhile the legate with Gardiner made a slight attempt
to arouse the University of Oxford from its lethargy in respect to
human learning, and a short time afterward, before the end of the
year 1555, Gardiner being dead, the cardinal convoked a national
synod to consider the disorders of the period, and the best means of
stemming the torrent of depraved morals and strange forms of unbelief.

It is not our purpose to enter into the history of the severe
measures which were adopted for the extirpation of heresy in England,
and which we may, with the light which subsequent events have cast
upon them, with reason suspect to have been extreme and injudicious.
We are concerned only with the history of Cardinal Pole, and every
thing goes to prove that he always preferred lenient to severe
measures, so far as he considered it compatible with the welfare
of religion and the safety of the throne. As for Cranmer, Latimer,
Ridley, and other principal personages who were put to death, they
deserved their fate on account of the numerous treasons and crimes
which they had committed, or to which they had been accessory;
and Elizabeth herself might with perfect justice have been brought
to the block, from which she was saved only by the influence of
Gardiner, for conspiring against the crown of her sister. The whole
number of victims brought to the scaffold was only from two to four
hundred, and numbers of those who escaped into Ireland were sheltered
and concealed from legal pursuit by the Irish Catholics, who have
suffered death by thousands for the sake of religion, but have
scarcely ever inflicted it on others. The fanatics and demagogues,
who with the cowardly and blood-thirsty instincts of their species
are seeking to stir up the American people, "who will not rise, in
spite of their prayers and their prophecies," against the Irish
Catholics of the United States, will do well to remember this fact,
or rather, as such persons always forget what does not suit their
purpose, the intelligent and honest citizens of this republic will do
well to remember it, when these mischief-makers attribute to their
Catholic fellow-citizens any ulterior design or hope of ever seeking
to propagate their religion in this country by violent means.

As for Cardinal Pole himself, even Mr. Froude acknowledges that he
was "not cruel." Burnet testifies that he rescued the inhabitants
of his own district who were condemned to death from the hand of
Bonner.[120] His secretary, Beccatelli, informs us that "he used
his best endeavors that the sectaries might be treated with lenity,
and no capital punishment inflicted on them;"[121] and he himself
declares that he approved of putting heretics to death only in
extreme cases.[122] Rigorous and severe punishments upon all classes
of offenders, coercive measures and the stern exercise of authority
were, however, according to the spirit of that age in every country,
and it is not strange that the milder counsels of the gentle Pole
were over-ruled, and that he was unable to hinder the executions
desired by those who had the supreme power of the law in their
hands. The administration of Mary was severe and despotic. Yet it
is false to say that in her spirit and intentions she was cruel or
tyrannical. What appears to us like an unnecessary and even impolitic
rigor and vindictiveness against those who, by the laws of England,
were rebels against both the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of
the realm, was to a great extent due to the importunate counsels of
the lay-lords. Even Bonner and Gardiner would gladly have pursued a
milder policy, and the majority of the bishops and ecclesiastics,
notwithstanding the atrocious persecutions to which they had been
subjected under Henry and Edward, would have cordially sustained
their primate if he had been left free to exercise his authority
unimpeded by the interference of the civil power. Yet, though Mary's
policy was severe, it was mercy itself compared to that of Henry,
Elizabeth, and their Protestant successors. It is not only an
atrocious calumny; it is a grim and dismal jest for the panegyrists
of Elizabeth, and the exculpators of the hideous massacres of
Cromwell, to affix the epithet of "bloody" to Queen Mary.[123]
Moreover, it is not a mere question of a greater or lesser amount of
bloodshed which should govern our award of justice in respect to the
two cases. There is a difference of principle in the case, which an
impartial Jew, Mohammedan, infidel, or even Protestant can and ought
to admit, as some have admitted. Those persons who, in England or
elsewhere, have been put to death by the civil power for the crime
of heresy under the Catholic law, have been condemned for abjuring
that religion in which they had been brought up, and which had been
part of the law of the land, as well as the universal and traditional
belief of the nation, from the beginning of its formation, or at
least for centuries. Even if the principles of law by which they
were condemned are pronounced tyrannical and unjust, it is plain
that there is no parity between the case of a ruler acting on such
principles, in common with other rulers of the time and of past
ages, and according to maxims universally approved by jurists and
statesmen, and one who compels his subjects to renounce their ancient
laws and religion, and to abjure the faith in which they have been
educated, at his individual whim and caprice. But although we are
not disposed to abandon Queen Mary to her calumniators, we may give
to Cardinal Pole the high honor of having been wiser than she was,
or than her other counsellors were, and of having been in advance of
the general spirit of his age in regard to the wisest and best method
of treating religious errors, which had taken too deep a root to be
summarily plucked up by a violent effort; and with these few remarks
upon a topic which requires much greater space for a satisfactory
discussion, we proceed with the personal history of the cardinal.

After Cranmer's execution, Cardinal Pole, who had hitherto been
in deacons' orders, was ordained priest, consecrated bishop, and
invested with the pallium as Archbishop of Canterbury. His works
of piety were numerous; he founded religious houses, preached,
prayed, and watched for souls in all respects as one that must give
account. He was made chancellor of the University of Oxford, by the
resignation of Sir John Mason, and chancellor of that of Cambridge
also, on the death of Gardiner.

To a sensitive mind there is no greater anguish than that which
springs from the hostility of those whom it has faithfully served.
This suffering it was Cardinal Pole's lot to incur. His whole life
had been devoted to God, the church, and the holy see. For these he
had endured exile, persecution, and the loss of all things. For their
sakes he had seen his mother and his dearest relatives dragged to the
scaffold. In their cause he had studied, written, toiled, prayed, and
wept till his hairs were gray. As their defender and champion he had
been welcomed to England by his cousin and sovereign, raised to the
head of the English church, and made the chief instrument in bringing
back the ancient religion. But having done so, having given every
proof a prelate could give of his devoted attachment to his religion,
having twice been on the very steps of the papal throne, with what
agony must his spirit have been tortured when he found, as he did
find, that he was in disfavor with Paul IV.; that he was superseded
as legate; that he was recalled to Rome; and that, to crown the cup
of bitterness, he and his friend, Cardinal Morone, were to answer to
a charge of heterodoxy before the Inquisition.[124]

    "Does Almighty God, therefore," he wrote to the pontiff,[125]
    "require that a parent should slay his child? Once, indeed,
    he gave this precept when he commanded Abraham to offer
    in sacrifice his son Isaac, whom he tenderly loved, and
    through whom all the promises made to the father were to be
    accomplished. And what are now the preparations your holiness
    is making but so many forerunners of the sacrifice of my better
    life, that is, of my reputation? For in how wretched a sense
    must that pastor be said to live who has lost with his flock
    the credit of an upright belief?... Is this sword of anguish,
    with which you are about to pierce my soul, the return I am to
    receive for all my services?"

Happily for the cardinal, Mary and Philip took his part. They
remonstrated with the pope on the loss which they and their subjects
would sustain if Pole were recalled, and they prevailed with the
holy father so far that he consented to the cardinal's retaining the
see of Canterbury, while he appointed Peto, the Greenwich friar,
to supersede him as legate. Quite in the spirit of her father,
Mary caused the nuncio who brought this decision to England to be
arrested, and interdicted Peto from accepting the legatine office.
He never received any official notice of his appointment, nor Pole
of the papal decision. He was, however, too loyal a subject of the
pope to avail himself of this regal interference. He ceased to act
as legate, and sent his chancellor to Rome with entreaties and
protests. Again the pope required that Pole should appear in Rome to
clear himself from the charge of heresy; and Peto was summoned there
also to assist the pontiff with his advice. Proceedings against the
English cardinal were already commenced, and the distressing state
of things was set at rest only by the death of some of the principal
actors. Peto, the rival legate, died, and while the affair was still
in suspense the grave closed over the disappointed, despairing queen,
and the broken-hearted[126] cardinal. He was attacked by a quartan
ague, and, feeling conscious of his approaching end, he made a
will, in which he protested his attachment to the Church of Rome and
especially to Pope Paul IV., from whom he had experienced treatment
which seemed equally inexplicable and unkind. His last hours were
passed in acts of devotion, and it was probably with supreme
satisfaction that he laid his aching head on the pillow of death on
the morning of the 18th of November, 1558. His friend, cousin, and
sovereign had preceded him in the dark valley by only twenty-two
hours, and he felt, no doubt, that his most powerful if not his best
friend was no more. Elizabeth was already queen, and her Protestant
tendencies were well known. There was every reason to suspect that
she would reverse the religious system restored by her sister, and
take advantage of the general unpopularity which Mary by her severity
had incurred. There was one object only for which Cardinal Pole could
reasonably wish to prolong his life, and that was to clear himself
from the extraordinary charge which had been brought against him by
calumniators. But it was the will of Providence that his fair and
unspotted fame should be vindicated only after his death.

During forty days the palace at Lambeth was hung with black. An altar
was placed in the apartment of the deceased cardinal, and masses
were said constantly for the repose of his soul. His body was then
conveyed to Canterbury with great pomp, and his funeral was followed
by large numbers of citizens and clergy. The exalted rank of Cardinal
Pole, the important part he had played in the history of his time,
and the high offices he had filled made him an object of reverence to
the multitude, who knew not, and did not even suspect, the intrigues
of which he was the victim and the humiliating charge under which he
lay.

We shall not endeavor in this place to follow the example of his
indiscriminating panegyrists. Suffice it to say that he was a devoted
son of the church, and that he did all in his power to resist the
impious will of the tyrant with whom Providence had brought him face
to face. His zeal for the conversion of England was laudable, though
not crowned with the success which it deserved.

In his youth he had written a commentary on Cicero's works; but
this was never printed, and the manuscript was lost. He excelled
in exposition of the Scriptures, which were his constant study and
delight. "His character," Mr. Froude allows, "was irreproachable;
in all the virtues of the Catholic Church he walked without spot
or stain."[127] He was honored with the friendship of men of great
distinction, such as Sir Thomas More, Erasmus, Sadolet, Bishop of
Carpentras, Bembo, Friuli, Paul III., and Ignatius Loyola. His
forgiving disposition may be gathered from the fact that when three
English ruffians came to Capranica to murder him, were arrested on
suspicion, and confessed that they were emissaries of Henry VIII., he
would only allow them to be condemned to the galleys for a few days.
His clemency, as we have seen, in a relentless age, caused him to be
suspected; and we have the testimony of Bishop Burnet, the Protestant
historian of the Reformation,[128] to assure us that

    "such qualities and such a temper as his, could he have brought
    others into the same measures, would probably have gone far
    toward bringing back this nation to the Church of Rome; as he
    was a man of as great probity and virtue as any of the age he
    lived in."

FOOTNOTES:

[94] He died 1524. Agnes Strickland's _Lives of the Queens of
England_, vol. v. 143.

[95] Cardinal Bembo, Secretary of Leo X. and Librarian of St. Mark's,
Venice; author of various pieces in Latin and Italian. Born 1470.
Died 1547.

[96] Cardinal Sadolet, Bishop of Carpentras, Secretary of Leo X.;
author of several works in Latin prose and verse. Born 1477. Died
1547.

[97] Lingard's _History of England_, A.D. 1531.

[98] Froude, _History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death
of Elizabeth_. Vol. vi. 88.

[99] Lingard, vol. iv. appendix, note 8, 3. _Poli Defensio_, fol. 77,
78.

[100] Pole to Prioli. Epist. vol. 1. p. 446.

[101] December 20, 1536. Froude, iii. 187.

[102] Lingard, v. 45.

[103] Froude vi. 333.

[104] Miss Strickland's Lives, v. 208.

[105] Epist. Reg. Pol. vol. iii. pp. 37-39.

[106] April, 1539.

[107] May 27, 1541. (33 Henry VIII.)

[108] Pole to the Cardinal of Burgos. Epist. iii. 36, 76.

[109] Vol. i. p. 402.

[110] _Life of Pole._ London, 1767, i. 354.

[111] Conc. Trident. Sessio VI.

[112] Flanagan, _History of the Church in England_, vol. ii. 122,
127-8.

[113] See Lingard, vol. v. 198.

[114] February 6th, 1554.

[115] Mason to Queen Mary, October 5th, 1554.

[116] Froude, vol. vi. 395 and 517.

[117] Phillips's _Life of Pole_, vol. ii. 172, note.

[118] Lingard, vol. v. 224.

[119] March 23d, 1555.

[120] _Hist. Ref._ vol. ii. p. 156.

[121] _Vita Poli_, fol. 33.

[122] Poli Epist. Phillips's Life, vol. ii. p. 222.

[123] The number of persons put to death in Queen Mary's reign was,
as stated above, not over 400. From the year 1641 to 1659, 826,000
persons perished, were exiled or sold as slaves in Ireland, through
the religious persecution of the English Protestant government.
(_O'Reilly's Memorials_, p. 345.)

[124] Lingard, v. 254. Phillips, ii. 256-7. Froude, vi. 477, 481.

[125] Greenwich. March 30th, 1558.

[126] "Without straining too far the license of imagination, we may
believe that the disease which was destroying him was chiefly a
broken heart." (Froude, vi. 526.)

[127] _History of England_, vol. vi. 531.

[128] Vol. ii.




THE YOUNG VERMONTERS.


CHAPTER I.

DUTY AND TEMPTATION.

"Hollo! George and Henry, where are you going in such a hurry?
Can't you stop to speak to a fellow?" cried Frank Blair to his two
school-mates, George Wingate and Henry Howe, whom he was trying to
overtake in their walk on a fine afternoon in June.

"Yes," said George. "We can stop to speak, but not to stay long, for
we are on our way to the church."

"What are you going to church for? You'd better come with me; for I
can tell you there's lots of fun going on that you'll be sorry to
lose!"

"What is it?" eagerly inquired Henry.

"Oh! I can't tell you unless you join us; all the fellows have agreed
not to tell any thing about it, only to those who promise beforehand
to go in and keep the whole secret."

"Ah! then," said George, "we could not agree to any such thing; for
it would be wrong for us to make a promise like that beforehand. So
we couldn't go with you, if we were not bound for the church."

"Why are you bound for church on a week-day?"

"Because," answered George, "to-morrow will be a festival, and we
are going to help prepare the church, and then prepare ourselves for
celebrating it."

"Well, I declare! I never did see any thing like you Catholic boys!
You're a real puzzle to me; as pious as deacons, and take to religion
as naturally as a duck does to water, and yet I know you love fun
just as well as any of us. What are you going to do to prepare for
this festival?"

"Oh! we shall help the sacristan, who is an infirm old man, to make
the church neat and tidy, in the first place. Then we shall assist
in getting evergreens ready for the decoration; and we expect our
mothers and sisters with flowers to be arranged in vases for the
altar, while we are twining and putting up wreaths. We hope to
make the church very beautiful for the great feast of the Blessed
Sacrament. After we get this all done, we shall prepare for holy
communion, which we hope to receive to-morrow."

"And how do you prepare for that?"

"First of all, we make our examination of conscience, and say our
prayers in preparation for confession."

"You go to confession! Why, I thought none but sinners confessed to
the priest."

"And don't you think we are sinners?" said George.

"Of course not! How can we boys be sinners? I never thought of such a
thing. I don't believe I'm a sinner at all! I only love a frolic once
in a while; and I hate religion, because it's such a gloomy kind of
business. So you think you won't join us, eh?"

"No; we have other matters to attend to."

"Well, then, good-by; but you'll be sorry you didn't go with us, I
can tell you!"

He left them, and the two boys walked on in silence for some time. At
length Henry said with a sigh,

"Don't you wish we could have gone with them, George? I'll warrant
you there's some grand fun up. I wonder what it is?"

"No matter what it is, Henry. We have only to do what is right, and
what we know we ought to do first, and then we shall find ways enough
to enjoy ourselves; and have more enjoyment, too, than we should if
we neglected duty for pleasure."

"I suppose you are right," said Henry sadly; "but I can't help
thinking there's more sport in going off with a lot of boys for a
frolic than there is in being good, and helping the women fix up
the church. It don't seem to me like boys' work, to be fussing with
wreaths and bouquets."

"Ah my fine fellow! you are really getting very smart. What do you
think of our fathers, and of Mr. A---- and Mr. S----, two of the
most active business men in the place--and yet they take as much
interest in having the church made beautiful for the divine offices
as the women do. Don't you remember how Mr. A----, when he couldn't
leave court during the trial of an important case, sent one of his
students, and his man with a ladder, to help put up the wreaths last
Christmas? Mighty smart for us boys to think it is too small business
for us, to be sure! Then, as to the fun, we'll wait and see how the
boys come out with their frolic. I have my own notion that there'll
be more mischief than sport, and that we may hereafter be glad we had
no part in it. Frank Blair is a pleasant, good-natured fellow; but
he is a reckless chap too. He had learned a great many city tricks
before they came here to live, and will do any thing for fun, without
thinking of the consequences. Any way, we know there's nothing like
duty first and play afterwards to make boys happy."


CHAPTER II.

RURAL PLEASURES.

The church was situated in the very shadow of a wood that skirts
the pretty village of M----, in northern Vermont. When the two boys
reached it, they found quite an assemblage of their school-fellows
awaiting the arrival of the sacristan, who soon appeared, and sent
some into the woods with axes and hatchets to cut the evergreens,
dispatched others with pails for water, and kept George and Henry to
help him in the church.

They had just finished arranging all in order and dusting the
sanctuary, when their mothers and sisters arrived with the flowers,
which they took to a little room adjoining the sacristy, where the
pails of water were left. Very soon some of the boys came in with the
evergreen trees; the beautiful trailing pines of several varieties,
and graceful feathery foliage of brilliant green, together with a
profusion of other wild-wood treasures, which they had collected. The
village girls also came bringing wild flowers and other contributions
for the decoration.

Young Catholics in country places need not be told how pleasantly
the time passed with this company in the varied occupations of tying
wreaths, arranging bouquets in the vases, putting up the festooned
garlands, winding the pillars, and executing other devices, with
which they are already so familiar as to need no information. But
it is certain that the young people of cities, losing all these
true and natural enjoyments, as well as the developments of taste
and ingenuity to which they lead, lose a valuable aid to devotion.
They who cannot participate in the adornment of the material temple
for the worship of God, by bringing the simple offerings of the
woodlands and the valleys for its embellishment, lose a very
important incentive to the due preparation of the spiritual temple
for his reception.

Before the arrival of the priest, the work of decoration was
completed, and each pious heart was gladdened to see how beautiful
the altar looked, smiling through a profusion of flowers, whose
fragrance hovered around the tabernacle of the Lord like a breath
from paradise, and embowered in wreaths prepared from the "glory of
Libanus," together with tributes from "the fir-tree, the box-tree,
and the pine," which youthful hands had collected to "beautify the
place of his sanctuary, and to make the place of his feet glorious."

When all was finished, the cheerful crowd quietly sought their places
in the church, to prepare for the holy sacrament of reconciliation.

While these busy performances were in progress, George had looked in
vain among the young people assembled to discover two lads who were
near his own age, and in whom he felt a special interest--Michael
Hennessy and Dennis Sullivan. He feared they had been drawn away into
the expedition of their school-mates mentioned by Frank Blair.

On the following morning, the priest announced during the mass that
there would be no vespers that afternoon, as he was going to visit
another parish. After mass, Mr. Wingate and Mr. Howe told George and
Henry that they intended taking the two families out to Mr. Howe's
farm, a few miles distant, that afternoon, and that they might invite
some of their young friends to accompany them. They were delighted;
for there was nothing they enjoyed so much as their occasional visits
to the farm. So they sought among the crowd at the church door their
friends Mike and Dennis; but they were not to be found. They invited
Patrick Casey, and a few other boys, to come to their homes after
dinner and join the excursion.

Soon after dinner the large family carriages were brought up, and
such a bustle ensued, stowing away in the vehicles baskets filled
with buttered biscuits, cold ham and tongue, sandwiches, cakes, and
sundry other delicacies, with a package of table-cloths and napkins,
as betokened a grand supper in the woods, which was of all things the
most delightful to the boys.

The party were soon comfortably packed into the capacious carriages,
and set off in high glee. When they arrived at the farm-house,
Mrs. Howe made arrangements for a plentiful supply of milk, fresh
strawberries and cream, and other things, to be taken to a certain
place in the woods at a time appointed, and the merry company set out
in quest of the quiet nooks and shady dells of the forest.

There was no end to the pleasant incidents that here met our young
people at every turn. They had scarcely entered the shadowy domain,
when a partridge whirred up from their very feet into a tree over
their heads, and they soon discovered she had left a brood of her
young below. Such a scramble as took place in pursuit of the shy
little beauties!--the girls holding their aprons, that the captives
might be deposited in them as fast as caught. It was funny to see how
the wise little creatures would hide under every chip, bit of bark,
or dead leaf, and, when these were lifted, how still they would lie,
as if lifeless--so near the color of the ground that it was hard to
distinguish them--and allow themselves to be taken.

After sufficiently admiring their tiny prisoners, they set them at
liberty, and resumed their exploration of the forest. Very soon one
of them came across a night-hawk's nest on the ground, and called all
the party to admire it, with its treasure of curious brown eggs. Then
they discovered a blue-bird's nest built with rare skill in a hole in
the trunk of a tree. And now a splendid gray squirrel attracted their
attention; he ran up a tree and out to the end of a limb, where he
sat calmly defying all their efforts to frighten or knock him off.
A discussion upon squirrels and their habits ensued, and "Grandma"
Howe told them she once saw a large gray squirrel by a small sheet
of water, where a dashing mountain brook had subsided into a quiet
basin, which he wanted to cross. He stood on the margin for some
time, as if considering the matter--turning himself to ascertain the
direction of the wind, which happened to be favorable--then, seizing
a chip that lay near him, threw it into the water, and springing
aboard of his little craft, raised his tail to catch the wind, and
sailed across swiftly and safely. When he gained the other shore, he
jumped off, and did not even have the politeness to pull his boat
ashore after him.

All this time Mr. Squirrel sat eying his guests of "the green-wood"
very composedly, occasionally stamping his little foot with pretty
pettishness, and at length fell to nibbling a last year's beech-nut
which he had carried up to his perch for a lunch with so much
coolness that his young observers were quite charmed, and determined
to leave him to munch his nut in peace. They now sought a bright
little brook that danced gayly over shining pebbles near by, and the
murmur of whose waters, mingling with the rustle of leaves stirred by
the breath of June, whispered in sweet harmony the song of the woods.
They soon reached a fringe of graceful willows marking its course,
and dipping their pendent limbs to kiss the crystal flood.

Just then Mr. Howe overtook the party and called out, "Boys, who
would like to try some trout-fishing in the brook?"

Of course the boys were all eager for the sport; but where was the
necessary fishing-tackle?

"Ah!" said Mr. Howe, "you see I have provided for that," producing
a case filled with jointed rods, flies, lines, and all needful
appliances for trout-fishing.

Each boy was soon supplied, and started off in search of the deep
pools and sequestered waters favorable for their sport; while the
girls rambled on, delighting themselves with the beautiful June
flowers, peeping into each shaded recess for the modest feathered
orchis--queen of its tribe, and most fragrant flower of the
woods--and exploring the more open spaces near the brook, for the
several varieties of elegant and fantastic "ladies' slippers," which
abound in the woodlands of northern Vermont. Then the splendid
lichens and ferns attracted their admiring notice; and before
the hour for their repast arrived, they had accumulated a wealth
of sylvan treasures wherewith to embellish their homes, and keep
alive pleasant recollections of their brief sojourn in those woody
solitudes.

At length an envoy from the farm-house arrived laden with
refreshments--cards of pure white honey-comb filled with transparent
sweets, cream of the richest, field strawberries in profusion, and
milk fresh and abundant The girls soon spread the snow-white cloths
on the turf at the foot of an ancient oak by the brook-side, and,
under the direction of the elder ladies, emptied the baskets and
prepared an ambrosial banquet, while Mr. Wingate called in the
stragglers, and the young fishers of the party, to partake of it.
They were reluctant to leave sports which they were enjoying so much,
and saw the day drawing to a close with regret. Each boy brought
a fine string of trout for the Friday morning's breakfast, and
appetites sharpened by their green wood scramble to the luxurious and
plentiful repast.

At the close of their meal they prepared to return, and were soon
on their homeward course; the young people all declaring that they
had never passed an afternoon more delightful. George and Henry were
very sure, as they remarked to each other, that Frank Blair and his
companions could not have had so pleasant a time on their frolic of
the evening before.


CHAPTER III.

THE TEMPTER AND HIS VICTIMS.

On the eve of the festival, as Frank Blair was sauntering down the
street, after he had left George and Henry, he met Michael Hennessy
and Dennis Sullivan.

"Hurrah boys! you're the very chaps I wanted to find," said he. "I
say, don't you want to go in with a lot of us for a real tip-top
time?"

"What is it?" they both inquired eagerly, when Frank said something
in a low voice, to which they responded, "Yes, yes! we promise;" and
he went on in the same tone to explain the plan.

"But we can't," said Michael; "our pockets are as empty as a last
year's bird's nest, and this requires money."

"Oh! never mind that," was Frank's reply, "I'll plank the tin;" which
announcement was met by a merry shout and, "We'll go!" from them both.

"Well, then," said Frank, "meet us at the depot within the hour," and
passed on.

Now these boys had been on their way to the church; but after they
parted with Frank, they turned their course toward the depot. As they
were walking silently and leisurely along in that direction, Dennis
spoke:

"I say, Mike, it seems to me that this is not just the right thing we
are doing; our mothers think we are at the church, and I'm afraid no
good will come of our turning away in this fashion."

"O you fool!" said Mike, "they'll never know but we are at the
church, and fun's better than religion any day. I hate such humdrum
ways, going along every day alike, and never a scrape of any sort;
and so do all the boys."

"Not all of them; for there's George Wingate loves fun as well as any
of us, and a grand hand to help it on too; but he never leaves better
things for it," said Dennis sadly.

"George _is_ a regular brick and no mistake. He takes to fun and
religion, each in its own time, as if there were nothing else in the
world; but we can't all be like him, and there's no use in trying. I
warrant you now that, if he could only have the chance, there's Henry
Howe would a great sight rather pitch in for fun in a scrape like
this, than go George's roads."

"Perhaps he would," and Dennis paused a moment sighing; "but I'm
afraid it isn't right, especially for catholic boys. It's a poor
preparation for to-morrow."

"Nonsense! boys can't be saints. We'll leave that to our mothers,
they can say prayers enough for us and themselves too; so we may
enjoy ourselves while we can. But I wonder where Frank gets all his
money; his father is a stingy old curmudgeon, they say, and I don't
understand it."

"Don't you know that his father's maiden sister, who lives with him,
is rich, and she fills Frank's pockets. He told me so. He said that
when he could get his father's permission, as he did to go to these
shows this afternoon, his aunt furnished all the money he wanted."

In this way they chatted until they reached the depot, where a
multitude of wildly excited boys soon absorbed their attention, and
drowned the whispers of conscience for poor Dennis.

Meantime, as Frank was on his way home to replenish his purse for the
evening, he met Patrick Casey and Johnny Hart, and accosted them much
as he had Michael and Dennis. They objected that they were going to
the church and could not join his party.

"O fol-de-rol!" said he; "there'll be chances enough to go to church,
but you won't often have such a chance as this for a frolic. Mike
Hennessy and Dennis Sullivan are going--"

"Are they?" eagerly exclaimed Johnny. "Then I'll go too. Won't you,
Pat?"

"No, I won't!" said Pat resolutely. "If Mike and Dennis choose to do
wrong, is that any reason why we should? Come along Johnny, and don't
be a fool!"

Johnny hesitated as Patrick passed on, and Frank said the fools were
those who'd lose all the sport for the sake of being as dull as
beetles, and making old women of themselves; adding,

"There'll be time enough to be pious after you have done being jolly!"

This artful speech decided poor Johnny, who turned and went to the
depot.

But why did Frank Blair say nothing of those who refused to go, while
he baited his snare with the names of those who consented? It was
because boys understand fully the force of _example_, and can wield
it with great power to secure their ends. When we consent to act
contrary to the still small voice of conscience, we never know how
far the consequences of that act may extend. Evil examples attract
more imitators than good ones--but woe to him who furnishes them;
while firm adherence to the right may win some wavering soul to the
path of duty, which will shine as one of the brightest jewels in our
crown of rejoicing hereafter!

Johnny had hardly reached the depot before Frank arrived, and
presently a train of cars came thundering up, the boys hastening to
secure seats for the little village of H----, a short distance from
M----, where they soon arrived, and upon leaving the cars found a
great crowd gathered around an immense tent, awaiting the opening
of the exhibition. This was announced in astounding illustrated
hand-bills as the most remarkable one ever witnessed, embracing more
unheard-of enormities in the brute creation, and wonders of the human
race, than were ever before congregated in one assemblage.

When the tent was opened, the rush that ensued baffles description;
during the progress of which Mike's elbows came in closer contact
with the ribs of a boy near him than was at all comfortable, while
Dennis Sullivan's fist went very innocently into the face of a lad
who was pushing his way more sharply than was agreeable to his
neighbors, leaving, in its unconscious energy, a "black eye" in his
visage.

While the crowd was slowly entering the tent, the boys from M----
indulged themselves in dealing out a series of these little jokes,
more to their own satisfaction than to that of the recipients.
At length it was suspected they were not wholly accidental or
unintentional, when a general row ensued, and cries of "Hustle them
out!" "Give them fits!" "Pitch into the boys from M----!" were wildly
shouted from all sides. Our heroes stood their ground with a coolness
worthy of a better cause, giving as many hard blows as they received
and shouting, "Don't you H---- boys want to come to M---- to see the
elephant again? Don't you wish you could, now? We'll show you we know
how to return small compliments, we will!"

In truth, as it turned out, the M---- boys were in so much "better
training," as the pugilists say, that those of H---- were in a fair
way to get soundly pommelled, when some men interfered to stop the
fight and inquire the cause. Frank spoke for his party.

"Well, gentlemen, these youngsters came to M---- the last time we had
a menagerie and circus there, and behaved themselves so outrageously
that a company of us determined we would pay them the first chance we
had. And I think we have; grand fun it has been too!"

"Precious fun it _must_ have been!" said a plain, farmer-like man;
"and a beautiful pack you've made of one another out and out! Torn
clothes, broken shins, bleeding noses, black eyes, and more bumps
on your tarnal heads than the old frenologer feller that goes round
lectering with a skull ever thought of! A pretty lookin' set of
picters you are, an't you?"

"You bet!" said Frank; then turning to his companions, "but boys, I
say, didn't we pepper them, though? I don't believe they'll want to
come to M---- the next show-day. If they do, we'll be ready for them,
eh, boys?"

A wild hurrah was the reply, and they sought a neighboring brook
to wash off such traces of the conflict as water could efface. At
Frank's invitation they then gathered around a booth where pies,
cakes, gingerbread, lemonade, candies, and a variety of other
delicacies were dispensed, where they refreshed themselves heartily
after their exertions.

Before they had concluded their repast, the crowd had all disappeared
within the capacious tent, and the shadows of evening were gathering
fast. Not caring to go in directly, our young adventurers amused
themselves by performing numerous pranks in which mischief was more
conspicuous than sense or wit.

A young lawyer of the place, being quite devoted in his attentions
to the merchant's daughter, they took the sign from his office and
placed it on the front door of the merchant's residence. They removed
a sign from one of the shops, on which was marked, "Codfish, salt
and fresh; herrings, pickled and smoked; Boston cured hams--for sale
here. N.B. Deacon's skins taken in exchange,"[129] and fastened it
over the "meeting-house" door, writing under it with chalk, in large
letters, "Inquire within."

Seeing a donkey quietly munching his nettles in a corner of the
village green, they captured him, and with great exertion succeeded
in imprisoning him within a back shed attached to a cottage where
a maiden lady resided alone. When they tired of these and similar
foolish exploits, too numerous to mention, they entered the tent.
Unfortunately, their mischievous propensities entered with them.
Frank soon began to amuse himself by tweaking the whiskers of a
peevish old monkey, which forthwith sprang to the top of his head,
and, holding on by his hair, planted its teeth so firmly in his ear
that the young gentleman was fain to cry out for the keeper. At the
same moment, Dennis had placed a piece of tobacco on the extremity
of the elephant's trunk, and not dodging instantly, as he intended,
was seized by the enraged animal and tossed to the top of the tent,
coming down upon the bald head of an elderly gentleman, who, catching
him with one hand, shook him until his teeth chattered, at the same
time administering telling blows with the disengaged hand upon the
sorely bruised urchin within his grasp.

While this was going on in one part of the tent, another of the
enterprising company had ventured to cross the forbidden inclosure
before the lion's cage, and was glad to escape from the claws of the
animal with a coat badly torn, and scratches upon his face which he
carried for many a day.

After a series of similar mishaps, the party took the down-train for
home, each bearing unmistakable marks of the _fun_, and protesting
they never before had such a "tip-top time," though Frank's
misgivings found utterance in a low voice to Mike,

"My father's awfully severe, and I don't know what the old trump will
say to all this when he hears of it; but it can't be helped now!"

He was not the only one of the company who was haunted by secret
fears as to how the proofs of the affray, which each one carried on
his person, would be regarded by their home circles.


CHAPTER IV.

THE CONSEQUENCES.

Very quietly did the party of young pleasure-seekers retire to their
beds, after they arrived at their homes that evening, fatigued and
exhausted with the excitement of the past few hours. Nor were they in
any haste to make themselves visible on the following morning.

Mrs. Sullivan called Dennis early to bring some water and assist
her, that they might go to church in good season; but her calls were
unheeded. So she sought his room, exclaiming, "Why, what ails you,
Dinnie, my boy, that you cannot awaken for my calling?"

The mother's eye was quick to detect that something was wrong the
moment it rested on the countenance of her hopeful son, and she added,

"For goodness' sake, Dinnie, darling, what has happened you, any how?"

Dennis made an awkward and blundering apology which entirely failed
to satisfy his mother, who soon drew the whole story from him.

"It's all along of that dirty Frank Blair!" said she. "I wish to
goodness he was across the sea, with his rogue's tricks and monkey
pranks! It's no use trying to rear Catholic children to respect their
religion, and attend to their duties, among these Yankees! They'd
entice the very priest at the altar! A pretty shindy you've cut up
now! But get up, and let us see how you are entirely."

Poor Dennis attempted to obey; but his head ached so cruelly, he was
so lame and bruised and sore, that he became faint the moment he
tried to sit up; and one of his eyes was swollen to such a degree
that he could not open it.

"Bad luck to the mischief of these boys!" said his mother. "I see
he'll never be able to go with me to church this day; so he may as
well keep to his bed."

Glad enough was Dennis to creep back to his nest.

Mike Hennessy and Johnny Hart were not in so bad a plight, but they
were unable to go to church.

As the boys were lying through the long hours oppressed with the
languor that follows such wild excitement, and with aching bones,
their reflections upon the frolic and its consequences were by no
means consoling. Nor did the comparisons they drew between the lawful
sports of the play-ground and the reckless turbulence of "_tip-top
times_" fail to decide the question in favor of the more quiet
enjoyments.

Was it a pale phantom that sat by the bedside of each during those
hours--while the joyful bells of the great feast were sending forth
their jubilant peals--and searching his very soul with reproachful
eyes pointed an uplifted finger from the painful realities of the
_now_ to the calm vision of what _might have been_, had he followed
the voice of conscience and the requirements of duty, until he shrunk
affrighted from the picture? Ah! no, my boys; it was no phantom; it
was the only _reality_ in the sight of which these mortal frames of
ours subside to dust, and in comparison with the permanence of which
they become--with all their importunate sensibilities, their worldly
ambitions, their earthly cravings, and their fleeting pleasures--but
the "baseless fabrics of a dream!" It was the tender, vigilant,
and ever-present friend of the sinner; his best friend, his other
self--his conscience! destined to be the crowning joy of his home in
heaven, or to be exchanged at the portals of death for remorse, the
gnawing "worm that never dies," in the regions of "eternal despair"!
Woe to that boy who sins, and who fails to receive, in his first
solitary hours, a visit from the reproving monitor, or to profit by
its awakening and warning voice!

The next morning they were so much better that they could go to
school, and meeting George Wingate in the yard, he exclaimed, "Why,
boys, where were you yesterday, that you did not come to church?
Henry and I looked for you through the whole crowd, to invite you to
go with us to the farm. Pat Casey went, and we had the best kind of a
time; we were so sorry you were not with us!"

They replied that they were not well, and had to stay at home. George
noticed their embarrassment, and that the face of Dennis betrayed
bruises about the eye, while Mike's forehead and Johnny's nose
displayed traces of a similar nature, and he conjectured the cause of
their absence from church.

After school, as he and Henry were walking home, Henry remarked, "I
suspect, George, that wherever the boys went that afternoon, they had
a rousing fight, for ever so many of them show the marks of it. I
heard a man telling that there was a great row among the boys at the
show in H---- that night; and I shouldn't wonder if our fellows were
among them."

"We need not trouble ourselves about it," George replied; "but I
thought at the time it was very likely we might be thankful we were
called another way, and had nothing to do with their frolic. I've
noticed that when boys go off by themselves in pursuit of fun, they
seldom come out the better for it; and as for enjoyment, there is
just none at all. I wouldn't give one hour of such pleasure as we
found in the woods for the wildest frolic they can get up."

"Nor I either," said Henry; "I'm determined I won't have any part in
their scrapes hereafter. If no other trouble followed, the shame of
going to confession after a wild row is enough to destroy all the
pleasure."

"Yes," George rejoined; "and I don't see how our boys who mean to go
regularly to their confession can join heartily in these mad pranks.
As for those who have no such intention, why, the less we have to do
with them the better."


CHAPTER V.

AN OUTSIDE GLIMPSE.

As Frank Blair had expected, his father was very much offended at the
share he had taken in the performances at H----, and the assault upon
the boys, of which he was informed the next morning by a man from
H----, who told him all about the fright, and the tricks that had
been played at that place: also, that the maiden lady, Miss Merton,
whose bedroom happened to be in a part of the house adjoining the
shed where the donkey was imprisoned, had been frightened almost
to death by the braying of the animal in the night. Under the firm
impression that the lion had escaped and was attacking her house,
she rushed out in her night-dress, and, espying a light in a small
shop near by, broke in upon three little French shoemakers, who were
sitting up to finish some job-work that must be ready for morning.
Now, one of these had been whiling away the time by stories of a
ghost in a Canadian village, that had visited several families, and
could assume the guise of different persons, living and dead. He was
just reciting one of the most harrowing of these incidents when the
sudden apparition of the lady in a long white dress, with a face of
ghastly pallor, and eyes distended with affright, burst upon their
astounded vision! Not for a moment doubting its unearthly nature, one
of them jumped through an open window, another sprung up a ladder and
out upon the roof, while the third took refuge under a dry-goods box
in the cellar.

The unfortunate lady, thinking that the lion was in close pursuit,
and that a glimpse of it through the open door had caused the sudden
stampede of the shoemakers, dared not turn back; but betook herself
to screaming at the top of her voice, in which she was joined by the
affrighted sons of Crispin in so vigorous a chorus that the whole
village was soon aroused.

When the cause of all the disturbance was revealed, and the harmless
animal released from captivity, it was almost impossible to persuade
the lady that her life was not in danger; and there was such serious
question of sending to M---- and arresting the juvenile offenders,
that Mr. Blair was advised to go immediately to H---- and settle the
matter.

As for the shoemakers, we may be permitted to add--somewhat in
advance of our story--the fact that their terrified imaginations had
so far misled their reason that they could never again be persuaded
to work in the shop after night-fall, or be led to believe fully in
the identity of Miss Merton with their ghastly midnight visitant.

The man who communicated these details gave Mr. Blair the names of
all the boys of the party whom he knew, among them those of Michael,
Dennis, and Johnny.

"Those pestilent Irish boys!" Mr. Blair exclaimed indignantly. "They
are always drawing our Yankee boys into fights and mischief! Some
measures ought to be taken to make examples of them, and prevent
these outbreaks."

He intimated the same to Frank that day while lecturing him severely
for "following such ringleaders" into disgraceful riots. Frank had
too much honor to permit his father to remain in this error, and
protested stoutly that it was himself who persuaded them into it;
but it was evident enough that he failed to convince his father of
that fact. Mr. Blair was not an ill-natured man, and did not intend
to be unjust; but he unfortunately indulged the prejudices against
foreigners into which too many Americans fall without pausing
to examine whether they are just. They take a few bad specimens
upon which to found a sweeping sentence against the whole class,
not reflecting that the vices of the wicked serve to render them
conspicuous, while the modest virtues of the good only withdraw them
from public notice.

After he had given Frank a very stern admonition, Mr. Blair proceeded
to inform him that a certain fowling-piece which had long been the
object of his most ardent desire, and of which he had hoped to gain
possession before the Fourth of July, would not now be purchased for
him, on account of his misconduct; and that immediate steps would be
taken to secure a place for him in the naval school at A----, in the
fall.

These were severe blows to Frank. The disappointment of his cherished
hopes in connection with the much-coveted fowling-piece, and his
dread of the naval school, where he knew the discipline was so strict
as to prevent the possibility of mischief, combined to make him take
a very desponding view of life in general, and of what he regarded as
the bondage to "old fogyism," in particular. He resolved, however,
to behave in so exemplary a manner from that time as to induce his
father to relent, if possible; for he knew present remonstrance or
pleading would be in vain.

He became so very quiet and regular in his deportment that he soon
won "golden opinions" on all hands, much to the delight of his aunt,
with whom he was a special pet, and who hoped her brother might yet
allow him to remain at home.

It was an unusually warm summer, and a Mrs. Plimpton, a friend of the
Blairs from the city where they had formerly resided, came to pass
the warm season with them, bringing her family--a son about the age
of Frank, and two daughters younger.

Soon after she came, Mrs. Wingate and Mrs. Howe called to see her,
and brought George and Henry to call upon the young strangers and
Frank.

When they left, Mrs. Plimpton remarked, "What very agreeable people!
And those young lads--so sociable, modest, and gentlemanly! I do not
wonder that Frank's manners are so genial and quiet, since he has
such associates."

"Frank does not associate much with them; and though Mrs. Wingate
and Mrs. Howe are very agreeable, as you say, yet we have but little
intercourse with them," Mrs. Blair replied, dryly and frigidly.

"And why not, let me beg to know?" inquired Mrs. Plimpton with
evident surprise. "In so small a place I should think you would
want to cultivate sociability with all people of intelligence and
refinement!"

"We would be glad to, and they would be a valuable acquisition to any
society, if they were not Romanists. But when enlightened Americans,
who should and do know better, see fit to plunge themselves into that
abyss of superstition and exploded absurdities, they ought to be
avoided by all sensible people."

"And is that all?" said Mrs. Plimpton, laughing. "Why, my dear
friend, I had hoped better things of you! I supposed by your solemn
manner that there was some serious moral delinquency on their part.
Really, I must be permitted to dissent entirely from your theory and
practice in this matter. I am sure you cannot be aware of all that
is going on in our cities. Many of my dearest friends are Catholics;
some Americans and some foreigners; and the dear Sisters--now, don't
look so shocked! I entreat of you--are my special favorites, and best
counsellors. I have quite taken them into my entire confidence on
some most important affairs. 'Romanists,' indeed! Why, if we were to
proscribe all the Catholics, we should lose a charming portion of
our society. We 'liberal Christians' do not feel disposed to carry
religious prejudices into the social circle, or to avoid pleasant
people on account of their preferences or peculiarities in this
respect. I shall only seek the acquaintance of these ladies the more
earnestly for this reason. Do you know how their change of faith was
brought about?"

"I never troubled myself to ask," Mrs. Blair said languidly.

"I can tell you!" said Miss Blair. "I heard the whole story from
one of their particular friends, who has followed their example. It
seems Mr. Wingate, who is a gentleman of wealth and leisure, had
amused himself by devoting much time and attention to studying the
principles of architecture--especially the ecclesiastical branch, for
which he had a great taste. When it was proposed to build a Catholic
church in the place, he begged permission to furnish a plan, which
was accorded. This was so entirely satisfactory--combining exquisite
artistic proportions with the close attention to economy in all the
details, which is indispensable where the resources are limited--that
he was urged to superintend the progress of the building, which he
consented to do. Soon after operations were commenced, one Patrick
Hennessy, an excellent mechanic, came to the place, having recently
emigrated from Ireland, and was employed to aid in the work. Mr.
Wingate had frequent conversations--controversies, if you will--with
him on religious subjects, and was surprised to find, not only that
Hennessy was perfectly acquainted with all the points at issue
between Catholics and Protestants, but that his own preconceived
opinions in relation to these questions were many of them false. He
borrowed and read Hennessy's books, and the result you know. His
wife, a highly cultivated and thoughtful woman, went with him heart
and hand. Their children were then quite young.

"Mrs. Howe was a very different person from her sister, Mrs. Wingate.
She was a fashionable lady, and, though not as wealthy as her sister,
aspired to lead the _ton_ in our little village. She assumed many
airs, established intimacies and exchanged visits with stylish city
ladies, which were more gratifying to her vanity than creditable to
her good sense. When Mrs. Wingate became a Catholic, she entirely
discontinued all intercourse with her, and uttered many sharp remarks
upon the subject. She had never been as much beloved as her sister,
and her course had provoked many envious and ill-natured comments,
to which was now added the remark that she had not so much religion
herself that she need be disturbed by the religious preferences
of others. To tell the story in few words, she was finally taken
suddenly very ill. The first person she called for was her discarded
sister, who came and watched over her early and late with devoted
tenderness--never leaving her bedside. When the physician pronounced
her case all but utterly hopeless, she begged that the priest might
be sent for; this had been the object of her sister's most fervent
and constant prayers, but she had not dared even to mention it. Mr.
Howe, after great hesitation, at length yielded to the wish of his
idolized and dying wife. The priest came, baptized and received her
into the Catholic Church. She lingered a long time, as it were,
between life and death; but a strong natural constitution prevailed,
and she recovered. After her recovery, the change in her character
was so marked and entire as to be apparent to all, and she came
to be regarded as even more lovely than her sister. Mr. Howe soon
followed her example, and their circle has since been increased by
the addition of converts from time to time. I entirely agree with you
as to the folly of abstaining from intercourse with them, and have
become quite familiar with that coterie--a delightful one it is, too!"

"And is that all?" Mrs. Blair pointedly asked.

"All for the present," Miss Blair replied, smiling.

"How long will it be before you follow such interesting examples? It
strikes me, I have seen a lady reading books lately that I should
not once have thought could claim a moment's attention from her; but
wonders will never cease, I believe!"

"I am not so tied to any set of opinions as to refuse to read the
other side."

"Well," said Mrs. Plimpton, "I have never thought it worth while to
trouble myself much about these matters; but I always read whatever I
choose on any subject, and I think every one has a right to do so."

    TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTE:

[129] The skins of young calves are so named by New-England dairy-men.




A MAY CAROL.


    "He looked on her humility."
      Ah! humbler thrice that breast was made
    When Jesus watched his mother's eye,
      When God each God-born wish obeyed!

    In her with seraph seraph strove,
      And each the other's purpose crossed:
    And now 'twas reverence, now 'twas love
      The peaceful strife that won or lost.

    Now to that Infant she extends
      Those hands that mutely say, "Mine own!"
    Now shrinks abashed, or swerves and bends,
      As bends a willow backward blown.

    And ofttimes, like a rose leaf caught
      By eddying airs from fairyland,
    The kiss a sleeping brow that sought
      Descends upon the unsceptred hand!

    O tenderest awe! whose sweet excess
      Had ended in a fond despair,
    Had not the all-pitying helplessness
      Constrained the boldness of her care!

    O holiest strife! the angelic hosts
      That watched it hid their dazzled eyes,
    And lingered from the heavenly coasts
      To bless that heavenlier paradise.

                                             AUBREY DE VERE.




CATHOLICITY AND PANTHEISM.

NUMBER NINE.

UNION BETWEEN THE INFINITE AND THE FINITE--CONTINUED.


In the preceding article we unfolded the nature of the hypostatic
moment, the solution which the Catholic Church gives to the problem
of the highest sublimation of the cosmos. In the present article we
shall point out the consequences which flow from that moment, in
order to put in bolder relief the nature of the exaltation which has
thereby accrued to the cosmos.

For the sake of perspicuity, we shall bring those consequences under
the following heads:

1. Consequences of the hypostatic moment, viewed in reference to the
external action, as the effective typical and final cause of the
cosmos.

2. Consequences of the hypostatic moment, considered respectively to
the nature, properties, and action of the cosmos, as abridged in the
human nature of the Theanthropos.

3. Those which relate to the other moments and persons of the cosmos.

4. Those which affect the Theanthropos himself, in relation to the
other moments and persons of the cosmos.

With respect to the consequences of the first class, it is evident
that the efficient typical and final cause of the external works
is absolutely and simply infinite. No real distinction can be made
between God's essence and his action, between his interior and
exterior action. Any distinction between these things would imply
potentiality and imperfection, and would throw us back into pantheism.

God's essence therefore, his interior and external action, are,
ontologically speaking, one and the same. Now, God is absolutely
infinite; the effective typical and final cause of the cosmos is
thereby absolutely infinite. In other words, the cause which calls
the cosmos to being is endowed with infinite energy; the cause
which serves as its exemplar and pattern, and which the cosmos must
delineate and express, is the infinite perfections of God; the cause
which inclines God to effect it is the infinite and transcendental
excellence of his being, as capable of being communicated. Now,
a cause infinite in every respect would naturally claim a term
corresponding to the intensity of the action. It is upon this
principle that pantheism has been framed. An infinite cause claims
a term also infinite. Now, an effect infinite in its nature is a
contradiction in terms; therefore the work is and can be nothing more
but a phenomenon of the infinite.

If pantheists had paid attention to the Catholic theory, that the
action of God, because infinite, is distinct in two moments, the one
immanent and interior, the other transient and exterior; that the
same action in the first moment is absolute and necessary, and gives
rise to the eternal originations which constitute infinite life;
that the same action in the second moment is absolutely free, and
consequently master of the intensity of its energy, free to apply
as much of that energy as it chooses; they would have seen that the
above principle applies to the first but not to the second moment,
and that therefore their theory rests on a false assumption.

However, though pantheism rests on a false assumption, it cannot be
denied that there is a certain fitness between an infinite cause and
an effect, as much as possible corresponding to the infinite energy
of the cause; and that consequently the external action of God,
because infinite, is for that very reason inclined to effect the
best possible cosmos, a cosmos almost infinite in its perfection;
an infinite energy has a tendency to effect an infinite term; an
infinite typical perfection, to realize an infinite expression; an
infinite yearning of communication, to impart itself in a manner the
most exhaustive possible.

This fitness of proportion between cause and effect is so evident
as to baffle all doubt; yet the necessary distinction implied by
the very nature of cause and effect, a distinction of infinite
superiority on the part of the one and infinite dependence and
inferiority on the part of the other, in the present case is that
which gives rise to the problem which may be formulated as follows:
given the infinite superiority of the cause of the cosmos, and
admitting the essential inferiority of the effect, how to exalt the
effect to a perfection almost absolute, and draw it as near the
perfection of the cause as possible, without destroying the absolute
and necessary finiteness of the effect.

The hypostatic moment is the sublime and transcendental answer which
God has given to the problem. For in that mystery the cosmos, as
abridged and recapitulated in human nature, without ceasing to be
what it is, without losing its essence and nature, is exalted to
the highest possible perfection, by a union of subsistence with the
Infinite himself. Nay, the infinite subsistence and personality of
the Word is the subsistence and personality of the human nature
assumed; so that the human nature, though real and finite, is at the
same time the nature of the person of the Word, and consequently
partaking of all the dignity, perfection, and excellence of the
Word. In other terms, the cosmos, as abridged in the human nature
of Christ, is _deified_, not indeed by a change of its ontological
being, but by the highest, strictest, and closest communication and
union with the Godhead. For, next to the identity of nature, we can
conceive of no closer union or communication than that which exists
between two distinct natures completed and actualized by the same
identical subsistence. Now, this identity of subsistence communicates
to the inferior nature all the worth and dignity of the superior; and
consequently the human nature of Christ, and hence the cosmos which
it abridges, are, as it were, deified in such a manner as to exchange
the denomination of attributes, and we can call man God, and God
man.[130]

Thus the tendency of the infinite cause of the external works is
fully satisfied. The infinite energy of the efficient cause has for
its term an object perfectly corresponding to the intensity of its
energy; since it terminates in an object absolutely infinite--the
_Word_ completing the two natures, the divine and the human; an
individual who is very God as well as very man.

The typical cause is even better satisfied, so to speak. It tends to
express itself exteriorly, as perfectly as it exists interiorly. By
the hypostatic moment, the same identical type of the cosmos, its
intelligible and objective life enters to form part of the cosmos,
the interior _logos_ or _schema_ is wedded to its exterior expression
in the bond of one subsistence, and is at the same time type and
expression, objective and subjective life. Unlike other artists, who
must necessarily regret the impossibility of their impressing on the
external work, be it marble or canvas, the interior conceptions of
the mind, as fully and as perfectly as they conceive them interiorly,
the divine artist of the cosmos found a means whereby to unite,
to bring together type and expression, the intelligible and the
subjective, the original and the copy, in one identical person; so
that in the person of the Theanthropos, as you admire the art so
exquisitely divine in the copy, you are dazzled by the effulgence
of the type which dwells and shines forth in it; as you wonder at
the exactness of the created expression, you can see the original
conception also, blended together in one common subsistence. The end
also of the external work is fully attained. For in the hypostatic
moment the infinite and transcendental excellence of God is
communicated in a manner beyond which you could not go; God in this
moment yielding himself so far as to make his own subsistence common
to human nature, and thus making it share in his infinite dignity,
attributes, and the very name of God.

We shall allude to one consequence only of the second class; those
having reference to the sublimation of the cosmos; and that is the
life of the cosmos.

Life is action and movement. Those beings which act not exist but do
not live. If, therefore, the action of the cosmos has been elevated
to the highest possible perfection by the hypostatic moment, it
follows that its life also has been exalted.

Now, though action originates in the nature, which is the first
principle of action in a being, yet its ontological worth and dignity
it receives from the subsistence or person, because the nature would
be an abstraction, a possibility, without the subsistence.

In the case, therefore, of an individual in whom the nature is
inferior, and the subsistence, which actualizes and completes the
nature, is superior, in the scale of being, the actions primarily
originating from nature as their first root have all the ontological
worth of the subsistence, and not of the nature.

Consequently, all the human actions of Christ, primarily originating
in his human nature, partake of the ontological dignity and value
of his person, and not of his human nature; just because his human
nature is completed by and subsists in the personality of the Word.

Now, this personality is infinite; infinite, therefore, is the
ontological worth of the human actions of Christ.

And if we consider, as we have already remarked, that human nature is
a recapitulation of all the elements of the cosmos, since it shares
spirit, intelligence, and will with the angelic nature, sensible
apprehension with animal nature, life with the vegetable nature, and
locomotion with inorganic nature, it follows that all the actions of
the cosmos are recapitulated in human nature, and that consequently
they are exalted to an infinite worth and dignity in the human nature
of Christ, which is completed by his infinite personality.

The consequences of the third class will better explain and develop
this exaltation of the life of the cosmos. The object of the
external action consists in manifesting the infinite excellence and
perfections of God. This creation does in two different ways: 1st,
ontologically, the very nature of the cosmos being an expression, a
likeness of the infinite. This function is discharged indistinctly
both by intelligent and unintelligent beings.

2d. But this function, by which unintelligent creatures unconsciously
manifest in their nature and properties the excellence of God, in
intelligent creatures is necessarily a moral act, and gives rise to
the virtue of religion; because intelligent creatures cannot possibly
fail to perceive the relation which binds them to their creator, and
to feel the duty of acknowledging it.

Hence, religion is an absolute duty for intelligent beings; so
necessary and absolute that the opposite assertion would be a
contradiction in terms.

To say a creature, is to affirm a being created by God with the
express purpose of manifesting his perfections; to say intelligent,
is to affirm a creature able to perceive this relation, and able to
fulfil the purpose which it perceives was intended by the creator. To
absolve, therefore, intelligent creatures from the duty of religion,
is to affirm and deny in the same breath that they _are_ intelligent
creatures.

Hence, they must necessarily perceive and will the relation in which
they stand to their creator, and consequently be religious by force
of their very nature and existence.

The whole cosmos must pay to God, its creator, the homage of
religion; unintelligent creatures by unconsciously portraying his
perfections; intelligent creatures, by acknowledging the same with
their intelligence and will.

Now, this first function of the cosmos, this primary act of its
life, is elevated to the highest possible perfection through the
hypostatic moment. For through this moment the external religion of
the cosmos is elevated to the dignity and grandeur of the internal
religion.

Philosophers and theologians do not treat of the existence of the
eternal and objective religion, as often as they do of that religion
which expresses the relations between the creator and his creatures,
and might be styled external and temporal religion. But every thing
temporal is the counterpart of something eternal; every subjective
existence has an intelligible objective existence in eternity, a type
without which its subjective existence were inconceivable.

Religion, then, must have its type in God; in his infinite essence
must be found those eternal laws which render temporal religion
possible.

What is there in the essence of the infinite which constitutes
religion, and establishes its laws?

The eternal religion is the life of God, its laws the laws of the
genesis of his life.

God is a living, personal being. He is unborn, unbegotten,
intelligent activity; first termination of the Godhead. By one
eternal, immanent glance of his intelligence he searches, so to
speak, and scrutinizes the innermost depths of his essence, and thus
comprehends himself, that is, conceives and utters himself interiorly.

This infinite, most perfect utterance and intelligible expression
of himself is a second termination of the Godhead; the Word, who
portrays and manifests the Godhead intelligibly; as the first person
is the actuation of the Godhead under the termination of intelligent,
primary, independent activity and principle.

This duality of terminations is brought into harmony by a third
person, the result of the action of both. For between the intelligent
principle, uttering himself intelligibly, and the utterance, the
term of that intellectual conception, there passes necessarily an
infinite attraction, a blissful sympathy, an unutterable complacency.

The Father beholds as in a bright, clear stream of infinite light
the unspeakable beauty and loveliness of his infinite perfections,
and utters them to himself, and delights in that utterance. The
Son beholds himself as the most perfect, the consubstantial
representation of the sublime excellence of the Father, and takes
complacency in him as the principle of his personality.

This common complacency, sympathy, attraction, love, bliss, is the
third termination of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit, the breath of the
love of both, the personal subsisting attraction of the Father and of
the Son, the person who closes the cycle of God's infinite life.

This is the eternal, immanent, objective religion. For what is
religion in its highest metaphysical acceptation? It is the
intelligible and loving acknowledgment of the infinite nature and
attributes of God. Now, the Word is the infinite, substantial, and
intelligible acknowledgment of the Father; the Holy Ghost is the
infinite, substantial, loving acknowledgment of both. Therefore, the
eternal mystery of the life of the infinite, the Trinity, is also the
eternal objective religion by which God acknowledges, appreciates and
honors himself.

It might be objected to the soundness of this doctrine, that one of
the relations, which is the principal and fundamental in religion,
the relation of dependence, is wanting in the life of the infinite,
and that consequently that life cannot be taken as the eternal type
of religion.

In the metaphysical idea of religion, dependence is necessary as
the fundamental relation upon which all others rest. Because
religion is essentially an acknowledgment of one person from another.
Therefore, the person who acknowledges himself as indebted to
another for something must, by that very fact, be dependent upon
him. The intelligible acknowledgment means that one intelligent
being perceives with his mind that he stands indebted to another for
something, and consequently depends upon him for that thing. The
practical or loving acknowledgment conveys the idea that the person
who has perceived his standing indebted to another for something,
acts in such a manner as to express by his action his sense of the
dependence. Religion is therefore an intelligible and practical
dependence of one person upon another.

But this relation of dependence does not necessarily imply the idea
of inferiority in the hierarchy of being upon the part of the person
who is dependent, and a like superiority on the part of the person
who is acknowledged. A dependence of origin or procession, without
including any inferiority on the part of him who is dependent,
is fully and absolutely sufficient in the metaphysical idea of
transcendental religion.

The reason of this lies in the very nature of transcendental
religion or acknowledgment. By this we seek the highest possible,
the most perfect idea of acknowledgment, which necessarily implies
an equality between the person who acknowledges and the person who
is acknowledged. Otherwise, without the equality the acknowledgment
would fall short of the perfection of the object acknowledged.
Now, an inferiority of nature and attributes in the person who
acknowledges would destroy the equality and imply an inferiority of
acknowledgment, and consequently would not represent the idea of the
highest, most perfect acknowledgment and religion.

The Son, therefore, depending upon the Father as to his origin,
though absolutely equal to him in nature and attributes, and being
the intelligible, infinite expression of the perfections of the
Father, is, by force of his very personality, the subsisting, living,
speaking acknowledgment of the Father.

The Holy Ghost, depending upon the Father and the Son as to origin,
though perfectly equal to them as to nature, and being the loving
expression of the infinite goodness of both, is, by force of his very
personality, the living, practical recognition of the Father and of
the Son.

The eternal life of God, therefore, is the eternal typical religion.
It is the only true religion in the transcendental meaning of the
term. Because the more perfect is the recognition, the more adequate
it is to the object, and the more it approaches to metaphysical
truth, which lies in the equation of the type with its expression. It
is the only religion worthy of God. For religion, as we have said, is
the intelligible and practical recognition of God. Now, every one can
see that such recognition, to be worthy of God, must be absolutely
perfect. The intelligible recognition must imply such an idea of
God as to be absolute utterance of his nature and perfections; the
loving recognition must love God in the most perfect and absolute
sense of the word. Now, God being infinite, an infinite, intelligible
recognition, an infinite, practical, loving acknowledgment only can
be worthy of him. He alone can know and love himself as he deserves.
Now, to draw nearer to our subject, we inquire, Is temporal religion
worthy of God? And we observe, before answering the question, that
by temporal religion we do not mean that recognition of God which
results from the ontological essence of all the beings of the cosmos,
but that voluntary and reflex acknowledgment which created spirits,
whether men or angels, are bound to pay to their maker. We ask,
therefore, is the acknowledgment which created spirits pay to God
worthy of him, worthy of his infinite and transcendental nature and
perfections? Evidently not. Because the intelligence of the cherubim,
however high and lofty, and soaring as far above the intelligence of
inferior created spirits as the eagle's flight over all the feathered
tribes; the love of the seraphim, however intense, however deep,
however tender, however ardent, are merely and simply finite. On
the other hand, what is the intelligence and love of men compared
with those of the heavenly spirits, who are so near the supreme
intelligence and love, when compared to us, and yet so far from it,
when compared with God?

The religion, therefore, of all created spirits is not proportionate
to its object; it falls infinitely short of the merits of God. Hence
the cosmos, of which created spirits form the best part, with the
exclusion of the Incarnate Word, cannot properly discharge the first
and paramount duty of the creature, the homage of acknowledgment and
adoration to its creator.

But let the Word, the eternal mediator between God and the cosmos,
let the intelligible and objective life, the type of the cosmos,
enter into it, and the worth of the nature and the acts of the cosmos
shall be exalted, elevated, changed, transformed; and it can then
pay to God a tribute of recognition fully, perfectly, and absolutely
worthy of him.

For the Theanthropos--the God-Man, who is possessed of infinite
intelligence, and can comprehend God as far as God is intelligible,
who is possessed of infinite will, and can love God as far as God
is amiable, can recognize him, acknowledge him, theoretically and
practically, as perfectly as he deserves, with absolute equation. And
the human nature of the Theanthropos, though in itself finite in its
essence and in its acts, can likewise render to God a homage fully
and perfectly worthy of him. First, because the acts of the Word of
God, honoring the infinite majesty theoretically and practically
in an infinite manner, are acts also belonging to human nature,
are its own acts, so to speak; because they are acts of its own
personality, and human nature can say to God, I honor thee with the
acts of my own person, and they are infinite. Secondly, because even
the acts springing immediately from human nature, and consequently
in themselves finite, in force of the union of these same acts with
the divine personality in whom they subsist, acquire an infinite
worth and dignity because of the person in whom they subsist; and
human nature can say to God, I honor you with my own acts of worship
and acknowledgment. In both cases, therefore, whether we look at
the acts of the Theanthropos springing from his divine nature, or
at those proceeding from his human nature, they are of infinite
value, by force of the unity of his divine person; and consequently
the Theanthropos can recognize God in an infinite manner, a manner
absolutely worthy of God.

The cosmos, then, recapitulated in the human nature of Christ, is
enabled to worship God as he deserves; the temporal religion of
the cosmos is wedded to the eternal; and the Godhead is worshipped
in his cosmos with the same perfect homage of recognition as he
receives from eternity in the bosom of his interior life. The Word,
as infinite recognition of the Father, is the eternal mediator of
religion between the Father and the Holy Ghost. The Word incarnate
is the mediator of religion between God and his cosmos.

All angels and men, and to a certain degree all creatures, all
persons, all individualities, from the highest pinnacle of creation
down to the farthest extremities thereof, united in a particular
manner, which shall be hereafter explained, with the Theanthropos,
and partakers of his mind, of his will, of his affections, of his
heart, of his life, can raise to God a canticle of acknowledgment
fully worthy of him, perfectly equal to that which rose up silently
in the bosom of the infinite, when, in the day of his eternity, he
uttered his infinite word, and breathed his spirit and recognized
himself very God.

Who will not admit a dogma which elevates the cosmos to such a height
of dignity? And what can pantheism offer in its stead? It can destroy
both temporal and eternal religion, by identifying both terms, the
cosmos and the infinite, and thus rendering a true acknowledgment
of God impossible. But it can never impart that true exaltation,
that high dignity to the cosmos, which the Catholic doctrine of
the hypostatic moment affords. God acknowledges himself infinitely
from all eternity, by uttering a perfect intellectual expression of
himself, and by both aspiring a loving recognition of themselves. We
creatures are enabled to acknowledge him as he acknowledges himself;
the only recognition worthy of him. The Word, by becoming incarnate,
enters into the choir of creation, and takes its leadership; brings
into it the harmonies of the bosom of God, and on a sudden the music
and the songs of the cosmos rise up to the height of its leader, and
mingle with the harmonies of eternal life.

Before we pass to other consequences of the incarnation, we shall
point out a corollary, among all others, which follows from the
doctrine above stated, and which, though of the highest importance,
is lost sight of both by apologists and rationalists.

This corollary is, that the Christian religion, as Christ founded
it, is _cosmological law_, and can no more be lost sight of by the
philosopher than by a Christian himself.

For according to the actual plan of the cosmos, the plan which God
selected, God was not satisfied with that finite, imperfect, natural
acknowledgment which created spirits might render to him. But, as
he was pleased not to leave the cosmos in its natural conditions,
but raised it to the highest possible dignity by a union with the
divine personality of the Word, so he was not satisfied that the
acknowledgment which is due to him as the creator should be that
natural, imperfect, finite acknowledgment which created spirits
could, with their natural force, render to him, but willed that their
acknowledgment should, by a union with the Theanthropos, be exalted
to the dignity of the infinite acknowledgment which he renders to
himself from all eternity.

This is a law of the actual cosmos which God selected, and it is as
much a law, an integral part of its constituents, as any natural law
which we may discover. God selected such a cosmos that we might pay
to him a recognition true and worthy of him.

Now, Christianity, as Christ founded it, is the religion of all
created persons in time and space, who, united to the Theanthropos
by a particular mode of union, worship God with and through the
Theanthropos; that is, worship God as he deserves. Consequently
Christianity is a law of the cosmos, an integral constituent of that
cosmos which God selected, and hence true, elevating, and imperative.

True, because it is a religion the acts of which are fully adequate
to the object, since in it God is worshipped as perfectly as he
deserves.

True, because, religion implying a knowledge of God, in Christianity
knowledge is imparted to the minds of its followers fully adequate to
the object known, in its origin, in its mode of communication, and
its end. In its origin, being derived from the Theanthropos; in its
mode, being imparted by a peculiar operation of the Theanthropos; and
in its end, as tending to gradual development, until it has reached
the fulness of knowledge, which may be imparted to a pure creature in
palingenesia.

True, because, religion implying operation and action, action is
imparted in the same manner as knowledge.

Elevating, because it is evident that that aim of Christianity is
to raise human persons from their natural state, from their natural
operation, to a superior state and operation through the Theanthropos.

Imperative, because, God having made Christianity a law of the
cosmos, which he selected, it is not free to a moral agent to accept
or reject it, but all must accept it as a law of the cosmos which no
one may contravene.

Hence rationalists, and infidels, and indifferentists, in rejecting
Christianity or in being indifferent to it, reject a law of the
cosmos, a law which is as essential to the entirety of the cosmos,
which God chose, as the law of gravitation or locomotion; and in
reasoning upon the cosmos, after rejecting Christianity, rationalists
and indifferentists should say, "I do not reason on the actual cosmos
that God has selected; I reason on a cosmos of my own creation; I
limit it, I contract it, I debase it, as it pleases my fancy; and
yet, after that, I insist on retaining the name of philosopher."

We pass to the other consequence. The tendency of the exterior act
is to form the cosmos, and especially created intelligences, into a
universal society. We could prove this by the consideration of the
efficient, typical, and final cause of the external act; but prefer
to show it only from the typical cause, or objective life of creation.

The objective life of the cosmos is the life of the infinite
intelligibly expressed in the Word. Now, God's life is essentially
one, absolute, most perfect, universal society. One is the nature
of the infinite terminated and concreted by three distinct
subsistences--the Beginning, the Word, the Spirit. One and identical
is their intelligence and will; because intelligence and will, being
an attribute of nature, as the three divine personalities partake
of the same nature, they are at the same time endowed with the same
identical intelligence and will.

One and identical is likewise their life and bliss; because the life
and bliss of the infinite consists in knowing and loving himself,
in which operation the three divine personalities share, in force
of the identical absolute intelligence and will with which they are
equally endowed. They are finally one by their common and reciprocal
indwelling in each other; because the beginning is Father, inasmuch
as his eternal Son dwells in his bosom. The Son is such, inasmuch as
he is related to the Father, and dwells in him. The Spirit is such,
inasmuch as he is related to both, and dwells in both.

The Trinity, therefore, is the type of one universal perfect society,
because the three divine persons are associated by the unity and
identity of nature, of attributes, of life, of happiness, and by a
common indwelling in each other.

Now, the Trinity, as intelligibly mirrored in the Word, is the
objective life of the cosmos, or its typical cause. On the other
hand, we have shown that the plan which God has chosen in his works
_ad extra_ is that which draws the subjective cosmos as near in
perfection to its intelligible and objective life as possible.

The cosmos, therefore, in force of its typical cause, is called to
represent the one most perfect universal society of the three divine
persons as perfectly as possible.

This were impossible except by the admission of the existence of the
Theanthropos into creation. For, once admitting the existence of the
Theanthropos, we see that the eternal society of the three divine
persons, as mirrored intelligibly in the Word, the very typical cause
of the cosmos, has come in contact with the cosmos itself, by the
closest, most intimate society--the same identical subsistence: the
eternal and interior society is externated, and the cosmos and the
infinite society of God form one single society in the identity of
the person of the Word. Man and God are one single society in Christ.
Unite now all created spirits and persons to this externation of the
typical cause, by a principle of which we shall speak in the next
article; unite their nature to his nature, their intelligence to
his intelligence, their will to his will, their life to his life,
their bliss to his bliss; and we shall have one universal society,
partaking of the nature, the intelligence, the will, the life, the
bliss, of the Theanthropos; and thus not only united with each other,
and meeting each other in one common medium and centre, but also
presenting a divine society whose bond of union is the intelligence,
will, life, bliss, of the Theanthropos communicated to them all;
and through him and by him ushered into the eternal society of the
Trinity.

This is the idea expressed in the sublime prayer of our Lord, when he
said, Father, keep them in thy name whom thou hast given me, that
they may be one as WE also are. And not for them only do I pray, but
for them also who through their word shall believe in me; that they
all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also
may be one in us, I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made
perfect in one: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in
them, and I in them.[131]

This consequence of the hypostatic moment affords the cosmological
reason of the truth, the divinity, the imperative necessity of the
Catholic Church.

For the Catholic Church is nothing else but the society of all
the persons of the cosmos elevated in Christ and through Christ
to the eternal typical society of the Trinity, by a community of
supernatural intelligence, will, life, bliss, imparted to them by
the Theanthropos, to whom they are united, travelling centuries and
generations to add new members to this universal society of all
ages, until the number of members being complete, it shall cease its
temporal action, and rest in eternity. This is the only true view of
the Catholic Church. Men imagine it to be an after-thought, a thing
begun nineteen centuries ago. The Catholic Church is a cosmological
law; and hence _necessary_, _universal_, _imperative_. God in
acting outside himself might have chosen to effect only substantial
creation; but having once determined to effect the hypostatic
moment, to cause the Theanthropos to form the exalting principle,
the centre, the mediator of the cosmos, he could not but carry
out to their fullest expression those relations which result from
that moment. Now, the Catholic Church is the necessary consequence
of the hypostatic moment. The Word, the type of the universe, is
united to its expression in the unity of his divine personality,
and is thus placed at the very centre of the universe, as that in
which all things are consolidated. It follows, therefore, that all
created persons must hover round about their centre, must be put in
communication with him, united to him as their centre and mediator by
a communion of intelligence, of will, of life, of bliss, and thus be
associated with each other, and united with the eternal archetypical
society--the Trinity.

This gives as a result a society of all created persons united by the
bond of the same theanthropic intelligence, will, life, and bliss.

Now, such is the Catholic Church. Therefore it is a cosmological
law in the present plan of the exterior action of God; and as a
cosmological law is _universal_, extending to all times and places,
_divine_ in its origin and action, and _imperative_, so the Catholic
Church is essentially _universal_ in time and space; _divine_ in
its origin and action; _imperative_, enforcing its acceptance and
adhesion on every intellect which can contemplate the plan of the
exterior works of God.

Hence Protestantism is not only a theological error, but a
philosophical blunder.

God effects the hypostatic moment, and makes the Theanthropos the
centre of the cosmos, and of the best part of the cosmos--men.
He could not be their centre unless they were united to him by
intelligence, will, and life. And they could not be united to him
unless they were united to each other by a common theanthropic
intelligence, will, and life, etc.[132] And the question being of
incarnate spirits, this union of intelligence, will, and life could
not be possible, except it were visible and external.

Hence, it is a necessary consequence of the hypostatic moment
that men should be united in one universal, visible, and external
society. Protestantism, admitting the hypostatic moment, denies the
consequence which so evidently flows from it, and denies by its
fundamental principle a society of intelligence, and of will, and of
life, and also the visibility, the externation of such society, and
takes refuge in an individual union between himself and Christ, and
says, by the same principle, "I have a right to form an intelligence
of my own, in no way connected with the intelligence of other created
persons. I have a right to follow laws which I shall individually
find out and proclaim. I have a right to have a life exclusively my
own, and no interchange shall pass between me and others."

Hence the absolute falsehood of Protestantism, which ignores the
existence and qualities of this supreme cosmological law.

The cosmological law is _one_. Protestantism is _multiform_. The
cosmological law is _universal_. Protestantism is _individual_. The
cosmological law is _communicative_ and _expansive_. Protestantism is
_egotistical_.

What is more remarkable still is the astounding pretension of
Protestantism to having enlightened and elevated mankind. Enlightened
mankind by ignoring the plan of the universe in its beauty, in its
harmony, in its whole! Elevated mankind by proclaiming individualism
and egotism in the face of the one great life-giving law of a common
universal society!

We would beg our Protestant readers to ask themselves the following
questions:

Is it true that God made Christ, the Word incarnate, the centre of
the cosmos, and hence the centre of all created persons?

Is it true that, in consequence of this, created persons should be
united to him by partaking of his intelligence, will, and life?

Is it true that, in force of this union, all created persons become
united to each other in force of the principle that two things united
to a third are united to each other?

Is it true that God has effected all this in order to elevate human
society to the society of his eternal life?

Is it not true that the Catholic Church is nothing but that?

Then the Catholic Church is _cosmological law, one, divine,
universal, imperative_.

We pass to the fourth class of consequences, those which regard the
Theanthropos in relation to all the moments and persons of the cosmos.

I. The Theanthropos was intended by God before and above all other
works.

Every one is aware that an intellectual agent, in effecting his
works, follows a different order from that which he pursues in
planning them; in other words, the order of execution which an
intellectual agent follows is in the inverse ratio of the order which
he follows in idealizing them. In an architect's mind the end and
use of a building is first in order, and he idealizes and shapes
his building according to the object intended. In the execution of
the work the order is inverted, the building is effected first, the
object and use are attained afterward.

The order followed in idealizing a work is called by schoolmen the
order of _intention;_ that which is pursued in executing the work,
the order of _execution_. When we say, therefore, that the hypostatic
moment and the Theanthropos are the first of God's external works,
we mean, of course, in the order of intention; we mean that they were
intended by God first and before every other work when he resolved
to act outside himself;[133] so that the incarnation was determined
upon, not only independently of the sin of man, but would have taken
place even if man had never fallen.[134]

The metaphysical reason of this consequence is found in the relation
which means bear to the end. It is absolutely necessary that an
intellectual agent should intend primarily and chiefly that object
which is best calculated to attain the end he has in view in his
action; which best fulfils his intention and is the most appropriate
and nearest mean.

Now, the hypostatic moment, and consequently Christ, attains better
than any other moment or individual the object of the external action
of God, as we have shown. Therefore Christ was intended by God first
and above every other work.

This consequence is poetically described by the inspired author of
the Proverbs, in those beautiful lines so well known:

    "The Lord possessed me from the beginning of his ways, before
    he made any thing from the beginning.

    "I was set up from all eternity, and of old before the earth
    was made.

    "The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived;
    neither had the foundations of water as yet sprung out.

    "The mountains with their huge bulk had not as yet been
    established; before the hills I was brought forth.

    "He had not made the earth, nor the rivers, nor the poles of
    the world.

    "When he prepared the heavens, I was present; when with a
    certain law and compass he inclosed the depths," etc.[135]

2. Consequence. The Theanthropos is the secondary end of God's
external works.

For, in a series of means necessary to the end, that which is
first and chief is also end in respect to the other means. Christ,
therefore, being the first and chief means to attain the end of the
external act, is also end in reference to the other moments, and
consequently the secondary end of the cosmos. "All things," said St.
Paul to the Corinthians, "are yours; and you are Christ's, and Christ
is God's."

3. Christ is the secondary type of the cosmos. Ontologically
speaking, the end determines and shapes the nature and perfections of
the means, and bears to the means the relation of type and exemplar.
Now, Christ is the secondary end of the cosmos; he is, therefore, the
secondary model and type of the exterior works; in other words, he is
the best and supremest expression of God's infinite excellence, the
archetype of the cosmos; therefore he is also the secondary type of
the cosmos.

4. Christ is the universal mediator between God and his works.

As in the bosom of God the Word is the medium in the genesis of
his eternal life, the link which connects the Father and the
Spirit; so, outside of God, the incarnate Word is the mediator, the
medium universal and absolute, between God and his works, the link
connecting the infinite and the finite.

For, in the first place, the very nature of the hypostatic moment
makes him such. He is the _Word_, that is, the very Godhead, with
his infinite nature and perfections, under the termination of
intelligibility.

He is man, comprehending in his human nature all the various elements
of substantial creation. Both the Godhead and the human nature
subsist of that one termination of intelligibility. It is evident,
therefore, that the incarnate Word is essentially, by the very nature
of the hypostatic union, the medium between the infinite and the
finite.

Moreover, every intellectual agent is linked to his work by the type
of it existing in the intelligence, without which knowledge the agent
could never communicate with his work. The divine Artist of the
cosmos, therefore, is in communication with it by the eternal cosmic
type residing in his essence--the Word. Now, Christ is the Word
incarnate, and, as such, is the type of the cosmos hypostatically
united to its expression, the intelligible and objective life
personally linked to the subjective. He is, therefore, the medium
between the objective and subjective cosmos, and consequently between
the cosmos and God.

Hence Christ is essentially the mediator of creation, both in the
natural and supernatural moment; inasmuch as by him and through him
all things were made in both orders.

He is essentially the mediator of the continuation of existence in
both orders; since the same action, by which all things were made,
through him continues to hold them in existence.

He is essentially the mediator of the action of creatures in both
orders; since the same action by which all things are made to exist,
and to continue in existence through him, incites them to action and
aids them to develop their faculties. He is essentially the mediator
of perfection and beatitude; because the same action, which incites
and aids all existences, both in the natural and supernatural order,
to develop their faculties, must also perfect them, and bring them to
their final completion. And in the very act of beatitude, when the
dawn of the vision of God shall flash before the mind of created
spirits, the Theanthropos shall be the mediator between them and the
superabundant and dazzling effulgence of the infinite, by aiding and
invigorating their intellect with the light of glory.

"In him (Christ) were all things created in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible. He is before all, and by him all things
consist."[136]

5. Christ is the supreme universal objective science; the supreme
universal objective dialectic.

In the ontological order intelligibility and reality are one and the
same thing; every thing real being by the very fact intelligible, and
_vice versa_.

Now, Christ is the infinite and finite reality, hypostatically united
together. He is, therefore, the infinite finite intelligibility, and
consequently the universal objective science.

He is also the supreme universal objective dialectic; for he is
essentially the type and the form of all reasoning. The form of all
reasoning consists in the comparison of two terms with a third, with
a view of deducing their agreement or disagreement. Christ is at once
the infinite universal term, and the finite and particular term; both
terms agreeing together in the oneness of his divine personality. He
is, therefore, the type and form of all reasoning, and the objective
dialectic.

6. He is the light of all finite intelligences. Because, in the first
place, he is the space of essences, so to speak; being the subsisting
intelligibility of the Godhead.

Secondly. Because in his individuality there is the ontological
agreement of all the problems of the human mind, and the solution of
all the questions relative to the infinite and the finite, to time
and eternity, to the absolute and the relative, to immutability and
movement, to cause and effect, etc.

Thirdly. Because he is the incarnate Word, creating, supporting,
elevating and perfecting all created intelligences, in force of his
essential office of universal mediator of the cosmos.

7. Christ is the supreme universal and objective morality.

The moral perfection of the cosmos consists in the voluntary
realization of the final perfection to which it is destined by its
archetype.

Now, Christ is the archetype of the cosmos. Therefore, he is the
supreme objective morality. He is also supreme morality in the sense
of his inciting and aiding the cosmos in the voluntary reproduction
and realization of the type, in force of his office of mediator.
Therefore, etc.

8. Christ is the supreme objective realization of the beautiful.

The beautiful lies in variety reduced to unity by order and
proportion. Christ is the infinite and finite, the two beings most
distant, brought together into the unity of his divine personality by
order and proportion, as it is evident to every mind that has grasped
the nature of the hypostatic moment.

He is, therefore, the supreme, universal realization of the beautiful.

9. Christ is the supreme and universal king and ruler of the universe.

For he is the medium of the creation, preservation, and action of
the cosmos; he is its secondary end and exemplar; he is the type and
light of intelligence, the law of morality and of the beautiful.

The cosmos, therefore, is subject and dependent upon him for so many
reasons, and consequently he is the supreme ruler of it.

10. He is the centre of all the other moments and persons of the
cosmos; all things gathering around him as their chief, their
exemplar, their mediator.

"I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End." (Apoc. i. 8.)

FOOTNOTES:

[130] We could not say the human nature is divine, nor could we say
the human nature is God, or _vice versa_; but we can only predicate
the concrete terms of the concrete. The metaphysical reason is,
that the foundation of this interchange of names and properties of
both natures lies in their being both concrete in the subsistence
of the Word. If we consider them abstractly, they are separate, and
consequently cannot interchange attributes.

[131] St. John, ch. xvii., _passim_.

[132] The idea comprehends other conditions which it is not necessary
to unfold now.

[133] "Dico Deum primaria intentione, qua voluit se creaturis
communicare, voluisse mysterium Incarnationis et Christum Dominum ut
esset caput et finis divinorum operum sub ipso Deo." (Suarez, _De
Incarnatione_, Disp. v. sect. ii.)

[134] Suarez, Ubicum.

[135] Prov. ch. viii.

[136] St. Paul Colos. ch. v. 16.




BRITTANY: ITS PEOPLE AND ITS POEMS.

SECOND ARTICLE.


More than a year has elapsed since we expressed a hope to present
our readers with some further specimens of the ancient poetry of
Brittany. We then gave, translated from their rendering into French
by M. de Villemarque, a portion of bardic poems, for example, _The
Prophecy of Gwench'lan_; _The Submersion of the City of Is_; _The
Changeling_, and _The March of Arthur_. These, as well as the
dialogue between a Druid and a child, (which is perhaps too long for
insertion here,) _The Plague of Elliant_, and portions of _Lord Nann
and the Fay_, retain much of their scientific and often alliterative
form, a part of which is their arrangement in tercets, or strophes of
three lines rhyming together.

We now proceed to fulfil our promise with regard to the ballad of
_Lord Nann_, which, however, it may be well to preface with some
remarks upon that portion of Breton mythology which it illustrates.

The principal supernatural agents in the popular poetry of Brittany
are the dwarfs and the fairies.

The common appellation of these elfish beings is _Korrigan_, whether
masculine or feminine, from korr, little, (diminutive, korrik,) and
gan or gwen, genius.

The Goddess Koridgwen is said by the Welsh bards to have had nine
attendant virgins, called the nine Korrigan. This also was the name
of the nine priestesses of the Isle of Sein.

The Breton fairies not only bear the same name as the Keltic
goddesses and consecrated virgins, but are accredited with the same
powers of foretelling future events, of curing by magical charms
diseases otherwise incurable, of transporting themselves from one end
of the world to the other in a moment of time, and of taking whatever
forms they please.

Every year, at the return of spring, they hold, on the green turf
near some fountain, a grand nocturnal feast. In the midst of the
most delicate viands there sparkles a cup of crystal, of which the
splendor is so great that there is no need of torches, and like the
magic vase of the British Keridgwen, containing a marvellous liquid,
one single drop of which conveys the knowledge of all sciences, and
of all events, past, present, and to come.

The favorite haunts of the Korrigan are always by springs of water,
especially those which are in lonely places in the neighborhood of
Druidic remains called dolmens, and from which the Holy Virgin, who
is said to be their especial enemy, has not yet chased them. Their
traditional aspect is much the same as that of the other fairy races
of European nations; their delicate and aerial frames being about two
feet in height, perfect in symmetry, and clad in the very thinnest of
ethereal textures. But all their beauty is nocturnal only. By the
light of day, which they hate above all things, they are hideous,
red-eyed, wrinkled, and old; their whole appearance betokening fallen
intelligences. The Breton peasants assure us that they are great
princesses who were struck by the curse of heaven for refusing to
embrace the Christian faith when the first missionaries preached it
in Armorica. The peasants of Wales declare them to be the souls of
Druidesses, condemned to do penance.

Their breath is deadly. Should any wayfarer trouble the waters of
their fountain, or, near their dolmen, come upon them suddenly, he is
almost sure to perish; particularly if it be on a Saturday, the day
consecrated to the Blessed Virgin, against whom they bear an especial
hatred. They also have a great aversion to any token of religion,
fleeing at the sound of a consecrated bell or at the sight of a
soutane.

Like certain of their European cousins, the Korrigan have a decided
_penchant_ for stealing the infant offspring of the human race, with
the object of regenerating their own. Therefore does the peasant
mother of Brittany place round the neck of her babe a scapular or a
rosary, that he may be secured against every elfish device, under the
protection of Our Blessed Lady.

The changelings whom the Korrigan are accused of leaving in the place
of the children whom they carry away are of the race of dwarfs,
and also bear the name of korr, korrik, and korrigan; as well as
kornandon, gwanzigan, or duz. This last name is that of the father of
Merlin, and of an ancient divinity worshipped in that part of Britain
which is now the county of York.

These dwarfs, we are told, are little, black, and hairy monsters,
with the claws of a cat, the hind legs of a goat, and a voice harsh
and broken with age. They it was who, ages ago, raised the huge
stones of the menhir and dolmen, and hid beneath them untold hoards
of treasure. Around these, when the stars are out, they are fond
of dancing, to the primitive song which consists in an incessant
repetition of the names of all the days of the week except Saturday
and Sunday, of which they studiously avoid all mention. Wednesday,
the day of Mercury, is always observed by them with especial
festivities. It was they, say the peasants, who engraved the mystic
characters on the Keltic stones of the Morbihan, and especially those
at Gawr-iniz, or the Isle of the Giant. He who, like Taliessin, could
read them, would learn all the places of their hidden treasure, and
to him all the secrets of science would be revealed.

The dwarfs are less dreaded by the country people than the fays, as
being rather comically mischievous than wholly malicious. The peasant
who has taken the precaution to sprinkle himself with holy-water
passes fearlessly by the lonely dolmen in the solitudes which they
haunt.

We were taught in our early youth that it is to her white cliffs that
Albion owes her name; but M. de Villemarque suggests that she is
more probably indebted for it to the god Mercury, the Keltic Hermes,
who was the chief divinity worshipped by the insular Britons, under
the name of _Gwion_. Their island was especially placed under his
protection, and called for that reason the _Isle of Gwion_, or of
_Alwion_. The same learned author remarks upon the apparent identity
of the Gwion of Britain and the Gigon of the Tyrians and Phoenicians,
the divinity being in each case revered as the god of commerce, the
inventor of letters, and the patron of all the arts, and represented
in each case by the figure of a dwarf carrying a purse.

The dwarfs of Brittany possess all the attributes of Gwion, the heavy
purse included, and are evidently a part of the Keltic mythology. It
is often difficult, and sometimes impossible, to determine the date
of poems of which they form the subject. The burden of the ballad of
_Lord Nann_ comes down from the cradle of the Indo-European nations,
and, in numerous localities, finds expression in various forms. The
one of which we here give a translation probably dates from the fifth
or the sixth century.

The name _Nann_ is the diminutive of the Breton Reunan.


    LORD NANN AND THE FAY.

    Lord Nann and his bride, both plighted
    In youthful days, soon blighted,
    Were early disunited.

    Of snow-white twins a pair,
    Yestreen the lady bare;
    A son and daughter fair.

    "What cheer shall I get for thee,
    Who givest a son to me?
    Say, sweet, what shall it be?

    "From the forest green a roe,
    Or a woodcock from where, I trow,
    The pond in the vale lies low?"

    "For venison am I fain,
    But would not give thee pain
    For me the wood to gain."

    But while the lady spoke,
    Lord Nann took his lance of oak,
    And mounting his jet-black steed,
    Rode forth to the wood with speed.

    When he gained the greenwood shade,
    A white hind from the glade
    Fled, of his lance afraid.

    Swift after the hind he flew;
    The ground shook 'neath the two,
    So swiftly on they flew,
    And late the evening grew.

    The heat streamed from his face,
    From the horse's flanks apace,
    Till twilight closed the race.

    A little stream was welling,
    'Mid softest moss up-swelling,
    Hard by a haunted dwelling,
    The grot of a Korrigan.
    By the streamlet's brink
    He stooped to drink,
    For sore athirst was Nann.

        The Korrigan sat there,
        By the edge of her fountain fair,
        Combing her golden hair.
    Combing her hair with a golden comb,
    For all is of price in the Korrigan's home.

        "And who, so rash, art thou,
        Troubling my water's flow?
    Thou shalt marry me now," the Korrigan said,
    "Or for seven long years shalt wither and fade,
    Or in three days hence in the grave be laid!"

        "I've been married a year," quoth he;
        "So think not I marry thee.
    Nor through seven long years shall I wither and fade,
    Nor in three days hence in the grave be laid.
    Dead in three days I shall not be:
    I will die when it pleases God, not thee.
    Yet die this moment would Seigneur Nann,
    Far rather than marry a Korrigan."

    "Dear mother mine, I am sorely sick;
    Let my bed be made, if you love me, quick.
    Let not a word to my wife be told:
        I am under the ban
        Of a Korrigan;
    Three days, and you'll lay me in the mould."

    In three days' time the young wife said,
    "My mother, tell me why the bells are ringing,
    And why, so low, the black-stoled priests are singing?"
    "A poor man, whom we lodged last night, is dead."

        "My mother, say to me,
        My Lord Nann, where is he?"

        "My daughter, to the town he's gone;
        To see thee he'll come anon."

        "And tell me, mother dear,
        My red robe shall I wear,
    Or shall I my robe of blue put on,
    When I must to the church be gone?"

    "My child, the mode is come to appear
    At church in naught but sable gear."

    As up the church-yard steps she went,
    On a new-made grave her eyes were bent.

    "Who of our kin is lately dead,
    That I see in our ground a grave new-made?"

    "Alas! my child, in that grave hard by,
    That new-made grave which thou dost espy--
    I cannot hide it--thy lord doth lie!"

    Upon her knees she sank down then,
    Nor ever rose she up again.
    Within the self-same tomb, at close of day,
    The gentle lady and her husband lay.

    Behold a marvel! When the morning shone
    Two spreading oaks from out that grave had grown,
    And 'mid their branches, closely intertwining,
    Two happy doves of dazzling whiteness shining.
    Sweetly they cooed at breaking of the day,
    Then forth together swiftly sped their way.
    With gladsome notes they circling upward flew,
    Together vanishing in heaven's deep blue.

The foregoing ballad is reproduced under no fewer than fifteen
different variations in Sweden and Denmark, where it is entitled,
_Sire Olaf and the Dance of the Elves_. In its Servian form of
_Prince Marko and the Wila_, the latter, instead of taking the life
of the hero, exacts both his eyes and the four feet of his horse.

       *       *       *       *       *

Numerous as are the _traditions_ relating to the dwarfs, the _songs_
of which they are the subject are very rare. The one we are about
to give is apparently intended as a satire upon the tailors, that
ill-used class which in all warlike nations has been condemned to
ridicule. In Basse-Bretagne, no one pronounces their name without
raising the hat, and adding, "Saving your presence."

It will be remarked that the name of Duz (diminutive, duzik) is,
among others, given to the dwarfs, which, M. de Villemarque observes,
was that borne by the genii of Gaul in the days of St. Augustine, who
speaks of them as "Daemones quos _Duscios_ Galli nuncupant."[137]

It is said that a traveller being upon one occasion drawn into
their circling dance, and finding the refrain of "_dilun, dimeurs,
dimerc'her_," etc., somewhat monotonous, ventured to add the words
_Saturday and Sunday_, when the sudden explosion of outcries,
threatenings, and rage among the assembly was so great that the rash
adventurer was half-dead with fear. We are told that if only he had
added, "And so the week is done," the long penitence to which the
dwarfs are condemned would have ended.


    AR C'HORRED.

    (THE DWARFS.)

    Paskou le Long, the tailor brave, turned thief on Friday night.
    No more _culottes_ had he to make, since all men went to fight--
    To fight against the Frankish king, and for their own king's right.

    He took a spade; he sallied forth, and to the grotto went,
    The grotto of the dwarfs: to find their treasure his intent;
    And digging deep for hidden hoards, beneath the dolmen bent.

    Ha! here's the treasure. He has found it! Home in haste he hies.
    To bed he goes. "Quick! shut the door, and shut it fast," he cries,
    "Against the little _Duz_ of night:" and trembles as he lies.

    "Eh! Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday."...
                            Ah poor soul!
    They climb and swarm upon his roof, and there they make a hole.
    My hapless friend, they have thee! haste! throw out the treasure,
        whole!

    Poor Paskou! Holy-water take, and well besprinkle thee,
    And cast the sheet about thy head; still as a dead man be,
    Nor stir in any wise. "Ah! how I hear them laugh at me,
    And cry, 'If Paskou can escape, a cunning man is he!'

    "O heavens! here is one; and see, his head the hole is hiding;
    His eyes like embers glow, as down the bed-post he comes sliding;
    And after him, one, two, three, four; ah! multitudes, are gliding.

    "They bound, they dance, they race, they tumble wildly o'er the
        floor."...
    "Eh, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday....
                            "Two, three, four.
    "Eh, little tailor, dear!--five, six, seven, eight, and something
        more.

    "Dear little tailor, surely thou art strangled with the clothes!
    Dear little tailor, only show a bit of thy dear nose!
    Come: let us teach thee how to dance--dance, dance, for late it grows.

    "Come: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday ... little tailor, thou'rt a knave!
    Come, rob the dwarfs again, and see what treasure thou shalt have.
    Dance, wicked little tailor, dance; and dance into thy grave!"

        The money of the dwarfs is worth nothing.

       *       *       *       *       *

_The Plague of Elliant_ commemorates a frightful pestilence which,
in the sixth century, desolated not only Armorica, but the whole of
Europe. Those who were attacked by it lost their hair, their teeth,
and their sight; became yellow and languid, and speedily died. The
parish of Elliant, in Cornouaille, was one of several from which the
whole population perished. The neighboring country, especially that
around Tourc'h, was preserved from the scourge by the prayers of a
hermit named Rasian.

We are told by M. de Villemarque that the ballad of The _Plague of
Elliant_ is never sung without the addition of the following legend:

"It was the day of the _Pardon_ (the feast of the patron saint) at
Elliant; a young miller, arriving at the ford with his horses, saw a
fair lady in a white robe seated on the bank of the river, a little
staff in her hand, and who requested him to convey her over the
water. 'Oh! yes; assuredly, madame,' replied he, and already she was
on his horse's crupper, and soon deposited on the other side. Then
the fair lady said to him, 'Young man, you know not whom you have
brought over: I am the Plague. I have just made the tour of Brittany,
and I go to the church of the town, where they are ringing for mass;
all whom I strike with my staff will quickly die; as for yourself,
fear nothing; no harm shall happen to you, nor yet to your mother."

"And the Plague kept her word," adds the Breton peasant; for does not
the song itself say that none but

    "A widow poor of sixty, and her only son, are left?"

The following is most probably only a fragment of the original:


    THE PLAGUE OF ELLIANT.

    Thus spake the holy bard who dwells not far from Langolen.
    'Twixt Langolen and Le Faouet, the father Rasian:
    Let every month a mass be said, ye men of Le Faouet,
    A holy mass for all the souls the plague has rent away.

    From Elliant, bearing heavy spoils, at last the plague has gone:
    Seven thousand and a hundred slain, and left but two alone.
    Death has come down upon the land, and Elliant has bereft:
    A widow poor of sixty, and her only son, are left.

    "The plague is at my cottage door, and when God wills," she said,
    "She will come in, and we go out, among the other dead."
    Go look in Elliant market-place, and mow the waving grass;
    Save in the narrow rut whereby the dead-cart used to pass.

    Oh! hard must be the heart of him, whoever he may be,
    Who would not weep, such utter desolation could he see.
    See, eighteen carts all piled with dead stand at the graveyard gate;
    And eighteen carts all piled with dead, behind their turn await.

    Nine children of one house there were, who on one tumbrel lay,
    Which their poor mother dragged alone along the burial-way.
    Their father followed, whistling, for his reason all had fled;
    The mother wailed, and called on God, and pointed to her dead.

    "Oh! bury my nine sons," she cried. "Oh! lay them in the ground;
    A rope of wax I promise that shall thrice your walls surround,
    Your church and sanctuary both therein shall be enwound.

    "Nine sons I brought into the world: Death has not spared me one;
    On my own hearth he struck them down, and left me all alone.
    None have I now who might to me a drop of water give:
    Ah! why am I not stricken too; for wherefore should I live?"

    The cemetery full is piled, high as its walls, with dead;
    The church heaped to the steps: the fields must now be hallowed.

    In the church-yard I see an oak, and from its topmost bough
    A white sheet hangs, the truce of death; for all are buried now.

There is no surer remedy, in the estimation of the Breton peasantry,
against an epidemic than to make a song about it. "The Plague,
finding herself discovered, fled away." Thus, as one among many
examples of the practical utility of the popular poetry, we find that
when, some years ago, Brittany was severely visited by the cholera,
no attention was paid to the printed circulars which were issued by
medical and magisterial authority; all the preparation made by the
people to meet it was _to dig an extra number of graves_, until a
popular poet put into verse the good advice concerning preventives
and remedies which, when placarded in official prose, had been
passed by with no more notice than a grave and incredulous shake of
the head. But a week after the composition of the "Song upon the
Cholera" it was heard in every remote hamlet or farm throughout
Brittany. The verses in themselves were detestable, in the way of
poetry; no matter, the cholera, finding itself the subject of a
song, would take flight. From the power attributed by the people to
poesy arises the Breton proverb, "Poesy is stronger than the three
strongest things: stronger than evil, than tempest, or than fire."
And again, "Song is the calmer of all sorrow." All the Keltic poems,
which, like _The Plague of Elliant_, are written in strophes, are
sung throughout to some national air, however lengthy they may be.
"I remember," writes M. Emile Souvestre, "that one day, arriving at
the _Pardon_ of St. Jean du Doigt, near Morlaix, I heard a blind man
who was singing Breton verses on the Nativity: in passing by again
in the evening, I found him still in the same place, continuing his
subject, which was by no means concluded, and which, he informed me,
it required an entire day to get through, though he did not yet know
the whole."

It is impossible to compute the number of the popular poems of
Brittany. The author just quoted considers that eight or ten thousand
would not reach the reality; and he proceeds to describe the manner
in which they mingle with the very _air_ of the country, as follows:

    "No words can do justice to the intoxicating sensation which
    he who understands our old language experiences, when, on a
    fine summer evening, he traverses the mountains of Cornouaille,
    listening to the songs of the shepherds. At every step the
    voice, perhaps of a child, perhaps of an aged woman, sends
    forth to him from the distance a fragment of some antique
    ballad, sung to melodies such as are never now composed, and
    narrating the miracle of a former time, or a crime committed
    in the valley, or an attachment which has broken the heart.
    The couplets answer one another from rock to rock; the verses
    sport in the air like the insects of the evening; the wind
    carries them by gusts into your face, with the perfume of
    the black-wheat and the rye; and, immersed in this poetic
    atmosphere, enchanted and meditative, you advance into the
    midst of the rural solitudes. You perceive great Druidic
    stones, clothed with moss, leaning toward the border of the
    wood; feudal ruins, half-hidden in the thickets or breaking
    the slope of the hills, while at times, on the heights of the
    mountain, figures of men, with long hair flying in the wind,
    and strangely clad, pass like shadows between you and the
    horizon, marked out against the sky, which is just beginning to
    be illumined by the rising moon. It is like a vision of bygone
    times; like a waking dream that one might have after reading a
    page of Ossian."

       *       *       *       *       *

We will close our present article with a translation of the Sone
of Per Coeatmor, as promised in our last; hoping in a future one to
conclude our notice of the more ancient and "learned" poetry of
Brittany, that is, that which was composed according to the bardic
rules, with some curious fragments relating to Merlin the Magician
and Merlin the Bard; to be followed by specimens of the historical
poems of Brittany.


    BRETON SONE.

    "Not to Rouen, not to Paris, go I, friend, with thee.
    What among the folk of the High Country should I see?
    Treacherous ice, whereon one slips and falls, they say to me.

    "Only to the mortuary I my steps will bend;
    To the village mortuary with thee will I wend,
    And behold the bones; for one day we must die, my friend.

    "Bare of fleshly garb, the bones lie there, by day and night.
    Where is now their skin so soft, and where their hands so white?
    Where their souls? oh! where, my friend? In darkness or in light?

    "Ah friend! when the preachers preach, you laugh at what they say.
    'In _this_ life you will dance? Ah! well, so in the next you may.
    There's a hall prepared below for dancers mad and gay.

    'Carpeted with points of steel, where barefoot dancers fly,
    Lit with fiery prongs which demons brandish, as they cry,
    Dance, young man! to dances and to pardons who would'st hie.'"

    "Silence, maiden! mock me not, but give me love for love;
    Take me for thy spouse; our life shall sweet and joyful prove.
    Henceforth pardons nor the dance my spirit e'er shall move."

    "Not fifteen was I, my friend, when to the church I went.
    'Leave the world,' my angel whispered, 'leave its discontent.
    To the veil and cloistered life henceforth thy will be bent.'

    "Girl, forget thy convent dream; believe and marry me.
    Safer, stronger than the convent walls my care shall be.
    With a sheltering love, sweet maid, will I encompass thee."

    "Youth, not so; but let thy heart toward another lean;
    Let some fairer maid from me thy fond affection wean;
    Twere an easy task; good looks are thine, and portly mien."[138]

    'Fairer maid than thou, nor any _like_ to thee, will I.
    _Thee_ must I have, nor worse, nor better: if not thee, I die.
    Stay, and let this silver ring around thy finger lie."

    "No bright ring of earthly troth my finger shall ensnare.
    Heaven's espousal ring alone my hand shall ever bear:
    That high bond of love nor chance nor changes can outwear?"

    "Maiden, if thou speakest truly, profitless and vain
    All the time which I have spent thy favor sweet to gain.
    For the pleasures that are past I nothing reap but pain!"

    "Youth, what days for me thou mayst have lost, will I repay
    Praying for thy soul's good speed and health by night and day;
    So to blessed Paradise thou mayst not miss the way."

FOOTNOTES:

[137] _De Civit. Dei_, lib. xv. cxxiii.

[138] M. Souvestre's note to this passage is, "En Bretagne, aux yeux
des paysans, la corpulence est une grande beaute; c'est un signe de
distinction, de richesse, de loisir," etc.




LINES.

FROM THE LATIN OF THEODULPHUS, BISHOP OF ORLEANS, A.D. 820.


    Adspice ne vitiet tumidus praecordia fastus,
        Dum loca sublimis editiora tenes,
    Dumque favent populi vallaris pluribus unus,
        Undique te septum prosperitate putes;
    Neve quod es demant oblivia segnia menti,
        Ultima sit semper conspicienda dies.
    Ut valeas omni vitiorum sorde carere,
        Hoc quod es aspicito, non tamen id quod habes.
    Ipse licet sedeas gemmis ornatus et ostro,
        Post carnis putridus tempora pulvis eris.
    Corpus enim fulvo quod nunc accingitur auro
        Squalenti intectum veste premetur humo.
    Quod mare, quod terrae, quod et aer gestat edendum,
        Eheu! sordidulus post cinis illud erit.
    Quemque tegunt celsis laqueata palatia tectis,
        Parvaque conquereris culmina magna satis,
    Clausus in angusta modicaque tenebris urna
        Vixque domus tibimet corpore major erit.
    Plura quid enumerem? Visu quod cernitur aptum,
        Visibus humanis quod favet atque placet,
    Post vitam vermis, post vermem pulvis habebit,
        Voce Tonantis erit, quum redit, unde venit.

    TRANSLATION.

    O thou who, seated in the place of power,
      Dost hear the praise and see the prostrate crowd,
    When all things smile upon thy prosperous hour,
          Let not thy heart be proud!

    Be not with dull oblivion overcast;
      Keep ever in thy sight life's certain goal;
    Consider what thou art, not what thou hast.
          And so be pure of soul.

    Thou sittest to-day in purple and in gold;
      Thy vesture is with jewels clasped to-day;
    How soon the squalid earth-robe will enfold
          The little mouldering clay!

    Of all earth nourishes--the flocks of air,
      The life that ocean in its deep maintains--
    Of all the plenty spread for banquets rare--
          What nothingness remains!

    Now lofty painted ceilings shield thee well;
      Now thy broad halls too narrow seem to be;
    Scarce larger than thy mortal frame, the cell
          Will soon suffice for thee.

    What further say? O all that doth rejoice
      Our human eyes! O all with beauty rife!
    The worm! the dust! and then--the thunder-voice
          That calls the dead to life!

                                                    C. E. B.




GERALD GRIFFIN.


In October, 1823, there arrived in the city of London a young man
from the south of Ireland, unknown and without a friend in that vast
metropolis. A stranger in a strange land, he brought with him nothing
but a cultivated mind, a fresh, vigorous constitution, a pleasing
address, a spirit of self-reliance amounting almost to a morbid
dislike for every thing savoring of patronage, a slender purse, and
a few manuscript plays, the labor of boyhood's leisure hours. His
experience of life had been confined to his own peaceful household on
the banks of the Shannon, and the society of a few intimate friends
of his family. His contributions to literature amounted simply
to some sketches published in the newspapers of his native city,
Limerick, and the, to him, precious burden he bore with him in this
his first adventure into the unknown world. Thus provided, he aspired
with all the glorious confidence of youthful ambition to no less a
mission than the reformation of the modern drama, and the infusion of
moral sentiment into works of fiction, even then fast acquiring those
deleterious qualities which so thoroughly permeate them in our day.

This young literary knight-errant was Gerald Griffin, who, born
on the 12th day of December, 1803, had not yet completed his
twentieth year. The story of his early life, as told by the pen of
an affectionate brother, is remarkable principally for the calm,
holy atmosphere of parental love by which it was surrounded, and
the judicious mental training to which he was subjected even from
his earliest infancy. His father, Patrick Griffin, a descendant of
an ancient Irish family, seems to have occupied a social position
equally removed from penury and affluence; such a one, at least, as
enabled him to support his large family with comfort, and provide
each of his children with an education not only suitable to their
condition, but more extensive and varied than at that time was
considered necessary for the sons and daughters of the middle class.
He was a man of robust constitution, facile temper, an ardent
nationalist, and well read in the history and antiquities of his
country. His mother, a woman of more than ordinary cultivation
and great religious fervor, was entirely devoted to her household
duties and the moral training of her children, and we cannot better
convey an idea of the character of this admirable woman than by
transcribing the following extract from one of her letters to her son:

    "I have, my dear Gerald, travelled with you through your
    mortifying difficulties, and am proud of my son--proud of his
    integrity, talents, prudence, and, above all, his appearing
    superior to that passion of common minds, revenge; I must own,
    fully provoked to it by ----'s conduct. I hope, however, they
    may soon have to seek you, not you them. Perhaps, after all,
    it may have been as well that we did not know at the time what
    you were to endure on your first outset. We should in that
    case have been advising you to come out here, which perhaps
    would have been turning your back on that fame and fortune
    which I hope will one day reward your laudable perseverance
    and industry. When the very intention you mention of paying us
    a visit delights me so much, what should I feel if Providence
    should have in reserve for me the blessing of once again
    embracing my Gerald?"

Gerald united in himself the leading characteristics of both parents
in a remarkable degree. His love of home forms the constant theme of
his letters, while his attachment to country and delicate moral sense
may properly be said to have tinged every page of his prose, and
inspired every line of his poetry. His brothers and sisters, eight in
number, were equally worthy of such progenitors, and of the author of
_The Collegians_; the former becoming distinguished members of the
liberal professions, and the latter, in most instances, adopting the
habits and worthily fulfilling the duties of a religious life.

When the young Gerald was about seven years old, his father,
abandoning business in Limerick, removed some miles from that city,
and settled on a farm pleasantly situated near the confluence of
the little river Oavaan and the Shannon. Here the future novelist
and poet spent ten of the happiest years of his life. Surrounded on
all sides by scenery the most picturesque, wood, mountain, lake,
and river, his youthful imagination, so susceptible of impressions
of physical as well as moral beauty, found ample scope. Reserved in
manner even with his playmates, he was wont to shun their society,
and wander alone for hours through the fields or by the riverside,
his gun or fishing-rod unused, and his whole being drinking in the
beauties of the ever-varying landscape, or gazing wonderingly on
the distant "lovely hills of Clare," the boundary of his world.
His love for the supernatural and his fondness for fairy lore were
early developed in this sylvan retreat, where every ruin had its
tragic history, every graveyard its especial ghost, and every rath
and cairn its appropriate legend. How far such constant communings
with nature had a tendency to disqualify him for the stern battle
of life which he was destined afterward to wage with such varying
fortune, we cannot undertake to say; but doubtless often, when in
poverty and exile, the recollection of those years so tranquilly
and innocently spent must have brightened many a solitary hour, and
it is certain that to this early development of a taste for moral
beauty we are indebted for some of the most vivid and truthful of his
word-paintings.

But his mind was not altogether occupied in contemplation. His
education, begun in Limerick, was assiduously continued in the
country under the direction of a visiting tutor and the older members
of his family, until at an early age he had mastered not only the
rudiments of the French language, but had acquired a comparatively
extensive and accurate knowledge of the English classics. He was
especially fond of poetry, and was accustomed, even when a child,
to copy out passages from Goldsmith and Moore; and his application
to his studies of all kinds was so intense that he is described by
his relatives as being invariably in the habit of sitting at his
meals with a book open before him, and two or three in reserve ready
to his hand. Goldsmith's _Animated Nature_ was one of his favorite
books, and he endeavored to turn it to practical account by copying
its illustrations, and rearing with his own hand numbers of the
little song-birds to be so plentifully found in the neighborhood.
In the year 1814, we find him for a short time at the school of a
Mr. O'Brien, in Limerick, deep in the fascinating pages of Horace,
Ovid, and Virgil, the latter of whom, as might be expected, was his
favorite poet, and so earnestly did he explore this, to him, new mine
of poesy that he is said to have attained a remarkable proficiency in
the Latin tongue at an age when other children are but imperfectly
acquainted with their vernacular. Though soon deprived of the
valuable supervision of Mr. O'Brien, he continued his readings of the
classics for several years at a neighboring school, and in maturer
years evinced in conversation and composition a decided preference
for this branch of his early studies.

In 1820, the delightful family circle at Fairy Lawn was broken up.
Mr. Griffin, senior, his wife and several of their older children,
emigrated to this country, and settled near Binghamton, in the
State of New York. Gerald, with one older brother and two younger
sisters, was left under the protection of the oldest remaining
brother, Dr. William Griffin, then a practising physician in Adare,
a pretty village a few miles from Limerick. The separation from
the two beings he loved best on earth was a sad calamity for the
affectionate lad; but hope, that star which always shone brightly
for him no matter how cloudy the horizon, consoled him for what he
believed to be only a temporary bereavement. "Gerald," says one
of his sisters in a letter to America, "has a biscuit from your
sea store, which he says he will produce at the first meal we eat
together in Susquehanna." The change of residence had one advantage,
however; for while it did not interfere with his home studies, or
even with his rambles in search of fresh scenery and old traditions,
it gave him an opportunity of often visiting the city, and forming
the acquaintance of young men of congenial tastes, principal among
whom was John Banim, one of the authors of the celebrated _Tales
of the O'Hara Family_. He became also a frequent attendant at such
theatrical performances as the place at that time afforded, and even
contributed reports, sketches, verses, and leading articles to the
local journals, which, if they were not very profitable or widely
known, "obliged him," he tells us, "to write with quickness, and
without much study." But the young man had already drunk too deeply
of the unpolluted waters of English and Latin lore to be satisfied
with the superficial nothings of provincial journalism, or to relish
the crudities of the dramatic pieces with which the wandering
players were then accustomed to regale the unsophisticated people of
second-class cities. The modern drama seemed to him flimsy in its
construction, and, if not positively immoral, certainly in tendency
falling far short of its legitimate object, which, as the great
dramatist tells us, "is and was to hold the mirror up to nature,"
etc. He reflected seriously on the possibility of its reformation,
and, like a true reformer, zealously set to work to accomplish this
desirable purpose, encouraged no doubt by the applause which greeted
the appearance of his young countryman's _Damon and Pythias_. He
wrote about this time three or four plays, none of which were ever
presented to the public; and of the names and plots of all but one
we are ignorant. That was called _Aquire_, and being a production
of considerable merit, judging from the favorable opinion of it
expressed by Banim and other theatrical critics to whose inspection
it was confidentially submitted, would very probably have met with
success on the stage had not the author's over-sensitiveness induced
him to withdraw it altogether, after endeavoring two or three times
to procure its representation. His next step was to leave Ireland for
a wider sphere of action; but it was only after repeated and urgent
solicitation, and upon reading over this drama, which seemed to
contain many excellences, that his brother and guardian, Dr. Griffin,
consented to gratify his longing to visit London, where he felt he
would have unlimited scope to develop his idea of reform. The consent
gained, Gerald left home for the first time, radiant with hope and
confident of success.

A youthful aspirant for literary honors could not have made his
_debut_ at a more unpropitious time. London was then, as now, the
great maelstrom which drew into its vortex most of the enterprise and
genius of the three kingdoms, and, alas! proved the grave of too many
overwrought and unappreciated minds. The fame of Byron, Moore, and a
host of contemporary poets was then in its zenith, and the refulgence
of their genius eclipsed the light of all lesser stars which might
have shone brightly in any other atmosphere. The stage was so
completely neglected or debased that the legitimate drama had given
place to spectacular frivolities, and hundreds of plays of merit were
offered every year to the London managers only to be rejected. The
wonderful success of Sir Walter Scott as a novelist had produced a
crowd of plagiarists, as inferior in ability as they were formidable
in prolixity, who had filled the shelves of the booksellers with
the veriest trash, and satiated _ad nauseam_ the public taste for
romance. Even the field of Irish fiction was apparently fully
occupied. Maria Edgeworth's justly admired tales were in every
household, and the stronger and brighter imagination of Banim had
already plumed its pinions, and tried its first flight with marked
success. The era of patronage, when the great and wealthy of the land
esteemed it a privilege to throw the aegis of their protection over
the artist and man of letters, had passed away, perhaps happily, for
ever, and that of Bulwer and Dickens, Thackeray and Lever had not
arrived; men whose magic pens seem to have realized the alchemist's
dream, and turned every thing they touched into gold. It was well for
the young adventurer that these difficulties did not at once present
themselves, or, if discerned at all, it was through that enchanting
halo with which youth surrounds the future.

On Gerald's arrival in London, his first step was to procure
respectable lodgings; his next to place in the hands of some person
connected with the stage, but whose name has not transpired, a copy
of one of his plays for criticism and acceptance. This person, though
the only one to whom the friendless lad was able to procure an
introduction, took the piece with warm professions of friendship, and
promised it his early consideration; but, after retaining it for some
three months, sent it back, "wrapped up in an old newspaper," without
a word of comment, explanation, or apology. The interval was one of
painful suspense for the aspiring writer, somewhat relieved by the
genial and unselfish kindness of Banim, whose residence in London he
soon discovered. Although having had but a slight acquaintance with
Gerald, and being himself very few years his senior, and still on the
threshold of fame, John Banim, to his immortal credit be it said,
extended to his junior countryman the hospitality of his house, and,
what was much more grateful, the sunshine of his genial conversation
and the refuge of his cheerful fireside. He went even further: with
a total absence of professional jealousy, he took _Aquire_, read it
over carefully, commended its best passages, pointed out the errors
to be erased, the superabundant metaphor and mere poetic imagery to
be pruned, and used all his efforts to procure its representation.
Gerald was deeply grateful. "What would I have done," he writes to
his brother, "if I had not found Banim? I should never be tired of
talking about and thinking of Banim." It was at the suggestion of
this invaluable friend that, in the early part of the following
year, he wrote _Gisippus_, and many of its most striking scenes
owe something to the matured judgment of the author of _Damon and
Pythias_. This play, written, as he tells us, on little slips of
paper in coffee-houses, though one of great merit, for originality
of conception, dignity of language, and startling incidents, was not
acted till two years after the author's death; and when Macready at
length introduced it to the public, it was received with great favor,
and still, to use a theatrical phrase, "keeps the boards."

But months passed wearily away in the strange city, and Gerald's
hopes were as far as ever from fruition--months spent in fruitless
efforts to obtain some sort of employment that would enable him to
support himself, while he waited the pleasure of managers and danced
attendance on theatrical committees. Again and again he applied
for the position of reporter on the press, but was answered that
the places were all filled. He might have become a police-news
reporter, but he was told that it was "hardly reputable." He wrote
for the literary weeklies, but was cheated by every one of them; he
contributed to the larger magazines, and his articles were inserted;
but when payment was requested, "there was so much shuffling and
shabby work" that he left them in disgust; he commenced the study
of Spanish, with a view to cooperate with Valentine Llanos in the
translation of Spanish dramas; but Colburn and the other publishers
told him that it was "entirely out of their line." At last he
undertook with avidity to translate from the French a volume and
a half of one of Prevot's works for two guineas--about ten and a
half dollars. It is no wonder, then, that in the bitterness of
his extremity he wrote to his sister, "If I could make a fortune
by splitting matches, I think I would never put a word in print."
Though practising the most rigid economy, the occasional remittances
he received from his brother, many of them unsolicited, did not
suffice for his ordinary wants; he was compelled to give up his first
lodgings and seek others in a more obscure part of the city, and was
even obliged to refuse the pressing invitations of his friend Banim
to meet Doctor Maginn and other celebrities, at the house of the
former, for want of proper apparel. "The fact is," he writes home at
this time, "I am at present almost a complete prisoner. I wait until
dusk every evening to creep from my mouse-hole, and snatch a little
fresh air on the bridge close by."

Staggering under the weight of disappointment and poverty, he was
yet to encounter the additional torture of ill health. Stooping
constantly over his desk, he contracted an affection of the lungs,
the unaccustomed dampness of a London fog had given him rheumatism,
and he was occasionally attacked with violent palpitations of
the heart, which endangered life itself. The joyous spirit which
had soared like a bird beneath its native skies on the banks of
the Shannon, drooped its wings in the heavy miasma of the Thames;
fagging, unrequited labor made his days a burden and his nights
sleepless; his wardrobe was so threadbare that for months at a time
he would not stir abroad in the daylight, and consequently did not
meet the face of an acquaintance, and his supply of food so meagre
that he was often obliged to dispense with the commonest necessaries
of life. Indeed, so reduced had he become in circumstances at this
time that a friend of his relates that, having lost sight of him
for several days, and apprehending the true cause of his absence,
after long searching he discovered him in a veritable garret, and,
though it was past midnight, still endeavoring to work on his
manuscripts. But what must have been his astonishment when he wrung
from Gerald the unwilling but unostentatious confession that he had
been without food for three consecutive days? It is unnecessary to
say that his immediate wants were supplied by the kind friend who had
thus timely visited him, though not without some hesitation on the
part of the recipient of the favor. Still, nothing could daunt his
indomitable will, no misfortune could lessen the self-consciousness
of his ability to achieve ultimate success, or break down his proud,
too proud, spirit of personal independence. He might easily have
obtained money from his relatives in Ireland; but he forebore to
accept from them what his susceptibilities led him to suppose they
could ill afford, and even his true friend Banim, upon incidentally
discovering his situation and tendering him in the most delicate
manner some pecuniary assistance, was met with a decided and not
over courteous refusal. His enforced poverty likewise had a very
injurious effect on his prospects as a dramatic author; for, unable
to mingle on an equality with men connected with the stage, he lost
all chance of personal intercourse with managers and critics, and
finally conceived such a distaste for or indifference to his first
affection, the drama, that he relinquished for ever the design of
reforming the stage, the hope that had lain nearest to his heart and
had prompted his self-imposed exile from his native country. Though
few men loved literature more for its own sake, or are, fortunately
generally called upon to offer more sacrifices at its shrine, the
vital question with him had now become narrowed down to the very one
of existence itself; for, to use his own expression, "he preferred
death to failure."

Thus nearly two years passed away in London, and, sick at heart and
enfeebled in body, he felt thousands and thousands of times, as he
writes to his parents, that he could have lain down quietly and died
at once, and been forgotten for ever. But in this his darkest hour a
ray of hope unexpectedly crossed his gloomy path, and with all the
hopefulness of a rejuvenated spirit he hailed it as the harbinger of
a new and more prosperous epoch. A Mr. Foster, having accidentally
become acquainted with his almost hopeless condition, procured him
employment at fifty pounds a year as reader and corrector for a
publisher, and his gifted countryman Maginn, immediately upon hearing
of his reduced circumstances, obtained for him a situation on _The
Literary Gazette_, which soon led to a profitable connection with
other journals of a like character. To all these he contributed
articles in prose and poetry on every imaginable topic, and
displayed such an adaptability and versatility of talent that his
services were not only well rewarded by their respective publishers,
but very generally appreciated by the reading community. Many of the
tales and sketches which at this time came from his pen were sent in
and published anonymously, or simply signed "Joseph," his name in
confirmation, so strictly did he endeavor to preserve his incognito,
and trust to the intrinsic merits of his contributions for their
acceptance. Though he wrote to his mother that by reason of his new
employment he was enabled to pay off all the debts he owed at the
close of the year 1825, his varied productions could not have been
very remunerative, certainly not in proportion to the labor expended
on them; for we find him during the next session of Parliament
engaged as a reporter in the House of Commons.

The vehemence with which he seized hold of this opportunity, and
the ardor with which he pursued his new calling as reporter and
journalist, show that he felt he had at last discovered a clue that
would lead him out of the labyrinth of his difficulties, and his
success fully justified the confidence in his own powers which had
never forsaken him. Opportunity, so much desired by all young men of
ability, which comes to some unsought, and as persistently flies the
approach of others, had at length presented itself to Gerald Griffin,
and he lost no time in profiting by the occasion. Association with
authors whose works he was obliged to examine, criticise, and
sometimes revise, naturally led him to compare his own capacity for
production with theirs, and to arrive at the conclusion that he also
was able to produce works of prose fiction equally meritorious,
and as worthy the commendation of moralists as epic poetry or the
drama. Satisfied on this point, he at once relinquished his dramatic
aspirations, and prepared himself with all the enthusiasm of his
nature to enter the lists as a novelist. In his "small room in some
obscure court, near St. Paul's," he called up the recollections of
past days, of the lovely Shannon, the mountain ranges of Clare, the
wakes, fairs, and festivals of the Munster peasantry, the humor,
shrewdness, pathos, and frolic he as a child had witnessed, and
perhaps to some extent shared, and he resolved to essay an Irish
novel illustrative of these familiar scenes. Having first tried short
stories for the literary weeklies, and found them eagerly read and
highly appreciated, he commenced a series of tales to be published
in book form, which he designed to call _Anecdotes of Munster_, but
which were afterward known under the general title of _Holland-Tide_.

Pending the appearance of this his first continued effort, his labors
were as varied and as unremitting as ever--correcting for the press
the lucubrations of unskilled writers, reviewing in the weekly papers
the various books that the metropolitan publishers were constantly
inflicting on the public, writing theatrical criticisms, sketches,
poetry, and political articles--doing any thing and every thing, in
fact, no matter how foreign to his tastes, as long as they honorably
secured him present competency and a reasonable prospect of finally
accomplishing his grand purpose. At one time he describes himself
as busy revising a ponderous dictionary; at another, collecting
materials for a pamphlet on Catholic emancipation. Now he is promised
L50 for a piece for the English opera, and again he acknowledges the
receipt of several pounds for reports furnished a Catholic newspaper
recently started. His leisure moments, if he can be said to have had
any, were devoted to versification, while his parliamentary duties
kept him out of bed till three, and sometimes five o'clock in the
morning. His brother William, who visited him in London in 1826, thus
describes his altered appearance and his methodical manner of life:

    "I had not seen him since he left Adare, and was struck with
    the change in his appearance. All color had left his cheek,
    he had grown very thin, and there was a sedate expression of
    countenance unusual in one so young, and which in after years
    became habitual to him. It was far from being so, however, at
    the time I speak of, and readily gave place to that light and
    lively glance of his dark eye, that cheerfulness of manner and
    observant humor, which from his very infancy had enlivened
    our fireside circle at home. Although so pale and thin as I
    have described him, his tall figure, expressive features,
    and his profusion of dark hair, thrown back from a fine
    forehead, gave an impression of a person remarkably handsome
    and interesting.... He was indefatigable at his work; rose
    and breakfasted early, set to his desk at once, and continued
    writing till two or three o'clock in the afternoon; took a turn
    round the park, which was close to his residence; returned and
    dined; usually took another walk after dinner, and returning to
    tea, wrote for the remainder of the evening, after remaining up
    to a very late hour."

The series of tales, published by Simpkin and Marshall late in
this year brought Griffin L70 sterling, and at once established
his reputation as a powerful and original writer, and an accurate
delineator of Irish peasant character. Its reception by the public
and the gentlemen of the critical profession was so generally
favorable that, feeling assured he had at length entered on the
right road to distinction, and that his future was no longer
doubtful, Griffin gave up his various engagements with the press,
and not unwillingly, it is to be presumed, laid down for ever the
load of literary drudgery which had so long bowed his spirit to the
earth. His fortitude had been severely tested, not by one great
calamity, but by a series of trials, harder to be borne, and had
remained unshaken; his constancy of purpose had been proof against
all allurements to swerve from the honorable pursuit of letters; and
it is not too much to affirm, on the authority of many who knew him
intimately, that his moral character remained unsullied amid all the
temptations which usually beset a young man of his isolated condition
in every large city. His first success was naturally followed by a
desire to revisit his home, a wish in which he had long secretly
indulged, but which was now strengthened by intelligence of the
dangerous illness of a favorite sister. He arrived at Pallas Kenry,
his brother's residence, in February, 1827, but unfortunately a few
hours after the death of this young lady, an event which, coupled
with his feeble health, destroyed for a time the pleasure which
he had anticipated from a trip to Ireland, and the renewal of his
acquaintance with those peaceful scenes the remembrance of which had
so cheered his absence.

    "I started for Limerick at a very early hour to meet him," says
    his brother, "and I cannot forget how much I was struck by the
    change his London life had made in his appearance. His features
    looked so thin and pale, and his cheeks so flattened, and, as
    it were, bloodless, that the contrast with what I remembered
    was horrid; while his voice was feeble, and slightly raised
    in its pitch, like that of one recovering from a lingering
    illness. It was affecting, in these circumstances, to observe
    the sudden and brilliant light that kindled in his eyes on
    first seeing me, and the smile of welcome that played over his
    features and showed the spirit within unchanged."

The unremitting attention of his relatives, however, at length
assuaged his mental grief and bodily sufferings, and his mind,
naturally resigned, gradually resumed its wonted tranquillity. He
spent the summer months at Pallas Kenry in the undisturbed enjoyment
of home, but still industriously occupied with his pen.

    "When engaged in composition, (says his biographer,) he made
    use of a manifold writer, with a style and carbonic paper,
    which gave him two and sometimes three copies of his work.
    One of these he sent to the publisher, the others he kept by
    him, in case the first should be lost. He had his sheets so
    cut out and arranged that they were not greater in size than
    the leaf of a moderate-sized octavo, and he wrote so minute a
    hand that each page of the manuscript contained enough matter
    for a page of print. This enabled him very easily to tell how
    much manuscript was necessary to fill three volumes. His usual
    quantity of writing was about ten pages of these in the day.
    It was seldom less than this, and I have known it repeatedly
    as high as fifteen or twenty, without interfering with those
    hours which he chose to devote to recreation. He never rewrote
    his manuscript, and one of the most remarkable things I noticed
    in the progress of his work was the extremely small number
    of erasures or interlineations in it, several pages being
    completed without the occurrence of a single one."

The result of this diligent application was the first series of
_Tales of the Munster Festivals_, embracing _The Half-Sir_, _The Card
Drawers_, and _The Shuil Dhuv_, with which he proceeded to London,
and which he disposed of to his publishers for L250, a price that
would now be considered totally inadequate, but which forty years
ago was looked upon as ample remuneration for that species of labor.
The work, though decidedly superior to _Holland-Tide_, was much less
favorably received by the critics, and Griffin had now to pay the
penalty of success by having the children of his brain held up to
public censure, as not being formed true to nature, or as acting
in a manner contrary to the canons of London society. Though such
strictures generally emanated from persons who either would not or
could not understand the peculiarities of the people of Ireland,
he felt keenly alive to their praise or censure, particularly the
latter; nor does he seem to have exhibited that callousness which
his long acquaintance with the press, and the class of men who are
sometimes permitted to sit in judgment on their superiors, might have
taught him.

Having remained long enough in London to superintend the publication
of the tales, he gladly returned to Pallas Kenry, where he spent
nearly a year in the undisturbed society of his relatives and a few
friends living in his neighborhood. These latter must have been few
indeed, for he is described as still of a very shy and reserved
disposition, except when among intimate friends; and though shown
every mark of esteem and hospitality by his countrymen, he had
so great an abhorrence of being lionized that he seldom accepted
invitations, save such as could not in ordinary politeness be
rejected. Not that his temper was soured or that his conversational
powers were deficient, but home was to him the centre and only object
of attraction. "Would you wish to view at a distance our domestic
circle?" asks his sister in one of her letters to America. "William
and I are generally first at the breakfast table, when, after a
little time, walks in Miss H----; next Mr. Gerald, and, last of all,
Monsieur D----. After breakfast our two doctors go to their patients;
Gerald takes his desk by the fire-place and writes away, except when
he chooses to throw a pinch or a pull at the ringlets, cape, or
frill of the first lady next to him, or gives us a stave of some old
ballad."

Under such sweet influences, so different from his wretched life
in London, the greater part of his best work, _The Collegians_,
was written. Two or three subjects for a successor to _Shuil Dhuv_
had been selected and partly developed; but having the fear of the
critics before his eyes, he laid them aside unfinished. The spring
and summer of 1828 thus passed away fruitlessly; but at length a
theme presented itself that satisfied his judgment, and he set
about writing on it with all possible expedition. _The Collegians_
was originally published in three volumes, one and a half of which
Griffin brought with him to London in November. The remaining portion
was written in that city in such hot haste that he was obliged
frequently to deliver his sheets of manuscript without having time
to reread or revise them. This work, on its first appearance, was
received with the greatest favor; it placed the author at once at
the head of the novelists of his own country, and gave him a high
rank among the writers of the English language--a verdict which the
experience of posterity has fully confirmed.

Of the writers of that day Griffin's favorite, as might be expected,
was Sir Walter Scott. He had a profound respect for the historical
romances of that great man, and, with an ambition honorable to his
patriotism, he resolved to abandon for a time the portraiture of
local and modern life, and attempt to do for his native country what
the author of _Ivanhoe_ had so admirably done for Great Britain.
Accordingly, in the spring of 1829, he removed to Dublin, where he
spent several months in the study of ancient history and in visiting
on foot several parts of Ireland, the topography of which he designed
to introduce into his new work. The fruit of his antiquarian labors
was _The Invasion_, which appeared during the winter of the same
year, a short time after the publication of a second series of
_Munster Festivals_. But though it had an extensive sale and was
highly praised by the more learned, it did not, from the very nature
of the subject and the remote epoch treated, establish itself in the
affections of the public so generally as his previous and subsequent
writings. While in the Irish capital, he was introduced to Sir
Philip Crampton and other distinguished scholars, from all of whom
he experienced the most flattering attention. His fame, indeed, had
preceded him among all classes of his countrymen, and their warm and
discriminating encomiums, diffident as he was to a fault, must have
fallen pleasantly on his ear, and not the less so when they were
expressed in the mellifluous accents he was accustomed to hear from
his infancy. A closer intimacy with the congenial spirits of his own
country appears to have worn off a great deal of his natural reserve;
for we now find him mentioning that he had met Miss Edgeworth, and
was anticipating the pleasure of an introduction to Lady Morgan and
other contemporary celebrities. In the latter part of this year he
also formed the acquaintance of a lady residing in the south of
Ireland, which soon ripened into a lasting friendship, founded upon
similarity of tastes and mutual esteem. The name of the lady is not
given in his life, and we know her only as the recipient of several
pleasant gossiping letters, addressed to her by the initial "L.," and
by the many beautiful poems dedicated in her honor. A married lady,
the mother of a numerous family, and Griffin's senior by several
years, she exercised a wholesome and judicious influence over a mind
naturally sympathetic but peculiarly sensitive, such as none of his
own sex could or would have attempted. In company with her husband
and relatives he made a prolonged visit to Killarney, the romantic
beauty of whose lakes filled him with the most intense delight.

In the winter of 1829, he was again in London, which city he was
obliged to visit each succeeding year till 1835, to attend to his
subsequent works; _The Christian Physiologist_, _The Rivals_,
_The Duke of Monmouth_, and _Tales of My Neighborhood_, appearing
in nearly regular annual succession. The intervening time was
generally spent in acquiring material for these works, or at the
watering-places enjoying his well-earned repose. It was on the
occasion of one of those flying trips across the channel, in 1832,
that, being requested by the electors of Limerick to present, on
their behalf, a request to Moore that he would consent to represent
them in Parliament, Griffin deviated from his route and called on
that celebrated poet at Sloperton Cottage. In a playful account of
this ever-memorable interview, addressed to his friend "L.," he says:
"O dear L----! I saw the poet, and I spoke to him, and he spoke to
me, and it was not to bid me to 'get out of his way,' as the king
of France did to the man who boasted that his majesty had spoken to
him; but it was to shake hands with me, and to ask me, 'How I did,
Mr. Griffin,' and to speak of 'my fame.' _My_ fame! Tom Moore talk
of my fame! Ah the rogue! He was humbugging, L----, I'm afraid. He
knew the soft side of an author's heart, and perhaps had pity on my
long, melancholy-looking figure, and said to himself, 'I will make
this poor fellow feel pleasant, if I can;' for which, with all his
roguery, who could help liking him and being grateful to him?"

In 1838, he projected a tour on the continent; but was induced to
change his purpose for a shorter one in Scotland, from which he
derived not only great pleasure, but restored health. His diary of
the trip, originally taken in short-hand notes, has been published,
and abounds in good-natured criticisms on the manners and customs of
the people he met on his journey, and some very fine descriptions of
the scenery of the Highlands, which fell under his observation.

Gerald Griffin's last novel, as we have intimated, appeared in 1835,
when only in the thirty-second year of his age. He had succeeded
in the fullest sense as a novelist, in giving to the world in half
a score of years some of the healthiest and most fascinating books
in our language; had won the applause of the gifted and good alike,
and, in a pecuniary point of view, had secured himself against all
probability of dependence. Still, in a certain sense, he was not
content. The pursuit of fame, as he had on more than one occasion
predicted, had alone given him pleasure--its acquisition brought
him no permanent satisfaction. Whether in abandoning the drama he
had departed from his true path, or that his early insight into
the mysteries of authorship had led him to underrate the labors
of those whom the world is allowed to know only at a distance, or
that his mind, naturally of a serious and religious turn, now fully
developed, instinctively arrived at the conviction that only in the
performance of those duties and sacrifices imposed on the ministers
of the Gospel could be found his real sphere of action, or whether
all these causes acted upon him with more or less force, certain it
is that he now began to contemplate a radical change in his life. We
know that he relinquished writing for the stage with reluctance, and
that as early as 1828 he commenced the study of law at the London
University; but it was not for two or three years afterward that his
friends noticed his growing inclination for the life of a religious.
From that time his poems, those beautiful scintillations of his soul,
began to exhibit a higher fancy and a purer moral power than could
be drawn even from patriotism, or the contemplation of mere natural
objects. His conversation assumed a graver tone, and his letters to
his friends, formerly so pleasantly filled with gossip and scraps of
comment on the persons and literature of the day, were mainly taken
up with graver topics.

This change, we are satisfied, was the effect of grave and due
deliberation, and not the result of caprice or disappointed ambition.
It had been remarked that his letters to the different members of
his family during his residence in London, while filled with minute
details of his literary labors, fears, and aspirations, seldom
touched on religious matters, and hence it has been inferred that
during his sojourn there he had neglected the practical duties of the
faith of his boyhood; but this supposition is altogether gratuitous.
In familiar intercourse with men of his own age and pursuits, he may
have given expression to crude or speculative opinions without that
proper degree of reverence which older minds exercise in dealing with
such important questions; but we have the assurance of his nearest
relatives and of those few who enjoyed his friendship that this
weakness was seldom indulged in. However, Griffin in a spirit of
self-condemnation, which we cannot help thinking disproportionate to
the supposed offence, inaugurated his new mode of life by endeavoring
to remove from the minds of his former associates any wrong
impressions such conversations might have produced. In an admirable
letter written to a literary friend in London, under date January
13th, 1830, he says:

    "Since our acquaintance has recommenced this winter, I have
    observed, with frequent pain, that not much (if the slightest)
    change has taken place in your opinions on the only important
    subject on earth. Within the last few weeks, I have been
    thinking a great deal upon this subject, and my conscience
    reproaches me that you may have found in the worldliness of
    my own conduct and conversation reason to suppose that my
    religious convictions had not taken that deep hold of my
    heart and mind which they really have. I will tell you what
    has convinced me of this. I have compared our interviews this
    winter with the conversations we used to hold together, when my
    opinions were unsettled and my principles (if they deserved the
    name) detestable, and though these may be somewhat more decent
    at present, I am uneasy at the thought that the whole tenor of
    my conduct, such as it has appeared to you, was far from that
    of one who lived purely and truly for heaven and for religion."

With a short visit to Paris and his tour in Scotland, Griffin
practically bade adieu to the outside world, and, retiring to Pallas
Kenry, prepared himself for admission into the order of the Christian
Brothers. We learn from one of his letters to friends in America that
he had at first designed to offer himself as a candidate for the holy
ministry, and had even commenced a preparatory course of theological
study; but distrust of his vocation for a calling requiring so
many qualifications led him to select the more quiet but highly
meritorious sphere of a humble teacher of little children.

    "I had long since relinquished the idea," he writes, "which I
    ought never to have entertained, of assuming the duties of the
    priesthood; and I assure you that it is one of the attractions
    of the order into which I have entered, that its subjects
    are prohibited (by the brief issued from Rome in approval
    and confirmation of the institute) from ever aspiring to the
    priesthood."

Having destroyed all his unpublished manuscripts, including _Matt
Hyland_, a ballad of considerable merit of which only a fragment
remains, and taken affectionate leave of his friends, the author of
_Gisippus_ and _The Collegians_, in the prime of his manhood and the
fulness of his fame, left his home for ever, entered as a postulant
the institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools in Dublin,
September 8th, 1838, and on the 15th of the following month, the
feast of St. Teresa, was admitted to the religious habit.

    "I have," he writes, "entered this house, at the gracious call
    of God, to die to the world and to live to him; all is to be
    changed; all my own pursuits henceforward to be laid aside, and
    those only embraced which he points out to me."

Gerald Griffin, or, as we must henceforth know him, Brother Joseph,
entered on the performance of his new duties with his characteristic
ardor and in a spirit of unostentatious obedience, which elicited the
admiration of the community to a greater extent than the display of
mere intellectual accomplishments could have done. "Nothing," said
the superior general of the order, "could exceed the earnestness with
which he discharged every duty; nothing was done by halves; nothing
imperfectly; he seemed as if he had nothing else to do but that which
he was doing." The following extract from a letter written soon after
his removal to the North Cork monastery, the succeeding year, while
it shows a touch of his old playful style, illustrates also that
cheerfulness of spirit which so preeminently marks the character of
the members of all the religious orders of the church, the result of
the consciousness of useful labor well done:

    "I was ordered off here from Dublin last June, and have been
    since enlightening the craniums of the wondering Paddies
    in this quarter, who learn from me with profound amazement
    and profit that o x spells ox; that the top of the map is
    the north, and the bottom is the south, with various other
    branches; as also that they ought to be good boys, and do as
    they are bid, and say their prayers every morning and evening,
    etc.; and yet it seems curious, even to myself, that I feel a
    great deal happier in the practice of this daily routine than
    I did while I was roving about your great city, absorbed in the
    modest project of rivalling Shakespeare and throwing Scott into
    the shade."

From this time till his death, which took place a year after his
removal from Dublin, Brother Joseph remained in the North Cork
monastery, his time divided between teaching the children of the
poor and in that inner preparation for the end so unexpectedly near
at hand, and to which he no longer looked forward, as he once had
done, with apprehension. Until a very short time before his demise,
he was in excellent health, and his conduct was marked by that
serenity of manner and cheerfulness of speech which showed that the
tempest-tossed spirit had at length found a haven of refuge. He
visited his home but once, and then for a brief period, returning
without pain or regret to his prayers and studies, among the latter
of which was the compilation of a series of pious tales, intended for
the use of the Brothers' schools, but which were never completed. His
death, the result of typhus fever which set in on the 31st of May,
and terminated fatally twelve days after, is thus simply but tenderly
described by the director of novices, who was one of the witnesses of
the edifying scene:

    "On the morning of the day when his last illness took an
    unfavorable turn, he called the person in attendance on him to
    his bedside, and quietly told him 'he thought he should die of
    this sickness, and that he wished to receive extreme unction.'
    His confessor, by a merciful dispensation of providence, was
    then in the house, and expressed his opinion that, as a matter
    of precaution, it was best to administer it. He repaired to
    his bedside, presented him the holy viaticum, and administered
    extreme unction. He received them with the most lively
    sentiments of love and resignation, as well as the utmost
    fervor and devotion. During his illness, not a murmur or sigh
    of impatience escaped him; not a sentiment but breathed love,
    confidence, and resignation; not a desire but for the perfect
    accomplishment of the will of Him to whom his habits of prayer
    had so long and closely united him."

Thus lived and died one whom it would be faint praise to call one
of the brightest and purest ornaments which this century has given
to English literature. The various creations of his fancy will long
hold a high place in the hearts of all who admire the beautiful
and revere the good; but the moral of his own life is the noblest
heritage he has left us. True to the instincts of his Catholic birth
and training, he passed through the temptations of sorrow, poverty,
and vanities of a great city for years, preserving his faith unshaken
and his morals unsullied; with courage and tenacity of purpose, the
attributes of true heroism, he surmounted obstacle after obstacle,
which might easily have daunted older and stronger men, till he
reached a proud position in the literature of his country; and when
surrounded by all that is supposed to make life valuable--personal
independence, devoted friends, and worldly applause--he gently
and after mature self-examination took off his laurels, laid them
modestly on the altar of religion, and, clothed in the humble garb of
a Christian Brother, prepared to devote his life to unostentatious
charity. Even his very name, that he once fondly hoped to write
on the enduring tablets of history, he no longer desired to be
remembered; for on the plain stone that marks his last resting-place
in the little graveyard of the monastery is engraved simply the words,

    BROTHER JOSEPH. DIED JUNE 12, 1840.




THE UNFINISHED PRAYER.


    "Now I lay me"--say it, darling;
      "Lay me," lisped the tiny lips
    Of my daughter, kneeling, bending,
      O'er her folded finger-tips.

    "Down to sleep"--"to sleep," she murmured,
      And the curly head dropped low;
    "I pray the Lord," I gently added,
      "You can say it all, I know."

    "Pray the Lord"--the words came faintly.
      Fainter still, "my soul to keep;"
    Then the tired head fairly nodded,
      And the child was fast asleep.

    But the dewy eyes half-opened
      When I clasped her to my breast;
    And the dear voice softly whispered,
      "Mamma, God knows all the rest."




THE FIRST OECUMENICAL COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN.

NUMBER FIVE.


For another month the Vatican Council has pursued the path originally
marked out for its labors with a calmness and steady perseverance
which no outside influences can disturb. In the beginning of its
sessions sensational correspondents described what they saw and what
they did not see--praised, mocked, or maligned as their humors led
them or as their patrons desired, and poured forth abundant streams
of amusing anecdotes, acute guesses, and positive assurances. The
correspondence of one week was found to contradict that of the
preceding week, and was itself contradicted the week following.
Now, though wit, and drollery, and sarcasm may please for a time,
human nature, after all, desires truth. And as men saw these
contradictions, they came to understand how thoroughly untrustworthy
were these correspondents; and the writers, ever on the alert to
catch the first symptoms of popular feeling, have, in great part,
dropped the subject. The only influence which such writings as these
have had on the prelates of the council was to supply them with
abundant topics for amusement in their hours of relaxation.

Another class of writers have all along treated, and still continue
to treat, of the council and its action with earnestness of purpose,
and are making strenuous efforts to guide and control or to check
its course on subjects which they believe to have come or which may
come up before it. We speak of those who are moved by religious or
political feelings. Day after day and week after week, Italian,
French, German, and English newspapers are taking one side or the
other on these subjects, and write on them, if they do not always
discuss them. At times you may find an article learned, well
written, replete with thought, and suggestive, perhaps instructive.
But generally the articles are only such as may be looked for in a
newspaper--superficial and with an affectation of smartness. However
their brilliancy, ofttimes only tinsel, may please their world of
readers, among the bishops in the council they have, and can have, no
weight whatever. It would, indeed, be surprising if they had.

Beyond the papers, there come pamphlets, many of them ably and
learnedly written. It is to be lamented that too often the writers
have allowed themselves to be carried away by excitement, and to use
language which calls for censure. Still, they profess to discuss the
questions gravely, and to present the strongest arguments in favor
of their respective sides. We will not say that such writings are
not privately read and maturely weighed by the fathers, and in fact
carefully studied, so far as they may throw light on subjects of
doctrine or discipline to be examined. But they certainly have not
had the power to accelerate or retard, by a single day, the regular
course of business before the council.

Some weeks ago, the papers of Europe were filled with articles
announcing the approaching action of several governments, and the
measures they would take to influence the pope and the bishops, so as
to control their action by the apprehension of possible political
results. What precise amount of truth and what amount of exaggeration
there was in the vast mass of excited utterances on this subject,
we are not yet able to say. Perhaps it may hereafter be discovered
in sundry green books, red books, and yellow books. This much is
certain: the council was not even flurried by it. We are assured
that in all the debates not the slightest reference was ever made
to the matter. As we write the whole subject seems to be passing
into oblivion. Even those who spoke most positively only a few weeks
ago, seem to have forgotten their assertions about the intended
interference of this, that, or the other government.

There is a majesty in this calm attitude of the sovereign pontiff,
and of the council, which does not fail to command the respect
even of worldlings and unbelievers. They can with difficulty, if
at all, comprehend the great truth on which it is based and which
produces it. The Catholic would scarcely look for any other attitude
from our prelates. The bishops of the Catholic Church, assembled
in council, are not politicians or servants of the world, seeking
popularity or fearing the loss of it. They fear not those who can
slay only the body, but Him who can slay both body and soul. They
are assembled, in the name of Christ our Lord, to do the work to
which he appointed them. They must proclaim his doctrines and his
precepts; they must promote the extension of his kingdom, and must
zealously and unceasingly seek the welfare and salvation of souls for
whom he shed his blood on Calvary. They are men, and, as subjects
or citizens, they are bound to give, and each in his own home
does give, unto Caesar all that is Caesar's. But they are Christian
bishops, and they must not fail to give, and to instruct and call
on all men to give, unto God the things that are God's. Assembled in
the Holy Ghost, they do not seek to discover what is popular--what
may be pleasing or what contrary to the opinions, or prejudices, or
passions of to-day, whether in the fulsome self-adulation, because
of our vaunted progress, or in the intrigues and plans of worldly
politics and national ambitions. They stand far above all this folly,
and are not plunged into this chaos. They have to set forth clearly
the one divine truth of revelation, which has been handed down from
the beginning, and which they see now so frequently impugned and
controverted, or set aside and forgotten. It is precisely because the
world is setting it aside, that this council has met and will speak.

Our divine Saviour himself declared that the world would oppose the
teachers of his truth as it had opposed him. The history of the
eighteen hundred years of her existence is, for the church, but a
continuous verification of that prophecy. The fathers of the Vatican
Council cannot lose sight of the lesson thus given. It should purify
their hearts and strengthen their souls. For they, of all men, must
believe most truly and earnestly in the truth and the reality of
Christianity and the greatness of the work in which they are engaged.
Hence, when the murmurs or the clamors of the opposition of the world
come to their ears, they are not filled with fear or with surprise.
Of all miracles, they would look on this as the greatest, that, as
the Vatican Council speaks, the passions and earthly interests and
prejudices of men should at once die out or grow mute, and that no
voice should be heard in opposition, no arm be raised to arrest or
thwart, if it could, the work of God. This they do not look for.
Opposition must come, and they must not fear it, nor shrink from
encountering it while at their post of duty. As they become conscious
of its approach, they can but gird themselves the more energetically
to their work, and seek the guidance and strength of which they have
need from on high.

When we closed our last article, the prelates of the council were
busily engaged, in accordance with the new by-laws, in writing out
their observations and criticisms on several draughts that had
been put into their hands. This work, so far as then required, was
finished on March 25th. But on the 18th, the meetings of the general
congregations, or committees of the whole, were resumed, and have
been held since then on the 22d, 23d, 24th, 26th, 28th, 29th, 30th,
and 31st of March, and April 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 12th, and
19th.

The business of the council has entered on a new stage. Our readers
will remember that early in December last the first draught or schema
on matters of faith was placed in the hands of the bishops; and that
after some weeks of private study it was taken up for discussion in
the general congregation held on the 28th of December. In our second
article we gave some account of the character of this discussion,
in which no less than thirty-five of the prelates took part. At its
conclusion the draught was referred for emendations to the special
committee or deputation on matters of faith, to which were also sent
full reports of all the discourses in the discussion. This committee
held many meetings, and went over the whole matter two or three times
with the utmost care, hearing the authors of the draught and weighing
the arguments and observations made in the general congregations.
They divided the schema or draught into two parts, and now reported
back the first part amended, containing an introduction and four
chapters, with canons annexed.

This new and revised draught or schema, so presented to the
bishops--in print, of course, as are all the conciliar documents--was
again to be submitted to a renewed discussion and examination, first
in general on its plan as a whole, and then by parts, first on the
introduction, and then successively on each of the four chapters
which composed it. A member of the deputation or committee on faith
opened the discussion by speaking as the organ of the committee, and
explaining and upholding what they had done. Many other fathers took
part in the lively discussions which followed. The speeches were very
brief and to the point, only one of them exceeding half an hour,
and several not lasting more than five minutes. Those who wished to
speak sent in their names beforehand to the presiding cardinals, as
on former occasions, and were called to the pulpit in their regular
order. The spokesman of the committee, or, in fact, any other member,
might, during the course of the debate, take the pulpit to give
some desired explanation or to reply to a speaker. All who wished
to propose further amendments or changes were required to hand them
in in writing. This the speakers generally did at the conclusion
of their discourses. When at length the discussion on any special
part--for example, on the introduction--was terminated, that portion
of the schema and all the proposed amendments were referred again to
the committee. The amendments were printed, and a few days after,
in a general congregation, the whole matter would come up for a
vote. The committee announced which of the amendments they accepted.
They stated briefly the reasons for which they were unwilling to
accept the others. The fathers then voted on each amendment singly,
unless, indeed, as sometimes happened, the author, satisfied with the
explanation or replies given, asked leave to withdraw it.

This chapter or portion of schema, or draught, was then again
printed, introducing into it the amendments that had been thus
adopted; and it was again submitted as a whole to the vote of the
fathers.

All these votes were taken without unnecessary expenditure of time.
When a question was proposed, all in the affirmative were called on
to rise, and to remain standing until their number was ascertained.
They then sat down, and all in the negative were in their turn
summoned to rise, and to remain standing until they were counted.

As there are usually over seven hundred prelates present and voting,
it is clear that if the numbers on each side are nearly even, there
might be some difficulty in settling the vote. But the evil did
not occur. It so happened that on every vote the majority was so
preponderating in numbers that an actual count was not necessary. It
is said that only on one occasion they were nearly evenly divided.
The important question happened to be whether the insertion of a
certain comma between two words in the text before them would make
the sense more distinct or not. The division of sentiment on so
small a matter caused some amusement; but it was evidence of the
painstaking care with which even the minutest points are scrutinized
and cared for.

When the introduction and each one of the chapters with its
accompanying canons had been thus separately passed on, the entire
schema as a whole was submitted to the fathers for a more solemn and
decisive vote. This was done in the general congregations held on
April 12th and April 19th. The vote was taken, not, as in deciding on
the details, by the act of rising, but by ayes and noes.

This was first done in the congregation of the 12th, in the following
manner: The secretary from the lofty pulpit called the prelates one
after the other, according to their ranks and their seniority in
their several ranks, naming each one by his ecclesiastical title.
The cardinals presiding were called first, the other cardinals next,
then the patriarchs, the primates, the archbishops, the bishops, the
mitred abbots, and the superiors of the various religious orders
and congregations having solemn vows. As each prelate was called,
he rose in his place, bowed to the assembly, and voted. The form
was _Placet_, if he approved entirely; _Placet juxta modum_, if
there were any minor point which he was unwilling to approve; or
_Non placet_, if he disapproved. In the second case, he handed in a
written statement of his opinion and vote on that point, and assigned
the reasons which moved him to this special view. The assessors of
the council immediately received these manuscripts, and delivered
them to the presiding legates. As the name of each one was called,
if not present, he was marked _absent_; if present and voting, two
or three of the officials, stationed here and there in the hall,
repeated with clear bell-like voices the form of words used by the
prelate in voting, so that all might hear them, and that no mistake
could be committed as to any one's vote. The whole procedure occupied
about two hours. When it was over, the votes were counted before all,
and the result declared. This was in reality the most solemn and
formal voting of the bishops on the matter so far before them. Each
one's judgment is asked, and he must give it. It was evident the
bishops voted after mature study, and with an evident singleness and
simplicity of heart before God.

The special matters urged in the written and conditional votes were
again, and for the last time, examined by the committee or deputation
on matters of faith, they reported the result of their discussion in
the congregation of April 19th, and the precise form of words was
settled, to be decreed and published in the third public session,
which will be held on Low-Sunday.

It thus appears that nothing will be put forth by the council without
the fullest study and examination.

1. The _schemata_, or draughts, as presented to the council, are the
result of the studies and conferences of able theologians of Rome,
and of every Catholic country.

2. The _schema_ is subjected to a thorough debate before the general
congregation or, committee of the whole, or under the by-laws, it is
placed in the hands of each one of the bishops, and every one who
thinks it proper gives in writing his remarks on it, and proposes his
emendations.

3. The _schema_, and these remarks and proposed amendments, are
carefully considered by the deputation or committee to whom they are
referred, whose office it is to prepare for the council a revised
and amended draught. The twenty-four members of the _deputation_ are
picked men, and the examination and discussion of the subjects by
them has proved to be all that the fathers looked for--most thorough
and searching.

4. Again, on their revised report, the matter is a second time
brought before the general committee, and is again discussed by the
fathers, who are at liberty still to propose further changes and
amendments. As a matter of fact, these turn mostly on minute details
and on forms of expression.

5. Again, in the light of those proposed amendments, it is examined
and discussed by the committee, who make their final report,
accepting or not accepting the several amendments, and assigning to
the congregation the reasons for their decision on each point. They
thus enjoy the privilege of closing the debate.

6. Then follows the voting. One portion of the _schema_ is taken up.
The amendments touching it, so reported on by the committee, are one
by one either adopted or rejected, and then the whole portion is
passed on. One after the other the remaining portions are taken up,
and acted on in the same manner. The amendments are first disposed of
one by one, and then each portion is separately voted on. Finally,
all the parts as separately adopted are put together, and on the
whole _schema_ so composed a more solemn vote is taken by ayes and
noes.

This concludes the, so to speak, consultative action of the council
on that _schema_. It is now ready for a solemn enactment and
promulgation in the next public session of the council. (This session
was held on Low-Sunday.--ED. C. W.)

The time is approaching when the first portion of the decisions and
decrees of the Vatican Council will be given to the world in the
third public session, to be held on Low-Sunday. Already enough has
come to light, in the better informed presses of Europe, to let us
know the general tenor of what we shall soon hear. As it has become
a matter of notoriety, we may speak of the subjects so said to be
treated of.

The state of the world, and the errors and evils to be met and
condemned in this nineteenth century by the Vatican Council, are
very different from those which all previous councils were assembled
to resist. The heresies then to be encountered denied this or that
doctrine in particular, and erred on one or another point. But
they all admitted the existence of God, the reality and truth,
at least in a general way, of a revelation from heaven through
Christ our Lord, and the obligation of man to receive it, and to be
guided by it in belief and practice. Now, the world sees but too
many who go far beyond that. Then, so to speak, the outposts were
assailed. Now the very citadel of revelation is attacked. Schools
of a falsely called philosophy have arisen which, with a pretended
show of reasoning, deny the existence of God, of spiritual beings,
of the soul of man, and recognize only the existence of physical
matter. Or if they speak of God, it is by an abuse of terms, and
in a pantheistic sense, holding him to be only the totality of all
existing things, a personification of universal nature; or else,
if they wish to be more abstruse or more unintelligible, God is,
according to them, the primal being, a vague and indefinite first
substance, by the changes, evolutions, emanations, and modifications
of which all existing things have come to be as they are. Many are
the phases of materialism, pantheism, and theopantism in which German
metaphysicians revel, and call it high intellectual culture. The pith
of all of them is atheism, the denial of the real existence of God.

The English mind is, or believes itself to be, more practical and
matter-of-fact. It does not wander through the dreamy mazes of
German metaphysics. It has no taste for such excursions. But there
is a school in England which, under the pretence of respecting
facts, reaches practically the same sad results. It tells its
disciples of what has been termed the philosophy of the unknowable
and unintelligible, and declares that man, possessed only of such
limited powers of knowledge as experience proves us to have, cannot
conceive, cannot really know, cannot be made to know, any thing of
God, the self-existent and absolute, eternal, infinitely wise and
infinitely perfect, and that these words are merely conventional
sounds, in reality meaningless, and conveying no real thought to the
mind. Hence, he is to be held at once the wisest philosopher and most
sensible man who discards them altogether, who throws aside all these
useless, cloudy, unintelligible subjects, and occupies himself with
the immediate and actual world around him, of which alone, through
his senses, his experiments, and his experiences, he can obtain
some certain and positive knowledge. This they call independence
and freedom of science. In many minds it would be pure atheism, if
pure atheism were possible; in many others, it has produced and is
producing a haziness of doubt, and an uncertainty on all these points
touching the existence and the attributes of God, as in practice
leads to almost the same result.

The French mind is active, acute, sketchy, imaginative, logical,
and practical. On a minimum quantity of facts or principles it will
construct a vast theory. If facts are too few to support the theory,
imagination can readily supply all that are lacking. The theory,
if logically consistent, must be reduced to practice; opponents
must stand aside or be crushed down. The theory must rule. From the
days of Voltaire, if not before, France has seen men deny religion
under the guise of teaching philosophy. The sarcasms, and at times
the brilliancy of their writings, have made French authors the
store-house from which infidels in other nations draw their weapons.
It was in France that a national decree enacted that there is
no God, and it is in France and in Belgium that the societies of
so-called _Solidaires_ exist, the members of which solemnly bind
themselves to each other to live and die, and be buried, without any
act of religion. Too full of confidence in their powers of mind to
accept the English system, and to acknowledge there is any subject
they cannot master; too impressionable and practical to live in the
cloud of German metaphysical pantheism, the French _philosophers_
are prone to deify man, instead of universal nature. Whether they
follow Comte in his earlier theories, or Comte in the very different
theories of his old age, or whether they devise some other theory,
it is generally man they place on the throne of the Deity. This
worship of man, this spirit of humanitarianism, and this belief in
the progressive and indefinite perfectibility of mankind, which they
hold apart from and in antagonism to the belief which worships God as
the Creator and Sovereign Lord, and places man the creature subject
to him, runs practically through many a phase of their character in
modern times.

These three systems--of course more or less commingled in their
sources--have been extended to every portion of the civilized world.
The German system has passed into Denmark, Holland, and Sweden;
the French into Italy, Spain, and Portugal, and in some measure
through them into Southern America. In the United States, we have
been comparatively free from them. We owe it, probably, to the fact
that with us all men are so busy trying to amass fortunes that they
have little time and less taste for such abstruse speculations.
True, through the vast German immigration, we have received some
portion of the German system. But so far it has scarcely spread
among our citizens of other nationalities. The English system,
strange to say, scarcely exists except in its vaguer influences. The
French system, introduced years ago, has struck deeper roots, and
has a wider influence. But, on the whole, the mass of our people
has a firm unshaken belief in the real truth of Christianity as a
revealed religion. Although very often men are exceedingly puzzled
to know what are the specific doctrines, still they have not lost
the traditions of their fathers, and have not fallen into positive
unbelief. How long these words will remain true, who can tell?
Luxury and the general demoralization becoming so familiar, and the
systematic godless education of our youth, will soon perhaps place
us in the van of those nations who seem to have been given up to the
foolishness of their hearts.

Meanwhile the church knows that she is debtor to all--that her
mission is to preach the Gospel of Christ to all nations. Seeing in
what manner so many are going astray, so far as even to deny the
God that made them and redeemed them, and knowing that he has sent
her as a messenger from him to them, she raises her voice, and, in
clear, steady, clarion tones that will ring through the world, she
proclaims again that he is the one true God, eternal and almighty,
the Creator whom all men must know and must serve, and unto whom they
will all have to render a strict account. This assembled council is
itself evidence, clear as the noon-day light, of her existence, and
her office in the world. Men may not shut their eyes to the fact. Her
words are clear: "He whom ye deny exists, and speaks to you through
me. He whom ye scoff at is your Creator and Lord, from whom ye have
received all that ye have. He whom ye deride is long-suffering, and
wills not your death, but that ye repent and come to him. Through
me he admonishes, he invites, he warns you." Will these men hearken
to her voice, or rather, the voice of God through her? Does not the
God they would deny give, as it were, sensible testimony of his
existence, his power, and his authority, evidence which they cannot
ignore or overlook save by a wilful and deliberate effort on their
part? They cannot fail to see the church claiming to be his. Her
unbroken existence through eighteen centuries and her continued
growth and advance despite opposition, and, still more, despite the
quiet natural force of all human agency, external and internal,
which under the ordinary laws of human things would have sufficed to
disrupt and to destroy her a hundred times, an existence and a growth
which could have proceeded only from a supernatural power, and which
constitute a standing miracle in the history of the world, demand
their attention and their respect. Her claim to be divinely founded
and divinely supported, they must not scout with flippancy. They must
at least receive it with respect, and examine its grounds. The most
solemn assembly of that church, the most imposing assembly the world
has looked on, an assembly authorized by the organization which he
gave to that church, and therefore authorized by him, speaks to them
in his name and by his authority. Will they receive the message, or
will they turn away? Some there are who would not believe, if one
rose from the dead. But we may hope and pray that others will hearken
to the words of the Lord, and learn that to know and fear the Lord is
the beginning of true wisdom. Above all, we may hope that many who
have not yet advanced too far on the dangerous road may become aware
of their danger and their folly, and return to the paths of true and
salutary doctrine.

Next to those who, following the systems we have indicated, or on
any other grounds pretend to do away with the existence of God, come
those who admit his existence, but do not admit that he has given
a revealed religion to mankind. It is unnecessary to go over the
various groups into which they may be divided. There always have
been and will be men who will try by one huge effort to throw off
the yoke of religion. And what is there for doing which men will
not try to assign some reason? In the last century, and the early
portion of the present one, men sought such reasons in the alleged
contradictions of the Scriptures, in the mysteriousness of Christian
doctrine and the inability of the human intellect to comprehend them,
in the procrustean systems of ancient history which they invented, or
in alleged defects of the evidences of Christianity, or, finally, in
their pet theories of metaphysics. At present the tendency is to base
the rejection of revealed religion on its alleged incompatibility
with the discoveries of natural sciences in these modern days.
Geology, anthropology, in fact, the natural sciences with scarcely
an exception, have been in turn laid under contribution or forced to
do service against the cause of revelation. We have men appealing to
this or that principle or fact as an irrefragable evidence by modern
science of the false pretensions of Christianity.

To all such the church, the pillar and ground of truth, the organ
of Christ our Lord on earth, will speak. It is not her office to
enter into the detailed discussion of scientific studies, and to
make manifest the errors of fact into which these men have fallen,
or the fallacy of their deductions. This she leaves to scholars
who, in their pursuit of earthly knowledge, do not cast away the
knowledge they have received of divine truth. Such Christian scholars
have replied to the sneers, and gibes, and sarcasms of the last
century, and have shown the utter worthlessness and absurdity of
the arguments then brought forward against Christianity by men who
claimed to speak on the part of science; and there are now others
answering with equal fulness the more modern objections. The church
might, indeed, have left it to time and the progress of learning
and science to vindicate her course and to refute the objections
raised against her teaching. For, as a matter of fact, the grand
difficulties brought forward half a century ago excite but a smile
now, as we see on what an unsubstantial foundation they rested. And
a very few years to come will, we may be sure, suffice to overturn
many a pet theory of to-day, with their vaunted arguments against
revelation. New discoveries will lead to new theories, that may or
may not give rise to a new crop, a new set of difficulties, for
man's mind is limited and cannot reach the truth on all sides,
but they will consign the present difficulties to the tomb of the
Capulets. To that tomb generation after generation of these so-called
scientific objections are passing. The church does not undertake to
teach astronomy, geology, chemistry, or physics. Natural sciences
are to be studied by man, in the use of his own reason and the
exercise of his natural faculties. These things God has left to the
disputations of men. The church does not despise these discussions
and researches. She does not repress them nor oppose them. Quite
the contrary. She has ever protected and fostered science. One of
the most beautiful and instructive chapters in her earthly history
would be that which tells how, from the school of Alexandria, in the
days of persecution, down the entire course of ages, she has ever
sought to promote and foster science. She may with pride point to her
canons and laws enacted for this purpose in every century. She may
recount the long catalogue of schools, colleges, and universities
established by her in every civilized land of Europe, and wherever
she planted her foot; and to the religious houses of her clergy,
throughout the stormy middle ages the chief, almost the only safe
homes of learning. Many of the universities which she founded have
in the course of ages been destroyed by kings and nobles, who
filled their own purses, or repaired their wasted fortunes, by the
seizure of endowments given for the free education of all that might
come to drink of these fountains of learning; even as this very
month the progressive, liberal government of the kingdom of Italy
is discussing the propriety of suppressing one half of the older
universities they found existing in the portion of the Papal States,
and in other parts of Italy, which ten years ago they annexed to the
kingdom of Sardinia. When did the church ever do such an act? Never.
What university was ever suppressed by any act of hers? None. She
encourages science. But at the same time she says, "God has given to
man reason and understanding to seek after and to attain knowledge.
It is a great and noble gift, to be prized and used rightly, and not
turned to an evil purpose. If a father place in the hands of his son,
as a gift, a weapon keen and bright, shall that son, with parricidal
hand turn the blade against his father? Beware not to turn these
gifts of God against God himself. Use them not as pretexts to deny
his existence, or shake off his authority, or to impugn his truth
when he speaks."

In giving this admonition, the church is acting in her full
right. She is in the certain possession of that higher divine
truth which her heavenly Founder has placed in her charge, to be
carefully guarded and preserved until the end of time, and to be
ever faithfully preached. Who ever denies it, she must oppose
him. Whatever teaching would make it out to be false, she must
condemn. The church, holding with certainty this divine deposit of
the revealed truth, must not be compared, either in theory or in
practice, with any private individual or society of individuals,
who hold and profess religious doctrines on the authority of their
own reason and judgment, or of their private interpretation of the
Scriptures. In such a case as this, these doctrines are simply
beliefs, opinions of men avowedly liable to error in this very
matter. They therefore stand on the same level, as to certainty or
uncertainty of being true, with the other human judgments in the
fields of natural science or human knowledge which may rise up in
opposition to them. The two sides are fairly matched, and either may
ultimately prevail.

But, on the contrary, the church claims not merely to hold opinions,
but, under the guiding light of the Holy Ghost, to have certain and
infallible knowledge of the truths of divine revelation. Nothing
that contradicts these established and known truths can she admit
to be any thing else than error. In the contest between them, the
truth must prevail. This is the theory on which the Catholic Church
stands, and in which, in reality, all Christianity is involved. The
experience of eighteen centuries confirms it fully in practice.
Never once in all that period has the church of Christ had to revoke
a single doctrinal decision, on the ground that what was believed
to be true when uttered has since been proved to be false as the
progress of science has thrown fuller light on the subject. In the
early days of her existence, Celsus and the other philosophers of
that classical period raised manifold objections from reason and such
knowledge of nature as they possessed. Their objections accorded well
with the public opinion of the time, and were hailed with applause.
But the time came when they were felt to be of no force, and now
they are entirely forgotten; and the truth they impugned, and were
intended to overthrow, stands stronger than ever. The Gnostics, with
their varied and fanciful systems of conciliating the power and
goodness of God with the presence of evil in the world, and guided,
if we listen to their boasts, by the highest light of man's reason,
brought forward many objections, then deemed specious. They and their
arguments too have passed away, and the Catholic truth stands. So
it has been in every age until the present time. One only instance
in all history has been alleged, seemingly, to the contrary--the
condemnation of Galileo for holding and maintaining the Copernican
theory. But there is no real ground of objection here. The facts of
the case are misunderstood or misstated. The trial of Galileo, which
was in truth more of a personal than a doctrinal issue, was simply
before the congregation, or committee, of the Holy Office in Rome,
and the sentence was by that congregation and not by the church. The
difference between the sentence of such a tribunal and a decision of
the church is world-wide. And, as if to mark that difference the more
distinctly, that sentence, which, according to the usual course, and
at least as a matter of form, should have been countersigned by the
reigning pontiff, that it might be put into execution, _never was
so signed_. Why, in that case, the formality was omitted, whether
it was not deemed necessary, which, considering the usage, would
be very strange, or whether, which we think much more probable, it
was in due course of procedure presented to the pontiff for his
signature, and he abstained from signing it for reasons in his own
mind, cannot now be known. But the original official manuscript copy
of the sentence is extant, and there is no signature of the pontiff
to it. Even had he signed it, that would not have made the document a
doctrinal decision of the church. It would have remained simply the
regular sentence of a special tribunal; but the absence of the pope's
signature, perhaps its studied absence, entirely and unequivocally
removes the objection usually brought forward.[139] Here, as in
every other case, Christ has protected his church, so that she shall
make no false decision as to faith. It is only in virtue of that
protection that she claims the paramount authority to speak. Under
it she had been appointed to speak, and must speak, if she would not
be recreant to her duty. She does not repress science; she saves it.
She does not shackle reason; she preserves it from error and ruin.
How often is the way of science a narrow ridge, with deep gulfs on
either side! Feeble man walks along the narrow crest with trembling
limbs, or crawls on, dubiously and slowly, in the dark. The church
of Christ cheers him on. She does not bear him over the perilous
path; but holds aloft the torch of revealed truth to guide him as
he advances, and warns him to proceed by its light, and not to rush
heedlessly on, lest he fall into the abyss. And yet should we not
expect that the same spirit of insubordinate pride which leads reason
to deny the existence of God, or his Divine Providence, or the fact
of divine revelations, or emboldens feeble, ignorant man to measure,
as it were, his feeble intelligence against the infinite wisdom of
God, should also not refrain from charging the Catholic Church with
being an incubus on the human mind, with narrowing the intellect
and fettering the reason, with restricting our liberty of thought,
narrowing the field of science, and dwarfing the whole intellectual
man?

But time does her justice. She can point to Origen, Clement of
Alexandria, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. Thomas of Aquin, St.
Anselm, Duns Scotus, Suarez, Vasquez, and the mighty minds of the
past. She may point to her children, clergymen and laymen, now
standing in the front ranks of every branch of science. What the past
ages gave, what the present gives too, the future will as surely not
fail to give.

We add to the communication of our Roman correspondent the report of
the peroration of an eloquent speech by Signor d'Ondes-Reggio, in the
Italian Parliament, as given by M. Chantrel, in his "Chronique du
Concile," published in the _Revue du Monde Catholique_ for April 10th.

    "The Council of the Vatican comes to save the imperilled
    civilization of the world, as the preceding councils, from the
    one of Nice to that of Trent, have saved it.

    "Do you know how the Council of Nice saved the civilization
    of the world, when it condemned Arius? It prevented the human
    race from returning to idolatry; for, if the founder of
    Christianity was not God, but a mere man, the adoration of that
    man would have been an idolatry like all those of the pagans.
    The human race would have remained in barbarism, deprived of
    Christian civilization, of the true civilization, which is the
    civilization given to men by God himself.

    "The Council of Trent saved the civilization of the world;
    because, when the church condemned Luther, Calvin, and their
    followers, who denied free-will and confounded good with bad
    actions, even giving the preference to the bad ones, she
    prevented the human race from returning to the _fate_ of the
    pagans and to the domination of evil over good. The church
    saved the civilization of the world.

    "When a council condemned schisms, it condemned the breaking up
    of the human race into factions and protected the unity of the
    race; it condemned that paganism which divided the nations from
    each other and made them mutual enemies, whereas all men are
    brothers, as the children of the same God.

    "When a council roused all Europe to follow the cross into
    Asia, to rescue the sepulchre of Christ, it saved the
    civilization of Europe, and guaranteed the civilization of the
    world against Mussulman barbarism.

    "When a council condemned the furious iconoclasts, do you know
    what it did? It prevented the banishment of the beautiful from
    the world--the beautiful, which is the complement of the true
    and the good. If this new race of barbarians had not been
    repelled by the Second Council of Nice, we should not have had
    either the 'David,' or the 'Moses,' or the 'Transfiguration,'
    or the 'Assumption.' Italy would not be the queen of the fine
    arts in the world.

    "When the councils smote and deposed corrupt Caesars, the
    oppressors of their peoples, it was human reason, enlightened
    by faith, which conquered error, sustained by brute force;
    it was charity which beat down tyranny, and civilization
    triumphing over barbarism.

    "The Council of the Vatican, composed of the venerable fathers
    of the Catholic Church, extended throughout the whole world,
    differing in customs, habits, complexion, language, but united
    in the same faith, the same hope and charity--the Council of
    the Vatican comes to save, by the bishops, a civilization
    in peril. Errors the most impious, the most deadly, the
    most pernicious to the human race, which have been spread
    abroad during the course of ages, and which have sufficed,
    taken singly, to turn civil society upside down, are now all
    assembled together, and united with each other to batter and
    destroy it. Every thing which is the most true, the most
    sacred, the most venerated, is attacked; and some persons even
    go so far as to say that it is lawful to kill, to rob, and
    to calumniate, in order to attain certain ends. The Council
    of the Vatican has come, yes, it has come! to condemn these
    blasphemies and iniquities, to awaken sleeping consciences, to
    confirm consciences which are wavering; it has come to save
    civilization in peril.

    "O venerable fathers! you who have hastened to Rome from the
    extremities of the world, at the summons of the successor of
    Peter, and who are at this moment gathered together in the name
    of God, at the Vatican, all men of good-will have their eyes
    fixed upon you; and from you they await with confidence the
    salvation of the world. You, successors of the apostles, will
    fulfil the commandment given by Jesus Christ to the apostles
    and to you, to teach the nations the infallible truths;
    the commandment given, not to kings, emperors, or secular
    assemblies, but to the apostles and to you--you will teach the
    nations these infallible truths, and the nations will be saved."

FOOTNOTE:

[139] See CATHOLIC WORLD, Nos. 45 and 46.




FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.


_The Gospel in the Law._ A Critical Examination of the Citations
from the Old Testament in the New. By Charles Taylor. Cambridge and
London: Bell & Daldy. 1869. The relative positions of the Mosaic law
and the new law may be studied from a great many points of view.
That chosen by Mr. Taylor, in the volume before us, adds additional
interest to his very remarkable work.

The selection and study of citations from the Old Testament found
in the New give rise to many questions which, properly elucidated,
throw much light on the connection which exists between Judaism and
Christianity. Mr. Taylor does not so much occupy himself with that
question as with the manner in which the Bible is connected with
the Testament. Not that he undertakes to demonstrate that the germ
of the new law may be found in the Old; for that no one denies, and
the title he has selected shows the object of his work, "the Gospel
in the law." Not every thing in the work is new; but the previously
accumulated erudition of the subject is admirably _resumed_, and
several chapters are marked by originality--the thirteenth, for
instance, on Jewish and Christian morality.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Varieties of Irish History._ From Ancient and Modern Sources and
Original Documents. By James J. Gaskin, Dublin. A handsome volume,
illustrated with four chromo-lithographs, and an excellent map of the
environs of Dublin. The work appears to be made up of a series of
lectures delivered at Dalkey, a well-known charming suburb of Dublin,
and of articles published at various times in the Irish newspapers
concerning the history of the principal environs of Dublin--Howth,
Kingston, Dalkey, Bray, and Killing. The beautiful bay of Dublin and
its picturesque shores, of course, come in for their share of notice,
and as the author gives himself the amplest verge, he manages, in
his numberless digressions, to throw into his pages a reflex of the
intellectual history of Dublin during the last century.

       *       *       *       *       *

One of the most remarkable and eventful missionary fields of
the Catholic Church was, unquestionably, Japan. There are few
more admirable pages in its history than those which recount the
constancy and faith of its first martyrs under one of the most bloody
persecutions the world ever saw. M. Leon Pages has just published a
work giving the history of Catholicity in Japan from 1598 to 1651:
_Histoire de la Religion Chretienne au Japon, depuis 1598 jusqu'a
1651, comprenant les faits relatifs aux deux cent cinq martyrs
beatifies le 7 Juillet 1867_, par Leon Pages. This volume, published
separately, will form the third volume of a large work in four octavo
volumes, to be entitled, _L'Empire du Japon, ses origines, son eglise
chretienne, ses relations avec l'Europe_.

       *       *       *       *       *

The so-called _Truce of God_ of the middle ages, under which a
suspension of arms and hostilities was so often obtained, has too
frequently been so imperfectly understood and treated by historians
and writers as to be confounded by them with the _Peace of God_--two
things essentially different in origin and in application. In 1857,
a work on the subject was published at Paris by M. Ernest Semichon,
who by his judicious research threw an entirely new light on this
question. M. Semichon has just presented the literary world with a
new edition of the work of 1857, largely augmented in fresh matter
and in historical documents, in which he clearly establishes the
distinction between these two institutions, and fixes the origin
of the Peace of God at about A.D. 988, and that of the Truce of
God at 1027. He follows their development step by step through the
eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, examining them from the
judicial and political stand-points, until the period when Louis
le Gros took hold of the movement. After this period, the "Truce of
God" becomes the _Quarantaine le Roi_. In treating his subject, M.
Semichon presents most interesting views of the great institutions
of the middle ages, its associations and customs, and also of the
chevaliers, the arts, and the Crusades. His work is entitled _La Paix
et la Treve de Dieu_.

       *       *       *       *       *

Until within a few years there were known to be in existence but
three Biblical manuscripts of high antiquity. These were, _First_,
the celebrated Vatican manuscript; _second_, that of London, called
the Alexandrine; _third_, that of Paris, known under the designation
of the Palimpsest of Ephrem the Syrian. The first dates from the
fourth century, the other two from the fifth. None of them are
complete, however. In that of Paris the greater part of the New
Testament is wanting. That of London is deficient in nearly the whole
of the first gospel, two chapters of the fourth, and the greater
part of the second Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians. From the
Vatican manuscript, the oldest of all, are missing four epistles,
the last chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Apocalypse.
M. Constantine Tischendorf, a distinguished Russian scholar, known
in the scientific world for his superior Hellenic and paleographic
acquirements, has the glory of having given to the Christian world,
by his discoveries, numerous sacred manuscripts of the highest
antiquity, and, above all, the famous _Codex Sinaiticus_, which has
over the three MSS. we have enumerated the great advantage of being
complete. It dates from the same epoch with that of the Vatican. M.
Tischendorf has told the story of its discovery, and of the long
and difficult negotiations required for its acquisition, in a work
just published, _Terre Sainte_, an octavo volume of 307 pages. The
volume also contains an interesting account of his oriental travel in
company with the Duke Constantine, and his visit to Smyrna, Patmos,
and Constantinople. A fac-simile edition of the new Codex is in
preparation in Russia, and a German translation of that portion of it
which contains the New Testament will shortly be made.

       *       *       *       *       *

A noteworthy work is _Le Juif, le Judaisme, et Judaisation des
peuples chretiens_, par M. le Chevalier Gougeuot des Mousseaux.
Paris, 8vo, 568 pp. The career of Judaism is here historically traced
from the early ages of the church, when it spread through Egypt,
Alexandria, and Rome the Gnostic theories of Simon the Magician,
down to the present day. The author presents successively all the
traditions upon which the belief of the modern Jew is founded. Their
Bible is the Talmud, a tissue of absurdities and immoralities. There
exists a gulf between the ancient law of Moses and the Talmudic
reveries so great, indeed, that the Jew can hardly call his law a
religious law without flying in the face of the history and the faith
of his fathers. Following these researches comes a keen analysis of
the Pharisaical spirit. Concerning the synagogue, the Sanhedrim,
the Talmudic rites, and system of education, the work gives the
fullest details, with copious extracts from writers all favorable to
Judaism, such as Prideaux, Basnage, and Salvador. The result of the
author's revelations is to show that the Jewish belief of to-day is
absolutely different from that of which Moses was the legislator.
Modern Jews are divided into three classes--orthodox, reformers, and
free-thinkers. The reformers are the Protestants of the Mosaic law.
Nowadays, for the majority of Jews, the coming of the Messiah is no
longer understood in its ordinary acceptation. For them the "desired
of nations" is merely an abstraction. The author dwells at some
length on the spreading influence of Judaism in worldly matters, and
sounds a note of alarm that gives his work something of a pessimist
tone.




NEW PUBLICATIONS.


    DR. NEWMAN'S ESSAY IN AID OF A GRAMMAR OF ASSENT. By John
    Henry Newman, D.D., of the Oratory. 1 vol. 12mo. New York: The
    Catholic Publication Society, 9 Warren street. 1870.

SECOND NOTICE.

We have not yet given to this book, destined to become so celebrated
and the theme of so much controversy, the careful examination it
deserves, and we will not, therefore, pay the poor compliment to the
illustrious author of pronouncing a superficial judgment upon it.
We have given an analysis of its contents in our last number, which
may aid the reader to understand and master its scope and course of
argument for himself. At present, we will merely take note of one or
two salient points bearing on some questions of lively controversial
interest at the present moment. The great subject of controversy in
regard to the philosophy of the work has already proved to be what
we anticipated at the first glance upon its pages--whether it is, or
is not, in contradiction to the scholastic doctrine of the reality
of universals. We give merely our impression, and not our judgment
upon this point, when we say that it appears to us that Dr. Newman
rather leaves aside the pure metaphysics of the question, than
either contradicts or affirms any scholastic doctrine of this higher
sphere of science. He appears to take the common English axioms of
reasoning as they are assumed in every-day life and made the basis
of those inductions and illations which make up the opinions of
intelligent persons on all sorts of subjects, and the conclusions of
practical, scientific men in regard to the inductive sciences. He
appeals to the common sense of those who are not sophisticated by any
false, sceptical maxims in relation to common things, but who are
simply puzzled by an apparent want of the same certitude in religion
which they hold as unquestioned in lower branches of knowledge. He
undertakes to show that the principles of assent which all men act
on in the affairs of this life lead logically to the same certitude
of the infallibility of the Catholic Church, and the truth of every
thing she proposes to belief, that a man has that Great Britain is
an island. If any one thinks there is a break or a weak spot in his
chain of reasoning, let him pull it apart and throw the fragments
aside, and he will have accomplished a considerable feat in logic.
We think that, on account of this manner of approaching the subject,
this book is likely to prove extremely useful in convincing sincere,
well-intentioned doubters, whose minds have been educated under the
same circumstances and in the same intellectual atmosphere with those
of the author. As for the analysis of certitude itself, and the
metaphysics of the ultimate question how we know, and what is that
which we know first, the author may be criticised; but we think, as
we have said, that he did not have it in view to propose a theory.
We do perceive and know; we do exist, and we know that other things
exist, and we are certain of these things, and no pretended sceptic
really doubts. We may start from this, therefore, as a fixed base
of operation, without waiting for a metaphysical theory. If the
theory which we hold is incorrect, we can change it without hurting
our argument, just as a person who lives in a regular and sensible
manner, and is in good health, can change a physiological doctrine
which he finds to be erroneous without changing his practical rules
of living. Whether Dr. Newman's statement respecting real and
notional assents be correct or not, every candid and honest man
will acknowledge that he does assent with certitude to the truth of
those things which the author calls notions. We suspect, moreover,
that the illustrious author in his affirmation that nothing really
exists except individuals, means that there are no other spiritual
or material _substances_; or, in other words, that every substance
is a simple monad existing in itself and separate from every other.
We do not apprehend that, in denying that time, space, relation,
etc., are real, he intends to affirm that they are mere subjective
affections of our minds without any foundation in objective reality,
but only that they are not either spirits or bodies, and would be
nothing if there were no spirit or body in existence. We suspect that
the nominalism attributed to Dr. Newman is merely in the phrase, and
that his difference from the realism of St. Thomas is only in the
terminology.

The other point we desire to notice is theological. Our Episcopalian
neighbors, and some others also, are accustomed to refer to Dr.
Newman as an instance in proof of their frequent assertion that men
of genius and learning in our communion chafe under the yoke of
Rome, and, if they are converts, feel themselves disappointed in the
expectations with which they entered the church. The recent letter
of Dr. Newman to Dr. Ullathorne is, of course, a lucky windfall for
them, and is interpreted as a proof that they were not mistaken. The
volume we are noticing will, for every candid and sensible reader,
completely scatter to the winds any false and calumnious attempts
to class Dr. Newman with Mr. Ffoulkes, Mr. Renouf, the translator
of _Janus_, and the rest of that clique in England, or to impeach
the integrity of his faith and loyalty as a Catholic priest and
theologian. The letter itself shows that Dr. Newman holds what his
writings show he has always held, as the more probable doctrine, that
the judgments of the pope in matters of faith are infallible. The
utmost extent of his expressions of repugnance to a definition of
this doctrine is, that he considers the weakness of faith, the lack
of knowledge, and the deficiency of the reasoning faculty in a number
of Catholics to be so great, and the bewilderment of mind so extreme
in persons outside the church who are seeking the truth, that they
cannot bear to have the light too suddenly and brightly flashed into
their eyes. The great and holy Oratorian father pities these souls,
and wishes to have them cautiously and gently led into the truth;
and he is afraid that the pope, sitting in the effulgence of the
divine Shekinah in the temple of God, does not appreciate the state
of those who are living in the fainter light or the clouded climates
of a remoter region. The chapter of the volume under notice entitled,
"Belief in Dogmatic Theology," will show beyond a question what we
have asserted of Dr. Newman's theological soundness, and we quote one
passage as a specimen.

The church "makes it imperative on every one, priest and layman,
to profess as revealed truth all the canons of councils, _and
innumerable decisions of popes_, propositions so various, so
notional, that but few can know them, and fewer can understand them."
(P. 142, Eng. ed.)

In the chapter on the "Indefectibility of Certitude" occurs
this passage: "A man is converted to the Catholic Church from
his admiration of its religious system, and his disgust with
Protestantism. That admiration remains; but, after a time, he leaves
his new faith; perhaps returns to his old. The reason, if we may
conjecture, may sometimes be this: he has never believed in the
church's infallibility; in her doctrinal truth he has believed, but
in her infallibility, no. He was asked, before he was received,
whether he held all that the church taught; he replied he did; but
he understood the question to mean, whether he held those particular
doctrines 'which at that time the church in matter of fact formally
taught,' whereas it really meant 'whatever the church then or at
any future time should teach.' Thus, he never had the indispensable
and elementary faith of a Catholic, and was simply no subject for
reception into the fold of the church. This being the case, when the
immaculate conception is defined, he feels that it is something more
than he bargained for when he became a Catholic, and accordingly he
gives up his religious profession. The world will say that he has
lost his certitude of the divinity of the Catholic faith; but he
never had it." (P. 240.)

We do not desire to have a party tolerated in the church whose
principles are precisely those here condemned by Dr. Newman, or
to have the way open for converts to be received who lack the
"indispensable and elementary faith of a Catholic." We look with
dismay upon the audacious and heretical attitude of that fallen angel
F. Hyacinthe, the scandalous position assumed by Huber, Doellinger,
and Gratry, and we anticipate greater impediment to the progress of
the faith from a miserable counterfeit and pseudo-catholicity, which
is nothing else than the base metal coined by Photius, than from
the difficulties hanging about the history of the popes, which are
no greater than those that beset councils, tradition, or the holy
Scripture itself. Whatever definitions are promulgated by the Council
of the Vatican, no one pretending to be a Catholic can hesitate to
receive them because they are "more than he bargained for." Those
who have chafed under the doctrinal authority of the popes have been
crying out for a council for two centuries. Those who are _bona fide_
in any doubt or uncertainty respecting questions not yet defined have
the way open for their doubts to be settled. If there are persons
in the communion of the church who have not the principle of faith
in them by which they are prepared without hesitation to believe
whatever the Council of the Vatican proposes, we desire that they
should leave their external connection with the Catholic Church,
which they have already inwardly abandoned. And we think it most
necessary that the duty of unreserved submission to the infallible
authority of the church, and to the Roman pontiff, as her supreme
teacher and judge as well as ruler, should be most distinctly placed
before those who seek admission into her fold. We are grateful to Dr.
Newman for the clear and unmistakable tones in which he has spoken
on the obligation of believing whatever the church commands us to
believe through the mouth of the sovereign pontiff; and as for the
question what definitions are necessary and opportune for the present
time, we confide absolutely in the divinely assisted judgment of Pius
IX. and the Catholic episcopate.

Since writing the above, we are glad to see that Dr. Newman has
written another letter, in which the following passage occurs: "I
have not had a moment's wavering of trust in the Catholic Church
ever since I was received into her fold. I hold, and ever have held,
that her sovereign pontiff is the centre of unity and the vicar of
Christ. And I ever have had, and have still, an unclouded faith in
her creed in all its articles; a supreme satisfaction in her worship,
discipline, and teaching; and an eager longing, and a hope against
hope, that the many dear friends whom I have left in Protestantism
may be partakers in my happiness." (_Tablet_, April 16th.) We are
glad, we say, to see this, not on our own account, for we have the
honor of a personal acquaintance with the illustrious Oratorian, and
know him too well to have the need of any such assurance of his firm
and ardent Catholic faith and piety; but in order that the mouths of
cavillers may be stopped, and those weak brethren who tremble like
aspen-leaves in every light breeze be reassured.

       *       *       *       *       *

    THE ORIGIN, PERSECUTIONS, AND DOCTRINES OF THE WALDENSES; FROM
    DOCUMENTS, MANY NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME COLLECTED AND EDITED. By
    Pius Melia, D.D. London: James Toovey, 177 Piccadilly. 1870.
    For sale by the Catholic Publication Society, 9 Warren street,
    New York.

In the year 1868, a London daily newspaper produced editorially one
of those statements so frequently made concerning the Waldenses, and
which, by dint of repetition, end by passing for recognized facts. It
was as follows:

    "For sixteen hundred years, at least, the Waldenses have
    guarded the pure and primitive Christianity of the apostles....
    No one knows when or how the faith was first delivered to these
    mountaineers. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, in the second century
    found them a church.

    "These gallant hill-men have kept the tradition of the Gospel
    committed to them as pure and inviolate as the snow upon
    their own Alps. They have maintained an evangelical form of
    Christianity from the very first, rejecting image-worship,
    invocation of saints, auricular confession, celibacy, papal
    supremacy or infallibility, and the dogma of purgatory; taking
    the Scripture as the rule of life, and admitting no sacraments
    but baptism and the Lord's Supper.... No bloodier cruelty
    disgraces the records of the papacy than the persecutions
    endured by the ancestors of the twenty thousand Waldenses now
    surviving.... Never did men suffer more for their belief."

As the author mildly presents it, these statements not being in
accordance with his knowledge of the subject, he was moved to
undertake a thorough investigation of the history of the Waldenses.
To this end, in addition to the perusal of a long and formidable list
of works given in the preface, and which is valuable as presenting
the bibliography of the subject, he made thorough investigation
in the great libraries of England, Rome, and Turin, which last
collection was found very rich in MSS. referring to the Waldensian
period. Fresh stimulus and efficient aid were given to his efforts by
the appearance of a very important work by Professor James Henthorn
Todd, Senior Fellow of Trinity Church, Dublin, entitled, _The Book
of the Vaudois; The Waldensian Manuscripts_, which gives a notice
of the long-lost Morland manuscripts lately discovered by Mr. Henry
Bradshaw, M.A., Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and librarian of
that university. These MSS. are undoubtedly "the oldest extant relics
of the Vaudois literature," and the most important documents relating
to their history.

The author forcibly presents _in extenso_, and in separate chapters,
the testimony of Richard, Monk of Cluny, Moneta, De Bellavilla,
Abbot Bernard, Reinerius Sacco, Archbishop Seyssell, Eneas Sylvius
Piccolomini, Casini, and many others, and in the fifteenth section
addresses himself to prove that the dates which Leger and Morland
have assigned to the Waldensian MSS. are counterfeit. Leger assigns
A.D. 1100 as the date of the _Nobla Leycon_ and the _Catechism_ of
the MSS. Our author shows that these writings are of the fifteenth,
not the twelfth century, and that the date assigned by Leger involves
the contradiction of proving that the Waldenses existed as a sect
before the period of its founder, Peter Waldo.

One long chapter is devoted to the supposed cruel Waldensian massacre
of the year 1655, as related in the often-quoted _Histoire Veritable
des Vaudois_, and to the particular murders described by Leger. These
are confronted with the legal testimony touching the same facts.

The work closes with an exposition of the Waldensian theological
tenets, each one being presented separately with a statement of the
Catholic doctrine on that tenet upon the same page.

The book is a beautiful specimen of typography, and is illustrated
with several photographs of pages of the Morland manuscripts.

       *       *       *       *       *

    THE CHARLESTOWN CONVENT; ITS DESTRUCTION BY A MOB, ETC.
    Compiled from authentic sources. Boston: P. Donahoe. 1870.

We remember distinctly the Ursuline Convent at Charlestown, as it
appeared forty years ago, crowning a gentle summit with its grave and
dignified buildings, and attractive grounds laid out and cultivated
with taste; a retreat of piety and a school of religious and solid
education. We have often enough since that time looked upon its
ruins, a perpetual monument of disgrace to Boston and Massachusetts,
a token of shame in close proximity to that other monument, a
monument of imperishable glory, which crowns the site of the battle
of Bunker Hill. This pamphlet describing the atrocious and barbarian
outrage perpetrated on the night of August 11th, 1834, with the
train of preceding and succeeding events connected with it, presents
a page in our history which many persons would do well to ponder
attentively. The outrage was occasioned by the publication of _Six
Months in a Convent_, one of a class of vile publications which, for
a time, were widely circulated and swallowed with credulity, but
afterward universally scouted with that scorn and loathing which
the American people always feels when it discovers that it has
been duped by the wicked and designing. There would be no need of
reviving the memory of these things, if the same style of attack upon
Catholics had not been renewed at intervals, and were not adopted at
the present moment by restless fanatics, who, knowing that they are
incapable of coping with us in fair argument, are fain to resort to
these criminal methods of appealing to prejudice, bigotry, ignorance,
and passion, hoping to stir up the populace to a crusade against the
Catholic religion. The abettors of Rebecca Reed and Maria Monk in the
pulpit and the press have had successors to the present time. The
Massachusetts Legislature has had its "smelling committee;" Missouri
has passed its outrageous laws; other legislatures have attempted to
lay their hands upon the property of the Catholic Church; the most
infamous laws are even now in consideration before the Legislature
of Pennsylvania; we have had the archangel Gabriel, and Judson, and
Gavazzi, and Leahy, and we have now Bishop Coxe, Bellows, Hepworth,
and Muller. The same firm of publishers which formerly was so active
and conspicuous in putting forth the most vulgar and violent attacks
upon the Catholic religion, although in one instance it found it
expedient to hide itself under an _alias_, continues its work under
the guise of a more pretentious literature, embellished by offensive
caricatures of the most venerable and sacred objects of the religious
veneration of Catholics. The spirit of falsification, the intention
to stir up popular passion, the intolerance disguised under the name
of liberalism, the determination to treat the Catholic clergy as
the heads of a faction with ulterior treasonable and revolutionary
designs, and the Catholic religion as a nuisance which ought to be
extirpated by violence, are the same in the modern agitators that
they were in their predecessors, and are in their English compeers,
the Newdegates and Whalleys of the British Parliament. They tend to
similar results with those which similar agitators have heretofore
produced. The same train is laid, the same spark applied, and the
chance of a similar explosion depends on the fact of the existence
or non-existence of a similar magazine of slumbering popular
prejudice and inflammable passion. We say, therefore, that it is well
for considerate persons who desire the peace of the community to
read and reflect upon this pamphlet. It is necessary that some very
important questions should arise, where Catholics and non-Catholics
form important elements in the same political community, with
equal rights. It is impossible that peace and good order should be
preserved, unless these matters can be discussed and arranged calmly
and amicably. Therefore we say that the agitators who appeal to a
violent solution, in case Catholics are not content with a simple
toleration under a Protestant domination, are enemies of the public
peace, and ought to be regarded as such by all good citizens. The
Catholic clergy will never be agitators. If the effort is made by
demagogues to pervert the Catholic or Irish sentiment into an impetus
of illegal, revolutionary movements, like the riot of 1863 and the
Fenian plot against Canada, the whole authority of the church and
all the influence of the clergy will be put forth against it. It is
for the present and future advantage and interest of this country
that the influence of the Catholic clergy over their people should be
as great as possible, and that of clerical agitators and demagogues
reduced to nothing.

       *       *       *       *       *

    LIFE OF ST. CHARLES BORROMEO. Edited by Edward Healy Thompson,
    A.M. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham. 1870.

St. Charles Borromeo was one of the greatest of the true reformers of
the sixteenth century. During the lifetime of his Uncle, Pius IV., he
held many of the highest offices in the Roman court, possessed the
pope's entire confidence, and exerted a powerful influence in favor
of whatever was for the good of the church. To his exertions were
due, in no small degree, the reassembling of the Council of Trent,
and the successful completion of its labors eighteen years after its
opening.

At the death of Pius IV., St. Charles returned to his diocese, and
straightway entered upon the work of its reformation, in accordance
with the decrees of Trent. He succeeded in effecting a complete
reform, and the example which he thus gave had a most salutary effect.

The _Life_ before us is well written; it gives not only the facts,
but likewise in some degree the philosophy of history; and it is free
from that religious mannerism, so to speak, which is not unfrequently
met with in books of this class. The typography and binding are in
keeping with the contents. There are, however, a great many very
serious errors of the press defacing this otherwise well printed
volume.

       *       *       *       *       *

    FIRST BOOK OF BOTANY. By Eliza A. Youmans. New York: D.
    Appleton & Co. 1870.

This elementary treatise upon botany is arranged in an entirely new
manner. The book is intended to cultivate the child's natural powers
of observation. In ordinary text-books, the beginner is expected
to master a great number of definitions and distinctions before he
ventures to go into the fields and study for himself. We have always
considered this method irksome, and we know it to be fruitless of
result. We therefore very heartily welcome Miss Youmans's little
work. We hope that she has inaugurated a reform in the teaching
of the natural sciences. We confidently recommend the book to all
Catholic schools where botany, or any of the natural sciences, form a
portion of the course of studies.

       *       *       *       *       *

    THE WISE MEN: WHO THEY WERE, ETC. By Francis W. Upham, LL.D.
    New York: Sheldon & Co. 1869.

A book written with sound and solid learning, and originality of
thought; pervaded also by a spirit in harmony with Catholic teaching,
so far as the topics are concerned upon which it treats.

       *       *       *       *       *

    THE MONKS BEFORE CHRIST; Their Spirit and their History. By
    John Edgar Johnson. Boston: A. Williams & Co. 1870.

This is one of the most shallow and stupid productions we have met
with in a long time. The author met with some rather poor specimens
of the monastic order in Europe, and breaks out into the exclamation,
"Great heavens! and these are the men who had the exclusive
manipulation of our Scriptures for several hundred years!" (Page
18.) One who is so extremely weak in the reasoning faculty as this
passage indicates has no business to write a book on serious topics,
and is unworthy of refutation. The author informs us that monasticism
is based on the Manichaean doctrine of an evil principle in matter.
This shows an _inconceivable_ ignorance which we cannot think is
_invincible_ or excusable, since the author resided several months at
the University of Munich, and was well acquainted with the learned
Benedictines of that capital, over whom the celebrated Haneberg is
abbot.

       *       *       *       *       *

    THE FLEMMINGS; OR, TRUTH TRIUMPHANT. By Mrs. Anna H. Dorsay.
    New York: P. O'Shea. 1870.

The author of this volume has given us a pleasant story, interesting
both to Catholics and Protestants, as tales of conversions to the
true faith cannot fail to be when founded, as this appears to be,
on fact. The pictures of natural scenery are fresh and life-like,
and the moral and religious teaching unexceptionable. It is
carelessly written, which will prevent the book from taking rank as a
first-class story, though it will interest and profit certain minds,
who would not prize it more highly if it were thoroughly cultivated
and refined.

A moment's thought would have prevented mistakes in local customs,
such as introducing a hay-tedder into farming operations forty years
ago, and making our Puritan forefathers _go up_ to their communion,
whereas they had not reverence enough for the _symbols_ to rise or
kneel at their reception, but remained seated in their pews, even as
their descendants do to this day.

The blunders in spelling which mar many pages of the book would
disgrace a third-rate proof-reader, and we are certain the author
never saw the proofs. Both paper and type are of inferior quality.
These faults are the more inexcusable, as the beautiful covering,
with the choice gilded medallion and precious motto, led us to look
for something very nice in the way of print and paper.

       *       *       *       *       *

    WONDERS OF ITALIAN ART. By Louis Viardot. Illustrated. New
    York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1870.

An interesting book spoiled by careless expressions and incorrect
assertions. Such expressions as "the worship of images," (page 28,)
instead of "veneration," etc.; the assertion that the "policy of the
popes always was to foster disunion in Italy, in order to profit by
it," (page 35,) and styling Savonarola "the Italian Luther," (page
111,) make it unfit for introduction among Catholics. It is to be
regretted that a book like this, containing as it does so much that
is great and good in the history of Catholic art in Italy, should
be marred by statements which are not historically true, and have
nothing whatever to do with such a work.

       *       *       *       *       *

    HOME INFLUENCE. By Grace Aguilar. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

It is quite refreshing, after the floods of impassioned sensational
novels that have poured from the press on all sides for the last ten
or fifteen years, to know that there is a call for the purity and
high-toned sentiment that flow from the pen of Miss Aguilar.

Twenty years ago, her works afforded interest and instruction, the
present volume to mothers especially, and though her children and
grown people are sometimes stiff and priggish, and are wont to talk
like books, they are always well-bred and refined, never descending
to irreverence or slang, as they too often do in stories of to-day.

It was formerly a criticism on her works, that they favored Judaism
(the creed of their author) at the expense of Christianity; but no
such charge can be brought against _Home Influence_ with any truth.

This volume presents an attractive exterior, and if the works of this
author take again with the novel-reading public, it will be a symptom
of returning health in the community.

       *       *       *       *       *

    MISSALE ROMANUM, ex decreto sacrosancti Concilii Tridentini
    restitutum, S. Pii VI. jussu editum, Clementis VIII. et Urbani
    VIII. Papae auctoritate recognitum, et novis missis ex indulto
    apostolico hucusque concessis auctum. Mechliniae: H. Dessain.

This Missal, from the house of the Messrs. Benziger Brothers, is
printed in good, clear type, pleasant to the eye; contains the last
new masses enjoined by the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and is
illustrated with excellent full-page engravings. It is besides, as a
book, both serviceable and cheap.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY has in press, and will publish, May
twenty-fifth, a work by James Kent Stone, D.D., late President of
Kenyon and Hobart Colleges, entitled, _The Invitation Heeded: Reasons
for a Return to Catholic Unity_. As the title implies, Mr. Stone
will, in this volume, give his reasons for becoming a Catholic.

       *       *       *       *       *

MESSRS. JOHN MURPHY & CO. announce as in press, _The Paradise of
the Earth; or, the True Means of Finding Happiness in the Religious
State_, according to the Rules of the Masters of Spiritual Life.
Translated from the French of L'Abbe Sanson, by the Rev. F. Ignatius
Sisk, of the Cistercian Community, Mount St. Bernard's Abbey. Also,
_Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus_. From the Italian of Secundo
Franco, S.J.




A DOGMATIC DECREE ON CATHOLIC FAITH.

CONFIRMED AND PROMULGATED IN THE THIRD PUBLIC SESSION OF THE VATICAN
COUNCIL, HELD IN ST. PETER'S, ROME, ON LOW-SUNDAY, APRIL 24, 1870.

CONSTITVTIO DOGMATICA DE FIDE CATHOLICA.


                                       [This translation has been
                                       carefully revised for THE
                                       CATHOLIC WORLD by some of the
                                       bishops attending the council.]

    PIVS EPISCOPVS SERVVS SERVORVM     PIUS, BISHOP, SERVANT OF THE
    DEI SACRO APPROBANTE CONCILIO AD   SERVANTS OF GOD, WITH THE
    PERPETVAM REI MEMORIAM.            APPROBATION OF THE HOLY COUNCIL,
                                       FOR A PERPETUAL REMEMBRANCE
                                       HEREOF.

    Dei Filius et generis humani       Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son
    Redemptor Dominus Noster Iesus     of God and the Redeemer of
    Christus, ad Patrem coelestem      mankind, when about to return to
    rediturus, cum Ecclesia sua in     his heavenly Father, promised
    terris militante, omnibus diebus   that he would be with his
    usque ad consummationem saeculi    church, militant on earth, all
    futurum se esse promisit. Quare    days even to the consummation
    dilectae sponsae praesto esse,     of the world. Wherefore, he
    adsistere docenti, operanti        has never at any time failed
    benedicere, periclitanti opem      to be with his beloved spouse,
    ferre nullo unquam tempore         to assist her in her teaching,
    destitit. Haec vero salutaris      to bless her in her labors, to
    eius providentia, cum ex aliis     aid her in danger. And this his
    beneficiis innumeris continenter   saving providence, unceasingly
    apparuit, tum iis manifestissime   displayed in countless other
    comperta est fructibus, qui        blessings, is most clearly
    orbi christiano e Conciliis        made manifest by those very
    oecumenicis ac nominatim e         abundant fruits which have
    Tridentino, iniquis licet          come to the Christian world
    temporibus celebrato, amplissimi   from oecumenical councils,
    provenerunt. Hinc enim             and especially from that of
    sanctissima religionis dogmata     Trent, although it was held
    pressius definita uberiusque       in evil days. For thereby the
    exposita, errores damnati atque    holy doctrines of religion were
    cohibiti; hinc ecclesiastica       more distinctly defined and
    disciplina restituta firmiusque    more fully set forth; errors
    sancita, promotum in Clero         were condemned and restrained;
    scientiae et pietatis studium,     thereby ecclesiastical
    parata adolescentibus ad sacram    discipline was restored and
    militiam educandis collegia,       more firmly established; zeal
    christiani denique populi          for learning and piety was
    mores et accuratiore fidelium      promoted among the clergy; and
    eruditione et frequentiore         colleges were provided for the
    sacramentorum usu instaurati.      training of young men for the
    Hinc praeterea arctior membrorum   sacred ministry; and finally the
    cum visibili Capite communio,      practice of Christian morality
    universoque corpori Christi        was restored among the people
    mystico additus vigor; hinc        by more careful instruction
    religiosae multiplicatae           and a more frequent use of
    familiae, aliaque christianae      the sacraments. Hence arose,
    pietatis instituta; hinc ille      likewise, a closer union of the
    etiam assiduus et usque ad         members with the visible head,
    sanguinis effusionem constans      and renewed strength to the
    ardor in Christi regno late per    entire mystical body of Christ;
    orbem propagando.                  hence the increased number of
                                       religious communities, and of
                                       other institutions of Christian
                                       piety; hence, also, that
                                       unceasing zeal, constant even to
                                       martyrdom, to spread the kingdom
                                       of Christ throughout the world.

    Verumtamen haec aliaque insignia   Nevertheless, while with
    emolumenta, quae per ultimam       becoming gratitude we call to
    maxime oecumenicam Synodum         mind these and the many other
    divina clementia Ecclesiae         remarkable benefits which the
    largita est, dum grato, quo par    goodness of God has bestowed
    est, animo recolimus; acerbum      on the church chiefly through
    compescere haud possumus           the last oecumenical council,
    dolorem ob mala gravissima,        we cannot suppress our bitter
    inde potissimum orta, quod         sorrow for the grievous evils
    eiusdem sacrosanctae Synodi        which have chiefly sprung
    apud permultos vel auctoritas      from many having despised the
    contempta, vel sapientissima       authority of the aforesaid
    neglecta fuere decreta.            sacred council, or having
                                       neglected to observe its most
                                       wise decrees.

    Nemo enim ignorat, haereses,       For it is known to all that
    quas Tridentini Patres             the heresies which the fathers
    proscripserunt, dum, reiecto       of Trent condemned, and which
    divino Ecclesiae magisterio, res   rejected the divine authority
    ad religionem spectantes privati   of the church to teach, and
    cuiusvis iudicio permitterentur,   instead, subjected all things
    in sectas paullatim dissolutas     belonging to religion to the
    esse multiplices, quibus           judgment of each individual,
    inter se dissentientibus et        were, in course of time, broken
    concertantibus, omnis tandem       up into many sects; and that,
    in Christum fides apud non         as these differed and disputed
    paucos labefactata est. Itaque     with each other, it came to
    ipsa sacra Biblia, quae antea      pass, at length, that all belief
    christianae doctrinae unicus       in Christ was overthrown in the
    fons et iudex asserebantur, iam    minds of not a few. And so, the
    non pro divinis haberi, imo        sacred Scriptures themselves,
    mythicis commentis accenseri       which they had at first held up
    coeperunt.                         as the only source and judge
                                       of Christian doctrine, were no
                                       longer held as divine, but,
                                       on the contrary, began to be
                                       counted among myths and fables.

    Tum nata est et late nimis per     Then arose and spread too widely
    orbem vagata illa rationalismi     through the world that doctrine
    seu naturalismi doctrina, quae     of rationalism or naturalism,
    religioni christianae utpote       which, attacking Christianity
    supernaturali instituto per        at every point as being a
    omnia adversans, summo studio      supernatural institution, labors
    molitur, ut Christo, qui solus     with all its might to exclude
    Dominus et Salvator noster est,    Christ, who is our only Lord
    a mentibus humanis, a vita et      and Saviour, from the minds of
    moribus populorum excluso, merae   men and from the life and the
    quod vocant rationis vel naturae   morals of nations; and so to
    regnum stabiliatur. Relicta        establish, instead, the reign
    autem proiectaque christiana       of mere reason, as they call
    religione, negato vero Deo         it, or of nature. And thus,
    et Christo eius, prolapsa          having forsaken and cast away
    tandem est multorum mens in        the Christian religion, having
    pantheismi, materialismi,          denied the true God and his
    atheismi barathrum, ut iam         Christ, the minds of many have
    ipsam rationalem naturam,          at last fallen into the abyss
    omnemque iusti rectique normam     of pantheism, materialism, and
    negantes, ima humanae societatis   atheism; so that now repudiating
    fundamenta diruere connitantur.    the reasoning nature of man, and
                                       every rule of right and wrong,
                                       they are laboring to overthrow
                                       the very foundations of human
                                       society.

    Hac porro impietate circumquaque   Moreover, as this impious
    grassante, infeliciter contigit,   doctrine is spreading
    ut plures etiam e catholicae       everywhere, it has unfortunately
    Ecclesiae filiis a via verae       come to pass that not a few even
    pietatis aberrarent, in            of the children of the Catholic
    iisque, diminutis paullatim        Church have wandered from the
    veritatibus, sensus catholicus     way of true piety; and as the
    attenuaretur. Variis enim ac       truth gradually decayed in their
    peregrinis doctrinis abducti,      minds, the catholic sentiment
    naturam et gratiam, scientiam      grew fainter in them. For,
    humanam et fidem divinam           being led away by various and
    perperam commiscentes, genuinum    strange doctrines, and wrongly
    sensum dogmatum, quem tenet ac     confounding nature and grace,
    docet Sancta Mater Ecclesia,       human science and divine faith,
    depravare, integritatemque et      they have perverted the true
    sinceritatem fidei in periculum    sense of the doctrines which our
    adducere comperiuntur.             holy mother the church holds and
                                       teaches, and have endangered
                                       the integrity and the purity of
                                       faith.

    Quibus omnibus perspectis, fieri   Now, looking at all these
    qui potest, ut non commoveantur    things, how can the church fail
    intima Ecclesiae viscera?          to be moved in her innermost
    Quemadmodum enim Deus vult         heart? For inasmuch as God
    omnes homines salvos fieri,        wills all men to be saved and
    et ad agnitionem veritatis         to come to the knowledge of
    venire; quemadmodum Christus       the truth, inasmuch as Christ
    venit, ut salvum faceret, quod     came to save that which was
    perierat, et filios Dei, qui       lost, and to gather together in
    erant dispersi, congregaret        one the children of God that
    in unum: ita Ecclesia, a Deo       were dispersed; so the church,
    populorum mater et magistra        established by God as the mother
    constituta, omnibus debitricem     and mistress of nations, feels
    se novit, ac lapsos erigere,       that she is a debtor unto all,
    labantes sustinere, revertentes    and is ever ready and earnest
    amplecti, confirmare bonos et ad   to raise up the fallen, to
    meliora provehere parata semper    strengthen the weak, to take to
    et intenta est. Quapropter         her bosom those that return,
    nullo tempore a Dei veritate,      and to confirm the good, and
    quae sanat omnia, testanda et      carry them on to better things.
    praedicanda quiescere potest,      Wherefore, at no time can she
    sibi dictum esse non ignorans:     abstain from bearing witness to
    Spiritus meus, qui est in          and preaching the all-healing
    te, et verba mea, quae posui       truth of God; knowing that it
    in ore tuo, non recedent de        has been said to her, "My spirit
    ore tuo amodo et usque in          that is in thee, and my words
    sempiternum.[140]                  that I have put in thy mouth,
                                       shall not depart out of thy
                                       mouth, from henceforth and for
                                       ever." (Isa. lix. 21.)

    Nos itaque, inhaerentes            Wherefore, following in the
    Praedecessorum Nostrorum           footsteps of our predecessors,
    vestigiis, pro supremo Nostro      and in fulfilment of our supreme
    Apostolico munere veritatem        apostolic duty, we have never
    catholicam docere ac tueri,        omitted to teach and to protect
    perversasque doctrinas reprobare   the catholic truth, and to
    nunquam intermisimus. Nunc         reprove perverse teachings.
    autem sedentibus Nobiscum et       And now, the bishops of the
    iudicantibus universi orbis        whole world being gathered
    Episcopis, in hanc oecumenicam     together in this oecumenical
    Synodum auctoritate Nostra in      council by our authority, and
    Spiritu Sancto congregatis,        in the Holy Ghost, and sitting
    innixi Dei verbo scripto et        therein and judging with us,
    tradito, prout ab Ecclesia         we, guided by the word of God,
    catholica sancte custoditum et     both written and handed down by
    genuine expositum accepimus, ex    tradition, as we have received
    hac Petri Cathedra in conspectu    it, sacredly preserved and
    omnium salutarem Christi           truly set forth by the Catholic
    doctrinam profiteri et declarare   Church, have determined to
    constituimus, adversis erroribus   profess and declare from this
    potestate nobis a Deo tradita      chair of Peter, and in the sight
    proscriptis atque damnatis.        of all, the saving doctrine of
                                       Christ; and in the power given
                                       to us from God to proscribe and
                                       condemn the opposing errors.


    CAPUT I.                           CHAPTER I.

    DE DEO RERUM OMNIUM CREATORE.      OF GOD THE CREATOR OF ALL THINGS.

    Sancta Catholica Apostolica        The holy, Catholic, Apostolic,
    Romana Ecclesia credit et          Roman Church believes and
    confitetur, unum esse Deum verum   confesses that there is one
    et vivum, Creatorem ac Dominum     true and living God, Creator
    coeli et terrae, omnipotentem,     and Lord of heaven and earth,
    aeternum, immensum,                almighty, eternal, immense,
    incomprehensibilem, intellectu     incomprehensible, infinite in
    ac voluntate omnique perfectione   understanding and will and in
    infinitum; qui cum sit una         all perfection; who, being
    singularis, simplex omnino         a spiritual substance, one,
    et incommutabilis substantia       single, absolutely simple and
    spiritualis, praedicandus est re   unchangeable, must be held to
    et essentia a mundo distinctus,    be, in reality and in essence,
    in se et ex se beatissimus,        distinct from the world, in
    et super omnia, quae praeter       himself and of himself perfectly
    ipsum sunt et concipi possunt,     happy, and unspeakably exalted
    ineffabiliter excelsus.            above all things that are or can
                                       be conceived besides himself.

    Hic solus verus Deus bonitate      This one only true God, of
    sua et omnipotenti virtute non     his own goodness and almighty
    ad augendam suam beatitudinem,     power, not to increase his own
    nec ad acquirendam, sed ad         happiness, nor to acquire for
    manifestandam perfectionem         himself perfection, but in
    suam per bona, quae creaturis      order to manifest the same by
    impertitur, liberrimo consilio     means of the good things which
    simul ab initio temporis           he imparts to creatures, did,
    utramque de nihilo condidit        of his own most free counsel,
    creaturam, spiritualem et          "from the beginning of time make
    corporalem, angelicam videlicet    alike out of nothing two created
    et mundanam, ac deinde humanam     natures, a spiritual one and
    quasi communem ex spiritu et       a corporeal one, the angelic,
    corpore constitutam[141].          to wit, and the earthly; and
                                       afterward he made the human
    Universa vero, quae condidit,      nature, as partaking of both,
    Deus providentia sua tuetur        being composed of spirit and
    atque gubernat, attingens a fine   body." (Fourth Lateran Council,
    usque ad finem fortiter, et        ch. I. _Firmiter_.) Moreover,
    disponens omnia suaviter[142].     God, by his providence, protects
    Omnia enim nuda et aperta sunt     and governs all things which he
    oculis eius[143], ea etiam,        has made, reaching from end to
    quae libera creaturarum actione    end mightily, and ordering all
    futura sunt.                       things sweetly. (Wisdom viii.
                                       1.) For all things are naked and
                                       open to his eyes, (Heb. iv. 13,)
                                       even those which are to come
                                       to pass by the free action of
                                       creatures.


    CAPUT II.                          CHAPTER II.

    DE REVELATIONE.                    OF REVELATION.

    Eadem Sancta Mater Ecclesia        The same holy Mother Church
    tenet et docet, Deum, rerum        holds and teaches that God, the
    omnium principium et finem,        beginning and end of all things,
    naturali humanae rationis          can be known with certainty
    lumine e rebus creatis certo       through created things, by the
    cognosci posse; invisibilia enim   natural light of human reason;
    ipsius, a creatura mundi, per      "for the invisible things of
    ea quae facta sunt, intellecta,    him, from the creation of the
    conspiciuntur[144]: attamen        world, are clearly seen, being
    placuisse, eius sapientiae         understood by the things that
    et bonitati, alia, eaque           are made," (Romans i. 20;) but
    supernaturali via se ipsum ac      that nevertheless it has pleased
    aeterna voluntatis suae decreta    his wisdom and goodness to
    humano generi revelare, dicente    reveal to mankind, by another
    Apostolo: Multifariam, multisque   and that a supernatural way,
    modis olim Deus loquens patribus   himself and the eternal decrees
    in Prophetis: novissime, diebus    of his will; even as the apostle
    istis locutus est nobis in         says, "God who at sundry times
    Filio[145].                        and in divers manners spoke, in
                                       times past, to the fathers by
    Huic divinae revelationi           the prophets, last of all, in
    tribuendum quidem est, ut ea,      these days hath spoken to us
    quae in rebus divinis humanae      by his Son." (Heb. i. 1, 2.)
    rationi per se impervia non        To this divine revelation is
    sunt, in praesenti quoque          it to be ascribed that things
    generis humani conditione          regarding God, which are not of
    ab omnibus expedite, firma         themselves beyond the grasp of
    certitudine et nullo admixto       human reason, may, even in the
    errore cognosci possint. Non       present condition of the human
    hac tamen de causa revelatio       race, be known by all, readily,
    absolute necessaria dicenda        with full certainty and without
    est, sed quia Deus ex infinita     any admixture of error. Yet not
    bonitate sua ordinavit hominem     on this account is revelation
    ad finem supernaturalem, ad        absolutely necessary, but
    participanda scilicet bona         because God, of his infinite
    divina, quae humanae mentis        goodness, has ordained man for
    intelligentiam omnino superant;    a supernatural end, for the
    siquidem oculus non vidit,         participation, that is, of
    nec auris audivit, nec in          divine goods, which altogether
    cor hominis ascendit, quae         surpass the understanding of
    praeparavit Deus iis, qui          the human mind; for "eye hath
    diligunt ilium.[146]               not seen nor ear heard, neither
                                       hath it entered into the heart
                                       of man, what things God hath
                                       prepared for them that love
                                       him." (1 Cor. ii. 9.)

    Haec porro supernaturalis          Now, this supernatural
    revelatio, secundum universalis    revelation, according to the
    Ecclesiae fidem, a sancta          belief of the universal church,
    Tridentina Synodo declaratam,      as declared by the holy Council
    continetur in libris scriptis et   of Trent, is contained in
    sine scripto traditionibus, quae   the written books and in the
    ipsius Christi ore ab Apostolis    unwritten traditions which
    acceptae, aut ab ipsis Apostolis   have come to us as received
    Spiritu Sancto dictante quasi      orally from Christ himself by
    per manus traditae, ad nos usque   the apostles, or handed down
    pervenerunt.[147] Qui quidem       from the apostles taught by
    veteris et novi Testamenti         the Holy Ghost. (Council of
    libri integri cum omnibus suis     Trent. Session iv. Decree on
    partibus, prout in eiusdem         the Canon of Scripture.) And
    Concilii decreto recensentur,      these books of the Old and New
    et in veteri vulgata latina        Testament are to be received as
    editione habentur, pro sacris      sacred and canonical, in their
    et canonicis suscipiendi sunt.     integrity and with all their
    Eos vero Ecclesia pro sacris       parts, as they are enumerated in
    et canonicis habet, non ideo       the decree of the same council,
    quod sola humana industria         and are had in the old Vulgate
    concinnati, sua deinde             Latin edition. But the church
    auctoritate sint approbati; nec    does hold them as sacred and
    ideo dumtaxat, quod revelationem   canonical, not for the reason
    sine errore contineant; sed        that they have been compiled
    propterea quod Spiritu Sancto      by human industry alone, and
    inspirante conscripti Deum         afterward approved by her
    habent auctorem, atque ut tales    authority; nor only because
    ipsi Ecclesiae traditi sunt.       they contain revelation without
                                       error, but because, having been
                                       written under the inspiration
                                       of the Holy Ghost, they have
                                       God for their author, and as
                                       such have been delivered to the
                                       church herself.

    Quoniam vero, quae sancta          And since those things which the
    Tridentina Synodus de              Council of Trent has declared
    interpretatione divinae            by wholesome decrees concerning
    Scripturae ad coercenda            the interpretation of divine
    petulantia ingenia salubriter      Scripture, in order to restrain
    decrevit, a quibusdam hominibus    restless spirits, are explained
    prave exponuntur, Nos, idem        by some in a wrong sense; we,
    decretum renovantes, hanc          renewing the same decree,
    illius mentem esse declaramus,     declare this to be the mind of
    ut in rebus fidei et morum,        the synod, that, in matters of
    ad aedificationem doctrinae        faith and morals which pertain
    Christianae pertinentium, is pro   to the edification of Christian
    vero sensu sacrae Scripturae       doctrine, that is to be held as
    habendus sit, quem tenuit ac       the true sense of the sacred
    tenet Sancta Mater Ecclesia,       Scripture which holy mother
    cuius est iudicare de vero sensu   church, to whom it belongs to
    et interpretatione Scripturarum    judge of the true sense and
    sanctarum; atque ideo nemini       interpretation of the sacred
    licere contra hunc sensum, aut     Scriptures, has held and holds;
    etiam contra unanimem consensum    and therefore that no one may
    Patrum ipsam Scripturam sacram     interpret the sacred Scripture
    interpretari.                      contrary to this sense, or
                                       contrary to the unanimous
                                       consent of the fathers.


    CAPUT III.                         CHAPTER III.

    DE FIDE.                           OF FAITH.

    Quum homo a Deo tanquam            Forasmuch as man totally depends
    Creatore et Domino suo totus       on God as his Creator and Lord,
    dependeat, et ratio creata         and created reason is wholly
    increatae Veritati penitus         subject to the uncreated truth,
    subiecta sit, plenum revelanti     therefore we are bound, when God
    Deo intellectus et voluntatis      makes a revelation, to render
    obsequium fide praestare           to him the full obedience of
    tenemur. Hanc vero fidem, quae     our understanding and will, by
    humanae salutis initium est,       faith. And this faith, which
    Ecclesia catholica profitetur,     is the beginning of man's
    virtutem esse supernaturalem,      salvation, the church declares
    qua, Dei aspirante et adiuvante    to be a supernatural virtue,
    gratia, ab eo revelata vera        whereby, under the inspiration
    esse credimus, non propter         and aid of God's grace, we
    intrinsecam rerum veritatem        believe to be true the things
    naturali rationis lumine           revealed by him, not for their
    perspectam, sed propter            intrinsic truth seen by the
    auctoritatem ipsius Dei            natural light of reason, but for
    revelantis, qui nec falli nec      the authority of God revealing
    fallere potest. Est enim fides,    them, who can neither deceive
    testante Apostolo, sperandarum     nor be deceived. For faith, as
    substantia rerum, argumentum non   the apostle witnesseth, is the
    apparentium.[148]                  substance of things to be hoped
                                       for, the evidence of things that
                                       appear not. (Heb. xi. 1.)

    Ut nihilominus fidei nostrae       To the end, nevertheless, that
    obsequium rationi consentaneum     the obedience of our faith
    esset, voluit Deus cum internis    might be agreeable to reason,
    Spiritus Sancti auxiliis           God willed to join unto the
    externa iungi revelationis         interior grace of the Holy
    suae argumenta, facta scilicet     Spirit external proofs of his
    divina, atque imprimis             revelation, to wit, divine
    miracula et prophetias,            works, and chiefly miracles
    quae cum Dei omnipotentiam         and prophecies, which, as
    et infinitam scientiam             they manifestly show forth
    luculenter commonstrent,           the omnipotence and the
    divinae revelationis signa         infinite knowledge of God, are
    sunt certissima et omnium          proofs most certain of divine
    intelligentiae accommodata.        revelation, and suited to the
    Quare turn Moyses et Prophetae,    understanding of all. Wherefore
    tum ipse maxime Christus Dominus   both Moses and the prophets,
    multa et manifestissima miracula   and above all, Christ our Lord
    et prophetias ediderunt; et de     himself, wrought many and most
    Apostolis legimus: Illi autem      evident miracles, and uttered
    profecti praedicaverunt ubique,    prophecies; and of the apostles
    Domino co-operante, et sermonem    we read, "But they going forth
    confirmante, sequentibus           preached everywhere: the Lord
    signis.[149] Et rursum scriptum    working withal, and confirming
    est: Habemus firmiorem             the word with signs that
    propheticum sermonem, cui bene     followed." (Mark xvi. 20.) And
    facitis attendentes quasi          again it is written, "We have
    lucernae lucenti in caliginoso     the more firm prophetical word;
    loco.[150]                         whereunto you do well to attend,
                                       as to a light that shineth in a
                                       dark place." (2 Pet. i. 19.)

    Licet autem fidei assensus         Yet although the assent of
    nequaquam sit motus animi          faith is not by any means a
    caecus: nemo tamen evangelicae     blind movement of the mind;
    praedicationi consentire           nevertheless no one can believe
    potest, sicut oportet ad           the preaching of the Gospel
    salutem consequendam, absque       in such wise as behoveth to
    illuminatione et inspiratione      salvation without the light and
    Spiritus Sancti, qui dat omnibus   inspiration of the Holy Ghost,
    suavitatem in consentiendo et      who giveth unto all sweetness
    credendo veritati.[151] Quare      in yielding to the truth and
    fides ipsa in se, etiamsi per      believing it. (2 Council of
    charitatem non operetur, donum     Orange, Can. 7.) Wherefore
    Dei est, et actus eius est         faith in itself, even though
    opus ad salutem pertinens, quo     it be not working by charity,
    homo liberam praestat ipsi Deo     is a gift of God; and an act
    obedientiam, gratiae eius, cui     of faith is a work tending to
    resistere posset, consentiendo     salvation, whereby man renders
    et cooperando.                     free obedience to God himself,
                                       consenting to and cooperating
                                       with his grace, which he hath
                                       power to resist.

    Porro fide divina et catholica     Now, all those things are to be
    ea omnia credenda sunt, quae in    believed of divine and catholic
    verbo Dei scripto vel tradito      faith which are contained in the
    continentur, et ab Ecclesia sive   word of God, whether written
    solemni iudicio sive ordinario     or handed down by tradition;
    et universali magisterio tamquam   and which the church, either by
    divinitus revelata credenda        solemn decree or by her ordinary
    proponuntur.                       and universal teaching, proposes
                                       for belief as revealed by God.

    Quoniam vero sine fide             And whereas without faith it is
    impossibile est placere Deo,       impossible to please God, and
    et ad filiorum eius consortium     to come to the fellowship of
    pervenire; ideo nemini             his children, therefore hath no
    unquam sine illa contigit          one at any time been justified
    iustificatio, nec ullus, nisi      without faith; nor shall any
    in ea perseveraverit usque         one, unless he persevere therein
    in finem, vitam aeternam           unto the end, attain everlasting
    assequetur. Ut autem officio       life. And in order that we might
    veram fidem amplectendi, in        be able to fulfil our duty of
    eaque constanter perseverandi      embracing the true faith, and of
    satisfacere possemus, Deus         steadfastly persevering therein,
    per Filium suum unigenitum         God, through his only-begotten
    Ecclesiam instituit, suaeque       Son, did establish the church
    institutionis manifestis notis     and place upon her manifest
    instruxit, ut ea tamquam custos    marks of his institution,
    et magistra verbi revelati ab      that all men might be able to
    omnibus posset agnosci. Ad         recognize her as the guardian
    solam enim catholicam Ecclesiam    and teacher of his revealed
    ea pertinent omnia, quae ad        word. For only to the Catholic
    evidentem fidei christianae        Church do all those signs
    credibilitatem tam multa et tam    belong, which have been divinely
    mira divinitus sunt disposita.     disposed, so many in number
    Quin etiam Ecclesia per se         and so wonderful in character,
    ipsa, ob suam nempe admirabilem    for the purpose of making
    propagationem, eximiam             evident the credibility of the
    sanctitatem et inexhaustam in      Christian faith; nay more, the
    omnibus bonis foecunditatem, ob    very church herself, in view
    catholicam unitatem, invictamque   of her wonderful propagation,
    stabilitatem, magnum quoddam       her eminent holiness, and her
    et perpetuum est motivum           exhaustless fruitfulness in
    credibilitatis et divinae          all that is good, her catholic
    suae legationis testimonium        unity, her unshaken stability,
    irrefragabile.                     offers a great and evident claim
                                       to belief, and an undeniable
                                       proof of her divine commission.

    Quo fit, ut ipsa veluti signum     Whence it is that she, as
    levatum in nationes,[152] et       a standard set up unto the
    ad se invitet, qui nondum          nations, (Is. xi. 12,) at the
    crediderunt, et filios suos        same time calls to herself those
    certiores faciat, firmissimo       who have not yet believed, and
    niti fundamento fidem, quam        shows to her children that the
    profitentur. Cui quidem            faith which they hold rests on
    testimonio efficax subsidium       a most solid foundation. And to
    accedit ex superna virtute.        this, her testimony, effectual
    Etenim benignissimus Dominus       aid is supplied by power from
    et errantes gratia sua excitat     above. For the Lord, infinitely
    atque adiuvat, ut ad agnitionem    merciful, on the one hand stirs
    veritatis venire possint;          up by his grace and helps those
    et eos, quos de tenebris           who are in error, that they may
    transtulit in admirabile lumen     be able to come to the knowledge
    suum, in hoc eodem lumine          of the truth; and, on the
    ut perseverent, gratia sua         other hand, those whom he hath
    confirmat, non deserens, nisi      transferred from darkness into
    deseratur. Quocirca minime par     his marvellous light he confirms
    est conditio eorum, qui per        by his grace, that they may
    coeleste fidei donum catholicae    persevere in that same light,
    veritati adhaeserunt, atque        never abandoning them unless
    eorum, qui ducti opinionibus       he be first by them abandoned.
    humanis, falsam religionem         Wherefore, totally unlike is the
    sectantur; illi enim, qui          condition of those who, by the
    fidem sub Ecclesiae magisterio     heavenly gift of faith, have
    susceperunt, nullam unquam         embraced the catholic truth,
    habere possunt iustam causam       and of those who, led by human
    mutandi, aut in dubium fidem       opinions, are following a false
    eamdem revocandi. Quae cum         religion; for they who have
    ita sint, gratias agentes Deo      received the faith under the
    Patri, qui dignos nos fecit        teaching of the church can never
    in partem sortis sanctorum in      have a just reason to change
    lumine, tantam ne negligamus       that faith or call it into
    salutem, sed aspicientes in        doubt. Wherefore, giving thanks
    auctorem fidei et consummatorem    to God the Father, who hath made
    Iesum, teneamus spei nostrae       us worthy to be partakers of
    confessionem indeclinabilem.       the lot of the saints in light,
                                       let us not neglect so great
                                       salvation, but looking on Jesus,
                                       the author and finisher of our
                                       faith, let us hold fast the
                                       confession of our hope without
                                       wavering.


    CAPUT IV.                          CHAPTER IV.

    DE FIDE ET RATIONE.                OF FAITH AND REASON.

    Hoc quoque perpetuus Ecclesiae     Moreover, the Catholic Church
    catholicae consensus tenuit        has ever held, as she now holds,
    et tenet, duplicem esse            that there exists a two-fold
    ordinem cognitionis, non           order of knowledge, each of
    solum principio, sed obiecto       which is distinct from the other
    etiam distinctum: principio        both as to its principle and
    quidem, quia in altero naturali    as to its object. As to its
    ratione, in altero fide divina     principle, because in the one
    cognoscimus; obiecto autem,        we know by natural reason, in
    quia praeter ea, ad quae           the other by divine faith; as
    naturalis ratio pertingere         to the object, because, besides
    potest, credenda nobis             those things to which natural
    proponuntur mysteria in Deo        reason can attain, there are
    abscondita, quae, nisi revelata    proposed to our belief mysteries
    divinitus, innotescere non         hidden in God which, unless
    possunt. Quocirca Apostolus,       by him revealed, cannot come
    qui a gentibus Deum per ea,        to our knowledge. Wherefore
    quae facta sunt, cognitum          the same apostle, who beareth
    esse testatur, disserens           witness that God was known to
    tamen de gratia et veritate,       the Gentiles by the things that
    quae per Iesum Christum facta      are made, yet when speaking of
    est,[153] pronuntiat: Loquimur     the grace and truth that came
    Dei sapientiam in mysterio,        by Jesus Christ, (John i. 17.)
    quae abscondita est, quam          says, "We speak the wisdom of
    praedestinavit Deus ante saecula   God in a mystery, a wisdom which
    in gloriam nostram, quam           is hidden; which God ordained
    nemo principum huius saeculi       before the world unto our glory;
    cognovit: nobis autem revelavit    which none of the princes of
    Deus per Spiritum suum:            this world knew; but which God
    Spiritus enim omnia scrutatur,     hath revealed to us by his
    etiam profunda Dei.[154] Et        Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth
    ipse Unigenitus confitetur         all things, yea the deep things
    Patri, quia abscondit haec a       of God." (1 Cor. ii. 7, 8, 10.)
    sapientibus et prudentibus, et     And the only-begotten Son thanks
    revelavit ea parvulis.[155]        the Father that he has hid
                                       these things from the wise and
                                       prudent, and has revealed them
                                       to little ones. (Matt. xi. 25.)

    Ac ratio quidem, fide              Reason, indeed, enlightened
    illustrata, cum sedulo, pie        by faith and seeking with
    et sobrie quaerit, aliquam,        diligence and godly sobriety,
    Deo dante, mysteriorum             may, by God's gift, come to
    intelligentiam eamque              some understanding, limited in
    fructuosissimam assequitur,        degree, but most wholesome in
    tum ex eorum, quae naturaliter     its effects, of mysteries, both
    cognoscit, analogia, tum e         from the analogy of things which
    mysteriorum ipsorum nexu           are naturally known, and from
    inter se et cum fine hominis       the connection of the mysteries
    ultimo; nunquam tamen idonea       themselves with one another and
    redditur ad ea perspicienda        with man's last end. But never
    instar veritatum, qua proprium     can reason be rendered capable
    ipsius obiectum constituunt.       of thoroughly understanding
    Divina enim mysteria suapte        mysteries, as it does those
    natura intellectum creatum sic     truths which form its proper
    excedunt, ut etiam revelatione     object. For God's mysteries,
    tradita et fide suscepta, ipsius   of their very nature, so far
    tamen fidei velamine contecta et   surpass the reach of created
    quadam quasi caligine obvoluta     intellect, that even when taught
    maneant, quamdiu in hac mortali    by revelation, and received by
    vita peregrinamur a Domino: per    faith, they remain covered by
    fidem enim ambulamus, et non per   faith itself as by a veil, and
    speciem.[156]                      shrouded as it were in darkness
                                       as long as in this mortal life
                                       "we are absent from the Lord;
                                       for we walk by faith, and not by
                                       sight." (2 Cor. v. 6, 7.)

    Verum etsi fides sit supra         But although faith be above
    rationem, nulla tamen unquam       reason, there never can be
    inter fidem et rationem vera       a real disagreement between
    dissensio esse potest: cum idem    them, since the same God who
    Deus, qui mysteria revelat et      reveals mysteries and infuses
    fidem infundit, animo humano       faith has given to man's soul
    rationis lumen indiderit;          the light of reason; and God
    Deus autem negare seipsum          cannot deny himself nor can one
    non possit, nec verum vero         truth ever contradict another.
    unquam contradicere. Inanis        Wherefore the empty shadow
    autem huius contradictionis        of such contradiction arises
    species inde potissimum oritur,    chiefly from this, that either
    quod vel fidei dogmata ad          the doctrines of faith are not
    mentem Ecclesiae intellecta        understood and set forth as
    et exposita non fuerint,           the church really holds them,
    vel opinionum commenta pro         or that the vain devices and
    rationis effatis habeantur.        opinions of men are mistaken
    Omnem igitur assertionem           for the dictates of reason. We
    veritati illuminatae fidei         therefore definitively pronounce
    contrariam omnino falsam esse      false every assertion which is
    definimus.[157] Porro Ecclesia,    contrary to the enlightened
    quae una cum apostolico munere     truth of faith. (V. Lateran
    docendi, mandatum accepit,         Counc. Bull _Apostolici
    fidei depositum costodiendi,       Regiminis_.) Moreover the
    ius etiam et officium divinitus    church, which, together with her
    habet falsi nominis scientiam      apostolic office of teaching,
    proscribendi, ne quis decipiatur   is charged also with the
    per philosophiam, et inanem        guardianship of the deposit
    fallaciam.[158] Quapropter omnes   of faith, holds likewise from
    christiani fideles huiusmodi       God the right and the duty to
    opiniones, quae fidei doctrinae    condemn "knowledge falsely so
    contrariae esse cognoscuntur,      called," (1 Tim. vi. 20,) "lest
    maxime si ab Ecclesia reprobatae   any man be cheated by philosophy
    fuerint, non solum prohibentur     and vain deceit." (Col. ii. 8.)
    tanquam legitimas scientiae        Hence all the Christian faithful
    conclusiones defendere, sed pro    are not only forbidden to defend
    erroribus potius, qui fallacem     as legitimate conclusions of
    veritatis speciem prae se          science those opinions which
    ferant, habere tenentur omnino.    are known to be contrary to the
                                       doctrine of faith, especially
                                       when condemned by the church,
                                       but are rather absolutely bound
                                       to hold them for errors wearing
                                       a deceitful appearance of truth.

    Neque solum fides et ratio         Not only is it impossible
    inter se dissidere nunquam         for faith and reason ever to
    possunt, sed opem quoque sibi      contradict each other, but they
    mutuam ferunt, cum recta ratio     rather afford each other mutual
    fidei fundamenta demonstret,       assistance. For right reason
    eiusque lumine illustrata          establishes the foundations of
    rerum divinarum scientiam          faith and by the aid of its
    excolat; fides vero rationem ab    light cultivates the science
    erroribus liberet ac tueatur,      of divine things; and faith,
    eamque multiplici cognitione       on the other hand, frees and
    instruat. Quapropter tantum        preserves reason from errors,
    abest, ut Ecclesia humanarum       and enriches it with knowledge
    artium et disciplinarum culturae   of many kinds. So far, then,
    obsistat, ut hanc multis modis     is the church from opposing
    iuvet atque promoveat. Non         the culture of human arts and
    enim commoda ab iis ad hominum     sciences, that she rather
    vitam dimanantia aut ignorat       aids and promotes it in many
    aut despicit; fatetur imo, eas,    ways. For she is not ignorant
    quemadmodum a Deo, scientiarum     of, nor does she despise the
    Domino, profectae sunt, ita        advantages which flow from
    si rite pertractentur, ad          them to the life of men; on
    Deum, iuvante eius gratia,         the contrary, she acknowledges
    perducere. Nec sane ipsa vetat,    that, as they sprang from God
    ne huiusmodi disciplinae in suo    the Lord of knowledge, so, if
    quaeque ambitu propriis utantur    they be rightly pursued, they
    principiis et propria methodo;     will, through the aid of his
    sed iustam hanc libertatem         grace, lead to God. Nor does she
    agnoscens, id sedulo cavet, ne     forbid any of those sciences the
    divinae doctrinae repugnando       use of its own principles and
    errores in se suscipiant, aut      its own method within its own
    fines proprios transgressae, ea,   proper sphere; but recognizing
    quae sunt fidei, occupent et       this reasonable freedom, she
    perturbent.                        only takes care that they may
                                       not by contradicting God's
                                       teaching, fall into errors, or,
                                       overstepping their due limits,
                                       invade and throw into confusion
                                       the domain of faith.

    Neque enim fidei doctrina,         For the doctrine of faith
    quam Deus revelavit, velut         revealed by God has not
    philosophicum inventum             been proposed, like some
    proposita est humanis ingeniis     philosophical discovery, to be
    perficienda, sed tanquam divinum   made perfect by human ingenuity;
    depositum Christi Sponsae          but it has been delivered to the
    tradita, fideliter custodienda     spouse of Christ as a divine
    et infallibiliter declaranda.      deposit to be faithfully guarded
    Hinc sacrorum quoque dogmatum is   and unerringly set forth. Hence
    sensus perpetuo est retinendus,    all tenets of holy faith are to
    quem semel declaravit Sancta       be explained always according
    Mater Ecclesia, nec unquam ab eo   to the sense and meaning of the
    sensu, altioris intelligentiae     church, nor is it ever lawful to
    specie et nomine, recedendum.      depart therefrom, under pretence
    Crescat igitur et multum           or color of more enlightened
    vehementerque proficiat, tam       explanation. Therefore as
    singulorum, quam omnium, tam       generations and centuries roll
    unius hominis, quam totius         on, let the understanding,
    Ecclesiae, aetatum ac saeculorum   knowledge, and wisdom of each
    gradibus, intelligentia,           and every one, of individuals
    scientia, sapientia: sed in        and of the whole church, grow
    suo dumtaxat genere, in eodem      apace and increase exceedingly,
    scilicet dogmate, eodem sensu,     yet only in its kind; that is
    eademque sententia.[159]           to say, retaining pure and
                                       inviolate the sense and meaning
                                       and belief of the same doctrine.
                                       (Vincent of Lerins. Common. No.
                                       28.)


    CANONES.                           CANONS.

    I.                                 I.

    DE DEO RERVM OMNIVM CREATORE.      OF GOD THE CREATOR OF ALL THINGS.

    1. Si quis unum verum Deum         1. If any one shall deny the one
    visibilium et invisibilium         true God, Creator and Lord of
    Creatorem et Dominum negaverit;    things visible and invisible;
    anathema sit.                      let him be anathema.

    2. Si quis praeter materiam        2. If any one shall unblushingly
    nihil esse affirmare non           affirm, that besides matter
    erubuerit; anathema sit.           nothing else exists; let him be
                                       anathema.

    3. Si quis dixerit, unam           3. If any one shall say that the
    eandemque esse Dei et rerum        substance or essence of God, and
    omnium substantiam vel             of all things, is one and the
    essentiam; anathema sit.           same; let him be anathema.

    4. Si quis dixerit, res finitas,   4. If any one shall say that
    tum corporeas tum spirituales,     finite things, both corporeal
    aut saltem spirituales, e divina   and spiritual, or at least
    substantia emanasse;               spiritual things, are emanations
                                       of the divine substance;

    aut divinam essentiam sui          Or that the divine essence by
    manifestatione vel evolutione      manifestation or development of
    fieri omnia;                       itself becomes all things;

    aut denique Deum esse ens          Or, finally, that God is
    universale seu indefinitum, quod   universal or indefinite Being,
    sese determinando constituat       which, in determining itself,
    rerum universitatem in genera,     constitutes all things, divided
    species et individua distinctam;   into genera, species, and
    anathema sit.                      individuals; let him be anathema.

    5. Si quis non confiteatur,        5. If any one do not acknowledge
    mundum, resque omnes, quae in eo   that the world, and all
    continentur, et spirituales et     things which it contains,
    materiales, secundum totam suam    both spiritual and material,
    substantiam a Deo ex nihilo esse   were produced, in all their
    productas;                         substance, by God, out of
                                       nothing;

    aut Deum dixerit non voluntate     Or shall say that God created
    ab omni necessitate libera, sed    them, not of his own will, free
    tam necessario creasse, quam       from all necessity, but through
    necessario amat seipsum;           a necessity such as that whereby
                                       he loves himself;

    aut mundum ad Dei gloriam          Or shall deny that the world was
    conditum esse negaverit;           created for the glory of God;
    anathema sit.                      let him be anathema.


    II.                                II.

    DE REVELATIONE.                    OF REVELATION.

    1. Si quis dixerit, Deum unum      1. If any one shall say that
    et verum, Creatorem et Dominum     certain knowledge of the one
    nostrum, per ea, quae facta        true God, our Creator and Lord,
    sunt, naturali rationis humanae    cannot be attained by the
    lumine certo cognosci non posse;   natural light of human reason
    anathema sit.                      through the things that are
                                       made; let him be anathema.

    2. Si quis dixerit, fieri non      2. If any one shall say that it
    posse, aut non expedire, ut        is impossible, or inexpedient,
    per revelationem divinam homo      for man to be instructed by
    de Deo, cultuque ei exhibendo      means of divine revelation, in
    edoceatur; anathema sit.           those things that concern God
                                       and the worship to be rendered
                                       to him; let him be anathema.

    3. Si quis dixerit, hominem ad     3. If any one shall say that man
    cognitionem et perfectionem,       cannot, by the power of God,
    quae naturalem superet,            be raised to a knowledge and
    divinitus evehi non posse,         perfection which is above that
    sed ex seipso ad omnis tandem      of nature; but that he can and
    veri et boni possessionem iugi     ought of his own efforts, by
    profectu pertingere posse et       means of constant progress, to
    debere; anathema sit.              arrive at last to the possession
                                       of all truth and goodness; let
                                       him be anathema.

    4. Si quis sacrae Scripturae       4. If any one shall refuse to
    libros integros cum omnibus suis   receive for sacred and canonical
    partibus, prout illos sancta       the books of holy Scripture in
    Tridentina Synodus recensuit,      their integrity, with all their
    pro sacris et canonicis non        parts, according as they were
    susceperit, aut eos divinitus      enumerated by the holy Council
    inspiratos esse negaverit;         of Trent;
    anathema sit.
                                       Or shall deny that they are
                                       inspired by God; let him be
                                       anathema.


    III.                               III.

    DE FIDE.                           OF FAITH.

    1. Si quis dixerit, rationem       1. If any one shall say that
    humanam ita independentem esse,    human reason is in such wise
    ut fides ei a Deo imperari non     independent, that faith cannot
    possit; anathema sit.              be demanded of it by God; let
                                       him be anathema.

    2. Si quis dixerit, fidem          2. If any one shall say that
    divinam a naturali de Deo et       divine faith does not differ
    rebus moralibus scientia non       from a natural knowledge of
    distingui, ac propterea ad fidem   God, and of moral truths; and
    divinam non requiri, ut revelata   therefore that for divine faith,
    veritas propter auctoritatem Dei   it is not necessary to believe
    revelantis credatur; anathema      revealed truth, on the authority
    sit.                               of God who reveals it; let him
                                       be anathema.

    3. Si quis dixerit, revelationem   3. If any one shall say that
    divinam externis signis            divine revelation cannot be
    credibilem fieri non posse,        rendered credible by external
    ideoque sola interna cuiusque      evidences; and therefore
    experientia aut inspiratione       that men should be moved to
    privata homines ad fidem moveri    faith only by each one's
    debere; anathema sit.              interior experience or private
                                       inspiration; let him be anathema.

    4. Si quis dixerit, miracula       4. If any one shall say that no
    nulla fieri posse, proindeque      miracles can be wrought; and
    omnes de iis narrationes, etiam    therefore that all accounts of
    in sacra Scriptura contentas,      such, even those contained in
    inter fabulas vel mythos           the sacred Scripture, are to be
    ablegandas esse; aut miracula      set aside as fables or myths; or
    certo cognosci nunquam posse,      that miracles can never be known
    nec iis divinam religionis         with certainty, and that the
    christianae originem rite          divine origin of Christianity
    probari; anathema sit.             cannot be truly proved by them;
                                       let him be anathema.

    5. Si quis dixerit, assensum       5. If any one shall say that
    fidei christianae non esse         the assent of Christian faith
    liberum, sed argumentis humanae    is not free, but is produced
    rationis necessario produci; aut   necessarily by arguments of
    ad solam fidem vivam, quae per     human reason; or that the grace
    charitatem operatur, gratiam Dei   of God is necessary only for
    necessariam esse; anathema sit.    living faith which worketh by
                                       charity; let him be anathema.

    6. Si quis dixerit, parem esse     6. If any one shall say that
    conditionem fidelium atque         the condition of the faithful,
    eorum, qui ad fidem unice          and of those who have not yet
    veram nondum pervenerunt, ita      come to the only true faith,
    ut catholici iustam causam         is equal, in such wise that
    habere possint, fidem, quam        Catholics can have just reason
    sub Ecclesiae magisterio iam       for withholding their assent,
    susceperunt, assensu suspenso      and calling into doubt the faith
    in dubium vocandi, donec           which they have received from
    demonstrationem scientificam       the teaching of the church,
    credibilitatis et veritatis        until they shall have completed
    fidei suae absolverint; anathema   a scientific demonstration of
    sit.                               the credibility and truth of
                                       their faith; let him be anathema.


    IV.                                IV.

    DE FIDE ET RATIONE.                OF FAITH AND REASON.

    1. Si quis dixerit, in             1. If any one shall say that
    revelatione divina nulla vera      divine revelation includes no
    et proprie dicta mysteria          mysteries, truly and properly
    contineri, sed universa fidei      so called; but that all the
    dogmata posse per rationem         dogmas of faith may, with the
    rite excultam e naturalibus        aid of natural principles, be
    principiis intelligi et            understood and demonstrated by
    demonstrari; anathema sit.         reason duly cultivated; let him
                                       be anathema.

    2. Si quis dixerit, disciplinas    2. If any one shall say that
    humanas ea cum libertate           human sciences ought to be
    tractandas esse, ut earum          pursued in such a spirit
    assertiones, etsi doctrinae        of freedom that one may be
    revelatae adversentur, tanquam     allowed to hold, as true, their
    verae retineri, neque ab           assertions, even when opposed
    Ecclesia proscribi possint;        to revealed doctrine; and that
    anathema sit.                      such assertions may not be
                                       condemned by the church; let him
                                       be anathema.

    3. Si quis dixerit, fieri posse,   3. If any one shall say that it
    ut dogmatibus ab Ecclesia          may at any time come to pass, in
    propositis, aliquando secundum     the progress of science, that
    progressum scientiae sensus        the doctrines set forth by the
    tribuendus sit alius ab eo,        church must be taken in another
    quem intellexit et intelligit      sense than that in which the
    Ecclesia; anathema sit.            church has ever received and
                                       yet receives them; let him be
                                       anathema.

    Itaque supremi pastoralis Nostri   Wherefore, fulfilling our
    officii debitum exequentes,        supreme pastoral duty, we
    omnes Christi fideles, maxime      beseech, through the bowels of
    vero eos, qui praesunt vel         mercy of Jesus Christ, all the
    docendi munere funguntur,          Christian faithful, and those
    per viscera Iesu Christi           especially who are set over
    obtestamur, nec non eiusdem Dei    others, or have the office of
    et Salvatoris nostri auctoritate   teachers, and furthermore we
    iubemus, ut ad hos errores a       command them, by authority of
    Sancta Ecclesia arcendos et        the same our God and Saviour,
    eliminandos, atque purissimae      to use all zeal and industry to
    fidei lucem pandendam studium et   drive out and keep away from
    operam conferant.                  holy church those errors, and to
                                       spread abroad the pure light of
                                       faith.

    Quoniam vero satis non est,        And whereas it is not enough to
    haereticam pravitatem devitare,    avoid heretical pravity, unless
    nisi ii quoque errores             at the same time we carefully
    diligenter fugiantur, qui ad       shun those errors which more
    illam plus minusve accedunt;       or less approach to it; we
    omnes officii monemus, servandi    admonish all, that it is their
    etiam Constitutiones et            duty to observe likewise the
    Decreta, quibus pravae eiusmodi    constitutions and decrees of
    opiniones, quae isthic diserte     this holy see, by which wrong
    non enumerantur, ab hac Sancta     opinions of the same kind, not
    Sede proscriptae et prohibitae     expressly herein mentioned, are
    sunt.                              condemned and forbidden.

FOOTNOTES:

[140] Is lix. 21.

[141] Conc. Later. IV. c. 1. _Firmiter_.

[142] Sap. viii. 1.

[143] Cf. Hebr. iv. 13.

[144] Rom. i. 20.

[145] Hebr. i. 1, 2.

[146] 1 Cor. ii. 9.

[147] Conc. Trid. Sess. IV. Decr. de Can. Script.

[148] Hebr. xi. 1.

[149] Marc. xvi. 20.

[150] 2 Petr. i. 19.

[151] Syn. Araus. II. can. 7.

[152] Is. xi. 12.

[153] Ioan. i. 17.

[154] 1 Cor. ii. 7, 8, 10.

[155] Matth. xi. 25.

[156] 2 Cor. v. 6, 7.

[157] Conc. Lat. V. Bulla _Apostolici regiminis_.

[158] Coloss. ii. 8.

[159] Vinc. Lir. Common, n. 28.




THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XI., No. 64.--JULY, 1870.


THE CATHOLIC OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.


The Catholic, like the church, is one and the same in all ages
and all times. As she came forth from the hands of her Architect
finished, complete, and perfect in every particular of solid
structure and exquisite adornment, in like manner the individual
member, if he be faithful to her tradition, practice, and direction,
is, with the allowance of human infirmity, perfect and complete in
one age as well as another, without regard to local circumstances
of civil government, education, exterior refinement, occupation,
complexion, or race.

Religion in its interior nature and intention has reference to the
life to come. The life to come is the complement of the present;
as the religion of the Catholic Church is perfect, the future life
which grows from the seeds planted in time must necessarily be
absolute perfection and unending satisfaction. The temporal fruit
must likewise become true material well-being, if its growth and
perfection be not interrupted by adventitious causes.

The assertion of the absolute perfection of the Catholic religion,
with reference to time as well as eternity, is made with precisely
the same significance with which we assert the perfection of God.
It is made simply and boldly, without hesitation, qualification,
or reserve, and it will be the basis of our argument, and the
starting-place for the views and opinions we propose to put forth. It
is intended for Catholic eyes. The defence of the proposition is no
part of our concern.

When they who deny or dispute it shall have vanquished a single one
of the great champions of our faith from Athanasius to Archbishop
Kenrick, from Cyril of Alexandria to Archbishop Spaulding of
Baltimore, picked up the glove which Dr. Brownson has flung down upon
the field of controversy, replied to Wiseman, refuted Manning, and
silenced Newman, it will be time enough for us to begin to consider
the measures necessary for making good the position we have chosen.

Placing ourselves distinctly upon the proposition, we invite
attention to certain relations which the Catholic of to-day holds
toward his race, his country, his age, and the particular order and
condition denominated progress, and the spirit of the nineteenth
century.

It becomes necessary under these aspects to consider him as a
dutiful subject of the head of the church, and a loyal citizen of an
independent state; as a freeman, and one bound by supreme authority;
as recognizing and obeying reason, and, in the free exercise of that
royal faculty of the soul, surrendering certain prerogatives of
private judgment to infallibility; as subject and at the same time
sovereign, both obeying and commanding; submissive to the laws and
acknowledging the supremacy of a higher law, which he is prepared
to vindicate with property, liberty, and life, if the two come in
conflict upon any vital point in which he or the church is concerned,
in the nineteenth century, precisely as he did in the first, the
second, or the third century.

The most obvious, interesting, and important view of the Catholic
in his relations to the century is that of voter. Suffrage, or
the privilege of voting for our rulers, and indirectly making the
laws by which we are to be governed, is not a natural right. It is
an acquired privilege, and only becomes a right when conveyed and
acknowledged by competent authority. Once obtained, it cannot be
abrogated, and can only be lost by revolution, the fruit of gross
political misconduct, or by voluntary neglect and disuse.

The right of suffrage bestows special prerogatives upon its
possessors. It superadds legislative and magisterial functions to the
obligations of private obedience; it communicates grace and dignity
to the manly character, imposes definite and heavy responsibilities
upon each individual, requires the humblest citizen to participate
in the dignity of the highest offices, and holds the most exalted
personages to a distinct accountability to the people. It permits
every Catholic to share actively in the plans, policy, and beneficent
enterprises of the church, and enables him in some sense to take
part in the divine government of the universe, physical and moral.

It is a specific and precious gift bestowed on Catholics in this age
and country, and we are compelled to stand in the full blaze of the
light of the nineteenth century, which is rolling out its illuminated
scroll before our dazzled eyes and almost bewildered understandings,
charged with the manifold blessings or curses which must flow from
the use or abuse of this momentous, one might almost say holy and
hierarchical function.

An offer and promise are as distinctly made to the Catholics of this
age as they were to the chosen people when released from the Egyptian
bondage. A land of promise, a land flowing with milk and honey, is
spread out before them, and offered for their acceptance.

The means placed at their disposal for securing this rich possession
are not the sword, or wars of extermination waged against the enemies
of their religion, but instead, the mild and peaceful influence
of the ballot, directed by instructed Catholic conscience and
enlightened Catholic intelligence.

A careful consideration of this subject is particularly important at
the present epoch and century.

The nineteenth century is interesting to us because it is _ours_;
because it is the expression and exponent of much that has been
dark and obscure in the past, because it is the most fruitful and
bountiful in material resources and advantages of any of which we
possess authentic knowledge, because it shines glorious amidst the
centuries by its own intrinsic light, and by the light derived from
modern discoveries, investigations, and interpretations thrown back
upon the past, and by it reflected in turn upon the present. It is
especially important to us as Catholics, inasmuch as it seems to be
a critical era in the religious history of the human race, and to
have been selected by Providence as a new point of departure in many
important particulars of his dealings with mankind.

The radical questions of the relations between the supernatural
and the natural, faith and reason, Rome and the world, justice and
injustice; between the material and transitory, and the immaterial
and permanent; between that which is unchangeable in principle and
those things which are progressive in action; between church and
state, God and man, are sharply defined, boldly stated, pushed to
their ultimate, logical, and practical extremes, and presented with
all the arguments, inducements, promises, and threatenings of the
most learned and eloquent advocates of the opposing causes to each
individual Catholic for his election.

The issue is as distinctly placed before his mind as it was in
the case of our first parents in Eden, of Europe in the religious
revolution of the sixteenth century, of England in the days of Henry
VIII. and his anti-Catholic successors.

It is a question of instant and pressing importance, which demands
an immediate and definite answer. It must be met and answered by
the Catholic of to-day, since to him are committed the obligation
and business of perpetuating and regenerating society, purifying
legislation, enforcing the administration of the laws, and setting
an example of private and public virtue, justice, moderation, and
forbearance. He has been furnished with an omnipotent weapon with
which to accomplish this great work, and he is provided with an
unerring guide to direct him in the administration of these important
trusts. We do not hesitate to affirm that in performing our duties
as citizens, electors, and public officers, we should always and
under all circumstances act simply as Catholics; that we should be
governed and directed by the immutable principles of our religion,
and should take dogmatic faith and the conclusions drawn from it, as
expressed and defined in Catholic philosophy, theology, and morality,
as the only rule of our private, public, and political conduct. Those
things which are condemned by Catholic justice, we should condemn;
those things which are affirmed, we should affirm.

There can be no circumstance, condition, or relation in which the
Catholic is left without his guide, and there is absolutely no excuse
if he fail in the performance of this duty, upon which rests the
future prosperity of civilized society.

While insisting on the dignity and obligations of suffrage, it
may perhaps be necessary to observe that the church prescribes no
specific form of government. Government itself is required under some
form, for the reason that we are created and fulfil our allotted
destiny under the operation of an organic law which we have the
power, and under certain circumstances the disposition, to violate.

We have no power to annul or abrogate the organic law, and its
violation in virtue of its own nature, and our responsibility entails
specific penalties in time, and, as it is eternal in its origin and
action, eternity. The superiority of the human race, and the merit
and honor of obedience, reside in the power of choice, and the
ability which we possess to decide our temporal and eternal destiny,
and renew and perfect, or reject and obliterate our relations with
the Creator. A happy, prosperous, and peaceful temporal condition
is not guaranteed, nor is it essential to true well-being but
these most desirable concomitants of earthly existence necessarily
accompany and flow from the enforcement of the requirements of the
organic law upon our own conduct and that of others less disposed to
obey them.

All human government rests upon this basis, whether of patriarch,
prophet, priest, king, chieftain, pope, bishop, emperor, or people in
organized assembly.

The principle underlying every form of government is that of command
and obedience, because the government of the universe is one of
law. Both command and obedience are of the same nature and alike
honorable, because there can be but one source of law, and that is
God; and he in his humanity obeyed the laws of his own creation in
his divinity, and personally fulfilled the obligations of his own
imposition. Who is he who despises obedience, when the Son of Man
became obedient to the death of the cross?

All legislation in harmony with the organic law is theocratic and
divine; all in violation or opposition, precisely in the measure
and degree of departure, unjust, cruel, tyrannical, false, vain,
unstable, and weak, and not entitled to respect or obedience.

Since justice and our honor and dignity require that we should obey
God, and not man, we are compelled by every reasonable motive to
ascertain his will. He does not communicate personally and orally
with creatures.

Unless we have the means of ascertaining with certainty what his
wishes are on a given subject, whether of the private practice
of virtue or the administration of a public duty, we are left to
the direction of opinions, interests, and passions more or less
superficially instructed and enlightened, and tend inevitably toward
barbarism, despotism, and social and political disorganization. The
Catholic Church is the medium and channel through which the will of
God is expressed. The chain of communication, composed of the triple
strand of revelation, inspiration, and faith, stretches underneath
the billows of eternity to the shore of time, from the throne of God
to the chair of Peter. The finger of the pope, like the needle in the
compass, invariably points to the pole of eternal truth, and the mind
of the sovereign pontiff is as certain to reflect the mind and will
of God as the mirror at one end of a submarine cable to indicate the
electric signal made at the other.

The will of God is expressed as plainly through the church as it was
through Moses and the tables of the law. It is distinct, definite,
intelligible, and precise, and we are bound to execute the will thus
expressed, and act in the light of the intelligence thus supplied.

All legislation which has stood the test of time has flowed from the
divinely-inspired fountain of natural justice, illuminated by her
wisdom, corrected by her experience, interpreted by her theology
and philosophy. All tyranny, injustice, force, cruelty, violence,
and oppression follow as the result of violation of the organic law
as interpreted by the church, or from systems of legislation in
opposition to, or abrogation of, her eternal principles.

While immunity from temporal suffering is nowhere promised, it is
nevertheless true that the greater portion of evils and sorrows are
capable of prevention or relief.

Wealth can be deprived of its satiety, poverty of its sting, labor of
its pain, ease of its slothfulness, learning of its pride, power of
its arrogance, ignorance of its stupidity.

But though we expect no natural Utopia or earthly paradise, we are no
less bound to oppose and correct vices, sorrows, evils, dangers, and
oppressions, as they spring, ever fierce and relentless, with their
countless heads, whether personal, social, national, or legislative.

The Catholic armed with his vote becomes the champion of faith, law,
order, social and political morality, and Christian civilization, no
less--in fact, a greater degree, for our present enemies are more
dangerous--than his ancestor who hung a wallet over his leathern
jerkin, and, shouldering his halberd, followed the lord of the manor
to Palestine; than he who aided the Catholic Ferdinand and Isabella
to drive the Moor from the soil of Christian Spain, or, under John
Sobieski, rolled back the tide of Mohammedan invasion from the
European shores of the Mediterranean.

He goes forth furnished with this weapon, which, faithfully and
honorably employed, must become invincible, arrest the swollen
current of corruption, crime, and lawlessness which threatens to
sweep away religion, morality, and liberty, insure the preeminence
of law, order, and republican institutions, preserve and perfect the
results of material and natural science, put an end to poverty in
its abject and hopeless forms, and banish suffering from unrelieved
want, and develop and complete a system of jurisprudence which shall
sustain what the world has not yet seen, a pure republic of equal
rights, exact justice, and assured temporal prosperity, presided
over, influenced, and informed by true religion.

The great and undeniably wonderful and valuable fruits of human
genius and materialistic science, may be utilized to meet the ends
of ideal justice, and true individual and national prosperity and
happiness.

With the means of instant intelligent communication and rapid
transportation, it is not an impossibility to hope that the head of
the church may again become the acknowledged head of the reunited
family of Christian nations; the arbiter and judge between princes
and peoples, between government and government, the exponent of the
supreme justice and highest law, in all important questions affecting
the rights, the interests, and the welfare of communities and
individuals.

Under such a system, force would give place to reason; the nations
would learn war no more, and a general disarmament could be safely
imposed. The door of the temple of the demon god of war, which has
stood open since Cain imbrued his fratricidal hands in the blood of
Abel, would be closed for ever.

            "Yea, truth and justice then,
            Will down return to men,
    Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,
            Mercy will sit between,
            Throned in celestial sheen,
    With radiant feet the tissued clouds down-steering,
      And heaven, as at some festival,
      Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall."

Although we are far from expecting a result grand, glorious, and
wonderful, realizing in the highest degree the promise made to the
human race if faithful to the object of their creation, still we do
not hesitate to assert that it is within the power of the ballot,
wielded by Catholic hands and directed by Catholic conscience, to
accomplish as much and more.

It is no more than the church has a right to expect from her
subjects; it is no more than they owe her and themselves; it would be
a triumph worthy of the nineteenth century, and worthy of a fallen
race deemed worthy to be redeemed by the blood of a God.

The two great questions of marriage and education present themselves
in a discussion of the relations which the Catholic sustains toward
civil society, as elements of prime and indispensable importance.
There can be no permanent Christian society, no civilized and
enduring government, which are not perpetuated by Catholic marriage,
elevated, instructed, and disciplined by Catholic education. The
great civilizations which have arisen and flourished independently,
vitalized by the tradition of primitive revelation, are wanting
or have forfeited the characteristics of true civilization. Many
have perished; others have reached their term, and the hour of
their destruction is at hand. The ancient and most remarkable
social, civil, and religious polity of India is withering under the
remorseless touch of English rule, and China is destined to succumb
to steam, machinery, railroads, and sewing-machines.

Nothing but the pure gold of Catholicity can withstand the material
flame which burns brightest and hottest in the nineteenth century,
and it may only survive stripped of every earthly and human quality,
attribute, and advantage.

It is not in our power at this time to follow the line of reflection
suggested by the great unchristian and anti-christian civilizations,
the Indian, the Persian, the Chinese, and the Mohammedan; but we must
confine ourselves to the proposition which their history, brilliant,
startling, and splendid though it be, and, to superficial human
views, does not in any degree invalidate, that true civilization
rests for its foundation upon Catholic marriage and Catholic
education.

In contradistinction from suffrage, which is an acquired privilege,
marriage is a _natural_ right. Its regulation and control belong
exclusively to the church, and are particularly her care and
prerogative under the supernatural order.

Marriage is the sacrament of nature, as well as one of grace, and
the church insists upon her rightful control, because she depends
upon this sacrament not only for perpetuity on earth, but for her
eternal representation. She regulates the conditions of marriage
and witnesses the contract in whose fulfilment she has such a vital
interest, and she becomes the arbiter between the contracting parties
in the subsequent stages of their career. She claims its offspring
at their birth, and immediately impresses upon them the seal of her
proprietorship in baptism; she accompanies them throughout their
lives, and dismisses them with unction and benediction; she follows
them into the unseen world, and does not relax her grasp till they
attain their fruition and become in turn protectors and benefactors
of the mother who has given them both natural and supernatural birth.
Marriage is the crystal fountain on earth whence flows the perennial
living stream which fertilizes and makes glad the plains of heaven.

The Catholic view, or Christian idea of marriage, implies by
necessity the Catholic view of all the relations and obligations
growing out of it: the education of the young, the custody of
foundlings and orphans, and all measures of correction and
reformation applicable to youthful offenders and disturbers of the
peace of society.

The same view would consign to her care the permanent infants of
society, the idiotic, those defective in important organs or senses,
the insane, the criminal, the sick poor, and the helpless and
wretched of every class. The church is capable, through her orders
and congregations of men and women, of undertaking these trusts.
There is in this work occupation for all who have not definite
vocations, and for the aid and assistance of those who have. It is
a species of labor which has never been efficiently and completely
performed, and can only be accomplished by those who undertake
it under the direction of religion from the motive of heroic and
supernatural charity. No compensation, no hope of human reward or
praise, can procure such service, tenderness, and succor as that
which the unpaid and nameless religious bestows upon the poor and
nameless cast-away, for the sake of the humanity of Christ.

The function of education is most closely connected with the
authority claimed and exercised over marriage. The custodian of the
tree has certainly the right to the fruit of the tree, and to protect
it from wayfarers and robbers.

The control and prevention of poverty is an example of the profound
science of political economy which is manifested by the church. No
state can flourish where hopeless poverty becomes an institution.

A godless system of education, or, what is the same thing, an
uncatholic system, is the more refined and elegant but not less
certain method of modern times of offering our children to Moloch,
and causing our sons to pass through the fire. The right which
the church exerts over education does not in any manner impair
or contravene the legitimate authority of parents; but, on the
contrary, strengthens and supports it, since it is an assertion of
the principle of authority and the final obligations toward God due
from both parents and children. It asserts the rights of parents and
the right which children have to Christian education. Every human
creature born into the world has the inalienable right of knowing and
obeying the truth, and seeking to attain its own eternal happiness.

While parents have rights over their children, children, in turn,
have rights as respects their parents, and the chief of these is
Christian education.

The church asserts and defends these principles, and she flatly
contradicts the assumption on the part of the state of the
prerogative of education, and determinedly opposes the effort to
bring up the youth of the country for purely secular and temporal
purposes. The state is in its nature godless and material, and,
in accordance with its nature, seeks only material ends. No state
or nation as such has a supernatural destiny; its rewards and
punishments are temporary and finite, and its views, policy, and
conduct short-sighted, corrupt, and selfish. While the state has
rights, she has them only in virtue and by permission of the superior
authority, and that authority can only be expressed through the
church, that is, through the organic law infallibly announced and
unchangeably asserted, regardless of temporal consequences. The
church yields, however, to temporal conditions as far as she can
without departing from her organic principle. She resembles a mighty
tree tossed by the winds, and apparently yielding to the tempest from
whatever quarter it comes, but never giving up its roots, firmly
fixed in the ground, and stretching their fibres far out under the
surface of things. If she could be moved from her position, torn up
by the roots, rifted from her organic basis on the rock of Peter,
she would cease to be the church, become a human and fallible
institution, and entitled to no more consideration than any other
human organization or voluntary society. The hostile and opposing
forces recognize distinctly the value and importance to us of the
two fundamental institutions, marriage and education. Their efforts
are particularly directed at the present time, and in this country,
to corrupt and undermine the one and usurp complete control over the
other. The attitude of the church on these questions is the cause
of nearly all the opposition she encounters, of the secret and open
attacks she suffers, and of most of the great persecutions she has
experienced. She is attacked in respect to marriage by sensuality,
and in regard to education by the arrogance of the state, and the
jealousy which human power always manifests of the divine authority.

The order, regularity, charity, and chastity required in marriage by
the church--and of which she is the emblem--are repudiated by the
world.

This repudiation is manifested by sensuality in its protean forms,
from platonic love and sentimental and religious melancholy,
all through the descending scale of folly, vice, and crime to
the lowest depths, whither the mind refuses to follow and where
demons veil their faces, and by legislation the result of this
opposition, such as is expressed in the laxity of divorce laws, and
a public sentiment which sanctions and countenances divorce and the
marriage of divorced parties. It is more or less boldly or covertly
expressed in almost the whole range of anti-catholic and uncatholic
literature, and in the increasing license of conversation, manners,
and amusements. Marriage has lost its dignity and sanctity by being
divested of its sacramental character, and its manifest and natural
duties and obligations are shunned, despised, and disregarded by
a large proportion of those living in outward regard for decorum
and morality. The spirit of the nineteenth century, unchastened by
Catholicity, by whatever sounding title it may be called--progress,
liberty, emancipation of the intellect, dignity of the race,
independence of science--is a spirit of gross, cruel, and irrational
sensuality, which tends directly and inevitably toward ignorance,
bondage, anarchy, and barbarism, and consequent stupidity.

Stupidity may, perhaps, be considered the lowest hell of a creature
originally constituted _active_ and _intellectual_.

It is directly against these elements, whose consequences she
distinctly foresees, that the church opposes her laws of marriage,
and the absolute supernatural chastity of her priests and religious.

It is not that she forbids marriage, as she is sometimes accused,
that she offers to certain persons the privilege of electing a
superior state and beginning on earth the life of heaven, but in
order to provide herself with angels and ministers of grace to do her
will, accomplish her work, perform her innumerable acts of spiritual
and corporeal mercy, and be literally the godfathers and godmothers
to the orphaned human race, while they obtain for themselves and
others countless riches of merit. The spirit which we reprobate
substitutes lust for love, philanthropy for charity. By subtracting
charity from marriage, it virtually divorces the married, and leads
directly to the destruction of the species. The children whom it
permits to survive it educates for material and temporal objects
alone, and the most noble destiny it has to offer is death on the
field of battle; its highest reward, a short-lived, temporal honor,
and a brief posthumous reputation. The pursuits of honor, of science,
literature and art, are noble, and in some degree satisfying. They
are, when true and real, Catholic in their nature, and the growth
of Catholic soil. Whenever--as in pre-Christian times--they become
detached from original revelation, or, in modern, divorced from or
hostile to Catholic inspiration, they incline toward cruelty, false
science or incomplete science, and in literature and art to decay.
The inevitable tendency of incomplete science, that is, imperfect
from a radical defect, like a defective formula in mathematics, is
to error, obscurity, and confusion. The absence of the supernatural
element is the radical defect in all uncatholic natural and
metaphysical science; and every superstructure erected upon it,
however splendid in appearance, is built upon the sand.

The reason why civil marriage, state religion and education, natural
society, and material science do not become more rapidly corrupt,
and manifest more speedily their inherent defects, is on account of
the vast amount of latent Catholicity which they retain, and without
which they could not survive a single day.

It is the tendency of the natural to consume the supernatural, in its
efforts to attain its destiny, and, unless fed by new infusions of
the divine element, to sink lower and lower toward the abyss.

It is the function of the supernatural society, that is, the church
through her ministry and sacraments, to furnish continual supplies of
this divine element, to antagonize the decomposition which followed
close upon the steps of the terrible twin brethren, sin and death,
when they entered the world; renew the almost exhausted life of the
soul, and enable it to rise higher and higher, till it is absorbed
once more into the source of life eternal, from whence it sprang.

The more respectable and conservative of the uncatholic institutions,
which retain most of the latent Catholicity not yet expended in three
centuries of separation from the parent fountain, preserve many
Catholic ideas, customs, and forms of speech and action.

Such publications as the _New-Englander_, the _Princeton_,
_Mercersburg_, and _North British Reviews_, advocate to a great
extent the Christian doctrines of marriage and education, and the
superiority of religion in all temporal and secular affairs, and
deprecate, without the power to remedy or arrest, the evils which
they acknowledge to exist.

The advanced portion of the opposing forces, they who have expended
their latent Catholicity, denied the faith and impugned the truth,
and sunk to the lowest level compatible with life, do not seek
to defend their position by any hollow appeals to religion or
conscience, but boldly deny all authority excepting their own
depraved wills.

Red-republicanism, Fourierism, communism, free love, Mormonism, the
Oneida community, the false sciences of mesmerism and phrenology,
spiritism and sentimental philanthropy, are exemplary expressions
of the forms which sensuality and the denial of authority assume in
their retrograde metamorphoses.

The woman's rights movement is the most subtle, dangerous, and
treacherous of the later manifestations of the evil spirit of the
nineteenth century.

It is more threatening to the public peace than the abolition
agitation was at its commencement, and is fostered and fomented by
the same or kindred influences, and under some one or other of its
forms and phases comprehends every falsehood, error, delusion, and
heresy, from the original lie uttered in Eden to the last invented
and promulgated by the Satanic press. It has a certain, irresistible
tendency to vitiate suffrage, degrade legislation, disturb society,
abolish religion, superinduce crime, disease, insanity, idiocy,
physical decay, deformity, suicide and early death, abrogate
matrimony and extinguish the race.

Every count in this terrible charge is capable of being sustained
by the most abundant evidence in history, analogy, facts of daily
experience, the declarations of religion, and evidences of the legal
and medical sciences.

It is absolutely anti-catholic and unchristian, and could not exist,
much less flourish, in an age not far gone on the road to ruin.

It is the Catholic Church, and she alone, which guarantees
the rights, freedom, and honor of women. She raises them to a
participation in her ministry and apostleship, and pledges herself
and all the power of heaven to the protection of the humblest as well
as the most exalted of the sex, in her rights and dignity as woman,
wife, and mother. She has suffered persecution and dismemberment
rather than yield an iota of the vested rights of helpless woman; she
has decreed the immaculate conception, the most perfect testimony of
the exalted function of maternity and the crowning human glory of
the sex, and raised one of their number to be queen of heaven, the
crowning superhuman glory.

All that woman can claim is accorded to her by the church, and
asserted as her indefeasible right. The only security for woman, her
only refuge from the artifice of men and the undeniable oppression
of society, is in the church, and the legislation deduced from the
original organic law; in the inviolability of the marriage contract,
and the sacramental character of marriage.

The difficult and vexed question of mixed education obtrudes itself
upon our attention at every step of a discussion like the one in
which we are engaged. It is not our purpose to enter upon its details
at present. The chief pastors in solemn council assembled will
undoubtedly decide upon the line of conduct most expedient for us to
follow. While asserting the absolute dependence of natural science
for its truth and perpetuity upon divine illumination, we do not
intend to disparage human learning and the pursuits of philosophy
and science. Philosophy on the intellectual and natural sciences is
the most elevating and ennobling of human employments. As truth is
simple in its nature and essence, every truth discovered, learned,
and elaborated tends to draw the soul toward God. There is and can be
no quarrel or discrepancy between revelation and science. The truths
of revelation and the truths of science tend infallibly toward mutual
illustration and final unity. It is only the effect of false science
or imperfect science to divert the mind from God, the origin of
truth, or truth itself, and enter upon the path which leads to error,
doubt, ignorance, and darkness.

The supremacy asserted for the church in matters of education
implies the additional and cognate function of the censorship of
ideas, and the right to examine and approve or disapprove all
books, publications, writings, and utterances intended for public
instruction, enlightenment, or entertainment, and the supervision of
places of amusement.

This is the principle upon which the church has acted in handing over
to the civil authority for punishment _criminals in the order of
ideas_.

It is the principle upon which every civilized government acts in
emergencies, and it was asserted rigorously and unsparingly North and
South during the recent revolution. It is the principle upon which
a father would act in expelling summarily and ignominiously from
his house a person detected in corrupting the minds, manners, and
morals of his children. It is in fact nothing more than the principle
of self-preservation, which is the first law of nature. It is not
necessary to raise the question whether this principle has been
abused by individuals for mistaken or corrupt objects. It is safe to
say that it has been. The admission in no way invalidates the right
and obligation involved. There are few good things which men have not
abused.

Crimes, cruelties, oppressions and persecutions (especially in the
order of ideas) are laid at the door of the Catholic Church, which
are the fruit of human passion, avarice, ambition, and resentment,
and that strange and devilish infatuation of cruelty which sometimes
seizes upon a whole community, and which is analogous to the
destructive and suicidal insanities of individuals. The church,
however, in her official and organic character, has never abused this
principle or any other, whether of discipline or policy. These moral
and political catastrophes are wholly independent of Catholicity, are
in direct violation of religion, and in disobedience to the commands
and entreaties of the church.

Government and legislation informed, directed, and guided by Catholic
justice is the most humane, benignant, equal, just, merciful,
and forbearing of any that can possibly exist, and the temporal
government of the head of the church is to-day the best in the world.

These subjects bring us back to the question of suffrage, and to the
Catholic as voter. It is necessary that we should have just laws,
primarily and immediately in regard to education and marriage, and
that they should have the sanction of sound public opinion, without
which the best laws are inoperative.

These laws must grow out of the Catholic conscience of the community,
if they are to grow at all.

The labor of strengthening these foundations of society belongs
to the Catholic voter, and to him we must look for future safety,
peace, and permanence. Every principle of justice is assailed, every
bulwark is undermined.

Social eminence, literary ability, exalted political station, and
so-called religion combine to give public sanction to unblushing and
monstrous adultery, and brand the scarlet letter upon a soul already
crimson with guilt as it trembles on the verge of eternity.

Every species and form of vice, crime, and corruption are paraded
and presented under disguises, more or less specious or flimsy, of
science, literature, religion, or art.

The old are divested of gravity and reserve, and the young have lost
the freshness, the sweetness, the innocence, the candor, and the
bloom which should belong to youth.

The burlesque is invoked with horrid incantation to degrade the
reason, paralyze the understanding, and brutalize the imagination,
and oriental lasciviousness to apply the torch of passion to the
intellectual and moral ruins.

Current literature is penetrated with the spirit of licentiousness,
from the pretentious quarterly to the arrogant and flippant daily
newspaper, and the weekly and monthly publications are mostly heathen
or maudlin. They express and inculcate, on the one hand, stoical,
cold, and polished pride of mere intellect, or, on the other, empty
and wretched sentimentality. Some employ the skill of the engraver to
caricature the institutions and offices of our religion, and others
to exhibit the grossest forms of vice and the most distressing scenes
of crime and suffering.

The illustrated press has become to us what the amphitheatre was to
the Romans when men were slain, women were outraged, and Christians
given to the lions to please a degenerate populace.

It is obvious, then, if what we have said be true, that there is a
great work for the Catholic voter to perform.

The Constitution and Declaration of Independence guarantee life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Catholic values his life
that he may devote it to the service of the church, and, if required,
offer it for her safety and honor; liberty, to be and remain
Catholic, enjoy freedom in the exercise of his religion, and transmit
this priceless inheritance unimpaired to his descendants; the pursuit
of happiness, that he may attain the happiness of heaven!

The Catholic voter meditates no invasion of vested rights. The
constitution and government of the United States have the approval of
the holy see. The Catholic is satisfied with the laws of his country,
and only dissatisfied with local legislation, which contravenes the
implied pledges of the constitution and the common law, based upon
the canon law.

He demands nothing that natural justice and the legitimate
interpretation of the constitution do not guarantee him. Freedom in
religion entitles him to protection against open and secret attacks
upon what he holds most dear, under the guise of state education, and
which are invariably made in every system of uncatholic or infidel
education. The great majority of English-speaking Catholics have had
a personal and national experience of the bitter fruit of systems of
education divorced from the control of the church, and in the French
revolution they recognize the results of infidel science, literature,
and sentiment practically applied to the reformation of society.
France gave the world a terrible illustration of the violent, frantic
creed and futile efforts which humanity makes when it would be
sufficient for itself and become its own redeemer. France almost
expired. Her Catholicity alone saved her. The Goths and Vandals
entered Paris, but were compelled to retire. They entered ancient
Rome, and remained.

With these truths, lessons, and experiences before his mind, the
Catholic anxiously considers the subject of public education, and is
resolved when the question is adjudicated to sustain the decision
of the church. If he cannot peacefully enact legitimate, equal, and
just regulations, he will consent to bear, as he has done before,
a double burden; but he, for his part, will make sure that his
children are taught to discriminate between the specious and false
assertions which are put forth as history and history itself, between
human philanthropy and divine charity, between communism and the
communion of saints, between spiritism and those things which are
spiritual, between pure, noble, and lovely sentiments and a rotting
sentimentalism, between the false and the true, injustice and
justice, the human and the divine.

By an extraordinary example of divine justice, and the operation of
the law of compensation, the men and their descendants who uprooted
Catholicity in England and Ireland; who extinguished, as far as they
were able, Catholic literature and tradition; who destroyed the
venerable seats of learning and charity, sacked the monasteries and
despoiled the abbeys, were compelled to prepare a home for Catholics,
and establish a political order most acceptable to them, and capable
under Catholic auspices of attaining the highest degree of temporal
happiness and prosperity.

The men who composed the Protector's famous Ironsides levelled the
New England forests and subdued the savage, and now in every city,
village, and hamlet of this fair land the cross which they tore
down again rises aloft, the first to kindle in the saluting beams
of the morning sun, the last to detain his parting lingering rays,
and thousands of happy, prosperous people the descendants of those
whom Cromwell's dragoons trampled under their bloody hoofs, assemble
around that altar and assist at that mass which he could not abide.

The grim old regicide who sleeps his last sleep on the green behind
Centre church, in New Haven, if he could rise from his grave some
pleasant Sunday morning, would believe that time and old ocean had
both been rolled away, and that he was in merry, happy Catholic
England of five hundred years ago.

The past has been vindicated; wrongs have been righted.

The uncompromising defence of the rights of Queen Catharine is
justified. The Goddess of Reason, in the person of a prostitute,
enthroned on the high altar of Notre Dame, has given place to a
Catholic lady, wife, mother, and queen, who reigns enthroned in the
hearts of her people, the type of every royal, womanly, and Christian
virtue.

Absolute Caesarism itself, touched by Catholic justice, has
voluntarily conceded constitutional government, and the successor
of him who was both the child and the victim of the revolution, who
dragged Pius VII. from the chair of Peter to a French prison, upholds
the chief of the apostles as he sits to-day enthroned prince and
patriarch and apostle of the assembled and united episcopate of the
world.

It is time for Catholics to cease complaining. The church is
vindicated. They are vindicated. Reason, science, and religion are
united in a species of intellectual trinity, capable of presiding
over and directing all human, temporal, and eternal destinies. All
that remains is for the individual Catholic, the Catholic voter,
to play well his part in the drama whose acts are realities, whose
curtain will never fall, and where the only change of scene will be
when the vault of the heavens parts in twain and the splendor of the
eternal world bursts upon his enraptured vision.

It is in the power of the Catholic voter of the nineteenth century
to achieve a consummation such as perhaps saints and prophets have
dreamed, but never seen. It is your part, Catholic freemen and
electors, to perpetuate the latest and most perfect effort in the
human science of government--the constitution of our glorious and
beloved country; to check the current of corruption in literature,
manners, and politics.

It is in your power to arrest the progress of demoralizing and
disintegrating legislation on the subject of marriage and suffrage,
and to provide the means for the permanent endowment of colleges,
seminaries, and universities. It is in your power to elect able,
honest, and virtuous men to office, and to reunite the principles of
government with the principles of religion.

Will you respond to the offer which is made you in this country
and the nineteenth century, and perfect and complete what may not
unlikely be the last opportunity for achieving temporal prosperity in
harmony with Catholic justice?




DION AND THE SIBYLS.

A CLASSIC, CHRISTIAN NOVEL.

BY MILES GERALD KEON, COLONIAL SECRETARY, BERMUDA, AUTHOR OF "HARDING
THE MONEY-SPINNER," ETC.


CHAPTER XII.

A short silence followed the concurring exclamations of Thellus and
our hero, recorded in the last chapter; and then the lanista said,

"Before I leave you, I will speak one word which came of the chance
of uttering while I brought you that letter, but which I would not
have pronounced had I found you to be a person of a different sort.
You are really Tiberius's prisoner, remember, although it is to
Velleius Paterculus you have given your parole. I know, by personal
experience and much observation, the men and the things of which you,
on the other hand, can have only a suspicion. Now, I conjecture, it
is hardly for your own sake that you are in custody. Beware of what
may happen to those dear to you; and as they have given no parole,
send them to some place of safety, some secret place. There is no
place safe in itself in the known world. Roman liberty is no more;
secrecy is the sole safety remaining. _Vale_."

With these words the lanista departed, leaving our young friend
buried in thought. As he left the court of the impluvium to seek
his mother, he remarked that Claudius had returned thither, and was
occupied in watering some flowers in pots at the opposite angle. "I
wonder," thought he, "can that fellow have overheard Thellus?"

Other and more important matters, however, were destined to invite
his attention. We have said enough to justify us in passing over
with a few words every interval void of more than ordinary daily
occurrences of the age and land. What has been related and described
will sufficiently enable a reader of intelligence to realize the
sort of life which lay before Paulus, his mother, and Agatha during
the next few days passed by them together at the inn of the Hundreth
Milestone.

Of course, Paulus detailed to his mother what he had observed or
heard, especially Thellus's warning. Further, he propounded thereon
his own conclusions. The family thought it well to summon Crispina
and Crispus to a council; and it was finally resolved that Aglais
should at once write to her brother-in-law, Marcus AEmilius Lepidus,
the ex-triumvir, and ask a temporary home under his roof for herself
and Agatha, with their female slave Melena. Old Philip and Paulus
could remain at the inn for some time longer. Aglais, Paulus, and
the worthy couple who kept the inn consulted together, carrying
their conferences rather far into the night, when the business of
the hostelry was over, upon the question what would be the best
course to pursue, should the triumvir, from timidity or any other
motive, refuse shelter to his brother's widow and child? During these
conferences Agatha and Benigna went to sit apart, each engaged in
some kind of needle-work.

It did not seem to the little council probable that Lepidus would
refuse the request submitted to him, and if he acceded to it,
Crispina assured Aglais that the castle of Lepidus at Monte Circello,
covering both the summit and the base of a cliff upon the edge of
the sea, was sufficiently capacious, intricate, and labyrinthine to
conceal a good part of a Roman legion in complete security.

Moreover, it had escapes both by land and by water; nor could any
one approach it without being visible to the inmates for miles.
"Considering," reasoned Crispina, "that there is no pretext for
ostensibly demanding the surrender of the ladies, who have not
committed any offence, and are not, or at all events are not supposed
to be, under any supervision, this retreat will afford all the
security that can be desired. But Master Paulus must never go near
you when once you leave this roof."

Aglais admitted the wisdom of the suggestion. A letter, a simple,
elegant, and affecting composition, was written by her, and intrusted
to Crispus for transmission. However, as it was the unanimous
opinion of all concerned that the family ought not to be detected in
any communications with Lepidus, or even suspected of any, it was
necessary for Crispus to observe great caution in forwarding the
document. Several days, therefore, passed away before an opportunity
was presented of sending a person who would neither be observed
in going, nor missed when gone, and who could at the same time be
implicitly trusted; none but old Philip could be found.

Crispus had been on the point of employing Claudius for the purpose,
when Crispina resolutely stopped him. "I have a high opinion of that
youth," said she, "or I would not consent that Benigna should marry
him; but at present he is a slave, and a slave of the very person
against whom we are guarding. Moreover, Claudius is young and very
timid; he has his way to make, and all his hopes are dependent on
this tyr--I mean the prince. I do not wish even Benigna to know any
thing about the present business. The more honest any young people
are, the more they betray themselves, if cross-questioned about
matters which they know, but have been told to conceal. If they know
nothing, why, they can tell nothing, and moreover none can punish or
blame them for not telling.

"A silent tongue, husband, like mine, and a simple heart like yours,
make safe necks. There, go about your business."

During the delay and suspense which necessarily followed, Paulus
fished, and took long walks through that beautiful country, many
aspects of which, already described by us, as they then were, have
for ever disappeared. He used to take with him something to eat in
the middle of the day, but always returned toward evening in time to
join the last light repast of his mother and sister. Each evening saw
them reassembled. Four tall, exquisitely tapering poles, springing
from firm pedestals, supported four little scallop-shaped lamps at
the four corners of their table. The supper was often enriched by
Paulus with some delicious fresh-water fish of his own catching.
Benigna waited upon them, and, being invariably engaged by Agatha in
lively conversation, amused and interested the circle by her mingled
simplicity, good feeling, and cleverness. After supper, Agatha would
insist that Benigna should stay with them awhile, and they either all
strolled through the garden, whence perfumes strong as incense rose
in the dewy air, or they sat conversing in the bower which overlooked
it. Then after a while Crispina would ascend the garden-stairs to
their landing; and while she inquired how they all were, and told
them any news she might have gathered, Benigna would steal silently
down to say good-night, as Agatha declared, to some shadowy figure
who was dimly discernible standing not far away among the myrtles,
and apparently contemplating the starry heavens. Such was their quiet
life, such the tenor of those fleeting days.

One evening--the sweet evening of a magnificent autumn day--Paulus
was returning across the country, with a rod and line, from a distant
excursion upon the banks of the Liris. The spot which he had chosen
that day for fishing was a deep, clear, silent pool, formed by a
bend of the river. A clump of shadowy chestnuts and hornbeam grew
nigh, and the water was pierced by the deep reflections of a row of
stately poplars, which mounted guard upon its margin. There seated,
his back supported against one of the trees, watching the float of
his line as it quivered upon the surface of the beautiful stream,
he heard no sound but the ripple of the little waves lapping on
the reeds, the twittering of birds, and the hum of insects. There,
with a mind attuned by the peaceful beauties of the solitary scene,
he had traversed a thousand considerations. He thought of the many
characters with whom he had so suddenly been brought into more or
less intercourse or contact. He thought much of Thellus, and of
his poor Alba, so cruelly sacrificed. He was puzzled by Claudius.
He mused about Sejanus, about Tiberius, about Velleius Paterculus,
about the two beautiful ladies in the litters; he thought of the
third gold-looking palanquin and its pallid occupant; of the haughty
and violent, yet, as it seemed, servile patrician and senator, who
had attempted suddenly to kill him, out of zeal for Caesar; of the
singular reverse which had awaited the attempt; of Queen Berenice,
and Herod Agrippa, and Herodias; of the various unexpected incidents
and circumstances which had followed. He thought of his uncle
Lepidus; of the fate, whatever it might be, now to attend his mother,
his sister, and himself. He revolved the means of establishing his
rights and his claims. Ought he at once to employ some able orator
and advocate, and to appeal to the tribunals of justice? Should he
rather seek a hearing from the emperor in person, and, if so, how was
this to be managed?

From recollections and calculations, the spirit of his pastime and
the genius of the place bore him away and lured him into the realm
of day-dreams, vague and far-wandering! Up-stream, about a mile from
where he was sitting, towered high a splendid mansion. On its roof
glittered its company of gilt and colored statues, conversing and
acting above the top of a wood.

In that mansion his forefathers had lived.

On one of the streams lay ancient Latium, where he sat, teeming with
traditions--a monster or a demigod in every tree, rock, and river;
the cradle of the Roman race, the seed and germ of outspreading
conquest and universal empire. On the opposite banks was unrolled,
far to the south, the Campanian landscape, where Hannibal, the most
terrible of Romish enemies and rivals, had enervated his victorious
legions, and lost the chances of that ultimate success which would
have changed the destinies of mankind.

Suddenly, among the statues on the roof, Paulus beheld, not bigger
than children by comparison, moving figures of men and ladies in
dazzling attire. He perceived that salutations were exchanged,
groups formed and groups dispersed. Happening, the next moment, to
cast his eye over the landscape, he saw in the distance some horsemen
galloping toward the house, through the trees in the distance. Losing
sight of them behind intervening clumps of oleander, myrtle, and
other shrubs, he turned once more to watch the groups upon the roof.
In a short time new figures seemed to arrive, around whom all the
others gathered with the attitude and air of listening.

Paulus felt as if he was assisting at a drama. A moment later the
roof was deserted by its living visitors, the statues remained alone
and silent, gesticulating and flashing in the sun. Tidings must have
come. Something must have happened, thought Paulus; and, as the
day was already declining, he gathered up his fishing-tackle and
wended homeward. On the way he met a man in hide sandals, carrying
a large staff and piked with iron. It was a shepherd, of whom he
asked whether there was any thing new. "Have you not heard?" said the
man; "the flocks will fetch a better price--the emperor has come to
Formiae."

Full of this intelligence, and anxious at once to consult Aglais
whether, before Augustus should leave the neighborhood, he ought not
to endeavor by all means now to obtain a hearing from him, Paulus
mended his pace; but while he thought he might be the bearer of
news, some news awaited him. He passed through the little western
trellis gate into the quoit-alley, and so by the garden toward the
house. A couple of female slaves, who were talking and laughing
about something like the impudence of a slave, and depend on it a
love-letter it is, but it's Greek, which seemed to afford them much
amusement, stood at the door of the lower arbor, which inclosed
the foot of the stairs leading up to the landing of his mother's
apartments. Noticing him, they hastily went about their business in
different directions, and he ran up the stairs, and found his mother
and sister talking in low tones, just inside the open door of the
upper arbor in the large sitting-room, which, as the reader knows,
was also the room where they took their meals.

"I am glad you have returned, Paulus," said his mother. "Look at
this; your sister found it about half an hour ago on the landing in
the arbor."

And Aglais handed him a piece of paper, on which was written, in a
clear and elegant hand, in Greek:

"_When power and craft hover in the air as hawks, let the ortolans
and ground-doves hide._"

Our hero read the words, turned the paper over, read the words again,
and said, "I don't see the meaning of this. It is some scrap of a
school-boy's theme, perhaps."

"School-boys do not often write such a hand," said Aglais; "nor is
the paper a scrap torn off--it is a complete leaf. And, again, why
should it be found upon our landing?"

"What school-boys could come up our stairs? There are none in the
inn, are there? Have you been in all day?" asked Paulus.

"No; we were returning from a walk across the fields to see the place
near Cicero's villa of Formianum, where the assassins overtook him,
and as Agatha, who ran up-stairs before me, reached the landing, she
observed something white on the ground, and picked it up. It was that
paper. Some stranger must have been up-stairs while we were away."

"Crispus or Crispina would not have said this to us by means of an
anonymous writing. They have given us the same warning without
disguise, personally."

"But they spoke only according to their own opinion," returned
Paulus. "Coming from some one else, the same advice acquires yet
greater importance. Some unknown person bears witness of the danger
which our host and hostess merely suspect, and at which Thellus, the
lanista, hinted, as perhaps impending, but which even he did not
affirm to be a reality."

"That is," added Paulus, "if this bit of paper has been intended for
us--I mean for you and for Agatha, because I am not a ground-dove."

"Well, I do not see," said the lady, musing, "what more we can do for
the moment. Our trusty Philip is on the way with my letter to your
uncle; he may be by this time on the way back. Till he returns, what
can we do?"

"I know not," said Paulus. "Have you asked Crispina about this paper?"

"We waited first to consult you," said Aglais; "and," added Agatha,
"there is another singular thing--we have not seen Benigna all day,
who was so regular in attending upon us. The hostess told us that
Benigna was suffering with a bad headache; and when I wanted to go
and tend her, Crispina hindered me, saying she had lain down and was
trying to sleep."

"What about the lover?" inquired Paulus--"the slave Claudius?"

"He has gone away all of a sudden, though his holiday has not
expired. I really suspect that Benigna and he must have had a
quarrel, and that this is why he has left the place, and why Benigna
is so ill."

The _clepsydra_, or water-clock, on the floor in a corner, showed
that it was now past the time when their evening repast was usually
prepared. They were wondering at the delay, when Crispus, first
knocking at the door which led from the passage, entered. He seemed
alarmed. They put various questions to him which the circumstances
rendered natural, showing him the paper that had been dropped on the
landing. He said that he thought he could make a pretty good surmise
about that matter; but inasmuch as Benigna, who had been crying out
her little heart, was much better, and had declared she would come
herself when they had supped, and tell them every thing, he would
prefer to leave the recital to her, if they would permit him.

Meantime he confirmed the news that the emperor had arrived at
the neighboring town, that the festivities had begun at the
Mamurran palace, and that in a day or two the public part of the
entertainments, the shows and battles of the circus, which would
last for several successive mornings and evenings, would be opened.
He said it was usual to publish a sort of promissory plan of these
entertainments; and he expected to receive, through the kindness of
a friend at court, (a slave,) some copies of the document early next
morning, when he would hasten to place it in their hands. While thus
speaking to them with an air of affected cheerfulness, he laid the
table for supper. Actuated by a curiosity in which a good deal of
uneasiness was mingled, since he would not himself tell them all they
desired to know, they requested him to go and send Benigna as soon as
possible; and when at last he retired with this injunction, they took
their supper in unbroken silence.

Benigna came. The secret was disclosed, and it turned slow-growing
apprehension into present and serious alarm.

"What! Claudius a spy! The spy of Tiberius set as a sort of secret
sentry over us! Who would have thought it?"

Benigna, turning very red and very pale by turns, had related what
she had learnt, and how she had acted. Little knowing either the
secret ties between her mother and this half-Greek family, or the
interest and affection she had herself conceived for them, her lover
had told her that she might help most materially in a business of
moment intrusted to him by his master; adding that, if he gave the
Caesar satisfaction in this, he should at once obtain his liberty,
and then they might be married. She answered that he must know how
ready she was to further his plans, and bade him explain himself,
in order that she might learn how to afford him immediately the
service which he required. But no sooner had she understood what
were his master's commands, than she was filled with consternation.
She informed him that her father and mother would submit to death
rather than betray the last scions of the AEmilian race, and that she
herself would spurn all the orders of Tiberius before she would hurt
a hair of their heads. She mentioned, with a little sob, that she had
further informed Claudius that she never would espouse a man capable
of plotting mischief against them. Upon this announcement Claudius
had behaved in a way "worthy of any thing." He there and then took
an oath to renounce the mission he had undertaken. He had neither
known its objects nor suspected its villainy. But Benigna, whose mind
he thus relieved, he filled with a new anxiety by expressing his
conviction that Tiberius Caesar would forthwith destroy him. However,
of this he had now gone to take his chance.

"Did Claudius," asked Paulus, "intend to tell the Caesar that he
disapproved of the service upon which he had been sent, and would not
help to execute it?"

"No, sir," said Benigna. "We were a long time consulting what he
should, what he could say. He is very timid; it is his only fault.
He is going to throw all the blame upon me, and thus he will mention
that I, that he, that we, were going to be married, and that, in
order the more effectually to watch the movements of ladies to
whom he personally could get no access under this roof, the bright
notion had occurred to him to enlist my services, so as to render
it impossible that these ladies should escape him; or that their
movements should remain unknown, when lo! unfortunately for his plan,
he finds I love these ladies too well to play the spy upon them;
that I refused, and even threatened, if he did not retire from his
sentry-box forthwith, not only to break off my nuptial engagement
with him, but to divulge to the family that they were the objects of
espial."

"Which you have done," said Aglais, "even though he has complied with
your demands."

Poor Benigna smiled. "Yes," said she, "I was bent upon that the
instant I knew; but what my dear, unfortunate Claudius had to say
to Tiberius Caesar was the point. The Caesar is not to be told every
thing. My head is bursting to think what will happen."

Here she broke into a fit of crying. They all, except Paulus, tried
to comfort her. He had started to his feet when he first understood
the one fact, that this young girl had sacrificed not only her
matrimonial hopes, but the very safety of her lover himself, to
the claims of honor and the laws of friendship. He was now pacing
the width of the room in long strides with an abstracted air, from
which he awaked every now and then to contemplate with a thoughtful
look the anguish and terror depicted in the innocent face of the
innkeeper's little daughter.

At last he stopped and said to her,

"Of what are you afraid?"

"The anger of that dreadful man."

"What dreadful man?"

She answered with a couple of sobs,

"The august, red-faced, big, divine beast."

"But neither you nor your lover have done any thing unlawful, any
thing wrong."

"That is no security," said poor Benigna, shaking her head and
wringing her hands.

"That ought to be a security," said Aglais; adding in a mutter, "but
often is a danger."

"It is not even allowed by people that it ought to be a security,"
returned the girl.

"Until it is so allowed, and so practised too, the earth will
resemble Tartarus rather than the Elysian Fields," said Aglais with
energy.

Benigna began to cry amid her sympathetic audience, and said,

"It was so like the Elysian Fi-fields yesterday, and now it is like
Tar-tartarus! They will kill him."

"For supper, do you mean?" asked Paulus, laying his powerful, white,
long-fingered hand upon Benigna's head, while Agatha embraced her.
"But then, how will they cook him? How ought a Claudius to be cooked?"

The young girl looked up wistfully through her tears, and said,

"You do not know that awful divine man."

"I think I half suspect him," answered Paulus. "But the red-faced,
big, divine beast, as you call him, will reward Claudius, instead of
being angry with him, and this I will show you clearly. Was it not
a proof both of zeal and of prudence, on Claudius's part, in the
service of his master, to endeavor to enlist your assistance? And
again, upon finding, contrary to all likelihood--as Tiberius himself
will admit, and would be the first to contend--that you preferred
virtue, and truth, and honor, and good faith, to your own manifest
and immediate interests, and to success in love--upon finding this
extraordinary and unlikely fact occurring, was it not clearly the
duty of Claudius to his master to hasten away at once and tell him
the precise turn which events had taken? _Now, what else has been his
conduct, young damsel?_ What, except exactly all this, has Claudius
done? Will he not, then, be rewarded by his master, instead of being
eaten for supper?"

"Ah noble sir!" cried Benigna with clasped hands, "what wisdom and
what beautiful language the gods have given you! This must be what
people call Greek philosophy, expounded with Attic taste."


CHAPTER XIII.

Next morning at breakfast, Paulus announced that he had resolved to
go to Formiae and seek an audience of the emperor himself.

"How will you get one?" asked Aglais; "and if you get one, what good
will it do you?"

"It will depend upon circumstances," he replied; "for, whether I fail
to get speech of the emperor, or, succeeding in that, fail to get
justice from him, process of law remains equally open, and so does
process of interest. Both means are, I suppose, always doubtful, and
generally dilatory. I spoil no chance by trying a sudden and direct
method of recovering our family rights; while if I succeed, which is
just possible, I shall save a world of trouble and suspense."

After some discussion, his mother yielded to her son's impetuous
representations, more with the view of undeceiving him, and
reconciling him to other proceedings, than with any hope of a good
result.

Paulus had taken his broad-brimmed hat, saying that in three or four
hours he expected to be back again at the inn; but that if he did
not reappear, they were to conclude that he had found a lodging at
Formiae, and that he was remaining there for some good reason; when
the door was flung open, and breathless, radiant, holding an unfolded
letter in her hand, Benigna rushed into the room.

"Read, read," she cried, "and give me joy! I was unjust to the noble
prince."

She handed the letter to Aglais, who read aloud what follows:

                                                    "FORMIAE.

    "AElius Sejanus, the praetorian prefect greets Crispus, keeper
    of the inn at 100 Milestone. Our Caesar is so pleased with the
    slave Claudius, that he has resolved to give him his freedom
    and the sum of fifty thousand sesterces, upon which to take a
    wife and to begin any calling he may prefer. And understanding
    that he is engaged, whenever he becomes a free man, to marry
    your daughter Benigna, and knowing not only that good news
    is doubly agreeable when it comes from the mouth of a person
    beloved, but that to the person who loves it is agreeable also
    to be the bearer of it, he desires that your daughter, whose
    qualities and disposition he admires, should be the first
    to tell her intended husband Claudius of his happy fortune.
    Let her, therefore, come to-morrow to Formiae, where, at the
    Mamurran palace, Caesar will give her a message which is to be
    at once communicated to the slave Claudius. Farewell."

"I want to go at once to Formiae," cried Benigna.

"Well, I am even now going," said Paulus; "and if you intend to walk,
I will guard you from any annoyance either on the way or at Formiae, a
town which you know is at present swarming with soldiers."

This offer was, of course, too valuable not to be cheerfully accepted.

A few moments after the foregoing conversation, Paulus and Benigna
left the inn of Crispus together. The roads were full of groups of
persons of all ranks, in carriages, on horseback, and on foot. Some
of these were bound countryward, but not one for every score of those
who were bound in their own direction. No adventure befell them, and
in less than two hours they arrived at their destination. It was easy
to find the Mamurran palace, to the principal door of which, guarded
by a Praetorian sentry on either hand, Paulus forthwith escorted
Benigna.

There was no footway on either side of the street, and as they
approached the door they heard the clang of the metal knocker resound
upon _the inside_. At the same moment the sentinel nearest to them
shouted "_linite_," (by your leave.) Two or three persons at this
warning shrank hurriedly into the middle of the road; a Numidian
rider made his horse bound aside, and the large folding-doors were
simultaneously flung open outward.

Immediately appeared the very man in the dark-dyed purple robe of
whom the little damsel was in quest, and upon whose personal aspect,
already minutely described in a former place, we need not here dwell.
A handsome gentleman, in middle life, with an acute and thoughtful
face, who wore the Greek mantle called ~chlaina~, (_laena_,) but
differently shaped from an augur's, followed. Both these persons
moved with that half-stoop which seems like a continued though very
faint bow; and when in the street, they turned, stood still and
waited. Then came forth, leaning on a knight's arm, and walking
somewhat feebly, a white-haired, ancient, and majestic man, around
whose person, in striking contrast with the many new fashions of
dress lately become prevalent, a snowy woollen toga, with broad
violet borders, flowed. Under this toga, indeed, was a tunic richly
embroidered with gold, and having painted upon it the head of the
idol called the Capitoline Jove, half hidden by a wide double stripe
of scarlet silk.

When this personage had come into the street, all those who chanced
to be there uncovered. Tiberius, the gentleman in the Greek mantle,
and the knight himself upon whose arm the object of all this
reverence continued to lean, did the same; and it was thus that
Paulus, who had already guessed from frequent descriptions formerly
received, knew for certain that he beheld for the first time Augustus
Caesar, sovereign of three hundred million human beings, and absolute
master of the known world. In a moment those who formed the personal
company of the emperor resumed their head-gear; some soldiers who
happened to be passing did the same, and proceeded upon their
respective errands; but the inhabitants remained gazing until the
group began to move on foot up the street in the direction of the
temporary circus which had been completed by the knight Mamurra in
some fields north-west of the town.

Paulus turned to Benigna and said, "You perceive the red-faced--ehem!
the great man. He does not know you, though you know him. Shall I
tell him who you are? Indeed, I have not come hither merely to stare
about me; so wait you here."

He thereupon left her, and quickly overtaking, and then passing
before, the group in which was Augustus, turned round and stood
directly in their way, hat in hand; but all his sensations were
different from what he had expected. He grew very red and shamefaced,
and felt a sudden confusion that was new to his experience. As it
was impossible to walk over him, they, on their part, halted for a
moment, and looked at him with an expression of surprise which was
common to them all, though indeed not in the same degree. The person
who seemed the least astonished was the emperor; and the person who
seemed more so than any of the rest was Tiberius. Some displeasure,
too, seemed to flash in the glance which he bent upon the youth.

But Paulus, though abashed, did not lose presence of mind to such an
extent as to behave stupidly. He said,

"I ask our august emperor's pardon for interrupting his promenade, in
order to report to Tiberius Caesar the execution of an order. Yonder
is Crispus's daughter, illustrious sir," he added, turning toward
Tiberius; "she has come hither according to your own commands."

"True," said Tiberius; "let her at once seek the prefect Sejanus, who
will give the necessary instructions."

Paulus's natural courage and enterprising temper had carried him thus
far; but his design of accosting and directly addressing Augustus
Caesar now seemed, when he had more speedily found an opportunity of
doing so than he could have dared to hope, a strange and difficult
undertaking. How he should procure access to the emperor had been
the problem with him and his family heretofore; but now, when the
access was already achieved, and when he had only to speak--now when
his voice was sure to reach the ears of the emperor himself--he
knew not what to say or how to begin. He had thought of splendid
topics, of deductions which he would draw, certain arguments which
he would urge--a matter very plain and easy: in fine, a statement
simple, brief, and conclusive; but all this had vanished from his
mind. There before him, holding back the folds of his toga with
one white hand, upon the back of which more than seventy years had
brought out a tracery of blue varicose veins--a modern doctor would
call them--with the other hand, which was gloved, and grasping the
fellow glove, laid upon the arm of the knight already mentioned,
stood the person who, under forms, the republican semblance of which
he carefully preserved, exercised throughout the whole civilized
and nearly the whole known world, over at least two if not three
hundred million souls, a power as uncontrolled and as absolute for
all practical purposes as any which, before him or after him, ever
fell to man's lot; enthusiastically guarded and religiously obeyed by
legions before whom mankind trembled, and whose superiors as soldiers
had not been seen then and have not been seen since; the perpetual
tribune of the people, the prince, senator, perpetual consul, the
supreme judge, the arbiter of life and death, the umpire in the
greatest concerns between foreign disputants travelling from the
ends of the earth to plead before him; the dispenser of prefectures,
provinces, proconsulates, tetrarchies, and kingdoms; treated by kings
as those kings were themselves treated by the high functionaries whom
they had appointed or confirmed, and could in an instant dismiss; the
unprincipled, cruel, wicked, but moderate-tempered, cold-humored,
cautious, graceful-mannered, elegant-minded, worldly-wise, and
politic prince, who paid assiduous court to all the givers and
destroyers of reputation--I mean, to the men of letters. There he
stood, as we have described him, holding his toga with one hand and
leaning upon Mamurra's arm with the other; and Paulus stood before
him, and Paulus knew not what to say; hardly, indeed--so quickly
the sense of bashfulness, confusion, depression had gained upon
him--hardly how to look.

"If you have heard," observed Tiberius at length, "pray stand aside."

Paulus, who, while Tiberius was speaking, had looked at him, now
glanced again toward the emperor, and still hesitated, made a
shuffling bow, and stood partly aside.

"What is it you wish to say?" asked Augustus, in a somewhat feeble
voice, not at all ungraciously.

"I wish," said Paulus, becoming very pale, "to say, my sovereign,
that my father's property in this very neighborhood was taken away
after the battle of Philippi and given to strangers, and to beg of
your justice and clemency to give back that property or an equivalent
to me, who am my dead father's only son."

"But," said Augustus smiling, "half the land in Italy changed hands
about the time you mention. Your father fought for Brutus, I suppose?"

"My father fought for you, my lord," said Paulus.

"Singular!" exclaimed Augustus; "but this is not a court of
justice--the courts are open to you."

At this moment Sejanus and one whom Paulus presumed to be in Rome,
Cneius Piso, attended by a slave, appeared from a cross street. The
slave approached quickly, holding a pigeon; and having caught the eye
of Augustus, who beckoned to him, he handed the bird to the emperor.

Paulus withdrew a little, but lingered near the group. Augustus,
disengaging a piece of thin paper from the pigeon's neck, said,

"From Illyricum, I suppose. We shall now learn what progress those
Germans have made. O Varus, Varus!" added he, in words which he
had of late often been heard to repeat, "give me back the legions,
'_redde legiones! redde legiones!_'"

A breathless silence lasted while Augustus perused the message taken
from the neck of the carrier-pigeon. As he crushed the paper in his
hands, he muttered something; and while he muttered, the scorbutic
face of Tiberius (perhaps scrofulous would better render the epithet
used by Tacitus) burned ominously. In what the emperor said Paulus
caught the words, "_danger to Italy_, but Germanicus knows how."

"Varus lost the legions a thousand times, a thousand paces westward
of this irruption," said Tiberius.

"A calamity like that," said Augustus, "is felt far and near. The
whole empire suffers, nor will it recover in my time. Ah! the
legions."

Paulus perceived that he himself was now forgotten; moreover, looking
back, he saw the poor young damsel, left by him at the door of the
Mamurran palace, still standing alone and unprotected; but some
fascination riveted him.

In a moment a great noise was heard, which lasted a couple of
minutes; a mighty roar, indistinct, blended, hoarse, as of tens of
thousands of men uttering one immense shout. It was, had it lasted,
like the sound of the sea breaking upon some cavernous coast.

Upon a look of inquiry and surprise from the emperor, Sejanus sent
the slave who had brought the carrier-pigeon to ascertain the cause,
and before the sound had ceased the messenger returned, and reported
that it was only Germanicus Caesar riding into camp. Augustus fixed
his eyes on the ground, and Tiberius looked at Sejanus and at Cneius
Piso.

The emperor, after a second or two of musing, resumed his way toward
the rustic circus and the camp, attended by those around.

Paulus felt he had not gained much by his interview. He now touched
the arm of Sejanus, who was about following the imperial group, and
said, pointing toward the spot where Benigna still stood waiting,

"Yonder is Crispina's daughter, who is here in obedience to your
letter."

Sejanus answered this reminder with a sour and peculiar smile.

"Good," said he; "she has come to announce the fine news to her
betrothed. Let her tell him that he has only to break a horse for
Tiberius Caesar to obtain his freedom. I have no time to attend any
more to slaves and their mates. She has now but to ask for Claudius
at that palace. He has orders to expect her, and to receive from her
mouth the pleasing information I have just given you."

Saying this, he walked away.

Our hero conceived some undefined misgiving from these words, or
rather from the tone, perhaps, in which the prefect had uttered them.
Unable to question the speaker, he slowly returned to poor little
Benigna, and said, "Well, Benigna, I have ascertained what you have
to do; and, first of all, Claudius expects you within."

As he spoke, he knocked at the door. This time only one leaf of it
was opened, and a slave, standing in the aperture, and scanning
Paulus and his companion, demanded their business; while the sentries
on either hand at the sculptured pillars, or _antae_ of the porch,
looked and listened superciliously.

"Is the secretary-slave Claudius here?" asked the youth.

Before the porter could reply, steps and voices resounded in the
hall within, and the porter sprang out of the way, flinging almost
into Paulus's face the other leaf of the door, and bowing low. Three
gentlemen, two of whom apparently were half-drunk, their faces
flushed, and their arms linked together, appeared staggering upon
the threshold, where they stood awhile to steady themselves before
emerging into the street.

"I tell you, my Pomponius Flaccus," said he who was in the middle--a
portly man, with a good-natured, shrewd, tipsy look--"it is all a
pretty contrivance, and there will be no slaughter, for the beast is
to be muzzled."

"And I tell you, my Lucius Piso," returned he on the left, a wiry
drinker, "my governor of Rome, my dedicatee of Horace--"

"I am not the dedicatee of Horace," interrupted the other; "poor
Horace dedicated the art-poetical to my two sons."

"How could he do that?" broke in Pomponius. "You see double. Two
sons, indeed! How many sons have you? tell me that. Again, how could
one man dedicate a single work to a double person? answer me that.
You know nothing whatever about poetry, except in so far as it is
fiction; but we don't want fiction in these matters. We want facts;
and it is a fact--a solemn fact--that the slave will be devoured."

"I hold it to be merely a pleasant fiction," retorted Piso fiercely.

"Then I appeal to Thrasyllus here," rejoined the other. "O thou
Babylonian seer! will not Claudius the slave be devoured in the
circus before the assembled people?"

At these words our hero looked at Benigna, and Benigna at him, and
she was astounded.

He who was thus questioned--a man of ghastly face, with long, black
hair hanging down to his shoulders, and sunken, wistful, melancholy
eyes--wore an Asiatic dress. He was not intoxicated, and seemed to
have fallen by chance into his present companionship, from which he
appeared eager to disengage himself.

Gently shaking off the vague hand of Pomponius Flaccus, he acted as
the oracles did.

"You are certainly right," he said; but he glanced at Lucius Piso
while speaking, and then stepped quickly into the street, which he
crossed.

Each of the disputants naturally deemed the point to have been
decided in his own favor.

"You hear?" cried Flaccus; "the horse is to paw him to death, and
then to devour him alive."

"How can he?" said Piso. "How can he, after d--d--death, devour him
alive? Besides, Thrasyllus declared that I was right."

"Why," shouted Flaccus, "if we had not been drinking together all the
morning, I should think you had lost your senses."

"Not by any means," said Piso; "and I will prove to you by logic that
Claudius the slave," (again at this name our hero and poor little
Benigna looked at each other--she starting and turning half-round, he
merely directing a glance at her,) "that Claudius the slave will not
and cannot be devoured by Sejanus--I mean that beast Sejanus."

Paulus, chancing to look toward the two praetorian sentries, whose
general he supposed to be mentioned, observed them covertly smiling.
More puzzled than ever, he gave all his attention to the tipsy
dispute which was raging in the palace doorway.

"Well, prove it then," roared Flaccus, "with your logic!"

"Have I not a thumb?" resumed Lucius Piso; "and can I not turn it
down in the nick of time, and so save the wretch?"

"Ho! ho! ho!" laughed out the other; "and what notice will a horse
take of your thumb? Is this horse such an ass as to mind whether your
thumb be up or down, though you are governor of Rome?"

"Perhaps you think," retorted Piso, in a tone of concentrated
bitterness, "with your rules of logic, that the horse is not properly
trained to his manners?"

"Have I not told you," said Flaccus, "in spite of your rules of
thumb, that the horse is not an ass?"

The rudeness and coarseness of Pomponius Flaccus had succeeded in
sobering Lucius Piso. He here remained a moment silent, drew himself
up with dignity to the full height of his portly person, and at last
said,

"Enough! When you have drunk a little more, you will be able to
understand a plain demonstration. But whom have we here? Why, it is
our glorious Apicius, whose table no other table rivals for either
abundance or delicacy. Who is your venerable friend, Apicius?"

This was addressed to a dyspeptic-looking youth, magnificently
attired, who, in company with a person in the extreme decline of
life, approached the door. Paulus and Benigna stood aside, finding
themselves still constrained to listen while waiting for room to
enter the blocked-up door of the palace.

"Is it possible," replied Apicius, "that you forget Vedius Pollio,
who, since you mention my poor table, has often kindly furnished it
with such lampreys as no other mortal ever reared?"

The old man, whose age was not redolent of holiness, but reeking
with the peculiar aroma of a life passed in boundless and systematic
self-indulgence, leered with running, bloodshot eyes, and murmured
that they paid him too much honor.

"Sir, you feed your lampreys well," said Pomponius Flaccus, "in your
Vesuvian villa. _They eat much living, and they eat well dead._"

"I assure you," said Pollio, "that nothing but humorous exaggerations
and witty stories have been circulated upon that subject. I can,
with the strictest accuracy, establish the statement that no human
being ever died merely and simply in order that my lampreys should
grow fat and luscious. On the other hand, I do not deny that if some
slave, guilty of great enormities, had in any event to forfeit life,
the lampreys may in such cases, perhaps, have availed themselves of
the circumstance. An opportunity might then arise which they had
neither caused nor contrived."

"The flavor, in other words, never was the final cause of any slave's
punishment," said Lucius Piso.

"You use words, sir," said Pollio, "which are correct as to the fact,
and philosophical as to the style."

"Talking of philosophy," said Apicius, "do you hold with this young
Greek, this Athenian Dion who has lately visited the court, that man
eats in order to live? or with me, that he lives in order to eat?"

"Horror of horrors!" murmured Flaccus, "the Athenian boy is demented."

"Whenever there is any thing to eat with you, my Apicius," said
Lucius Piso, "unless there be something to drink with my Pomponius
here, may I be alive to do either the one or the other."

"Why not do both?" wheezed Vedius Pollio. "Whither are you even now
going?"

"To the camp for an appetite," said Pomponius Flaccus, descending the
steps out of the palace hall into the street, and reeling against
Paulus, who held him from staggering next against Benigna.

"What do you two want here?" he suddenly asked steadying himself.

"I am accompanying," replied Paulus, "this damsel, who comes hither
by Caesar's order."

"What Caesar?" asked Pomponius.

"Tiberius Claudius Nero," returned Paulus.

He naturally supposed that this formal-sounding answer would have
struck some awe into the curious company among whom he had so
unwittingly alighted with his rustic charge.

"What!" exclaimed Pomponius Flaccus, "Biberius Caldius Mero, say you?"

Paulus started in amazement.

"_Ebrius_, drunk," continued Piso, _ex quo_--How does it go on? _ex
quo_--"

"_Ex quo_," resumed Pomponius solemnly, "_semel factus est_."[160]

The astonishment of Paulus and Benigna knew no bounds. Was it
possible that in the very precincts of Caesar's residence for the
time, at the door of an imperial palace, within hearing of two
praetorian sentries, in the public street and open daylight, persons
should be found, not reckless outcasts maddened by desperation, but
a whole company of patricians, who, correcting each other as they
might do in reciting a popular proverb, or an admired song, should
speak thus of the man to whom gladiators, having not an hour to
live, cried, "As we die we salute thee?" The man at whose name even
courageous innocence trembled?

"I said," repeated Paulus after a pause, "Tiberius Claudius Nero."

"And I said," replied Pomponius, "Biberius Caldius Mero."

"Drunk but once," added Lucius Piso, who had evidently quite
recovered from his own inebriation.

"Since ever he was so first," concluded Pomponius Flaccus.

A general laugh, in which all present joined save Paulus and Benigna,
greeted this sally, and, in the midst of their hilarity an elegant
open chariot of richly-sculptured bronze, the work being far more
costly than the material, drawn by two handsome horses, and driven by
a vigorous and expert charioteer, came swiftly down the street in the
contrary direction of the camp, and stopped opposite the door.

As the horses were pulled back upon their haunches, a youth, tall,
well made, and eminently graceful, sprang to the ground. He had
a countenance in the extraordinary beauty of which intellect,
attempered by a sweet, grave, and musing expression, played
masterful and luminous. He was neatly but gravely dressed, after
the Athenian fashion. The four personages at the door, who were,
by the by, far more floridly arrayed, and wore various ornaments,
nevertheless looked like bats among which a bird of paradise had
suddenly alighted. No gayety of attire could cover the unloveliness
of their minds, lives, and natures, nor could the plainness of his
costume cause the new-comer to be disregarded or mistaken anywhere.
In the whole company Lucius Piso alone was a man of sense, solid
attainments, and spirit, though he was a hard drinker. Even the
others, drivelling jesters as they were, became sober now at once;
they uncovered instinctively, and greeted the youth, as he passed,
with an obeisance as low as that performed by the _ostiarius_, who
stood ready to admit him. When, returning these salutes, he had
entered the palace, Piso said, for the information of Vedius Pollio,
who had come from Pompeii, "_That is he_."

"What! the young Athenian philosopher of whom we have heard so much?"

"Yes. Dionysius, young as he is, I am told that he is certain to fill
the next vacancy in their famous Areopagus."

"He is high in Augustus's good graces, is he not?" asked Pollio.

"Augustus would swear by him," said Flaccus. "It is lucky for all of
us that the youth has no ambition, and is going away again soon."

"What does Biberius say of him?" inquired Apicius.

"Say? Why, what does he ever say of any one, at least of any
distinguished man?"

"Simply not a word."

"Well, think then what does he think?"

"Not lovingly, I suspect. Their spirits, their geniuses, would not
long agree. If he was emperor, Dionysius of Athens would not have so
brilliant a reception at court."

"But is it then really brilliant? Does one so young sustain his own
part?" asked Pollio.

"You never heard any person like him; I will answer for that,"
replied Lucius Piso. "He is admirable. I was amazed when I met him.
Augustus, you know, is no dotard, and Augustus is enchanted with him.
The men of letters, besides, are all raving about him, from old Titus
Livy down to L. Varius, the twiddler of verses, the twiddle-de-dee
successor of our immortal Horace and our irreplaceable Virgil. And
then Quintus Haterius, who has scarcely less learning than Varro,
(and much more worldly knowledge;) Haterius, who is himself what
erudite persons rarely are, the most fascinating talker alive, and
certainly the finest public speaker that has addressed an assembly
since the death of poor Cicero, declares that Dionysius of Athens--"

"Ah! enough! enough!" cried Apicius, interrupting; "you make me
sick with these praises of airy, intangible nothings. I shan't eat
comfortably to-day. What are all his accomplishments, I should like
to know, compared to one good dinner?"

"You will have long ceased to eat," retorted Piso, "when his name
will yet continue to be pronounced."

"And what good will pronouncing do, if you are hungry?" said Apicius.

"What has he come to Italy for?" persisted old Pollio.

"You know," said Piso, "that all over the east, from immemorial time,
some great, mysterious, and stupendous being has been expected to
appear on earth about this very date."

"Not only in the east, good Piso," said Pollio; "my neighbor in
Italy, you know, the Cumaean sibyl, is construed now never to have had
any other theme."

"You are right," returned Piso; "I meant to say that the prevailing
notion has always been that it is in the east this personage will
appear, and then his sway is to extend gradually into every part
of the world. Old sayings, various warning oracles, traditions
among common peasants, who cannot speak each other's languages and
don't even know of each other's existence, the obscure songs of
the sibyls, the dream of all mankind, the mystical presentiments
of the world concur, and have long concurred, upon that singular
subject. Moreover, the increasing corruption of morals, to which
Horace adverts," added Piso, "will and must end in dissolving
society altogether, unless arrested by the advent of some such
being. That is manifest. Haterius and others, who are learned in
the Hebrew literature, tell me that prodigies and portents, so well
authenticated that it is no more possible to doubt them than it is to
doubt that Julius Caesar was murdered in Rome, were performed by men
who, ages ago, much more distinctly and minutely foretold the coming
of this person at or near the very time in which we are living; and,
accordingly, that the whole nation of the Jews (convinced that those
who could perform such things must have enjoyed more than mortal
knowledge and power) fully expect and firmly believe that the being
predicted by these workers of portents is now immediately to appear.
Thus, Haterius--"

"No," said Pomponius Flaccus, shaking his head, looking on the
ground, and pressing the tip of his forefinger against his forehead,
"_that is not Haterius's_ argument, or rather, _that is only the half
of it_."

"I now remember," resumed Lucius Piso; "you are correct in checking
my version of it. These ancient seers and wonder-workers had also
foretold several things that were to come to pass earlier than
the advent of the great being, and these things having in their
respective times all duly occurred, serve to convince the Jews,
and indeed have also convinced many philosophic inquirers, of whom
Dionysius is one, studying the prophetical books in question, and
then exploring the history of the Hebrews, to see whether subsequent
events really correspond with what had been foretold--that seers who
could perform the portents which they performed in their day, and
who besides possessed a knowledge of future events verified by the
issue, were and must be genuinely and truly prophets, and that their
predictions deserved belief concerning this great, mysterious, and
much-needed personage, who is to appear in the present generation.
And then there is the universal tradition, there is the universal
expectation, to confirm such reasonings," added Piso.

The astounding character, as well as the intrinsic importance and
interest of this conversation, its reference to his half-countryman
Dionysius, of whom he had heard so much, and the glimpses of society,
the hints about men and things which it afforded him, had prevented
Paulus from asking these exalted gentlefolk to make room for him and
Benigna to pass, and had held him, and indeed her also, spell-bound.

"But how all this accounts, most noble Piso, for the visit of the
Athenian to the court of Augustus, you have forgotten to say,"
remarked Pollio.

"He obtained," replied Piso, "the emperor's permission to study the
Sibylline books."

"What a pity," said Flaccus, "that the first old books were burnt in
the great fire at Rome."

"Well," resumed Lucius Piso, "he brought this permission to me, as
governor of Rome, and I went with him myself to the quindecemviri and
the other proper authorities. Oh! as to the books, it is the opinion
of those learned in such matters that there is little or nothing in
the old books which has not been recovered in the collection obtained
by the senate afterward from Cumae, Greece, Egypt, Babylon, and all
places where either the sibyls still lived, or their oracles were
preserved."

"But, after all," said Pollio, "are not these oracles the ravings of
enthusiasm, if not insanity?"

"Cicero, although in general so sarcastic and disdainful, so
incredulous and so hard to please," answered Piso, "has settled that
question."

"He has, I allow it," added Pomponius Flaccus, "and settled it most
completely. What a charming passage that is wherein the incomparable
thinker, matchless writer, and fastidious critic expresses his
reverential opinion of the Sibylline books, and demonstrates with
triumphant logic their claims upon the attention of all rational, all
clear-headed and philosophic inquirers!"

"I am not a rational, or clear-headed, or philosophic inquirer,"
broke in Apicius, "Come, do come to the camp; and do pray at last
allow this foreign-looking young gentleman and rustic damsel to enter
the doorway."

And so they all departed together.

The _atriensis_ had meanwhile summoned the master of admissions, who
beckoned to Paulus, and he, followed by Benigna, now entered the
hall, which was flagged with lozenge-formed marbles of different
hues, and supported by four pillars of porphyry. The adventurers
passed the perpetual fire in the ancestral or image-room, and saw
the images of the Mamurras, dark with the smoke of many generations;
they crossed another chamber hung with pictures, and went half round
the galleried and shady impluvium, inclosing a kind of internal
garden, where, under the blaze of the sunlight, from which they were
themselves sheltered, they beheld, like streams of shaken diamonds,
the spray of the plashing fountains, the statues in many-tinted
marble, and the glowing colors of a thousand exquisite flowers. Near
the end of one wing of the colonnaded quadrangle they arrived at a
door, which they were passing when their guide stopped them, and as
the door flew open to his knock, he made them a bow and preceded them
through the aperture.

They noticed, as they followed, that the slave who had opened this
door was chained to a staple. Several slaves, who scarcely looked up,
were writing in the room which they now entered.

The master of admissions, glancing round the chamber, said,
addressing the slaves in general, "Claudius is not here, I perceive;
let some one go for him, and say that the daughter of Crispus, of the
One Hundredth Milestone, has been charged to communicate to him the
pleasure of Tiberius Caesar touching his immediate manumission; and
that I, the master of admissions in the Mamurran palace, am to add
a circumstance or two which will complete the information the damsel
has to give. Let some one, therefore, fetch Claudius forthwith, and
tell him that he keeps us waiting."

During this speech, which was rather pompously delivered, Paulus
noticed that, close to a second door in the chamber at the end
opposite to that where they had entered, a young slave was seated
upon a low settle, with a hide belt round his waist, to which was
padlocked a light but strong brass chain, soldered at the nether link
to a staple in the floor. This slave now rose, and opening the door,
held it ajar till one of the clerks, after a brief whisper among
themselves, was detached to execute the errand which the steward had
delivered. The slave closed the door again, the clerks continued
their writing, the steward half-shut his eyes, and leaned against
a pillar in an attitude of serene if not sublime expectation; and
Paulus and Benigna waited in silence.

During the pause which ensued, Paulus beheld the steward suddenly
jump out of his dignified posture, and felt a hand at the same time
laid lightly on his own shoulder. Turning round, he saw the youth who
had a few minutes before descended from the bronze chariot.

"Ought I not to be an acquaintance of yours?" asked the new-comer
with an agreeable smile. "You are strikingly like one whom I have
known. He was a valiant Roman knight, once resident in Greece; I mean
Paulus Lepidus AEmilius, who helped, with Mark Antony, to win the
great day of Philippi."

"I am, indeed, his only son," said Paulus.

"You and a sister, I think," returned the other, "had been left at
home, in Thrace, with your nurse and the servants, when some business
a little more than three years ago brought your father and his wife,
the Lady Aglais, to Athens. There I met them. Alas! he is gone. I
have heard it. But where are your mother and your sister?"

Paulus told him.

"Well, I request you to say to them that Dionysius of Athens--so
people style me--remembers them with affection. I will visit them
and you. Do I intrude if I ask who is this damsel?" (glancing kindly
toward Benigna, who had listened with visible interest.)

Paulus told him, in a few rapid words, not only who she was, but with
distinct details upon what errand she had come.

He had scarcely finished when Claudius, the slave, arrived
breathless, in obedience to the summons of the magister.

"The orders of Tiberius Caesar to me," observed this functionary in
a slow, loud voice, but with rather a shamefaced glance at Dion,
"are, that I should see that you, Claudius, learnt from this maiden
the conditions upon which he is graciously pleased to grant you your
liberty, and then that I should myself communicate something in
addition."

"O Claudius!" began Benigna, blushing scarlet, "we, that is, not you,
but I--I was not fair, I was not just to Tib--that is--just read this
letter from the illustrious prefect Sejanus to my father."

Claudius, very pale and biting his lip, ran his eye in a moment
through the document, and giving it back to Benigna awaited the
communication.

"Well," said she, "only this moment have I learnt the easy, the
trifling condition which the generous Caesar, and tribune of the
people, attaches to his bounty."

There was a meaning smile interchanged among the slaves, which
escaped none present except Benigna; and Claudius became yet more
pallid.

"The prefect Sejanus has just told Master Paulus," pursued the young
maiden, "that you have only to break a horse for Tiberius Caesar to
obtain forthwith your freedom, and fifty thousand sesterces too," she
added in a lower voice.

A dead silence ensued, and lasted for several instants.

Paulus AEmilius, naturally penetrating and of a vivid though
imperfectly-educated mind, discerned this much, that some mystery,
some not insignificant secret, was in the act of disclosure. The
illustrious visitor from Athens had let the hand which lay on
Paulus's shoulder fall negligently to his side, and with his head
thrown a little back, and a somewhat downward-sweeping glance, was
surveying the scene. He possessed a far higher order of intellect
than the gallant and bright-witted youth who was standing beside
him; and had received, in the largest measure that the erudite
civilization of classic antiquity could afford, that finished mental
training which was precisely what Paulus, however accomplished in all
athletic exercises, rather lacked. Both the youths easily saw that
something was to come; they both felt that a secret was on the leap.

"Break a horse!" exclaimed the slave Claudius, with parched, white
lips; "I am a poor lad who have always been at the desk! What do I
know of horses or of riding?"

There was an inclination to titter among the clerks, but it was
checked by their good-nature--indeed, by their liking for Claudius;
they all looked up, however.

"Your illustrious master," replied the magister or steward, or
major-domo, "has thought of this, and, indeed, of every thing;" again
the man directed the same shamefaced glance as before toward Dion.
"Knowing, probably, your unexpertness in horses, which is no secret
among your fellow-slaves, and in truth, among all your acquaintances,
Tiberius Caesar has, in the first place, selected for you the very
animal, out of all his stables, which you are to ride at the games
in the circus before the couple of hundred thousand people who will
crowd the champaign."

"At the games!" interrupted Claudius, "and in the circus! Why, all
who know me know that I an arrant coward."

Like a burst of bells, peal upon peal, irrepressible, joyous,
defiant, and frank, as if ringing with astonishment and scorn at the
thing, yet also full of friendliness and honest pitying love for the
person, broke forth the laugh of Paulus. It was so genuine and so
infectious, that even Dion smiled in a critical, musing way, while
all the slaves chuckled audibly, and the slave chained to the staple
near the door rattled his brass fastenings at his sides. Only three
individuals preserved their gravity, the shamefaced steward, poor
little frightened Benigna, and the astonished Claudius himself.

"In the second place," pursued the magister or steward, "besides
choosing for you the very animal, the individual and particular
horse, which you are to ride, the Caesar has considerately determined
and decided, in view of your deserved popularity among all your
acquaintances, that, if any acquaintance of yours, any of your
numerous friends, any other person, in fine, whoever, in your stead
shall volunteer to break this horse for Tiberius Caesar, you shall
receive your freedom and the fifty thousand sesterces the very next
morning, exactly the same."

A rather weak and vague murmur of applause from the slaves followed
this official statement.

"And so the Caesar," said Claudius, "has both selected me the steed,
and has allowed me a substitute to break him, if I can find any
substitute. Suppose, however, that I decline such conditions of
liberty altogether--what then?"

"Then Tiberius Caesar sells you to-morrow morning to Vedius Pollio of
Pompeii, who has come hither on purpose to buy you, and carry you
home to his Cumaean villa."

"To his tank, you mean," replied poor Claudius, "in order that I may
fatten his lampreys. I am in a pretty species of predicament. But
name the horse which I am to break at the games."

Dion turned his head slightly toward the steward, who was about to
answer, and the steward remained silent. A sort of excitement shot
through the apartment.

"Name the horse, if you please, honored magister," said Claudius.
Even now the steward could not, or did not, speak.

Before the painful pause was broken, the attention of all present was
arrested by a sudden uproar in the street. The noise of a furious
trampling, combined with successive shrieks, whether of pain or
terror, was borne into the palace.

Dionysius, followed by Paulus, by Claudius, by the steward, and
Benigna, ran to the window, if such it can be termed, drew aside
the silken curtain, and pushed open the gaudily-painted, perforated
shutter, when a strange and alarming spectacle was presented in the
open space formed by cross-streets before the left front of the
mansion.

A magnificent horse of bigger stature, yet of more elegant
proportions, than the horses which were then used for the Roman
cavalry, was in the act of rearing; and within stroke of his
fore-feet, on coming down, lay a man, face under, motionless, a
woollen tunic ripped open behind at the shoulder, and disclosing some
sort of wound, from which blood was flowing. The horse, which was of
a bright roan color, was neither ridden nor saddled, but girt with
a cloth round the belly, and led, or rather held back, by two long
cavassons, which a couple of powerfully-built, swarthy men, dressed
like slaves, held at the further ends on opposite sides of the beast,
considerably apart, and perhaps thirty feet behind him. One of these
lines or reins--that nearest the palace--was taut, the other was
slack; and the slave who held the former had rolled it twice or
thrice round his bare arm, and was leaning back, and hauling, hand
over hand.

The animal had apparently stricken on the back, unawares, with a
fore-foot play and a pawing blow, the man who was lying so still and
motionless on the pavement, and the beast, having reared, was now
trying to come down upon his victim. But no sooner were his fore-legs
in the air than he, of course, thereby yielded a sudden purchase to
the groom who was pulling him with the taut cavasson, and this man
was thus at last enabled to drag him fairly off his hind-legs, and
to bring him with a hollow thump to the ground upon his side. Before
the brute could again struggle to his feet, four or five soldiers who
happened to be nigh, running to the rescue, had lifted, and carried
out of harm's way, the prostrate and wounded man.

"That is the very horse!" exclaimed the magister, stretching his neck
between the shoulders of Dion and Paulus, at the small window of the
palace.

"I observe," said Paulus, "that the cavasson is ringed to a
muzzle--the beast is indisputably muzzled."

"Why is he muzzled?"

"Because," replied the magister, "he eats people!"

"Eats people!" echoed Paulus, in surprise.

"O gods!" cried Benigna.

"Yes," quoth the steward; "the horse is priceless; he comes of an
inestimable breed; that is the present representative of the _Sejan
race of steeds_. Your Tauric horses are cats in comparison; your
cavalry horses but goats. That animal is directly descended from
the real horse Sejanus, and excels, they even say, his sire, and
indeed he also in his turn goes now by the old name. He is the horse
Sejanus."

At these words Paulus could not, though he tried hard, help casting
one glance toward Benigna, who had been with him only so short a time
before at the top of the palace, listening to the conversation of the
tipsy patricians. The poor little girl had become very white and very
scare-faced.

"Tell us more," said Dionysius, "of this matter, worthy magister. We
have all heard that phrase of ill omen--'such and such a person has
the horse Sejanus'--meaning that he is unlucky, that he is doomed to
destruction. Now, what is the origin and what is the true value of
this popular proverb?"

"Like all popular proverbs," replied the steward, with a bow of
the deepest reverence to the young Athenian philosopher, "it has
some value, my lord, and a real foundation, although Tiberius has
determined to confute it by practical proof. You must know, most
illustrious senator of Athens, that during the civil wars which
preceded the summer-day stillness of this glorious reign of Augustus,
no one ever appeared in battle-field or festive show so splendidly
mounted as the knight Cneius Sejus, whose name has attached itself to
the race.

"His horse, which was of enormous proportions, like the beast you
have just beheld, would try to throw you first and would try to eat
you afterward. Few could ride him: and then his plan was simple.
Those whom he threw he would beat to death with his paws, and then
tear them to pieces with his teeth. Moreover, if he could not
dislodge his rider from the ephippia by honest plunging and fair
play, he would writhe his neck round like a serpent--indeed, the
square front, large eyes, and supple neck remind one of a serpent;
he would twist his head back, I say, all white and dazzling, with
the ears laid close, the lips drawn away, and the glitter of his
teeth displayed, and, seizing the knee-cap or the shinbone, would
tear it off, and bring down the best horseman that ever bestrode
a Bucephalus. What usually followed was frightful to behold; for,
once a rider was dismounted, the shoulder has been seen to come away
between the brute's teeth, with knots and tresses of tendons dripping
blood like tendrils, and the ferocious horse has been known with his
great fat grinders to crush the skull of the fallen person, and lap
up the brains--as you would crack a nut--after which, he paws the
prostrate figure till it no longer resembles the form of man. But
the present horse Sejanus, which you have just beheld, excels all in
strength, beauty, and ferocity; he belongs to my master Tiberius."

"Ah gods!" exclaimed poor Benigna; "this is the description of a
demon rather than of a beast."

Dionysius and Paulus exchanged one significant glance, and the former
said:

"What became of the first possessor, who yields his name to so
unexampled a breed of horses? what became of the knight Sejus?"

"A whisper had transpired, illustrious sir," replied the steward,
"that this unhappy man had fed the brute upon human flesh. Mark
Antony, who coveted possession of the horse, brought some accusation,
but not this, against the knight, who was eventually put to death;
but Dolabella, the former lieutenant of Julius Caesar, had just before
given a hundred thousand sesterces (L800) to Sejus for the animal;
therefore Antony killed the knight for nothing, and failed to get
Sejanus; at least he failed that time. Dolabella, however, did not
prosper; he almost immediately afterward murdered himself. Cassius
thereupon became the next master of the Sejan horse, and Cassius rode
him at the fatal battle of Philippi, losing which, Cassius in his
turn, after that resolute fashion of which we all have heard, put an
end to his own existence."

"To one form of it," observed Dionysius.

"This time," continued the magister, bowing, "Mark Antony had his
way--he became at last the lord of the Sejan horse, but likewise he,
in his turn, was doomed to exemplify the brute's ominous reputation;
for Antony, as you know, killed himself a little subsequently at
Alexandria. The horse had four proprietors in a very short period,
and in immediate succession, the first of whom was cruelly slain, and
the three others slew themselves. Hence, noble sir, the proverb."

By this time, the magister had told his tale, the street outside
had become empty and silent, and the parties within the chamber had
thoroughly mastered and understood the horrible truth which underlay
the case of the slave Claudius, and this new instance of Tiberius's
wrath and vengeance.

The magister, Claudius, and Benigna had returned to the other end of
the room, where the slaves were writing, and had left Paulus and Dion
still standing thoughtfully near the window.

Claudius exclaimed, "My turn it is at present; it will be some one
else's soon!"

He and Benigna were now whispering together. The magister stood a
little apart, looking on the ground in a deep reverie, his chin
buried in the hollow of his right hand, the arm of which was folded
across his chest. The slaves were bending over their work in silence.

Says Paulus in a low voice to Dion, "You have high credit with the
emperor, illustrious Athenian; and surely if you were to tell him the
whole case, he would interfere to check the cruelty of this man, this
Tiberius."

"What, Augustus do this for a slave?" replied Dion mournfully. "The
emperor would not, and by the laws could not, interfere with Vedius
Pollio, or any private knight, in the treatment or government of
his slaves, who are deemed to be the absolute property of their
respective lords; what chance, then, that he should meddle, or, if he
meddled, that he should successfully meddle, with Tiberius Caesar on
behalf of an offending mance? And this too for the sake, remember,
of a low-born girl? Women are accounted void of deathless souls,
my friend, even by some who suspect that men may be immortal. By
astuteness, by beauty, not beauteously employed, and, above all, by
the effect of habit, imperceptible as a plant in its growth, stealthy
as the prehensile ivy, some few individual women, like Livia,
Tiberius's mother, and Julia, Augustus's daughter, have acquired
great accidental power. But to lay down the principle that the
slightest trouble should be taken for these slaves, would in this
Roman world raise a symphony of derision as musical as the cry of the
Thessalian hounds when their game is afoot."

Paulus, buried in thought, stole a look full of pity toward the
further end of the apartment. "Slaves, women, laws, gladiators,"
he muttered, "and brute power prevalent as a god. Every day, noble
Athenian, I learn something which fills me with hatred and scorn for
the system amid which we are living." He then told Dion the story of
Thellus and Alba; he next laid before him the exact circumstances of
Benigna and Claudius; relating what had occurred that very morning,
and by no means omitting the strange and wonder-fraught conversation
at the door of the palace, after which he added,

"I declare to you solemnly--but then I am no more than an
uninstructed youth, having neither your natural gifts nor your
acquired knowledge--I never heard any thing more enchanting, more
exalted, more consoling, and to my poor mind more reasonable, or
more probable, than that some god is quickly to come down from
heaven and reform and control this abominable world. Why do I say
probable? Because it would be god-like to do it. I would ask nothing
better, therefore, than to be allowed to join you and go with you
all over the world; searching and well weighing whatever evidences
and signs may be accessible to man's righteously discontented and
justly wrathful industry in such a task; and I would be in your
company when you explored and decided whether this sublime dream,
this noble, generous, compensating hope, this grand and surely divine
tradition, be a truth, or, ah me! ah me! nothing but a vain poem of
the future--a beautiful promise never to be realized, the specious
mockery of some cruel muse."

Dion's blue eyes kindled and burned, but he remained silent.

"In the mean time, listen further," added Paulus. "What would the
divine being who is thus expected, were he in this room, deem of
this transaction before our eyes? You have heard the steward's
account of the horse Sejanus; you have heard Claudius's allusion to
Vedius Pollio's lampreys. Now, you are a wise, witty, and eloquent
person, and you can correct me if I say wrong--in what is the man
whom the horse Sejanus, for instance, throws and tears to pieces
better than the horse? In what is the man whom the lampreys devour
better than the lampreys? I say the horse and the lampreys are better
than the man, if mere power be a thing more to be esteemed and
honored than what is right, and just, and honorable, and estimable;
for the lampreys and the horse possess the greater might, most
indubitably, in the cases mentioned. The elephant is stronger than
we, the hound is swifter, the raven lives much longer. Either the
mere power to do a thing deserves my esteem more than any other
object or consideration, and therefore whoever can trample down his
fellow-men, and gratify all his brutal instincts at the expense
of their lives, their safety, their happiness, their reasonable
free-will, is more estimable than he who is just, truthful, kind,
generous, and noble--either, I say, the man who is strong against
his fellows is more good than he who is good--and the words justice,
right, gentleness, humanity, honor, keeping faith in promises, pity
for poor little women who are oppressed and brutally used, virtue,
and such noises made by my tongue against my palate, express nothing
which can be understood, nothing in which any mind can find any
meaning--either, I again say, the lampreys and the Sejan horse are
more to be esteemed, and valued, and loved than my sister and my
mother, or it is not true that the mere power of Tiberius, combined
with the brutish inclination to do a thing, terminates the question
whether it is right to do it. The moment I like to do any thing, if
I can do it, is it necessarily right that I should do it? The moment
two persons have a difference, is it right for either of them, and
equally right for each of them, to murder the other? But if it was
the intention of this great being, this god who is expected to appear
immediately among us, that we should be dependent upon each other,
each doing for the other what the other cannot do for himself--and I
am sure of it--then it will please him, Dion, if I consider what is
helpful and just and generous. Or am I wrong? Is virtue a dream? Are
contrary things in the same cases equally good? Are contrary things
in the same cases equally beautiful?

"Are my brutish instincts or inclinations, which vary as things vary
round me, my only law? Is each of us intended by this great being to
be at war with all the rest? to regard the positive power each of
us may have as our sole restriction? to destroy and injure all the
others by whom we could be served, if we would for our parts also
serve and help? And must women, for instance, being the weaker, be
brutally used? Tell me, Dion, will it please this great being if
I try to render service to my fellow-men, who must have the same
natural claims to his consideration as I have? or does he wish me
to hurt them and them to hurt me, according as we may each have the
power? Is there nothing higher in a man than his external power of
action? Answer--you are a philosopher."

The countenance of Dion blazed for one instant, as if the light of a
passing torch had been shed upon a mirror, and then resumed the less
vivid effulgence of that permanent intellectual beauty which was its
ordinary characteristic. He replied,

"All the philosophy that ever was taught or thought could not lead
you to truer conclusions."

"Then," returned Paulus, "come back with me to the other end of the
room."

"Benigna," said Paulus, "your kindness to my sister and mother, and
your natural probity, had something, I think, to do with beginning
this trouble in which you and your intended find yourselves. As you
were not unmindful of us, it is but right that we should not be
unmindful of you. Tiberius permits any friend of Claudius the slave
to be a substitute in breaking the horse Sejanus; and Claudius is
to have his freedom and fifty thousand sesterces, and to marry you,
whom I see to be a good, honorable-hearted girl, all the same as if
he had complied with the terms in person. This was thoughtful and, I
suppose, generous of Tiberius Caesar."

"Would any of these youths who hear me," added he turning round,
"like to break the fine-looking steed at the games, before all the
people, instead of Claudius?"

No one replied.

"It will be a distinguished act," persisted he.

Dead silence still.

"Then I will do it myself," he said. "Magister, make a formal note of
the matter in your tablets; and be so good as to inform the Caesar of
it, in order that I, on my side, may learn place and time."

The magister, with a low bow and a face expressing the most generous
and boundless astonishment, grasped his prettily-mounted stylus,
and taking the pengillarin from his girdle drew a long breath, and
requested Paulus to favor him with his name and address.

"I am," replied he, "the knight Paulus Lepidus AEmilius, son of one
of the victors at Philippi, nephew of the ex-triumvir. I reside at
Crispus's inn, and am at present a promised prisoner of Velleius
Paterculus, the military tribune."

While the steward wrote in his tablets, Benigna uttered one or two
little gasps and fairly fainted away. The slave Claudius saved her
from falling, and he now placed her on a bench against the wall.

Paulus, intimating that he would like to return to Crispus's hostelry
before dark, and having learnt, in reply to a question, that Claudius
could procure from Thellus, the gladiator, a vehicle for Benigna, and
that he would request Thellus himself to convey her home, turned to
take leave of Dion.

The Athenian, however, said he would show him the way out of the
palace. They went silent and thoughtful. In the impluvium they found
a little crowd surrounding Augustus, who had returned from his
promenade to the camp, and who was throwing crumbs of bread among
some pigeons near the central fountain.

Two ladies were of the company, one of whom, in advanced age, was
evidently the Empress Livia, but for whose influence and management
Germanicus--certainly not her ungrateful son Tiberius--would have
been the next master of the world. The other lady, who was past her
prime, had still abundant vestiges of a beauty which must once have
been very remarkable.

She was painted red and plastered white, with immense care, to look
some fifteen years younger than she truly was.

Her countenance betrayed to a good physiognomist, at first glance,
the horrible life she had led. Paulus, whose experience was little,
and, although she fastened upon him a flaming glance, which she
intended to be full both of condescension and fascination, thought
that he had seldom seen a woman either more repulsive or more
insanely haughty.

It was Julia, the new and abhorred wife of Tiberius. Not long before,
at the request of Augustus, who was always planning to dispose of
Julia, Tiberius had given up for her the only woman he ever loved,
Agrippina Marcella.

Tiberius so loved her, if it deserves to be termed love, that when,
being thus deserted, she took another husband, (Asinius Gallus,) he,
mad with jealousy, threw him into a dungeon and kept him there till
he died, as Suetonius and Tacitus record.

"Ah my Athenian!" said the emperor to Dionysius, placing a hand
affectionately on the youth's shoulder, "could you satisfy me that
those splendid theories of yours are more than dreams and fancies;
that really there is one eternal, all-wise, and omnipotent spirit,
who made this universal frame of things, and governs it as an
absolute monarch; that he made us; that in us he made a spirit,
a soul, a ghost, a thinking principle, which will never die; and
that I, who am going down to the tomb, am only to change my mode of
existence; that I shall not wholly descend thither; that an urn will
not contain every thing which will remain of me; and all this in a
very different sense from that which poor Horace meant. But why speak
of it? Has not Plato failed?"

"Plato," replied Dionysius, "neither quite failed nor is quite
understood, illustrious emperor. But you were saying, if I could
satisfy you. Be pleased to finish. Grant I could satisfy you; what
then?"

"Satisfy me that one eternal sovereign of the universe lives, and
that what now thinks in me," returned the emperor, while the courtly
group made a circle, "will never cease to think; that what is now
conscious within me will be conscious for ever; that now, in more
than a mere poetical allusion to my fame--and on the word of Augustus
Caesar, there is no reasonable request within the entire reach and
compass of my power which I will refuse you."

"And what sort of a hearing, emperor," inquired Dion, "and under what
circumstances, and upon what conditions, will you be pleased to give
me? and when? and where?"

"In this palace, before the games end," replied Augustus. "The
hearing shall form an evening's entertainment for our whole circle
and attendance. You shall sustain your doctrines, while our
celebrated advocates and orators, Antistius Labio and Domitius Afer,
who disagree with them, I know, shall oppose you. Let me see. The
Caesars, Tiberius and Germanicus, with their ladies, and our host
Mamurra and his family, and all our circle, shall be present. Titus
Livy, Lucius Varius, Velleius Paterculus, and the greatest orator
Rome ever produced, except Cicero" (the old man 'mentioned with
watery eyes the incomparable genius to whose murder he had consented
in his youth)--"I mean Quintus Haterius--shall form a judicial jury.
Haterius shall pronounce the sentence. Dare you face such an ordeal?"

"I will accept it," replied the Athenian, blushing; "I will accept
the ordeal with fear. Daring is contrasted with trembling; but,
although my daring trembles, yet my trepidation dares."

"Oh! how enchanting!" cried the august Julia; "we shall hear
the eloquent Athenian." And she clasped her hands and sent an
unutterable glance toward Dion, who saw it not.

"It will be very interesting indeed," added the aged empress.

"Better for once than even the mighty comedy of the palace," said
Lucius Varius.

"Better than the gladiators," added Velleius Paterculus.

"An idea worthy of the time of Virgil and Maecenas," said Titus Livy.

"Worthy of Augustus's time," subjoined Tiberius, who was leaning
against one of the pillars which supported the gallery of the
impluvium.

"Worthy of his dotage," muttered Cneius Piso to Tiberius, with a
scowl.

"Worthy," said a handsome man, with wavy, crisp, brown locks, in
the early prime of life, whose military tunic was crossed with the
broad purple stripe, "worthy of Athens in the days of Plato; and as
Demosthenes addressed the people after listening to the reporter of
Socrates, so Haterius shall tell this company what he thinks, after
listening to Dion."

"Haterius is getting old," said Haterius.

"You may live," said Augustus, "to be a hundred, but you will never
be old; just as our Cneius Piso here never was young."

There was a laugh. The Haterius in question was he to whom Ben
Jonson compared Shakespeare as a talker, and of whom, then past
eighty, Augustus used, Seneca tells us, to say that his careering
thoughts resembled a chariot whose rapidity threatened to set
its own wheels on fire, and that he required to be held by a
drag--"_sufflaminandus_."

Dion now bowed and was moving away, followed modestly by Paulus,
who desired to draw no attention to himself, when the steward, or
_magister_, glided quickly up the colonnade of the impluvium to the
pillar against which Tiberius was leaning, whispered something,
handed his tablets to the Caesar, and, in answer to a glance of
surprised inquiry, looked toward and indicated Paulus.

Tiberius immediately passed Paulus and Dion, saying in an under tone,
"Follow me," and led the way into a small empty chamber, of which,
when the two youths had entered it, he closed the door.

"You are going to break the horse called Sejanus?" said he, turning
round and standing.

Paulus assented.

"Then you must do so on the fourth day from this, in the
review-ground of the camp, an hour before sunset."

Paulus bowed.

"Have you any thing to inquire, to request, or to observe?" pursued
Tiberius.

"Am I to ride the horse muzzled, sir?" asked the youth.

"The muzzle will be snatched off by a contrivance of the cavasson,
after you mount him," replied Tiberius, looking steadfastly at the
other.

"Then, instead of a whip, may I carry any instrument I please in my
hands?" demanded Paulus; "my sword, for example?"

"Yes," answered Tiberius; "but you must not injure the horse; he is
of matchless price."

"But" persisted Paulus, "your justice, illustrious Caesar, will make
a distinction between any injury which the steed may do to himself
and any which I may do to him. For instance, he might dash himself
against some obstruction, or into the river Liris, and in trying to
clamber out again might be harmed. Such injuries would be inflicted
by himself, not by me. The hurt I shall do him either by spear, or by
sword, or by any other instrument, will not be intended to touch his
life or his health, nor likely to do so. If I do make any scars, I
_think_ the hair will grow again."

"He will not be so scrupulous on his side," said Tiberius; "however,
your distinction is reasonable. Have you any thing else to ask?"

"Certainly I have," said Paulus; "it is that no one shall give him
any food or drink, except what I myself shall bring, for twenty-four
hours before I ride him."

Tiberius uttered a disagreeable laugh.

"Am I to let you starve Sejanus?" he asked.

"That is not my meaning, sir," answered Paulus quietly. "I will give
him as much corn and water as he will take. I wish to prevent him
from having any other kind of provender. There are articles which
will make a horse drunk or mad."

"I agree," replied Tiberius, "that he shall have only corn and water,
provided he have as much of both as my own servant wishes; nor have I
any objection that the servant should receive these articles from you
alone, or from your groom."

Paulus inclined his head and kept silence.

"Nothing more to stipulate, I perceive," observed Tiberius.

The youth admitted that he had not; and, seeing the Caesar move, he
opened the door, held it open while the great man passed through, and
then taking a friendly leave of Dion, hastily quitted the palace.

Tiberius, meeting Sejanus, took him aside and said,

"We have got rid of the brother! You must have every thing ready
to convey her to Rome the fifth day from this. And now, enough of
private matters. I am sick of them. The affairs of the empire await
me!"

    TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTE:

[160] Suetonius, Pliny, and Seneca all attest the currency of this
and similar jokes against Tiberius during his very lifetime.




THE ANCIENT IRISH CHURCHES.

BY W. MAZIERE BRADY, D.D.


It was proposed, in the first draught of Mr. Gladstone's bill for the
disestablishment of the Irish Church, to erect some of the cathedrals
into national monuments, and to set apart toward the cost of their
future repair a portion of the fund derived from the sale of church
temporalities. This clause, however, was set aside; but even if it
had been retained, it would not have given satisfaction. If it be the
sincere desire of Mr. Gladstone to do justice to Catholic Ireland,
and to conciliate her people, but one course remains open to him
in regard to the ancient shrines of Catholic worship, namely, to
restore them to their original owners. Many of these cathedrals and
churches are altogether unsuited to the requirements of Protestant
religious service. Some of them are too large to be maintained by
the tiny congregations which occasionally visit them. Others require
a costly annual outlay too great to be undertaken at the expense of
the few families in whose neighborhood they lie. Would it not, then,
manifestly tend to the benefit alike of Catholics and Protestants,
that the latter, on terms advantageous to themselves, should yield
to the former the possession of those buildings which Protestants do
not require for _bona-fide_ ends, but which possess, in the eyes of
Catholics, a peculiarly sacred, and, at the same time, a perfectly
legitimate value?

Some ancient Catholic temple is perhaps situated in a district
inhabited by twenty or thirty Protestants, and five thousand or
ten thousand Catholics. The Protestants cannot fill a corner of
the spacious fabric. They attach no value to it as the shrine
of a venerated saint. Its very capabilities for an ornate and
splendid Catholic ritual render it only the less fit for the simple
requirements of Protestant worship. Protestants can gain nothing
by retaining such a temple, save the privilege of keeping it as a
trophy of a bygone and ill-omened ascendency. But if the British
Parliament were to ordain that such temples should be purchased
from Protestants, who scarcely require them, and given to Catholics
to supply their evident wants, then a visible proof would at once
be afforded to the Irish nation that disestablishment was no
coldly conceived or niggardly administered instalment of justice,
but a ready instrument for cordial reconciliation of creeds and
nationalities.

It is ridiculous to urge as an objection, that Protestants in
general attach a value, other than a pecuniary or political one, to
the sites of the shrines of ancient Irish saints. Few Protestants
have any veneration for St. Patrick, St. Brigid, or St. Nicholas.
Not one Protestant in a thousand has so much as even heard of the
names of St. Elbe, St. Aidan, St. Colman, or St. Molana. Irish
Protestant bishops often deny the sacredness of holy places, and,
when consecrating a site for the erection of a church, take the
opportunity to explain such consecration to be a mere form of law.
Some Protestant bishops entertained objections to the selection of
any titles for churches, save those of Christ and his apostles. They
thought it allowable to celebrate divine service in a building called
Christ church, or St. Peter's, or St. John's, but conceived it to be
scarcely tolerable and semi-popish to dedicate an edifice for worship
under the invocation of St. George, St. Patrick, or St. Michael. In
some dioceses in Ireland, during the last century, the consecration
of Protestant churches was on several occasions designedly omitted
in deference to such scruples of conscience. But the very names of
the ancient Irish saints are precious household words with Catholics,
who dearly prize the holy shrine, the sacred well, the hallowed ruins
consecrated by the lingering memories of the virgins, confessors,
and martyrs whose lives were devoted to the conversion of Ireland.
The Catholic peasant, as he sorrowfully gazes upon the desecrated
remains of some fallen abbey, or upon the mouldering walls of a
roofless oratory, often breathes a hopeless prayer that an unexpected
turn of fortune would once again fill with robed monks the arched
and pillared cloisters, and replace the solemn solitary hermit in
his peaceful cell. The reconsecration of their sacred shrines and
temples, long defaced and profaned by neglect, would realize one
of the fondest dreams of Irishmen. Why do not British statesmen
utilize, for the general benefit of their country, the pious
sentiments which, in a religious point of view, they as Protestants
may fail to appreciate, but which, in a political aspect, it seems
a criminal blindness to disregard? The legislators who freely vote
imperial funds to provide Catholic priests and altars for Catholic
soldiers, sailors, convicts, and paupers, cannot possibly entertain
religious scruples against applying a portion of the ancient Catholic
endowments of Ireland towards the purpose of restoring to their
original uses some of the sites and shrines whose traditions are
still potent enough in Ireland to sway the national sympathies.

No injury can result to Protestantism from the adoption of a course
which would not merely increase the pecuniary resources of their
church, but also tend materially to promote peace and good-will
between men of different creeds. There are many ancient churches in
Ireland which could be specified as almost useless to Protestants,
but yet most precious and valuable if placed in the hands of
Catholics. Many of the old Irish cathedrals are entirely, and some
are almost entirely deserted. Ardagh, founded by St. Patrick,
was reckoned among "the most ancient cathedrals of Ireland." Its
first bishop--St. Mell--was buried "in his own church of Ardagh,"
wherein worship a few Protestants who care but little either for
St. Mell or St. Patrick. The entire Protestant population of Ardagh
parish is less than one hundred and fifty, while the Catholics
number nearly two and a half thousands. There is but a scanty
congregation of Protestants at Lismore, where St. Carthage, or at
Leighlin, where St. Laserian was interred. At Howth, near Dublin,
are the ruins--still capable of restoration--of a beautiful abbey
and college. The college is occupied by poor tenants. The abbey is
roofless, standing in a graveyard, choked with weeds and filth,
of which the Protestant incumbent of the parish is custodian. St.
Canice--the patron saint of Kilkenny--was buried, toward the end
of the sixth century, at Aghadoe. "Aghadoe"--so wrote the Rev.
M. Kelly, Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Maynooth, in his
_Calendar of Irish Saints_--"at present is a ruin, its walls nearly
perfect, but, like too many similar edifices in Ireland, all profaned
by sickening desecration. Around it still bloom in perennial verdure
its far-famed pastures, in a plain naturally rich, and improved by
the monastic culture of a thousand years. The buildings are now used
as ox-pens which were once the favorite home of the pilgrim and
stranger." There are a score of other ruined temples like Aghadoe,
which in their present condition are a disgrace to civilization; and
yet are possessed of traditions which render them sacred in the eyes
of Catholics, who would gladly rescue them from further decay and
restore them to their ancient use.

Every tourist in Connemara has doubtless visited the famous
collegiate church of St. Nicholas, in Galway. It is a vast temple,
capable of containing six or seven thousand worshippers. Its size,
the style of its architecture, and its historical traditions combine
to render it eminently suitable to be the cathedral church of the
Catholic population of Galway. It anciently was, not precisely
a cathedral, but the church of the Catholic warden--a dignitary
who possessed episcopal jurisdiction, being only subject to the
visitation of the Archbishop of Tuam. It is now the church of
the Protestant warden, or minister, who performs divine service,
according to the Anglican ritual, in a portion of the transept, for
the benefit of those members of the Anglican Church who inhabit the
immediate neighborhood. There is now no Protestant bishop resident in
Galway, nor has any such functionary since the era of the Reformation
made Galway his headquarters. So that this once splendid building
is absolutely thrown away upon Protestants, being above ten times
too large for a parochial church, and being utterly useless to them
for a cathedral. The fabric of this grand relic from Catholicity
has been allowed to fall into decay to such an extent that about
five thousand pounds are now required to restore it or put it into
permanent repair. It is unlikely that the Protestants of Galway will
contribute this sum, or take steps to prevent this noble national
monument from sinking, at no distant period, into hopeless ruin.
The population of the entire county of Galway consisted, in 1861,
of 261,951 Catholics and 8202 Anglicans, only a few hundred of the
latter being residents in the town of Galway and its suburbs. The
Catholic wardenship was changed into a bishopric by Pope Gregory
XVI., in 1830, when Dr. French, who was then Bishop of Kilmacduagh
and Kilfenora, and also Warden of Galway, retired to this diocese. In
the same year, Dr. Browne who was subsequently translated to Elphin,
became the first Bishop of Galway. Neither Bishop Browne, nor his
successor Bishop O'Donnell, nor Dr. McEvilly, who became Bishop of
Galway in 1857, were able to provide a suitable cathedral for the
Galway Catholics. The present pro-cathedral affords accommodation to
about four thousand persons, and upon the occasion of missions is
thronged to a dangerous excess. The Catholics of Galway would gladly
avail themselves of any opportunity which would render it possible
for them to obtain St. Nicholas, the church of their forefathers,
for a cathedral. The restoration to Catholic purposes of that
edifice, which is a world too wide for Protestant wants, would confer
a singular benefit upon an immense number of Catholics, without
inflicting the least injury upon Protestants. The present Anglican
Warden of Galway is not young enough to enable him, by means of
commutation under Mr. Gladstone's bill to do much toward providing an
endowment for his successors. The payment of a few thousand pounds,
out of the funds of the Commissioners of Church Temporalities, to the
Galway Protestants, in compensation for the loss of a fabric which
they find too large for use and too costly to repair, would enable
them not only to obtain a more convenient place of worship than the
corner of the spacious transept they now occupy, but also would help
them to provide the nucleus of a local endowment for Protestant
ministrations after the decease of the present warden.

The inhabitants of "the city of the tribes" entertain no higher
veneration for the church of St. Nicholas than is felt by the men of
Munster for the celebrated Rock of Cashel of the Kings. In ancient
years the "Rock" was a natural fortress, standing high over the
surrounding plain, and proudly overlooking the thronged city which
lay beneath its shelter. Upon the elevated plateau which crowns the
submit of the "Rock," now stand the ruins of the former cathedral,
and other ecclesiastical buildings, including the famous chapel of
King Cormac, all of which, to the infinite discredit of England, have
long since been deliberately abandoned to decay. The Protestants
of Cashel ceased, somewhat more than a century ago, to occupy the
old Catholic cathedral as a place of worship. Their archbishop, an
Englishman named Price, disliked the fatigue of ascending the gradual
incline which leads to the "Rock," and removed his throne to the
present cathedral, a barn-like edifice which stands on the level
ground near to the episcopal palace. In 1838, Dr. Laurence, the last
Protestant Archbishop of Cashel, died, and the see being reduced to a
bishopric in union with three other dioceses, the Protestant bishop
selected for his residence the city of Waterford in preference to
Cashel. The beautiful cathedral, left roofless by Archbishop Price,
and exposed since his time to the ravages of more than a hundred
winters, is nevertheless still capable of restoration. The fabric,
and the site whereon the cathedral and the other ruins stand, are
at present vested partly in the Protestant dean and chapter, and
partly in the Vicars Choral of Cashel. Upon the death of these
officials, their rights will revert to the Commissioners of Church
Temporalities. But these disestablished functionaries may perhaps
find it to their personal advantage, as well as to that of their
church, to make an earlier surrender of their territorial privileges.
Whenever the Commissioners of Temporalities shall have become the
owners of the Rock of Cashel, they will have to consider what they
will do with it. They may determine to sell it, or else may transfer
it as a burial-ground to the local poor-law guardians. Either
alternative will be in the highest degree discreditable to British
legislation. There is something atrocious in the idea of offering by
public sale the temple whose almost every stone was marked by the
pious workmen with the mystic tokens of their craft, and upon whose
decoration kings were wont to lavish their choicest treasures to make
it worthier for the worship of the Most High. It will be sacrilegious
to submit to auction the soil wherein lies the mouldering dust of
countless priests and prelates, chieftains and princes. On the
other hand, it will be miserable and pitiable in the extreme to
consign what may be termed the _Terra Sancta_ of ancient Ireland
to the care of a pauper burial board. The zeal of rural guardians
guided economically by the country squire, or his bailiff, would be
worse even than the scornful vandalism of Archbishop Price. If the
dead themselves could speak or feel, they would doubtless shudder
in their tombs at the ring of the salesman's hammer, and protest
with equal horror against the indignity of including the repair of
their graves amongst the items of the county poor-rate. They would
accept, in preference to such degradation, the rude guardianship of
the elements. Nature, even when she destroys, is reverent, flinging
a green pall of ivy around the tower which her disintegrating arms
encircle, and spreading a rich carpet of moss over the dust of those
whom she draws with the embrace of death to her bosom. The winds and
waves, the floods and storms, may bring a more rapid dissolution upon
deserted monuments of heroes, but at least they inflict no dishonor.

But why should the British Parliament suffer the national memorials
of Ireland to perish without an effort to preserve them? It can be no
gratification to the vanity of Great Britain thus to perpetuate, so
long as a trace of the ruined temple or broken altar may be spared,
the tokens of a policy able, indeed, to insult and to hinder, but
powerless to supplant or destroy the faith of the Irish people.
It cannot, alas! be denied that England seized by force upon that
Catholic church of Cashel, banished its priests, and employed, for
three centuries, its revenues to teach a hostile religion. That
policy has been reversed. It would be a mode, no less honorable
than wise, of confessing the folly and guilt of such a policy, were
England to give back the ruins which have survived it, and allow the
Catholic archbishop and clergy to restore and reconsecrate their
ancient cathedral and celebrate again Catholic worship upon the Rock
of Cashel.

Let us turn from Galway and Cashel to the metropolis of Ireland.
It was felt, so far back as the reign of Elizabeth, that two
Protestant cathedrals were too many for Dublin. "Here be in this
little city"--so wrote the lord-deputy to Walsingham in 1584--"two
great cathedral churches, richly endowed, and too near together for
any good they do; the one of them, dedicated to St. Patrick, had
in more superstitious reputation than the other, dedicated to the
name of Christ, and for that respect only, though there were none
other, fitter to be suppressed than continued."[161] And a few months
later, the same chief governor of Ireland again reminded the queen's
secretary of state of the uselessness of retaining St. Patrick's as
a cathedral. "We have beside it," remarked Perrott, "in the heart of
this city, Christ church, which is a sufficient cathedral, so as St.
Patrick's is superfluous, except it be to maintain a few bad singers
to satisfy the covetous humors of some, as much or more devoted to
St. Patrick's name than to Christ's."[162] The rabid Puritanism of
Lord-Deputy Perrott, who hoped that "Christ would devour St. Patrick
and a number of his devoted followers too,"[163] was not utterly
devoid of truth and common sense. The maintenance of the cathedral
of St. Patrick has rather proved a hinderance than a benefit to
Protestants. Its revenues have not been sufficient to keep up a
separate choir of singers; for most of the St. Patrick's choirmen
belong also to Christ church, and their efficiency is impaired by
being divided between two cathedrals. But whatever may be the value
of St. Patrick's as a place for the performance of church music,
its inutility as a place for Protestant worship is notorious. Its
situation is remote from the fashionable quarter of Dublin and from
those streets which Protestants inhabit. Many Protestants flock
to St. Patrick's to hear the choral music, or, as they sometimes
profanely term it, "Paddy's Opera;" but very few, if any, attend
that cathedral for the purposes of prayer or worship. In fact, St.
Patrick's, in 1870, is what it was three hundred years ago, not
only a superfluous cathedral, but one whose atmosphere is unsuited
to the genius of Protestantism. There is no place in the Anglican
ritual for the apostle of Ireland. His memory is not an object of
religious veneration; nor was any day set apart for his honor by the
compilers of the Protestant liturgy. His name, like that of any other
saint, acts as a repellant, not as a stimulant, upon the devotion of
Protestants. Sir Benjamin Guinness, who rescued from ruin the fabric
of St. Patrick's, preferred to say his prayers and hear sermons
elsewhere.

Now that disestablishment has come upon the Protestant church, the
evil of having two cathedrals in Dublin appears greater than ever.
How, possibly, can funds be provided by Protestants to maintain
both churches, Christ church and St. Patrick's? The latter had
nearly fallen to decay but for the munificence of an individual.
The former is now in want of substantial repairs, absolutely
necessary to preserve it from ruin. Yet it is clearly the pecuniary
interest of Protestants to give up St. Patrick's rather than Christ
church, because the money value of Christ church, such is its
present condition, is insignificant; while that of St. Patrick's
is considerable enough to defray the charge of restoring Christ
church, and to leave over and above a wide margin of surplus, which
the church body may employ as a Protestant endowment fund. The sum
expended by the late Sir Benjamin Guinness on St. Patrick's is said
to have been L100,000; and, according to a recently printed estimate
of Mr. Street, a London architect of eminence, the sum of L8000 will
be sufficient to rebuild one of the side aisles of Christ church, and
put the rest of the building into a condition of permanent repair.

But there are other and more important considerations which make
Christ church the more desirable cathedral for Protestants to
retain. It is the old Chapel Royal of Dublin, the place where the
deputies and chief governors were formerly sworn into office, and
where the state sermons were preached before the lords and commons
of the Irish parliament. The lord-lieutenant's pew is at present
frequently attended by members of the viceregal staff and other
government officials. The situation of Christ church in the immediate
vicinity of the castle renders it suitable to be preserved as the
state church in Dublin for the accommodation of royal visitors and
Protestant viceroys. Christ church, moreover, is beyond question the
chief cathedral of the Protestant archbishop and clergy of Dublin.
The members of its chapter are few in number, consisting of a dean,
archdeacon, treasurer, chancellor, and three prebendaries. The
Protestant church body, if it determines upon supporting cathedral
functionaries at all in Dublin, may find it practicable to do so
with efficiency and some show of dignity in Christ church, without
breaking up, or materially altering, the present constitution of
the chapter. It is likely, moreover, that the Duke of Leinster,
the head of the Protestant nobility of Ireland, who will receive a
considerable sum of money under the church act, in compensation for
the loss of his church patronage, will be glad to contribute toward
the support of Christ church as the Protestant cathedral, especially
as it is the ancient burial place of many of his ancestors, so
famous in Irish annals under their historical title of Earls of
Kildare.

To Catholics the gift of St. Patrick's would be precious, as the
restoration to them of a cathedral which from its traditions has
surpassing claims to their veneration. Their present pro-cathedral
is regarded only as a temporary one, and possesses no historical
memories to stir the feelings of its congregation. The constitution
of the Catholic diocese of Dublin follows the model of St. Patrick's
as far as regards the number and titles of the prebendaries; and
little, if any, change would be necessary to render that cathedral
fully answerable to the requirements of Catholic worship. And very
glorious, truly, are the memories and traditions which cluster
around the spot whereon St. Patrick himself erected a church, and
hallowed it by his name. Near it was the fountain in whose waters
the apostle baptized Alphin, the heathen king of Dublin. Usher,
the learned Protestant antiquary and divine, tells us that he had
seen this fountain; that it stood near the steeple; and that, a
little before the year 1639, it was shut up and inclosed within a
private house. The temple, built by Archbishop Comyn, on the site
of the ancient church of Patrick, was styled by Sir James Ware
"the noblest cathedral in the kingdom." It was dedicated to God,
the Blessed Virgin Mary, and St. Patrick. It was the burial-place
of many Catholic prelates. In it were interred Fulk de Saunford
and his brother John, and Alexander de Bicknor. Richard Talbot,
brother to the famous earl, had his last resting-place before the
high altar. Near the altar of St. Stephen lay Michael Tregury.
Three other Catholic archbishops, namely, Walter Fitzsimons,
William Rokeby, and Hugh Inge, were entombed in St. Patrick's in
the early part of the sixteenth century--the last-named prelate
dying in the year 1528. When the Reformation came, and when Henry
VIII. attempted to force it upon Ireland against the will of the
hierarchy and people, the cathedral of St. Patrick became exposed
to the hostilities of the English despot and of Archbishop Browne,
his agent. The new doctrines were urged in vain by that prelate,
who is described by Ware as "the first of the clergy who embraced
the Reformation in Ireland." The king's commission was as little
respected as the homilies of Archbishop Browne, who advised the
calling of a parliament to pass the supremacy by act, and wrote to
Lord Cromwell, in 1638, complaining that "_the reliques and images
of both his cathedrals took the common people from the true worship,
and desiring a more explicit order for their removal_," and for
the aid of the lord-deputy's troops in carrying out his unpopular
designs. The clergy of St. Patrick's made so vigorous a stand against
the reforming archbishop, that many of them were deprived of their
preferments, and the cathedral itself was suppressed for nearly
eight years, during Browne's incumbency. On Queen Mary's accession,
St. Patrick's again resumed its Catholic splendor and dignity, but
only to lose them once more when her successor, Elizabeth, thought
it necessary for the security of her throne to remove utterly, if
possible, the Catholic faith from her dominions. Thus the fortunes of
St. Patrick's cathedral were, in a measure, identified with those of
the Catholic religion in Ireland.

"The name of no apostle or evangelist," as was well remarked by Dr.
Manning, the Archbishop of Westminster, in his sermon at Rome on
the anniversary of St. Patrick, "carries with it a wider influence
than that of the Apostle of Ireland, if we except only St. Peter,
the prince of the apostles. No apostle or saint--Peter excepted--has
so many millions of spiritual followers as Patrick. The Catholic
hierarchy in England owes its origin to Patrick, through the Irish
immigrants into Liverpool, Bristol, Birmingham, London, and other
great manufacturing and commercial cities. The vast Catholic
hierarchies in America, Australia, New Zealand, and other colonies
of Great Britain, trace, in like manner, their spiritual lineage to
Ireland and St. Patrick. Within the hall of the great Council of the
Vatican St. Patrick counts more bishops for his children than any
other saint, save Peter; for the prelates deriving their faith from
Ireland are more numerous than those of any other nationality. And
no apostle (Peter always excepted) has his anniversary celebrated in
so many countries and with such demonstrations of joy as Patrick."
Such indeed is the magic power, if the expression be permitted,
which the very name of St. Patrick exercises over Irish Catholics
in all parts of the world, that the restoration of St. Patrick's
cathedral would be regarded by them as something far greater than
the mere donation of a cathedral to the Dublin diocese. It would be
received as a convincing sign that the demon of envenomed distrust
has been exorcised, and that thenceforth English Protestants, as
they have already long ceased to persecute Irish Catholicism by
penal laws, would likewise abandon the indirect mode of persecution
which consists in suspicion, falsification, and slander, in
withholding cordiality, and in retaining, after the dog-in-the-manger
fashion, what is useless to Protestants, for no apparent reason
but to manifest a dislike to Catholics. It is with nations as with
families or individuals. Two families, formerly at enmity and but
lately reconciled, can hardly be said to enjoy a solid or thorough
friendship so long as one of them causelessly keeps back the family
pictures or sacred heirlooms of the other. France and England never
could have entertained mutual sentiments of respect, if England had
been so foolish or so malicious as to keep in St. Helena the body of
Napoleon. The heirlooms whose restoration would have the happiest
effect in bringing about amity between the English and Irish nations,
are the ancient sacred places of Ireland.

FOOTNOTES:

[161] See _State Papers concerning the Irish Church in the Time of
Queen Elizabeth_, etc. By W. Maziere Brady, D.D. London: Longmans.
1868. Page 90.

[162] Ibid. page 92.

[163] Ibid. page 91.




A LEGEND OF THE INFANT JESUS.[164]


    In a small chapel, rich with carving quaint
      Of mystic symbols and devices bold,
    Where glowed the face of many a pictured saint
      From windows high, in gorgeous drapery's fold,
    And one large mellowed painting o'er the shrine
      Showed in the arms of Mary--mother mild--
    Down-looking with a tenderness divine
      In his clear shining eyes, the Holy Child--

    Two little brothers, orphans young and fair,
      Who came in sacred lessons to be taught,
    Waited, as every day they waited there,
      Till Frey Bernardo came, his pupils sought,
    And fed his Master's lambs. Most innocent
      Of evil knowledge or of worldly lure
    Those children were; from e'en the slightest taint
      Had Jesu's blood their guileless souls kept pure!

    A pious man that good Dominican,
      Whose life with gentle charities was crowned;
    His duties in the church as sacristan,
      For hours in daily routine kept him bound,
    While that young pair awaited his release
      Seated upon the altar-steps, or spread
    Thereon their morning meal, and ate in peace
      And simple thankfulness their fruit and bread.

    And often did their lifted glances meet
      The Infant Jesu's eyes; and oft he smiled--
    So thought the children; sympathy so sweet
      Brought blessing to them from the Blessed Child!
    Until one day when Frey Bernardo came,
      The little ones ran forth; with clasping hold
    Each seized his hand, and each with wild acclaim,
      In eager words the tale of wonder told:

    "O father, father!" both the children cried,
      "The _caro_ Jesu! He has heard our prayer!
    We prayed him to come down and sit beside
      Us as we ate, and of our feast take share:
    And he came down, and tasted of our bread,
      And sat and smiled upon us, father dear!"
    Pallid with strange amaze, Bernardo said,
      "Grace beyond marvel! Hath the Lord been here?

    "The heaven of heavens his dwelling--doth he deign
      To visit little children? Favored ye
    Beyond all those on earthly thrones who reign,
      In having seen this strangest mystery!
    O lambs of his dear flock! to-morrow pray
      Jesu to come again to grace your board
    And sup with you; and if he comes, then say,
      'Bid us to thy own table, blessed Lord!'

    "'Our master too!' do not forget to plead
      For me, dear children! In humility
    I will entreat him your meek prayer to heed,
      That so his mercy may extend to me!"
    Then, a hand laying on each lovely head,
      Devoutly the old man the children blessed:
    "Come early on the morrow morn," he said;
      "To meet--if such his will--your heavenly Guest!"

    To meet their pastor by the next noon ran
      The youthful pair, their eyes with rapture bright;
    "He came!" their happy lisping tongues began;
      "He says we all shall sup with him to-night!
    Thou too, dear father; for we could not come
      Alone, without our faithful friend--we said;
    Oh! be thou sure our pleadings were not dumb,
      Till Jesu smiled consent, and bowed his head."

    In thankful joy Bernardo prostrate fell,
      And through the hours he lay entranced in prayer;
    Until the solemn sound of vesper bell
      Aroused him, breaking on the silent air.
    Then rose he calm, and when the psalms were o'er
      And in the aisles the chant had died away,
    With soul still bowed his Master to adore,
      Alone he watched the fast departing day.

    Two silvery voices, calling through the gloom
      With seraph sweetness, reached his listening ear;
    And swiftly passing 'neath the lofty dome,
      Soon side by side he and his children dear
    Entered the ancient chapel consecrate
      By grace mysterious. Kneeling at the shrine,
    Before which robed in sacerdotal state,
      That morning he had blessed the bread and wine,

    Bernardo prayed. And then the chosen three
      Partook the sacred hosts the priest had blessed,
    Viaticum for those so soon to be
      Borne to the country of eternal rest;
    Bidden that night to sup with Christ! in faith
      Waiting for him, their Lord beloved, to come
    And lead them upward from this land of death
      To live for ever in his Father's home!

    In that same chapel, kneeling in their place,
      All were found dead; their hands still clasped in prayer;
    Their eyes uplifted to the Saviour's face,
      The hallowed peace of heaven abiding there!
    While thousands came that wondrous scene to view,
      And hear the story of the chosen three;
    Thence gathering the lesson deep and true--
      It is the crown of life with Christ to be.

FOOTNOTE:

[164] Frey Luis de Sonsa, in the _History of the Dominican Order in
Portugal_, relates this legend. The legend of the Infant Saviour
coming to play with a child has been embodied in the poetry of many
languages, especially the German.




PHASES OF ENGLISH PROTESTANTISM.


A man with the peculiar turn of Dr. Temple[165] for finding results
of the past in the present, might perhaps be inclined to trace
the time-honored cry of the English Protestants, "No popery!" to
the temper of Henry VIII., who retained the whole of the Catholic
doctrine in his creed except the supremacy of the pope. A Catholic
will with good reason see in it a testimony from enemies to the unity
of the church through the successor of St. Peter. The historian
will point to the fact that Protestants have from the beginning
agreed only in one thing, hostility to the church. The _Protest_
of 1529, from which they take their name, is the first example we
have in history of a thing with which modern times are familiar--an
arrangement on the part of those who, as the phrase goes, "agree in
essentials," to act together for a time in order to accomplish some
common end. In a similar way we saw Dr. Pusey take part in 1865
with the liberals, in order to promote the election of Mr. Gladstone
as member for the University of Oxford. He afterward coquetted
unsuccessfully with the Methodists. And last year he offered to join
with the evangelicals in a protest against the elevation of Dr.
Temple to the see of Exeter. Yet whatever may have been the case
in times past, we should have supposed that the futility of such
coalitions in these days had been long sufficiently evident. Dr.
Pusey, we imagine, now feels little pleasure at having Mr. Gladstone
at the head of affairs; and if the evangelicals had accepted his
offer instead of rejecting it, he would have found out in the end
that he had paid much for their help, and got very little by it.

By looking back to the circumstances in which Protestantism began,
we find an explanation of its marked features--the variety of its
differences, the fact that these find some common ground in the cry,
"No popery!" and the inevitably logical tendency of Protestantism
to dissolve into latitudinarianism. Of these the first two scarcely
require to be illustrated; yet we may notice one singular illusion
which has done more than any thing else to give a fictitious unity
to the Protestant sects, and to invest their protest with a certain
air of virtuous indignation; we refer to the common belief that the
Bible is in some sense their peculiar possession, which springs from
the doctrine that, so long as a man professes to get his creed out of
the Bible, and the Bible only, it matters little of what articles his
creed consists. This fiction has done good service in its day; but
the Protestants are now likely to be worried by the fiend with which
they used to conjure. They received the Bible from the church, and
they turned it against the church. Now they find it in the hands of
the modern critical school turned against themselves.

That the Protestants who separated from the church should have been
able to accept Scripture as binding upon them, is not strange;
although to a philosophical mind at the present day, the Protestant
theory must present insurmountable difficulties. When men break
off from a system in which they were born and bred, they cannot,
if they would, make of their minds a _tabula rasa_, freed from all
prejudices and associations, ready to receive whatever can be proved
purely _a priori_. To attempt this would be to attempt to move the
world without a fulcrum. The question, What can be proved _a priori_?
is one which requires the course of many generations only for its
statement; as for its solution, that may be said to have proved
itself impossible. Men are obliged, when they change their opinions
in some respects, to allow their conduct to be influenced by those
opinions which they do not change; and in some cases it happens that
it is impossible, upon any _a priori_ ground whatever, to draw the
line between what they keep and what they reject. So it was at the
foundation of Protestantism; and the effects of the modern "universal
solvent" are due to what we have just stated, that, taking what
_a priori_ ground you will, there is none which will support the
Protestant without landing him at last in contradiction or absurdity.
Thus, men in the sixteenth century could easily accept theories of
Scripture interpretation which are now found to be untenable; and the
result is fatal to those who are so deeply committed to the untenable
theories that the loss of them involves the loss of their whole
intellectual groundwork.

For the Protestants cannot, as the Catholic can, point to the
striking fact of a general agreement extending over many centuries.
We know that the Protestant critics profess to pick holes in the
Catholic claim to general agreement; but what a beggarly appearance
these attempts present when they are contrasted with the whole extent
of the subject! What is the value of the few specks they point out
in the vast current of ecclesiastical history? They find so little
to say, that what they say is proved to be the exception and not the
rule. But if we turn to their own case, what a difference do we find!
There we have no question of pointing out flaws here and there; it
is all one mass of flaws. Protestants may attack the claim of the
church; but they themselves are not able so much as to put forward
a claim. Nor do they venture to claim unity; some even avow their
preference for diversity. Yet in practice we find them all acting as
though each thought himself infallible.

This is the result of a very common human weakness. Just as the
founders of Protestantism could quietly acquiesce in many things
which they had imbibed from the Catholic world in which they were
educated, so their successors quietly acquiesce in what comes to them
from their fathers; and in both cases there is much which cannot be
systematically exhibited without contradiction. But very few men care
to set about the systematic exhibition of all that they profess to
believe or to act upon. If it were otherwise, the Protestant theories
of Scripture would never have been set up; and they are now falling
before the exertions of men who insist upon having a clear view of
what they are called upon to believe. When the reformers made their
appeal to Scripture, it was impossible for men of different tempers,
habits, and associations to agree upon matters of interpretation,
even if the appeal had been made in good faith. As it was, the appeal
was made subject to certain foregone conclusions, none of which,
perhaps, could have been deduced from the mere text by any scientific
process of exegesis. Servetus could not find the doctrine of the Holy
Trinity in the Bible; and though he was little if at all to blame,
according to Protestant principles, Calvin thought this failure
worthy of death. Luther found in the Epistle of St. James much more
than he wanted, and therefore he ejected it from the canon. Thus the
appearance of an appeal to a common standard is an appearance only.
It has been found to cover the widest variations both of doctrine
and ritual. The only result of professing to be bound by the Bible
is, that the text is wrested to mean any thing. No single system of
exegesis, strictly applied throughout and deprived of all external
suggestion or comment, will elicit a consistent whole from the
declarations of Scripture. All sects can produce some texts in their
favor, and all find some texts which they are obliged to explain
away. Inquirers are supposed to bring to the task of examination a
previous reservation in favor of the doctrines of their peculiar
sect. If they do not, they are denounced as traitors and unbelievers,
in spite of the ostentatious demand for a free inquiry. When Mr.
Jowett proposed to use for the elucidation of Scripture those aids
and methods which scholars have applied with great success to the
profane classics, he was met with something more than outcry; he
was actually persecuted. Yet his persecutors, who kept his salary
as professor of Greek down to forty pounds per annum when the other
similar professorships were raised in value to four hundred pounds,
had nothing to offer by way of reason against his proposal. They
stooped to effect their object by using the blind prejudices of
country clergymen.

While the name of Scripture has always commanded respect, and in
this way a sort of pretended unity has seemed to bind together the
sects of Protestantism, every generation has seen less and less
ground for establishing any thing like real visible communion.
Scripture is useless to this end, because every party insists that
it has Scripture on its side. Since Luther and Melancthon conferred
at Marburg with OEcolampadius and Zwingli, the futility of
conferences has been growing more and more manifest. But so soon as
men despair of establishing union by convincing their opponents,
they are driven, if they desire union, to propose compromise as the
basis upon which to found it; and in religious matters, compromise
means the surrender of faith to expediency. Many attempts have been
made to induce the sects to coalesce by declaring only that to be
obligatory in dogma which is common to all, leaving every thing else
in the region of pious opinion; but a very natural and even laudable
party obstinacy has always brought these attempts to nothing. The
only persons who can approach such compromises with a safe conscience
are latitudinarians, whose fundamental principle is the denial that
any dogma is of necessity to salvation; and to the latitudinarian
this privilege is useless, because his overtures are superfluous if
made to latitudinarians, while they are sure to be rejected by the
dogmatists. Yet it is hard for the dogmatic Protestant to justify
the religious scruple which makes him unwilling to treat with the
latitudinarian; for he is cut off from the appeal to the "faith
once delivered to the saints," and forced to take up his position
on ground which can equally well be claimed by his opponents. The
scruples of either side are called prejudices by the other; and
neither can rebut the accusation upon solid grounds of reason. A
position like this is unstable; and though habit will enable a given
set of men to hold their ground firmly against mere argument, yet
argument does tell in the long run, and an unreasonable position
cannot with security be handed on to the next generation. For the
next generation is not born under the same circumstances as the
former; and so it often happens that the habit which swayed the
fathers is not formed in the children. Bit by bit the ill-established
creed rots away, as the "universal solvent" is brought to bear upon
the whole; and thus successive generations of Protestants are apt to
be pushed nearer and nearer to latitudinarianism, sometimes without
any notice being taken of the change. At length, perhaps, we see
matters culminate in some portentous vagary, like that society which
now exists, or existed not long since in London, which proposes to
unite upon the basis of assenting to nothing at all.

The connection between faith and reason, and the influence which
intellectual processes may lawfully exercise upon religious belief,
are questions of profound difficulty. But without attempting to
draw the line exactly between what is right and what is wrong, it
may be possible to assert with confidence of particular cases that
they lie on this or that side of the line. We would not rashly
encourage persons who have been brought up in any dogmatic system,
however ill-grounded or erroneous we may think their belief, to
set about mocking their hereditary faith upon the strength of a
shallow scepticism; still less would we employ ridicule against
errors which cannot be ridiculed without shocking deep convictions;
because we think that the cause of truth, in the long run, loses
more than it gains by such means. But the logical weakness of the
Protestant position is made apparent by the fact that it always does
give way before reason. England has passed through many phases,
and one of these was a phase of rationalism, that is, of appealing
to reason only as the ultimate ground of religious belief. During
that period the popular religion sank into a vague deism, together
with a practical code of moral decency. Yet, during that time--the
eighteenth century--the Church of England was peculiarly rich in
men whom she esteemed great divines; but theology is excluded from
the pages of these theologians. We find little beyond exhortations
to the practice of virtue, grounded upon appeals to good feeling
and the hope of reward; and what ought to be the dogmatic side of
their teaching is occupied with proofs of the reasonableness of
Christianity, or with statements of the evidences of Christianity--a
Christianity which, in the popular mind, had lost all hold upon the
divinity of Christ. Here, then, the old Protestant dogmatic position
had gone down before reason; and its fall is the more notable because
reason was not polemically directed against it. The men who had
renounced the dogmatic position were the champions of the church,
nor had they the least suspicion that they had surrendered every
thing to the other side except an empty title. Circumstances had
forced them to take their stand upon reason; and dogma was quietly
and instinctively dropped out of sight, simply because it could not
be defended by them in their position upon that ground. We shall see
presently how close, at this time, was the resemblance between the
orthodox and the deist.

But in the change of circumstances, which is the result of the course
of time, there is something to compensate for this sinking and
loosening of the dogmatic foundations of the Protestants. Something
is gained in the greater ease with which later generations can shut
their eyes to the presence of certain troublesome facts; and this is
what Catholics mean when they speak of the children of schismatics
as being less responsible than their fathers for the schism in which
they find themselves. While the old Protestants were quite ready
to take the Bible upon trust, they felt the force of certain texts
which do not at all trouble their successors. No modern evangelical
or Presbyterian feels any qualm of suspicion when he reads the
words, "This is my body," nor does he trouble himself to seek out a
plausible explanation. Macaulay said that "the absurdity of a literal
interpretation was as great and as obvious in the sixteenth century
as it is now." But, at all events, there is this great difference
between the two centuries: that in the sixteenth, men felt bound to
give some meaning to the text, while now, in the nineteenth, they
feel able to pass it over without giving to it any meaning at all.
OEcolampadius and Zwingli were at the head of the two principal
sections of the sacramentarian party, who denied all real presence,
and reduced the eucharist to a mere commemorative rite. There stood
the text, and they felt bound to explain it somehow, so that it might
agree with their opinions. They assigned the same general meaning to
the whole, but they could not agree on the question whether "is" or
"body" must be interpreted by a kind of metonymy, that is, saying one
thing and meaning another. The subject is not a fit one for laughter;
but it is hard to read without laughing that Andrew Carlstadt
thought our Lord pointed to his natural body, when he uttered the
words of the text. Men must be sore pressed before they will execute
such wrigglings as these; and there are many signs of the existence
of similar pressures at that day, from which modern Protestants
are more or less relieved. Thus, Calvin was obliged for the sake
of consistency to declare that Scripture shines by its own light;
while the moderns can act as if it did without being obliged to say
so. Again, when Archbishop Heath and his fellow-sufferers protested
against their deprivation by Queen Elizabeth, she felt bound to make
some attempt to argue from the fathers against the supremacy of the
pope, though she could have found no pleasure in the task, because
she had so little to say for herself. Now, when a modern Protestant
uses arguments of this sort, it is only to satisfy his own private
whims or scruples; but Elizabeth was peremptorily called upon to
defend herself against adverse public opinion.

Nothing seems simpler to a modern Protestant than that a man should
take his stand on "the Bible, and the Bible only;" nothing seems more
strange to any one who has considered the various ultimate grounds
and hypotheses upon which religious belief may be supposed to rest.
It is not necessary to be always obtruding the question of ultimate
grounds upon men's notice, because it is not required that all who
believe shall be able to produce an accurate statement of the true
ultimate grounds of their belief. But such grounds must be supposed
to exist, and to be capable of accurate statement; and the statement
of them is, at any rate, fatal to the Protestant position. We have
seen how dogmatic theology disappeared from the popular mind under
the rationalism of the eighteenth century. And at the time of the
French revolution, it was found that when men deserted the church,
they did not take their stand upon the Bible, but on atheism; and
that when they ceased to be atheists, they became Catholics again,
not Protestants; nor has Protestantism ever made any large number of
converts, except in the sixteenth century. This was a sore puzzle
to Macaulay, as he himself declares; but it is easily explained on
the principles we have laid down. In the sixteenth century, men
had no thought of inquiring about ultimate grounds of belief; they
were determined to believe something, and they looked about for any
proximate ground which was near at hand and plausible in appearance.
At the end of the eighteenth century, the question of ultimate
grounds had occurred to many, and they had answered that there were
ultimately no grounds for believing any religion at all. When they
changed this opinion, and determined to have a religious belief, they
did not take up the Protestant position, because it was exploded;
and the proof that it was exploded lies in the fact that they did
not take it up. They could no longer play the part of arbitrary
eclectics, selecting what they chose and rejecting what they chose
from the Catholic system. They could not follow the example of
Calvin, who first stopped short where he did, and then helped
to burn[166] Servetus for going a few steps further. The French
revolutionists were without any of those convenient traditional drags
which hamper movement, and enable men to stop short at arbitrary
points. They ruthlessly carried out their principles into the wildest
and most ferocious excesses, things for which no logical consistency
will compensate; but they _did_ carry them out. Therefore they were
in some sense incapacitated for becoming Protestants, because they
had once known what it was to carry out principles, and there is no
set of principles whatever, which, if vigorously carried out, will
land a man in Protestantism.

Men who found their belief upon the Bible alone, have first to
determine the canon, then to settle the text, and lastly to interpret
it. They have three questions to answer: 1. How is it known that
the Bible is, as a whole, the word of God? 2. How is it known that
the text is free from material corruption? 3. When men differ about
its meaning, as they notoriously do, who is to decide between them?
Until a reply is found to these questions, their position is open to
attacks which cannot justly be stigmatized as the result of a shallow
scepticism; and the best proof of this is the fact that it always
goes down before reason. One or two men of learning and ability may
be found to abide by the ancient ways; but they are deserted by the
great majority of their fellows, and therefore they are the exception
and not the rule. Who can pretend to doubt in what direction the
whole of the learning and ability among the undergraduates of Oxford
has been moving of late years? With hardly an exception, all the
most promising among the young men have been moving away from those
stand-points which Dr. Pusey finds necessary to his position as a
Protestant; and if there be any exception to this general movement,
he only marks the motion of the stream by standing still himself.
This is because our three questions remain unanswered, while those
who attempt to find such an answer as shall be acceptable to a
rational mind, are denounced and persecuted. Yet these so-called
liberals have a right to demand to be heard, and to be allowed to
make out what they can by fair argument; nor has Dr. Pusey any right
to be shocked when they find things in Scripture which he does not,
except upon grounds which, if he would rigorously carry them out,
would make him a Catholic. In his present position, we cannot guess
how he would attempt to answer Charlotte Elizabeth, that great
departed light of the extreme evangelicals. An acquaintance once
suggested a doubt about the inspiration of the book of Revelation
in these words: "You are a person of too much sense to believe that
the binding up of certain leaves between the covers of the Bible
makes them a part of it." This, in fact, raised the question how the
canon is to be determined; and Charlotte Elizabeth was staggered
for a moment, as she herself tells us. But the battle was turned
by the following reply, which she piously believed to be dictated
by God: "If you can persuade me that the book of Revelation is not
inspired, another person may do the same with regard to the book of
Genesis; and so of all that lie between them, till the whole Bible
is taken from me. That will never do," etc. Having thus determined
the canon, she promptly provides the interpreter. "Man can tell me
no more than that God has clearly revealed" the Calvinistic doctrine
of election and reprobation; "therefore, man cannot strengthen a
belief founded on the sure word of God; _or if he tells me it is
not revealed, I know that it is; because I have found it so, and
relinquish it I never can_." (_Personal Recollections of Charlotte
Elizabeth_, third edition, p. 134. The other passage quoted is at
p. 130.) Charlotte Elizabeth, upon the strength of this, deals out
the most uncompromising damnation to those who _have found that it
is not_. And Dr. Pusey's estimable friend, Mr. Burgon, is equally
ferocious toward those who doubt whether every syllable, point, jot,
tittle, and full stop in the Bible is the express act of God. It
would be impossible, we suppose, to convert the wood-and-leather man
of Martinus Scriblerus, even though he "should reason as well as most
of your country parsons."

Political circumstances have given such peculiar interest to the
career of the Church of England that it deserves to be placed in
a class by itself, apart from the other schismatical bodies which
sprang up at the Reformation. Amid the storms of theological
controversy she has always found a dubious sheet-anchor in the state,
which secured to her a certain stability of political position, while
it allowed her to drift through many widely different doctrinal
phases. The tameness with which she veered about at the bidding of
successive sovereigns, and the ease with which great changes were
effected in her constitution, show that, in puritan phrase, her heart
was not in the work. Historians are equally astonished at the power
of the crown and the pusillanimity of the people. And there is ground
for astonishment, though the facts are often described in terms of
exaggeration. We are not to suppose that the passing of an act of
parliament, or the "devising" of an ordinal by Cranmer, made a change
in religion which was instantly felt through all corners of the
kingdom. Multitudes had very vague notions of what was going on, and
the only people who were thoroughly well informed, the courtiers, had
their eyes fixed on church lands, not on theology. In some parts of
the country, as in Lancashire, the change was little felt, and the
Catholic religion remains there to this day a common heirloom. But in
the mass of the people we quite miss that delicate spiritual sense,
so keenly alive to the slightest variation from the faith, which
gives such interest to the struggles of the church with the early
heretics. When all has been said in their favor, it cannot be denied
that the English have always shown themselves somewhat supine and
spiritually sluggish. It is only the "right to tax themselves" which
appeals to their energies with force enough to stir up a rebellion.
The Scots took their religion into their own hands; but the English
were contented to be led like sheep by Cecil and Parker.

The fundamental profession of faith of the Church of England, the
Thirty-nine Articles, labors under this disadvantage, that it has
never secured to the Established Church any closer union or more
uniform dogmatic tradition than has been secured to Protestants in
general by their common possession of the Bible. Very significant are
those words in the _King's Declaration_ prefixed to the articles, in
which his majesty finds so much comfort from the fact that nobody
refuses to sign the articles, in spite of "some differences which
have been ill raised;" and that, when they differ, "_men of all sorts
take the articles of the Church of England to be for them_." What
is the value of a formula which has been found compatible with the
primacy both of Whitgift and of Sancroft? Only once did the spirit
of the nation question the right of "men of all sorts" to "take the
articles to be for them;" and that was when Dr. Newman took them to
contain the Catholic faith. But this was due to the national hatred
of popery, not to the stringency of the articles. Their weak blast
has never blown either hot or cold. They look like the offspring of
a union between inconsiderate haste and the latitudinarian hankering
after conversions made by compromise. They limit their confidence
like the sagacious Bottom. "Masters, I am to discourse wonders; but
ask me not what; for if I tell you, I am no true Athenian."

The Elizabethan pacificators were of that sort who turn a country
into a wilderness, and then boast that peace has been happily
restored. Their Established Church was not a religion, but a
machinery for enabling men to dispense with religion in their
daily lives; and every attempt to graft religious feeling upon its
sapless stock has ended in discord. Having no efficient discipline,
no central authority, no energetic corporate action, no audible
dogmatic voice, and no intelligible symbols of faith, and receiving
its hierarchy from the state with abject submissiveness, it has
never got so far as to attempt to fulfil any of the functions
of the church. Its usual condition has been that of a bundle of
differences held together by some fleeting economy or the presence
of the state. Scarcely had it settled down into any thing like an
organized polity, when the Puritan schism became formidably apparent;
and by the accidental bias of political association, the Churchman
and the Puritan became the champions respectively of prerogative
and of liberty. The church rallied round the monarchy, because the
favor of the crown was the breath of its nostrils; and persecution
made the Puritans ripe for rebellion, and therefore ready to fight
for the cause of liberty in any shape. The men who began the Great
Rebellion were politicians, not religious enthusiasts; but they
gained the day by enlisting on their side that religious enthusiasm
which afterward declared that "the Lord had no need" of the Rump
Parliament. When the intolerable government of the saints had made
inevitable the restoration of Charles, the Established Church came
back with the crown almost as naturally as the court of chancery and
the privy council. Nothing could be more in keeping than that the
ecclesiastical loyalty which had blossomed into the divine right of
kings under the earlier Stuarts, should bear its fruit in passive
obedience after the restoration. This much had been claimed by Henry
VIII. in that edifying manual, _The Pious and Godly Institution
of a Christian Man_; and it now became the touchstone of Anglican
orthodoxy, almost to the exclusion of dogmatic considerations. It
is true that Archbishop Laud had long before begun what he meant
to be a theological reaction; but in his scheme the position of an
altar or the use of a vestment counted for more than the gravest
doctrinal questions, and he did not scruple to act cordially with men
whose theological views differed very widely from his own. Whatever
claim the Established Church may seem to have made to doctrinal
infallibility or to magisterial decision, we think that it will be
found on closer inspection to resolve itself into this, that every
preacher was allowed to propound his own crotchets as infallibly
true, provided only that his fidelity to the great dogma of passive
obedience was beyond suspicion. Yet the prominence of this one
proposition, and the vehemence of the clergy in preaching it, gave
a certain aspect of unity to the church, and somewhat resembled the
energy with which divine truth should be taught. The establishment
has grown up into a great and conspicuous edifice, imposing from its
majestic appearance and the apparent solidity of its foundation,
and endeared to many by the recollection of sufferings endured in a
cause with which it seemed to be inseparably bound up. Her ministers
"agreed in essentials;" that is to say, in the fundamental rules
of morality and passive obedience. It was the very strength of the
church's position which made the violence of James II. so disastrous
to her influence. The clergy found themselves before the horns of
a fatal dilemma, when they were compelled to choose between their
church and their king. The people, long used to hear that passive
obedience was the first duty of a Christian, saw with a sceptical
shock the defection of the clergy from their most sacred tenet. The
non-jurors set up a fresh schism, and the shattered establishment
could offer no effectual resistance to the phlegmatic William and his
latitudinarian primate.

By the revolution the Anglican was finally and for ever cut off from
all appeal to the living authority of the church; and it is well
worthy of note that when the high Anglicans of this century, after
the tractarian movement had set in, began to appeal to authority,
they could find no living authority whither to carry their appeal,
and were forced to set up the dead authority of books and records.
At the close of the seventeenth century, there would seem to have
been a good opportunity for anticipating by a hundred and fifty years
the tractarian revival; and perhaps we may regard the career of the
non-jurors as a proof that Sancroft and his brethren were utterly
removed from every breath of the Catholic spirit. Cut off at that
time from all appeal to authority, yet forced to lay down some ground
of belief, it remained for the establishment to choose between reason
and the witness of the Spirit, or the purer light manifesting itself
to the separate conscience of the individual. This latter had been
the basis of independency, and of those still darker sects which
sprang from independency during the commonwealth. It had appeared
that this guidance might be made to lead anywhere, except in any
direction that a sane man would choose, and therefore it remained to
put reason on its trial. Thenceforth the appeal of the Anglican was
addressed to the reason of his hearers, and the reasonable was the
basis of argument between parties. Different men believed different
things; but each admitted that his creed must stand or fall according
as it should or should not approve itself to reason. That knowledge
of God and of his will which could be discovered by unaided reason
was styled natural religion; and this was the whole of religion,
according to the deists. According to the orthodox, natural religion
was an outline, true as far as it went, the details of which were to
be filled in by revelation. It was an obvious consequence of this
view, that such parts of Christianity as could not easily be foisted
in upon natural religion, came to be rejected as popish corruptions;
and thus the distinction between the orthodox and the deist became
at last very shallow. Bishop Butler, a man of fervid piety and with
a natural bias toward asceticism, whose disposition made him an
exception in many ways to the common tendency of the age in which he
lived, complains that religion had in his day become too reasonable
to have any connection with the heart and the affections. The least
deviation in any direction from the surrounding dead-level was looked
upon with suspicion; and Butler's _Durham Charge_ caused him to be
accused of "squinting" toward the superstition of popery. After his
death, it was said by many that he had died a Catholic; and Secker
came forward with indignant zeal to defend his memory from the
"calumny."

The depressing results of this prevailing tone are well shown by
its effect on the religious views of such men as Sydney Smith. A
touch of fanaticism has great claims upon our respect, when it is
seen in contrast to the heathenism which regards a good education
and gentlemanlike manners as the most necessary qualifications for
the spiritual guide. Those evangelicals, the "patent Christians" of
Sydney Smith, were the representatives inside the Church of England
of the feelings and aspirations which animated the Methodists
outside; and if the church had been the same in the days of Wesley
that it was in the days of Wilberforce, there would have been no
separation. We remarked that the close of the seventeenth century
seems to have presented a good opportunity for anticipating the
tractarian movement; but the times were not ripe for it, and
the attempt was not made. Wesley did attempt to anticipate the
evangelical movement; but the times were again not ripe, and the
attempt ended in extensive schism. The evangelicals were the true
forerunners of the tractarians; and perhaps the Methodists had
opened the way to both. And as the Church of England first drove out
the Methodists, but acquired by the process a certain capacity to
endure Methodism, so, perhaps, she drove out the Tractarians, and
acquired thereby a certain leaven which enables her now to endure
with comparative equanimity the presence in her bosom of men who
profess Catholic doctrine. The church had no fixed spirit; she was
put in motion by the clamors of unstable popular opinion; and popular
opinion is liable to be modified by the views with which it is
brought into contact, even when it attacks them most fiercely. Yet
we think we see signs that a time is coming when the comprehensive
shelter of the establishment will no longer be open to all who
choose to stand under it.

During this century three great movements have at different times
made inroads upon the dead-level bequeathed by a former age. The
evangelical movement has had its day, and its force is now spent; it
no longer does active work, but only serves as a protest and drag.
The tractarian movement has passed into a second phase; but it is
still so far vigorous that it makes progress; that is, it increases
continually the number of exoteric members who hang upon its skirts,
while the esoteric members become more and more thorough-going in
their assertion of Catholic doctrine and practice. The third and last
movement is the critical, which is an attempt imported from Germany,
and in England supported with great ingenuity and learning, to set
up a criterion of religious truth and error apart from the reception
of the Catholic scheme. For a long time there was room enough for
all these parties to exist together; and if they quarrelled, it
was rather because they had a taste for quarrelling than because
they were brought into collision. But now there is no longer room
for them, and collision is imminent. We may expect soon to see the
battle fought out between them; nor would it have been delayed so
long had there been any ground solid enough for pitting one against
another. The English ecclesiastical law is so vague that men hardly
dare to invoke it, even when they hope to find it on their side; for
it is impossible to predict its course with certainty, when once it
is set moving. But recent decisions have tended more and more to
bring out this much, that an exact compliance with the present law,
so far as it can be fixed, would be equally distasteful both to the
evangelicals and to the tractarians. It is, in fact, a compromise
constructed with unusual clumsiness, which is now for the first
time being exposed to a searching examination; and it is likely
to meet with the just fate of compromises, by being found equally
hateful to both of the parties whom it was meant to reconcile. The
critical school, who greatly outweigh the two others in learning
and ability, are more evidently outside the letter of the present
law, though its machinery is too clumsy to be used against them with
any great effect. But the matter will not long be left in the hands
of the present law; and it is hard to foretell the legislation of
the future. Nobody, we think, can now doubt that a few years will
see some great change, either of secularization, or at least of
redistribution, in the ecclesiastical revenues. A large section of
the tractarian party now cries out for disestablishment, as the only
way open to them by which they may keep the Catholic faith.

When the catastrophe to which we are looking forward does come, no
doubt there will be some splitting up of parties. Some, we hope
many, of the tractarians will be received into the Catholic Church;
and then it will be seen whether the remainder will be able to set
up a free church, according to their darling scheme. Many of the
evangelicals will doubtless join the various dissenting bodies; and
some, perhaps, will coalesce with the liberals, (whom we called the
critical school,) and it is possible that these latter may be left
for a little while in possession of the whole of the temporalities
of the church. This, however, we do not think likely; it is probable
that disestablishment will be itself the occasion of a general
dissolution. But the liberals have this great advantage on their
side, that they are under no temptation whatever to split up. The
agreement which holds them together is an agreement to differ; and
their bond of union is a protest against all persons who consider
dogmatic opinions of any kind to be a sufficient ground for breaking
communion. Upon this understanding they are ready to shake hands with
the whole world. And the opinions which are held by the esoteric
members of the party (for some of them have opinions) are always
embraced subject to the admission that they may possibly be false.
They find truth everywhere, and close resemblances between things
which are totally different. A bigot, according to the old joke, is
a person who says that he is in the right, and that every body who
differs from him is in the wrong; but a liberal is afraid to say that
he is in the right, lest he should be obliged to say that somebody
else is not. They avoid mistakes by saying as little as possible,
and by using the vaguest terms they can find; and, above all, by
cheerfully admitting that there is always a great deal to be said on
both sides. As certain of their own poets have said,

        "Methinks I see them
    Through everlasting limbos of void time
    Twirling and twiddling ineffectively,
    And indeterminately swaying for ever."

But it is only fair to say that here they are seen in their weakness,
not in their strength. This vague and undecided habit of mind is the
result of the circumstances in which they had their beginning. The
spectacle of a great number of sects, each in practice arrogating
to itself infallibility while they teach incompatible doctrines,
produces different effects upon different minds. Its natural effect
upon the shallow, who are just deep enough to find out that other
sects exist beside the one in which they were brought up, is to breed
scepticism. They know that two contradictory propositions cannot
both be true, and they think that the one is as well supported by
evidence as the other; and out of these premises, by the help of bad
logic, they draw the conclusion that both must be false. But sounder
intellects set about investigating more closely the criterion of
truth and falsehood; and to such we owe the critical theory, which is
not only ingenious, but even true so far as it goes. Something of the
indecision of men who have seen so much of error that they now hardly
believe in the existence of truth, clings to these critics; and this
makes their proceeding seem to be sceptical when it is not really
so. Their theory may be briefly summed up as follows: "Interpret the
Scripture," says one,[167] "like any other book." This in his mouth
was a brief way of bidding us measure religious truth by the same
tests, while we seek it by the same methods, as other truth. It is
well known that the labor of successive generations of scholars,
following the same main rules of criticism, has made a great
approach to uniformity in the interpretation of profane authors; and
nobody doubts that the common consent of the critics, if it could
be obtained, would be the best possible evidence to the unlearned
of the true meaning of an obscure passage. It is inferred that the
same critical methods may be applied to the Bible, and that the same
approach to uniformity of interpretation may thus be secured.

This is a plausible theory; and it is sound so far as it goes. But
it completely ignores the Catholic theory of the interpretation of
Scripture. Its authors evidently suppose, for example, that if a
text quoted by the Council of Trent in support of a doctrine could
be critically proved irrelevant to the purpose, then the doctrine
would be seriously shaken in the minds of Catholics. But this opinion
rests on a profound misapprehension of the Catholic view. We accept
the doctrine on the authority of the council, as the voice of the
church, without criticising the source from which the words are
drawn; and although the church in her decisions is guided by her
unalterable tradition, yet it is a possible case that she might
be quite assured of the fact of the tradition, and yet (to speak
reverently) erroneously quote a document in evidence. A Catholic
would be very cautious about attributing critical errors of this
kind to a general council; but no theologian will deny that such
a thing might happen. The function of the church in interpreting
Scripture is by no means limited to ascertaining what the words
written represented to the mind of the writer; the question is
much wider than this, including all that was intended by God to be
conveyed or suggested by the written words to the church at large.
It does not follow that, because a given meaning is the only sense
which the words could appropriately bear at the time when they were
written, therefore no other additional sense was intended to be
conveyed at some future time. In proportion as we exalt the degree
in which a passage or a book is supposed to be inspired, so much the
more probable does it become that its words will bear more than one
meaning. In the higher sense of the word inspiration, the human agent
becomes a mere instrument to convey a message, which he himself may
possibly not understand at all. The meaning then lies wholly in the
mind of God; and it is to be sought out by the divinely appointed
interpreter. Hence is apparent the reasonableness, when they are
taken together, of the two elements which make up the Catholic theory
of Scripture--the inspiration of the written word, and the commission
of the church to interpret. Both these things are ignored or denied
by that school of criticism about which we have been speaking. Their
view is quite incompatible with the Catholic view of inspiration, and
they at the same time naturally deny the right of interpretation to
the church, in order to give it to the scholar. And they therefore
limit the function of interpretation to that which the scholar can
reasonably attempt--the discovery of the meaning appropriate to the
circumstances under which the words were uttered.

The theory, as it stands by itself, is a plausible hypothesis,
much better able to bear examination than any other theory
which Protestants have ever put forward. We do not think that it
will fulfil the hopes of its friends, by securing the wished for
uniformity of interpretation. And we cannot help thinking that its
adherents ought to be on their guard against their peculiar faculty
of finding out likenesses in dissimilar things, lest they should
deceive themselves by fancying that they have secured uniformity when
they have not. At present, they are rather apt to mistake the progeny
of their neighbors for their own--

                  ... "simillima proles
    Indiscreta suis gratusque parentibus error."

A few years ago, one of them placed on record his pious delight at
the closeness with which Dr. Pusey's theological system resembled
that of Mr. Jowett. He seemed to think that we are all of us getting
year by year into closer agreement, and that the golden mean toward
which all are gravitating is that hazy creed which looms vaguely upon
the inner vision of Dean Stanley.

FOOTNOTES:

[165] Now Bishop of Exeter. He was the author of an ingenious but
whimsical essay, styled, "The Education of the World," in _Essays
and Reviews_, where he parcelled out the elements of our present
civilization among different nations of antiquity. He almost seems
to have thought that Turner owed his knowledge of painting, in some
vague way, to Zeuxis and Parrhasius.

[166] To give Calvin his due, he was only for chopping off the head
of Servetus. He called eagerly for his blood; but he was willing to
temper justice with so much mercy as lies in substituting the axe for
the fagot.

[167] Professor Jowett, _Essays and Reviews_, ninth ed. p. 377. This
essay contains several jokes, which to us seem rather out of place.
"Even the Greek Plato," says the professor, (p. 390,) "would have
'coldly furnished forth' the words of 'eternal life.'" The reader
will remember the words of Shakespeare,

              "The funeral baked meats
    Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables,"

meaning (as is shown by the preceding words, _Thrift, thrift,
Horatio!_) that the marriage had followed so close upon the funeral
that the pasties which had been hot at the one came up cold at the
other. The new turn given by Mr. Jowett to his original has, we
admit, a very humorous effect; but we cannot help thinking that he
has been unseasonably witty.




THE SAGACIOUS WIG.


I.

A wig may be said to have two lives--the one with its own head, the
other with its adopted head, or rather the head which adopts it; it
has, therefore, a double chance for wisdom, and might be expected to
profit accordingly. Generally speaking, this is the case, and wig and
wisdom are almost synonymous.

Such wonderful tales had been told in a certain shop, by wigs
that came back to be _fixed a little_, of the glory of their new
abodes--wigs shorn from the very dregs of the people--from heads
that had never been combed or petted or cared for--from heads
houseless and hatless, that had been rained on and hailed on, and
now in their second life dwelt in splendor unmitigated--that their
discourses fairly curled up tighter every wig in the place. The shop
had proved but a stepping-stone to blissful companionship with wits
and statesmen; they reposed on the brows of sages and philosophers,
shared the applauses of the multitude with popular orators, listened
to the eloquence born of champagne and gaslight, and won the
smiles and flirted with sweet ladies on Turkish divans and velvet
_fauteuils_; all this and more, the wigs who came back had to relate.
No wonder hopes were raised in each that went forth--hopes often
delusive.


II.

If the few hairs which made a kind of rim round the head of Martin
Tryterlittle had chosen to speak when he first clapped a wig on his
bald crown, (bald though not yet old,) they could have told a long
story, or rather a succession of many stories, of hope, expectation,
and disappointment in the three great walks of life--money-making,
love-making, and fame-making. Striving, ever striving, he hardly
paused to look back at the profitless path he had trodden. The
meeting accidentally with an old school-chum in fine broadcloth,
or the ultra urgency of his landlady or some other disagreeable
creditor, gave him occasionally more vivid views of things, and at
such times he indulged in indignant and certainly very disrespectful
language toward mankind in general and some individuals in
particular; but generally his mood was patient endurance.

Success in life was an enigma. There was Job Lovemee, who began
his career by ridiculously marrying a girl as poor as himself, and
blessed since with six children, was getting as rich as a nabob;
"while I," said Martin, "with no such drawbacks, am as poor as a
church mouse."

It was a pleasant bright spring morning when Martin Tryterlittle
suddenly resolved to turn over a new leaf in his book of life and
mend its story.

"No wonder I cannot succeed," said he; "look at me!" So, as no one
was by, he looked at himself, bit at a time, in the little cracked
mirror which adorned his attic lodging-room. As the fortunes of
Martin had been gradually sinking in the scale of social existence,
he had physically been rising; that is, from occupying the first
floor handsomely furnished, as the advertisement set forth, he had
ascended to the attic, so nearly unfurnished that a bed, a table, a
chair, and a broken mirror comprised its whole inventory.

"Look at me!" said Martin to himself, "threadbare and bald! No
wonder I find nothing to do and no one to woo, and stay lagging
behind in this march of mankind! I'll buy a wig to-day if I have to
sell something to pay for it; for every body can see my head, but
nobody--well, I'll button up my coat!"

It was no one's business how it was accomplished, as Martin truly
said, but it _was_ done; the wig was bought and paid for, and rested
now on his table in happy anticipation of the triumphs of the ensuing
day. "No one will know me," said he. "I hardly know myself! O my wig!
how happy we shall be; to thee shall I owe friends and fortune!"

It may startle some old-fashioned people to hear me assert that there
was a responsive chord in the wig which answered to all this; but
those familiar with modern metaphysical speculations will easily
credit it. The wig, be it remembered, was once part and parcel of a
sentient being; nor have we any reason to suppose that baking and
boiling, in the process of wig-making, could in any way touch the
spark immortal and invisible which once pervaded it. It is true
that counter arguments might be advanced, and so there is no end to
controversy; but there is a shorter way--and having demonstrated how
the thing _might_ have been, we are satisfied to believe that so it
_was_. Martin felt that his wig understood him. He was no longer
alone in the world; companionship is something even with a wig, and
he realized it as he laid his purchase carefully on the table and
betook himself to his bed.

It was a long night; but day dawned at last, and, in the mean
time, the whole future had been mapped out in the mind of Martin
Tryterlittle. He rose early, made a careful toilette of such
materials as were to be had, and sallied forth in thoughtful mood.

"Fame, wealth, love"--he conned them over in the order of valuation.
"Fame (said he) I must first secure, and then I can command my own
price in every thing else. Wealth will follow; and as for love, I
need not go after that. Lord! there is no end to the love that comes
tumbling in upon fame and money!"

_C'est le premier pas qui coute_--the problem was, how to be famous.
There was a military and a civil career. There was invention in all
the arts subservient to human needs. Could any wheels anywhere be
made to go faster or smoother or with less smashing up? Well, as
far as he saw, every thing was as good as it could be. Literature?
Ah! that is a long track; besides, publishers are "lions in the
way"--they cannot or will not always appreciate merit; fame seldom
comes to the scribe till after he is beyond the reach of earthly pain
or blame. "No," said Martin, "I must be famous living; what matters
it after one is dead?"

"What is all this jabber about?" thought the wig; "surely my master
has so many ways before him he cannot tell which to choose; but so
jauntily I sit on his brow, he cannot fail of success whichever he
takes."

This cogitating mood brought them step by step to a corner--one of
those comers peculiar to great cities; where, while down one wide
avenue the mighty human tide goes rushing and roaring, the narrow
side street, like a little sluggish stream with scarce a perceptible
ripple, joins it and empties its trifle into it. At this moment the
usual tide in the great thoroughfare was swollen to a torrent; in
plain words, at the corner Martin encountered a mighty mob. Hark!
what a rabble shout! pell-mell--something had happened. Somebody had
sinned, and very vindictive seemed the sufferers. Martin was caught
in the current and twirled into their midst. Then was heard, "Oh! the
man had a wig on!"--"wig!" "man!" "man!" "wig!" It went from mouth to
mouth. Well, here was a man with a wig on in their midst; this must
be he. The logic was conclusive; so Martin was seized and hurried
along.

"What have I done?" cried he.

"Oh! yes, you know what you've done; and we know what you've done,"
shouted a dozen tongues. So, pinioned close, he was borne onward to
the halls of justice, or injustice, as the case might be.

"Well, well!" thought the wig; "I little expected to get in such a
fix with my gentleman, or I should have clinched his bald pate till
he would have been glad to leave me for some other customer. It is
disgraceful!"

"It's villainous! it's outrageous!" roared Martin.

"Shut up!" said a looker-on.

Now came a medley of questions and cross-questions, and ejaculations,
and assertions, and confirmations, and contradictions, and, in short,
the usual path of law and order was trodden over, till they settled
down to unanimity on one point: the evil deed, whatever it was, (and
very few seemed to know exactly what it was,) had been done by a
man in a wig; but then it was a yellow-white, frowsy, sunburnt sort
of a wig. Who could ever suspect that mass of dark, glossy curls of
concealing a rogue? No one. So Martin was dismissed with the galling
consciousness that for the great wrong done him there was no redress.
A great wrong, too, he felt it; for what was he henceforth? Why, the
very boys in the street would point to him as "the one wot was took
up." He shrank from being seen; he had been too famous already.

He turned his steps homeward to collect his thoughts and rearrange
his dress.

"This comes of a wig," said he; "a wig is deception, deception is
rascality. A man guilty of one deception must not take it in dudgeon
that he is suspected of another. I scorn fame! I go for money; and
money shall make me famous. I began at the wrong end."

"Yes," (chimed in the wig,) "we'll be rich and loved; and the rest is
all bosh."

It took Martin Tryterlittle a long time to put himself again in
presentable order; one more such adventure, and he would be obliged
to cease intercourse with that portion of creation who walk in
sunlight, and join the human owls who, from choice or necessity, fly
only by night. Their ways are not so widely different as a casual
observer might suppose. Money is dear to both, and both are fond of
taking short roads to it. Only in one thing they differ vastly--the
day-worker sighs and seeks for notoriety, and often fails to obtain
it; the night-prowlers have it thrust upon them, though they shun it.
Martin had shared their hapless luck, and his ideas were changed;
henceforth he scorned fame in all its phases, and exalted that other
idol--money.


III.

A second time day-dawn called up Martin and his wig for new projects.
It was a glorious morning. There was something exhilarating in
that yellow flood of light which promised success. It was so
cosmopolitan--that sunlight! It gave to all things such a gloss of
delicate beauty. First, it just touched with gold the spires, and
tallest trees and chimney-tops; then it slid down the house-side
to peep in my lady's chamber; then it poured a glow all over the
pavement, and made merry and warm all the little things, animate and
inanimate, which but for that would have been dark and cold. Into
this atmosphere of joyousness walked forth now Martin Tryterlittle to
find something to do, some fellow-creature with a want unfilled.

It is surprising that any one ever begins to do any thing in this
world, where every avenue to success is crowded, every necessity
supplied, and every evil surrounded by a belt of antidotes; it takes
immense penetration to discover where there is left any thing to be
done.

"I must find a _want_," said he. And he turned to that dragon ever
watchful of human interests--a newspaper. The _wanted_ there were
many--workers for metals, accountants for wealth, delvers for the
riches of earth; but all these anticipated a certain previous
training. _Wanted, a teacher._ "That's it," said Martin. "I think
I am fitted for that." So he moved on to the field of action--the
institute.

The building was easily found--a large brick pile surrounded by
grass, or rather, what would have been grass had juvenile footsteps
permitted. To point the searcher for knowledge to the proper
entrance, its name was displayed there in conspicuous letters.

The master was not so accessible; and he sat a long time in the
parlor with several other visitors, and listened to the tinkling of
sundry little bells, and saw passing in the distance sundry little
processions armed with books and slates, until they were all properly
impressed with an idea of the extent of the establishment and the
awful responsibility of conducting it. At length, slowly and with
dignity, entered Mr. Pushem.

"A teacher, you want?" modestly inquired Martin.

"Yes, sir," was the laconic reply; and a little silence ensued.

"For what, sir?" again modestly asked Martin.

"Well, sir, for several things; in fact, sir, for most any thing."

So, as Martin announced himself _au fait_ on all subjects, and the
salary, without decided specification, was declared by the dignified
principal to be unquestionably liberal, and the duties could not well
be defined until he entered upon them; and as the only positive point
was that he was to be niggard never in either time or labor, for the
reason that time and labor were dust in the balance compared with
the progress of immortal minds, the applicant was regularly enlisted
under the banner of the INSTITUTE. He was to pay his board and
lodging of course, said Mr. Pushem; and, of course, Martin did not
expect to board and lodge without pay, though he had some remembrance
of having done so occasionally; and so the matter was settled, and he
returned home.

It took him small time to pack his bundle. His trunk had been
detained a long time ago by a savage old dame for rent; and, knowing
that the same gulf yawned ever for all succeeding trunks, he had
never replaced it. So, packing his little bundle, I say, and leaving
a kind message for his landlady with a fellow-lodger, to the purport
that he would come back and pay her as soon as he could, he vanished
from his old abode as effectually as if he had gone to another
planet.

Loving parents tell us there is nothing so delightful as watching
the daily progress of children in learning the alphabet of life.
Not that villainous regiment called A B C, which merits execration
as the first herald of toil and sorrow to the infantile heart, but
that beautiful alphabet of rosy hues and rainbow colors, stamped on
leaf, and flower, and fruit, and wave, and hill-side, and which, in
conning over, the little eye learns to see, and the ear to hear; and
the touch refines itself, and fragrance grows to be an idea; and
the little gourmand makes its first essay in luxurious living on
peaches and berries. Every little incident here is delightful. But
not so pleasant is it to note the later wanderings of human beings in
quest of that vague thing--_a living_. The traveller on the highway
of life has grown weary now, and stumbles and plunges ankle-deep in
all things disagreeable. He has heard the bird of promise sing so
falsely, he knows how little the song is worth--he has grown sad
while growing wise; and thus plodded on Martin Tryterlittle.

Some months had passed now since the roof of the institute first
sheltered him; and the bread and bones and watery tea of the
institute first nourished him; and the boys harassed him, and made
fun of him; and twigged his wig, and put nettles in his bed in more
than a metaphorical sense. His master had kept him like a toad under
a harrow, (to use an inelegant but expressive phrase,) always doing,
never done; the salary was yet unsettled, and the duties undefined,
when one night the wig claimed a hearing.

"I am growing shabby," said the wig, "and you are no richer."

Not that these words were uttered in an audible tone, but the thought
passed to Martin and was comprehended.

"You are growing shabby," sighed Martin, ruthfully gazing, "and I am
no richer."

"O master mine!" quoth the wig, "do you see how you are walking on?
You are growing poorer, not richer! What is to you all the glory of
this concern, when you own not even a nail in the wall? You are just
the stone they step on who mount up over you. What do you get for it?
O master mine! you are an ass to stay!"

Martin was not inaccessible to reason; he was impressed daily more
and more with the good sense of his old friend Horace.

    "Et genus et virtus, nisi cum re, vilior alga est."[168]

His rusty garments and diminished bundle told him that the wig
spoke truth, and he prepared, not for a hegira, but for an official
resignation. It took no long time for this, and his little hard bed
in its windy corner was left empty the very next night. The boys
felt that a great source of amusement had departed, and sincerely
regretted his loss; and Mr. Pushem, after due astonishment at such
blindness to advantages, disbursed to him the smallest possible sum
as balance due, and advertised for another teacher.

O gold, gold! _Slave of the dark and dirty mine!_ what need to record
how often thou didst beckon on luckless Martin Tryterlittle, only
to flit from him further than ever? What matters how he slept in
back offices and front basements, dreaming of mines somewhere at
the antipodes, of which he was to have such a glittering slice--or
of lovely landscapes away off in the vast wilderness of which he
would one day be landed proprietor?--that is, as soon as he could
persuade certain people into certain projects which seemed in theory
mighty attractive, but proved in practice to have no attractions
whatever--suffice to say that at last, quite desponding, he invested
most part of his few remaining coin in the prepayment of an attic,
and seated himself sadly at its window.

"I shall never be rich," quoth he; "fame and fortune!--well, let them
go." His heart threw a sigh to the other one of the trio, and the wig
took it up. "I was born for love," said the wig; "the first sweet
words I remember came from the rosy lips of our pretty shop-girl,
_What a love of a wig!_ I have never yet had a fair chance in life.
What care those bankers and old money-scrapers for good looks? They
are all gray and bald and wrinkled before their time. Put me on my
own field, master, and SEE what _I_ can do!"

Perhaps this prompted Martin to lean further out of his window, and
thus give his wig the full benefit of sunlight and the chance of
making acquaintances; at least he did so; and doing so, he glanced
across the street to a window nearly as high as his own, and saw
there--what? Why, two bright eyes looking intently at him! He drew
back; for Martin was diffident with the fair sex, and being, besides,
innately a gentleman, it did not occur to him to embarrass the
damsel with a rude stare. So he retreated; and the bright eyes also
retreated and what was worse than all, a little, plump, white hand
came out and closed the shutters.

Nothing more was seen all day; but he had ample occupation in
conjecturing who it could be. No toil-worn seamstress ever had such
a laughing glance and such a plump little hand; no, it was evidently
a maiden quite above care for the morrow. Most anxiously he awaited
the following morning, when about the same hour--that is, early
day--could he believe his senses?--again the shutter was opened,
and the bright eyes glanced up at him as if they too remembered.
The little fairy was evidently a household fairy engaged in some
fairy-like duties about the chamber, and ever and anon, as these
brought her near the window, she glanced up at Martin.

That any loving and lovable woman should bestow a thought on _him_
was a leaf of paradise painted in dreams sometimes on the far-off
days to come, when he should be rich and renowned; but that such
bright, happy eyes should seek and rest on poor Martin Tryterlittle
was hardly credible; as soon would he have expected Luna to step down
from her orbit, peep into his attic, and say, "Good evening to you,
Martin;" but so it was.

"It is _my_ doing," said the wig; "all mine!"

One day was the story of the next, and the next, and several more
beyond. It is surprising how much may be learned of the inhabitants
of a house from its exterior. As the beatific vision lasted but a
short time each morning, a long day and night was left him to study
its surroundings, and in a brief space of time he read the whole
plain as a book. It was a handsome mansion, and a private one.
There was a sensible housekeeping mistress there; for the railings
were black and the knocker bright, and the steps were clean and the
housemaids tidy; even the pavements were a pattern to the neighbors.
There were order and industry throughout the establishment,
evidently. All this and more besides he deciphered by processes whose
intricate premises laughed to scorn quadratic equations, and yet he
was never tired.

Martin had done, here and there and everywhere in his lifetime,
a deal more head-work than he had ever been paid for, rather by
compulsion; but now he labored _con amore_ on the loveliest subject
life affords; and so far from wearying him, his wits grew brighter,
his ideas received a new impetus, and, strange to say, the beneficial
influence extended to his purse.

"I must have some honest occupation now," cried he; "it will never do
to introduce myself as lounger in an attic window!" Yes! he really
dreamed of an introduction.

"Let me see," (and he picked up his old dragon friend the newspaper;)
"_wants, wants_--small salary, etc.; well, I will try." So he
speedily bargained himself away to--no matter what, so it was honest,
and went to work with a good-will.

It was pleasant, too, (strange he had never thought of it before;) it
was pleasant to have a defined place among his fellow-mortals, and
to feel that he could not now, as heretofore, be blown away on some
windy day, and no one miss him.

Great changes are not wrought in a day. It took him some time to
straighten out his line of existence and untie all the knots he had
always been tying in it; to settle up scores with the past, and open
accounts with the future--but it was all accomplished; and see now
the life of Martin Tryterlittle.

He rose betimes, drank an elixir from those bright eyes perfectly
intoxicating, and speeded to business. At eventide--where think you
he spent his evenings? Why, in the back-parlor of that same handsome
mansion, with little household fairy at his side, and papa smiling
approval. He was no longer threadbare and shabby, and the only bit
of deception about him--his wig--had been long ago confessed and
forgiven.

"I'm a deal better than any hair that ever grew on any man's head,"
said the wig; "for if you live to be a hundred years old, I shall
never be bald or gray."

"You will never be bald or gray," said Martin.

"It will never be bald or gray," laughed the little fairy.

On a certain evening about a year after this, Martin and his wig sat
down for the last time to their dual converse; the next day a little
lady was to be admitted, and the partnership would be a trio. Martin
reclined on a sofa in his own domicil this night, and looked on a
soft, bright carpet. His purse had filled up; nor was he unknown to
fame--at least to a holy fame born of benevolence, which in after
years lighted up many a desolated heart and hearth, and carved his
name on structures where the homeless were sheltered and the hungry
fed.

"Master mine," said the wig, "we mistook our track. Human life was
not bestowed for the hoarding up of money--or men would have been all
born with pockets; nor yet for a chase after fame. There are innate,
loftier, and purer aspirations to be satisfied--the living soul
craves something to love, and craves to be loved; and like sunshine
to earth, that brings forth golden grain and sweet flowers, so pure
love, the household sunshine, calls out wealth of thought and energy
of action; and so comes fame, and so comes money!"

"Just so," said Martin; "you talk like a book!"

FOOTNOTE:

[168] Hor. Bk. ii. Sat. 5. Both birth and virtue, without money, are
more worthless than seaweed.




THE POPE AND THE COUNCIL, BY JANUS.

II.


As the reader will have seen in our previous article, it became
necessary to interrogate history at some length in order to elucidate
and substantiate our arguments on the two points we have already set
forth, namely, the real purpose of _Janus_, and the orthodoxy which
the authors of this work profess. We have thus prepared the way for
our examination of the historical and critical parts of _Janus_, for
which he has found so many ardent admirers who would assign him a
"position in the very front rank of science."

_Janus_ is principally hailed as a work of history, and as such,
makes by no means ordinary or modest pretensions. That promiscuous
array of matter presented to the reader in the third chapter,
subdivided into thirty-three paragraphs with those numerous
references to "_original authorities_," has dazzled so many eyes
and overpowered so many minds, that they could not "help feeling
convinced of its veracity." He has been held up as a "thorough
Catholic" and a "learned canonist," and whether or not by any
legitimate and scientific criterion _Janus_ merits these encomiums,
the reader can infer from the unexceptionable authorities we have
advanced.

We now ask the simple question, Has _Janus_ shown himself to be "a
faithful and discriminating historian"? Having already appealed to
the verdict of history on points of the very first importance, we may
confine ourselves exclusively to the historical merits of _Janus's_
work. It cannot be expected that, within the space allowed to such
an examination, we can touch upon every point; yet we trust to be
able to make such selections as will be sufficient to clear up the
most important historical questions upon which _Janus_ himself lays
most stress. The following extract gives the key to the historical
edifice of _Janus_:

    "In this book the first attempt has been made to give a history
    of the hypothesis of papal infallibility, from its first
    beginnings to the end of the sixteenth century, when it appears
    in its complete form." (P. 24.)

To take away all historical basis from "ultramontanism," the authors
go over the whole field of ecclesiastical history, and particularly
the lives, both private and public, of the popes, together with their
acts of administration, whether referring to the religious or civil
government; in short, any thing and every thing is gathered "to
bring forward a very dark side of the history of the papacy." The
authors pledge themselves to oppose what they term the "ultramontane
scheme," to which they will never submit, and hence their appeal
to history, which should show that, since the ninth century, the
constitution of the church has undergone a transformation neither
sound nor natural, because in contradiction with that of the "ancient
church." But the question which naturally suggests itself is, Who
is responsible for this movement in the church, "preparing, like
an advancing flood-tide, to take possession of its whole organic
life"? A "powerful party which, in ignorance of past history or by
deliberately falsifying it," is now about to complete its system and
surround itself with an "impregnable bulwark," by the doctrine of
infallibility. To ward off so fatal a catastrophe, _Janus_ enters
this protest, based on history.

    "Only when a universal conflagration of libraries had destroyed
    all historical documents, when easterns and westerns knew no
    more of their own early history than the Maories in New Zealand
    know of theirs now, and when, by a miracle, great nations
    had abjured their whole intellectual character and habits of
    thought, then, and not till then, would such a submission be
    possible." (P. 26.)

We have thus fairly stated the whole issue. True enough, the
ultramontanes were not wise when they did not give over to the flames
all libraries, with the exception of the Isidorian decretals, as the
Mohammedans are known to have done with the library of Alexandria.
Yet we are happy to say that such an expedient measure has not been
resorted to, being thereby enabled to trace the truth or falsehood of
this "mighty programme" of ultramontanism which _Janus_ is pleased to
honor with the name of "Papalism."

We can easily dispense with the alleged historical misconceptions of
the middle ages, and draw upon the very same historical documents
with which _Janus_ so confidently proclaims his victory. Attention
has already been directed to the peculiar mode of warfare pursued by
_Janus_, namely, to its purely negative and destructive character.
The third chapter bears the title of "Papal Infallibility," (pp.
31-346,) and hence we are led to expect a clear, authentic, and fair
exposition of the doctrine in question, and then all other arguments
which, either from scripture and patristic authority or from history,
could be brought to bear against such a doctrine. No reasonable man,
much less a theologian, could object to such a mode of proceeding.
The authors of _Janus_, wishing to cede to none in their loyal
devotion to Catholic truth, could make ample use of that liberty of
scientific discussion and historical investigation for or against the
question of infallibility, and no charge of "radical aversion," as
they seemed to apprehend, could be brought against their work.

Since _Janus_ openly avows his purpose of disproving the doctrine of
infallibility, why does he not give such an explanation of it as is
taught by its most able and acknowledged defenders? What right has
he to produce a version of it to suit his own fancy? Why bring up
arguments militating, indeed, against his _own_ theory, but in nowise
conclusive against the doctrine as laid down by its own exponents?
That it may not appear as if we made unfounded charges against
_Janus_, we will subjoin his own definition and development of the
doctrine he sees fit to attack:

    "When we speak of the church, we mean the pope, says the Jesuit
    Gretser. Taken by itself as the community of believers, clergy
    and bishops, the church, according to Cardinal Cajetan, is the
    slave of the pope." (P. 31.)

Apparently, our authors would make this the ultramontanist tenet:
henceforward the "_l'eglise c'est moi_" would be the genuine
expression of papal infallibility. We know of no theologian who
sustains any such thesis as the above, and we had expected a
_reference_ to the authorities quoted; but none is given, and we
little heed the utterances attributed to them. Nothing, indeed, is
easier than to place a question in a false point of view, either
by exaggeration or misrepresentation, in order to make it appear
ludicrous and absurd.

    "It is a fundamental principle of the ultramontane view that,
    when we speak of the church, its rights and its action, we
    always mean the pope, and the pope only." (P. 31.)

There is no treatise on the church in which any such definition is
to be found, or any author who declares the pope alone to be the
church, in any possible sense or conception. _Janus_ delights to cite
Bellarmine as one of such ultramontane view. Now, we confidently
assert that nowhere in his elaborate treatises on the _Roman
Pontiff_ or the _Church Militant_ any similar definition to the one
alleged can be found. Who is there who does not know that clear and
concise notion given by Bellarmine, in which he has been followed by
all standard works? For he says,

    "Nostra autem sententia est, Ecclesiam unam et veram esse
    coetum hominum ejusdem Christianae fidei professione, et
    eorundem sacramentorum communione colligatum sub regimine
    legitumorum pastorum ac praecipue unius Christi in terris
    Vicarii Romani Pontificis."[169]

    "Our doctrine is, that the one true church is that society
    of men which is bound together by the profession of the same
    Christian faith under the government of their lawful pastors,
    and especially of one vicar of Christ on the earth, the Roman
    pontiff."

The following passages would exhibit the ultramontane doctrine of
infallibility and its consequences:

    "God has gone to sleep, because in his place his ever-wakeful
    and infallible vicar on earth rules, as lord of the world, and
    dispenser of grace and punishment." (P. 32.)

    "The inevitable result of the principle would speedily bring
    us to this point, that the essence of infallibility consists
    in the pope's signature to a decree hastily drawn up by a
    congregation or a single theologian." (Preface, xxv.)

    "Rome is an ecclesiastical address and inquiry-office, or
    rather, a standing oracle, which can give at once an infallible
    solution of every doubt, speculative and practical.... With
    ultramontanes, the authority of Rome, and the typical example
    of Roman morals and customs, are the embodiment of the moral
    and ecclesiastical law." (P. 35.)

    "What is called Catholicity can only be attained in the eyes
    of the court of Rome, by every one translating himself and his
    ideas, on every subject that has any connection with religion,
    into Italian." (P. 37.)

    "Infallibility is a principle which will extend its dominion
    over men's minds more and more, till it has coerced them into
    subjection to every papal pronouncement in matters of religion,
    morals, politics, and social science."

    "Every pope, however ignorant of theology, will be free to make
    what use he likes of his power of _dogmatic creativeness_, and
    to erect his own thoughts into the common belief, binding on
    the whole church." (P. 39.)

    "A papal decision, itself the result of a direct divine
    inspiration."

    "Every other authority will pale beside the living oracle of
    the Tiber, which speaks with plenary inspiration."

    "What use in tedious investigation of Scripture, what use
    in wasting time on the difficult study of tradition, which
    requires so many kinds of preliminary knowledge, when a single
    utterance of the infallible pope ... and a telegraphic message
    becomes an axiom and article of faith?" (P. 40.)

    "And how will it be in the future?" asks _Janus_; "the rabbis
    say, on every apostrophe in the Bible hang whole mountains of
    hidden sense, and this will apply equally to papal bulls." (P.
    41.)

We have been rather copious in our extracts from _Janus_ in order to
give him a fair hearing. The question which first presents itself to
a candid mind is, Has _Janus_ given a just and authentic explanation
of the doctrine of infallibility? We answer most emphatically,
No! Never has a doctrine been more unfairly represented than this
"ultramontane" one by our authors. No one will choose to call it
fair and equitable to disfigure and distort in divers ways the
doctrine of an opponent, how much soever it may be against our own
convictions. Those who make parade of their "scientific criticism"
can least resort to such tactics with a view to seek popularity and
win the smiles of the uninformed and ignorant among their readers,
as the authors of _Janus_ have done. Who would fain recognize this
doctrine under the colors and shades of this portrait sketched by
_Janus_? Bellarmine is the great champion of infallibility. (P. 318.)
Yet, nowhere does this eminent divine teach that a papal decision
is the result of _divine_ inspiration, nor does he attribute to the
pope any power of dogmatic _creativeness_--much less that he can
erect his own thoughts into universal belief binding the church.
"The sovereign pontiff," says Bellarmine,[170] "when he teaches the
universal church, cannot err either in his decrees of faith or in
moral precepts which are binding on the whole church, and in such
things as are necessary to salvation and in themselves, that is,
_essentially_ good or evil." Another authority well known has the
following clear _expose_ of this question: "The subject-matter of
such irreformable judgments of the sovereign pontiff is limited to
questions of dogmatic and moral import. We distinguish a two-fold
character in the pope, namely, considering him as a private
individual or _doctor privatus_, and by virtue of his office as chief
pastor and as the universal doctor and teacher of all the faithful,
appointed by Christ. The pope is considered as _universal teacher_
when, using his public authority as the supreme guide of the church,
(_supremus ecclesiae magister_,) he proposes something to the whole
church, obliging all the faithful under anathema, or pain of heresy,
to believe the article thus proposed with internal assent and divine
faith. The pope when teaching under these conditions is said to speak
_ex cathedra_. We do not here speak of the pope as an individual
teacher, (_doctor privatus_,) since every one agrees on this, that
the pope, just as well as other men, is liable to err, and his
judgment may be reversed."[171]

Now, _Janus_ does away with this distinction by comparing it to
"wooden iron" invented merely as an expedient hypothesis, whereas all
theologians of repute agree on this difference, as well as on the
_essential_ conditions of the _ex cathedra_ decisions. If there be
some difficulties and minor differences among theologians on papal
decrees, this by no means affects the value of this important and
necessary distinction itself. Even the decrees of an oecumenical
council may give rise to similar differences among theologians. It is
nothing less than a falsehood on the part of _Janus_ that the cause
of this inerrancy claimed for the pope as universal teacher is due to
direct divine and plenary inspiration. All theologians are unanimous
in asserting merely a _divine assistance_ to guard against error,
just as the church herself is divinely guided by the Holy Spirit,
promised by Christ to reside with her for ever. There cannot be any
necessity for substituting inspiration or a new revelation, since the
infallible _magisterium_ in the church is exercised in the two-fold
duty of teaching and preserving _all those truths_ which she has
received as a _sacred deposit_ from her divine Founder. Moreover, it
is supposed that the pope when issuing such decrees to the universal
church, binding all the faithful, proceeds with that caution and
prudence which such weighty acts demand, that he has full liberty to
assure himself of all human counsel and human means to find the true
and genuine sense of Scripture and tradition. Alluding, therefore, to
_ignorant popes_ making use of their power of dogmatic creativeness
and erecting their "own thoughts" into dogmas of faith, is an appeal
to prejudice and commonplace mockery wholly unworthy of writers who
would be admired for their calm and dignified scientific labors.
Other opponents of papal infallibility have never gainsaid that _at
least_ this doctrine has always found many and able adherents, who
have advanced strong arguments claiming the serious consideration of
every theologian and thinking Christian, and therefore recommended by
most respectable authority. But _Janus_ comes forward to stamp this
"ultramontane doctrine" with the stigma of absurdity and ridicule,
and declares its advocates to be miserable sycophants, devoid of all
learning or honesty of intention. (P. 320.)

The references we have given exhibit the doctrine of infallibility
in such colors as scarcely to be recognized, and all advocates of
the doctrine will repudiate such an unfair and arbitrary statement.
The cunning insinuation that infallibility invests the popes with
personal sanctity and integrity of morals, is no less captious and
shallow. To what purpose those tirades on the private lives of the
popes, or the extravagances of the _Curia_, and the administrative
measures of the civil government, etc.? The supposition as though
the whole church, that is, all the faithful, would have to accept
falsehood for truth, vice for virtue, is a play of _Janus's_
imagination. For those who uphold papal infallibility exclude the
possibility of such an issue on account of the intimate union
necessarily existing between the church and its spiritual head.
According to the promises of Christ, that union--eminently one of
faith--will never be severed, since Christ himself commanded this
obedience of the flock to Peter and his successors. It cannot for a
moment be supposed that the wise Lord of his vineyard sanctioned an
obligation to accept falsehood for truth, or vice for virtue. The
infallible _magisterium_ of the church would be fatally compromised
if the faithful were commanded by lawful authority to give interior
assent to a false doctrine. So much for the intrinsic falsehood of
the hypothesis of _Janus_. Yet he attempts to surround it with an
authoritative garb by citing Bellarmine as maintaining "that if the
pope were to err by prescribing sins and forbidding virtues, the
church would be bound to consider sins good and virtues evil, unless
she chose to sin against conscience." (P. 318.)

Who does not at once see this terrible alternative by which _Janus_
triumphantly proves from the author quoted "that whatever doctrine
it pleases the pope to prescribe, the church must receive"? Having
the work of Bellarmine before our eyes, with the above passage in the
context, we were greatly amazed, to say the least, to see how the
_entire_ proposition conveys just the very opposite meaning of what
_Janus_ would induce his readers to believe. Here is the argument in
question:

    "The pope cannot err in teaching doctrines of faith, nor is he
    liable to err in giving moral precepts binding the whole church
    in matters of _essential_ good and evil. For if this were the
    case, that is, if the pope erred in matters of essential good
    or evil, he would necessarily err also in faith; for Catholic
    faith teaches that every virtue is good and every vice evil.
    Now, if the pope erred by commanding vices or prohibiting
    virtues, the church would be bound to believe vices good and
    virtues evil, unless she chose to sin against conscience."[172]

Bellarmine's meaning evidently is that such an issue becomes
impossible. This _reductio ad absurdum_, or showing to what
contradiction a denial of his thesis would lead, has been exhibited
by our authors as a _bona fide_ tenet of Bellarmine! The passage
itself is _partly_ transcribed with minute reference, so that it is
beyond the courtesy of even a mild critique to exonerate _Janus_ from
the charge of deliberate dishonesty in this instance.

Hitherto we have confined ourselves to a critical examination of a
doctrine against which _Janus_ directs his assaults. In the first
place, we submitted his version of the same, and afterward the
authentic explanation by those whom our authors acknowledge to be
its most able exponents. The inevitable conclusion which forces
itself on every mind is, that _Janus_ has developed the doctrine of
infallibility to suit his own fancy, and consequently the arguments
he brings forward, supposing them true for discussion's sake, would
indeed undermine the position assumed by himself, but in no way
affect the genuine one propounded by his opponents. In order to make
good his arguments from church history and canonical sources against
the stand-point taken by the acknowledged advocates of infallibility,
these three conditions must be verified, 1st. That the pope acted
in his capacity of universal teacher, using his public authority
as supreme head of the church; 2d. That his judgments appertain to
matters of doctrinal belief and moral law necessary to salvation. 3d.
That he proposes such things to the faithful, under pain of heresy,
to be believed with interior assent as of divine faith, that is, a
revealed truth. There is the simple issue between _Janus_ and his
adversaries. Has he advanced one single decree of any pope, invested
with these essential conditions, obliging to believe falsehood
and heresy or commanding to commit an evil and absolutely vicious
action under the name of virtue? We doubt whether any candid and
discriminating historian will maintain that _Janus_ has accomplished
any such task. However, that the reader may not suspect us of
narrowing the domain of papal infallibility, we will quote a passage
from an able and warm adherent of this doctrine, whose writings are
well known as by no means liable to any suspicion of under-statement:

    "In the case of any given document, we have to consider, from
    the context and circumstances, which portion of it _expresses_
    such doctrine; for many statements, even doctrinal, may be
    introduced, not as authoritative determinations, but in the
    way of argument and illustration. Many papal pronouncements,
    though they may introduce doctrinal reasons, yet are not
    doctrinal pronouncements at all, but disciplinary enactments;
    the pope's immediate end in issuing them is, not that certain
    things may be believed, but that certain things may be done.
    If the doctrinal reasons, even for a doctrinal declaration,
    are not infallible, much less can infallibility be claimed
    for the doctrinal reasons of a disciplinarian enactment. Then
    again, the pope may give some doctrinal decision as head of
    the church, and yet not as universal teacher. Some individual
    may ask at his hands, and receive, practical direction on the
    doctrine to be followed in a particular case, while yet the
    pope has no thought whatever of determining the question for
    the whole church and for all time. Much less, as Benedict
    XIV. remarks, does the fact of his acting officially on some
    moral opinion fix on it the seal of infallibility as certainly
    true. Nor, lastly, can any conclusive inference be drawn in
    favor of some doctrinal practice, from the fact of its not
    having been censured or prohibited. The pontiff of the day,
    whether from intellectual or moral defect, may even omit
    censures and prohibitions which are greatly desirable in the
    church's interest, or enact laws of an unwise and prejudicial
    character."[173]

As we have already insinuated, _Janus_ makes this infallibility
extend to the private conduct of the popes, to their particular
sayings and to all other things which were merely preliminary steps
to their official measures. Now, it is certain, as is frequently
urged by ultramontanes, that the pope, in becoming pope, does not
cease to be a man, and to have his own private opinions, and not
being infallible in these, by the very force of terms, they may be
erroneous.

What we might thus far have conceded to _Janus_ without great
injury to the doctrine he opposes, we now proceed to question, and
examine this "history of the hypothesis of papal infallibility,
from its first beginnings to the end of the sixteenth century." He
has indeed resuscitated weighty questions, and not unfrequently
antiquated difficulties which we could point out from works printed
for three hundred years and more. In order to be brief and clear, we
shall begin with the alleged "forgeries" upon which _Janus_ insists
throughout his book, and thereafter interrogate history as to the
many "papal errors," usurpations, and encroachments.

       *       *       *       *       *

NOTE.--The terms "faith," "heresy," and "under anathema," in the
foregoing article, must be understood in their general and not their
restricted sense. That is to say, whenever the pope declares or
defines any thing which is to be believed with absolute interior
assent, this is to be considered as belonging to faith, whether
it be technically a proposition _de fide_, or one which is only
virtually and implicitly contained in a dogma. So, also, when he
condemns an opinion which is indirectly and virtually contrary to
a dogma of faith, this condemnation is of equal authority with the
condemnation of an opinion technically called heretical. The anathema
need not be formally expressed, or a special censure annexed, if it
is made manifest that all Catholics are forbidden to hold the opinion
condemned under pain of grievous sin. The monition of the Council
of the Vatican at the end of the decree on Catholic faith expressly
enjoins on all Catholics the duty of rejecting not only all heresies,
that is, opinions in point-blank contradiction to the dogmas of
Catholic faith, but all errors approaching more or less to heresy
which are condemned by the holy see.--EDITOR OF CATHOLIC WORLD.

    TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[169] _De Eccl. Milit._ lib. iii. cap. 2.

[170] _De Rom. Pontif._ lib. iii. capp. 2, 3, 5.

[171] _Theol. Wirceburg._ tom. i. De Princip. Direct. n. 190.

[172] _De Rom. Pontif._ lib. iv. cap. 5. edit. Venet. 1 vol. p. 779.

[173] _The Authority of Doctrinal Decisions._ By Dr. Ward. Pp. 50, 51.




THE YOUNG VERMONTERS.


CHAPTER VI.

A NEW ADVENTURE.

All went on quietly with our young Vermonters for a long time. They
were engaged in close attention to their studies, in the regular
routine of school duties and recreations of the play-ground, until
late in August, when the peaceful current was again disturbed by the
restlessness of Frank Blair; and it happened in this wise.

In the vicinity of the village lived a farmer whom the boys had named
Old Blue Beech, from his fondness for using a rod of that description
over the backs of lawless juveniles whom he caught trespassing on
his premises. Now, this farmer was very skilful in cultivating
choice fruit, and spared no expense or labor in that department;
rejoicing in an orchard which he held in higher estimation than any
other earthly possession, and which was an object of greedy envy to
the village urchins, who indulged an inveterate spite and aversion
against him, without really knowing why or stopping to inquire. They
seemed to imagine that his keeping guard over his cherished treasures
justified them in making frequent incursions, and waging a perpetual
warfare of petty annoyances against him.

It so happened this year that he had several early pear and
apple-trees, of rare and excellent varieties, in bearing for the
first time, and well laden with most tempting fruit, now nearly ripe.

Frank Blair set his wits about inventing some plan by which he
and his comrades could possess themselves of this fruit without
detection. He formed and dismissed many schemes, at length devising
one that he thought could be safely carried out. Accordingly, on a
certain cloudy evening an assemblage of the boys--among whom I am
sorry to say were Mike Hennessy and Johnny Hart--met by appointment
in a grove near the farm, and from which to the orchard a strip
of woodland extended, furnishing a convenient hiding-place, to
accomplish the project.

It never entered their heads that stealing this fruit was just as
much a theft as to steal one of the farmer's horses. Nothing could
have tempted one of their number to steal, and any confectioner in
the village might have spread his most tempting stores unguarded
before them without losing so much as a comfit; so sacredly would
they have held his right to his own. But boys have a most perverse
and wicked mode of reasoning about fruit. They cannot be made to
regard it as the property of the person who has expended much money
and many years of patient labor to produce it; and while these boys
would have shuddered at the thought of purloining the farmer's gold
watch or his silver spoons, which, perhaps, he would sooner have
parted with, they did not scruple to rob him of what he had taken
infinite pains to cultivate for his own benefit.

On this occasion our young marauders had furnished themselves with
bags and baskets, in which to deposit their plunder; and as the
night advanced, they proceeded through the woods to the orchard very
cautiously, pausing every few steps to listen if any movement was to
be heard. As all was quiet, they hoped the family in the farm-house
were asleep. After they had gathered most of the pears and a large
portion of the apples, they were startled by the low growl of a dog
at some distance.

"I wonder if the old chap keeps a watch-dog?" said Frank. They
listened in perfect silence for some time, hardly daring to breathe;
but hearing nothing further, set about their task with renewed
energy, and were all engaged in stowing away the apples, when
suddenly a glare of light from a large dark-lantern was thrown full
upon the faces of the whole party, at the same moment revealing the
burly form of farmer Brown, and his Frenchman, leading a powerful
watch-dog by a chain. At the instant the farmer turned the light upon
them, he said sternly, "Any boy that attempts to stir from the spot,
I will let the dog loose after him, and I warrant he'll be glad to
come back in a hurry!"

The boys needed no such warning. They were taken so entirely by
surprise that they could not move. The farmer made a low bow, and
said with mock courtesy,

"I am very much obliged to you, young gentlemen, for your kind
assistance in gathering my fruit, though you selected rather an
unseasonable hour for performing the service. Your bags and baskets
will repay me, however, for my broken rest. It is a pity such
friendly labors should go unrewarded, and I shall take pains to
inform your fathers of them to-morrow morning, that they may bestow
the recompense you have so well earned."

With that he gathered together the bags and baskets of fruit, saying,
"Good-night, you young dogs! The next time you undertake to steal
fruit, I advise you to find out first how the orchard is guarded,
and whether there's a dog on the premises stronger and swifter of
foot than yourselves!" and departed.

A more chap-fallen crew than he left behind him cannot well be
imagined! They started for the village by the most direct route, as
there was no further need of concealment, and for a long time the
silence of their rapid homeward march was unbroken. At length the
wrath of Frank Blair found utterance.

"The mean old hunks! who would have thought of his keeping that
sneaking Frenchman on guard that way? If it hadn't been for the dog,
I would have shown fight, and they shouldn't have carried off the
prize without some broken noses; but I knew it was no use to pitch
into a fight with that fierce dog against us! He's an old milksop to
depend on a dog for help."

The boys made no reply, and Frank saw he had gained no renown by
this adventure. He felt heartily ashamed of the whole affair, while
an innate sense of justice assured him and his companions that the
farmer had a right to defend his own property by any means within his
reach.

They all betook themselves to rest with no enviable feelings. Some of
them, who feared to disturb their families, were glad to lie on the
hay in the barn.

In the morning they trudged off to school in good season, with many
gloomy forebodings as to what was in store for them. About the middle
of the forenoon, Mr. Blair made his appearance accompanied by the
farmer, and informed the teacher of the attempt to rob the orchard,
and that he had requested Mr. Brown to come with him to identify the
culprits.

Mr. Brown selected them one by one, and, as each was pointed out, he
had to rise and take his place in the middle of the school-room.

When they were all arranged there, with Frank at their head, Mr.
Blair delivered a sharp reprimand to them, not failing to intimate
that nothing but future ruin was in store for the country if Yankee
boys allowed themselves to be drawn into disgraceful rows and
thieving expeditions by a set of Irish blackguards, and winding up by
severe threats against those of this company in particular, and all
"foreign scum" in general.

After a short consultation between the teacher and Mr. Blair, it was
announced that the punishment of the offenders would be left to Mr.
Brown.

The farmer then stated that he had advised with his wife, and, as
he had been pretty severe upon such culprits hitherto, without much
effect, they had decided to take another course now.

"So, young gentlemen," he added, "she has authorized me to present
her compliments to the school, and request all but the boys who
were engaged in this transaction to come with the principal early
on Saturday morning next, to pass the day with us. I have two boats
engaged, with abundant fishing-tackle, for those who prefer the
water, and fowling-pieces for the woods, where game is plenty; so
you can take your choice of sports on land or water. I promise you a
plentiful feast of the fruit which these youngsters kindly gathered."

The teacher politely accepted the invitation on behalf of himself
and the scholars, and the farmer, after again reminding them to come
early in the day, departed with Mr. Blair.

The feelings of the excluded boys may be imagined, and the teacher
gave them such touching advice in relation to the enticements and
temptations of boyhood--speaking like one who remembered he had
himself been a boy--that they doubted more than ever the fun of
"tip-top times," and the wisdom of following leaders like Frank Blair.


CHAPTER VII.

AN UNWELCOME INTRUDER.

The next morning as the scholars collected, they found Frank Blair
and several of the excluded boys in the play-ground, grouped
together in close discussion. When they approached, Frank called out
exultingly,

"I give you fellows joy of your select party to-morrow! Joe Bundy is
to be one of the company."

This Joe Bundy, whose mother died in the poor-house some years
before, was a vile, depraved boy, somewhat older than the subjects of
our narrative, who never came to school, leading an idle, vagabond
life, and so heartily despised by the boys on account of his vagrant
habits and thievish propensities that they would have nothing to do
with him. They heard with great surprise and indignation, therefore,
that he was among the invited on this occasion, for his character was
well known to the farmer.

In explanation of this singular circumstance, a fact, not made known
to them until long after these events, may as well be communicated
here. On the night when our heroes set out to rob the orchard, it
so chanced that Joe Bundy had entered upon a similar exploit on his
own account, and was concealed in the grove where he overheard their
conversation, and, suddenly relinquishing his own plan, hastened
to inform the farmer, the result of which report has been already
related. Mr. Brown was so well pleased that he included the informer
among the invited, though he knew he was a bad boy and disliked by
all the others.

At noon on that day, Joe saw Michael Hennessy, and called out,
"Hallo, Mike! don't you wish you was going to the farm with the rest
of us? Such precious fun as we shall have, and sights of good eating,
too! An't you sorry you can't go?"

"No, I'm not!" said Michael; "I wouldn't go any way, if you were to
be there!"

Joe turned off, muttering something in a sullen undertone, and
casting a malignant glance at Michael.

At the close of school in the afternoon, the teacher told the
scholars to meet him at the school-house the next morning, that they
might all set out together. Bright and early on as fine a morning as
could be desired, did the merry company gather, with nothing but the
absence of those who were generally foremost in their frolics, and
the presence of Joe Bundy, to mar their pleasure.

After a delightful walk, they were greeted at the farm-house with a
hearty welcome, and found every possible arrangement made for their
enjoyment.

Some betook themselves to the boats provided with means for fishing.
Others, armed with fowling-pieces, sought the woods in quest of
partridges, squirrels, and other game of the season; while a few
strolled off to a sequestered pond, where wild ducks abounded, and
where a small duck-boat was provided to aid in securing the spoils.

At the proper time they were summoned to partake of an excellent
dinner; and so swift had been the flight of the hours that they could
hardly believe the forenoon was gone. At the close of a sumptuous
feast and dessert, they were regaled with an abundant supply of the
captured fruit, to all of which their fine appetites prepared them to
do ample justice.

The whole day was so replete with mirth, frolic, and sunshine that
they saw the time for their return drawing near with regret.

When they left, Mrs. Brown distributed to each a portion of the fruit
for their mothers and sisters, and Mr. Brown invited them to come
again late in the fall, to gather nuts that abounded in the woods.

They could talk of nothing on their way home but the kindness of good
Mr. and Mrs. Brown, and the incidents and pleasures of the day; the
teacher taking occasion to contrast such innocent and simple delights
with the wild excitements and lawless frolics in which boys are too
apt to seek for enjoyment.


CHAPTER VIII.

MISFORTUNE AND GRIEF.

When the scholars assembled on Monday morning, the first news they
heard was that Mr. Brown's splendid and valuable watch-dog had been
poisoned, and died on Saturday night.

Mr. Brown had obtained evidence so convincing against Michael
Hennessy as to cause his arrest.

Great was the indignation of his young friends, and unanimous their
declarations that they knew Michael did not do it.

"A great deal more like that hateful Joe Bundy," said one.

"Oh! it couldn't be him," said another; "for he was one of the party,
and of course it wasn't he. If he hadn't been invited, he might have
done it out of spite; but now he had no object."

Various were the conjectures and discussions at school and in the
whole neighborhood.

The trial was on Tuesday, and Mr. Blair was the prosecuting attorney.
The village apothecary testified that on the Friday previous Michael
Hennessy purchased some poison of him, representing that his mother
sent him for it to poison rats. A neighbor of Mr. Brown's alleged
that he saw Michael passing his residence in the road on Saturday
afternoon, and Joe Bundy averred that he saw him prowling around the
farm buildings about the time indicated by the last witness.

Mrs. Hennessy testified that she sent Michael for the poison to kill
the rats that infested their premises. Mr. Hennessy said he had
mended a hand-reel for a person who lived just beyond Mr. Brown's,
and sent Michael home with it on Saturday afternoon.

Mr. Blair accepted the evidence of the parents, and urged the
probability that a portion of the poison had been reserved by the lad
as an instrument of his spite against Mr. Brown, for the application
of which the errand upon which he was dispatched furnished an
opportunity.

He set forth every circumstance unfavorable to poor Michael in the
strongest possible light, blending with his argument such reflections
and assertions upon the character and training of the children of
foreign parentage as could not fail to influence a prejudiced jury.

Notwithstanding an able defence, the jury, after a short
consultation, returned a verdict of "guilty," and Michael was
sentenced for twelve months to the reform-school.

Nothing could exceed the grief and indignation of his comrades, or
the sympathy of the whole village with poor Mr. and Mrs. Hennessy.
Michael stoutly protested his innocence, and there were but very few
who doubted it; but his father, whose health was very poor and his
family large, was not able to risk an appeal to a higher court, which
would probably, after all, confirm the decision, and Mike was not
willing to have him. So they prepared, with heavy hearts, for the
separation.

"Indeed!" said Mrs. Sullivan to her neighbor Mrs. Mellen--"indeed,
it's a sore thing to be put upon two such decent people, through the
hatred of that miserable old Blair against an Irishman's boy, and him
as innocent as the child in his mother's arms!"

"You knew them before they came here, I have heard," said Mrs.
Mellen, who had not lived long in the place.

"They came over on the vessel with us, and were from the next county
at home; and this was the way of it:

"The two brothers, Pat and Mike Hennessy, married two sisters, Mary
and Bridget Denver. They were decent tradesmen as any in the two
counties, and were well enough to do until the hard times came, when
old Ireland saw her poor children starving on every side so that it
would melt the heart of a stone, or any thing softer than an English
landlord's, to hear tell of it. Well, in the midst of the famine,
Mike agreed that he'd come to America, and prepare a place against
Patrick should come with Mary and Bridget. So when he left them, Pat
set to get all he could together by selling his bits of furniture and
things, and when times grew worse and worse, he would not delay, but
took Mary with her baby of a week old, and Bridget, and came, as I
said, on the vessel with us; and, by the same token, the ship's name
was the Hibernia. A good name with a rough fortune, like the dear old
land; for the weather was boisterous from first to last, and when we
had been out four days, the most awful storm arose, that you'd think
heaven and earth was comin' together. And in the midst of it what
does poor Bridget do but sicken and die with the fright, leaving her
little baby; but it followed its mother that same night which was
God's blessing on it, poor motherless thing, seein' it was baptized
by a priest we had on board, and who attended Bridget at the last.

"When we reached Boston, no tidings was to be heard of Mike; so Pat
staid there hopin' to get news of him, and we came on to Vermont,
where Sullivan's sister's husband came the year before.

"After a while Pat heard that the vessel Mike sailed on was struck by
an iceberg, and went down with all on board; and it was called the
Polar Queen, a name no knowledgeable man would have put on a vessel,
in respect of them same icebergs, that would naturally enough claim
their own.

"So when Pat heard these news, and he not finding such work as he
wanted, seein' it was very costly living in the city, they started
for the West; but hearing at Albany that the cholera was ragin'
there, they turns and they follows us to Vermont, thinking, poor
creatures! that it would be some comfort to be near those who knew
of all their troubles. The church was then a building, and Mr.
Wingate gave him work on it, and has been the best of friends to him
ever since, and he has never wanted for employment; but lately his
health is poor, and I'm afeered this grief will kill him entirely,
and indeed my heart is scalded for them, bein' that we're all as one
family, and their sorrow is our sorrow."


CHAPTER IX.

AFFLICTED AND CONSOLED.

When the morning appointed for the departure of Michael arrived, the
whole school assembled to accompany him to the depot, and take leave
of him. The teacher gave him much good advice, and exhorted him to
conform closely to all the rules of the institution, adding, "And I
have no doubt you will, Michael; for you have always been a good,
attentive, and obedient scholar."

The parting with his parents and the children was inexpressibly
painful; but for their sakes he bore up manfully under it, cheering
them with brave words, and suppressing his grief until the dear home
with all its cherished associations was no longer in sight. Oh! how
bitterly and dismally did the heavy grief he had so struggled with,
and tried so heroically to smother, then press upon him; he still
choked it down until he was ready to suffocate, and then the weary
sense of desolation, of cruel injustice, and of a homesickness which
made the sight of a year's separation from all he loved, that was now
staring him in the face, seem an age of insupportable sorrow, rushed
upon him with overwhelming power, and found relief in floods of tears.

The officer who had him in charge tried to soothe and cheer him;
assuring him that it was a very pleasant place to which he was going,
and that he would be treated with the utmost kindness if he behaved
well. But what was the kindness of strangers to the tenderness of
dear parents from whom he had never before been separated? What could
the place be to him, though ever so comfortable, to which he was
consigned, in his innocence, as a disgraced felon?

No! there was no comfort for him! and again the convulsive sobs shook
his whole frame, and the pride of his honest Irish heart rebelled
against the injustice of his cruel fate; when suddenly he remembered
the words his dear mother whispered softly, amidst sighs and tears,
at parting, "Remember, darling! remember the loving Jesus! and how
he suffered, being innocent, for our sins. When you are tempted to
despair, fly to the wound in his sacred heart, ever open to receive
and comfort the broken-hearted, and you will surely find comfort and
peace." From that moment he became calm. He sought that dear refuge,
and hid himself there from the storm that was raging within and
without.

He had always been a warm-hearted boy, an affectionate, generous, and
dutiful son and brother; but now he reproached himself that he had
never prized his dear ones at half their value, or loved them with
any thing approaching to the degree of affection which they deserved.
Oh! if he could only be with them again, how would he strive to show
his love by the most entire devotion, and the most diligent efforts
to assist and sustain them.

Then how did the memory of the wild frolics in which he had joined,
and for which he had even neglected his religious duties, come back
like accusing spirits to whisper to his afflicted heart that it was
just he should be punished.

After a few hours' ride, they reached the place of their destination,
and the principal, a venerable old man with a most benevolent
countenance and manner, received Michael very kindly, even tenderly.

With strong efforts the poor lad was able to maintain his composure
until he prepared for his bed at night, when the same dark sense
of desolation overwhelmed him, as recollections of his dear home,
and the kneeling circle, where his place was to be so long vacant,
pressed upon him; but the thought of how fondly he would be
remembered in their united prayers this and every other night poured
a ray of light upon his stricken soul. Again recalling his mother's
words, he knelt by his bedside, commending himself and all his
beloved and afflicted ones to his Saviour, and to the prayers of the
tender Virgin Mother who never forsakes her children; and then slept
the peaceful sleep of a tired, exhausted child on that maternal bosom.

The next morning he was duly instructed in the routine of his present
position, and soon found that the most diligent attention to its
duties served to relieve the crushing weight which seemed to be
pressing the very life-blood from his young heart. After a few days,
he won approving smiles from the principal, who was as ready to
appreciate the merits of those under his charge as he was to reprove
their faults.

The Saturday after Michael's arrival, the devoted bishop of the
diocese visited the institution, and heard the confessions of the
Catholic members. This was an unspeakable consolation to Michael; and
his heart felt lighter than he had thought it ever would again after
he had poured the tale of all its sins and all its sorrows into that
paternal ear. The bishop had obtained permission for the Catholic
boys to attend mass at their own chapel in the place, and at his
recommendation they were placed under Michael's care to and from the
church.

Some of these were very wild, reckless boys, hardened in vice and
iniquity, and disposed to "poke fun" at the "new prig," as they
called Michael.

At first, when he was saying his prayers, they would shoot peas at
him, flip buttons in his face, and even repeat portions of prayers
in mocking derision. But he paid no heed to them. After a few days,
two or three others knelt to their prayers at night and morning, and
then he obtained permission from the principal to recite the beads
with these at night. It was not long before they were joined by every
Catholic boy in the dormitory.

There is a wonderful vigor and tenacity in the life our Catholic
Mother--our Mighty Mother, ever ancient, ever new--imparts. When, by
our own fault, we seem to have quenched the last spark of living fire
which she kindled upon the altar of our hearts, a passing breath from
heaven wafted gently through a fitting word kindly spoken, or the
voice of hymn or prayer over the dying embers on the almost abandoned
shrine, will awaken the flame anew, and draw the wanderer back to the
forsaken source of life, of light, and of warmth.

It was very consoling to Michael to witness this returning vitality
in the hearts of his unfortunate companions; and they soon became
so fond of him as to seek his advice and confide all their troubles
to him. The influence he thus acquired was a great relief to the
principal. It was no longer necessary for him to exercise unceasing
vigilance over these, who had been among the most turbulent boys
under his care, to prevent violent outbreaks; for they were now the
most diligent, attentive, and orderly members of the establishment.

And Michael's efforts brought their own reward to himself. The
consciousness of being useful to others brought cheerfulness to his
heart, and lent new wings to old time, whose flight had at first
been so heavy and slow; so that at the end of the first month he was
surprised to find how swiftly it had flown.


CHAPTER X.

THE DYING PENITENT'S DISCLOSURE.

There were many sad hearts in the village of M----, outside of
Michael Hennessy's home, on the day of his departure. The event cast
a gloom over the whole village; for his bright, sunny face was a
joy to many of its residents, and there seemed to be a ray of light
stricken out when he departed.

His young companions could no longer enjoy the sports of the
play-ground; but might be seen gathered in quiet groups discussing
and lamenting the loss of their joyous comrade. None mourned for
him more than Frank Blair; for his grief over the absence of a
loved school-mate was increased by the part his father had taken
in bringing it about. He saw the time approaching for his own
departure, to take his place in the naval school, with a sullen
apathy that alarmed his mother and aunt, and repeatedly expressed his
indifference as to whether he should ever return to M----.

When Michael had been absent about two months, Joe Bundy returned
to M---- from one of his frequent distant rambles; and soon after
his return was taken very ill. The physician pronounced it a very
malignant case of the small-pox, and had him removed to a building
quite out of the village. He was so generally disliked that it was
difficult to find any one to take care of him; but when Mrs. Hennessy
heard of it, she offered to go if Mrs. Sullivan would look after her
house; her oldest daughter, Jane, being old enough to get along with
a little direction. She accordingly went, and found him much worse
than she expected, and suffering intensely. As soon as he saw her, he
became so violently agitated that she thought he was delirious, and
the impression was confirmed by his pleading in the most moving terms
for her forgiveness, and that she would send for the priest, when he
had always been a Protestant. She tried to soothe him; but he only
begged the more earnestly, and assured her that he was not delirious.
So when the physician came, she requested him to send Mr. Hennessy
for the priest.

Upon the arrival of the reverend father, the young man, to his great
surprise, begged to be admitted into the Catholic Church.

The priest, having satisfied himself as to his dispositions, and
imparted the necessary instruction, administered conditional baptism,
and then heard his confession. At its close Joe repeated a portion
to Mrs. Hennessy; and the fact was then disclosed to her that he
had poisoned the dog and perjured himself to gratify his anger at
Michael's scornful remark, and his spiteful feelings toward a boy who
was so generally beloved.

The physician coming in soon after, the same information was conveyed
to him; and he made no delay in communicating it to Mr. Hennessy,
that he might act upon it at once.

The news flew like wild-fire through the village; and great were the
rejoicings on every hand. The school-boys were frantic with joy; and
the teacher announced that the day of Michael's return should be
celebrated by a holiday of triumphant exultation and welcome to their
returning friend.

Measures were instituted for Michael's immediate release; and the
people could hardly await the necessary course of legal formalities.

Meantime poor Joe grew worse; and after improving those last few
days of suffering by manifesting such penitence as the time and
the circumstances would allow, and receiving from the priest those
consolations which the church extends to penitent sinners, he died.

Upon examining his few effects, a roll of counterfeit bills was
discovered; and it was conjectured that his last journey was made to
procure them, as he had told Mrs. Hennessy that he supposed he took
the small-pox on a recent visit to Canada.

When the papers were ready, Mr. Blair claimed the privilege of
going after Michael. He reproached himself so bitterly for his own
injustice that he could not do enough to manifest his regret.

A larger crowd was never assembled in the village than met at
the depot in M---- on the evening of his arrival with his young
companion. They were greeted with joyful cheers, repeated again
and again; and Mr. Blair led Michael to his father, saying, "Let
me congratulate you, Mr. Hennessy, on being able to claim such a
son. During the short time he has been away, among strangers and
under most unfavorable circumstances, he has established a character
that any young man might envy; and it was truly touching to witness
the grief of his unfortunate young companions at parting with him.
The principal also passed the highest encomiums upon his conduct.
Allow me also to express to this assemblage of my fellow-townsmen
my sincere regret that I should have had any part in his unjust
conviction, and allowed myself to be governed by prejudices, too
common in our country, which I now lay aside for ever. There are good
and bad people among natives and foreigners; and the man exhibits but
little good sense who passes sweeping condemnations upon either."

The school-boys, with their teacher at the head, formed a procession
to escort Michael to his father's house; and a happier circle was not
to be found in Vermont than the one that knelt around Mr. Hennessy's
family altar that night, to return fervent thanksgivings to heaven
for having permitted the separated to be again and so speedily
reunited!

    TO BE CONTINUED.




TEN YEARS IN ROME.[174]


Rome, the city of the soul! Who is there that does not nowadays feel
his thoughts turning almost involuntarily to the seven-hilled city?
To her many ordinary claims on our minds, there has of late been
added one of startling interest--the OEcumenical Council--which
has not failed to excite the attention of the world. It is the daily
theme of prayer and of hope for the devout child of the church. To
the worldling, it is a theme of curiosity and idle speculation. To
the enemies of the church, the council is a subject of alarm and of
vague apprehensions. In Europe, where men curiously mix politics and
religion, their opposition takes the hue of _odium politicum_; and
journals, reviews, and pamphlets are filled with the most _outre_
accounts of what the writers assert has been done or will be done
in the council, adverse to liberty, progress, and civilization. In
America, where as yet men have not lost the habit of separating
politics from religion, such effusions as these would be looked
on as simply stupid, unreadable nonsense. Here, however, as also
in England, the _odium theologicum_ retains its olden character
and makes use of its olden weapons. It is worth while to note the
apparently systematic efforts made to repeat old calumnies, and to
coin new stories after the old pattern, and to force them on the
public attention, on occasion of this universal interest, in the
evident expectation that they will now be swallowed as credulously as
they might have been fifty years ago. No greater tribute, we think,
could be paid to the real advancement of the public mind than to say
that this expectation has in very great measure proved vain. There
are things and stories which nowadays most men instinctively feel to
be too absurd for belief. Hence it is scarcely worth while to take up
such stories for serious examination. They are simply to be put in a
class together, and to be properly labelled, and to be ranked below
the sensational tales in the _Ledger_. This is especially the case
when they appear in organs specially devoted to the cause which such
stories are intended to support.

Now and then, however, it may be allowed to dissect such a
production, that the evidence of facts may occasionally confirm
and strengthen the true instinct which we already possess. More
especially is this allowable, when the story is peculiarly bold
and prominent, and comes before the public through a channel in
which we are not prepared to look for an exhibition of the old and
unscrupulous hatred.

Such an instance has been presented in several articles in the
_Galaxy_, a monthly periodical published in this city, and aiming to
be a literary and instructive magazine "of value and interest."

Among the writers engaged for the pages of the _Galaxy_ is one who
is represented as having been a Roman Catholic ecclesiastic, and who
contributes a series of articles under the title, "Ten Years in Rome."

According to these articles, the writer is an Englishman, and was
at one time a Catholic priest in Rome. He went to Rome in 1855-56,
bearing letters of introduction, was received at once into the
Propaganda College, increasing the number of Irish, Scotch, and
English students in that college to _nine_, passed from there
to the Vatican, to live "under the same roof with the pope,"
became assistant-librarian to the Congregation of the Index, and
subsequently was the confidential and trusty secretary of the late
Cardinal d'Andrea, whose private papers--or at least some of them--he
claims still to possess. The _Galaxy_ does not give the name of this
writer. But the daily papers informed us, some time ago, that a
reverend gentleman of England delivered a lecture at the lecture-room
of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, on Rome and its religion and society;
and was qualified to do so, because he had been formerly "an official
of the Roman court, secretary to the late Cardinal d'Andrea, and
assistant librarian in the Index Expurgatorius." The lecturer was
evidently the same individual as the writer for the _Galaxy_. The
papers gave his name, which, we are sorry to say, smacks far more of
the Green Island than of England.

Now, it so happened that we were in a position to test at once and
fully the accuracy of these statements in regard to the past history
of the lecturer and writer; and we reached the following results:

1. No young English youth or clergyman of that name ever was received
into the College of the Propaganda at Rome. This is shown by the
records of the college, and is corroborated by the assurances of the
present rector, who, in 1855, had been for several years vice-rector,
and has ever since been connected with the college, and also by the
recollection of half a dozen Irish and American students, who were
then in the college, and would have been his companions.

2. During the last twenty-five years there never was an officer of
the Roman court, or an English or Irish ecclesiastic connected
with it, in any way, of that name. The list of all such officers
is regularly published every year. This name has never figured
there. Officers of twenty years' standing in the Vatican have no
recollection of him. An Englishman could scarcely have been entirely
overlooked. And at least his brother Englishmen, who are officers of
the court, would have known and remembered him.

3. During the same period, no person of that name has filled
the office of librarian, or assistant-librarian, of the Index
Expurgatorius, or of the Congregation of the Index. The officials of
that congregation are all Dominicans; and the writer does not pretend
that he ever joined that order. We may add the other insignificant
fact, that no such library is known to exist at all, much less to be
so large as to require the services not only of a librarian, but of
one, perhaps of several, assistant-librarians.

4. The late Cardinal d'Andrea never had a secretary of that name.
This is the assurance unanimously given us by the friends and
intimate acquaintances of the cardinal, and by the members of his
household, who had lived with him for twenty years. There can be no
doubt on this fact. We may add one little item. Cardinal d'Andrea
had no secretary. The _secretary_ of a cardinal is an ecclesiastic.
When a layman is chosen to fill the place, he is called, not the
_secretary_, but the _chancellor_ of the cardinal. Cardinal d'Andrea,
from 1852, when he was made cardinal, down to his death, employed as
_chancellor_ an estimable and well-educated gentleman, whom he had
known well, and had been intimately associated with for years before,
and who still lives in Rome.

5. Although, considering that forty or fifty thousand strangers
visit Rome every year, it may be possible that the writer in _The
Galaxy_ did, at some time or other, enter that city, yet we are
pretty certain that he never spent any considerable time there--much
less, ten years--as an ecclesiastic. We have made inquiries of a
number of clergymen, Englishmen and Irishmen, resident in the Eternal
City for thirty years, who from their positions must have heard of
such a one, and could not have escaped becoming acquainted with him
under some circumstances or other. One after another, they assured us
that they had never met, and could not remember ever having heard of
such, an ecclesiastic.

It is unfortunate that, in such striking and important matters of
his own personal history, concerning which he ought to be perfectly
well-informed, the memory of our lecturer and writer fails so
entirely to agree with the recollection and knowledge of so many
others. If this is the case here, what may we look for when he
undertakes to remember what happened to others?

Our writer makes his bow to the readers of _The Galaxy_ in the
number of December last, in the character of "_Secretary of the late
Cardinal d'Andrea_," concerning whom he gives an article of nine
pages, intended to be sensational and artistic. He opens thus:

    "The church of San Giovanni in Laterano was filled with an
    unusually excited throng. The magnificent edifice, the pope's
    cathedral, as bishop of Rome, was draped for a funeral. The
    marble pillars," etc., etc.

To be sure, the description of the edifice which follows is rather
misty, to one who knows it, and some things, we suspect, are
introduced which no architect ever saw there. But then, "in the
centre of the church," stands "the chief object of interest," "a
gorgeous catafalque," "entirely covered with black velvet, very
tastefully festooned with silver." "Escutcheons were placed at
intervals, bearing the arms of the deceased. On the bier lay a
cardinal's hat, a pastoral staff, and a mitre. Six gigantic candles
of yellow wax were burning around it." The pope and the cardinals
were to come to the funeral. As the cardinal-minister (Antonelli)
"stepped from his carriage" in front of the church, "there was a deep
hum" from the crowd. For they suspected him of having compassed the
death of the only cardinal they honored, who was to be buried that
day. "His face was very pale;" "he played nervously with the jewelled
cross hanging from his neck." "He could read his doom in hundreds of
scowling faces; the curses, not loud but deep, he well interpreted.
As he ascended the steps of the church, a shrill voice cried out,
'Down with the assassin!'" "The French guards clinched their rifles,"
and "closed in" at a sign to their captain; and so Cardinal Antonelli
entered the church. After praising the exquisite requiem mass of
Mozart, with selections from Palestrina, and the perfect choir of
voices, rendering any instrument superfluous, the writer places the
pope at the head of the catafalque. "He was visibly moved." "There
was a tremor in his clear, harmonious voice." "He whose requiem was
being sung had been a friend and a counsellor." When at length the
services were over, and the pope and the _cortege_ of cardinals had
departed, "the people rushed into the church to render the only
service they could to the departed; and strong men, unused to prayer,
uttered their fervent _requiescat in pace!_"

"This was the funeral of Cardinal d'Andrea, Abbot of Santa
Scolastica, statesman, politician, and patriot. It occurred on the
22d day of March 1865."

Now all this may be a very artistic method of introducing a story.
The chief objection that we have to it is that the writer makes such
a parade about the funeral of Cardinal d'Andrea. We think he rather
overcharges the picture. Had it been any body else's funeral, we
might possibly let it pass. But in the case of this cardinal, we
object; for, to our own knowledge, on this 22d day of March, 1865,
Cardinal d'Andrea was not lying dead on that bier in San Giovanni
in Laterano, as described, but, on the contrary, was alive, if not
perfectly well, in Sorrento, near Naples, whither he had gone over
nine months before for his health. Nor did he die about this time;
but he lived on, and wrote some letters from time to time, which
were published in the papers, and one, if not several, pamphlets,
which were very acceptable to editors in Italy and France, in quest
of themes for their leading articles. As late as the autumn of 1867,
the papers were discussing what step Cardinal d'Andrea would next
take. And they chronicled his return to Rome in December, 1867.
Yes, we decidedly object. We do not think that this writer, however
extraordinary his powers of memory may be, has a right to bury
Cardinal d'Andrea alive, to say nothing of bringing the venerable
pontiff to grief, of frightening Cardinal Antonelli, of making
the French guards clinch their rifles and go through a military
manoeuvre, and, last of all, of so terribly exciting a Roman crowd
about the death of one who had not died at all.

Having commenced the performance by this _tour de force_ before his
public, our "secretary of the late Cardinal d'Andrea," like a skilful
actor as he is, jumps a somersault backward two years and a half,
(carrying us to about September, 1862,) and undertakes to give us
some inkling of how Cardinal d'Andrea and Cardinal Antonelli came to
be opposed to each other. There was a plan entered into by several
cardinals and monsignori to induce the pope to recommend Cardinal
Antonelli to resign his office as Cardinal-Minister and Secretary
of State. The "secretary" omits to inform us distinctly whether
Cardinal d'Andrea was a party to the plan or not. But we are left
to infer that he was. It failed. And ever after, Cardinal d'Andrea
did not enjoy the confidence of the pope to the degree he had done
before; and Cardinal Antonelli and his followers hated him. The
_recollection_ of this intrigue, and its failure, is followed by an
exposition of the political sentiments of the cardinal. "He became
the leader of the liberal policy of Cavour, in Rome."

Now, here again we object. That a number of cardinals or monsignori
should think that it would be well if a cardinal secretary of state,
for the time being, should resign; and that affairs would be better
managed, if another incumbent filled the place, is possible; perhaps,
considering the variety of opinions among men, is not improbable. In
the case of Cardinal Antonelli, the matter is complicated, perhaps
we should say, simplified, by the fact that they would find very
few indeed to agree with them. But that a number of cardinals and
monsignori did really entertain such an opinion on the subject, and
did, in September, 1862, or thereabouts, combine in an effort to
oust Cardinal Antonelli, is vouched for, so far as we know, only by
the recollections of our writer. The plan itself was not dreamed of
in well-informed circles in Rome, and the bold and adroit measures
by which Cardinal Antonelli is said to have foiled it failed to
attract attention at the time, or to leave any trace afterward,
either in the diplomatic records of Rome, or in the memory of any one
else besides our writer. It is one other additional instance of the
perversity of the world, which will not remember what he recalls so
distinctly.

As to Cardinal d'Andrea, he had been, since 1860, Cardinal-Bishop of
Sabina, and was also Prefect of the Congregation of the Index. His
health had begun to fail some time before the date we are examining,
and within a few months afterward he was forced, much to the regret
of the pope, to resign the latter office, and to restrict himself to
the duties of his diocese and his private affairs, and could take
but a light share in the work of a cardinal. To make him at that
time a prime mover in the scheme, is as gratuitous as, under the
circumstances, it is absurd.

The statement of his political principles is equally in contradiction
with facts. Cardinal d'Andrea had all his life been a most strenuous
and active supporter of the temporal power of the pope, and was not
a man to change his position and his principles at the close of his
life. He was as uncompromising, and a far more outspoken opponent of
the policy of Cavour, than even Cardinal Antonelli himself, who, as
befits his office and his character, never violates the reserved and
strictly temperate expressions allowed by diplomatic courtesy. All
that our writer "remembers" concerning Cardinal d'Andrea's connection
with and influence over the Roman committee, is a pure effort of
his memory, which, by the by, on this point has played him false.
He remembers, "To his counsel it was due that no revolt occurred on
the withdrawal of the French." Why, the French troops were withdrawn
from Rome in December, 1866, to be sent back in October, 1867, on the
occasion of Garibaldi's attempted invasion of the Papal States. How
could Cardinal d'Andrea, who had died, as the secretary "remembers,"
and whose funeral obsequies had been so pompously celebrated in
the cathedral church of San Giovanni di Laterano, on the 22d day of
March, 1865, be alive to give counsel and use his influence with the
Mazzinians and the party of action a year and nine months afterward?
Has the writer's own memory proved traitor to him, and joined the
crowd of contradictors?

In point of fact, Cardinal d'Andrea was not in Rome in December,
1866, nor for months before and for months afterward. He was at
Naples, or its neighborhood, seeking to restore his shattered and
sinking health.

Our secretary takes a second leap backward, and "endeavors to give a
slight sketch of the Cardinal d'Andrea, necessarily imperfect as pen
and ink sketches always are." The incompleteness we might readily
excuse. But we cannot excuse its utter incorrectness in the details,
an incorrectness so unnecessarily excessive that we can only explain
it on the theory he is entirely guided by that wonderful memory, of
the powers of which we have had such evidences. Especially is this
seen when, leaving generalities aside, the writer ventures to make a
precise and definite statement.

Thus, we are informed that, in his early life, the cardinal "had been
bred for the army, and served in the Noble Guard for three years."
Whereas the cardinal was not born in Rome or the Roman States at all,
and never had any connection whatever with the Noble Guard or any
other military corps. He was born in Naples. His father, the Marquis
Giovanni d'Andrea, was treasurer of the kingdom of Naples. His elder
brother, the present Marquis d'Andrea, is still living near Naples.
Jerome d'Andrea, the future cardinal, at an early age showed an
inclination for the church, and in due time went through the ordinary
course of ecclesiastical studies. At its conclusion, he came to
Rome, and entered the Accademia Ecclesiastica, a college for the
higher and more thorough education of such ecclesiastics as wish to
enter the _carriera_, as it is called, that is, who aspire to become
ecclesiastical officials at Rome. There was nothing military about
the cardinal. He simply had the dignified bearing and the polished
manners of an Italian nobleman.

"He viewed the Jesuits as the foes of reform; his scheme was to
destroy their influence in the public schools." "The mendicant orders
met no favor with him." "He did approve of the dissolution of _their_
monasteries." This posthumous revelation of the cardinal's sentiments
will undoubtedly astonish the Jesuits and the mendicant orders at
Rome, if they ever hear of it, unless indeed they are foolish enough
to trust their own memory of the words and acts of the cardinal in
life, rather than the wonderful memory of this "secretary." The
Jesuits will remember how often and regularly he would visit their
father-general, or Father Perrone, or the more illustrious and
learned members of their society; how fond he was of having some of
them to visit him frequently; how he would invite their counsel and
aid, and how he was careful to omit no proper occasion of publicly
showing his friendship and esteem for them. The members of the
mendicant orders will call to mind their perpetual intercourse with
one who was always a kind father to them. As one of the cardinal's
household expressed it to us, _Era sempre attorniato da lore--He
always had these friars around him_. We fear that, with such
cherished memories in their hearts, they will pay very little regard
to the recollections of our "secretary."

But he becomes more precise in the details of the cardinal's daily
life.

"The cardinal generally rose at six, and spent three hours in reading
ere he said mass and breakfasted. He then received, and at twelve
rode out, except when his presence was required by the pope. The
afternoon was spent in a siesta until six. At half-past nine he
retired."

What a sleepy-head this affectionate and reverential "secretary"
would make the cardinal to be. Retire at half-past nine, and rise
at six. Here we have eight hours for a good night's sleep; ample
allowance, one would think. But no. Each day, after his noon-day
drive, the afternoon until six is spent in a siesta; that is, at
least four hours more given to sleep--twelve hours, on an average,
out of every twenty-four! And this was the ordinary course of things,
only interrupted when his presence was required by the pope! Was
he in any way related to Rip Van Winkle, or is it the secretary
who is dreaming? Certainly Cardinal d'Andrea bore all his life the
reputation of being a remarkably wide-awake, clear-headed, and active
business man.

We presume that he usually rose about six--a little later in winter,
somewhat earlier in summer--such being the custom of Italians of
his standing. By half-past eight, mass and breakfast were over;
for business hours commence at nine, and the cardinal gave the
forenoon to business, whether in the consistories or in the meetings
of congregations or at his own residence, where secretaries,
theologians, and other officials, and all interested parties, would
see him. At half-past one, or at two, as business allowed, he dined.
In summer, he took a siesta for half an hour or so. An hour or more
was given to reciting his breviary and to private study. At four in
winter and five in summer, if the weather allowed, he would drive
out, and when outside the city might indulge in half an hour's active
walk on foot. Reentering his carriage, he reached home about sunset.
Until nine, he received those who called on him, whether on business
or as friends. Then came his supper, after which he loved to spend an
hour or two in lively conversation on the topics of the day with his
more intimate and esteemed friends. About eleven, he usually retired
to rest; but, too frequently for his health, he would, if he had what
he deemed important business on hand, stay up until one or two in the
morning, studying or writing.

"In his meals he was sparing, attached to the French _cuisine_, and
drank the light native vintage of Monte Fiascone.... He never went
among French society. He gave the French no countenance, regarding
them as witnesses of his country's serfdom."

What the writer means by this last phrase, or how the English and
Germans visiting Rome are not as truly witnesses to things there
as the French can be, we do not understand, and shall not stop to
inquire. The important statements are before us. The cardinal was
attached to the French _cuisine_ and avoided French _society_. Now,
the truth was just the reverse on both these points. The cardinal was
an excellent linguist and a well-read scholar. He delighted in the
company of educated Frenchmen, ecclesiastics, laymen, and military,
and was quite intimate with many of them. But as to his food, he
remained a true Neapolitan to the day of his death, and stuck to
macaroni, vermicelli, and pollenta, as an Englishman sticks to his
roast beef and good mutton.

"The Cardinal d'Andrea was fond of theatricals; indeed, private
representations were among the few enjoyments he had. He relished
them amazingly."

When we repeated this statement to the member of the cardinal's
household to whom we are indebted for our information on the
preceding points, he turned on us a look of bewildered astonishment
which we shall not soon forget. "_Poesie! poesie!_" he exclaimed.
"_All an invention; all an invention._"

Even in his early life, when, as a layman, he could have frequented
the theatre without any breach of decorum, he had avoided it. As a
clergyman, of course he could not go without losing caste. It might
have well happened that, in his travels in France, Switzerland,
Germany, and various parts of Italy, he had at some time or other
chanced to be a guest where courtesy called on him to be present at
private theatricals held in the family. Of this our informant could
not speak, for he had not always been with him on these journeys.
But since he had been made cardinal he had been with him, and could
not recall a single instance where the cardinal had attended such a
private representation. In his own palace he could not have had them.
His own character did not run in that line of amusement; and even if
he had desired it, the size and form of the apartments would have
rendered them impossible.

But such effusions of our "secretary's" poetic or inventive memory
are of themselves too slight and trivial to merit a place in _The
Galaxy_. There must be something of graver import to come. And in
fact these things have only been the preliminaries for the grand
events which are to be recorded of Cardinal d'Andrea; his escape
from Rome by the active aid of this secretary; the espionage over
his words and acts when he returned--an espionage which this
secretary detected, though he could not foil it; the finding of the
cardinal unexpectedly and mysteriously dead in his bed one morning;
and finally, the saving of his important private papers, by this
secretary, from the clutches of Cardinal Antonelli--papers which he
has persistently guarded and still retains, and which hereafter, we
may be allowed to conjecture, can serve to refresh and stimulate his
wondrous powers of memory, if any stimulation be needed.

The scene opens some time during the course of those two years, to
the beginning of which the first jump backward brought our writer.
The plan to oust Cardinal Antonelli from office had been formed, as
we were told, and failed; and Cardinal d'Andrea had lost somewhat
of the pope's favor, and had incurred the bitter enmity of Cardinal
Antonelli and of the Jesuits and ultramontanes. We may reasonably
allow some months for so much. When time had brought things to this
pass, "there was a party in the Piazza di Spagna, given by a Russian
princess, at which the _elite_ of Roman society was assembled.
Among the guests was Cardinal d'Andrea. Madame C----, the wife of
Captain C----, of the French army, was, as usual, coquetting with the
Cardinal di C----a, a prince of the most ancient of Roman houses,
with one of the finest palaces in Rome." The secretary loiters to
describe Captain C----, of the French army, and Madame C----, his
young and handsome wife, and to tell his readers of her notorious
intrigue with the above-named Cardinal Prince di C----a, of the
ancient family and with the fine palace. "Four days after this
party, Captain C---- appeared at his wife's apartments. He was cool
and deliberate. He upbraided her in unmeasured terms. She bitterly
resented.... His rage became terrible. Ere she could utter a prayer
or a cry, he seized the miserable woman and shot her; then shot
himself! The affair created some little sensation."

We should think it would, especially in peaceful, slow-going,
decorous Rome. Even in New-York, or in London, or in Paris, such a
tragedy, in which persons of that social standing were concerned,
would have created quite a sensation.

The Prince di C----a, "of one of the most ancient of Roman houses,
with one of the finest palaces in Rome," can of course be none other
than the Prince _Colonna_. The Roman princes are few in number, and
can easily be counted. No other has a surname to suit. The ancient
family and the fine palace are earmarks also. He means _Colonna_. But
then, many, many years have passed since there was a cardinal of that
family. In fact, take the list of cardinals since 1850, and the only
one whose name the designation C----a could fit is Cardinal Cuesta, a
Spaniard, who at the date of this party, (somewhere, if we follow the
"secretary," in the winter of 1862-63,) was an aged septuagenarian
bishop, zealously ruling his diocese in Spain; moreover, he was
not then a cardinal. He was made cardinal two years afterward.
Furthermore, he resides not in Rome but in Spain, whence he was
lately called to Rome for the present council. He obviously cannot be
the man. And so the Cardinal Prince di C----a vanishes into thin air,
like a poetic phantom, as he is.

Captain C----, of the French army, and his wife, Madame C----, seem
disposed to follow him into empty space. No French officer then in
Rome, and we have consulted several, can remember any French captain
who killed his wife and then committed suicide. The police never
got wind of the double tragedy. It escaped even the keen-scented
newspaper itemizers. The "little sensation" is a feat of memory.

Decidedly our "secretary" is as unlucky at tragedies as he is at
funerals, even though he assures us "the incidents of that reunion
have fixed themselves very much on my memory, for it was the last
time the Cardinal d'Andrea appeared at such assemblies." In fact, he
proceeds to narrate how that very night, by his skilful planning, the
cardinal was able to get out of Rome. This gives us, for the first
time, we may say, in this article, the slightest soundings of truth.
Cardinal d'Andrea did once leave Rome for Naples without the regular
permission which was required for one in his position. We will speak
further on of the motives and circumstances of that departure. Here
we will only state the fact, that he left Rome on the 16th of June,
1864. The writer of this article was in Rome at the time, and, for
peculiar reasons, no such tragedy as that "remembered" and the
sensation it created could have escaped his knowledge. We may add
that in Rome such parties are given in winter and never in summer.
The strangers who visit Rome in winter, and leave after Easter, are
in June in Switzerland or some other cool place. As for the _elite_
of Roman society, they are "out of town."

But let us leave facts aside, and enter on that dream-land, the
incidents of which are so firmly fixed on the memory of our
secretary. Hear him:

"The cardinal retired early, and, it being moonlight and very fine,
resolved to send back the carriage and walk home. He walked in
company with his secretary, a servant, as usual, attending at a
little distance. He had passed into the Corso, when a man suddenly
started out of the small and dark Via Fontanella di Borghese.... It
was a celebrated politician, who dared not have open intercourse
with any one for fear of compromising them, and he conveyed the
unwelcome intelligence that the cardinal's life was in imminent
danger.... Every moment was of importance. A plan was speedily
devised. The Honorable Mr. K---- was leaving at two o'clock in his
private carriage for Civita Vecchia, to catch the French steamer
touching at Civita Vecchia at half-past twelve next day, on her way
to Naples." The secretary disguised himself, and stealthily sought
an interview at once with this Englishman bearing an American title,
and briefly "told his errand." "The generous Englishman proposed
that the cardinal should accompany him, disguised as a friend whose
name appeared in his passport. The friend, on being consulted,
agreed, and the secretary left, promising to be ready at a certain
street with the cardinal, where the carriage was to take him up....
His eminence put on the beard and moustache our English friend had
given us, and, with the aid of a large Inverness cape and white
wide-awake, was splendidly disguised. It wanted two hours and a half
of the time. The cardinal never lost his presence of mind, but was
gloomy and foreboding. At last we called the valet, devoted to his
master, and informed him of the plan. He was to pretend illness on
the part of the cardinal. He listened carefully to his instructions,
and exclaimed, 'Eminence, your shoes and stockings!' We looked down,
and saw that the patent-leather, low, clerical shoes with gold
buckles and the red silk stockings were very obvious betrayals of
the rank of the disguised. No lay shoes and stockings were at hand,
until the valet bethought him of his own. Hastily effecting the
change, the cardinal passed out of the place alone, not suffering
any one to accompany him." Whereby, we presume, he ran some risk of
blundering as to the appointment, and moreover forced the zealous
secretary to break his promise of being "ready at a certain street
with the cardinal, where the carriage was to take him up." "The
whole of the next day passed heavily, but no inquiries were made for
his eminence. As his valet only waited on him, the other domestics
easily believed that he was indisposed. Two days after, the secretary
hastily scanned the _Giornale di Roma_, where he saw the departure of
Mr. K---- announced, and that of his friend. The valet, poor fellow,
though somewhat obese and awkward, executed an eccentric _pas seul_,
in token of his satisfaction at the news, and then broke out into a
fervent _Ave Maria_ for his master's safety. Four days elapsed, and a
summons came to attend the consistory. Then it was announced that the
cardinal had left for Naples."

Now, we confess to having enjoyed this passage of our "secretary's"
_reminiscence_ more than any other. We think it his best effort.
Still, it lacks some touches. He should not have omitted the matter
of the exchange of the cardinal's knee-breeches for the valet's
pantaloons. For obviously, if the cardinal put on the lay shoes
and stockings of the valet, and retained his own knee-breeches, a
space of ten inches at least on each leg would necessarily have been
left bare and uncovered. Such an arrangement, however conducive to
coolness, would have been a very remarkable feature of his costume,
especially noticeable in contrast with the large Inverness cape
which warmly enveloped the upper part of his person, and that in the
month of June. Such an outfit would certainly attract every eye.
Surely the cardinal and the valet must have then and there exchanged
the knee-breeches of the one against the pantaloons of the other,
regardless of how they fitted. Again, the "secretary" ought to have
given us some inkling of how the valet felt and demeaned himself next
morning when he appeared before his fellow-servants rigged out in the
patent-leather, low, clerical shoes with gold buckles, the red silk
stockings, and the knee-breeches of his master, instead of his own
proper habiliments. Could not our secretary have adorned the _Galaxy_
with some of the brilliant things then said and done?

The Honorable Mr. K----, too, acted very strangely. He might have
taken his rest like a sensible man that night, and have left Rome by
the accommodation train starting at six A.M. next morning, reaching
Civita Vecchia at nine; or he might have waited for the express
train, starting at ten A.M., reaching Civita Vecchia at twelve, and
making connection with the steamers, whether bound to Naples or to
Leghorn or to Marseilles. But no. He must lose his night's rest, and
start at two A.M. in a private carriage to travel fifty miles, and
reach a French steamer touching at Civita Vecchia at half-past twelve.

But if our secretary, in his recollections, can spurn facts, it would
be superfluous to ask him to respect mere probabilities.

The real method of the cardinal's departure from Rome and his journey
to Naples was the following very prosaic one:

On the 16th of June, 1864, he drove in his own carriage from his own
residence, the Palazzo Gabrielli, to the railway station in Rome,
and took a ticket for Velletri, to which city he was accustomed to
go, from time to time, to attend to the interests of the estate
Girgenti, of which the family had requested him to become the
administrator during the minority of the heirs. His valet alone
accompanied him. The carriage was ordered to be at the station in
the afternoon, as he might come back by the returning train. At
Velletri, the cardinal was met by his man of business in that city,
who had possibly made the necessary arrangements, and both proceeded
in the same train to Isoletta, on the Neapolitan frontier. The
cardinal continued on to Naples. The agent came back to Rome, found
the carriage at the station, rode in it to the Palazzo Gabrielli,
and informed the cardinal's chancellor and the household that the
cardinal had gone to Naples for his health, and was not able to say
when he would return.

This is the plain, matter-of-fact occurrence which the secretary's
memory has changed into something like a chapter from one of Mrs.
Radcliffe's novels sixty years ago.

We have already said that Cardinal d'Andrea took this step without
the permission which, according to the rules of the Sacred College,
he should have previously obtained. He had asked for that permission,
and it had not been granted. When he publicly violated the rule on
this point, the Italian enemies of the temporal power of the pope
hoped that they had unexpectedly found a cardinal in such a position
that they might, by degrees, make him their tool, and use him
against Pius IX. Voices were heard hinting that it might be proper
even to make him an anti-pope. The wiser ones among them saw from
the beginning how absurd such hopes and plans were; for they knew
the past history and the real character of the cardinal; and they
rightly judged that whatever might be the motives of his present
unexpected and most unusual proceeding, they must be personal. The
step could not spring from any policy opposed to that of the court of
Rome. They knew too well that he had always been a strenuous defender
of the pope; they had often found him their active and energetic
opponent. Later events proved to all that this judgment of theirs was
correct.

We have spoken of the birth and early education of Girolamo d'Andrea,
and his coming to Rome and entrance into the Accademia Ecclesiastica
in that city. Soon after finishing his course of studies there with
considerable reputation, he was made, in 1841, _ponente_, or judge,
in an inferior ecclesiastical court, commencing thus his _carriera_
at the bottom, but with distinction. He was afterward (1843) made
delegate, or governor, of the province of Viterbo; and three years
later went as nuncio or ambassador to Lucerne in Switzerland, which
office he filled at the time of the _Sonderbund_ war. Toward 1849, he
returned to Rome, and was elevated to the very responsible position
of Secretary of the Congregation of the Council. When Pius IX.,
after the public assassination of his prime-minister, Rossi, and the
threats of violence to himself, escaped to Gaeta, Monsignor d'Andrea
of course followed him. He was the prominent and most active man in
reestablishing the papal government in Umbria and the Marches and
the patrimony. After two years of successful labor, he returned to
Rome, to receive the thanks and the reward due to a delicate task
zealously and satisfactorily accomplished. He was still Secretary
of the Congregation of the Council, one of the highest posts he
could hold, without being cardinal. On the 15th of March, he was
made cardinal-priest, with the title of _Sant' Agnese fuori delle
Mura_. He had thus, in eleven years, reached the highest step of the
Roman _carriera_. All acknowledged, even those whom he had passed,
that the cardinal's hat was, in this case, most fittingly bestowed
on learning, talents, experience, and as the well-deserved reward
of zealous and efficient services. The new cardinal was soon named
Prefect of the Congregation of the Index and Abbate Commendatario
of Santa Scolastica, which last title he retained to his death.
In 1860, he became Cardinal-Bishop of Sabina; and, by the firm
and wise administration of his diocese, was looked on as a model
bishop. In 1862, his health began to fail. Slow fevers seemed to
undermine his constitution, stronger in appearance than in reality.
At times a racking cough and a copious expectoration harassed him,
and he seemed sinking into consumption. Rallying from this, he would
suffer excruciating pains in the intestines; and, at times, he was
subject to fainting fits. Still he struggled against all this, and
kept on at his work. His friends noticed that he gradually became
more silent and despondent. They observed, too, another effect of
this long-continued indisposition. He became inclined to take up
fixed ideas, and, perhaps, crotchets, and to adhere to them the more
tenaciously if opposed. He evidently was not, at all times, the man
he had formerly been. Of course, it took time for all this to be
suspected and reluctantly admitted.

In the spring of 1864, the cardinal took up the idea that his health
would be restored if he went to Naples, his birth-place. He asked
permission to do so.

Special circumstances made the request one to be considered very
maturely. The government at Rome was in a critical and delicate
position, which required it to avoid most carefully any step capable
of a doubtful interpretation, or liable to be made a pretext for
certain false charges then current against it. The ex-king of
Naples was a refugee in Rome. Dethroned sovereigns generally seek
and find an asylum there. His friends and adherents in Naples were
busy concerting measures to get him back on his throne. The Italian
government and the Italian papers charged the court with assenting
to and aiding in these plans. Even France seemed to be growing cold,
and to be manifesting those dispositions which, a few months after,
culminated in the iniquitous convention with Victor Emmanuel for the
withdrawal of the French troops from the duty of protecting Rome.
All these things made the court of Rome trebly cautious to commit no
mistake.

It was felt that for a Roman cardinal to go then to Naples, even
under the pretext of ill-health, more especially a cardinal like
Cardinal d'Andrea, whose family had been for several generations
closely connected with the dethroned royal family, and whose personal
antecedents had been those we have recited, would be too dangerous.
No explanations, however sincere, no disavowals, however explicit,
could silence the charges or avert the troubles that might follow.
Hence the permission asked for was refused, the more readily as the
idea was looked on as the cardinal's own fancy, and was not based
upon the advice of physicians. The pope himself explained the matter
to the cardinal, and offered him permission to go to Malta, to
Spain, to Pau, in France, to Nice, in Savoy, or anywhere else that
the physicians would advise, or he desire. But to Naples, under the
circumstances, it would not do for him to go. The cardinal seemed to
assent at the moment, and to acquiesce in the decision. But, some
time after, he returned to the fixed idea, repeated his request,
waited some weeks, and, not receiving any reply, started on the 16th
of June, 1864, without permission, and, in the manner we have stated,
went to Naples. At first, he spent several months, perhaps a year,
at Sorrento, well known to all who visit southern Italy for their
health. After some time, he moved to the city of Naples itself, and
lived there until his return to Rome.

Concerning the cardinal's stay in Naples, our "secretary" remembers
only two points: "He was located in ill-furnished lodgings on the
Chiaja, at Naples, sorely distressed for money. More than this, his
good name was suffering"--suffering, he means, in the opinion of the
Mazzinians, the followers of the policy of Cavour and "the party
of action." The Roman Committee seems to have been particularly
exercised in reference to him.

Now as to the money matters. In Naples the cardinal kept a suite of
apartments in the Hotel Crocelles, one of the best in that city.
Moreover, he also kept up his full establishment in the Palazzo
Gabrielli, in Rome. He paid every body and every thing punctually;
as, indeed, he might well do, considering the position of his family
and his own private resources. If his health failed, his purse did
not--which is more than can be said of most men, be they laymen,
ecclesiastics, or even cardinals. When he died, his will gave
legacies to friends and servants, and to religious and charitable
purposes, and returned something to his family.

As to the second point, undoubtedly the cardinal's good name did
suffer. The step he had taken was public; and the newspapers, after
their style, had not failed to herald it over the world as something
striking and important, from which, perhaps, vast results would
follow. Catholics everywhere were pained that a cardinal should
take so false a step, and place himself in a position apparently so
equivocal; perhaps, too, some apprehended ulterior and more painful
results. On the other hand, the Italianissimi waited, and cajoled
him, and hoped. But when he had been away from Rome more than two
years, and they found that they were not succeeding, as they desired,
in making him their tool, they commenced to depreciate and ridicule
him. This last point we rather think to his credit.

The mode of Cardinal d'Andrea's departure from Rome naturally set all
Rome a-talking. His friends tried to explain and to excuse it in the
mode we have stated. The excuse was probably felt to have some force.
Anyhow, it was evident that the mode of his departure prevented the
court of Rome from being compromised by his presence in Naples. Time
and patience are held to be golden remedies at Rome. No official
notice was taken of Cardinal d'Andrea's absence. True, friends
and counsellors and his brother cardinals wrote to him privately,
remonstrating with him and urgently advising him to return without
delay. Had he listened to them, and returned within any reasonable
time, we are satisfied no notice would have been taken of the affair,
and the whole matter would have dropped into oblivion.

But when he had been away two years, it was felt that some official
steps must be taken. Accordingly, the cardinal dean wrote him
officially, rehearsing the law of the church about the residence of
bishops, warning him that he had now been too long absent without
permission, and inviting him to return. Thrice the monition was
given, as required, and given without effect. The diocese of Sabina
was consequently withdrawn from his charges and confided to an
administrator _ad interim_, until other provisions should be made
in regard to it. Still the cardinal declined or delayed to come.
Other official letters warned him of possible further consequences,
even to ejectment from his dignity as cardinal. His friends, also,
renewed their private remonstrances and entreaties more urgently than
ever. And, finally, on the evening of December 14th, 1867, Cardinal
d'Andrea returned to Rome.

Three days later, he had an audience of the holy father, from which
he returned to his palace in a very cheerful mood, and spoke to his
attendants of the kindness of the pope, and declared that every thing
had passed off most satisfactorily.

His long stay in Naples had not benefited his health. He still
coughed, and still, at times, had severe crises of pain in the
abdomen. But he was able in some measure to take up the ordinary work
of a cardinal. The charge of the diocese was not restored to him;
time was required for that. Rome is slow to act, and slow to undo
what has been legally done.

After having fatigued our readers by this long stretch over humdrum
realities, it may be well to seek a little relief in some more of the
wondrous feats of the wondrous memory of "the secretary of the late
Cardinal d'Andrea."

He does not remember that audience at all. Nay, he remembers that
there was none. "Daily," after his return, the cardinal "expected a
summons to the presence of the pope. Then he resolved to assert his
right to an audience, and repaired to the Vatican. He was informed
that all his communications to the pope were to pass through the
hands of the cardinal secretary. To sue to his worst foe--this was
the climax of bitterness. The high spirit of his eminence never
recovered this indignity. The holy father was all this time informed
that the cardinal had returned; but was recusant, and refused all
overtures of reconciliation. After his last repulse, the cardinal
made no further efforts; but it was easy to see that he suffered
acutely."

All bosh! The "secretary" might have ascertained that the papers
of the day announced the return of the cardinal to Rome and his
audience; for the cardinal was then a notoriety. But he is strong
on his powers of memory; or, perhaps, as he had killed the cardinal
and buried him, as we saw, two years and nine months before this--in
March, 1865--he now ran his eye over a file previous to that date;
and, as the papers were published while the cardinal was at Sorrento,
there was no mention then of an audience. But we are loth to believe
the "secretary" has even that little regard for what others remember
which would make him think it at all necessary to look even at a file
of newspapers either for dates or facts.

But he gives us, in lieu, an exquisite production of his own memory.

"The cardinal's enemies," he tells us, "were far too wary to resort
to open acts." They remained so quiet that all suspicion was
lulled to rest, except in the cardinal and his secretary. "It is
remarkable that we sometimes find an idea dart suddenly into the mind
without cause or ramification."(!!) ... This was the case with the
secretary, probably also with the cardinal. The idea took this shape:
"The favorite mode of obtaining secret information in Rome is by
eaves-dropping and espionage. This palace has been for two months at
the bidding of those who knew the cardinal would return to it. They
are anxious to know all he says and does; if possible, all he thinks.
They will study the revelations of his countenance in moments of
_abandon_. And if they have designs"--here the idea seemed going into
extravagance. We decidedly agree with him; we even think the idea
shows signs of _ramification_.

One _piece_ of the cardinal's apartments was a breakfast-room, in
which there hung a picture of St. Francis meditating. "I was reading
in that room; and the twilight had deepened as I sat thinking over
my book. As I looked up, by the faint red glow of the wood-fire,
I fancied that picture--a St. Francis meditating--had a peculiar
expression about the eyes. The rapt saint looks upward, ignoring
mundane vanities; this looked downward and steadily at me. I felt
inclined to cut it open; but dared not. After all, I imagined the
gloom had deceived me."

Again, two days later, "I was sitting at breakfast with the cardinal,
when he dropped his cup of chocolate, and, rising, went to the
picture, and carefully examined it.... We looked at each other; and
I felt the same idea pass through his mind.... I resolved to make
him understand that I followed his thoughts. 'Do you think,' said
I, 'that St. Francis in his meditations became sometimes a little
_distrait_? that his eyes wandered from heaven, for example, to some
worldly object, say, as to the quality of your eminence's breakfast,
or became suddenly diverted by our conversation.' He looked steadily
at me, then at the picture, which faced him as he sat, but was behind
me. Then, after a moment, replied, 'It is a fatality.' I saw no more
of him that day. I heard from the valet that he was anxious not to be
disturbed."

Here we have espionage of the most wonderful kind caught _in
flagranti delicto_. Is not the "secretary" afraid he has imparted
a new and important lesson to the burglars of New York? Just think
of the details! During the cardinal's absence, his enemies enter
his apartments in the Palazzo Gabrielli freely, notwithstanding the
establishment is kept up, and all the servants are there save the
valet, who is away with his master. No eye sees them, no ear hears
their stealthy footsteps nor any noise they make. No trace of their
work is discovered. They go everywhere, they examine every thing, and
make their preparations. What they did elsewhere we are not told.
But they paid special attention to this breakfast-room, because the
picture hung there. If the wall behind it were of thick masonry,
they must have cut in it a niche deep enough and big enough to
hold a man. That they should do this in an inhabited house without
any one finding it out, is proof of their ability. But what if, as
is most likely, the painting hung on a partition wall only six or
eight inches thick, where could the man stand? What did they do
in that case? We cannot imagine. We think the burglars would be
nonplussed, and would turn for further instruction to the memory
of our "secretary." Beyond this, they provided themselves with
means of entrance and passage from room to room, and of exit, quite
irrespective of ordinary doors and public stairways.

The cardinal returns to his palace, and these means are put in use.
One spy, entering when or how no one knows, and mounting to his place
in an equally mysterious manner, stands behind the picture of St.
Francis meditating, which hangs on the wall of the breakfast-room.
The canvas eyes of the picture have, of course, been cut out; and
the spy fixes his own living eyes in their place, so that he can
see all that is to be seen, as well as hear all that is to be heard.
Ordinarily, we suppose, the eyes are kept turned toward heaven,
ignoring mundane vanities, because such was the original position
of the painted eyes in the picture. But fatigue and duty combined,
from time to time, to call for a change of their position. The eyes
looked down on the breakfast-table, (perhaps longingly; for even
spies behind pictures may get hungry,) or gleamed with intelligence
in response to witticisms of conversation, or unguarded and important
revelations. Yet all was so artistically and naturally done that
the secretary one day imagined the gloom had deceived him; and
two days afterward, the cardinal, after a careful examination and
after looking at it a second time attentively, exclaimed, "It is a
fatality!"

Now, there is a mystery about this espionage which quite puzzles
us, and which we should like to see explained. While the spy held
his eyes thus glued to or inserted in the painting, where were his
eyebrows? And what did he do with his nose?--his big Roman nose. For
who can conceive a keen Roman spy without a large and penetrating
Roman nose? How did he manage to keep that nose from coming in
contact with the painted canvas--from pressing against it and causing
a very prominent bulge, and even pushing the canvas away from the
eyes? This is a point that merits elucidation.

Unfortunately the cardinal, it seems, at once left the room in which
the "fatality" was, shut himself up, and would see no one. The
"secretary" was as wanting in pluck on that occasion as he had been
on another two days before. He felt inclined to cut the painting open
to see what it was; but dared not. If he had had the presence of mind
of a little boy ten years old, he would have ventured to draw the
bottom of the painting a few inches out from the wall, and would have
looked behind to discover the secret. Had he done so, our mystery
would doubtless have been solved, and a very interesting question
would have been answered. What a pity the idea did not assume this
practical "ramification"!

In regard to the death of the cardinal the memory of the "secretary"
is brief, but terribly explicit and pointed.

"Four days" after the fatality-scene, "I was informed that
the cardinal desired me to spend the evening in his private
apartments.... We had dined at five"--a change of hour; it used
to be six. "His eminence had confined himself to his favorite and
insipid Chablis, of which he drank one little flask," (Monte Fiascone
has slipped from the secretary's memory;) "I to a more generous
vintage of Burgundy. The subject of our conversation was exceedingly
important. With the idea upon us like an incubus, we conversed in low
tones; and ever and anon the cardinal rose and examined the outer
door.... The conversation ended by my being intrusted with certain
documents to place in safe keeping.... Knowing the importance of
the documents, I hesitated to keep them in my possession. Sealing
them in a packet, I put on a street dress and hastened to an English
gentleman, who cheerfully undertook their keeping.... Cardinal
Antonelli asked me for the papers I had received on that fatal
night.... I rejoice to say--though strenuous exertions were made to
obtain the papers--they were as persistently guarded; and I have them
now."

Pretty well remembered for these papers. But how about the cardinal?

The secretary says that, on the morning after confiding the
aforesaid sealed packet to the English gentleman, "I rose early and
repaired to the palace. The valet had orders to wake his master
at seven. It wanted but a few minutes. I retired to my own room.
Scarcely a quarter of an hour had elapsed ere the valet rushed in,
pale with affright, exclaiming, 'His eminence is dead!' I followed
him quickly to the apartment, having alarmed the household. The
disposition of the chamber was as ordinary. The cardinal's dress lay
on a chair, as the valet had placed it. His breviary was open at
vespers. The bed was the only thing disturbed. There were certain
indications of a struggle, although very slight. The usually placid
countenance of the cardinal was flushed and discolored. The two
hands grasped the bed-clothes convulsively. A physician was hastily
summoned, who pronounced life to have been extinct some hours.
'From what cause?' I asked. He whispered, 'They will probably say
apoplexy.' For himself, the secretary has no doubt it was a murder
perpetrated by the enemies of Cardinal d'Andrea."

These are the recollections of the _soi-disant_ secretary. They are
well entitled in the whole and in the several details to stand with
his precise recollections of the place and date of the funeral that
followed in San Giovanni in Laterano, on the 22d day of March, 1865.

The papers announced that Cardinal d'Andrea died in Rome, on the 14th
of May, 1868. For the details of his last hours, we are indebted
to those members of his household who were with him and closed his
eyes. It will be seen how different is the account they give from
that of the writer who, if elsewhere he amused us, here fills us with
astonishment at the boldness of his assertions, and sorrow for his
motives.

On Thursday, May 14th, 1868, the cardinal, who had spent the forenoon
in his usual occupations, dined in his usual health, or ill-health,
at half-past one. After dinner he continued to transact business with
his chancellor for a while, and then arranged to resume it on his
return from the usual afternoon drive. He drove out from the Palazzo
Gabrielli at about half-past four. His coachman drove, at the usual
staid gait of a cardinal's carriage, by the Foro Trajano, on by the
Colosseo and San Clemente, to St. John Lateran's, and out of the city
gate near that church, along the Via Appia Nuova. When he had passed
the first mile-stone from the gate, he was surprised by an order to
return. He noticed that the cardinal, who was alone in the carriage,
seemed to be suffering. He accordingly turned and retraced his steps
at the same gentle gait. On the square of St. John's, he received a
second order to go faster; and awhile after, before he reached the
Colosseo, the cardinal ordered him to hurry. A fast trot brought them
to the Palazzo Gabrielli by about half-past five. The chancellor was
there, and assisted the servants to take the cardinal out of the
carriage, and to assist him up to his chamber. He was suffering very
much from a difficulty of breathing, and seemed otherwise in pain.
It was a crisis such as he had had before, but it seemed more severe
than usual. The cardinal sent word to the chancellor not to leave. He
expected the spasm to pass away in a little while, and when it would
be over, they might resume their work as arranged.

The chancellor waited until near seven, when, learning that the
attack still continued, he entered the sickroom. He was not only the
official, but a devoted and confidential intimate friend of nearly
twenty years' standing. He found the cardinal suffering to a degree
that filled him with alarm. A physician was sent for, but was absent
from his residence. An assistant came and prescribed some remedies.
By eight, the physician arrived, and took charge of the case, and did
not leave the patient. About nine, he was asked if it were proper
to administer the sacrament of extreme unction. He replied that, so
far, he did not see sufficient danger to warrant it. Meanwhile the
cardinal lay on his bed tossing restlessly in pain, and panting for
breath, but joining in, as best he could, with the prayers for the
sick, which had been begun, at his request, by his chaplain and the
attendants between seven and eight o'clock. At ten, he asked to be
placed in a large chair in his room. They bolstered him up in it. In
half an hour he began to sink. The chaplain hastily administered the
rites of the church, and by eleven, Cardinal d'Andrea was no more.

Thus, as is not unfrequently the case, death came somewhat suddenly
and unexpectedly, even after years of ill-health.

An autopsy took place, as is customary, we believe, in Rome in the
case of cardinals. It appeared that the immediate cause of his death
was congestion of the lungs. The right lung was found to be nearly
destroyed by tubercles. On one side of the brain a clot or indurated
portion, seemingly of long standing, was discovered. In this lesion
some of the cardinal's friends thought they found a physical cause of
those disordered peculiarities of mind of which we spoke as having
been manifested in his later years.

We may add that, after the official autopsy, the body lay in state
in the Palazzo Gabrielli until Monday, May 18th. On the evening of
that day, it was conveyed in procession to the neighboring parish
church of St. John of the Florentines, near the Castel Sant' Angelo.
In that church, on Tuesday, 19th May, 1868, the funeral obsequies
of Cardinal d'Andrea were celebrated, the pope and the cardinals
assisting, as required by the etiquette of the court when a cardinal
dies in Rome.

By the cardinal's own directions, his mortal remains were interred at
the church of Sant' Agnese fuori delle Mura, of which, as we said, he
had been titular cardinal before becoming Bishop of Sabina.

We have thus followed this _soi-disant_ secretary of the late
Cardinal d'Andrea all through his article. We have overlooked, for
brevity's sake, many minor points. But we have seen fully enough to
establish the character of the article. We have seen that he blunders
as to the date of the cardinal's funeral by three years and two
months. He has blundered as to the church where it was performed by
at least a mile and a half. San Giovanni in Laterano and St. John of
the Florentines are unlike in shape and in rank, and are nearly at
opposite points of the city.

As to the private habits, the acts, and the opinions of the cardinal,
he makes a series of blunders such as we might well look for in one
who gives himself out as having been the confidential secretary of
the late Cardinal d'Andrea, and yet whom no one remembers to have
ever had any connection with the cardinal.

As to the charges of enmity, of espionage, and even of murder, and
the tragedy of the French captain, and various other remarks and
comments _en passant_ throughout the article, by no means to the
honor of the ecclesiastical dignitaries at Rome, and of the tone
and character of society there--are these things only spice to give
a certain piquancy to the article? or is the whole article written
merely as a vehicle to convey these charges to the attention of the
readers?

We incline to the latter opinion. We are led to it by the clearer
and more undisguised tenor of later articles by the same pen in the
_Galaxy_. We may, hereafter, if we find time, pay our respects to one
or more of those articles.

For the present, we will only say that if the proprietors of the
_Galaxy_ have intended to bargain with a writer of fiction, they
are getting the worth of their money in matter and quantity, if not
in quality and style. If, however, they expected to secure a series
of articles instructive because truthful, the case is decidedly the
reverse.

FOOTNOTE:

[174] The _Galaxy_. December, 1869, to June, 1870.




HYMN OF ST. PAUL'S "CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE SOCIETY."


    Not ours to ask thee, "What is truth?"
      For here it shines the light of light;
    And all may see it, age or youth,
      Who will but leave the outer night.
    'Tis ours to tread, not seek, the way
    That "brightens to the perfect day."

    But this we ask thee, dearest Lord--
      Let faith, so precious, feed and grow;
    And make our lives the more accord
      With fear and love, the more we know.
    For thus, too, shall we point the way
    That "brightens to the perfect day."

    Nor have we learnt it save to teach;
      It is for others we are wise.
    The humblest has a charge to preach
      Thy kingdom in a nation's eyes:
    A nation groping for the way
    That "brightens to the perfect day."

    O thou, our patron, great St. Paul!
      Apostle of the West, to thee
    We boldly come and fondly call,
      As children at a father's knee:
    Come thou, and with us lead the way
    That "brightens to the perfect day"!

                                                    B. D. H.




LOTHAIR.[175]


Lothair is both a novel and a pamphlet. Two distinct currents of
thought are apparent, running through the work, variously intertwined
and blended, but from time to time asserting definite individuality.
This phenomenon is explained by the two-fold character of the writer,
who is a novelist and man of letters, and at the same time a man
of the world and a statesman. The novel is written apparently to
reassert his powers and demonstrate to the literary world that his
genius is undimmed by age, perhaps also to indulge the exercise of
a favorite and successful art, by which he has raised himself from
an obscure position to one of influence and renown. The pamphlet is
evidently intended for political effect; to throw discredit upon
eminent persons, to disparage the value of conversions among the
higher classes of society, and, through the thin veil of fiction,
inflict all the damage possible upon the court of Rome and the Roman
Catholic Church. It reveals the political character of its writer,
his utter want of principle and consistency, and enables us to
comprehend how he has overcome all the obstacles to his career, by
great industry, acute intelligence, and absolute unscrupulousness
in turning men and women, things and events, to his own personal
advantage. As a novel it adds nothing to the established reputation
of the author. It is rated at a high figure, commercially speaking,
and will no doubt be a remunerative investment for its publishers.

It purports to be a picture of the habits, manners, and mode of life
of people of the highest rank in England, with sketches of persons
of diverse culture and foreign birth, to heighten the contrasts
and bring out the lights and deepen the shadows. Natural scenery,
stately dwellings, ancient trees, sunlight, flowers, music, and
fresh air give life and animation to the varying scenes, and form
the appropriate basis, background, and accompaniment for the living
panorama. Lothair is a youth of pure blood and fair education, the
heir of immense estates and a lofty title. He is good-looking,
athletic, kind-hearted, shy, sensitive, and sentimental.

He has suffered the depression and discouragement of a sour
Presbyterian system of education, from which he was happily rescued
by the honest and determined efforts of one of his guardians,
Cardinal Grandison.

He emerges just before he comes of age, and appears before us in the
midst of an elegant family, in which, fortunately, all the daughters
are married excepting one, who has great beauty and a remarkably fine
voice. He immediately, as in duty bound, falls desperately in love,
and in the most honorable manner possible confides the state of his
feelings to the mother of the object of his affections, who is, by
the way, a fine specimen of a thorough-bred English lady.

The mother wisely and tenderly counsels delay, and we would recommend
her conduct in this interesting occasion to all the middle-aged
ladies of our acquaintance when placed in a similar situation.
Lothair accepts her decision, and in the mean time becomes more and
more intimate with the cardinal, and forms the acquaintance of a
Catholic family distantly connected, and becomes somewhat smitten
with the real heroine of the tale, Clare Arundel. The objective
point of the story now develops itself. A struggle for the rich and
titled youth commences between the English Establishment and the
Church. Political and mercenary motives are, with great impartiality,
ascribed to both the contending powers. The combat between the
rough and honest Scotch Presbyterian uncle and the accomplished and
fascinating cardinal is wisely dropped.

No imagination could suggest the thought that one who had escaped
from evangelicalism could ever return to it. It is, in the author's
mind, simply a political squabble for the influence and vote of the
future peer. His soul is of no account.

The conduct and development of this contest gives the right honorable
romancer an opportunity to introduce the lords and ladies, the dukes
and bishops, cardinals and monsignori, artists, wits, and men about
town, with whom he delights to fill his pages. They all speak in
character, and in the main with artistic consistency, and their
conversation is certainly sprightly, often witty, sometimes wise, and
never offensive on the score of taste and morality. It affords him
the opportunity to flatter and praise, and at the same time exhibit a
power of sarcasm and ridicule, the effective methods of his earlier
writings, by which he climbed to his present position. He exhibits
talents and a knowledge of life which would have made him equally
successful in the role of banker, picture-merchant, diamond-broker,
or even old clo'man. He gloats over the splendors which he describes;
and beauty, rank, fashion, fine clothes, crystal, porcelain,
pictures, jewels, "ropes of pearls," castles, palaces, parks,
and gardens, are dwelt upon with the cherishing fondness of the
gentlemen of keen eyes, hooked noses, and unctuous touch. Character,
conduct, motives, principles, sentiments, affections, passions, and
religion are mingled in admirable confusion, are estimated at the
same value and weighed in the same balance.

There is for him as novelist or pamphleteer no principle but
expediency, no rule of conduct but temporal advantage. He worships a
golden calf. These be thy gods, O Israel! At a critical period, while
our hero is wavering between his Anglican and Catholic mistress, and
the cardinal is striving to acquire a wholesome influence over his
somewhat unstable relative, while he is sailing on the summer sea of
high life and elegant society, he goes to _Oxford to see his horses_.
He has wisely left those useful animals at the university, while he
is pursuing his studies of life and manners in London. At Oxford,
he meets Colonel and Mrs. Campian, and is taken completely off his
feet. Presbyterianism, Anglicanism, Corisande and Clare Arundel, the
Establishment, and Catholicity disappear at once, and Madre Natura in
the splendid physique of the divine Theodora, claims an unresisting
captive and victim.

This is either an inspiration of a romancer's imagination or a study.
If the latter, there is no hope for the right honorable author's
salvation on the score of invincible ignorance.

Lothair basks in the splendor of Theodora's beauty, and surrenders
his reason to the fascination of her false political principles. The
lower or transient good is preferred to the higher, the permanent
good. He chooses the lower, as did Lucifer and Adam, Judas and
Luther, and multitudes have done and are doing. Naturally and
artistically there is no way out of this scrape excepting through a
catastrophe; religiously, excepting through penance. Theodora is
the ideal of Greco-Roman heathenism, and the artist Phoebus is its
high-priest. They are fine creations from an artistic point of view.

They enable the author to introduce some clever writing about
art, and some speculations regarding the Aryan and Semitic races,
evidently with the intention of associating revealed religion with
the idea of superstition. The effect left upon the mind is something
like that produced by a certain class of sermons which we read on
Monday morning in the New-York _Herald_. The novelist is hurried on
at this stage by the necessities of the pamphleteer. Political events
succeed each other so rapidly that he was obliged to send Lothair
as rapidly as possible to the field of battle (his heathen destiny)
against the church.

With exceeding facility the money which was going to build a
cathedral, to please a pious girl, is diverted to aid in blowing up
St. Peter's, and Lothair finds himself as Captain Muriel, in the
field, on the staff of one of his former acquaintances, Captain
Bruges, the red republican general advancing against Rome. Theodora
and Colonel Campian are also with him, the former disguised in male
apparel, and acting as secretary to the general. We suppose her
prayer uttered under the depressing intelligence of the embarkation
of the French troops to assist the holy father, is an expression
of the religion of nature. Why she should pray to God instead of
Jupiter, we confess we do not see, unless in deference to the
opinion of most of the author's readers. He might have fulfilled all
the indications by quoting Pope, and at the same time complimented
the memory of a poet who is getting rather out of date.

However, she hears the French have disembarked, and accordingly
suspends her prayers and recovers her spirits. The impending
catastrophe comes. The tragic is accomplished, and the divine
Theodora is slain. Madre Natura and the secret societies are hurled
against the rock of Peter, and shivered. Theodora is mortally
wounded, and dying, impresses a chaste kiss upon the lips of Lothair,
and exacts the promise never to conform to the Church of Rome.

The next step finds him severely wounded by a French _chassepot_, the
guest of Lord St. Jerome in his palace in Rome, carefully attended by
Sisters of Charity and Clare Arundel. Nature has perished and grace
triumphs. The venom of the anti-Catholic novelist and the malice of
the statesman of the establishment are now revealed in a popish plot,
which is supposed to be hatched by Lothair's Roman Catholic friends,
the prelates of Rome, and, by implication, the holy father.

The object of the conspiracy is to impose upon Lothair and the world
that he was wounded while fighting for the defence of the holy see,
instead of in the ranks of its determined enemies, and to convince
him that the Blessed Virgin Mary personally appeared to rescue him
from inevitable death. These pages enhance the claims of the work
as one of fiction, but detract very much from its reputation as a
specimen of art. The plan is thoroughly un-English, and incompatible
with the characters of the actors as previously portrayed. It is by
no means impossible for the Blessed Virgin or any saint or angel to
appear, and we should be bound to believe the fact if vouched for on
credible testimony.

It is, however, naturally, politically, and religiously impossible
for priests, bishops, and prelates to combine to make any human
being believe a lie, or to palm off a false miracle for any purpose
whatsoever. We are charitably left in doubt as to who believed or
who did not believe in the apparition, but we are treated to a
conversation in which Cardinal Grandison endeavors to make Lothair
believe a lie, and to abuse the enfeebled condition of his brain to
reduce him to a condition of mental and moral imbecility.

Mr. Disraeli evidently expects no advantages from Catholic voters,
or, perhaps, counts on the charity which he abuses.

These passages are the only dangerous ones in the book; they are
skilfully contrived to crystallize wavering minds, especially of
young men of high rank, into determined opposition to the holy
see. They are intended to awaken sympathy for Lothair's helpless
and almost hopeless captivity, and to call forth sentiments of
satisfaction and pleasure at his adventurous escape. He does escape,
and falls into the arms of high-priest Phoebus and two inferior
divinities of Madre Natura. They have little power, however, the
divine Theodora being dead; and our hero, growing _blase_ if not
wiser and better, subsides into an aesthetical but harmless admiration
of external nature and Euphrosyne. Previously to his quitting Rome,
the author invents a scene which is either a sop to spiritism, or an
insult to his readers' intelligence.

The appearance of the Blessed Virgin, under any circumstances, is
treated with derision; but Theodora, like the Witch of Endor, is
summoned to interview Lothair in the Coliseum, and remind him of
his fatal promise. Perhaps he only means to illustrate a phenomenon
of an over-excited brain, whose circulation is enfeebled by a long
illness and a severe wound. We are left purposely in doubt on this
point, as on many others. This portion of the book contains vivid
and beautiful sketches of camp-life and fighting on a small scale,
of Rome and Italy, the Tyrrhenean Sea and classic isles. Under
the auspices of the Phoebus and Euphrosyne, he is wafted in the
yacht Pan to Syria and the Holy Land, and sinks into a pleasing and
self-satisfied reverie on Mount Olivet.

The descriptions of Judea and Jerusalem, Calvary and Sion, Galilee
and Jordan, Lebanon and Bashan, could be penned only by one who has
the traditions of the Jew, the Roman, and the Christian. There is
the mournful regret of the Jew, the proud remembrance of the Roman,
and the weak and sickly sentimentality of a very doubtful sort of
Christian. They want depth and pathos, and leave the mind disturbed
and dissatisfied. They profane rather than hallow those sacred places
which inspire terror or love in every human breast.

The habits of his English friends whom he meets in the Holy Land,
who made excursions which they called pilgrimages, and feasted,
made love, and hunted, express about the degree of sympathy which
fashionable High-Church Anglicanism has with Calvary. The noble and
gentle Syrian now appears to put the finishing touch to Lothair's
religious experiences. He is a new figure in fiction, a specimen of
oriental Turveydrop, and the patriarch of a new school of Israelitish
evangelicalism. In the absence of authentic data, we should presume
he had descended from a highly respectable family of Pharisees,
which had, in process of time, intermarried with the Sadducees, and
perhaps suffered some slight admixture with the heathen round about.
He happily succeeds in removing all distinct and vivid religious
impressions from the mind of Lothair, and prepares the way, after a
final interview with his former Mazzinian general, who speaks in a
cheerful and airy manner of his failure to blow up St. Peter's, and
consoles Catholic readers with the assurance that the old imposture
is still firmly seated, for his return to England, the arms of Lady
Corisande, and the bosom of the church by law established. Here we
leave him married to an heiress and laid up in lavender, to grow old,
fat, and gouty.

While we may speak with some degree of complaisance of this novel
as a work of art merely, and a picture of life and manners, in
which it is far inferior to similar novels of Bulwer and several
other contemporary writers of fiction, we are compelled to discuss
this production in its political and moral significance in a very
different spirit. Mr. Disraeli must have some powerful motive to
induce him to attack the church and outrage the feelings of Catholics
throughout the world while he himself has no settled and strong
religious convictions of any kind. That motive must be the only
one which would operate upon a mind like his--the desire to get
back to power. He starts the "No-popery" hue and cry, and invents
a most contemptible, shallow, and flimsy plot to influence what
he supposes to be the radical hostility of the English people to
the Church of Rome, and to throw contempt and discredit upon the
conversion of Englishmen of rank, and especially that of the Marquis
of Bute. We think he has not only committed a moral crime, but made
a gross political blunder. We believe there is a profound sympathy
throughout the world in the hearts of simply honest and good people
with the holy father, and that if the question could be tested by
vote to-day, Who is the best man living? Pius IX. would receive an
overwhelming majority. While denouncing in the strongest terms the
baseness of the attempt to impute fraud, chicanery, and political
trickery to the policy and plans of the church, we have reason to
thank the right honorable and learned author for the revelation he
has made of the secret societies. He has had ample means of learning
and understanding their operations, and his implied conclusion is,
that the two great forces arrayed against each other in the modern
world are the Roman Catholic Church and the secret societies, of
whom Masonry is the mother. This is a conclusion which we accept. It
is the everlasting antagonism between the church of Christ and the
church of the devil. We hope the glimpse thus afforded will cause
some of our clergy to reconsider the lenient opinions they sometimes
express in regard to Masonry and its offshoots, and to recognize the
supernatural wisdom that has directed the unwavering opposition which
the church has manifested toward these works of darkness. As a whole,
we do not think _Lothair_ will do much harm. It will provoke much
conversation and discussion. It will be praised, ridiculed, admired,
and contemned, and speedily sink into oblivion, to be read only by
students of literature and those who seek for the light that works of
fiction throw upon contemporary history. It reminds us of something
which occurred a long time ago, and which cannot be offensive to
the right honorable gentleman, who finds a pleasure in insulting
cardinals and bishops, inasmuch as the chief personages in the
transaction are prototypes of himself and his book. It is the story
of Balaam and Balaam's ass. He has attempted to curse, and in fact he
has blessed, and the ass which he is riding only speaks like a human
being when it meets the angel in the Catholic girl Clare Arundel.

FOOTNOTE:

[175] _Lothair._ By the Right Honorable B. Disraeli. Pp. 218. D.
Appleton & Co. 1870.




THE INVITATION HEEDED.[176]


The above is the title of one of the best and most effective
controversial works which we have had the pleasure to read for some
time. For those who believe in any historical Christianity, the
argument contained in it is direct and unanswerable. We pray God it
may have a wide circulation and reach the numerous friends of its
gifted author, who thus seeks, as many converts have done before him,
to show to those he loves the blessed lights which guided him to the
home of truth and peace.

Mr. James Kent Stone is the son of the Rev. Dr. John S. Stone,
a highly respected minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church,
favorably known for many years in Brooklyn as the rector of Christ's
church, and now, we believe, at the head of an Episcopalian seminary
in Cambridge, Mass. He received his academical education at Harvard
College, and afterward spent two years at one of the universities
of Germany. Returning to this country in 1862, he was appointed
professor of Latin in Kenyon College, Ohio, in which office he
remained until 1867, when he was made president of the institution.
He was ordained a minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church in
1866, and shortly after received the degree of D.D. from Racine
College, Wisconsin.

In the year 1868, he was elected to the presidency of Hobart College,
Geneva, New York, where he remained only one year. In September,
1869, he resigned his position and his ministry, to seek retirement
and prepare for his reception into the Holy Catholic Church. The 8th
of December, 1869, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, was the
happy day of his entrance into the communion of Christ, in obedience
to the call of its chief pastor.

In the prefatory chapter the author gives us some insight into the
trials of his own mind. Accepting what he had taken for granted as
the high Anglican position, he felt himself master of the Roman
question. Anglicans were, in his mind, true Catholics, the _only_
true Catholics, and the Reformation was a return to primitive truth
on the part of a favored few, who were to him the only witnesses
of God upon earth. His intellect was too logical not to see that
ritualism, with which he never allied himself, was inconsistent with
any possible degree of Anglicanism.

    "If the ritualists were right, the reformers were wrong. The
    great sin of schism could never have been justified by any such
    paltry differences as separate our 'advanced' friends from
    the great Roman communion. The only consistent course for men
    to take who believed in the sacrifice of the altar and in the
    invocation of saints was to go back, promptly and penitently,
    to the ancient church, which had proved its infallibility by
    being in the right after all."

In this position, to any unprejudiced eye, he stood upon an
assumption of theology and history which it would seem that the
slightest investigation should destroy. A church which begins by
denying the faithfulness of Christ to his promises, and asserts for
itself claims which render all antiquity a fable, ought not long to
hold the love of an honest heart. It would be hard for any one to
know what the English church really teaches; and if it teaches any
thing, it certainly does so upon human authority, since infallibility
is denied in itself, and in every other communion. When our eyes are
once opened, we wonder we were so long deluded. The real reason why
High-Churchmen do not become Catholics is, that they do not sincerely
wish to know the truth, which calls to sacrifices and sad trials of
the heart.

"If any man love father or mother more than me, he is not worthy
of me." We believe that one earnest prayer for light, with a full
determination to follow it at every cost without hesitation, would
lead to the one home of truth every Anglican, and even every
ritualist. But the misfortune is, that they will not offer any such
prayer. The world of honor or affection in which they move is too
dear to be renounced. Let us hear what Dr. Stone so feelingly tells
of his own experience:

    "Time went on; and I was not conscious of the smallest change
    in my theological opinions and sympathies; when all at once the
    ground upon which I had stood with such careless confidence,
    gave way. Like a treacherous island, it sank without warning
    from beneath my feet, and left me struggling in the wide
    waters. Thanks be to God that I was not left to perish in that
    cold and bitter flood, and that my feet so soon rested for ever
    on the eternal rock! How it came about--by what intellectual
    process my position had been undermined--by what unconscious
    steps my feet had been led to an unseen brink, I did not know.
    I was only aware of the sudden terror with which I found myself
    slipping and going, and the darkness which succeeded the swift
    plunge."

       *       *       *       *       *

    "I remembered how St. Augustine, 'one of the profoundest
    thinkers of antiquity,' even for four years after he had
    become a catechumen under St. Ambrose, was entangled in the
    meshes of his Manichaean heresy. I admitted instantly that I,
    too, _might be_ under a spell; that my case might be--I do
    not dare to say like that of the great saint and father, but
    that of the Donatists or the Gnostics; since I was certainly
    not more positive in my convictions than they, neither could
    I furnish myself with any satisfactory reason for believing
    that I was blessed with greater light. And then the hand of God
    drew back the veil of my heart; and I saw for the first time,
    and all at once, how utterly steeped I had been in prejudice,
    how from the beginning I had, without a question or suspicion,
    assumed the very point about which I ought reverently to have
    inquired with an impartial and a docile mind. I had studied
    the Roman controversy; so I thought--if in my short life I
    could fairly be said to have studied any thing; but _how_ had
    I studied it? Had there ever been a time when it was an _open
    question_ in my mind whether the claims of the Roman Church
    were valid? Had I begun by admitting that the pope might be
    right? Had it ever crossed my thoughts that the church in
    communion with the see of Peter might be indeed the one only
    Catholic Church of our Lord Jesus Christ? And had I ever
    resolved, with all my soul, as one standing on the threshold
    and in the awful light of eternity, to begin by tearing down
    every assumption and divesting myself of every prejudice, and
    _then_, wherever truth should lead the way, to follow--'leave
    all and follow'? Alas! never. I had studied simply to combat
    and refute. The suggestion that 'Romanism' might after all
    be identical with Christianity was preposterous. The papacy
    was the great apostasy, the mystery of iniquity; it was the
    master-piece of Satan, who had made his most successful attack
    upon the church of God by entering and corrupting it. The rise
    of the papal pretensions was matter of the plainest history;
    and every well-instructed child could point out how one
    fiction after another had been grafted into the creed of that
    apostate church, until now the simple faith of early days was
    scarce recognizable under the accumulated error of centuries.
    'History'--who _wrote_ that history? 'Well-instructed
    child'--why, that was the very point at issue!

    "I saw that I had been guilty of what Bossuet calls 'a
    calumny,' and what I now acknowledged to be an act of
    injustice, namely, of charging upon Catholics _inferences_
    which I had myself drawn from their doctrines, but against
    which Catholics indignantly protest. I could not say with St.
    Augustine that 'I blushed with joy;' but with shame I blushed,
    'at having so many years barked, not against the Catholic
    faith, but against the fictions of carnal imaginations. For so
    rash and impious had I been, that what I ought by inquiring to
    have learned, I had pronounced on, condemning.... I should have
    knocked and proposed the doubt, how it was to be believed, not
    insultingly opposed it as if believed.'

    "This is the 'plunge' I spoke of. I used the word because
    it expressed, as well perhaps as any other, the terrifying
    rapidity which marked the steps of my intellectual crisis.
    Upon some men the discovery of a life-long error may break
    gradually; truth may be said to have its dawning; but to me it
    came with a shock. The rain descended and the floods came; my
    house fell; and great was the fall of it.

    "Then followed a sense of blank desolateness. I was groping
    among ruins; and wherewith should I go to work to build again?
    I do not mean that I faltered. Thank God that he kept me true,
    and suffered me not to shrink from the sharp agony which I
    perceived was _possibly_ in store for me! To borrow words of
    the great father from whose experience I have already drawn,
    'God gave me that mind, that I should prefer nothing to the
    discovery of truth, wish, think of, love naught besides.' But
    the task of reconstruction seemed almost helpless.

    "And so I set my face forward with desperate earnestness; and
    in due time--it may seem, a very short time--I had not a trace
    of doubt left that I had all along been a vain enemy of the
    one, catholic, and apostolic church. Why _not_ in a short time?
    Why not in a month, or a week, or a day? Is it any reflection
    upon truth that she surrenders herself quickly to a soul whose
    every nerve is strained in her pursuit? Is it any argument
    against the church of God that it is easily identified? Surely,
    if there be a kingdom of heaven upon earth, it must be known
    by marks which cannot be mistaken. Yes! I knew it when I had
    found it. And I found it as in the parable, like a treasure
    hidden in a field--in the self-same field up and down which I
    had wandered for years, and where I had often trampled it under
    my feet. And when I had found it, I hid it, scarce daring to
    gaze at its splendor, and crying, as St. Augustine cried, 'Too
    late, alas! have I known thee, O ancient and eternal truth!'
    And then, for joy thereof, I went and sold all that I had, and
    bought that field."

The pages which follow this preface are a brief but cogent exposition
of the convictions which forced themselves upon the mind of the
author. He develops the argument which proved so availing in his
own case, and which, it seems to us, should be satisfactory to any
earnest inquirer. He commences by viewing the Catholic Church in its
historical aspects, as the human eye beholds it, and without any
necessary reference to its supernatural character. The attitude of
the world toward it in the present and in every age is a proof of
its greatness, for men neither fear nor attack an enemy which they
despise. Its wonderful life, in spite of opposition which would long
ago have destroyed any merely human organization, is so striking a
fact that no honest mind can fail to feel its force.

But it is not only as a _living_ body, with a vitality unknown to any
other society, that it impresses our intellects; in its wonderful
life it has been the guardian of morals, and the author of every high
virtue. Civilization owes its very existence to its creed and its
fostering care. And while Protestantism, of only recent origin, has
failed to accomplish any thing but destruction, there is no sign of
decay or feebleness in the ancient and unchanging church.

In the second part of the work the author gives the reasons in full
for this wonderful vitality, and shows how the "Word made flesh"
is the source of life to that body which he fills, and which the
Paraclete sent by him ever animates. The facts of Christianity are
clearly drawn out, and the necessary notes of the church are tried by
the appeal to holy Scripture and tradition. From the conclusion of
this argument there is no escape, and it is well demonstrated that
the religion of Christ stands or falls with the Catholic faith.

In the concluding portion of the book, Dr. Stone looks carefully
at the essential features of that body which the incarnate God,
as a master-builder, framed with one head, and all the needful
constituents of a perfect organism. The office of St. Peter was not
simply an ornamental appendage to the company of apostles, but an
integral and essential part in the complex of visible Christianity.
The church is Christianity in the concrete, and can no more exist
without St. Peter than the human body can live without a head. And to
that head all the functions of the body are subordinated. There is no
fear of any unjust preponderance, or that any member of the body will
lose its activity or honor; for the Holy Ghost lives in the body, and
speaks through the mouth of its head. The functions of the primacy
are displayed with beautiful clearness in this work, which without
any unnecessary words refutes the arguments of objectors, and cuts
to pieces their vain appeals to history or antiquity. We are much
pleased to see how an honest mind, which had no reason to seek for
Catholic truth except for its own sake, has been able to see how all
the functions of the papacy are involved in the very constitution of
the church.

The infallibility of the sovereign pontiff as "the father and the
teacher of all Christians" is directly deduced from the position he
holds in the ecclesiastical body, and the needs of his office. We
earnestly commend this work to those who are searching for truth,
and are willing to embrace it when it presents itself. While there
is no new argument, there is great freshness in the manner in which
it is conducted. There are very many who would not become Catholics
even if Almighty God were to work miracles before their eyes. We say
this advisedly and from sad experience. They are too attached to the
circles in which they move; and even when divine light urges them
keenly, they are willing to take the risk. So they compound with
their consciences by assuming a great spiritual activity in their own
spheres, and the noon of their day of grace passes away. They will
never see again the freshness and life of the morning.

There are others who deal with truth as they would be ashamed to
deal with any affair of human life. They ask that every difficulty,
historical or theological, shall be removed from the vast field of
controversy ere they will yield assent to a proposition they are
forced to admit, which is the key of the whole position. To those
who will not be guided by the light of faith, this is an unending
task. They are worse than the Jews, who would not believe "unless
they saw signs and wonders." The Catholic Church does not offer any
more trials, to the understanding than did the meek and lowly Man
of Sorrows in his sojourn upon earth. All difficulties cannot be
removed at once, nor before the shadows of error have given way to
the bright sun of truth. We cannot see perfectly in the night; yet
there is really but one question to be asked and answered, Did Jesus
Christ, my divine Redeemer, found the Catholic Church, and promise
it perpetuity? If so, then I am bound to accept it as I find it; for
I cannot make a church for myself, nor could he allow the communion
which he formed and vivified to fall into error. If I will not accept
this church, I may wander on the waste without a guide, for there is
no such thing as Christianity for me.

Another thing which this book impresses upon us is very important,
and it is a truth which we have had occasion to know from long
acquaintance with Protestantism. There is only one way of dealing
with those whom we believe to be in error, and that is by always
maintaining with, consistency the principles of our creed. Any
attempt to compromise with Protestants, as if there were not
a diametrical opposition between truth and falsehood, will be
disastrous to their conversion. Men will not give up the associations
of years, renounce position and hopes, and even break family ties,
unless they believe it necessary to their salvation. Nothing less
than this motive can be held up to the wanderer who seeks in vain
from his own intellect the lights that will guide him to a happy
eternity. And any converts that come into the church from any lower
motive are unfit for the graces of faith, and will never imbibe the
spirit of a true Catholic. There is one God and one church, and this
church is a necessity to all to whom its message of mercy comes. It
can stand upon this ground alone as a divine organization, and here
only can demand the obedience of mankind.

There are many souls sadly in need and without a religion, which
is the first want of our nature. There are many who are trying
to gain time against the Spirit of God by postponing the hour of
sacrifice. There are those who, in hollow mockery of their highest
aspirations, are playing with shadows, and deceiving themselves with
counterfeits of the truth. We pray God that this book may fall into
their hands, and be a messenger from on high, bidding them look well
to foundations which are built on the sand, and can never abide the
tempest of human passion, much less the storm of God's judgment.

FOOTNOTE:

[176] _The Invitation Heeded; or, Reasons for a Return to Catholic
Unity._ By James Kent Stone, late President of Kenyon College,
Gambier, Ohio, and of Hobart College, Geneva, New York; and S. T. D.
1 vol. 12mo, pp. 340. New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 9
Warren street. 1870.




THE FIRST OECUMENICAL COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN.

NUMBER SIX.


Holy-Week in Rome! How many Christian hearts have yearned for it,
have looked forward to it in hope! How many recall it among the
sweetest and most precious memories of the past! In this sacred
city, and in this most solemn season, a spell is thrown around the
faithful pilgrim; or rather, he is released in a great measure from
the delusive spells of the world. Mind and heart, and, we might
almost say, the body too, seem to live in a new world, in which the
all-absorbing thought and affair is the grand mystery of what God has
done in his infinite power and love to redeem this fallen race of man.

What emotions must fill the catholic heart as, after perhaps a long
and weary journey, one is rapidly borne on by the train from Civita
Vecchia, and knows at last that within one hour he will be in Rome.
The yellow Tiber is flowing by the railway track, sluggishly and
silently, on to the sea. At intervals, antique-looking barges, with
high-peaked prows and high sterns, are floating down, heavily laden
with boxes of statuary and of marbles, or of other works of art--it
may be, of books or of baggage. A couple of oars suffice to keep
the vessel in mid-channel, or to accelerate its motion. Perhaps, if
the course of the sinuous river allows it, a huge lateen-sail on a
heavy stump of a mast helps it onward. Perchance, too, a tiny steamer
meets him, puffing its way downward; or the train overtakes another
breasting the stream and towing up three or four barges, each larger
than itself. The eye travels across the classic river, and roams
over the rolling surface of the campagna, and takes notes of the
many ruins that dot its surface, mostly relics of the mausoleums and
massive tombs with which the Romans of old were wont to line their
roads leading from the city, for miles and miles. At length Rome is
at hand; across the Tiber you see the new St. Paul's _extra muros_,
rising like a phoenix after the ruinous conflagration of 1823, and
not yet entirely finished. The great apostle was buried here after
his martyrdom. Here his body has ever been venerated. Some day, and
soon, you may come hither, and in the splendor of that church look
down into the confession to catch a glimpse of the interior of the
underground crypt, and the sarcophagus within it, in which lie his
mortal remains, and read the large letters on it, _Paullus Apostolus
Martyr_, "Paul, the Apostle and Martyr." On the lofty summit of
the front, plainly visible, is the gigantic statue of the apostle
himself, bearing the emblematic sword--as if standing sentinel and
guarding the approach to the Holy City, which he consecrated by his
preaching and his death. Soon you are on the bridge over the stream,
and all eyes are turned to the left, where above the city walls, now
visible, and the roofs of houses, and the cupolas of many churches,
you see for a moment or two the majestic dome of St. Peter's towering
over all. The road runs around the walls of the city for some
distance before entering, and St. Peter's is soon shut out from view,
only to be replaced by the majestic front of St. John of Lateran's,
near at hand. But on the other side, you see more clearly than before
the campagna with its multitude of ruins, and the Sabine and Alban
Mountains. In the clear atmosphere you can distinguish the vineyards
and olive groves, and dark forests, and cities and towns and pleasant
villas. Along the campagna, from the foot of these hills, there
stretches for miles on miles, like a huge centipede, a long line of
dark and jagged masonry, borne aloft on massive piers and arches. It
is an old aqueduct, or, as your guide-book tells you, three aqueducts
in one. You dash through one of those arches, and the panorama is
changed. Other mountains in the distance, with other cities and
towns, other ruins on the campagna--the ancient basilicas of St.
Lawrence and St. Agnes near at hand. At length you pass through an
archway of the wall into the city. St. John of Lateran's is again
before you. Not distant is the church of Santa Croce; and St. Mary
Major's, with its cupolas, its mediaeval belfry, and its obelisk, is
even nearer. The balmy breeze of the afternoon brings to your ear the
sweet chime of its many bells. You are on the Quirinal hill, and can
look over some portion of the city, with its belfries, and cupolas,
its red-tiled roofs, and many-windowed houses. Near by are massive
ruins. The excavations of the railway track have unearthed broken
columns, frescoed walls of ancient rooms, and masses of travertino
masonry, belonging to the walls which Servius Tullius, the fifth king
of Rome, built around the city. Issuing from the depot to seek your
hotel, you are at once before the ruins of the baths of Dioclesian,
and the Cistercian Abbey, and the church of St. Mary degli Angioli.
Your way leads by churches, palaces, ruins, obelisks, statues, and
ever-gushing fountains, through a maze of narrow streets with sharp
turns. You understand that these streets were not laid out, and
the houses built on clear ground. The houses stand more or less on
the foundations of older buildings that have perished, and follow,
to a limited extent, the course of those foundations. As for the
streets, they do as they can, under the circumstances, and seldom
have the same breadth and direction for three hundred yards at a
time. Every thing tells you of olden heathen Rome that has perished,
and of a new Rome that has arisen in its place, not to be compared to
its predecessor in size or in earthly magnificence, but infinitely
superior in spiritual and moral grandeur.

Without an hour's unnecessary delay, you seek St. Peter's. A glance
of wonder at the vastness and majesty of its approaches, of its
front, and its portals, is all you will give now; for the heart is
filled with a sense of that glory of which all this, great as it
is, is but a figure. You pass through the vestibule, large as a
magnificent cathedral, push aside the heavy curtain before the inner
door, and you are within the grand basilica. The light is evenly
diffused and soft, and comes through unseen windows. The temperature
is pleasant. If outside you found the day cold and unpleasant, here
the atmosphere seems warm and agreeable. If outside it was hot, here
you feel it cool and refreshing. As you look at the vast expanse of
the building, you wonder at the solitude. It seems almost vacant;
although, if you could count them, there are hundreds moving about,
or kneeling here and there in silent prayer, and scores are entering
or going out. As you advance up the broad and lofty central nave,
there come from a chapel on the left the rolling sounds of an organ,
and the chorus of many voices, as canons are chanting the daily
vespers in their own chapel. Further on, from the other side, you
hear the murmuring of many voices. A long line of pilgrims, or the
members of some confraternity, have come in procession to pray in
St. Peter's; and as they kneel before the altar, perhaps a hundred
devout men and women from the parish, or of those accidentally in
the church, have gathered around them, and have knelt and join in
their chanted hymns and prayers. On still you proceed, until you are
beneath the lofty dome itself, and have approached the oval railing
of marble which is united to the grand altar, and on which ever burn
a hundred and forty-two lamps. You look over into the opening in the
marble pavement, which is called the confession of St. Peter's, and
you see below the floor of the ancient church, and immediately under
the present high-altar stands the chief altar of that ancient church.
Though you do not see it, you know that still deeper, and below that
altar, is a small chamber in the earth, whose floor and sides and
arched roof are all of large blocks of dressed stone--travertino--and
that in that vaulted chamber stands the marble sarcophagus which
contains the remains of St. Peter, the chief of the apostles, the
founder and the first Bishop of Rome, who was crucified under Nero,
in the year 67, on the hill near by, and whom pious Christian hands
reverently buried in this very spot, ever since sacred to the
followers of Christ. Then it was an obscure spot, outside the city,
near certain brickyards on the Aurelian Way. Now it is covered by the
grandest temple which the world ever saw, on which all that man can
do or give of most precious is offered and consecrated to the service
of religion and the glory of God.

A poor, humble, simple-minded fisherman on the Lake of Genesareth,
in Galilee, whom men called Simon, was chosen by our Lord; his name
was changed to Peter, a rock--for on that rock the church of Christ
would be built; to him were given the keys of the kingdom of heaven,
and he was charged with the duty of confirming his brethren in the
faith. At the command of his Lord, and in the power of the divine
commission, he went forth to his work of zeal and of trials. Like his
divine Master, poor, persecuted, crucified, he was the instrument of
God for mighty things. Empires and kingdoms have perished; but the
church still stands. Dynasties have succeeded dynasties, and have
passed away like the shadows of clouds in spring; but the line of
successors to St. Peter continues unbroken. The intellect and study,
the passions, the violence, and the inconstancy of men have changed
all things human, again and again, within eighteen centuries; but
there remaineth _one Lord_, _one faith_, _one baptism_, one church
of Christ, against which the gates of hell cannot prevail. And here,
to-day, you stand at the earthly centre of that spiritual kingdom, by
the tomb of him to whom Christ gave promises which must ever stand
true, though heaven and earth pass away. You can but kneel and pray
with all the fervor of your heart, taking no account of others near
you, nor of the passage of time. And when at length earnest prayer
has brought calm and holy joy to your soul, you may rise and look up
into the dome, rising four hundred feet above you, with mosaics of
evangelists, and prophets, and angels, archangels, and all the grades
of the celestial host, until in the summit, amid a blaze of light,
the "Ancient of Days" looks down from heaven, in power and majesty,
blessing the worshippers of earth, and bending forward to receive the
prayers of all who come to this holy and consecrated temple to pour
forth their supplications and entreat his mercy. You may examine the
grandiose proportions of nave and transept and aisle, the mosaics,
and marbles, and statues, and saints; you may go forth into the
vast vestibule, guarded at one extremity by an equestrian statue of
Constantine, and at the other by one of Charlemagne; you may linger,
as you look again at the mighty square in front of the basilica, with
its magnificent ever-flowing fountains, so typical of the waters of
life, its colonnades stretching away hundreds of yards on either
side, like arms put forth to embrace the multitudes of the children
of men, and the lofty, needle-formed Egyptian obelisk in the centre,
pointing toward heaven. On its summit is a bronze casket, containing
a portion of the true cross on which the Saviour suffered death; and
at the base is an inscription, brief in words, and here most sublime
in its appositeness. Your heart takes in the full meaning as you
read, _Christ reigns. Christ rules; Christ has conquered. May Christ
defend us from every ill._

This is the spirit, the key-note, as it were, of Christian life in
Rome. We might say, also, that it is the animating principle of her
temporal existence. For, save as the centre of the Catholic Church
and the see of Peter, Rome would quickly perish. On the hills of
the campagna and on the slopes of the mountains around, may still
be seen faint vestiges of cities and towns that were illustrious
centuries before Rome was founded. They have utterly perished.
Others of the same class seem to drag out a lingering existence, as
obscure villages, of no importance, whose names no one mentions, and
whose ancient history is known only to antiquarians. Many a desert,
forest, or plain can show ruins to rival those of the seven hills.
Florence, and many a modern city, can boast of galleries of the
fine arts and museums to rival, if not to surpass, most of those
in Rome. No, it is not for her antiquity, nor for her grand ruins
of past ages, nor for her paintings and sculpture, her marbles and
mosaics, that Rome stands unrivalled in the world. These are but
accessories. Neither they nor any mere human gift can suffice to
explain the mystery of her survival, despite so many convulsions and
shocks, and her continued and prosperous existence, where all around
her has sunk into decay and ruin. Were there no other source of
life, these would soon fail her. The treasures of art and antiquity
in her galleries, and museums, and public buildings would soon be
shattered by spoliation or conquest, and she would be left desolate
and stricken like her crumbling ruins. It is the moral power of
Christianity which gives her a life and a strength beyond that of the
sword. It is the presence of that pontiff who is the visible head
of the church, and the centre of Catholic unity and of spiritual
authority, which saves her from the fate of other cities. Her true
source of life is her religious position. When, centuries ago, the
popes, wearied out by the tumults of the people and the turbulence
of the barons, withdrew for peace' sake, and abode for seventy years
in Avignon, Rome dwindled down to be little better than a village
of ten or fifteen thousand souls. The Romans spoke of that time as
a Babylonian captivity. With the return of the pontiffs, prosperity
was again restored. When, in the early part of the present century,
Pius VII. was borne away and held captive for years in France, and
Rome was annexed to the French empire, the population of the city
quickly sank to one hundred and thirteen thousand, and was rapidly
diminishing. When he returned, in 1814, it began to rise again, and
to-day Rome has nearly double that population. Were the sovereign
pontiff to be driven into exile to-morrow, as Garibaldi and Mazzini,
and the _Italianissimi_ of Florence desire, Rome would again, and
at once, enter on a downward career of misery and ruin. In twenty
years she would lose all her treasures and half of her population.
All this is clear to the Romans themselves; all the more clear from
the fate which has overtaken those cities of the states of the church
which were annexed to the kingdom of Italy eight or ten years ago. No
wonder that, in 1867, neither the artful emissaries of Ratazzi nor
the military parade of Garibaldi was able to gather recruits to their
attempt, either from the country around or from the city itself. The
Romans would shudder at the thought of a renewal of that attempt, as
at a terrible calamity.

But we must not wander away into such considerations. This theme,
though most important to the Romans and often on their lips, is of
too worldly a character. For this month, at least, we leave it aside,
and join that immense crowd of strangers who have filled Rome, drawn
hither to look on the council, and to unite in the solemn offices
of Holy-Week, more solemn and imposing this year than perhaps ever
before, on account of the vast number of bishops uniting in their
celebration. Once, the German element used to stand prominent before
all others, in the crowd of strangers that flocked to Rome for
Holy-Week; afterward the English, and laterly the Americans, became
conspicuous. This year, although they were probably as numerous
as ever, they seemed to sink into the background before the vast
number of French who filled the holy city, and who, almost without
exception, had come in the spirit of earnest, fervent Catholics.
They were fully as numerous and fully as demonstrative as at the
centenary celebration in 1867. Their coming was announced by the
ever-increasing numbers who, each day that a general congregation
of the council was held, gathered at St. Peter's at half-past eight
A.M., to see the bishops enter, or at one P.M., to see them come
forth from the council hall.

In ordinary times, the pope and cardinals celebrate nearly all the
offices of Holy-Week, not in St. Peter's, which is left to the canons
and clergy of that basilica, but in the Sixtine chapel, which is
the pope's court chapel, so to speak, within the Vatican palace.
It is as large as a moderate American church. About one half is
railed off as a sanctuary for the pontiff, and the cardinals and
their attendants, and for the other clergymen who are required or
are privileged to attend the services in this chapel. The remaining
half, assigned to the laity, will hold four or five hundred seated
or standing, as the case may be. The number desiring to enter is so
great that often a seat can be obtained only by coming two or three
hours before the time for commencing the services. This year, if the
bishops were to be present, the whole chapel would have to be used as
a sanctuary, and no room would remain for any of the laity. To avoid
this embarrassment, and the consequent disappointment of thousands,
it was settled that this year the papal services of Holy-Week should
be celebrated, not in this Sixtine chapel, but in St. Peter's itself,
where, besides all the bishops, ten thousand others might attend, and
seem only a moderate-sized crowd grouped close to the sanctuary.

To St. Peter's, then, on Palm-Sunday morning, came the papal choir,
and half a thousand bishops, archbishops, primates, and patriarchs,
the cardinals with their attendants, and the holy father himself,
for the blessing of the palms and the other services of the day.
They were substantially the same as the services in ten thousand
other churches of the Catholic world that day. But here, there were
of course a splendor and magnificence that could be rivalled nowhere
else. The palms to be blessed lay in masses regularly arranged near
the throne of the pontiff. They seemed scarcely to differ from the
branches of our southern palmetto. On many of them the long leaves
were fancifully plaited, so as to represent a branch surrounded by
roses, lilies, leaves, and crosses. The Catholic negroes that came
to the United States from San Domingo years ago used to do something
similar. There is an interesting story about these palms. On the
tenth of September, 1586, Fontana, the architect and engineer of St.
Peter's, was to lift to its present position in the middle of the
square before St. Peter's, the immense unbroken mass of stone which
formed an Egyptian obelisk that had been erected in the amphitheatre
of Nero, and still stood not far off, its base buried in the earth
that centuries had accumulated around it. It was a mighty, a perilous
work, to transport this obelisk, three hundred yards, ever keeping
it in its upright position, and at the end to lift it up and plant
it on the lofty pedestal. Pope Sixtus V. and all Rome were there to
look on. In default of steam-engines and hydraulic rams, not then
invented, Fontana used a huge scaffolding, ropes, blocks and tackle,
and windlasses, and hundreds of operatives. Any mistake or confusion
as to orders or delay in executing them might overthrow the immense
pillar, and prove disastrous to the work, and fatal perhaps to
scores of lives. In view of the emergency, a kind of military law
was proclaimed, whereby all lookers-on were to keep silence, under
penalty of death. Fontana, standing aloft, gave his orders, the
wheels were turned, the ropes tightened, the mighty mass slowly moved
on, the pedestal was reached. The obelisk was lifted up. Hours rolled
on, and still it rose gradually but truly. At length it stood within
a few feet of its destined position. But it would go no farther.
The ropes, bearing the strain of the weight for so many hours, had
stretched, and some were threatening to snap. Fontana stood pale and
speechless at the impending disaster, which he now saw no way of
averting. Suddenly a clear, manly voice was heard from out of the
crowd, "_Wet your ropes! wet your ropes!_" Fontana at once seized
the happy thought. The ropes were wetted, swelled and contracted
to their original state, and soon the huge obelisk stood upright
and firm on the solid pedestal, and the daring work was crowned
with complete success. Meanwhile, the officers had seized the man
that cried out; he was brought before the pope, who thanked him and
embraced him. He was asked who he was, and what reward he desired.
His name was Bresca, a sailor from San Remo, near Nice. His family
owned a palm-grove there, and the reward he asked was the privilege
of supplying St. Peter's every year for ever with the palm-branches
to be blessed and used on Palm-Sunday. It was granted. Nearly three
centuries have passed, but the family of Bresca is still at San Remo,
has still palm-groves, and every year there comes a small vessel
from that port, laden with the palm-branches for St. Peter's. May it
continue to come three hundred years hence!

The holy father, in that clear, sweet, and majestic voice, for which
he is remarkable, chanted the prayers for the blessing of the palms.
To the blessing succeeded the distribution. One after another, the
cardinals gravely advanced, the long silk trains of their robes
rustling on the carpet as they moved forward; each one received a
palm-branch; the oriental patriarchs, the primates, and a number of
the archbishops and bishops, as representatives of their brethren,
followed after the cardinals, and received each his branch. Meanwhile
the choir was singing the exquisite anthems, "Pueri Hebraeorum,"
appointed for that occasion. It was a simple, yet a most effective
and thrilling scene. The cardinals stood in their long line, the
rich gold ornamentation of their chasubles shining brightly on the
violet silk, on their heads the mitre or the red _calotte_ of their
rank. Before each one stood his chaplain in dark purple, holding the
decorated palm-branch, like a lance. In the middle, as the lines of
Oriental and Latin prelates in their rich and varied robes approached
the holy father, or retired, each one bearing his palm-branch, there
was a perpetual changing and shifting and intermingling of colors,
as in a kaleidoscope. Near the pope, stood the senator and other
civil officers of Rome, in their mediaeval mantles. The Swiss guard,
in a military dress of broad stripes, red and yellow, or black and
yellow, some of them wearing steel corselets and breastplates, and
all wearing the plumed Tyrolean military hat; they stood motionless
as statues, holding their bright halberds upright. The Noble Guard,
in their rich uniform, stood here and there; and on both sides,
line after line of bishops, robed in cappa magnas, formed a massive
and imposing background. Add to all these, the religious orders,
Carmelites, Dominicans, Franciscans of every family, Augustinians,
Benedictines, Cistercians, Canons Regular, Theatines, Servites,
Crociferi, and many others, each in the costume of his order
or congregation, and all bearing branches of blessed palm. Add
still the continuous chanting of those unrivalled voices and the
indistinct bass murmur or rustling of the vast crowd. It was a scene
which carried one away. You did not strive to catch every note of
Palestrina's beautiful composition. It was enough to drink in the
sound. You scarcely thought of reciting the words of a prayer--there
are none assigned for the time of distribution specifically--you
found it easier to indulge a train of devotional thought, and to
unite with it something of pious admiration.

Next followed the procession in commemoration of the solemn entry of
our Saviour into Jerusalem, five days before his Passion. Leaving the
sanctuary, the long lines of singers, of the religious orders, of
bishops and prelates, and of cardinals, and finally the pope with his
attendants, passed down the nave of the church, out by one door into
the vestibule, and, returning by another into the church, again came
up the nave and entered the sanctuary. The strains of the "Gloria,
Laus, et Honor," the hymn for that procession, always beautiful, and
infinitely more so when sung to-day by this choir, swelled as the
procession approached you, became fainter and sweeter as it passed
on. You caught but a faint murmur of melody while they were in the
vestibule, and the notes rose again as the procession entered the
church and moved slowly onward to the sanctuary.

Then came the high mass, which an archbishop celebrated, by special
permission, at the high-altar. Without such permission, no one save
the holy father himself celebrates there. During this mass the entire
history of the Passion of our Lord, as given in the Gospel of St.
Matthew, is sung. On Good-Friday, the same history is sung, as given
by St. John. Perhaps no portion of the chants of the church in use at
the present day is as ancient and venerable as the mode in which the
Passion is chanted. The old classic Greek style is preserved, and,
fundamentally at least, the melody must be Grecian, although perhaps
somewhat changed to suit our modern gamut. The ordinary mode is to
distribute the whole among three singers, one of whom chants all
the narrative or historical portion. Whenever the Saviour speaks, a
second singer chants his words. A third singer comes in at the proper
times to chant whatever is said by others. In the Sixtine chapel,
and here in St. Peter's to-day, there is a slight change made, which
from its appropriateness and effective character we cannot but look
on as in part, at least, a return toward the original idea of such a
chant. One singer, an exquisite tenor, took up the narrative portion
in a _recitativo_, closing each sentence with the modulations with
which many of our readers must be well acquainted. A baritone voice,
one of the richest, smoothest, most majestic, and most plaintive and
sympathetic we ever heard, chanted the Saviour's part. There was not
in it a note that we had not heard before scores of times, but never
as they were now chanted. One could, it seemed, listen to him for
ever; when he closed one sentence, your eye ran along the page to
mark the verse, at which you would hear him again. As he uttered the
words, you drank them in, in their sense rather than in the music,
realizing something of their pathos and majesty. It was as if in
truth you stood near him in Gethsemane, before Annas, and Caiaphas,
before Pilate; as if you walked with him along the sorrowful way, as
if you stood so near the cross on Calvary that every word he spoke,
every tone of his voice, entered your heart. Years cannot efface from
our minds the memory of that wondrous chant. It seems still to ring
in our ears. The portions usually assigned to a third singer are
here distributed among several, who chant singly, or together, as
the words are spoken by one, or by several, or by a multitude. Thus,
a soprano and a contralto unite to sing the words of the two false
witnesses. The mutual contradiction of the witnesses is indicated by
the irregularity of the time, and the discords that are repeatedly
introduced. When the crowd cries out, "_Away with him; crucify him;
we will have no king but Caesar_," the whole choir bursts forth. You
hear the trembling shrill tones of age, the hissing words of irate
manhood, the shrill trebles of excited women, the full incisive words
of the priests, and the clamors of the unthinking rabble. When they
cry, "_His blood be upon us and upon our children_," the voices, full
at the beginning, grow tremulous and weaker as they proceed, and some
are silent, as if reluctant to pronounce the terrible words of the
imprecation. And when the soldiers, after scourging the Saviour, and
putting on his head the crown of thorns, place the reed in his hands
and kneel before him, saluting him, _Hail, King of the Jews_, the
words are sung by three or four voices with a softness, a sweetness,
and an earnestness which would make you think that, for the moment,
and in spite of themselves, they felt the divine truth of the words
they intended to utter in mockery.

In the entire cycle of music there is nothing so sublime and so
touching as the Passion of our Lord, sung by the papal choir in St.
Peter's.

On Tuesday, in Holy-Week, a general congregation of the council was
held in the usual form. As we stated in our last number, the fathers
voted on the entire draught, then before them, either _placet_,
_placet juxta modum_, or _non placet_. We need add nothing to the
account we then gave.

On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoons the bishops attended
in St. Peter's at the office of the Tenebrae. On each occasion,
twenty-five or thirty thousand persons about half-filled the church,
to hear the lamentations, and, above all, the far-famed Misereres
heretofore only to be heard in the Sixtine chapel.

The papal choir is composed of about twenty-five singers. Basses,
baritones, contraltos, tenors, and sopranos, all chosen voices of
the first quality, and all trained for years in the special style
of singing of this choir, different from that of any other we ever
heard, and in the peculiar traditions as to the precise style in
which each of their principal pieces should be executed. They say
themselves, that without this special training the mere notes of the
score would by no means suffice to guide another choir, at least so
as to produce the marvellous effects which they attain. They have in
their repertory over forty Misereres, composed by their different
_maestri_, or chiefs, during the last three centuries. Not more than
four of these are placed by them in the first rank. On Wednesday,
that by Baini was sung; on Thursday, that of Allegri, and on Friday,
one by Mustafa, the present leader of the choir.

That of Allegri is acknowledged to be the best. He was born in Rome
in 1560, and became a celebrated composer and singer. In 1629, he
entered this choir, at the age of sixty-nine, and was its leader for
twenty-three years, dying in 1652 at the ripe age of ninety-two. His
Miserere is of such incontestable merit that it is always one of the
three sung each year, and not unfrequently it has been sung twice in
the same year.

Baini was born in Rome in 1775, entered the papal choir at about the
age of thirty, became _maestro_ or leader in 1824, and died about
twenty years ago. He was the most learned musical scholar of Italy in
his day, and published a number of works. As a composer, he ranked
very high. His Miserere is esteemed next to that of Allegri. There
is a difference between them. The older composer was filled with a
sense of the full meaning of the psalm as a whole, and varies the
expression in each verse according to the sense of the entire verse.
Baini, on the contrary, is disposed to dwell on the special sense
of each word and minor phrase, bringing these points into higher
relief than Allegri would. To many, on this account, his Miserere
is more intelligible and more pleasing than the other. But a longer
familiarity with both invariably reverses this decision.

Mustafa, the present _maestro_ of the papal choir, was likewise
born in Rome, and entered the choir thirty years ago, as a soprano
singer. On Baini's death, he succeeded to his post. No one in Italy
has a more thorough and scientific knowledge of vocal music than he
has; and his compositions are among the choicest _morceaux_ of the
choir here. His Miserere has several advantages. It was written for
the voices now in the choir, and its execution is directed by the
composer himself. There is more of the modern style about it than we
find in the other two. Hence it is always most pleasing, for style,
and the precision and brilliancy with which it is sung.

But besides the artistic excellence which the few trained to analyze
and examine such compositions can alone discover and discuss
suitably, there is a something about these Misereres which all can
feel, and which is far more religious in its character. Once enjoyed,
it is never forgotten. As the long office of matins and lauds is
slowly chanted, psalm succeeding psalm, and lamentation following
lamentation, the lighted candles on the triangular candelabrum are
all gradually extinguished, save one, and then, one by one, those
on the altar. The shades of evening are coming on. The light of day
has become almost a twilight, adding a mysterious indefiniteness
to the immensity of the vast edifice. Only through the glory, or
circular stained window in the apsis of the basilica, there comes in
a golden light from the western sky. The cardinals and bishops are
all kneeling in their places, the multitude of twenty-five thousand
that have waited two hours for this moment are hushed to deadest
silence. A wailing voice is heard--faint, sad, almost bursting into
sobs--_Have mercy on me, O God!_ Another and another joins in the
entreating cry. It swells and rises, sometimes in passionate, loud
supplication, sometimes lowered to broken tones, scarce daring
to hope, until an angel voice leads on, _According to thy great
mercy_. Verse after verse the wailing, pleading prayer continues, in
combinations of matchless voices, and in harmonious strains never
heard or dreamed of before. The multitude listen, suppressing their
breathing lest they may lose a single one of the silvery tones. Some
are kneeling, others who have not room to kneel, in that closely
packed crowd, stand with their heads sunk on their breasts. All are
silent, yet many a moving lip tells you they are repeating the words
with the singers, that they may more fully drink in the sense and the
appropriateness of the music. When the last verse closes, there is
a sigh, as if they waked from a trance and found themselves in this
life again.

On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday there were the usual services
in St. Peter's, in the forenoon. On the first day, the bishops
were required to attend in white copes and mitres. A cardinal sang
high-mass, after which came the usual procession of the blessed
sacrament, which is conveyed from the main altar to a repository
prepared to receive it. This year the chapel of the canons was used
for the purpose. Cross and candles and incense led the way. The
canons and beneficiaries and other clergy of St. Peter's followed,
each one bearing a lighted waxen candle, and responding to the
chanted hymns of the choir. A certain number of archbishops and
primates came next, and after them the cardinals, all likewise with
their lighted tapers. The pontiff himself bore the blessed sacrament,
under a rich canopy of gold cloth, upheld on eight staffs of silver
gilt, borne by his attendants. Cardinals and clergy, Swiss Guard and
Noble Guard, walked slowly on either side; the heads of religious
orders followed, bearing their lights; and after them, not two and
two, as the regular procession had walked, but more closely pressed
together, came the hundreds of bishops. The church, at least the
half of it toward the altar, was packed and jammed. Not without
some effort had the Swiss and the lines of soldiers kept a small
passage-way clear for the procession from the main altar to the
chapel of the canons. As the sound of the well-known hymn, the "Pange
lingua," was recognized, and the procession started, all who could
knelt; those who had not room to do so bowed reverently until the
pontiff had passed and had entered the chapel, and the amen of the
closing prayer rang through the church.

At once there was a rushing to and fro of the thirty thousand people
in the church, one half seeking to pass out to the square in front or
to ascend to the broad summit of the colonnade on each side of it;
for the pontiff would, in a few minutes, give the solemn pontifical
blessing from the loggia or balcony over the main door of St.
Peter's. The other half took the occasion to occupy the vacant space
closer to the main altar, striving to secure the best positions, from
which to witness, as well as they could, the ceremonies to follow in
the sanctuary, after the blessing, and trusting that on Easter-Sunday
they might be able to behold and to receive the blessing with grander
ceremonial than to-day. The holy father and the cardinals came forth
from the chapel, and, leaving for a time the basilica by a side-door,
passed into the Vatican palace, and from thence to the vast hall
immediately over the vestibule of St. Peter's. Borne in his curule
chair, he advances to the loggia, or open balcony projecting in the
middle toward the square, and looks out on the city, and on the
thousands below, that kneel as he stands erect, and, raising both
arms aloft toward heaven, calls down on them the blessing of God the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The solemn and sweet tones of
that majestic voice ring through the square, and the words are heard
distinctly by the multitudes. A cardinal reads and publishes the
indulgence, and the pontiff and the cardinals retire.

Back into the church the mass of people come, a living torrent.
In twenty minutes the cardinals and the bishops are again in the
sanctuary, while the movement and rustling of the moving and
struggling crowd fills the church with the sound as of a deep,
continuous, and subdued bass note. At one side of the large
sanctuary, which is about one hundred and thirty feet deep, and
seventy-five feet broad, an ascent of eight or ten steps leads to
a broad platform visible to all. On this platform attendants move
about, preparing all that is necessary for the next portion of the
ceremony, the _mandatum_, or washing of feet. Soon a line of thirteen
figures, dressed as pilgrims in long white woollen robes reaching to
the instep, ascend to the platform, and the attendants conduct them
to the seats that are prepared. They are priests from abroad who
have come to Rome and all eyes are turned to inspect them as they
stand ranged in a line. One is an old man stooped with age, with
large, piercing dark eyes, and heavy eyebrows, long aquiline nose
and high cheek-bones, and ruddy cheeks. The olive tint of his skin
looks darker by contrast with his ample flowing beard of patriarchal
whiteness. He is from the east. Perhaps those two other younger ones,
with full black beards, are from the east likewise. To judge by his
almond eye, the long and regular features, and the darkish skin,
another was an Egyptian. Of a fifth there could be no mistake. He was
from Senegambia in Africa, and his surname was _Zamba_, or, as we
call it in America, _Sambo_. His jet black skin, his negro features,
the blue spectacles he wore, and his instinctive attitude of dignity
made him the most conspicuous in the number. They entered, wearing
tall white caps, in shape something like stove-pipe hats without any
rim, and with a tuft on the summit; long white dresses of the shape
you may see in the miniatures of illuminated manuscripts written a
thousand years ago; and even, their stockings and shoes were white
as their dress. As all were ready, the pontiff enters, and the choir
intones the antiphon, "Mandatum novum"--"A new command I give you."
Some preliminary prayers are chanted, and the pontiff, putting off
the cope, but retaining his mitre, is girded with an apron, and
ascends the platform. An attendant unlaces the shoe on the right foot
of the first pilgrim, and lets down the stocking. Other attendants
present the ewer of water and the towels; the pontiff, stooping down
or kneeling, washes the instep, dries it with a towel, and kisses
it. While the attendants raise the stocking and lace the shoe, the
holy father gives to the pilgrim a large nosegay, which in former
times contained a coin to aid him on his journey homeward. He did
the same one by one to all of them. During this touching ceremony
the choir continued to sing anthem after anthem; but few present did
more than listen vaguely and enjoy the sound, so preoccupied, or
rather so fascinated, all seemed to be by a ceremony so rarely used
in the church, and so fully recalling our divine Saviour's act and
instruction before the Last Supper. Few have ever seen it in church,
save as to-day here in St. Peter's, on Holy-Thursday. It may be said
to be carried out, too, on a larger scale and in a practical way,
all these days in Rome. There is a large institution here called
_La Santissima Trinita dei Pellegrini_, where, during Holy-Week,
thousands of poor pilgrims, who have come on foot, and reach Rome
weary and foot-sore, are received, and supplied with two meals a day
and beds for three days and nights. There is one department for the
men, and another for the women and children. Each evening, after
the conclusion of the services in the churches, they return to the
institution. Cardinals, bishops, priests, and laymen in numbers,
nobles and private individuals, are there, and wash their feet
(thoroughly) and wait on them at the table. In the female department
princesses, duchesses, and ladies of every degree and station,
titled and untitled, are there to perform the same offices for the
women and children. All these ladies belong to several charitable
confraternities and associations in the city; and by one of their
rules no one of them is allowed the privilege of uniting in this work
in Holy-Week unless she has, during the past year, paid at least a
stated number of charitable visits to the prisons and hospitals. We
do not know whether the men have the same admirable rule.

After the washing of the feet in St. Peter's, the pope retired,
and the pilgrims followed. The services in the church itself were
over. But there was something else, which as many as could wished
to see. The pope was to serve the pilgrims at table. In the large
hall mentioned above as being situated over the vestibule of the
church, and from which the pope went out to the loggia to give the
blessing, a long table had been prepared and decorated. Soon the
pilgrims entered and stood at their places; and the hall was filled
with thousands of spectators. The pontiff came in, attended by three
or four cardinals, his own attendants, and a number of bishops. He
said the grace, and a monsignore read a portion of the Scriptures,
and then continued to read a book of sermons. Meanwhile, the pope was
passing to and fro, from one end of the table to the other, helping
each one to soup, to fish, and to wine; and finally, giving them his
special blessing, he retired. The services had commenced at nine A.M.
It was now two P.M.

The holy oils were blessed, not in St. Peter's, but in St. John
Lateran's; for St. Peter's is the cathedral of the pope as Pope and
Bishop of the Catholic Church. St. John's is his cathedral as Bishop
of Rome.

On Friday morning the offices in St. Peter's were precisely the same
as in every other cathedral, differing only in the presence of the
sovereign pontiff and the cardinals, and the large number of bishops,
who attended robed in purple _cappa magna_. The "Improperia," sung
while the pope, the cardinals, and the bishops approached to kneel
and kiss the cross, is accounted the master-piece of Palestrina.
It is unequalled in its expression of tenderness and of sorrowful
reproach. Sung as it was by that unrivalled choir, on this day,
when the church is desolate and stripped of all ornament, and the
ministers at the altar are robed in sombre black; when burning lights
and the smoke of incense are banished from the sanctuary; when one
thing only is presented--the image of the crucified Redeemer; one
theme only fills prayers, anthems, and hymns alike--the sorrows and
death of our Lord on Calvary--its effect seemed overpowering. You
thought not of the wondrous charm of the voices; you heeded not the
antique melody or the skilful harmonies, as word after word, clearly
and distinctly uttered, fell on your ear; the music but rendered
more clear and emphatic their sense as it sunk into your heart. You
felt that the reproaches of the loving and forgiving Saviour were
addressed to you personally, and you bowed in sorrowful confusion as
well as in adoration, while you saluted him in the words of early
Christian worship, AGIOS O THEOS.

During the service, that portion of his Gospel in which St. John
narrates the history of the Passion, was chanted in the same manner
as had been the narration by St. Matthew on the preceding Sunday.
Prepared as all were, by the services of the days past and by the
sublime "Improperia" we had just heard, words cannot express the
awe which came on them as they listened to this vivid recitation in
music of that grand drama of Good-Friday on the summit of Calvary.
It is on such occasions, and with singing like this, that one
realizes what force and truth and majesty there is in perfect music,
inspired and consecrated by religion.

On Saturday, the bishops were divided between St. Peter's and St.
John's. In the latter church, besides the usual services, there were
also the instruction of catechumens, the baptism of converts with
the form for grown persons, and at the mass a grand ordination, at
which tonsure, all the minor orders, subdeaconship, deaconship, and
priesthood were conferred on those who had been examined and found
worthy of the grades to which they aspired. In all, they were about
sixty.

In St. Peter's, the services were only the usual ones of the
church for this day--the blessing of the font, the chanting of the
prophecies, the blessing of the paschal candle, and the solemn
high-mass celebrated by a cardinal. The pope was present. One would
have thought that, at his age, after the fatigues of the days past,
and in view of the long functions of the morrow, it would be proper
that he should have one day of quiet, or at least of comparative
quiet. But Pius IX. never thinks of sparing himself. Many of the
bishops were at St. John's. But those who were in St. Peter's heard
the grand mass "of Pope Marcellus," as it is called, by Palestrina.
This is the mass which was composed and sung in 1565, and which,
it is said, won from the pope and cardinals the reversal of an
absolute prohibition they had almost determined on, of all music and
singing in church save the Gregorian chant, on account of the bad
taste and abuses of musicians and singers, who introduced profane
and worldly music even into the mass. No one who heard those grand
religious choral strains could fail to see how solemnly, and fully,
and appropriately they expressed in music the sublime character of
the service. Such music does not distract; on the contrary, it fixes
the thoughts, and soothes and guides the feelings into a channel of
devotion. It would have been impossible for the cardinals, after
listening to this exquisite mass, to arrive at a different conclusion.

From Thursday until Saturday, all the bells of Rome had been silent.
There was a visible shade of sorrow on the city, a public grief,
as it were, for the tragedy of Calvary. But in view of the joyous
resurrection close at hand, this silence of sorrow is soon to pass
away. It was near eleven A.M. when the high-mass commenced at St.
Peter's. At the Gloria, a signal was given, and the gigantic Bourdon
and the other bells of the basilica broke into a grand peal. The
guns of St. Angelo answered, and, quick as sound could travel, all
the thousand bells of all the steeples and belfrys of Rome, without
exception, joined in the clamorous yet not unpleasant or unmusical
chorus. The rooks, and ravens, and doves, and swallows flew to
and fro, frightened from their nests, half-stunned, and utterly
distracted. When the pealing chorus ended--and it lasted for a full
half-hour--Rome had put off her sadness, and friends were exchanging
the happy salutations of Easter.

In the afternoon an Armenian bishop celebrated high-mass, according
to their rite, at four P.M. in one church, and, at the same hour,
a Chaldean prelate celebrated high-mass, according to his rite, in
another. In the earlier centuries, this mass of the resurrection was
celebrated by all after midnight, on Saturday night. The Orientals
have brought it forward to Saturday afternoon; the Latins have
gradually advanced it to the forenoon. Sunday dawned, a bright,
clear, pleasant, cloudless Italian spring day. At an early hour
carriages of every kind were pouring in long lines over every bridge
across the Tiber, and hurrying on to St. Peter's, and tens of
thousands were making their way thither on foot. By nine o'clock, the
sanctuary is filled with bishops robed in white copes and mitres,
and with cardinals in richly adorned white chasubles. Soon the Swiss
Guard take their places, and the Noble Guard appear in their richest
uniform. Lines of Pontifical Zouaves and the Legion of Antibes, and
other soldiers, keep a lane open up the middle of the church, through
the immense crowd of, it was estimated, forty thousand persons, from
the door of the sanctuary. One tribune on the south side of the
sanctuary was filled with members of various royal families now in
Rome, some on a visit, some staying here permanently. On the other
side was a tribune for the diplomatic corps, which was filled with
ambassadors, ministers resident and envoys, in their rich uniforms
and covered with jewelled decorations.

A burst from the band of silver trumpets over the doorway of the
church told us that the holy father was entering. Down the lane
through the vast crowd might be seen the cross slowly advancing. Then
was heard the voice of the choir of the canons, welcoming the pontiff
to the basilica, and then aloft, higher than the mass that filled the
church, he was seen slowly borne on in the curule chair, robed in a
rich cope of white silk, heavy with gold embroidery and wearing the
tiara. Slowly advancing, and giving his blessing to the multitudes
on either side, he reached the chapel of the blessed sacrament,
descended from the chair, and, with the cardinals accompanying him,
and his other attendants, knelt for some moments in adoration. Then,
rising, he ascended the chair again, and the procession pursued its
way through the crowd, now more closely packed than ever, to the
sanctuary. Here the pontiff descended again to his robing throne at
the epistle side of the altar. The choir commence the chanting of the
psalms of terce and sext. Meanwhile the pontiff was robed for mass,
and the cardinals, the patriarchs, and primates, and a certain number
of the archbishops and bishops, as representatives of their brethren,
paid him the usual homage. This over, solemn high-mass commenced in
the usual form. After incensing the altar at the Introit, he passed
to his regular throne at the end of the sanctuary, just opposite the
altar, and fully one hundred and twenty feet distant. There beside
him stood a cardinal priest and two cardinal deacons; the senator
of Rome, in his official robes and cloak of yellow and gold, with
his pages of similar costume, the _conservatori_ of the city; and
on the steps, around the throne, stood, or were seated, some twenty
assistant bishops; on either side six lines of seats stretching
down to the altar were occupied by the cardinals and by a great
mass of prelates, Latin and Oriental, all in the richest vestments
appropriate to this the greatest festival of the church.

Never was solemn high-mass celebrated with more splendor in St.
Peter's than on this Easter-Sunday. To be privileged to assist at it
amply repays many a one for all the time and all the fatigue of a
journey to Rome. The holy father officiates with a fervor and intense
devotion which lights up his countenance. The venerable Cardinal
Patrizi, who stood by his side, was the very personification of
sacerdotal dignity. The mitred prelates in their places, many of them
gray-haired or bald, or bent with age and labors, seemed radiant
with the holy joy of the occasion. The masters of ceremony and the
attendants moved gravely and reverently, as their duties called them
from one part of the sanctuary to another. Even the vast crowd of
forty or fifty thousand that filled the church were penetrated with
reverent awe, and sank almost into perfect stillness. Nothing was
heard save the noble voice of the sovereign pontiff chanting the
prayers, and the responding strains of the choir. Yet, in comparison
with the music we had heard during the week, the Gloria and the
Creed, super-excellent though they were, seemed in some measure to
belong to the earth. After the subdeacon had sung the epistle in
Latin, a Greek subdeacon, in the robes of his Greek rite, sung it
in Greek; and similarly a Greek deacon followed the Latin deacon in
chanting the Gospel. A musical antiquarian would have found in the
peculiar modulations of their chant traces of the ancient eastern
style of music, going back, perhaps, in those unchanging people to
the days of Greek classic civilization. The most impressive moment
in the mass was certainly the elevation. At a signal, you heard
the voice of the officers giving the command, and the thud on the
floor as the companies of soldiers simultaneously grounded arms,
and every man sank on one knee. The Noble Guard, too, sank on one
knee, uncovered their heads, and saluted with their bright swords.
The Swiss Guard stood erect and presented arms. In the sanctuary,
of course, all were kneeling. There was a sound like the rushing of
a wind through a pine forest as the vast multitude strove to sink
down too. And then came a dead silence over all. As the pontiff
raised aloft the sacred host, turning toward every quarter of the
church, there came, faint, and soft, and solemn at first, and
gradually stronger and more emphatic, the thrilling tones of those
silver trumpets placed over the doorway and out of sight. Their
slow, majestic melody, and their rich accords, and the repeated and
prolonged echoes of those notes of almost supernatural sweetness,
from chapels and nave and dome, produced an effect that was
marvellously impressive. As if fascinated by them, no one moved from
his kneeling position, or even raised his head, until the last note
of the strain and its receding echoes had died away, and the choir
went on to intone the "Benedictus qui venit."

At the conclusion of the mass, the pope unrobed, put on his cope and
tiara again, and retired in the same manner as he had entered. At
once the vast mass of people began to pour forth from St. Peter's,
to make their way to the front; for the pope would soon give his
solemn benediction _urbi et orbi_--to Rome and to the world. We
have already described the square before St. Peter's. It is about
fifteen hundred feet long, and averages nearly four hundred feet in
breadth. All during the mass it had been gradually filling up, and
when now new torrents of men came pouring out of the church, the
whole place became so packed that one standing on the lofty colonnade
on the side of the Vatican and looking down on the square, perceived
that only here and there even small portions of the ground remained
visible, such was the closeness with which men and women stood packed
together. Especially was this true on the vast esplanades more
immediately before the church, and the broad steps leading up to it.
Here were gathered all who wished to be as near as possible to the
pope during the blessing, or to get a sight from this elevation of
the vast basin of the square thoroughly packed with human beings. Nor
was the multitude confined to the square alone; on the colonnades, on
either hand, stood thousands and thousands, as in favored positions.
Every window and balcony looking out on the square was thronged.
Every roof had its group, and away down the two streets leading up
the square from the bridge of St. Angelo the crowd appeared equally
dense. A military man present, whose experience had qualified him
to estimate large masses, judged that there were present at least
one hundred and twenty thousand persons. Mingling among them, you
heard every language of Europe, many of Asia, and, it was said, half
a dozen from Africa. It was a representation of the world which the
pontiff would bless. From all this multitude, standing in the bright
sunlight, which a north wind rendered not disagreeable, came up a
roar, as it were, of rushing waters, mingling the hum of so many
voices with the blaring of an occasional military trumpet from the
troops, and the neighing of horses.

Soon the regimental bands are heard to salute the approach of his
holiness, invisible as yet to the crowd. A score of mitred prelates
appear at the large Balcony of the Blessing. They look out in wonder
and admiration at the scene below, and retire to allow another score
to view it; a third group does the same. These are the bishops who
have accompanied the pope from the sanctuary to the Vatican, and from
the Vatican hither. Of the others, some are down on the square with
the people, more are on the colonnades, in places reserved for them.
After the bishops, the cardinals are seen to fill the balcony once
or twice, and then the pontiff himself comes in view, borne forward
on his curule chair. He is out on the loggia itself. Ordinarily,
besides the ornamental drapery which we see decorating the columns
and architrave and tympanum, and the railing in front, there projects
overhead a large awning to screen him from the sun. But to-day the
north wind does not allow it to stand. Fortunately, the weather
hardly calls for it. He is scarcely inconvenienced by the rays of the
sun as they are reflected from his rich gold-cloth mitre, studded
with precious stones, and from the massive gold embroidery of his
cope. The military music has ceased, and there is the silence of awe
and of earnest expectation. Those that are near hear the tones of
some one chanting the Confiteor beside the pontiff. Two bishops hold
the large missal from which he chants the prayers in a clear, rotund,
and musical voice. The people are kneeling, and twice is heard the
response of united thousands--_Amen_. The book is laid aside. The
pontiff rises and stands erect, looks up to heaven, and, with a
majestic sweeping motion, opens wide his arms and invokes on all the
blessing of heaven. His voice is given forth in its very fullest
power, and even at the furthermost end of the square the kneeling
crowd sign themselves with the sign of the cross as they distinctly
hear the words: "_Benedictio Dei omnipotentis, Patris, et Filii,
et Spiritus Sancti, descendat super vos et maneat semper." May the
blessing of Almighty God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
descend upon you and abide with you for ever._ And there came up a
swelling _Amen_. As the pontiff sank back on his chair, the kneeling
crowd arose, and there burst forth from every portion of it a loud
acclaim of _vivas_, of good wishes, of acclamations, that died away
only as the pontiff retired from view, and as the cannon of St.
Angelo commenced the national salute.

It was a ceremony fitted by its majesty and its magnificence to
close the grand ceremonies of Easter-Week. Art cannot do justice to
it. Painting, tied down by the laws of perspective, cannot portray
what the eye sees on every side, and does not pretend to give the
words of solemn prayer, of impressive benediction, and the outburst
of acclamation which we heard. Words must fail to convey the
emotions that filled thousands of hearts that day, at the sublime
and moving spectacle. It was a sensible testimony of the holiness,
the authority, and the unity of the church of Christ, a testimony to
which not even an unbeliever, if present, could remain indifferent.

It took nearly two hours for that crowd to depart. The cardinals,
royalty, the nobles, and many of the bishops in carriages, made their
way, at a snail's pace, along the streets leading to the old Roman
Elian Bridge across the Tiber, now known as the Bridge of St. Angelo.
They could scarcely get on as fast as the foot passengers that filled
the street on either side up to the very wheels of the single line
of carriages allowed. Others, more in a hurry, went out by the Porta
Angelica, so as to cross the Tiber at the Ponte Molle, two miles
north of the city, and then reenter by the Porta del Popolo; and
others again turned southward, following the streets along the river,
and crossing it at the suspension bridge, or at some of the bridges
lower down. And so, within two hours, all reached their homes without
a single accident, without a single quarrel, without a single call
for the interference of the police.

But it was for many of them only to return within a few hours. On
Easter-Sunday evening occurs the grand illumination of the facade
and dome of St. Peter's. As the shades of evening fell on the city,
silvery lights began to mark the lofty cross, and to glow along
the huge ribs of the mighty dome, and to map out the lines of
the windows and doors, the columns, and cornices, and tympanums,
and architectural ornaments and projections, to illuminate the
clock-faces and the coats of arms above them, to sparkle along the
minor domes, and to stretch away on either side in regular lines
along each colonnade, diffusing everywhere a gentle light, and
bringing into prominence, with a fairy-like witchery, all the lines
of the pile before you. There are about five thousand two hundred
of these lights. They are made of broad shallow plates of metal or
earthenware, containing a certain amount of prepared tallow and
a lighted wick, and surrounded by a cylinder of paper, colored
and figured. From this lantern, as it may be called, the light
comes diffused, subdued, and white; hence the Romans call this the
_silver_ illumination. The square was filled, though by no means as
in the morning, with crowds looking, wondering, and admiring. At a
quarter past eight, the large bell of St. Peter's began to chime.
As the very first stroke came to our ears, a tiny blaze was seen to
dart up a guiding wire to the top of the lofty cross, and a clear
bright flame burst forth, glowed on the summit; downward the tiny
flame flew, lighting two others on each arm of the cross, and then
downward lighting still others along the stem. Invisible hands caused
other such little flames to flit rapidly hither and thither, like
glow-moths, all along the dome, the front, and both colonnades around
the square. Wherever they seemed to alight for an instant, there a
bright flame sprung into existence. In just twenty-three seconds,
and long before the clock had half struck the hour, eight hundred
of those bright yellow flames had almost eclipsed the first ones,
and the building stood forth in the _golden_ illumination. It was a
sight, once seen, never to be forgotten. Whoever first conceived the
idea of this instantaneous change of illumination was a poet in the
truest sense of the word.

On Easter-Monday evening, the festive celebrations were continued by
giving the _Girandola_, or exhibition of fireworks on Monte Pincio.
On entering Rome from the north, by the Porta del Popolo, as before
the days of the railways the great majority of travellers did, you
find yourself at once in a large oval square, called the Piazza del
Popolo, in the centre of which stands an ancient Egyptian obelisk,
its base surrounded by modern Egyptian lions and fountains. On the
south side, three streets radiate into the heart of the city. For a
wonder, they are straight; you may look down the central one, the
Corso, for full three quarters of a mile. Massive palatial buildings
stand around this square; to the west there rises a line of lofty
evergreen cypresses, near the Tiber. Through the interstices of their
branches and dark foliage you may catch glimpses of St. Peter's. On
the east rises the Pincian Hill, the _Mons Hortulanus_ of the olden
Romans, then outside and to the north of the city, now within its
walls, and forming its beautiful promenade. The hill is about one
hundred and fifty feet high, and toward the square is quite steep.
Broad carriage-ways, sweeping from right to left, in zigzag courses,
give access from the square to the promenade above; and immense walls
of masonry, with arches and porticos, and columns, rising in stories,
back of and above each other, prevent any landslides, and give an
architectural finish to the whole hill-face which the trees and
exotic plants growing in the spaces between only embellish and do not
mar.

For ten days before Easter-Monday, the public had been excluded
from the promenade. As they passed through the square, they could
see a lofty scaffolding in the process of erection on the brow of
the hill, and other scaffolding interlacing with the architecture
of its side. The opposite oval curve of the square was occupied by
a line of covered galleries of wood erected for the occasion. On
this Monday night, the air was balmy, the sky clear but moonless.
At least twenty-five thousand spectators stood in the square. The
Roman municipality had assigned the galleries to the bishops and
some thousands of other invited guests. Four military bands whiled
away the time of expectation with sweet music. At last the appointed
hour struck on a neighboring church clock, and a rocket shot up into
the air, the sound of its explosion was reechoed from the mouth of
a cannon; and the pyrotechnic display at once commenced. The art of
pyrotechnics has been cultivated at Rome with more skill and good
taste than in any other city of Europe. We might, indeed, expect this
from a people trained as no other is to recognize and appreciate
the beautiful and fitting in form and color. The grand features
and characteristics of those displays were settled centuries ago.
They say that Michael Angelo himself did much toward perfecting
them. On each occasion some able artist gives the specialties to be
introduced, always in subservience to those general principles. This
year, the plan was given by the distinguished architect Vespiniani.
At one time, the entire face of the hill and the scaffolding was
ablaze with lines of variegated light, representing a vast mass of
buildings with towers and cupola, and gigantic gateways, on which
there streamed down from above continuous beams of still brighter
and purer light. In the distance stood the figure of an apostle,
and by him an angel with outstretched arm; and we understood that
we were looking at the celestial Jerusalem, revealed in vision to
the apostle in Patmos. We marked the gates of precious stones,
perfectly represented by the various hues of fire, and the foundation
stones bearing in letters of light the names of the apostles. Too
soon it seemed to fade away, but only to be renewed with change of
colors. For a while we might still study it. Again it faded, again
was renewed with still another exquisite arrangement of colors, and
then faded away into darkness. Then figure after figure burst out
afterward, without any delay or tedious waiting. At one time, a
gigantic volcano, amid the booming of cannon that caused the ground
to tremble beneath the foot, belched forth thousands of burning
rockets, which ascended in streaks of fire and burst over head,
seeming to fill the sky with myriads and myriads of many-colored
falling stars. At another, the whole hill-side stood before us as a
group of majestic triumphal arches, decorated with immense wreaths
of roses, lilies, dahlias, and bright-colored flowers. In a niche
was seen the bust of the pontiff surrounded by a brilliant frame,
and below we read the inscription, in which _Senatus Populusque
Romarins_, the municipal authorities of the city, offered to Pius
IX. their homage and congratulations on the near approach of the
twenty-fifth year of his pontificate. All the minor devices of
pyrotechnics, of course, abounded. When, after three quarters of
an hour, the brilliant and almost continuous display seemed to be
closed, a little fiery messenger started from the hill-side, on an
invisible wire, to the summit of the obelisk in the centre of the
square, and lighted a bright flame on its point. Soon lines of flame
decorated its sides. From its base ten little messengers started out,
not very far over the heads of the people, reaching as many pillars
around the square, and lighting up simultaneously ten bright Bengal
lights. It was as if day had come back to us. The lights on the
pillars changed from white to purple and red, and other messengers,
this time seemingly still nearer the heads, rushed madly back to
the central obelisk and clothed that too in many-colored fire. At
last, from obelisk and pillars alike shot up rocket after rocket,
bursting loudly in the air, and for the last time casting their
bright hues of white, and scarlet, and orange, and green, and purple
on the hill-side, the palaces and hotels around, and on the crowd
beneath in the square. All was over, and at an early hour the mighty
mass was slowly moving like living torrents down the three streets
leading from the square into the city. So great was the crowd that
it was full half an hour before the careful police would allow the
carriages, which filled the by-streets in the neighborhood, to enter
those thoroughfares. Gorgeous and artistic as the spectacle was, it
had not cost beyond a thousand dollars.

On Tuesday, the fathers were at work again. A general congregation
was held, as usual. The last speeches were spoken, the last
explanations were heard; the last touches were given to the _schema_,
and the last vote was taken, and every thing was ready to declare
and promulgate the _schema_, as a dogmatic constitution or decree of
faith, in the next public session, which, it was announced, would be
held on Low-Sunday.

The _Girandola_ on Monday night was the celebration of the municipal
authorities. On Wednesday night, the people had theirs--a general
illumination of the city. The proper day would have been April 12th,
the anniversary of the pope's return from Gaeta, and also of his
wondrous escape from all injury in an accident by the falling of
a floor at St. Agnes, outside the walls, something like the late
disastrous one in the capital at Richmond. Though many were injured,
cardinals, priests, and laymen, none, we believed, were killed.
But the chair in which the pontiff was seated came down with him
through the breaking floor without even being overturned, and he was
preserved from even the slightest shock. Since then, he ever keeps
that day religiously sacred, and the Romans have fallen into the
custom of celebrating it by a general illumination of the city. This
year, as the day fell in Holy-Week, the celebration was put off until
the 20th of April, Wednesday in Easter-Week.

Each householder illuminated his own building with lines of
_lampioni_, as they call the plates of earthenware or metal, filled
with tallow and a lighted wick, and surrounded by a cylindrical
screen of colored paper, through which the light shines as a huge
diamond. The wealthier ones affected some ornamental design in a
profuser arrangement of such lights. Some used multitudinous cups
of colored glass, holding oil, and a lighted taper swimming in it.
In each parish, the inhabitants clubbed together to erect one or
more special designs of superior artistic taste and brilliancy. The
city was all aglow; nobody save the sick staid at home; the streets
were filled with streams of people all moving in the same direction;
for some one had, with happy thoughtfulness, got up an itinerary or
route guide through the city, and all seemed to follow it. It took
three hours to walk through the choice parts of the fairy scene,
if you went on foot; and more, if you took a carriage. The lines of
mellow light, faintly shining from windows and cornices along all
the buildings, even the poorest, in the narrowest, and darkest, and
crookedest streets of Rome, broken occasionally by a brighter burst
from the doorway of some shop well illuminated in the interior; the
blaze that rose from the lights more numerous and brighter in the
squares, or shone from the fronts of wealthier and larger houses
and palaces, from the arches of triumph, and from the temples of
Gothic or classic style, constructed of wood and canvas, but to which
painting and colored lights lent for the hour a fairy beauty like
that of Aladdin's palace; every thing united to charm, to dazzle, and
to bewilder the spectator. The pope had gone that afternoon as usual
to St. Agnes, to be present at a Te Deum for his escape, and returned
only after night-fall. As he reached the square of St. Peter's, a
number of rockets shot up into the air, and burst into a thousand
stars of every hue. It was a signal. Instantaneously the colonnades
on either side and the front of the church were all lighted up with
Bengal fires. The columns in front and the walls glowed in a white or
golden light; the interior recesses were made mysterious in a rich
purple. After a few moments, the tints were interchanged; the bright
purple light was in front, and seemed to change the buff travertino
into alabaster and precious marbles, and the trembling tints of
white and light gold within imparted a supernatural beauty to the
interior recesses. Change followed change, until the pope, amid the
enthusiastic acclamations of the vast crowd, moved on, and at last
disappeared in the rear of St. Peter's, to reach the grand gateway
of the Vatican palace. The crowd too passed elsewhere, to wander
along streets converted into arcades, roofed by lines of soft and
many-colored lights; to admire the triumphal arches, where in niches
the Saviour stood as "the way, the truth, and the life," attended
by the Evangelists or the Blessed Virgin Mother, to whom David and
Isaiah bore testimony; to look on the cross of jewelled light shining
in the dark recesses of the front of the Pantheon, or to examine and
criticise the temples of light at the Minerva, the Santi Apostoli,
or Monticilorio; to rest themselves at times, listening to the music
of the bands, which ever and anon they encountered; to look with
delight on the illuminated steamers and barges on the river, bearing
(for the nonce) the flags of every Christian nation, and to study
the play of light reflected on the rippling surface of old Father
Tiber; to wonder at the obelisks converted into columns of fire, or
the grand stairway of Trinita di Monte, made a mountain of light, and
a glorious grand stairway seeming to reach the heavens, or to watch
the changing colors of Bengal fires, illuming the statues of old
Neptune and his tritons and sea-horses, and the wild cavernous rocks
and dashing waters of the exquisite fountain of Trevi; or, after all,
to stroll through some square, where yellow gravelly walks led you
between beds of green herbage, where tiny fountains were bubbling,
where trees were laden with fruits of light, and where flowers filled
the air with sweet perfumes. All Rome was in the streets, and in
their orderly, calm, and dignified way enjoyed the scene hugely. Not
a loud voice or an angry word was heard, not the slightest symptom of
intoxication was seen. Everywhere the hum of pleasant talk of friends
and family groups arose, made sparkling and brilliant to the ear,
rather than interrupted, by the low but hearty and silvery laughs of
men, of women, and of delighted children. The Romans were out, all
in their best apparel; and not they alone, but thousands from the
villages of the campagnas and the neighboring mountains, in their
bright colors and quaint mediaeval traditional costumes. All these
were a study to the sixty thousand visitors then passing through
the streets of Rome, not less interesting and instructive than the
gorgeous illumination itself. Among those sixty thousand strangers
there was but one decision--that nowhere else in Europe could there
be an illumination so spontaneous, so general, so perfectly artistic,
so exquisitely beautiful and grand as this was, and nowhere else
could such a vast crowd walk these narrow streets for hours with such
perfect order, such good humor, and such universal courtesy.

There were other celebrations during these two weeks, both
ecclesiastical and social, but it will suffice to have spoken of the
chief ones. The repositories or sepulchres of Holy-Thursday evening,
the services of the three hours' agony in many churches about noon on
Good-Friday, and the sermons and way of the cross in the ruins of the
Colosseum, the scene of so many martyrdoms, on Good-Friday afternoon,
would all deserve special mention; but we have not the space, and
must pass on to the third public session of the Vatican Council.

This, as we have already stated, was fixed for Sunday, April
26th--Low-Sunday. At nine A.M., the cardinals, patriarchs, primates,
archbishops, bishops, mitred abbots, and superiors of religious
orders were in their places. The council hall had been restored
to the original form in which we had seen it on the day of the
opening. All the changes to fit it for the discussions of the general
congregations were removed. The Noble Guard and the Knights of Malta
were on duty as custodians of the assembly. Cardinal Bilio celebrated
a pontifical high-mass, as had been done in each of the previous
sessions. At its termination, the Gospel was enthroned on the altar.
The holy father intoned the "Veni Creator Spiritus," and the choir
and united assembly of prelates sung the strophes alternately to the
conclusion of that sublime hymn. The pontiff chanted the opening
prayers, and all knelt when the litany of the saints was intoned in
the varied and well-known antique melodies of Gregorian chant. At the
proper place, the pontiff chanted the special supplications for a
blessing on the council, and the chanters and the assembly, and, in
fact, thousands of the audience, joined in the swelling responses.
The effect seemed even to surpass that which we described in our
first article, giving an account of the opening of the council. Other
prayers followed, prescribed by the ritual. At their conclusion, the
special work of this session commenced.

According to the olden time ritual of councils, all in the hall, not
belonging strictly to the council, should at this point be sent away,
and the gates should be closed, that in their voting the fathers
might be free from all outside influence, and each might speak his
mind, unswayed by fear or favor. But if, in stormier times, when
clamorous mobs might invade a council hall, such precautions were
necessary, here, to-day, they are certainly unnecessary. There is
no need to close the wide portals against these thousands and tens
of thousands who have gathered to look with reverence and rapture
on this venerable assembly. Let the doors then stand open to their
widest extent, that all may see.

And it was a scene worth coming, as many had done, across oceans and
mountains to look on. The pillars and walls of the noble hall were
rich with appropriate paintings, with mosaics, and statuary, and
marbles. At the furthest end, on his elevated seat, sat the venerated
sovereign pontiff, bearing on his head a precious mitre, glittering
with jewels, and wearing a cope rich with massive golden embroidery.
On either hand sat the venerable cardinals, arrayed in white mitres,
and wearing their richest robes of office. In front of them sat the
patriarchs, mostly easterns, in the rich and bright-colored robes of
their respective rites, and wearing tiaras radiant with brilliants
and jewelry. Down either side of the hall ran the manifold lines of
primates, archbishops, bishops, and other prelates, all in white
mitres, and in copes of red lama; all save the oriental prelates, who
wear many-colored copes and vestments, and rich tiaras, ever catching
the eye of the spectator as they sat scattered here and there in that
crowd, and excepting also the heads of religious orders, who wear
each his appropriate dress of white, or of black, or of brown, or
mingle these colors together. The contrast and play of various colors
in all these vestments give a brilliancy to the whole scene, much
beyond what the uniform white of the first two sessions had yielded.

But what mattered the color of their vestments, when one considered
the venerable forms of the bishops themselves. They sat still, and
almost as motionless as so many marble statues. Now and then some
aged prelate, with bald head and snow-white locks, would lay aside
for a few moments the heavy mitre, that perhaps was pressing his aged
brows too heavily. All else seemed motionless. Their countenances,
composed and thoughtful, told how thoroughly they, at least, were
impressed with the importance and the solemnity of their work.

In the middle stood the altar, rich and simple, on which lay
enthroned the open book of the Gospels. Near by stood the light and
lofty pulpit of dark wood.

Into this pulpit now ascended Monsignor Valenziani, Bishop of
Fabriano and Matelica, one of the assistant secretaries, and in a
voice remarkable for its strength and distinctness, and not less so
for its endurance, read with most appropriate emphasis, and with
the musical intonations of a cultivated Italian voice, the entire
_Dogmatic Constitution_, from the beginning to the end. It occupied
just three quarters of an hour.

At the conclusion he asked, "Most eminent and most reverend
fathers, do you approve of the canons and decrees contained in this
constitution?"

He descended from the pulpit, and Monsignor Jacobini, another
assistant secretary took his place, to call for the votes of the
fathers, one by one.

"The Most Eminent Constantine Cardinal Patrizi, Bishop of Porto and
Santa Rufina!"

The venerable cardinal arose in his place. We heard his answer,
PLACET;--_I approve_. An usher standing near him repeated, _Placet_;
a second one on the right hand side repeated, _Placet_; a third on
the other side repeated aloud, _Placet_.

"The Most Eminent Aloysius Cardinal Amat, Bishop of Palestrina!" The
aged cardinal rose slowly, and in a feeble voice replied, PLACET. And
from the ushers again we heard echoing through the hall, _Placet!
Placet! Placet!_

Thus there could be no mistake as to the vote, and not only the
notaries but all who wished could keep a correct tally.

Cardinal after cardinal was thus called in order and voted; then the
patriarchs, each one of whom, rising, declared his vote, and the
ushers repeated it loudly. _Placet! Placet! Placet!_

Then on through the primates, the archbishops, and bishops, the
mitred abbots, and the heads of religious orders, admitted to
the right of suffrage. Where a vote was given, the three ushers
invariably repeated it. Sometimes when a name was called the answer
was given, ABEST--_he is absent_. In all, six hundred and sixty-seven
votes were cast, all of them in approval, not a single one in the
negative. Not a few of the bishops had obtained leave to go to their
dioceses for the Holy-Week and the Easter festivities, and had not
yet been able to return to the council. We knew of one who, after
two weeks of hard work at home, had travelled all Saturday night, on
the train, and had reached Rome only at nine A.M. Sunday morning. He
had at once said mass privately in the nearest convenient chapel,
and, without waiting for even the slightest refreshment, had hurried
to St. Peter's, that he might take his place among his brethren and
record his "_Placet_." The whole form of voting occupied about two
hours. It was, in truth, a solemn and most impressive scene. There
was a pause at the end, while the notaries counted up the votes, and
declared the result. This done, the pope spoke aloud, "_The canons
and decrees contained in this constitution, having been approved
by all the fathers, without a single dissentient, we, with the
approbation of this holy council, define them, as they have been
read, and by our apostolic authority we confirm them_." It was the
official sanction sealing their force and truth.

The pontiff paused for a moment, evidently struggling with the
emotions of his heart, and then continued in an impromptu address in
Latin, which we caught as follows:

    "Most reverend brethren, you see how good and sweet it is to
    walk together in agreement in the house of the Lord. Walk thus
    ever; and as our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on this day said
    to his apostles, PEACE, I, his unworthy vicar, say unto you in
    his name, PEACE. Peace, as you know, casteth but fear. Peace,
    as you know, closes our ears to words of evil. May that peace
    accompany you all the days of your life. May it console you and
    give you strength in death. May it be to you everlasting joy in
    heaven."

The bishops were moved, many of them to tears, by the dignity and the
paternal affection with which the simple words came from his heart.
He was himself deeply moved.

Other prayers were chanted. The pontifical blessing was given,
and the pope intoned the Te Deum. The choir, the bishops, and the
thousands of priests and laity in the church, who had looked on this
solemn act of the church just executed, joined in with their whole
heart and soul, and swelled the grand Ambrosian melody, making it
roll throughout the church, and calling echoes from every chapel and
arch, from nave and transept and dome. And with this concordant song
of gratitude to God, the third session of the Vatican Council was
appropriately closed.

The pontiff departed, accompanied by some of the cardinals, by the
senator and _conservatori_ of Rome, the masters-at-arms of the
council, and the attendants of his pontifical household. Soon the
cardinals and prelates moved slowly from the council hall into the
vast church, unrobed in a chapel set apart for the purpose, and
wended their way homeward, and the third public session of the
council was over.

We were able, in our last number, to present to our readers the
original text, in Latin, of the constitution promulgated in this
session, and also a correct translation of it in English. It will
be seen on examining the subjects treated of, and by the absolute
unanimity of the votes given, how far astray "our own correspondents"
were, both as to the matters under discussion in the council, and as
to the divisions which they imagined to exist among the fathers.

Since Low-Sunday, the general congregations have resumed their
sittings, and the committees on matters of faith and on matters
of discipline have been busily engaged. Matters from the latter
committee have already been rediscussed, and some preliminary votes
have been taken. It is understood that ere long the committee on
matters of faith will report back to the general congregation another
_schema_ on the church, in the course of which the question of the
infallibility of the pope, of which so much has been written and
said, will at last come formally before the council. Should this be
the case, we may be sure the whole subject will be examined with
the care and research which its importance requires, and which the
dignity and the learning of the fathers demand. The result will be
that decision to which the Holy Spirit of truth will guide them.

ROME, May 8, 1870.

NOTE.--We may add to this announcement of our correspondent, that the
discussion of the _schema_ on infallibility was begun on the 10th of
May, and is expected to be finished before the 29th of June.




NEW PUBLICATIONS.


    AN AMERICAN POLITICAL ECONOMY; INCLUDING STRICTURES ON THE
    MANAGEMENT OF THE FINANCES SINCE 1861. With a chart showing the
    fluctuations in the price of gold. By Francis Bowen, Professor
    of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity in
    Harvard College. New York: Scribner & Co. 1870. 16mo, pp. 495.

We took up this book with an old prejudice against the author of
some thirty years standing, as well as with an inveterate dislike to
almost all works on political economy, which it has ever been our
misfortune to read; but we have been pleased and instructed by it.
Professor Bowen is not a philosopher; has not, properly speaking, a
scientific mind; but he has great practical good sense, and a wide,
and we should say a thorough, acquaintance with the facts of his
subject, and the ability to set them forth in a clear and strong
light. He is no system-monger, is wedded to no system of his own, and
aims to look at facts as they are. It is a great merit of his book
that it recognizes that each country should have its own political
economy growing out of and adapted to its peculiar wants and
circumstances. Free-trade or protection may be for the interest of
one country and not for another, and no universal rule as to either
can be laid down.

The author, a follower of John Locke in philosophy, is of course not
good at definitions, and his definition of wealth is rather clumsy,
but he contrives as he proceeds to tell us what it is. All wealth
is the product of labor, and a man is wealthy just in proportion
to his ability to purchase or command the labor of others. Hence
the absurdity of those theorists who demand an equal division of
property or an equality of wealth, as well as of the legislation that
seeks to ameliorate the condition of the poor by making them rich,
or furnishing them with facilities for becoming rich. If all were
wealthy, all would be poor; for then no one would sell his labor;
and if no one would sell his labor, no one could buy labor, and then
every man would be reduced to the necessity of doing every thing for
himself. All men have equal natural rights as men, and this is all
the equality that is practicable or desirable.

The reader will find the professor has treated the question of
banks with rare lucidity, as also that of paper money, and even
money itself. But the portion of his work that most interests us
is his strictures on the management of our national finances since
1861, and especially Mr. Secretary Chase's pet scheme of national
banks. According to his showing, it would exceed the wit of man to
invent and follow a more ruinous financial policy than that pursued
by the national administration since the inauguration of the late
Mr. Lincoln as President. He shows that the Northern States could
have met and actually did pay enough during the civil war to meet
all the expenses of the war without contracting a cent of debt, and
consequently the two or three thousand millions of dollars' debt
actually contracted was solely due to our national financiers. There
never was any need of resorting to any thing more than temporary
national loans if the government had had in the beginning the wisdom
or the courage, or indeed the confidence in the people, to adopt the
scale of taxation subsequently adopted. There never was any need of
compelling the banks to suspend specie payments, or for it to issue
legal-tender notes, but what was created by its own blunders. The
people could have paid as they went for the war, and been richer at
its close than at its beginning.

As if creating paper money for all purposes except customs dues,
demeritizing gold and silver, depreciating the currency, and
enormously inflating the prices of all commodities, was not enough,
it must needs create the national banks, and make them a free gift
of $300,000,000 of circulation, and that without the least relief to
the government, but to its great embarrassment, still more inflating
the currency, and running up gold to a premium of 285. Even since the
war it continues its blunders, and does all in its power to increase
the burdens of the people. It seems from the first to have proceeded
on the principle of securing the support of the people by enabling
individuals to amass huge fortunes at the public expense. Why, if it
must have national banks, need it make them banks of circulation?
Why not compel them to bank on its own legal tenders instead of
their own notes, and thus save to itself the profits on $300,000,000
of circulation? It would have run no risk it does not now run; for
the treasury is responsible for the redemption of the notes of
the national banks, and the security it holds from them would be
perfectly illusory in any monetary crisis. But we have no room to
proceed. We, however, recommend this part of the work to the serious
consideration of our national financiers. There are in political
economy deeper problems than Professor Bowen has grasped; but upon
the whole, he has given us the most sensible work on the subject that
we are acquainted with.

       *       *       *       *       *

    THE DAY SANCTIFIED. Being Meditations and Spiritual Readings
    for daily use. London: Burns, Oates & Co. 1870. Pp. 318. For
    sale by the Catholic Publication Society, 9 Warren Street, New
    York.

This volume consists of a series of meditations drawn from the Holy
Scripture and modern spiritual writers. It is not, however, a book
containing meditations for the entire year, as one would be led to
imagine from its title. The number of meditations is only ninety. So
it is supposed--and the plan is a good one--that the subjects will be
selected according to each one's devotion. A word may very fitly be
said in praise of the composition of these spiritual readings. They
appear to be really addressed to the reader. Moreover, they contain
no foolish exaggerations. These two merits are not unfrequently
wanting in books of meditations. The present volume relates to the
duties and doctrines of our holy faith. Another series is promised,
which will contain suitable meditations for the ecclesiastical year,
and the feasts of the Blessed Virgin and the saints.

       *       *       *       *       *

    CAESAR'S COMMENTARIES ON THE GALLIC WAR. With Notes, Dictionary,
    and Map. By Albert Harkness, LL.D., Professor in Brown
    University. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

This edition of Caesar's _Commentaries_ is altogether the best we
remember to have seen. Besides the advantage of a copious and
accurate dictionary, the notes are ample without being extravagant.
There is an introductory sketch of the great Roman's life, which is
interesting, and the map of Gaul is excellent.

       *       *       *       *       *

    REFLECTIONS AND PRAYERS FOR HOLY COMMUNION. London: Burns,
    Oates & Co. 1869. Pp. 498. New York: For sale by the Catholic
    Publication Society, 9 Warren Street.

When Archbishop Manning says that "this volume is a valuable addition
to our books of devotion," it needs no further recommendation.
But, in addition to his opinion, it comes to us sanctioned by the
approbation of the Archbishop of Lyons, and the Bishops of Aix,
Nancy, and Redez. Still, we will not forbear to give it our mite
of praise. The book abounds in beautiful methods of learning to
love Jesus in his sacrament of love. Yet the meditations are not
merely beautiful, they are also very practical. In our reading,
we have never met so touching and so useful a thanksgiving, after
communion, as the exercise which, in this volume, is called "The Hem
of our Lord's Garment." If good use is made of the suggestions and
reflections in these pages, they will certainly accomplish their
author's intention of "gently drawing the soul entirely to our Lord."

       *       *       *       *       *

    A TREATISE ON THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF MARRIAGE. By Hugh Davey
    Evans, LL.D. With a Biographical Sketch of the Author, etc. New
    York: Hurd & Houghton. 1870.

Dr. Evans was a friend of ours in days long gone by, and we used
frequently to contribute articles to the magazine which he edited,
one of which, entitled "Dissent and Semi-Dissent," has been
incorrectly attributed to him by his biographer. We have always
cherished a sentiment of respect for the quaint and learned old
gentleman, whose portrait has been drawn in the brief biographical
sketch prefixed to this volume with singular fidelity and accuracy.
Dr. Evans was a regular old-fashioned High-Churchman, after the
model of Hooker and Wilson, and consequently imbued with many
soundly Catholic principles and sentiments, mixed up with many other
incongruous English and Protestant prejudices. In the work before
us, he has with masterly learning and ability defended the Christian
doctrine of marriage in a manner which is in the greater number of
essential respects sound and satisfactory. Unfortunately, having
only his own individual judgment as his tribunal of last resort
in defining Catholic doctrine, instead of councils and popes, he
has sanctioned one most fatal error, the lawfulness of divorces _a
vinculo_, and subsequent remarriage, in the case of adultery on
the part of the wife. We are glad to see that his editor dissents
from him in this respect, and has republished the admirable little
treatise of Bishop Andrews sustaining the opposite side of the
question. It is a wonder that any person can fail to see how utterly
worthless is any pretended church authority which leaves such an
essential matter as this open to dispute. We are glad to see works
circulated among Protestants which advocate any sound principles
on this subject, even though they are incomplete. They have much
more influence than the works of Catholic authors; they form a
"serviceable breakwater" to the inflowing tide of corruption, and
prepare the way for the eventual triumph of the Catholic doctrine and
law, which alone can save society from dissolution. The _Atlantic
Monthly_, which is the favorite magazine of a very large class of the
most highly cultivated minds in New England and in other portions of
the United States, has descended to the lowest level of the free-love
doctrine, and thus fixed on itself the seal of that condemnation
which it has been earning for a long time past, as the most dangerous
and corrupting of all our literary periodicals. We hope that it will
be banished hereafter from every Catholic family, and receive no more
commendatory notices from the Catholic press. We are glad to see the
strong and manly refutation of its immoral nonsense given by _The
Nation_, although its argument fails of the sanction which is alone
sufficient to compel assent, and efficiently control legislation
and public opinion in a matter where so severe a curb is placed on
passion and liberty to follow the individual will. We are happy
to welcome such sensible and valuable aid to the cause of social
morality as that given by _The Nation_, but we must disown entirely
another champion of monogamy, to wit, the Methodist preacher, Dr.
Newman, as more dangerous than an open antagonist. We see that this
conspicuous declaimer intends to maintain in a public discussion,
to be held in the Mormon temple, the irreligious and scandalous
thesis that the holy patriarchs of the old law who practised polygamy
were adulterers and sinners against the divine law. This is quite
consistent with Luther's immoral doctrine that men totally depraved
and steeped in deadly sin can be friends of God through a legal
fiction of imputed righteousness; but it is equally shocking to piety
and common sense, and as completely subversive of Christianity as
the superstitious imposture of Joe Smith. We predict an easy victory
of Brigham Young over Dr. Newman. Dr. Evans, as corrected by his
editor and Bishop Andrews, advocates the sound Christian doctrine of
marriage, and the circulation of his work must therefore have a most
beneficial influence.

       *       *       *       *       *

    CRIMINAL ABORTION; ITS EXTENT AND PREVENTION. Read before the
    Philadelphia County Medical Society, February 9th, 1870, by the
    retiring President, Andrew Nebinger, M.D. Published by order of
    the Society. Philadelphia: Collins. 1870.

This exhaustive essay, read before the Philadelphia County Medical
Society, by its able president, Dr. Nebinger, will, we trust, have a
great influence toward remedying the present loose domestic morals of
our country. We suppose the _expose_ here made had much weight with
the Pennsylvania Legislature, which has recently passed a bill making
it a penal offence for any one to advertise the vile nostrums which
are now exposed for sale in our drug-stores with such unblushing
effrontery.

Recent statistics, published by Dr. Storer and others, prove the
fearful prevalence of the crime of foeticide among the native
population; and the next census will no doubt show an absolute
decrease of that class in the New England States. We hope when thus
placed officially before the eyes of the Protestant clergy, they will
awaken to the necessity of at least informing their congregations of
the enormity of this sin; so that the plea of ignorance, now urged to
extenuate their guilt, can no longer be used.

Physiology has definitely settled that vitality begins from the
moment of conception. Theology pronounces the destruction of human
life to be murder, and consequently the Catholic Church impresses in
every possible way upon her children the fearful retribution that
will be visited upon those who in any way tamper with the helpless
unborn. We commend the paper to the careful perusal of our medical
readers.

       *       *       *       *       *

    CONFERENCES OF THE REV. PERE LACORDAIRE. Delivered in the
    Cathedral of Notre Dame, in Paris. Translated from the French
    by Henry Langdon. New York: P. O'Shea, 27 Barclay street. 1870.

Mr. O'Shea deserves our thanks and those of the entire body of
educated Catholics in the United States for his republication of
this great work. F. Lacordaire was a genius, a great writer and a
great orator; one of those shining and burning minds that enlighten
and enkindle thousands of other minds during and after their earthly
course. In the graces of writing and eloquence, he far surpassed that
other popular preacher at Notre Dame who has proved to be but an
_ignis fatuus_. In originality of thought, intellectual gifts, and
sound learning, he was eminent among his compeers. Better than all,
he was a holy man, a true monk, an imitator of the severe penance of
the saints, and a devoted, obedient son of the Holy Roman Church.

His conferences are well adapted both to instruct the minds and
to charm the imaginations of those who desire to find the solid
substance of sound doctrine under the most graceful, brilliant, and
attractive form. We recommend them especially to young men, and hope
they will have a wide circulation.

The translation, however, we regret to say, though expressing the
ideas of the author, is very defective in a literary point of view.

       *       *       *       *       *

    A NOBLE LADY. By Mrs. Augustus Craven. Translated, at the
    author's request, by Emily Bowles. London: Burns, Oates & Co.
    1869. Pp. 148. For sale by the Catholic Publication Society, 9
    Warren Street, New York.

Both the author and translator of this volume are favorably known to
our readers. Their reputation will be much increased by this pleasing
biography. Our "Noble Lady" is Adelaide Capece Minutolo, an Italian
of rank. Accomplished, refined, and devout, she is a perfect picture
of the Christian lady. Her life presents nothing extraordinary. She
did not become a nun. She never married. Yet she was very beautiful,
and could have married suitably to her station. She preferred the
love and companionship of a younger sister to the uncertainty of
marriage and the keener joys and splendors of the world. Early in
life these sisters mutually resolved to seek nothing further than
to live together; nor did either ever feel a regret, or doubt the
wisdom of their choice, till, at the end of eight and twenty years,
death dissolved their union. It is only in Italy that religion,
art, and literary pursuits have met together, inspired, as it were,
by the most glorious scenery, and where man's soul and heart, the
understanding and the eye, are completely satisfied. Perhaps it is
only the daughters of Italy who unite great simplicity, wonderful
sweetness, and charming tenderness to heroic courage and capacity for
such studies as usually are interesting only to men. Such was the
character of the Noble Lady. No person of refinement can read this
book, without repeating the touching exclamation of a poor Neapolitan
woman, who, while she was praying by her coffin, was heard to
exclaim, "_Go, then, go to thy home, thou beautiful bit of Paradise!_"

       *       *       *       *       *

    PILGRIMAGES IN THE PYRENEES AND LANDES. By Denys Shyne Lawlor,
    Esq. London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1870.

It is indeed seldom than one will meet with a more charming and
interesting book than this. It contains accounts of visits made by
the author to various sanctuaries of the Blessed Virgin in that
favored region in the south of France which she seems to love so
much; the most recent proof of this being her apparition at the
Grotto of Lourdes, to the description of which a considerable part
of the work is devoted. The account is hardly if at all inferior,
except in its necessary brevity, to that of M. Henri Lasserre on
the same subject, and contains some additional events which have
recently occurred, such as the cure of the celebrated Father Hermann.
Besides the description and history of the sanctuaries, the lives
of several of the saints which this region has produced are given,
and an account of their shrines; among these is one of St. Vincent
of Paul. The book would be well worth reading for the pictures which
are given of the magnificent scenery of the Pyrenean valleys; and
its appearance and type are so beautiful that they would make even
indifferent matter attractive.

       *       *       *       *       *

    FELTER'S ARITHMETICS--NATURAL SERIES: FIRST LESSONS IN NUMBERS;
    PRIMARY ARITHMETIC; INTELLECTUAL ARITHMETIC; INTERMEDIATE
    ARITHMETIC; GRAMMAR-SCHOOL ARITHMETIC. By S. A. Felter, A.M.
    New York: Charles Scribner & Co.

A sketch of the science of numbers through its various progressive
stages to its present almost perfect development would be of much
interest, but our limited space forbids us entering upon it. Of
the many series now before the public, much can be said by way of
commendation; we think, however, that Felter's, while in nowise
inferior to the best, has some peculiar features which give it
a decided superiority. Of these may be mentioned the very large
number of examples given under each rule, and the test questions
for examination which are found at the close of each section. These
cannot fail to secure to the pupil a thorough understanding of his
subject before he leaves it. We also note with pleasure the _entire_
absence of answers from the text-books intended for use by the
pupils. A high-school arithmetic now in course of preparation will
soon be added to the series, and will then form a curriculum of
arithmetical instruction at once gradually progressive, and hence
simple, thoroughly practical, and complete. The author has evidently
a full knowledge of the needs of both pupil and teacher, and has
admirably succeeded in supplying their respective deficiencies.

       *       *       *       *       *

    THE LIFE OF ST. STANISLAS KOSTKA. Edited by Edward Healy
    Thompson. Philadelphia: P. F. Cunningham. 1870.

Mr. Thompson's lives of various saints are well written, both
as regards their completeness and accuracy of detail and their
literary style. This is much the best life of the lovely, angelic
patron of novices we have ever read. Is it necessary to inform any
Catholic reader of the exquisite beauty of the character and life
of this noble Polish youth? We hope not. This volume presents a
life-like portrait of it, which must rekindle the devotion already so
widely-spread and fervent toward one who seems like a reproduction of
the type of youthful sanctity which would have been seen in the sons
of Adam, if their father had never sinned. Every father and mother
ought to make it a point to have this book read by their children,
that they may fall in love with virtue and piety, embodied in the
winning, lovely form of Stanislas Kostka.

       *       *       *       *       *

    ALBUM OF THE FOURTEEN STATIONS OF THE CROSS IN ST. FRANCIS
    XAVIER'S CHURCH. New York: P. O'Shea, 27 Barclay street.

These photographs of the stations are very well executed. They are
gotten up, as we imagine, for private chapels and oratories. Indeed,
they would be suitable for any room which is set apart for quiet
reading or devout exercises. These pictures are somewhat larger than
a _carte-de-visite_, and they are printed in such a way that they may
be readily hung upon the wall.

       *       *       *       *       *

    FASCICULUS RERUM, etc. Auctore Henricus Formby. Londini: Burns,
    Oates, Socii Bibliopolae.

This is an ably-written pamphlet, containing what appears to us a
singularly happy and valuable suggestion. The author's intention is
concisely expressed on his title-page, namely, that "the best arts of
our modern civilization" be called into the service of God for once,
(as they are daily done into that of Satan,) to furnish a "life of
our Lord Jesus Christ" for all the nations of Christendom, a work
which shall be for three chief ends: "first, as a symbol of the true
unity of all peoples in the church; secondly, as a beautiful memorial
of the OEcumenical Council of the Vatican; and thirdly, as a very
sweet solace and ornament for the daily life of all Christians."

The arts in question are typography, engraving, and photography; the
last to be used for furnishing views of the various spots and regions
throughout Palestine hallowed by the steps of Jesus Christ; and this
would necessitate a committee of competent men being sent to explore
the Holy Land.

The expense of the entire undertaking is to be defrayed by public
subscription and the patronage of the rich, and, of course, it is for
the holy father to inaugurate and supervise the matter. Wherefore the
author humbly submits his pamphlet to the consideration of the holy
see and the council.

For ourselves, we repeat our belief that such a work as this
projected life of Christ would indeed be an inestimable boon to
Christendom. Father Formby's hopes appear to us not at all too
sanguine; and he has our cordial wish that the holy see may be
pleased to take up the work he so ably advocates.

       *       *       *       *       *

MR. P. O'SHEA, New York, has in press the following books:
_Attributes of Christ_, by Father Gasparini; _Lacordaire's
Conferences on Jesus Christ_; _The Malediction_, a tale, by Madame A.
K. De La Grange.

       *       *       *       *       *

    BOOKS RECEIVED.

    MESSRS. J. MURPHY & CO., Baltimore: The Paradise of the Earth.
    18mo, pp. 528. Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. By Rev.
    S. Franco, S.J. Pp. 305.

    P. F. CUNNINGHAM, Philadelphia: Hetty Homer. By Fannie Warner.
    Pp. 142. The Beverly Family. By Joseph R. Chandler. Pp. 166.
    Beech Bluff. By Fannie Warner. 12mo, pp. 332.

    P. O'SHEA, New York: Knowledge and Love of Jesus Christ. Vol.
    iii. pp. 632.

    KELLY, PIET & CO., Baltimore: History of the Foundation of the
    Order of the Visitation; and the Lives of Mlle. de la Fayette
    and several other members of the Order. 12mo, pp. 271.




THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XI., No. 65.--AUGUST, 1870.


MR. FROUDE'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.[177]

SECOND ARTICLE.


In our first article[178] we referred in general terms to the fact
that Mr. Froude had plunged into a great historical subject without
the requisite knowledge or the necessary preparation. This judgment
was presumed to be so well established by the concurrent testimony
of the most opposite schools of criticism, both English and French,
that it was not thought necessary to cite examples from his pages.
In that notice we merely undertook to state the general results of
criticism as to Mr. Froude's first six volumes, reserving particular
examination for the latter half of the work, with special reference
to his treatment of Mary Stuart.

Since, however, it has been said that we charge the historian with
shortcomings, and give no instances in support, we will, before
proceeding further, satisfy this objection. This could be most easily
and profusely done by going into his treatment of questions of the
contemporary history of foreign countries, or of general history
preceding the sixteenth century, in both of which Mr. Froude is
deplorably weak. But we prefer a more decisive test, one that leaves
the historian without excuse, and will, therefore, not only confine
it to English history, but to English history of the period of
Elizabeth, with which, according to his late plaintive appeal to the
_Pall Mall Gazette_, Mr. Froude has labored so diligently and is so
entirely familiar.

And the test proposed illustrates not only his imperfect mastery
of his own selected period of English history, but his total
unconsciousness of the existence of one of the most peculiar laws
of England in force for centuries before and after that period.
A clever British reviewer, in expressing his surprise at our
historian's multifarious ignorance concerning the civil and criminal
jurisprudence of his country, says that it is difficult to believe
that Mr. Froude has ever seen the face of an English justice; and
the reproach is well merited. Nevertheless we do not look for the
accuracy of a Lingard or a Macaulay in an imaginative writer like
Mr. Froude, and might excuse numerous slips and blunders as to law
pleadings and the forms of criminal trials--nay, even as to musty old
statutes and conflicting legislative enactments, (as, for instance,
when he puts on an air of critical severity (vol. ix. p. 38) as
to the allowance of a delay of fifteen days in Bothwell's trial,
claiming, in his defective knowledge of the Scotch law, that it
should have been forty days;) but when we find his mind a total blank
as to the very existence of one of the most peculiar and salient
features of English law, we must insist that such ignorance in one
who sets up for an English historian is far from creditable.

Here is the case. During the reign of Elizabeth, one Thomas Cobham,
like unto many other good English Protestants, was "roving the seas,
half-pirate, half knight-errant of the Reformation, doing battle on
his own account with the enemies of the truth, wherever the service
of God was likely to be repaid with plunder." (Froude, vol. viii. p.
459.) He took a Spanish vessel, (England and Spain being at peace,)
with a cargo valued at eighty thousand ducats, killing many on board.
After all resistance had ceased, he "sewed up the captain and the
survivors of the crew in their own sails, and flung them overboard."
Even in England this performance of Cobham was looked upon as
somewhat irregular, and at the indignant requisition of Spain, he
was tried in London for piracy. De Silva, the Spanish ambassador at
the court of Elizabeth, wrote home an account of the trial. We now
quote Mr. Froude, who being--as a learned English historian should
be--perfectly familiar with the legal institutions of his country,
and knowing full well that the punishment described by De Silva was
never inflicted in England, is naturally shocked at the ignorance of
this foreigner, and thus presents and comments upon his letter.

    "Thomas Cobham," wrote De Silva, "being asked at the trial,
    according to the usual form in England, if he had any thing to
    say in arrest of judgment, and answering nothing, was condemned
    to be taken to the Tower, to be stripped naked to the skin, and
    then to be placed with his shoulders resting on a sharp stone,
    his legs and arms extended and on his stomach a gun, too heavy
    for him to bear, yet not large enough immediately to crush him.
    There he is to be left till he die. They will give him a few
    grains of corn to eat, and for drink the foulest water in the
    Tower." (Froude, vol. viii. p. 449, London ed. of 1863.)

It would not be easy to state the case in fewer words and more
accurately than De Silva here puts it. Cobham was called upon to
answer in the usual form, and "answering nothing" or "standing mute,"
"was condemned," etc. A definition of the offence and a description
of its punishment by the well-known _peine forte et dure_ were thus
clearly presented; but even then Mr. Froude fails to recognize an
offence and its penalty, perfectly familiar to any student who has
ever read Blackstone or Bailey's Law Dictionary, and makes this
astounding comment on De Silva's letter:

    "_Had any such sentence been pronounced, it would not have
    been left to be discovered in the letter of a stranger_; the
    ambassador may perhaps, in this instance, have been purposely
    deceived, and his demand for justice satisfied by a fiction of
    imaginary horror." (Froude, vol. viii. p. 449, London ed. 1863.)

This unfortunate performance of Mr. Froude was received by critics
with mirthful surprise, and, as a consequence, although the passages
we have cited may be found, as we have indicated, in the London
edition of 1863, they need not be looked for in later editions.
On the contrary, we now learn from Mr. Froude (Scribner edition
of 1870, vol viii. p. 461) that "Cobham refused to plead to his
indictment, and the dreadful sentence was passed upon him of the
_peine forte et dure_;" and thereto is appended an erudite note for
the instruction of persons supposed to be unacquainted with English
law, explaining the matter, and citing Blackstone, "book iv. chap.
25."

Ah! learning is a beautiful thing!

But, possibly it may be suggested, this dreadful punishment was
rarely inflicted, and that fact may serve to excuse Mr. Froude? Not
at all. Other instances of the _peine forte et dure_ occurred in this
very reign of Elizabeth, with whose history Mr. Froude is so very
familiar. Here is one which inspires us with a feeling of compassion
for the much-abused Spanish Inquisition, and proportionately
increases our admiration of the "glorious Reformation."

Margaret Middleton, the wife of one Clitheroe, a rich citizen of
York, was prosecuted for having harbored a priest in quality of a
schoolmaster. At the bar (March 25th, 1586) she refused to plead
guilty, because she knew that no sufficient proof could be brought
against her; and she would not plead "not guilty," because she
considered such a plea equivalent to a falsehood. The _peine forte et
dure_ was immediately ordered.

    "After she had prayed, Fawcet, the sheriff, commanded them to
    put off her apparel; when she, with the four women, requested
    him on their knees, that, for the honor of womanhood, this
    might be dispensed with. But they would not grant it. Then she
    requested them that the women might unapparel her, and that
    they would turn their faces from her during that time.

    "The women took off her clothes, and put upon her the long
    linen habit. Then very quickly she laid her down upon the
    ground, her face covered with a handkerchief, and most part
    of her body with the habit. The _dure_ (door) was laid upon
    her; her hands she joined toward her face. Then the sheriff
    said, 'Naie, ye must have your hands bound.' Then two sergeants
    parted her hands, and bound them to two posts. After this they
    laid weight upon her, which, when she first felt she said,
    'Jesu, Jesu, Jesu, have mercye upon mee,' which were the last
    words she was heard to speake. She was in dying about one
    quarter of an hour. A sharp stone, as much as a man's fist had
    been put under her back; upon her was laied to the quantitie
    of seven or eight hundred weight, which, breaking her ribbs,
    caused them to burst forth of the skinne."

This question of the _peine forte et dure_ naturally brings us to the
consideration of a kindred subject most singularly treated in Mr.
Froude's pages. If the constant use of


TORTURE AND THE RACK

had been a feature of Mary Stuart's reign, and not, as it was, the
daily expedient of Elizabeth and Cecil, what bursts of indignant
eloquence should we not have been favored with by our historian, and
what admirable illustrations would it not have furnished him as to
the brutalizing tendencies of Catholicity and the superior humanity
and enlightenment of Protestantism? Nothing so clearly shows the
government of Elizabeth to have been a despotism as her constant
employment of torture. Every time she or Cecil sent a prisoner to
the rack--and they sent hundreds--they trampled the laws of England
under foot. These laws, it is true, sometimes authorized painful
ordeals and severe punishments, but the rack never. Torture was never
legally authorized in England. But the trickling blood, the agonized
cries, the crackling bones, the "strained limbs and quivering
muscles" (Froude vol. vi. p. 294) of martyred Catholics make these
Tudor practices lovely in Mr. Froude's eyes, and he philosophically
remarks, "The method of inquiry, however inconsonant with modern
conceptions of justice, was adapted excellently for the outrooting
of the truth." (Vol. vii. p. 293)

We can hardly believe that any other man of modern enlightenment
could possibly entertain such opinions. They are simply amazing
in their cold-blooded and crude ignorance. Torture is not only
"inconsonant" with modern conceptions of justice, but also with
ancient; for it is condemned even by the sages of the law which
authorized it. If Mr. Froude had any knowledge of the civil law,
he might have learned something of this matter from the Digests,
(_Liber_ xviii. tit. 18.) The passage is too long to cite, but one
sentence alone tells us in a few words of the fallacy, danger,
and decaption of the use of torture: "Etenim res est fragilis et
periculosa, et quae veritatem fallat."

So much for ancient opinion. And modern justice has rejected the
horrible thing, not only on the ground of morality, but because it
has been demonstrated to be a promoter of perjury and the worst
possible means of "outrooting" the truth.

To return: the case of Cobham is not the only one in which Mr.
Froude has prudently profited by criticism, and hastened, in a new
edition of his work, to repair his blunder. Even a slight comparison
of his first with his last edition will show him to be under deep
obligations to his critics, and it would be wise in him to seek to
increase his debt of gratitude by fresh corrections.


THE CHATELAR STORY

is told by Mr. Froude in his characteristic way, and, while
acquitting Mary Stuart of blame, "she had probably nothing worse
to accuse herself of than thoughtlessness," (vol. vii. p. 506,)
manages to leave a stain upon her character. He prefaces the story
with the statement that "she was selfish in her politics and sensual
in her passions." Serious historians generally use language with
some reference to its value; but one epithet costs Mr. Froude no
more effort than another, although there is not a shadow of pretext
thus far in his own version of Mary's history to justify so foul an
outrage as the use here of this word "sensual." We pass on. Chatelar
was a young Huguenot gentleman, a nephew of the noble Bayard, gifted
and highly accomplished. He had accompanied his patron D'Amville to
Scotland, and returned with him to France. D'Amville was a suitor for
Mary's hand, and, after some time, dispatched Chatelar to Scotland
with missives for the queen. Randolph was present when Chatelar
arrived, and describes D'Amville's letter as of "three whole sheets
of paper." Yet Mr. Froude, perfectly aware of all this, writes,

    "He went back to France, but he could not remain there. The
    moth was _recalled_ to the flame whose warmth was life and
    death to it."

The remainder is of a piece with this. Supernaturally penetrating
in reading Mary Stuart's most hidden thoughts, Mr. Froude is blind
to the vulgar envy of the parvenu Randolph, who, writing to Cecil,
(Froude, vol. vii. p. 505, note,) has the mendacious impudence to
speak of Chatelar as "so unworthy a creature and abject a varlet."

Of the rules that govern the admission of evidence in ordinary
courts of law, Mr. Froude does not appear to have any knowledge,
and at every page he manifests a total unconsciousness of the most
rudimentary test to be applied to the testimony of a witness in or
out of court. It is to see whether the witness has not some powerful
motive to praise or to blame. Thus, when he desires to establish a
high character for "the stainless Murray," he gives us the testimony
of--his employers Elizabeth and Cecil! In telling us what Mary
Stuart was, he most freely uses the hired pamphleteer Buchanan,
although ashamed--as well he may be--to name his authority.[179]
So also in the case before us, although the mean envy excited in
Randolph by the accomplished and nobly-born young Frenchman is
perfectly clear, Mr. Froude gives us the English envoy's dispatches
as testimony not to be questioned.


MARY STUART AND JOHN KNOX.

An interview between the queen and Knox in December, 1562, in which
Mr. Froude describes Knox's rudeness as "sound northern courtesy,"
(vol. vii. p. 543,) is passed over by him with commendable rapidity.
And of yet another interview he says not a word.

Under the statute of 1560 proceedings were taken in 1563 against Mary
in the west of Scotland for celebrating mass.

The wilds of Ayrshire, in later years the resort of persecuted
Presbyterians, were the resort of persecuted Catholics. "On the
bleak moorlands or beneath the shelter of some friendly roof,"
says Mr. Hosack,[180] "they worshipped in secret according to the
faith of their fathers." Zealous reformers waited not for form of
law to attack and disperse the "idolaters," when they found them
thus engaged. Mary remonstrated with Knox against these lawless
proceedings, and argued for freedom of worship, or, as Knox himself
states it, "no to pitt haunds to punish ony man for using himsel in
his religion as he pleases." But the Scotch reformer applauded the
outrage, and even asserted that private individuals might even "slay
with their own hands idolaters and enemies of the true religion,"
quoting Scripture to prove his assertions.[181] Shortly afterward
forty-eight Catholics were arraigned before the high court of
justiciary for celebrating mass, and punished by imprisonment.

At page 384 (vol. vii.) we are told by Mr. Froude that the Protestant
mob drove the priest from the altar, (royal chapel,) "with broken
head and bloody ears," and at page 418 that "the measure of virtue in
the Scotch ministers was the audacity with which they would reproach
the queen." "Maitland protested that theirs was not language for
subjects to use to their sovereign," and there really appears to be
something in the suggestion; but Mr. Froude is of the opinion that
"essentially, after all, Knox was right," clinching it, with--"He
suspected that Mary Stuart meant mischief to the reformation, and she
did mean mischief." And this is the key to Mr. Froude's main argument
throughout this history. Whoever and whatever favors the reformation
is essentially good, whoever and whatever opposes it is essentially
vile. And the end, (the reformation) justifies the means.

Far be it from us to gainsay the perfect propriety of an occasional
supply of sacerdotal broken heads and bloody ears, if a Protestant
mob sees fit to fancy such an amusement; or to question the measure
of virtue in the Scotch ministers; or to approve of the absurd
protest of Maitland; or, least of all, not swiftly to recognize that
"essentially" Knox was right. Not we indeed! But then we really
must be excused for venturing to suggest--merely to suggest, that,
in the first place, if we assume such a line of argument, we deprive
ourselves of weapons wherewith to assail the cruelties of such men as
Alva and Philip of Spain. Surely, the right does not essentially go
with the power to persecute! And in the second place--that this was
rather rough treatment for a young and inexperienced girl, against
whom thus far nothing has been shown. But here Mr. Froude meets us
with "Harlot of Babylon," and we are again silenced.

Maitland absurdly hinted to Knox that if he had a grievance he should
complain of it modestly, and was very properly hooted at by Knox in
reply. And thereupon comes a fine passage from Mr. Froude, admirably
exemplifying his psychological treatment of history. (Vol. vii. p.
419.)

    "Could she but secure first the object on which her heart was
    fixed, she could indemnify herself afterward at her leisure.
    The preachers might rail, the fierce lords might conspire; a
    little danger gave piquancy to life, and the air-drawn crowns
    which floated before her imagination would pay for it all."

We do not know how this may affect other people, but "air-drawn
crowns" did the business for us, and we proceed to make it the text
for A LESSON IN HISTORICAL WRITING.

Mr. Froude may or may not have transferred the contempt and hatred
of France of the sixteenth century, which throughout his book he
loses no opportunity of manifesting, to France of the nineteenth
century; but we venture to suggest to him that he may find in France
models and principles of historical treatment which he might study
with signal profit. Specially would we commend to his lection and
serious perpension the following pithy passage from the very latest
published volume of French history. We refer to Lanfrey's _Histoire
de Napoleon I_. The author describes the meeting of Napoleon and
Alexander at Tilsit, and, referring to the absurd attempt made by
some writers to explain the motives which actuated the French and
Russian emperors at their private interview on the Niemen, makes this
sensible reflection:

"Il est toujours dangereux et souvent pueril de vouloir interpreter
les sentiments secrets des personnages historiques."[182] (Lanfrey,
vol. iv. p. 403. Paris, 1870.) Mr. Froude's attention to this
teaching would rapidly suppress "air-drawn crowns" and such like
stage properties, so freely used by him for dramatic effect.


SOME OMISSIONS.

Mr. Froude appears to have no knowledge of the important proceedings
at Mary's first Parliament, May, 1563, when the corpse of the late
Earl of Huntly, kept for the purpose since the previous October,
was brought in for attainder. Forfeiture was declared mainly for
Murray's benefit, and at the same time the forfeitures of the Earl
of Sutherland (the evidence against him being forgeries) and eleven
barons of the house of Gordon were passed. In vain the Countesses of
Huntly and Sutherland endeavored to petition the queen; they were, by
Murray's intervention, denied access to her. Nor does our historian
appear to have heard of the circumstances attending Murray's
surreptitious procuring of the queen's signature to the death-warrant
of young Huntly. It is a most interesting episode, but we have not
room for it. Some three weeks later, we find a curious letter of
Randolph to Cecil, which need not be sought for in Froude. It is
important as showing the peculiar esteem in which Murray was held at
the court of ---- Elizabeth. A packet addressed to Queen Mary had
been stopped and opened by the English officials at Newcastle. Mary,
not recognizing her position as the vassal of Elizabeth, complained
of it to Randolph. Whereupon Randolph writes to Cecil, (June, 1563,)
advising, "If any suspected letters be taken, not to open them, but
to send them to my Lord of Moray, of whose services the Queen of
England is _sure_." And good reason there was to be _sure_; for all
the world, except Mr. Froude, knows that the "stainless," from first
to last, was the bribed and pensioned agent of Elizabeth.


KNOX AND THE COUNCIL.

    "The Queen of Scots," says Mr. Froude, "had quarrelled again
    with Knox, whom she attempted to provide with lodgings in the
    castle; the lords had interfered, and anger and disappointment
    had made her ill." (Vol. vii. p. 549.)

Here again Mary seems to fall away from the high standard of
"consummate actress;" but, on the other hand, Mr. Froude is fully
up to his own standard of consummate historian; for the passage
is clever, even for him. Here is what it all means: Cranston and
Armstrong, two members of Knox's congregation who were afterward
among the murderers of Riccio, had been arrested and thrown into
prison for raising a riot in the chapel royal at Holyrood, to prevent
service there. And why should they not? A Catholic queen had no
rights which her Protestant subjects were bound to respect. Knox
thereupon sent a circular throughout Scotland convening his brethren
to meet in Edinburgh on a certain day--in other words, to excite
tumult and inaugurate civil war. Let Randolph, Mr. Froude's favorite
authority, tell the rest.

Randolph to Cecil, Dec. 21, 1563:

    "The lords had assembled to take order with John Knox and his
    faction, who intended, by a mutinous assembly made by his
    letter before, to have rescued two of their brethren from
    course of law for using an outrage," etc.

Murray and Maitland sent for Knox and remonstrated with him. But Knox
showed no respect for either of them. Nothing came of the interview,
and they had him summoned before the queen and her privy council.
Seriously ill as she was, she attended. Now compare these facts
with Mr. Froude's statement above, (vol. vii. p. 549,) and see if
it is possible to crowd into three lines more misrepresentation and
malevolence. Note _quarrelled_. Mary knew nothing of the affair until
after the action of the lords and the attempt of Murray and Maitland
to persuade Knox. Mr. Froude says Mary attempted to imprison him, and
the lords interfered. "Anger and disappointment made her ill." Now,
this Knox affair occurred while Randolph was waiting to have audience
of Mary, but was delayed on account of her illness. To return to the
council. Knox's seditious letter was produced. He boldly avowed it,
and significantly observed, referring to certain reported practices
of Murray and Maitland, that "no forgeries had been interpolated in
the spaces he had left blank." A week after this event, Randolph
describes Mary as still sick, although compelled to confer with her
council.


MARY'S MARRIAGE.

All this time Mary has been waiting Elizabeth's good pleasure as to
whom she shall marry. Elizabeth finally decided to bestow upon her
Scottish sister her own lover Leicester, who "was, perhaps, the most
worthless of her subjects; but in the loving eyes of his mistress
he was the knight _sans peur et sans reproche_; and she took a
melancholy pride in offering her sister her choicest jewel." (Vol.
viii. p. 74.) But Mr. Froude spoils the "melancholy pride" at the
next page by telling us that Elizabeth "was so capable of falsehood
that her own expressions would have been an insufficient guarantee
for her sincerity."

Murray's opposition to Mary's marriage with Darnley was bitter. His
ascendency in her councils had culminated in his proposition to have
himself legitimated, and that the queen should lease the crown to him
and Argyll. Mary's marriage to any one would end all such hopes, and
Darnley, moreover, was personally obnoxious to Murray because he had
been heard to say, looking at a map of Scotland, that Murray had "too
much for a subject." Elizabeth's instructions precisely tallied with
Murray's inclinations and interest. He withdrew from court, and would
not attend the convention at Perth.


PLOT TO IMPRISON MARY.

And now comes the plot of Murray and his friends to seize Darnley and
his father, (Lennox,) deliver them to Elizabeth's agents or slay them
if they made resistance, and imprison the queen at Lochleven. In a
note at page 178, vol. viii., Mr. Froude, with a sweet and touching
melancholy, says, "A sad and singular horoscope had already been cast
for Darnley." The magician of this horoscope was Randolph, who fears
that "Darnley can have no long life amongst this people." Certainly
not, if Mr. Randolph understands himself; for his letters of that
period are full of the details of a plot to stir up an insurrection
in Scotland, place Murray at the head of it, kill Darnley and his
father, and imprison the queen at Lochleven. Elizabeth sent Murray
L7000 for the nerve of the insurrection, and her letters to Bedford
instructing him to furnish Murray with money and soldiers are in
existence. The programme was at last carried out eighteen months
later, when Darnley was killed and Mary a prisoner.

On the 30th of June, 1565, at ten in the morning, the queen, with
a small retinue, was to ride from Perth to Callendar house, to be
present at the baptism of a child of her friends Lord and Lady
Livingstone. Murray's party were to take her prisoner at this time.
The Earls of Rothes and Argyll, and the Duke of Chatelherault were
to be stationed at three different points on her route with an
overpowering force. Murray was to wait at Lochleven, which he had
just provisioned and provided with artillery. As usual, he managed to
have the overt act done by others.

All these arrangements were made in concert with Randolph and Cecil,
and were so apparently perfect that success was considered certain.
So sure was Cecil of it that an entry in his private diary of July
7th, runs, "that there was a rumor that the Scottish Queen should
have been taken."

During the night of the 29th, a warning was conveyed to Mary of the
plot. Instead of waiting until ten, the hour fixed for her departure,
she was in the saddle at five in the morning, and safe at Callendar
by eleven. It is very singular, but Mr. Froude seems never to have
heard of this exciting ride, while the "stainless" Murray was keeping
bootless watch and ward at Lochleven. We regret it exceedingly, if
for no other reason than the loss of an animated picture in Mr.
Froude's best style, running somewhat thus:

    "Bright shone the sun. The queen, with incredible animosity,
    was mounted on a swift courser galloping by the side of young
    Darnley, and then away--away--past the Parenwell, past
    Lochleven, through Kinross, past Castle Campbell, across the
    north Ferry and over the Firth, fast as their horses could
    speed; seven in all--Mary, her three ladies, Darnley, Lennox,
    Atholl, and Ruthven. In five hours the hospitable gates of
    Livingstone had closed behind them, and Mary Stuart was safe."
    (See vol. viii. p. 270.)

Of this plot of Murray, here is the clever record made by Mr. Froude:

    "A hint was given him that Darnley and Riccio had formed
    a plan to kill him. He withdrew to his mother's castle at
    Lochleven, and published the occasion of his disobedience. Mary
    Stuart replied with a counter-charge that the Earl of Murray
    had proposed to take her prisoner and carry Darnley off to
    England." (Vol. viii. p. 180.)

Upon this, Mr. Froude's cool comment is, "Both stories were probably
true"! Yes, with the difference that the proof against Murray was
overwhelming; for Mr. Froude admits that "Murray's offer to Randolph
was sufficient evidence against himself," whereas there was none
against Darnley. At page 182, Mr. Froude makes Mary "return from
Perth to Edinburgh." This renders it quite clear that he has never
heard of her hurried ride to Callendar.


QUESTION OF TOLERATION.

Randolph strangely finds fault with Mary for her toleration in
religious matters. "Her will to continue papistry, and _her desire
to have all men live as they list_, so offendeth the godly men's
consciences, that it is continually feared that these matters will
break out to some great mischief." And lo! the mischief did break
out. The Assembly of the Kirk presented, under the singular garb of a
"supplication," a remonstrance to the queen, in which they declared
that "the practice of idolatry" could not be tolerated in the
sovereign any more than in the subject, and that the "papistical and
blasphemous mass" should be wholly abolished. To whom the queen:

    "Where it was desired that the mass should be suppressed and
    abolished, as well in her majesty's own person and family as
    amongst her subjects, her highness did answer for herself,
    that she was noways persuaded that there was any impiety in
    the mass, and trusted her subjects would not press her to
    act against her conscience; for, not to dissemble, but to
    deal plainly with them, she neither might nor would forsake
    the religion wherein she had been educated and brought up,
    believing the same to be the true religion, and grounded on the
    word of God. Her loving subjects should know that she, neither
    in times past, nor yet in time coming, did intend to force the
    conscience of any person, but to permit every one to serve God
    in such manner as they are persuaded to be the best, that they
    likewise would not urge her to any thing that stood not with
    the quietness of her mind."

"Nothing," remarks Mr. Hosack, "could exceed the savage rudeness
of the language of the assembly; nothing could exceed the dignity
and moderation of the queen's reply." _Of all this, in Mr. Froude's
pages, not one word!_ Indeed he at all times religiously keeps out
of sight all Mary says or writes, admitting rarely a few words under
prudent censorship and liberal expurgation. Sweetly comparing the
assembly to "the children of Israel on their entrance into Canaan,"
he dissimulates their savage rudeness, and adds, almost pensively,
that Murray, though he was present, "no longer raised his voice in
opposition." Randolph fully confirms what Throckmorton reported four
years before--that she neither desired to change her own religion
nor to interfere with that of her subjects. Mary told Knox the
same thing when she routed him, by his own admission, in profane
history, and his own citations from the Old Testament. Where she
obtained her familiarity with the Scriptures we cannot imagine, if
Mr. Froude tells the truth about her "French education." "A Catholic
sovereign sincerely pleading to a Protestant assembly for liberty
of conscience, might have been a lesson to the bigotry of mankind,"
(vol. viii. p. 182;) "but," adds Mr. Froude, "Mary Stuart was not
sincere." When Mr. Froude says Mary Stuart is intolerant, we show
him, by a standard universally recognized, her words and actions, all
always consistent with each other and with themselves, that she was
eminently tolerant and liberal. But when he gives us his personal and
unsupported opinion that "she was not sincere," he passes beyond the
bounds of historical argument into a realm where we cannot follow him.

Still greater than Mr. Froude's difficulty of quoting Mary at all, is
his difficulty of quoting her correctly when he pretends to. Randolph
comes to Mary with a dictatorial message from Elizabeth, that she
shall not take up arms against the lords in insurrection. Mr. Froude
calls it a request that she would do no injury to the Protestant
lords, who were her good subjects. Mary replied, according to Froude,
(vol. viii. p. 188,) "that Elizabeth might call them 'good subjects;'
she had found them bad subjects, and as such she meant to treat
them." Mary really said,

    "For those whom your mistress calls 'my _best_ subjects,' I
    cannot esteem them so, nor so do they deserve to be accounted
    of that that they will not obey my commands; and therefore my
    good sister ought not to be offended if I do that against them
    as they deserve."

The truth is, Mary's unvarying, queenly dignity and womanly
gentleness in all she speaks and writes is a source of profound
unhappiness to Mr. Froude, refuting as it does his theory of her
character. Consequently it is his aim to vulgarize it down to a
standard in vogue elsewhere.

Mr. Froude is most felicitous when he disguises Mary, as he
frequently does, with Elizabeth's tortuous drapery. Thus:

    "Open and straightforward conduct did not suit the complexion
    of Mary Stuart's genius; she breathed more freely, and she used
    her abilities with better effect, in the uncertain twilight of
    conspiracy."

"Uncertain twilight" is pretty. But where were Mary's conspiracies?
Had she Randolphs at Elizabeth's court, and Drurys on the border,
plotting, intriguing, and bribing English noblemen? Had she two
thirds of Elizabeth's council of state pensioned as paid spies?
Had she salaried officials to pick up or invent English court
scandal for her amusement? Truly it is refreshing to turn from
Mary's twilight conspiracies to the honest and noble transactions
of Elizabeth, Cecil, and Randolph. But of the malicious gossip of
Elizabeth's spies one might not so much complain, if Mr. Froude
had the fairness to give their reports without his embroidery of
rhetoric and imagination. Thus, when Randolph writes, "There is a
_silly story_ afloat that the queen _sometimes_ carries a pistol,"
Mr. Froude considers himself authorized by Randolph to say, "She
carried pistols in hand and pistols at her saddle-bow;" and, as
usual, reading her thoughts, goes on to tell us that "her one
peculiar hope was to destroy her brother, against whom she bore an
especial and unexplained animosity." The personal intimacy between
Randolph and Murray more than sufficiently explains the source of
the information given in Randolph's letter of Oct. 13th. (Vol. viii.
p. 196.) Mr. Froude has a moment of weakness when he says that the
intimacy between the queen and Riccio was so confidential as to
provoke calumny. That any thing said of Mary Stuart could possibly be
calumny is an admission for Mr. Froude only less amazing than that
"she was warm and true in her friendships." The queen's indignation
against Murray is sufficiently accounted for by the existence of
the calumnies, and the fact that Murray's treasons sent him at this
time a fugitive to his mistress Elizabeth. A few pages further on,
we have Mary riding "in steel bonnet and corselet, with a dagg at
her saddle-bow," (vol. viii. p. 213,) for which Mr. Froude quotes
Randolph. But Randolph wrote, "_If what I have heard be true_, she
rode," etc., questionable hearsay where Mary Stuart is concerned,
answering Mr. Froude's purpose somewhat better than fact.

Through Randolph, Elizabeth announced to Mary that one of the
conditions on which she would consent to the Darnley marriage was,
that "she must conform to the religion established by law." Upon
this, the singular comment is, "It is interesting to observe how the
current of the reformation had swept Elizabeth forward in spite of
herself." (Vol. viii. p. 187.) Mary's answer was, she "would make no
merchandise of her conscience."


MURRAY'S INSURRECTION.

At page 198, vol. viii., after the armed rebellion of Murray and his
friends, popularly known in Scotland as "The Runabout Raid," we have
Mary

    "breathing nothing but anger and defiance. The affection of
    a sister for a brother was curdled into a hatred the more
    malignant because it was more unnatural. Her whole passion was
    concentrated on Murray."

It must be clear to every one how reprehensible Mary was for showing
any feeling at all in defence of her crown, her liberty, and her
life, and with Mr. Froude's premises and logic, Murray gave a signal
proof of affection for his sister in arraying himself against her
legitimate authority as the head of an insurrection. Mr. Froude can
see, in the just indignation of the queen against domestic traitors
in league, with a foreign power, nothing but the violence of a
vengeful fury. His anxiety to possess his readers of the same view
has brought him into a serious difficulty, which has been exposed by
M. Wiesener in his _Marie Stuart_. At p. 211, vol. viii., Mr. Froude
quotes a letter of Randolph to Cecil of Oct. 5th, "in Rolls House,"
by which he means Record Office, to show that Mary "was deaf to
advice as she had been to menace," and "she said _she would have no
peace till she had Murray's or Chatelherault's head_." This letter
appears to be visible to nobody but Mr. Froude; and we have the
authority of Mr. Joseph Stevenson, who is more at home among the MSS.
of the Record Office than Mr. Froude, and who, when he uses them, has
the merit of citing them in their integrity, for stating that this
letter of the 5th October, referred to by Mr. Froude, _is not in the
Record Office_.[183] But there is a letter there from Randolph to
Cecil of the 4th October, in which Randolph represents Mary

    "not only uncertain as to what she should do, but inclined to
    clement measures, and so undecided as to hope that matters
    could be arranged"!

This does not sound like "deaf to advice," and Mr. Froude can arrange
this little difficulty with the dates and Mr. Stevenson at his
leisure. Meantime, we all anxiously wait to hear from Mr. Froude
where he found his authority for stating that Mary said she would
have no peace till she had Murray's or Chatelherault's head.

At page 205, vol. viii. the account given by Mauvissiere of his
interview with Mary is travestied by Mr. Froude. Mauvissiere
counselled her to make peace with the insurgents. Mary saw through
the device; for it was the counsel of Catherine de' Medici, whose
enmity to Mary was only surpassed by that of Elizabeth; and, although
without advisers--for Murray was in rebellion, Morton had withdrawn
himself, and Maitland was suspected--she rejected it instantly.

It is amusing to observe how the loyal attachment of the citizens
and merchants of Edinburgh to Mary annoys Mr. Froude. During
Mary's absence, the rebels swept into the city with a large force;
but, notwithstanding the appeal of the kirk, the "_Calvinist
shop-keepers_," as Mr. Froude witheringly styles them, would not
lift a finger to aid them. We call it amusing, because Mr. Froude
everywhere so undisguisedly manifests his strong personal sympathy
that, as an historian, he becomes simply absurd.

Mary marched against the rebels with eighteen thousand men. As she
approached, they fled into England, and the rebellion was over.

"The Queen of Scots, following in hot pursuit, glared across the
frontier at her escaping prey." (Vol. viii. p. 214.) The amount of
precise information in Mr. Froude's exclusive possession concerning
the expression of Mary Stuart's eyes as something wonderful. Here
her eyes "glare;" elsewhere, (vol. viii. p. 365,) there is an "odd
glitter in her eyes," while at p. 161, they are "flashing pride and
defiance."

It is this imaginative power and talent for pictorial embellishment
which lend to Mr. Froude's work such peculiar attraction for the
general reader. And to give expression to this natural appreciation,
such testimonials as the following are seriously produced as
evidences of the merit of the work.

"What a wonderful history it is!" says Mrs. Mulock Craik; "and
wonderful indeed is it, with its vivid pictures of scenes and persons
long passed away; its broad charity, its tender human sympathy, its
ever present dignity, its outbursts of truest pathos."

All this is in keeping with the eternal fitness of things. This
excellent lady, a somewhat successful writer of novels, really means
what she says, and expresses herself in all sincerity. Her admiration
is genuine. It is that of a pupil for her master, and she ingenuously
admires one who has attained excellence in his art. We have not
the slightest doubt that many will say with her, "What a wonderful
history it is!"

FOOTNOTES:

[177] _History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of
Elizabeth._ By James Anthony Froude, late Fellow of Exeter College,
Oxford. 12 vols. New York: Charles Scribner & Co.

[178] See CATHOLIC WORLD for June, 1870.

[179] In all his volumes Mr. Froude cites Buchanan by name but once.

[180] _Mary Queen of Scots and her Accusers._ By John Hosack,
Barrister at Law. Edinburgh. 1869.

[181] He had previously denounced his sovereign from the pulpit as an
incorrigible idolatress and an enemy whose death would be a public
blessing. Randolph writes to Cecil February, 1564, "They pray that
God will either turn her heart or send her a short life;" adding,
"of what charity or spirit this proceedeth, I leave to be discussed
by the great divines." And yet we must not hastily condemn Knox,
although a man fifty-eight years of age, of indiscriminate sourness
and severity to all young women. He was at that very time paying his
addresses to a girl of sixteen.

[182] "The attempt to make one's self the interpreter of the
secret sentiments of historical personages is always dangerous and
frequently ridiculous."

[183] See "Calendar of the State Papers relating to Scotland,
preserved in the State Paper Department of Her Majesty's Public
Record Office. 2 vols. quarto. London, 1858."

Copy in Astor Library. This calendar gives the date and abstract of
the contents of each document. There is no record of any letter of
Randolph to Cecil of Oct. 5th, 1565, but there is one of Oct. 4th.




IN THE GREENWOOD.

    "Then the wyld thorowe the woodes went
      On every syde shear;
    Grea-hondes thorowe the greves glent
      For to kyll thear dear."


I.

For three consecutive mornings of a certain month of May not far
distant, Blanch and I had opened our diaries to write, "Wind E. N. E."

Every body knows what that means in Boston. It means chill and
grayness and drizzle; it means melancholy-shining sidewalks and
puddles _a surprise_ just where the foot is most confidingly
planted; it means water dripping over gutters, flowing frothily from
spouts, and squishing from shoes of poor folks at every step they
take; it means draggled skirts, and cross looks, and influenza, and
bronchitis, and a disposition to believe in the total depravity of
inanimate things.

Yes; but also it means an effervescence of spirit in those rare
souls, like incarnate sunshine, kindred in some sort of "Epictetus,
a slave, maimed in body, an Irus in poverty, and favored by the
immortals."

But--three whole days of drizzle!

On the first day, Blanch and I glanced approvingly skyward, and
said, "A fine rain!" then went about that inevitable clearing out of
drawers and closets and reading of old letters, which a rainy day
suggests to the feminine mind.

On the second morning, we donned water-proofs and over-shoes, and
boldly sallied forth, coming in later breathless, glowing, drenched,
and with our hair curled up into kinks. Then, subsiding a little, we
drew down the crimson curtains, lighted a fire, lighted the gas,
and, shutting ourselves into that rosy cloister, read till we were
sleepy.

But sometimes water looks a great deal wetter than it does at other
times; and on the third morning it looked very wet indeed. The damp,
easterly gloom entered between our eyelids and penetrated to our
souls. We struck our colors. Like the Sybarite who got a pain in
his back from seeing some men at work in the field, we shivered in
sympathy with every passing wretch.

That prince of blunderers, Sir Boyle Roche, used to say that the best
way to avoid danger is to meet it plumb. Acting on that principle,
Blanch and I took each a chair and a window, and, seating ourselves,
stared silently in the face of the enemy.

After an hour or so, I began to feel the benefit of the baronet's
prescription.

"Blanch," said I, brightening, "let's go on a lark down to Maine, to
the northern part of Hancock County, to a place I know."

Blanch turned her small, white face toward me, gave me a reproachful
glance out of her pale-blue eyes, then drew her shawl closer about
her throat, and resumed her gaze in the face of out-doors.

I waited a moment, then pursued, "Rain in town and rain in the
country are two reigns, as the histories say. Lilies shrugging up
their white shoulders, and roses shaking their pink faces to get rid
of the drops; trees lucent green jewels in every leaf; birds laughing
and scolding at the same time, casting bright little jokes from
leafy covert to covert; brooks foaming through their channels like
champagne out of bottles--"

"Never compare a greater thing to a less," interrupted Blanch, severe
and rhetorical.

"So you think rain-water is better than champagne?" I asked.

"No matter. Go on with your poetics."

"At this time the apple-trees are pink clouds of incense, and the
cherry-trees are white clouds of incense, the maples are on fire;
there are fresh light-green sprouts on the dark-green spruces;
the flaky boughs of the cedars have put forth pale, spicy buds;
and the silver birches glimmer under hovering mists of green.
Deer are stealing out of the woods to browse in the openings, and
gray rabbits hop across the long, still road, (there is but one
road.) The May-flowers are about gone; but dandelions, "spring's
largess," are everywhere. Here and there is a clearing, over which
the surrounding wildness has thrown a gentle savagery, like lichen
over rocks. The people (there are two) live in a log house. They
never get a newspaper till it is weeks old, perhaps not so soon, and
they know nothing of fashion. If we should appear to them now with
our skirts slinking in at the ankles, and puffing out at the waist,
with chignons on our heads and hats on our noses, they would run
into the house and button the doors. Every thing there is peaceful.
Rumors of oppression, fraud, and war reach them not. I should not be
surprised if that were one of the places where they still vote for
General Jackson. Their most frequent visitors are bears, and wolves,
and snappish little yellow foxes. In short, you have no idea how
delightful the place is."

"I am not like the Queen of Sheba," says Blanch. "Though the half
had not been told me, my imagination would have out-built and
out-hung and out-shone Solomon in all his glory. Who are these
people?"

"Mr. Thomas and Mrs. Sally Smith. Sally lived with my mother as help
when I was a little girl. On my tenth birthday, she gave me my first
smelling-bottle, purple glass with a silver-washed screw-top. The
season was July, and the day very warm. After holding my precious
present in my hand awhile, I opened it, and, in the innocence of
my heart, took a deliberate snuff. The result beggars description.
When I became capable of thought, I believed that the top of my head
had been blown off. You remember in the _Arabian Nights_ the bottle
out of which, when it was unstopped, a demon escaped? Well, that
was the same bottle. Sally used to boil molasses candy for me; and
she has braided my hair and boxed my ears many a time. But mother
didn't allow her to box my ears. Thomas lived in our town, and tried
to support himself and make a fortune by keeping a market, but with
slight success. He was always behindhand, and never got the dinner
home till the cook was at the point of distraction. They called him
the late Mr. Smith. By and by he and Sally got married, after a
courtship something like that of Barkis and Pegotty, and went into
the woods to live. My mother made and gave Sally her wedding-cake,
one large loaf and four smaller ones. The large one would have been
larger if my brother Dick and I hadn't got at it before it was baked
and ate ever so much. Did you ever eat raw cake? It is real good. I
paid Sally a visit long ago, and she made me promise to come again."

"I dare say it is all moon-shine," said Blanch, rising. "But, here
goes."

"Where to?" I exclaimed.

"To pack my trunks for a visit to Sally Smith," answered Blanch from
the doorway.

"But I was in fun."

"And I am in earnest."

"And perhaps the facts are not so fair as the fancies."

"So much the worse for the facts."

With which quotation the young woman disappeared.

Resistance was useless. Blanch is one of those gentle, yielding
creatures who always have their own way. And I love to be tyrannized
over. I followed her up-stairs, repeating ruefully,

    "Since then I never dared to be
      As funny as I can."

Catch me being poetic again!

That very evening a letter was mailed to Sally Smith, announcing
our coming; and in less than a week we started, lingering over the
first part of our journey, that due preparation might be made for our
entertainment. The last day and a half were to be an allegro movement.

The drive from Bucksport to Ellsworth was delightful; not the
beginning of it, where twelve persons were crowded into a
nine-passenger coach; where Blanch, looking like a wilted flower, sat
wedged between two large, determined women; where my neighbor was a
restless man who was constantly trying to get something out of the
coat-pocket next me; and an aesthetic man, who insisted on looking
past my nose at the prospect; and a tobacco-chewing man, as his
breath in my face fully testified: all this was not delightful. But
after we had entreated the driver, and been assisted to a perch on
the coach-roof, then it was glorious.

Then we got airy tosses instead of dislocating jolts; saw the road
unwind, turn by turn, from the woods; saw how the grating brake was
put to the wheel while we crept over the brow of a steep pitch, then
let go while we spun down the lower part and flew over the level.

The afternoon sun was behind us, and gilded the hills; but the
hollows were full of transparent dusk with the crowding, overhanging
woods. As we came up out of them, our horses strained forward
to trample on a giant shadow-coach, with four shadow-horses, a
shadow-driver, and two fly-away shadow-women in advance of every
thing else.

Presently the boughs ceased to catch at our veils, the woods thinned
and withdrew, houses appeared and multiplied, and we came out on to
a long steep hill dipping to a river, whence another long steep hill
rose at the other side. And built up and down, and to right and left,
was a pretty town with all its white houses rose-red in the sunset.
Well might it blush under our faithful eyes!

"Blanch," I said, "behold a town where, sixteen years ago, a Catholic
priest almost won the crown of martyrdom. On the hill opposite,
toward the south, stood the Catholic church that was burned, and the
Catholic school-house that was blown up with gunpowder. There is the
cottage where the priest lived. One August evening, when the sky was
like a topaz with sunset, and the new moon was out, he baptized me
there, and a little while after they broke his windows with stones.
Further up the hill is the house from which, one rainy Saturday
night, a mob of masked men dragged him. Ah well! that story is yet to
be told."


II.

HE AND SHE.

The next morning early, we started on our last day's journey, and
were driven through a rough country, the road dwindling till it
seemed likely to imitate that avenue which narrowed till it turned
into a squirrel-track and ran up a tree. At five o'clock, we stopped
at a farm-house, which was also post-office; and there we got a man
to take us to our journey's end.

"May be you'll take this letter with you," the postmaster said. "It's
for Miss Smith."

_Mrs._ is never heard in that region.

I took that letter, and gazed at it a moment in wrathful silence.
There was my annunciatory epistle written to Sally Smith more than a
fortnight before!

"Allah il Allah!" sighed Blanch resignedly when I held up the letter
to her view.

The road over which we now drove was streaked with grass that
tempted the lowered nose of our Rozinante, and graceful clusters
of buttercups brushed the slow spokes of our wheels. The forest
primeval shut down, solid and precipitous, at our left, and at our
right the scrubby spruces clambered and straggled over the ledges
with the appearance of having just stopped to look at us; and in a
little while we saw through their tops a log house that stood at the
head of a rocky lane. A thin wreath of smoke curled from the stone
chimney, curtains of spotless whiteness showed inside the tiny hinged
windows, and a luxuriant hopvine draped all the wall next us. Not a
rod back from the house, and drawn darkly against the sunset sky,
was a picture very like Dore's bringing of the ark to Bethsames. A
group of cattle stood there motionless, two low-bending spruce-trees
unfurled their plumy branches over a square rock, and, as motionless
as either, stood a tall, gaunt woman staring fixedly at us.

"Goodness gracious!" cried Blanch sharply, "the child will shoot us!"

Following her glance, I espied a tow-headed urchin of ten, may be,
whom our coming had petrified in the act of getting through the bars
at the foot of the lane. Against the lower bar rested his rifle, the
muzzle looking us directly in the eye.

I seized upon him and changed his aim.

"Your name is Larkin," I said accusingly.

"Yes, ma'am!" he answered in a trembling voice.

"What are you here for?"

"Ma'am sent me to borrow Miss Smith's darn'-needle," he whimpered.

"You have come four miles through the woods to borrow a
darning-needle?" I demanded.

"Yes, ma'am!" he answered, eagerly pointing to a huge needle with a
blue yarn which was sewed into his blue drilling shirt-front.

"Is Mrs. Sally Smith alive?" I asked solemnly.

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Does she live in this house?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Does any one else live here?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Who?"

"Mr. Smith."

"Well, set your rifle down here in the corner of the fence, and
look out how you aim it another time. There! now take this letter
and carry it up to Mrs. Smith, and give her my compliments, and say
that we would like a reply at her earliest convenience. We may be
addressed at the foot of the lane, sitting on our trunks."

As I released his arm, he shot wildly up the lane, and tumbled
headlong in at the weather-porch that guarded the northern door.

In a few minutes, a woman's head appeared and took an observation,
while her two hands were visible smoothing her hair and rapidly
adjusting an apron. Then the whole long figure emerged. At first
she walked warily, stopping once or twice as though about to turn
back; then she gave a long look, and hurried down the lane, a broad
smile breaking out, token of recognition. Her voice reached me first,
"Well, I do declare, I'm tickled most to death to see you!"

With the last words came a mighty grip of the hands, and Sally looked
at me with eyes overflowing with tears and gladness.

Most exquisite and dignified reader, didst thou ever think, when
raising to thy lips the cut-glass goblet of iced water, poured from
a silver pitcher filled at a faucet supplied through a leaden pipe
that in its turn is fed by miles of underground aqueduct, that thou
wouldst like rather to slake thy thirst at some natural spring
bubbling over mossy stones and prostrate grasses? For once or twice,
may be? If so, all hail! for thou art not quite a mummy. Underneath
thy social swathings still beats a faint echo of the bounding
pulse of some free-born ancestor, a sheik of the desert, a dusky
forest-chief, a patriarch of the tents. Trampled on, thou wilt not
turn to dust, but to fire; and the papyrus is unfinished on which
shall be written the story of thy life.

There have been times, too, in which thou hast thought that not
only thy drink was far-fetched and no sweeter for the fetching, but
that the smiles, the welcomes, the fare-wells, the friendships were
all stale and unrefreshing. Thou hast longed for the generous love,
which, while it will bear nothing from thee, will bear all things for
thee; for the honest hate that carries its blade in sight, and lurks
not in sly and sanctimonious speech and downcast eyes; for the noble
tongue that knows not how to tell the spirit of a lie and save the
letter.

Here now before me were all these. Refreshing, _n'est ce pas?_ and
very delightful--for a time.

Blanch and I were whirled into the house in the midst of a tornado of
welcomes, apologies, regrets, wonderings, and questions innumerable.
But as we were whisked through the kitchen, I had time to see all the
old landmarks; the great stone fire-place, with a mantel-piece nearly
out of reach, the bed, with its bright patch-work quilt, the broom
of cedar-boughs behind the door, the strip-bottom chairs, the large
blocks to eke out with when more seats were needed, the rough walls,
the immaculate neatness.

There were two rooms in the house, and we were suffered to sit only
when we had reached the second. This was glorious with pictorial
newspapers pasted over the log walls, with a Job's patience quilt on
the bed, with two painted wooden chairs, and a chintz-covered divan,
a rag mat on the floor, two brass candlesticks on the mantel-piece, a
looking-glass six inches long, and a gay picture of a yellow-haired,
praying Samuel, dressed in a blue night-gown, and kneeling on a red
cushion.

Sally was so delightedly flustered by our coming that, as she said,
she did not know whether she was on her head or her heels, a doubt
which so sensibly affected her movements that she was every moment
making little inconsequent rushes where she had no need to go, and
repeating the same things over and over.

Presently she sat still with a start, and listened to a heavy step
that came through the porch and into the kitchen.

"Sh-h-h! There he comes!" she whispered.

In fact, I had already caught a glimpse through the chimney-back of a
man in his shirt-sleeves, who hung up a tattered straw hat, and took
down from its nail a tin washbasin with a long handle, like a skillet.

"Sally!" he called out, splashing a dipperful of water into the basin.

"Whot?" returned Sally, with a facetious nod at me.

"Who's been here this afternoon? I see wagon-tracks down in the road."

"Boarders!" says Sally, with another nod and wink.

"Boarders? What for?" came in a tone of amazement; and through a
chink in the rock chimney I could see his wet face turned, listening
for her answer, and his dripping hands suspended.

"To get boarded," replied Sally succinctly.

Such an astounding announcement required immediate explanation, and
Mr. Smith was coming in a dripping state to demand one, when his wife
jumped up to intercept him.

"Guess who's come!" she said, stopping him in the entry.

"Who?" he asked in a stentorian whisper.

"Mary!" says dear Sally, with a little burst of gladness that brought
tears to my eyes.

"Mary who?"--with the same preposterous feint of secrecy.

"Why, bobolink Mary, you great goose!"

"You don't say so!" exclaimed Mr. Smith, and as he spoke, his face,
with wide-open eyes and mouth, appeared over Sally's shoulder,
then disappeared instantly at sight of Blanch. Nor would our host
permit me to come to him, nor make himself visible again till he had
gone through a tremendous scrubbing and brushing, all of which was
perfectly audible to us. Then he came in, sleek and shining, and gave
us a hearty though embarrassed welcome, bowing before Blanch with a
movement like the shutting up of a pocket-knife, and greatly confused
on finding himself obliged to take her small hand.

I am bound to say that Blanch behaved exquisitely. She could not help
being dainty and delicate; but she showed herself so unaffectedly
delighted with every thing and every body that her daintiness was not
remembered against her. Besides, she had the good taste not to try to
imitate their rough ways, but remained simply herself.

Sally disappeared presently, and in a surprisingly short space of
time returned to tell us, with a very red face, that supper was ready.

There was a momentary cloud of doubt over Blanch's face; but I went
unfearing, and the event justified my confidence. The coarsest of
delf, to be sure, and a cotton cloth, and steel forks, and a tin
coffee-pot. But whatever could be polished shone like the sun, and
whatever could be white was like snow. As to the supper, it was
worthy of the pen of Mr. Secretary Pepys. The traditional delicacies
of a country table are taken for granted; but the coffee was a
glorious work of supererogation, and delicious enough to be handed
about in the paradise of Mohammedans. Besides this, Sally, with a
recollection of one of my mother's pretty ways, had laid a sprig
of fragrant sweet-brier beside each plate, and with mine a drowsy
dandelion just shutting its golden rays.

"You must excuse me for giving you deer meat," said our hostess
with great humility; "I haven't any other kind on hand to-day; but
to-morrow--"

She stopped short in the act of setting the dish on the table,
unspeakably mortified by the incredulous stare with which Blanch
regarded her.

"If you don't like it--" she began stammering.

We immediately explained that Blanch was simply astonished at an
apology being offered with venison, whereat Sally grew radiant.

Mr. Smith did not appear at the table. He insisted that he had been
to supper, but abstained from mentioning the day on which he last
partook of that meal. Indeed, during all the time Blanch and I were
in that house we never saw the master of it eat one mouthful.

"He never will sit down with folks," Sally whispered privately to me
as we left the table.

When Sally said "he," pure and simple, she always meant her husband.
She had a dim consciousness that there were other, nebulous
masculines in the world; but to her mind Mr. Thomas Smith was the
bright particular HE.

At eight o'clock we went to bed by the pure, pale twilight of June,
and sank up to our eyes in feathers.

"Oh!" cried Blanch, "I'm going through to China!"

"Never mind!" I said encouragingly, "to-morrow we will put this
absurd puff-ball underneath, and promote the straw-bed."

"Straw!" exclaimed a voice from the depths.

"Yes! pretty, yellow, shining straws, such as you suck mint-juleps
through. Well, don't get excited! Straws such as your brother Tom
sucks mint-juleps through. Good-night, honey!"

I heard her whisper a prayer. Then we dropped asleep peacefully;
while with steadfast eyes of holy fire our angels kept watch and ward.


III.

BIPEDS WITH FEATHERS.

The next morning the unaccustomed stillness woke us early; and there
was a long, golden beam of sunlight stretched across the bare floor.
The hop-leaves hanging over the eastern window were translucent, and
more gold than green, and all round their edges hung radiant drops of
dew, slowly gathering and falling.

Blanch smiled, but said nothing, scarcely spoke a word to God, even,
I think, but knelt and let her prayer exhale from her, like dew from
the morning earth.

The kitchen was all in order when we went out. It was shaded,
exquisitely clean, swept through by a soft draught, and finely
perfumed by the new cedar broom which Thomas had made that morning.
In the fire-place lay a heap of hard-wood coals in a solid glow, but
the heat of them all went up chimney. The table was set for two, and
breakfast ready all but cooking the eggs. Sally held a bowl of these
in her hand, while, outside, the hens were making loud affidavit to
their freshness.

After breakfast, Blanch put on a little scarlet sack, took her
parasol, and went out to reconnoitre. Sally and I staid in the house
and talked over old times, while she washed the dishes and I wiped
them. Old times, even the happiest, are sad to recall, and we soon
fell into silence. In that pause, Sally wrung out her dish-cloth,
gave it a scientific shake that made it snap like a whip-lash, and
hung it up on two nails to dry. Then she wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

"Land sakes!" she exclaimed, "what's that?" and rushed out doors,
catching the broom on her way. I followed with the shovel, for "that"
was a scream which unmistakably came from Blanch.

There was neither savage nor wild beast in sight, nor was Blanch
visible; but there was a great commotion in the poultry-yard, and a
large turkey-gobbler of a military appearance was strutting about in
full feather and declaiming in some foreign language. It sounded like
low Dutch. What he said seemed to make a great impression on the hens
and geese, for they looked awe-struck.

Presently we espied Blanch at the very top of one of the highest
board fences that ever was built, clinging for dear life.

"I don't know how I ever got here," she said piteously. "The last
recollection I have is of that horrid creature ruffling himself all
up and coming at me. Then I came right up. And that's all I know. But
I can't get down again."

I got a little ladder and helped Blanch down from her dangerous
perch, while Sally kept the turkey-gobbler at bay, standing, broom in
hand, in that position called in heraldry rampant-regardant.

"He doesn't like scarlet very well," she remarked. "It isn't his
favorite color."

Then we went to see Mrs. Partington, a large gray hen, which was that
morning taking her first airing with a new brood. She had been set on
goose-eggs, which had, naturally, hatched out goslings; but she did
not know it.

"Now," said Sally, "if you want to see an astonished hen, come along."

There was a duck-pond near, and some instinct in the goslings led
them that way. Mrs. Partington yielded, like a fond, indulgent
mother, and clucked along full of _naive_ consequence and
good-nature. But at a little distance from the margin she paused,
called her brood about her, and began to talk to them in a gray,
comfortable, complacent voice. I suppose she was telling them how
dangerous water is. They listened first with one side of their
heads, then with the other, and two of them winked at each other,
and made little irresistible shies toward the pond. They looked like
green eggs on two sticks. The hen left off her lecture, clucked
loudly, spread her wings, and ran after them. But the next instant a
shriek broke from her bill; for, as every body knows, of course, the
goslings all plunged headlong into the pond.

Poor Mrs. Partington was, indeed, an astonished hen. She was more:
she was a transfixed hen. She stood gazing at them in horror,
evidently expecting to see every one of them keel over and go to the
bottom. But no; the little voyagers floated about quite at their
ease, striking out with their tiny paddles, their downy backs and
absurd little heads shedding the water beautifully.

"She must know now that they are goslings," said Blanch.

"Goslings? Not she!" answered Sally. "Ten to one she thinks that she
is a goose. No, that hen will go down to the platter without finding
out that she has been cheated."

We had a busy day. We went to see the frame-house that Mr. Smith had
begun to raise, and Sally's dairy in the cellar of it; we promoted
our straw-bed, filled our fireplace with pine boughs, thus cutting
off the view through the chimney-back; unpacked our trunks and set up
our graven images; and, when sunset was near, went out into the woods
at the foot of Spruce Mountain to get a pail of water from a little
Johannisberger of a spring there. The mountain was between us and the
sunset, and the woods were in shadow; but up over the lofty tree-tops
the red and golden lights floated past, and every little pool, among
its treasures of reflected foliage, airy nest of bird, and bending
flower, held warmly its bit of azure sky, and crimson or golden
cloud. Presently we came to where, at the foot of a spruce-tree,
our spring lay like a fire-opal, with that one spark down among
its haunting shadows. A cool green darkness fell into it from the
overhanging boughs, velvet mosses growing close rimmed it with a
brighter emerald, gray of trunk, branch, and twig melted into it,
milky little flowers nodded over at their milky little twins below,
and in the midst burned that live coal of the sunset. When we plunged
our tin pail into this spring, it was as though we were going to dip
up jewels. But instantly we touched the water, it whitened all over
with a silvery-rippled mail, the colors disappeared, and we brought
up only crystal clearness. The next moment, though, the throbbing
waters subsided, and the many-tinted enchantment stole tremulously
back again.

When we went to bed that night, a shower was prowling about the
horizon, and over on Spruce Mountain the wolves were howling back
defiance to the thunders.

What a lovely, savage week it was that followed! Somewhere in it was
dissolved a Sunday; but we were scarcely aware of it, there was so
little to mark the day.

In that week we learned one fact that was new to us, and that was the
profound melancholy that reigns in the woods. Looking back, we could
recollect that the impression had always, though unconsciously, been
the same. Is it that in the forest Pan alone is the chosen god? and
that there is still mourned that day when

    "The parting genius was with sighing rent."

Or is the sadness because He who once came down to walk among the
trees, and call through the dews, comes no more?

Whatever may be the reason, melancholy is enthroned in the forest.


IV.

A DIAMOND-WASHING.

On one of those days, Blanch and I, after a severe dispute on the
subject with Sally, did a washing. Sally said we shouldn't; but wash
we would, and wash we did.

We rose at early white dawn, kilted up our wrappers, shouldered
our clothes-bag, took soap, matches, and kindlings, and started. A
path led us past the new frame-house and a grove beyond it to the
wash-room. This was a noble apartment about forty rods long by thirty
wide, and was walled in by cedar and pine columns with the branches
and foliage left on, a great improvement on Solomon's building. The
cornice was delicately traced against a pale-blue ceiling frescoed
with silver, the most beautiful ceiling I have ever seen. The carpet
was a green velvet pile, thickly diapered with small gold-colored
and white flowers in an irregular pattern, and beaded all over with
crystals. Near the door by which we entered was one of the most
charming imitations of rustic scenery to be found at home or abroad.
A huge granite boulder, broken and hollowed roughly, had a thread of
sparkling water bubbling up through a rift in it, and overflowing its
basin in a rivulet. Near this stood two forked poles with a large
copper kettle suspended from a cross-pole. Underneath the kettle were
the ashes of more than one fire. Countless birds flew about, singing
as well as if they had been sent to Paris. On the whole, it was a
picture which would have drawn a crowd at any exhibition.

Wood was there, covered from the dew with green boughs. We placed
our kindlings, lighted them with a match scraped inside Blanch's
slipper, and soon a blue column of smoke was rising straight into
the morning air, and the flames were growing. Then we filled the
great kettle with water from the fountain of Arethusa, and, as soon
as it was warm, began to wash. For one hour there was nothing but
silence and scrubbing; then a loud war-whoop through Sally's hands
announced that breakfast was ready. By that time our clothes were all
washed and bubbling in the boiler. Looking about then, we saw that
every cedar pillar had a golden capital; cloth of gold was spread
here and there in long stretches, and the frescoes had changed their
shape, and, instead of silver, were rosy and golden.

Poor Sally, looking at us ruefully when we went in, asked to see
our hands. They were worth looking at, all the skin being off the
backs of them, and the insides puckered up into the most curious
and complex wrinkles. We ate with glorious appetites, though, had
another engagement with Sally, who wanted us to lie down to rest, and
have our hands bandaged, and went back to find our clothes wabbling
clumsily, but quite to our satisfaction. We upset our tubs and rinsed
them, then set them up and filled with cold water again. Next we took
each a clothes-stick, fished something from the kettle with it, ran
with it boiling hot at the stick's end, and soused it into one of
the tubs. We had to run a good many times, probably a mile in all.
We squeezed the clothes out of this pickle, called by the initiated
"boiled suds;" refilled our tubs, and performed that last operation
"of rinsing," which took the puckered insides quite out of our hands,
leaving them almost innocent of cuticle.

"My dear," said Blanch, as we spread our washing out on the green,
"every woman on earth ought to do one washing. It would do their
souls good, though it should temporarily damage their bodies. My
laundress is a new being to me from this day. I mean to double her
wages."

"Oh!" she exclaimed suddenly, and held up the bleeding forefinger of
her left hand. "My ring! I have lost it; it is washed away."

The poor child looked distressed, and no wonder; for the missing
cluster was a _souvenir_.

We set ourselves to search, but in vain. On each side of our grassy
bench, three tubs of water had been spilt, and had wandered in
devious ways, and to some distance. We sawed our sore fingers on the
notched edges of the grass-blades, to no purpose.

"It was careless of you, Blanch," I said austerely. "You should have
recollected that the ring was loose--"

A twinkle appeared in Blanch's eyes, if not on her finger. I followed
the direction of her significant glance, and behold! where the
lambent _solitaire_ had burned on my hand, was an aching void!

"My angel," said Blanch sweetly, "did you ever hear of
diamond-washings?"


V.

A MISS IS AS GOOD AS A MILE.

When Sunday came round a second time, we were aware of it. Every day
had been to us like a crystal brimming cup overflowing to quench the
day's thirst; but looking out into this Sunday, we saw only a golden
emptiness.

Tears hung on Blanch's long eyelashes. "Think of all the blessed
open church-doors," she said. "It makes me homesick. I want to go to
mass. Even a fiddling, frescoed, full-dress mass would be better than
none."

I quoted my friend, Sir Boyle Roche, "'Can a man be like a bird, in
two places at once?' Besides, little one, if you were in town, it is
not unlikely that you might stay at home all day because your new hat
was not becoming, or because of the hot sun, or the east wind, or the
mud, or the dust."

The dear child blushed. "But then one likes to know that one can go,"
she said meekly.

Sally and her husband were going five miles to meeting that day.
They started early; and we watched them go soberly off in single
file till the trees hid first the large brim of Sally's preposterous
bonnet, then the crown of Mr. Smith's antique hat. Then we went
in and prepared a little altar, with a statuette of the Virgin,
a crucifix, candles and flowers, and, lifting up our hearts in
that wild solitude, assisted at some far-away mass. There was no
interruption, only a group of deer stood without, at the distance of
a stone's throw, as motionless as gray marble statues, and watched
us with soft, intent eyes. After we had got through and were sitting
silently, the candles still burning, some Roman Catholic hummingbirds
dashed in and sucked the honey out of the wild roses we had given
our Lady, but left a sweet thought instead. When the buzz of their
wings was gone, we heard robins and a bobolink outside, and a chorus
of little twitterers singing a Laudate. "Amen!" said Blanch. The
unclouded sunlight steeped the surrounding forest in sultry splendor,
and clouds of perfume rose, like incense, from pine, and fir, and
hemlock, from thousands of little blossoms, from plots of red and
white clover, heavy with honey, from censers of anemones, and,
threading all these sweets of sound, perfume, and sight together, was
the bubbling voice of a brook murmuring Paters and Aves over its
pebbles.

Blanch smiled, and repeated softly:

    "The waters all over the earth rejoice
    In many a hushed and silvery voice;
    'In Jordan we covered Him, foot and crown,
    While the dove of the Spirit came fluttering down.

    "'We steadied his keel at the crowded beach,
    When the multitude gathered to hear him teach;
    The feet of our Master we smoothly bore,
    And he walked the sea as a paven floor.

    "'When the tempest lashed each foamy crest,
    At his 'Peace, be still!' we sank to rest.
    And we laughed into wine, when he came to see
    The marriage in Cana of Galilee.'

    "The stars that fade in the growing day
    Have each a tremulous word to say;
    'We sang, we sang, as we hung above
    The lowly cradle of Infinite Love.'

    "The low winds whisper, 'We fanned in his hair
    The flame of an unseen aureole there.'
    And the lily, pallid with rapture, cries,
    'I blanched in the light of his fervent eyes!'

    "Voices of earth and air unite,
    Voices of day and voices of night,
    Flinging their memories into the way
    Of the coming in of the dear Lord's day.

    "O Christ! we join with them to bless
    Thy name in love and thankfulness;
    And cry as we kneel before thy throne,
    We are all thine own! we are all thine own!"

When Sally and Mr. Smith came home that afternoon, they were
accompanied by a tall, stiff, severe man in black, at the first sight
of whom Blanch and I got our hats for a walk. It was Elder Samson,
come up to convert the idolaters. We knew well what hydra-headed
discourse he had prepared to devour our patience, our charity, our
civility even. Discretion was the better part of valor, we concluded,
and fled, leaving, alas! the statuette of our Lady, with the candles
burning beside her, and the wild roses clinging about and kissing
her feet. If we had but known! But we did not then, nor till long
afterward. When we came back, every thing was, apparently, as we had
left it. But, when Sally came to town in the fall, she told how, the
moment the elder saw our graven image, he flew into a holy rage,
flung it, roses and all, out the window, and would have flung the
candles after it, if she had not rescued them by main force. The
result was an illustration of the church militant, in which rather
high words passed between Sally and the elder. Mr. Smith, feebly
interposing to take the part of his clerical visitor, was routed
utterly.

But meantime, in happy unconsciousness, Blanch and I walked down
the road, and down and down the road, a mile, and another mile, and
again a mile, through the green and flowery solitude, flecked and
flickering with sunlight and shadow, the silence only softly stirred
by a multitudinous rustling of leaves. Now and then we saw a deer by
the road-side; and far away in the woods the foxes snarled and barked.

Our walk ended on a long log that bridged a brook, and there we stood
and looked up to see the waters come down to us. Presently, instead
of their flowing down, we seemed to float up. We were going up to
the cradle of this dancing stream, to some enchanted land where the
baby rivulet first saw the sun. We were going back, also, to our own
childhood, floating up and up to careless days, leaving the heavy
years behind.

When we came back from that far-away country, a little sea-sick
with our journey, I turned to see Blanch looking at me with great
attention.

"My dear," she said, "you are the most absurd figure I recollect to
have seen in the whole course of my life. If it were not deplorable
that human taste should be so perverted, I should find you ludicrous."

"So you have found it out," I replied, highly edified. "I have been
thinking the same of you this week past. Of course any one with eyes
can see that Sally in her straight gown and big apron, with her hair
in a pug, is better dressed than we."

Blanch had brought Mr. Smith's pistol with her. She always took it
when we went into the woods; for she considered herself a pretty good
shot. She had at home a pasteboard target full of little holes, the
best one about six inches from the centre, all made by shots fired by
her at a distance of twenty feet.

She felt safer to take the pistol, she said; for if any animal were
to attack us, she could be sure to wound if not to kill it. "No
animal," she argued very sensibly, "could be dangerous at a distance
of twenty feet or more. And if he should come within that, I could
not fail hitting pretty near his head or heart. You see, I missed
only six inches in the shooting-gallery, and a bear or a wolf would
be much larger than my target."

When you want to convince others, always speak as though your
proposition is unquestionable. Every body knows that the majority
of persons in the majority of cases find it troublesome to think
for themselves, and that if you are positive enough, you can make
them believe any thing. If Blanch had been a shade less logical and
decided, I might have submitted that a pasteboard target does not
pounce upon you and hug you to death, or tear you into inch pieces
while you are taking aim, and that with a wild live creature to glare
back with two great threatening eyes into her one blue eye looking
at him, like a murderous violet, over the pistol-barrel, her nerves
might be shaken to the extent of another six inches from the mark.
But her air was one of such perfect conviction that my subjunctive
case expired without a sigh.

The tree-tops were still full of sunshine when we started to go home,
but the road was shaded. Blanch seemed a little uneasy.

"I believe we'd be awful good to eat," she said apprehensively. Even
in speaking, she stopped short, I stopped, we stopped all two, as the
French say. Directly in front of us and not far away, sitting with an
air of deliberation in the middle of the road, was a large, clumsy,
shaggy beast that looked at us with an inexplicable expression. I
had never had the pleasure of an introduction to this animal, but
none was needed. I had seen his portrait on the outside of hair-oil
bottles. The resemblance was striking.

Blanch turned very red, and raised her pistol.

"Shall I fire?" asked the little heroine in a stage-whisper.

"Fire!"

Her hand was trembling like a leaf in the wind; but she took
beautiful aim, and I am bound to confess that her pasteboard target
could not have received the attention with more unmoved tranquillity.
The pistol went hard, though, and the pull she had to give the
trigger brought the muzzle down, so that instead of the shot striking
within six inches of the bear's heart or brain, it struck up a little
puff of dust, and took off the devoted head of a buttercup about five
feet from us.

"Have I hit him?" she asked breathlessly, opening her eyes. She had
shut them very tight on firing.

She had not hit him; but he took the hint, and got himself clumsily
out of the way. I thought he acted as though his feelings were hurt.

I have forgotten whether we ran. I am inclined to think that we did
not. But we were not long in getting home, and then the elder was
gone.


VI.

HOMESICK.

A pathetic little incident happened that week, which suggested
many thoughts to us. Passing by a cleared space in the woods one
afternoon, Mr. Smith saw a deer family quietly grazing there.
Plentiful as these creatures were in that region, they never suffered
a near approach; but this group looked at the intruder peacefully and
showed no sign of alarm.

Is there on earth an animal more fierce and cruel than man in deed if
not in intention? This man did not deliberately mean to perpetrate a
fiendish act; but no otherwise could what he did be characterized.
He did not want the venison, the skins, the graceful antlers; but he
fancied it rather a fine thing to have that bounding target still for
a moment. His rifle was over his shoulder; he lowered it, and took
aim at the stag's stately front. There was a report; the creature
gave one leap into the air, then fell, shot through the forehead.

Not even then did the others fly. While he loaded his rifle again,
they bent over their prostrate companion, touching him, moved by what
mute, incredulous grief, who can say? The marksman gleefully took aim
again, and the doe fell with a bullet through her heart, and sobbed
her life away. When Mr. Smith saw the young one put its head down to
the mother's, for the first time some compunction touched his coarse,
unsympathetic soul. But he had gone too far to retreat, and in a few
minutes the fawn lay dead beside its mother.

Sally reproached her husband passionately when he told her the story
of his wonderful feat.

"If dumb creatures were like men," she said, "the wild beasts would
get up a mob to-night, and come here and lynch us; and not be to
blame either!"

Blanch and I left Mr. Smith meekly taking his castigation, and went
out to see his victims.

They lay where they had fallen, on the greensward, poor creatures! a
sad blot upon the peaceful scene, their innocent, happy lives quite
ebbed away. We stood by them a little while in the sunny silence,
and it seemed as though every thing living shrank from us. We had
never before been out without seeing some form of that wild animal
life with which the woods were teeming. But now there was no sound of
skittish steps evading us, no glimpse of shadowy figures among the
trees. All was silent and dead.

We went to the road-side, and, seating ourselves on the moss under an
aspen-tree, mourned silently. And thinking of the slaughtered deer, I
thought of the first death in Eden; and from that, of the first sin
in the world; and from that, of all the sin and sorrow that is in the
world; and from that, of Him who came to restore us to the true Eden,
the city of real peace, and how he stays here unseen, and watches
lest we kill or are killed; and then I thought, "The nearer one keeps
to the place where he is, the better."

Blanch half reclined, leaning on her elbow, and her face looked
like a pale flame in the flickering shadow of the tree above us.
She stretched her hand and touched tenderly a lovely spray of
partridge-berry that trailed over the moss, but did not break it.
Then she looked up.

"Minnie," she said, "I'm homesick."

"So am I."

"When will we start?"

"To-morrow."




THE "ADAM" OF ANDREINI.


Voltaire, in his life of Milton, mentioned the fact that in his youth
the poet witnessed at Milan the representation of a drama entitled,
_Adam; or, Original Sin_, written by "a certain Gio. Battista
Andreini," a Florentine, and dedicated to Marie de' Medici, Queen
of France. The French writer stated that Milton must have taken
with him to England a copy of the work. His account was repeated by
other biographers of the great English poet, some of whom alluded to
the Italian poem as "a farce." In consequence of their unfavorable
judgment, the impression has prevailed that Milton was not indebted
to Andreini for the conception of his _Paradise Lost_, but that
the grandeur and sublimity of the invention belong solely to him.
Andreini's work fell into oblivion soon after its production, and has
remained unappreciated even by the author's countrymen; so that it is
not surprising that the honors due the Catholic poet have not been
rendered by English or American critics or readers.

The mystery, tragedy, or sacred drama of _Adam_, composed by
Andreini, was represented at Milan early in the seventeenth century,
and was received with such enthusiasm that the author was invited to
the French court by Queen Mary, and was there loaded with honors. A
splendid edition of his work, dedicated to the queen, illustrated
with plates and a portrait of the author, was issued at Milan in
1617. Such a reception shows the estimation in which his production
was held at the time. Defects which did not interfere with the
grandeur of the original design impaired its popularity afterward.
The author was numbered among the _Seicentisti_, and belonged to a
school noted for its departure from simplicity; for false refinements
and extravagant conceits. Under the influence of such writers as
Marini, Lappi, Redi, etc., in an age of pedantry, poetry was removed
from nature, and dragged from her proper sphere. But though Andreini
lived amidst the prevalence of a corrupt taste, and his _style_ was
in some degree tainted, it could not have been expected that any
succeeding school, however correct, should trample under foot the
_substance_ of his work, and slight its sublimity of conception, to
which a more enlightened age should have done justice. Such justice,
nevertheless, has been denied him.

After it had been forgotten more than two hundred years, a tardy
acknowledgment of Andreini's merit was paid by a few Italian critics,
and a small, unadorned edition of his work was again published at
Lucano; but in such an unattractive form that it seems to have
awakened little attention. A few copies of the first edition were
sold as a great literary curiosity. One, purchased at a large price,
affords us an opportunity of examining the claim so long buried in
obscurity, and to see how much the author of _Paradise Lost_ has
really borrowed.

It is well known that Milton's first idea, in treating the subject,
was to write a tragedy; and that he had actually composed some scenes
before he finally resolved to transfer his pencil to a vaster canvas.
The difference between the epic and dramatic form gave a great
advantage to the English poet. All the ornaments of description, in
which _Paradise Lost_ is so rich, were denied to Andreini, since they
could not be admitted into dialogue. That Milton saw and profited by
Andreini's tragedy, can be proved not only by external testimony,
but by evidence contained in almost every page of his work. We must
look to the conception and to the expression of thought, in drawing
the comparison between the two, which will conclusively show Andreini
to be in truth the precursor of Milton, the original author of the
design elaborated in _Paradise Lost_. We will give an analysis of the
drama, with extracts faithfully translated, rendering the literal
sense of the original.[184]

The scene of the tragedy is in the terrestrial paradise. The
interlocutors are the Eternal Father, Michael and a chorus of angels,
Adam and Eve, Lucifer, the Prince of Hell, Satan, Beelzebub, the
Seven Deadly Sins, besides various allegorical personages, such
as the World and the Flesh, Hunger, Fatigue, Despair, Death, and
Vainglory, with a chorus of infernal messengers and spirits of the
elements. The author's own summary will give the most accurate idea
of the piece. A chorus of angels in the prologue sing the glory of
the eternal God, calling upon the new creation to praise him. The
future advent of the Incarnate Word is dimly predicted. The Almighty
is completing his vast work by the formation of man; the new being
is welcomed in strains of jubilee and rejoicing by the shining choir
about him, and the scene proceeds with solemnity and magnificence, in
language elevated and sublime. The ecstasy of the newly created at
the glory revealed to his senses by the celestial train who "cleave
heaven with their wings of gold," and his devout aspirations of love
and homage toward his Creator, are admirably expressed. Adam adores
the ineffable mysteries of the Trinity and the coming Incarnation.
The verse throughout this scene is in lyrical measures adapted to the
subject, and to the emotions uttered.

Adam falls into sleep, and Eve is created and named "woman" by the
eternal Father. A resemblance may be discovered by the curious
between the ascent of the heavenly train from Eden, after the
blessing is pronounced and the work completed, and a similar
description in the seventh book of _Paradise Lost_. Adam then points
out to Eve the wonders of the new world, rehearses the divine command
and prohibition, and inspires her with love for the beneficent Being
who gave them all:

          "_Adam._ Lo! the deep azure of yon heaven, where oft
        That bright and wandering star,
        Herald of radiance yet afar,
        Shall dart its welcome ray
        To ope the richer glories of the day.
        Then the majestic sun,
        To fill the earth with joy,
    O'er her glad face shall fling his golden light;
        Till weary of his reign,
        The pure and silvery moon,
        With all her starry train,
    Shall come to grace the festal pomp of night
        Lo! where above all other elements
        The subtle flame ascends, outshining all:
        Lo! where the soft transparent air uplifts
        Bright-plumaged birds, with notes of melody
          Measuring the happy hours!
        Lo! the vast bosom of propitious earth,
        With opening flowers, with glowing fruit adorned,
        And her green tresses that the crown sustain
        Upon her mountain summits, and her sceptre
        Of towering trees. Behold! the azure field
        Of ocean's empire! where 'mid humid sands,
        And his deep valleys, and the myriad hosts
        Of his mute tribes, and treasures of fair pearls,
        And purple gems, his billows roll and plough.
        Bearing to heaven his proud and stormy head,
        Crowned with the garlands rifled from the deep--
        Glory and wonder all! Of One they speak.
          Their great Creator!"

In the second scene, Lucifer rises from the abyss; and at the first
glance we recognize the conception which is one of the chief glories
of _Paradise Lost_. The apostate of this piece, like Milton's Satan,
is a majestic being, stem, defying, and dreadless, even in despair.
Pride, indomitable pride, is still his master passion; in the midst
of his blood-chilling irony and impiety, we lose not the awe inspired
by a mighty nature, still mighty and commanding, though perverted to
evil; nor forget that his "faded splendor wan" is but

                  "the excess
    Of glory obscured."

In a bold and haughty strain, well befitting the "lost archangel,"
"vaunting aloud, though racked with deep despair," he gives vent to
the envy and hatred of his rebellious spirit:

                "From mine abode of gloom
    Who calls me to behold this hateful light?
    What wonders, strange and new,
    Hast thou prepared, O God! to blast my sight?
    Art thou, Creator, weary of thy heaven,
    That thou hast made on earth
    A paradise so fair?
    Or why hast thou placed here
    Beings of flesh that God's own semblance wear?
    Say, condescending Architect! who fram'dst
    Such work from clay, what destiny awaits
    This naked, helpless man, lone habitant
    Of caves and woods?
    Perchance he hopes one day to tread the stars!
    Heaven is impoverished:[185] I alone the cause.
    The exulting cause of that vast ruin! Add
    Yet star to star; let suns and moons increase;
    Toil yet, Creator, to adorn thy skies;
    To make them bright and glorious as of old;
    To prove at length how vain and scorned thy toil!
    I--I alone--supplied that light which sent
    A thousand splendors to the farthest heaven,
    To which these lights are shadows, or reflect
    With faint and feeble gleam my greater glory.
    Yet reck I not, whate'er these things may be,
    Or this new being: stern, unyielding still,
    My aim, my purpose, is hostility
    Implacable 'gainst man, and heaven, and God!"

                                               Act i. sc. 2.

The partners of his guilt and punishment, who join him in the garden,
now surround him; and we have a vivid picture of hell in the midst of
Paradise:

      "_Beelzebub._ Fierce is the torturing flame,
    And deep the flood of venom in my soul.
    Madness rules all within,
    And my forced sighs like peals of thunder roll,
    Each glance is scorching lightning, and my tears
    Red drops of fire! From my seared front I would
    Shake back the serpent locks that shroud my face,
    To look upon this boasted work of heaven--
    On these new demigods!...
        Spirits! the lustre of eternal day
    For ever quenched for you, and every sun
    That fires the empyrean! A lost, sorrowing race
    Heaven deems you now. Ye who were wont to tread
    The radiant pathways of the skies, now press
    The fields of endless night. For golden locks
    And mien celestial, slimy serpents twine
    Around your brows, hiding the vengeful glance;
    Your haggard lips are parted to receive
    A hideous air--while on them blasphemies
    Hang thick, and ever with the damning words
    Escape foul fumes of hell."

The remainder of the picture, in its minuteness of horror, partakes
too much of the prevailing want of taste which disfigured the best
productions of the Italians of the seventeenth century. We select, of
course, some of the striking passages of the poem, though we by no
means include all its beauties in our extracts.

Then Satan says:

                        "In deep abodes
    Of gloom, and horror, and profound despair,
    Still are we angels! Still do we excel
    All else, even as the haughty lord excels
    The humble, grovelling slave. If we unfold
    Our wings so far from heaven, yet, yet remember
    That we are lords, while others wear the yoke;
    That, losing in yon heaven a lowly seat,
    We raise instead, stupendous and sublime,
    A regal throne, whereon our chosen chief,
    Exalted by high deeds, mocks at his fate!
    As some vast mountain, bounded by the skies,
    Murmurs its kindling wrath against high heaven,
    Threatens the stars, and wields a mighty sceptre
    Of lurid flame, consuming while it shines,
    More deadly than the sun's intensest ray,
    Even when his beams are brightest!"

Can we not discover in the above passage the same spirit that
animates Milton's lines?

    "What matter where, if I be still the same,
    And what I should be, all but less than He
    Whom thunder hath made greater? Here, at least,
    We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
    Here for his envy; will not drive us hence;
    Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,
    To reign is worth ambition, though in hell;
    Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven!"

The same thought is expressed in Andreini's tragedy:

                  "Since greater happiness
    It is to live, though damned, in liberty,
    Than subject to be blest."

                                              Act iv. sc. 2.

Lucifer, the chief, then discovers himself to his companions in
iniquity, and addresses them:

    "O ye powers
    Immortal, valiant, great!
    Angels, for lofty, warlike daring born!
    I know the grief that gnaws your inmost hearts,
    A living death! to see this creature man
    Raised to a state so high
    That each created being bows to him.
    In your minds' depths the rankling fear is wrought
    That to heaven's vacant seats, and robes of light,
    (Those seats once ours, that pomp by us disdained,)
    These earthly minions one day may aspire[186]
    With their unnumbered hosts of future sons."

Satan then darkly alludes to the future incarnation of the Son of
God; and Lucifer answers:

    "And can it be that from so feeble dust
    A deity shall rise?
    That Flesh--that God--whose power omnipotent
    Shall bind us in these chains of hell for ever?
    And can it be those who did boast themselves
    The adored must stoop in humble suppliance
    To such vile clay?
    Shall angel bend a worshipper to man?
    Shall flesh, born from impurity, surpass
    Celestial nature? Must such wonders be,
    Nor we divine them, who at price so vast
    Have bought the boast of knowledge?
           *       *       *       *       *
    I--I am he who armed your noble minds
    With haughty daring; to the distant north
    Leading you from the wrathful will of Him
    Who boasts to have made the heavens. You I know;
    I know your soaring pride; your valor too,
    That almost wrung from heaven's reluctant hand
    The mighty victory. Yes, the generous love
    Of glory fires you still! It cannot be
    That He whom you disdained to serve above
    Shall now be worshipped in the depths of hell!
           *       *       *       *       *
    Ah! matchless is our insult! grave the wound
    If we unite not promptly to avenge it!
    Already on your kindled brows I see
    The soul's high thirst--and hope, by hate inflamed!
    Already I behold your ample wings
    Spread to the air, eager to sweep the world
    And those stern heavens to the abyss of ruin,
    And man, new born, with them to overwhelm!

      _Satan._ Alas! command
    And say what thou wouldst do! With hundred tongues
    Speak, speak--that with a hundred mighty deeds
    Satan may pant, and hell be roused to action."

The conspiracy to draw man into sin and prevent the incarnation is
then entered into.

      "_Lucifer._ Most easy is the way of human ruin
    Opened by God to his terrestrial work;
    Since nature wills with mandate absolute
    Man shall his life preserve with various food,
    And oft partaken. Ay, it well may chance--
    The bitter ruin in sweet food concealed--
    That he may taste this day the fruit forbidden,
    And by the way of death,
    From naught created, unto naught return."

                                               Act i. sc. 3.

His plan for the destruction of man is hailed with joy; and Lucifer
next calls up the Seven Deadly Sins to assist him in his infernal
work. To each of these mysterious impersonations a different task is
assigned, and detailed at length in the piece. They are severally
commissioned to assail his intended victims with every variety of
temptation. Pride and Envy are directed to fill the soul of Eve with
discontented thoughts, and awaken vain imaginations of superiority;
to suggest regrets that she was not formed before Adam, as every man
hereafter must receive his being from woman.

      "_Lucifer._ Tell her, the lovely gifts
    She hath received do merit not their doom--
    Submission to the will of haughty man;
    That she in price doth far exceed her lord,
    Created of his flesh--as he of dust;
    She in bright Eden had her gentle birth--
    He in the meaner fields."

Dulciato, who personates Luxury, declares the heart of woman
peculiarly open to his fascinations.

    "Even now fair Eve at yonder crystal fount
    Rejoices to behold the blushing rose
    In beauty vanquished by her vermil cheek;
    The regal lily's virgin purity
    Matched by the whiteness of her heaving breast;
    Already, charmed, she wreathes her flowing hair
    Like threads of gold, fanned by the wooing breeze,
    And deems her lovely eyes two suns of love,
    To kindle with their beams the coldest heart."

In the beginning of the second act we have a scene quite different.
The angelic train descends to hymn the goodness of the Creator and
the happiness of man.

    "Weave, weave the garlands light
        Of fairest flowers,
        In these primeval bowers,
    For the new being--and his consort bright!
        Let each celestial voice
        With melody rejoice,
    Praising God's work of latest, noblest birth;
        And let the tide of song
        To gratitude belong
    For man, the wonder of both heaven and earth."

The picture of the first pair, in their primeval innocence and
enjoyment, full of gratitude to heaven and love for each other, is
so captivating in its simplicity and beauty that it would alone be
sufficient to redeem more sins against taste than the whole book
contains. We do not imagine we are saying too much in calling it
the original of Milton's delineation, as that of the infernal chief
undoubtedly is. The same graceful and feminine qualities blend in
the exquisite character of Eve; the same superiority of intellect,
protecting gentleness, and exalted devotion are seen in Adam. They
are surrounded by invisible spirits, the emissaries of Lucifer, who
"with jealous leer malign," mock at the peaceful purity and happiness
that blasts their envious sight, and hurl vague threats against the
beings who, while innocent, are safe from their hostility. Eve weaves
for Adam a garland of flowers, which he places on his brow as a chain
of love. In reference to this Lurcone says,

    "Chains of infernal workmanship
    Shall shortly bind you in a subtle fold
    Which mortal stroke can never loose."

At the prayers of Adam and Eve, offered with thanksgiving for their
blessings, the evil spirits precipitately fly--the agonies of hell
burning in their hearts. Adam gives names to the various animals,
passing in review before him.

Scene third is occupied by Lucifer, in the form of a serpent,
Vainglory, a gigantic figure, magnificently attired, and his
attendant spirits. The arch-demon exults over his expected success,
the ruin of so smiling a scene:

      "_Serpent._ How lovely smile these flowers,
    These young fair buds! and ah! how soon my hand
    These pathways shall despoil of herbs and flowers.
    Lo! where my feet have pressed their fragrant tops,
    So graceful, they have drooped; and at my touch,
    Blasting and burning, the moist spirit is fled
    From the scorched petal. How do I rejoice
    Among these bowers with blighting step to pass,
    To poison with my breath their buds and leaves,
    And turn to bitterness their purple fruits!"

Volano acquaints Satan with the decision of the infernal council,
and Vainglory and the serpent hide themselves under the tree of
knowledge. Eve enters; the wondrous beauty of the tempter, gorgeously
described, fascinates her admiring gaze. He is half-hid in the
clustering foliage. Unconscious of evil, she approaches nearer,
surprised at his aspect; for the fiend exhibits a form like the
fabled inhabitants of the sea, human to his breast, the rest of
his body enveloped in scaly folds. Vainglory is invisible, but
is supposed to be secretly exerting his influence. The serpent,
accosting Eve in the accents of flattery, enters into conversation
with her, informing her that he was placed in Eden to take charge of
its fruits and flowers, and gifted with superiority over the brute
creation. He boasts of his knowledge, which he vaunts as superior
even to hers and Adam's, notwithstanding that he occupies a lower
rank in the scale of the creation. He intimates that her knowledge
and Adam's is far from corresponding to their superior excellence of
form and high capabilities. Eve inquires how he can regard Adam's
knowledge as trifling. "Doth he not know," she cries, "the hidden
virtue of each herb and mineral, each beast and bird, the elements,
the heavens, the stars, the sun?" The serpent replies:

    "Ah! how much worthier to know good and evil!
    This is the highest knowledge; this doth hold
    Those mighty secrets dread, sublime, which could
    Make you, on earth, like God."[187]

    "Doth not this ignorance," he says, "outraging your liberty
    with unworthy yoke, make you inferior even to the savage
    beasts, who would not submit to such a law?[188] Or is it that
    God fears you will equal him in knowledge? in the essence of
    divinity? No! if you become like him by such means, there
    would still be difference," etc.[189]

The Serpent then enters upon the immediate object of his design,
employing his subtle and persuasive eloquence to overcome Eve's
scruples and induce her to eat of the forbidden fruit, whose taste is
to impart to her heavenly wisdom. The whole scene of the temptation
is admirably managed. The advances of the arch deceiver--now
cautiously sounding her, now eagerly urging her to disobedience--the
unsuspecting credulity, the increasing curiosity of Eve, are drawn
with the pencil of a master.

The Serpent's arguments become still more specious and pressing:

                      "Thus I live
    Feeding on this celestial fruit;
    Thus to mine eyes all paradise is open--
    Mine eyes, enlightened by the knowledge stored
    In this most wondrous food."[190]

The Serpent speciously insinuates that man is degraded by being
compelled to seek his food from the same source with the inferior
creation:

    "Ah! 'tis too true that drawing sustenance
    From the same source with brutes that throng the field,
    In this, at least, renders you like to them.
    Surely it is not meet or just that ye,
    Noblest creations of all-forming power,
    The favored children of the Eternal King,
    In such unworthy state, 'mid rocks and woods,
    Should lead a life of vile equality
    With baser animals!"

The temptation takes place necessarily in dialogue. The thoughts are
natural and elevated, and the language even magnificent. Eve asks the
Serpent what is the cause of his apparent anxiety that she should eat
of the prohibited fruit; he explains it by informing her that he will
be lord over Eden when she and her partner, by means of the mystic
food, shall have ascended to mingle with deities. This is a new and
remarkable trait, of which Milton has not availed himself.

    "But this, my rightful empire o'er the ground,
    While man exists and breathes earth's vital air,
    Is changed to base and grievous vassalage--
    Since man alone is chosen, by heaven's command,
    Lord of this lower world, this universe
    Just sprung from naught.
    But when, by virtue of this loveliest
    Of all fair Eden's fruits, secured and tasted,
    Ye shall be made as gods--full well I know
    Ye both, forsaking this frail sphere, will soar
    To eminence divine, leaving to me
    The heritage of power, the sovereignty
    O'er every living thing, by your ascent
    To higher bliss secured. Full well thou know'st
    How pleasing is the consciousness of empire!
    Pleasing to God, to man, and to the serpent!

      _Eve._ I yearn to obey thee. Ah! what would I do?

      _Serpent._ Say, rather, leave undone! Pluck it, and make
    Thyself a goddess in the highest heavens,
    And me a god on earth!"

Here occurs an exquisite touch. Eve, having never before experienced
a painful moral emotion, is ignorant of its meaning. The tempter,
with consummate art, interprets her very fear into encouragement.

      "_Eve._ Alas! I feel
    An icy tremor through my shuddering frame,
    That chills my heart.

      _Serpent._ _It is the languishing
    Of mortal nature 'neath the glorious weight
    Of that divinity which, like a crown,
    O'erhangs thy head!_[191]
                        Behold the lovely tree,
    More rich and lustrous in its living beauty
    Than if, indeed, it pointed toward the skies
    Branches of gold with emeralds bedecked;
    Than if its roots were coral, and its trunk
    Unspotted silver. Lo! the gem-like fruit,
    Glowing with gifts of immortality!
    How fair it shows! How to the vivid rays
    Of sunlight, with a thousand changing hues
    It answers, like the train of brilliant birds,
    When to the sun their broad and painted plumes
    Expanded, glitter with innumerous eyes!"

                                              Act ii. sc. 6.

In evil hour her rash hand plucks the fruit; and the act closes with
the exulting gratulations of the Deceiver and Vainglory.

In the succeeding interview with Adam, in Act iii., the intoxicated
Eve has not begun to taste the consequences of her crime; she comes
to persuade her companion to partake her guilt.

      "_Eve._ How I rejoice, not only to behold
    These flowers, these verdant meads with waving trees,
    But thee, my Adam!
    'Tis thou alone in whose blest presence seems
    This scene more fraught with ever new delight,
    More bright the fruits, and every fount more clear!

      _Adam._ No blossom that adorns this blissful plain
    Such beauty can unfold to greet mine eyes
    As those sweet flowers whose charms I gaze upon
    In the fair garden of thy beauteous face!
    Be calm, ye plants of earth; nor deem my words
    False to your loveliness!
    Ye, with the silvery dews of evening sprinkled,
    When the sun sends his ardent glance abroad,
    Make glad the bosom of the grassy earth;
    But droop ye also with declining day.
    While the fair living flowers that on the cheek
    Of my loved Eve are cherished--watered ever
    By the sweet dews of joy that o'er them flow
    When to her God she bends in grateful praise--
    Warmed into life by the twin radiant suns
    That light the heaven of her face--there live
    In grace and bloom perennial, and adorn
    Their own unrivalled paradise."

Death, in the eyes of Adam, is more welcome than separation from his
beloved; as in _Paradise Lost_, he rushes on his fate voluntarily,
without partaking in any of those dreams of greatness which had
beguiled his frail consort. When the mortal sin is completed by his
participation, Volano with his trumpet summons the infernal spirits,
who crowd the scene with shouts of exultation expressed in lyrical
measures. The Serpent and Vainglory are worshipped for their success.
The evil spirits vanish before the voice of the Eternal, who descends
with his angels to pronounce sentence upon the guilty pair. The
solemn account to which the Judge calls them, their guilty evasion
and detection, and the stern malediction on the earth cursed for
man's sake, with the punishment denounced on the human offenders and
on the serpent, are described in the scriptural language, and with a
simplicity which is in itself sublime. No _concetti_ are here allowed
to mar the impressive greatness of the scene. An angel remains after
the departure of the Almighty, and clothes the shivering pair with
the skins of wild beasts, reminding them that the roughness of
their new raiment signifies the suffering they are to sustain in
the journey of life. Then the stern Archangel Michael, the minister
of divine vengeance, appears and commands them to leave paradise,
while the cherubic host, who had hitherto hovered round them, forsake
their accustomed charge and reascend to heaven. The flaming sword of
Michael chases the unhappy fugitives from their lost home, and his
lips confirm their own apprehensions:

      "_Michael._ These stony fields your naked feet shall press,
    In place of flowery turf, since fatal sin
    Forbids you longer to inhabit here.
    Know me the minister of wrath to those
    Who have rebelled against their God. For this
    Wear I the armor of almighty power,
    Dazzling and terrible. Yes, I am he
    Who, in the conflict of immortal hosts,
    Dragged captive from the north the haughty chief
    Of rebel spirits, and to hell's abyss
    Hurled them in mighty ruin.
    Now to the Eternal King it seemeth good
    That man, rebellious to his sovereign will,
    I should drive forth from his fair paradise
    With sword of fire.
      Hence, angels, and with me
    Speed back to heaven your flight!
    Even as like me ye have been wont to joy
    On earth with Adam--once a demi-god,
    Now feeble clay. Then, armed with fiery sword,
    A cherub guardian of this gate of bliss
    Shall take your place."

                                             Act iii. sc. 8.

The chant of the departing angels mingles with lamentation over the
fall an intimation of peace in the future.

The poem does not end with the expulsion from Eden; a second part, as
it were, is contained in the last two acts, in which the dim promise
of a Redeemer is shadowed forth, the triumph of hell is turned to
rage and shame, and penitence is comforted with hope. This completion
of the great plan gives a new grandeur to the piece, since it is thus
made to embody the most solemn and striking of all morals.

In Act iv. Volano summons the spirits of the elements to meet
Lucifer, who calls a council. The spirits still utter their songs
of triumph over the fall of man; but the mien of their leader is
deject, his clear-sighted vision already discerns in the just wrath
of God against the human offenders the latent promise of mercy. He
foresees the pardon of man, and his restoration through a Redeemer
to the heavenly blessings from which his destroyer vainly hoped his
transgressions had cut him off. He is racked with anguish at the
prospect of his work being undone; but it is no time now to pause;
he must build up still higher the edifice of his own greatness and
his defiance of Omnipotence. The deep pride of his character is
further illustrated in the infernal council. He causes to issue from
the earth four monsters hurtful to man: Mondo, Carne, Morte, and
Demonio--World, Flesh, Death, and Devil.

Adam and Eve appear in their fallen condition, the prey of a thousand
fears and ills, haunted by miseries before unknown. They bitterly
deplore the changes that have passed on the creation. The animals
manifest terror at their presence. Four monsters beset Adam--the
impersonations of Hunger, Thirst, Fatigue, and Despair, that threaten
to follow him unceasingly. Death menaces them with mortal peril;
the heavens grow dark, thunders roll, and the air is convulsed with
tempest. The scene closes in gloom and horror.

In the fifth act, Temptation, in alluring forms, invites the fallen
pair to new crimes. Flesh, in the figure of a lovely young woman,
accosts Adam, showing him how all things breathe of love; and
Lucifer, in human shape, persuades him to yield to her enticements.
Here occurs one of the most exquisitely delicate and beautiful
touches in the poem, and one that none but a true poet could
have conceived. The guardian angel of man yet hovers, unseen, at
a distance; when he sees him thus sore beset, he comes to his
assistance. The protector is invisible; but his warning voice, soft
as the promptings of a dream, sounds in the sinner's ear:

      "_Angel._ 'Tis time to succor man. Alas! what dost thou,
    Most wretched Adam?

      _Lucifer_, (_to Adam_.) Why remain'st thou mute?
    Why art thou sad?

      _Adam._ I seem a voice to hear,
    Sorrowful yet mild, which says, 'Alas! what dost thou,
    Most wretched Adam?'"

                                               Act v. sc. 3.

Following the promptings of the angel, which are continued through
the scene, Adam proposes that Lucifer and his companion shall kneel
with him in prayer. Thus he escapes the temptation and danger.
Lucifer and his demons refuse to pray, and, assuming their proper
shape, next assail him by force; but from this peril he is also
guarded.

We then behold Eve wandering desolate and desponding, affrighted at
all that meets her eyes. Her lamentation has much simple beauty.

      "_Eve._ Dar'st thou, O wretched Eve!
    Lift up thy guilty eyes to meet the sun?
    Oh! no; they are unworthy--well thou know'st!
    Once, with unfaltering gaze they could behold
    His beams, and revel in their golden light;
        Now thy too daring look
        His dazzling rays rebuke;
    Or, if thou gaze upon his face, a veil
    Of blindness shrouds thy sight. Alas! too truly
    I dwell in darkness, if my sin has stained
    With horrid mists the pure and innocent sun!
    O miserable Eve!
    If now I turn my feet where fountains gush
    To taste the limpid current, I behold
    The crystal wave defiled, or scorching sands
    Usurp its place. If, famished, I return
    To pluck the grateful fruit from bending trees,
    Its taste is bitter to me; or the worm
    With blasting touch doth revel on its sweetness.
    If, wearied, I recline among the flowers,
    Striving to close my eyes, lo! at my side
    The serpent rears its crest, or hissing glides
    Among the clustering leaves. If, to escape
    Faint from the noontide heat, I seek the shade
    Of some thick wood, I tremble at the thought
    Of wild beast lurking in the thicket's gloom;
    And start with dread if but the lightest leaf
    Stir with the wind."

She also is assailed by a new temptation personified under the name
of World. This allegorical personage, arrayed in rich and gorgeous
vestments, crowned with gold and gems, endeavors to captivate her
imagination by artful flatteries; by visions of splendor and regal
power reserved for "the queen of the universe." From a visioned
palace comes a troop of nymphs laden with ornaments, with which they
offer to adorn their mistress, dancing and singing around her; but
Eve, deaf to World's flatteries, resists and flies from him; both she
and her consort are too penitent to listen to evil solicitations,
and at Adam's rebuke the troop disappears in confusion. Then Lucifer
and his devils, armed for man's destruction, rush in to seize their
victims. The fierce and final struggle between the powers of heaven
and hell, for the dominion of earth, takes place; for the arch-fiend
encounters Michael and his angels, sent to rescue the frail beings of
clay, who, in terrified astonishment, witness the battle. It would
be doing injustice to the poem not to give some extracts from this
striking scene.

      "_Michael._ Tremble, thou son of wrath,
    At the fierce lightning of this barbed spear,
    The smiting hand of him who leads heaven's host.
    Nor against God, but 'gainst thyself thou wagest
    War, and in thine offence offend'st thyself.
    Back to the shades, thou wandering spirit of hell,
    From this celestial light shut out for ever!
    Drop thy dark wings beneath the glory which
    The Father of all light, who formed the suns,
    Imparts to me! Hence, with the noxious band
    Of God's accursed foes; nor tarry here,
    An evil host, with your infernal breath
    These precincts to pollute, to scatter gloom
    Through man's pure air of life!
    No more thy hissing vile, serpent of hell,
    Shall harass innocence!

      _Lucifer._ Loquacious messenger
    Of heaven's high will, clothed in the vaunted garb
    Of splendor--failing in the attribute
    Of daring soul--minion of heaven's indulgence!
    Angel of softness! who in solemn ease,
    In seats of sloth, nests of humility,
    Dost harbor--on thy face and in thy heart
    The coward stamped--a warrior but in name;
    Spread, spread thy wings, and seek thy Maker's arms,[192]
    There shelter, there confide thee! too unequal
    The strife would be 'twixt fear and bravery:
    Betwixt the warrior and the unwarlike one,
    The weak and strong; betwixt a Michael vile
    And a proud Lucifer. But if thy boldness
    Aspire to rifle from my mighty hand
    This frail compound of clay,
    This animated dust, I here declare
    Against thee war, bitter and mortal war,
    Till thou shalt see, by this avenging hand,
    The wide creation of thy God laid waste!

      _Michael._ The doleful victory,
    Of fierce and desperate spirit, which thou gainedst
    Against heaven's forces once--against this man,
    Whom thou confused hast vanquished--conquest poor
    Already snatched from thee! while in the chains
    From which thy prey is freed thou art involved--
    May teach thee with what justice thou canst claim
    The palm of honor!"

The haughty monarch of hell then reminds Michael of his first great
rebellion against the Most High, and his success in dragging into
ruin "the third part of heaven's host," (_terza parte di stelle_.)
Vaunting these proofs of his might, he boldly threatens destruction
to the throne of God himself: bidding the inhabitants of heaven flee
from a place which can no longer afford them a refuge of safety!

      "_Michael._ Wherefore delay to check the impious vaunts
    Of this proud rebel?
    Written indeed with pen of iron, marked
    In living characters of blood, upon
    The page of everlasting misery,
    Shall be thy glory for this victory!
    To arms! to arms, then; for the swift destruction
    Of outcast devils!--and let man rejoice,
    Heaven smile, hell weep!

      _Lucifer._ To the intemperate boast
    Of lips too bold, but rarely doth the daring
    Of truth succeed. To arms! and thou with me
    Sustain the contest. Ye, my other foes
    Invincible, avoid the impious strife,
    Effeminate followers of a peaceful chief!
    ... Alas! he who already hath received
    From heaven small grace, of ill a plenteous dole,
    On earth must also prove his strength unequal,
    Despite the powerful spirit, to the stroke
    Of power supernal, driving to the abyss
    Of gloom again! It is well meet, the wretch
    Vanquished in battle should lose too the light
    Of this celestial sun!
        Angels and God!
    Ye are victorious! Ye at length have conquered!
    Proud Lucifer and all his vanquished train
    Have dearly paid the forfeit. They forsake
    The day; they sink to everlasting night.

      _Michael._ Fall from the earth! baffled and wounded fall,
        Monster of cruel hell,
    Down to the shades of night, where thou shalt die
        An everlasting death;
    Nor hope to spread thy wings again toward heaven,
    Since impious wishes fire thee desperate,
    Not penitence. And thou art fallen at length,
    Proud fiend, despairing in thy downward course,
    Even as exultingly thou thought'st to soar
    To height divine: Once more thou know'st to sink
    Thundering to hell's dark caverns. Thou didst hope,
    Fool! to bear back with thee thy prisoner, man;
    Alone thou seek'st thy dungeon vast, profound,
    Where to its depths pursued, the added flames
    Of endless wrath thou bearest, to increase
    Its ever-burning fires!...
    Thou wouldst have made this fair world with thine ire
    A desolated waste; where at thy breath
    Summoning to devastation, clouds and winds,
    And lightnings tempest-winged, and thunders loud,
    Vengeful should throng the air, should shake the hills;
    And make the valleys with their din resound.
    And lo! in skies from thy foul presence freed,
    The spheres with louder music weave their dance,
    And the majestic sun with purer rays
    Gladdens the azure fields on high. The sea
    Reclines in tremulous tranquillity,
    Or joyous pours upon the glistening strand
    His pearls and corals. Never wearied sport
    His glossy tribes, and swim the liquid sapphire.
    Lo! in a green and flowery vesture robed,
    How shine these valleys in rejoicing light!
    While the sweet, grateful notes of praise ascend
    From every soaring habitant of air,
    That now, a pilgrim in the scented vale,
    Makes vocal all the woods with melody.
    Let all, united on this glorious day
    Of scorn and shame to hell, exulting raise
    The hymn of joy to heaven; and widely borne
    By eager winds, the golden trumpets sound
    To tell in heaven of victory and peace!

      _Adam._ O welcome sound that calls me back to joy
    Whence sad I fled! Ah me! I fear to blot,
    Tainted by sin, the holy purity
    Of angels' presence!
    O thou who wear'st the glorious armor wrought
    With gems celestial! Archangel bright!
    Dread warrior, yet most mild! thy golden locks
    Hiding with helmet of immortal beams!
    Wielding in thy right hand the conquering spear!
    Close the rich gold of thy too dazzling wings,
    And turn a gentle and a pitying look
    On him who prostrate at thy feet adores!"

The archangel is no longer the avenger; and he raises with pity the
repentant sinners.

      "_Michael._ Rise both, ye works of God
    Thus favored; banish from your bosoms dread
    Of portents unpropitious. If our Master
    With one hand smite, the other offers you
    Healing--salvation!"

Adam and Eve, delivered from their foes, are comforted by the
heavenly messenger, who assures them of forgiveness on condition of
future obedience. With his promise we conclude our extracts.

      "_Michael._ Now since in heaven the star of love
    and peace
    Shines forth, and in ambitious hell's despite
    The victor to the vanquished yields the palm,
    Raise still your humble, grateful looks above:
    Bend to the soil your knees, and suppliant
    Praise for his mercy your forgiving Lord.
    So in reward for penitence and zeal
    God will your Father be, and heaven your home."

                                               Act v. sc. 9.

We have occupied so much space in the analysis and extracts from this
remarkable work, that little room is left for further observation.
It is impossible to present all the beauties of the poem, and
allowance must be made for showing them in another language; yet
some idea may be afforded of the general character of the piece.
The original abounds with striking passages that have of necessity
been left unnoticed, strangely mingled with the tumid extravagances
and heterogeneous conceits belonging to the age in which it was
written. These faults, however, are but trifling in comparison with
its merits; and the wonderful conception, the glorious plan, is not
marred by them. When the superior personages appear on the scene,
the inspiration of the poet is triumphant over the defects of his
school; not a line of their language is disfigured by aught which the
most fastidious of modern tastes could condemn. It is only in the
management of inferior and of allegorical personages that the faults
alluded to can be perceived; and even here the rich and noble genius
of the poet has mastered many of his difficulties.

The author of _Adam_ could hardly have anticipated, in the
representation of his work on the stage, a success commensurate with
its merits; since the trickery of scenic effect could but poorly
indeed embody the creations of genius. Fancying an attempt to make
them apparent to the senses of a rabble audience, we can scarcely
wonder that the whole should have been stamped with ridicule. But
any reader of the poem will concede that the sublime conception of
_Paradise Lost_ belongs to Andreini as the originator. He ascended
with success "the highest heaven of invention;" and when he puts
words into the mouth of Deity, and interprets the hymnings of angelic
choirs, he shows himself equal to the task.

The extension of the reputation of this wonderful production would
considerably increase our sense of obligation to Italian literature.

FOOTNOTES:

[184] A copy of this rare poem in the original Italian may be found
in the Astor Library.

[185]

    "These puissant legions, whose exile
    Hath emptied heaven."

                                    _Paradise Lost_, Book i.


[186]

    "Into our room of bliss thus high advanced
    Creatures of other mould."

                                       _Par. Lost_, Book iv.


[187] See _Paradise Lost_, Book ix. line 705.

[188]

    "Shall that be shut to man which to the beast
    Is open?"

                                     _Paradise Lost_, B. ix.


[189]

    "Or is it envy? and can envy dwell
    In heavenly breasts?"

                                     _Paradise Lost_, B. ix.


[190]

    "Henceforth to speculations high and deep
    I turned my thoughts; and with capacious mind
    Considered all things visible in heaven
    Or earth."

                                     _Paradise Lost_, B. ix.


[191]

      "_Eve._ O me! lassa ch'io sento
    Un gelido tremor vagar per l'osa
    Che mi fa graccio il core.

      _Serpent._ E la parte mortal che gia incomincia
    A languir, sendo dal divin gravata,
    Che sovra le tue chiome
    In potenza sovrasta."


[192] See _Paradise Lost_, Book iv. line 940.




FENELON.[193]

BY THE LATE REV. J. W. CUMMINGS, D.D.


Ladies and Gentlemen: It would be possible to fix a point of time in
the reign of King Louis XIV. unequalled in brilliancy by any other
in the eventful history of the French nation. Such a period would
present to us the great monarch crowned with the glory of his early
successes, unsullied as yet by the shame of his later weakness and
degradation. A tableau of the court of Versailles would show us the
throne surrounded by groups of men illustrious in every department
of human greatness. To name a few only: military fame would find its
representatives in Conde, Turenne, Luxembourg, Vauban, and Villars;
poetry, in Malherbe, La Fontaine, and Boileau; the drama, in Racine,
Corneille, and Moliere; political science, in Mazarin, Colbert,
and Louvois; philosophy, in Pascal and Descartes; eloquence, in
Bourdaloue, Flechier, Massillon, and Bossuet; painting, in Poussin
and Lesueur; archaeology, in Mabillon and Montfaucon; general
literature, in La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyere, Balzac, and Madame de
Sevigne. Yet among all the great men of that wonderful period there
is not one, probably, who, if given a choice, would not willingly
exchange his reputation with that of Fenelon, who in early life moved
in that brilliant court as an obscure priest, and in the fulness of
manhood was sent away from it into honorable exile.

I would it were in my power, ladies and gentlemen, to lay before
you such a sketch of the life of Fenelon as would fully explain to
you by what secret a Roman Catholic priest, who devoted himself so
entirely to preaching and to proselytizing for his church, became
popular to such an unwonted degree, and remains so to this day, not
less in the Protestant world than among men of his own creed.

I have neither the time nor, I fear, the ability to do justice to so
excellent a theme. I do hope, however, that my brief remarks may have
the effect of so far engaging the curiosity of the younger portion
of my hearers as to lead them to study Fenelon's life and writings.
Nobody ever rose from the perusal of either without feeling an
inclination to love himself less, and to extend a larger and warmer
charity to his fellow-men, whatever their condition or their creed.

Francois de Salignac de la Mothe, Marquis of Fenelon, was born in
the chateau of Fenelon in the year 1651, and came of distinguished
lineage on the side of both parents. His early education was
judicious, his father and mother training him in morals and religion
both by word and example, and his able preceptor making it his aim to
teach him the love of study for its own sake.

The child's brain was not developed at the expense of the rest of his
body, and abundant daily exercise in the fresh open air united with
regular and frugal habits to form a sound body for the dwelling of a
noble and gifted soul.

His decided fondness for Greek and Latin literature made him a great
reader, yet without effort or constraint, and led gradually to the
formation of that mixture of grace and melody in his style for which
he stands preeminent among the greatest French writers.

He spent five years in Paris at the Seminary of St. Sulpice, and took
orders at the age of twenty-four. His first impulse was to dedicate
his life to the foreign missions; and he was prevented only by the
influence of his family from coming to America and settling among the
Indians in Canada.

A mission was provided for him in the heart of Paris, and there,
while visiting the sick, instructing the ignorant and the young,
comforting and relieving the poor, and exercising all the various
duties of the Christian ministry, he acquired that knowledge of the
human heart, and of the mode of touching and persuading it, that
fitted him, no less than his long and patient devotion to books, for
the work of improving his fellow-men. A new field of observation
and benevolent labor was the institution known as "Les Nouvelles
Catholiques," a seminary under royal patronage for the education of
young ladies, chiefly recent converts to the church. The Abbe Fenelon
presided for ten years over both the ladies in charge and their
pupils, giving both the benefit of his learning, his refinement,
his gentle and cheerful religious spirit, and his high-minded and
enlightened devotion. To his knowledge of the heart of woman, of her
weakness and her strength, gathered while in this position, we owe
his earliest book, the _Treatise on the Education of Girls_, a work
which made its author widely known, and procured for him in time the
appointment of tutor to the grandson of Louis XIV.

In 1685, the king signed the revocation of the edict of Nantes.
The effect of this measure was to reduce his Protestant subjects,
amounting to about two millions, to the cruel alternative of abjuring
their faith or quitting France for ever. Of the many that left,
some found their way to the United States, and the descendants of
the Huguenots have contributed their share to the prosperity and
advancement of the land of liberty. The king undertook to bring
about the conversion of those who remained, and, happily for the
Protestants of Saintange and Annis, the missionary selected for
them was the Abbe de Fenelon. Royal orders had been given that the
missionary should be supported by a detachment of dragoons. The
proffered assistance was gently but firmly declined. "Our ministry,"
said the abbe, "is one of harmony and peace. We are going to our
brethren who are astray; we shall bring them back to the fold
by charity alone. It is not by means of violence and constraint
that conviction can be made to penetrate the soul." His reasoning
prevailed, and he was allowed to depart alone. The stern Calvinists
of Poitou soon came to look upon this new pastor with kindness and
affection, and, in return, his influence saved them from further
annoyance on the part of the civil authority.

In 1689, a happy event for the world of letters occurred in the
appointment of Fenelon to be the tutor of Louis, Duke of Burgundy,
the son of the dauphin. He applied himself to his new task with
untiring and conscientious devotion, and the account of his manner of
fulfilling it is exceedingly interesting. His first care was to study
well the character and disposition of his pupil. The result of this
investigation was any thing but encouraging. The Duke of Saint Simon,
who was well acquainted with the young prince, states that he was
naturally stubborn, haughty, and unkind. He was endowed with strong
passions, and fond of every sort of animal gratification. His temper
was so violent that in his fits of rage it was dangerous to attempt
to control him. He would tear and break whatever came to his hands,
and be carried away by such outbursts of fury that his life seemed to
be really in danger. He was fond of the pleasures of the table and of
the chase, naturally cruel, and brimful of a pride that led him to
look upon other men as objects of usefulness and amusement, rather
than as beings equal to himself.

Such was the pupil confided to the care of Fenelon; and under his
wise and gentle guidance the headstrong, selfish, and cruel boy
became kind, generous, modest, and remarkable for perfect and
unfailing self-control.

The besetting sin of the young prince was a perverseness of temper
always hard to manage and ready, for the slightest cause, to break
out into open rebellion, on which occasions no one had been able to
control him. Fenelon's manner of correcting this fault is full of
instruction. He avoided direct attacks and punishments, seeking,
by gentle remonstrance and good-natured raillery, to lead the boy
into being ashamed of his fault. When there was a prospect of being
listened to, he would make use of simple maxims showing the folly
and wickedness of angry passion, and explaining his remarks by
familiar illustrations likely to be easily understood and remembered.
Sometimes he yielded without remonstrance, avoiding all recourse to
authority or personal influence unless he was well assured that it
would prove successful. The little work known as _Fenelon's Fables_
was composed piecemeal, each fable being called forth by some fault
the prince had committed, or for the purpose of helping him to
remember some moral point, and leading him gradually on in the system
of improvements his tutor had adopted.

One day, when the prince had made all around him unhappy by indulging
in repeated bursts of spleen and disobedience, Fenelon took a sheet
of paper and wrote in his presence the following sketch, which we
find among the fables:

    "What great disaster has happened to Melanthus? Outwardly
    nothing, inwardly every thing. He went to bed last night the
    delight of all the people; this morning we are ashamed of
    him; we shall have to hide him away. On rising, a fold of his
    garment has displeased him, the whole day will therefore be
    stormy, and every body will have to suffer: he makes us fear
    him, he makes us pity him, he cries like a child, he roars like
    a lion. A poisonous vapor darkens his imagination, as the ink
    he uses in writing soils his fingers. You must not speak to him
    about things that pleased him an hour ago; he loved them then,
    and for that very reason he hates them now. The amusements that
    interested him a little while ago are now become intolerable,
    and must be broken up; he wishes to contradict and to irritate
    those around him, and he is angry because people will not get
    angry with him. When he can find no pretext for attacking
    others, he turns against himself; he is low-spirited, and takes
    it very ill that any body should try to comfort him. He wishes
    for solitude, and he cannot bear to be left alone; he comes
    back into company, and it exasperates him. If his friends are
    silent, their affected silence goads him; if they speak low,
    he fancies they are talking about him; if they speak loud, it
    strikes him they have too much to say. If they laugh, it seems
    to him that they are making game of him; if they are sad,
    that their sadness is meant to reproach him for his faults.
    What is to be done? Why, to be as firm and patient as he is
    intolerable, and to wait quietly until he becomes to-morrow
    as sensible as he was yesterday. This strange humor comes and
    goes in the strangest fashion. When it seizes him, it is as
    sudden as the exploding of a pistol or a gun; he is like the
    pictures of those possessed by evil spirits; his reason becomes
    unreason; if you put him to it, you can make him say that it
    is dark night at twelve o'clock in the day; for there is no
    distinction of day or night for a man who is out of his head.
    He sheds tears, he laughs, he jokes, he is mad. In his madness
    he can be eloquent, amusing, subtle, full of cunning although
    he has not a particle of common sense left. You have to be
    extremely careful to pick your words with him; for although
    bereft of sense, he can become suddenly very knowing, and find
    his reason for a moment to prove to you that you have lost
    yours."

It is easy to understand the effect of a lesson like this on a
high-spirited but self-conceited boy. He sought to overawe those
around him and finds out that he has made himself unmistakably
ridiculous! The instructor who wishes to correct his pupil's
faults will succeed oftener by wounding his vanity than he will by
flattering it.

His fables at another time present in charming images the happiness
of being good.

    "Who is," says one of them, "this god-like shepherd who enters
    the peaceful shade of our forest? He loves poetry and listens
    to our songs. Poetry will soften his heart, and render him as
    gentle as he is proud. May this young hero grow in virtue as a
    flower unfolds in the genial air of spring. May he love noble
    thoughts, and may graceful words ever sit upon his lips. May
    the wisdom of Minerva reign in his heart. May he equal Orpheus
    in the charms of his voice and Hercules in the greatness of
    his achievements. May he possess all the boldness of Achilles
    without his fiery temper. May he be good, wise, and beneficent,
    love mankind tenderly, and be much loved by all in return. He
    loves our sweet songs, they reach his heart even as cooling
    dews reach the green sward parched by the heat of mid-summer.
    Oh! may the gods teach him moderation and crown him with
    endless success. May he hold in his hand the horn of plenty,
    and may the golden age return under his sway. May wisdom fill
    his heart and run over into the hearts of his fellow-men, and
    may flowers spring up in his footsteps wherever he may go."

These fables gave a moral and practical meaning to the details of
mythology which the prince was studying, and furnished him also with
models of style. They speak to him and of him as one who is in time
to be a king; but it will be observed that no traits of character
are praised except those which it was desirable he should possess.

The main difficulty with the young prince still recurred--his
impetuous outbreaks of temper, accompanied by the stubborn
determination to make every body around him yield and allow him to
have his way, however unreasonable. This dangerous condition of mind
was always treated by Fenelon's advice in the same manner. The Duke
de Beauvilliers, who was his governor; the Abbe de Fenelon, and his
assistant tutor, the celebrated historian Fleury; even the officers
of his household and his domestics, all treated him with proof not
of apprehension but of humiliating compassion. When his ill-humor
grew furiously excited, they kept aloof and avoided him as one who
had lost the use of his reason by some sad distemper. If the fit held
out, his books were taken from him, and instruction was refused him,
as being altogether useless in the deplorable condition into which he
had now fallen. Left alone, denied all sympathy, given time to cool
down, made to feel that his rage was undignified and ineffectual, the
boy soon grew weary, ashamed, and at length repentant. He would then
sue for pardon, which was only granted after many promises on his
honor that he would not behave so foolishly and wickedly again.

One of these promises of amendment, made in writing, has been
preserved and it reads as follows:

    "I promise, on my word of honor as a prince, to the Abbe de
    Fenelon to do on the instant whatever he may tell me, and to
    obey immediately when he may forbid me to do any thing; and if
    I fail, I hereby submit myself to every sort of punishment and
    dishonor. Done at Versailles, Nov. 29th, 1689, Signed LOUIS."

This touching engagement upon honor by a boy under ten years of
age was made in the first year of Fenelon's charge over him. He had
already begun to make some progress, in spite of a disposition the
ugliness of which had been previously set down as incorrigible.

The tutor had determined to master his pupil's rudeness, as an
indispensable condition of any improvement, moral or literary.

One day he had recourse to a stratagem that might present his conduct
to him in a new light. The young duke stopped one morning to examine
the tools of a carpenter, who had been summoned to do some work in
his apartment. The man, who had learned his part from Fenelon, told
him in the roughest manner possible to go about his business. The
prince, little accustomed to hear such language, began to resent
it; but was interrupted by the workman, who, raising his voice and
trembling with rage from head to foot, screamed to him to get beyond
his reach. "I am a man," cried he, "who, when my temper is roused,
think nothing of breaking the head of any person that crosses me."
The prince, frightened beyond measure, ran to his master to tell him
that a crazy man had been allowed to come into the palace. "He is a
poor laborer," said Fenelon coldly, "whose only fault is giving signs
of violent anger." "But he is a bad man," cried the boy, "and must
leave my apartment." "He is worthy of pity rather than punishment,"
added his tutor. "You are surprised at his being angry because you
disturbed him at his work; what would you say now of a prince who
beats his valet at the very time that he is trying to do him a
service?"

On another occasion the young man, piqued by the tone of severity
which his tutor had found it necessary to assume, answered him in
the most arrogant manner, "I will not allow you, sir, to command
me; I know what I am, and I know what you are." Fenelon answered
not a word; for remonstrance or reproof would have been useless. He
determined, however, to give his pupil a lesson he should not easily
forget. For the rest of that day he did not speak to him, his sadness
alone evincing his displeasure. On the following morning he entered
the duke's chamber immediately after his being awakened. "I do not
know, sir," said he to his pupil with cold and distant respect, "if
you recollect what you told me yesterday, namely, that you knew who
you are and who I am. It is my duty to make you understand that you
know neither one nor the other. You fancy then, sir, that you are
more than I. Some lackey may have told you so; but I hesitate not, as
you force me to it, to tell you that I am far above you. There is no
question here of birth, which adds nothing to your personal merit.
You cannot pretend to surpass me in wisdom. You know nothing but what
I have taught you, and that is nothing compared with what remains
for you to learn. As to power, you have none whatever over me; but I
have authority full and entire over you. The king and monseigneur the
dauphin have told you so often enough. You may think that I consider
it a great thing to hold the situation I fill near your person. Let
me tell you that you are altogether mistaken. I have accepted it only
to obey the king and to please monseigneur, not certainly for the
painful advantage of being your preceptor. To convince you of all I
have said, I am about to lead you to his majesty, and to beg him to
give you some other tutor, who will meet, I hope, with more consoling
success than I have."

This speech threw the prince into the greatest consternation. "O my
master!" he exclaimed, bursting into tears, "if you abandon me, what
will become of me? Do not make the king my enemy for life. Forgive
me for what I said yesterday, and I promise you never, never, to
displease you again."

Fenelon did not yield easily, although on the following day he
consented to be reconciled to his pupil.

His main dependence, however, in forming the character of the boy,
was the sound religious principles which he never grew tired of
instilling into his mind by word and example. He would at any moment
interrupt literary instruction to explain some point of duty upon
which his pupil might desire to converse. He taught him to look up to
God, not with servile fear, but to love him; and to love to think and
speak of him as the author of all that is beautiful in nature and in
man. Fenelon gives us himself an instance of the empire of religion
over his soul in a beautiful sketch which he wrote after his pupil's
death. "One day," he says, "when he was in a very bad humor, and when
he was seeking to conceal some act of disobedience, I asked him to
tell me before God what he had done. 'Before God!' he exclaimed with
great anger; 'why do you ask me "before God"? But since you do so ask
me, I cannot deceive you; I therefore acknowledge my guilt.' He spoke
thus, although he was at the moment frantic with rage. But religion
had over him so much power that it forced from him the painful
avowal."

It is difficult to record without emotion what Fenelon says
further on of this noble youth, whom he came to love with paternal
tenderness, and whose untimely death filled his heart with sorrow.
"He would often tell me in our unrestrained conversations, 'I leave
the Duke of Burgundy outside the door when I am with you, and I am
nothing but little Louis.'" He closes the sketch by this splendid
tribute to the change which had been wrought in his pupil's whole
character: "I have never known a person whom it was more easy to tell
of his own faults, or who would listen more readily to unpalatable
truth." In proof of the excellent literary and scientific training of
the prince, we find that the great Bossuet, after examining him for
several hours, expressed himself satisfied and surprised at the young
man's proficiency; and thus bore testimony to the ability and success
of his tutor. Two works besides the _Fables_ deserve to be mentioned
as fruits of this course of education. One, _Fenelon's Dialogues_,
in which he presents to his royal pupil the different personages of
history, speaking their true sentiments, and making known the secret
motives of their actions. The other is the far-famed prose-poem, _The
Adventures of Telemachus, Son of Ulysses_, which has won for its
author the glory of having produced the most perfectly-written book
in the French language.

Little more remains to be said of the Duke of Burgundy. Fenelon
labored long and faithfully to make him fit to ascend the throne of
France; he lived to see this work, involving such immense future good
or evil, completed, and completed to his entire satisfaction. By an
early death the dear young prince, in whom such vast expectations
were centred, was lost to the love of his master and of France. Had
he lived to reign in place of the weak and dissolute Count d'Artois,
afterward Louis XV., the page of history setting forth in letters of
fire and blood the scenes of the destruction of the French monarchy,
might perhaps have remained unwritten.

Fenelon had not been made bishop, when he became acquainted with
Madame de Guyon. He approved of the writings of this gifted woman as
sound in the light of Catholic theology. He defended her character
as free from the slightest ground of reproach, and avowed the
opinion that she was guided by a spirit of goodness and truth. She
was looked upon by her adversaries at the court as visionary in her
piety, heretical in doctrine, and far from irreproachable in her
conduct. Fenelon, now become Archbishop of Cambrai, was forced into
a controversy in reference to her affairs, one side of which he
conducted alone, while on the other there were ranged against him the
great Bossuet, the French court, the king, the court of Rome, and,
finally, the supreme pontiff himself.

The modern student of history is surprised to discover the loose
courtiers of Louis XIV., both men and women, hotly engaged in a
controversy on an abstract point of ascetic theology; to see the
ungrateful king banishing from his presence the saviour of his
grandson, and the most honest man in his court; to see Bossuet
allowing his powerful mind to be used as a weapon for the persecution
of Fenelon; to see Fenelon, in a position of so great difficulty and
delicacy, always consistent, always conscientious, always refined,
always eloquent, always pious, and yet speaking out boldly and
bravely, without regard to consequences, what seemed to him to be
right and true.

The controversy, in course of time, was narrowed down to the question
whether the doctrine taught in a book of Fenelon's, entitled the
_Maxims of the Saints_, was or was not the doctrine of the Roman
Catholic Church. After a long investigation, the pope, as final judge
in the matter, condemned the book, while extolling the personal
virtues of the author. Without the slightest hesitancy, Fenelon
bowed to the decision of the tribunal of final appeal, and condemned
the book himself from the pulpit of his own cathedral. There was
no mistaking his motive. He had shown clearly that he was beyond
the influence of hope and fear, and that he humbled himself only
because he truly believed now that he had been faulty, at least in
expression. So noble an act of self-denial, humility, and obedience
was attributed on all sides to its true source, namely, his sense
of duty, and nothing else. Honest and upright dealing, according to
the dictates of his conscience, proved the very best policy he could
have followed in self-protection; for good and bad alike admired and
applauded him all over the world. The book, abandoned by its author,
ceased henceforth to be an object of interest, and Fenelon was the
only one who gained any credit from a controversy in which good men
and bad men had been strangely mixed up together, and fair means and
foul were used in a fruitless endeavor to crush him.

The last years of Fenelon were passed in Cambrai, of which he was
both archbishop and duke, and in which he was admired and beloved
by all, whether rich or poor. Faithful in the discharge of every
pastoral duty, he divided his time among the poor, the sick, the
imprisoned, the young, and the ignorant, helping, relieving,
instructing, consoling all. The rest of the day he spent among his
books, or in the company of intellectual and virtuous friends. The
poorest villagers feared not to approach and speak to one whose
simplicity and gentleness they well understood, and to whose goodness
of heart no one ever appealed in vain.

His peaceful diocese soon became the theatre of scenes of bloodshed
and desolation, caused by that war of succession during which the
star of Louis XIV. began finally to pale before the rising glories of
the Duke of Marlborough. Fenelon gave up his property and his palace
itself for the relief and accommodation of the sick and the wounded.
He distributed among the poor the grain and the fruits over which
he had control, and ordered his steward to give food and lodging
to all who needed it. When he was told that such liberality would
absolutely ruin him, "God will help us," he replied; "his resources
are infinite. Meanwhile let us give as long as we have any thing
to give, and we shall have done our duty." His episcopal mansion
was occupied by officers and soldiers as a hospital, his barns and
outhouses were used as asylums by the peasantry who had fled before
the troops of the allied army, and his courts and gardens were filled
with the cattle the poor country people had driven in, protected by
the influence of Fenelon's name.

So powerful was that name that the invading commanders spared all
property belonging to the archbishop, and Marlborough even ordered
a quantity of grain which had been taken at Chateau Cambresis, and
which he had been informed was the property of the archbishop, to be
placed on wagons and driven into the public square of Cambrai under
an escort of British troops.

But in his fatherly kindness and attention to the wants of those
around him, Fenelon did not cease to take a lively interest in the
fortunes of the whole country. He could not witness the threatened
downfall of his beloved France without the deepest feelings of
sorrow. The danger of the nation was extreme. Louis was engaged in a
ruinous war with a powerful and conquering enemy. He could not retire
from the contest with honor, and he had neither funds nor credit to
carry it on with success. In this desperate strait, the king declared
that he would die at the head of his nobles, a brave resolution that
could not, however, save the country. In this trying emergency the
genius of Fenelon saw a solution better than that proposed by the
king. It was bodied forth in a letter to the Duke de Chevreuse, and
is probably the most striking production that ever came from his pen.
He tells the duke that the nobles cannot save the king, that the
danger is extreme, and that his true friends must advise him to turn
for countenance and relief to the people. The nation is in a critical
position. Let the nation be consulted. Let not France be taxed
without her consent to carry on a war in which she feels no interest.
The people have been badly governed. Let them be called upon to take
part in their own government for the future. "There is danger," he
grants, "in passing suddenly from unqualified dependence to an excess
of liberty. Great caution will be necessary; but it is nevertheless
certain that arbitrary authority will not save the country from
ruin." "Despotism," he adds, "with plenty of means, is a government
of prompt action; but when despotism becomes bankrupt, the first who
abandon it to ruin are the venal men whom it has allowed to fatten
on the blood of the people." The priest from whom these remarks are
quoted is not Lamennais or Gioberti, but an archbishop of the time of
Louis XIV. The whole letter reads like a prophecy, or like a history
of what took place less than a century later. If Fenelon's advice had
been acted upon, how gloriously would France have entered the first
of nations upon the march of improvement. Religion and order would
not have been made to seem enemies of the people, and the names of
Diderot and the Encyclopaedia, of Robespierre and the Directory, might
have remained unknown for ever!

We need not delay here further than to say that, while Fenelon looked
into the heart of the people for the source of national strength,
a succession of rapid events saved the king from the terrible
alternative in which he was placed. The Emperor Joseph I. died,
Marlborough fell into disfavor at home, Marshal Villars gained the
victory of Denain, and the whole face of Europe was changed. A treaty
of peace was signed at Utrecht in 1713.

Several of Fenelon's friends died in rapid succession, and his
loving spirit was penetrated with grief at their loss. His death
was hastened beyond doubt by the poignancy of his regret at these
repeated afflictions. Why delay the sequel? His work was done, his
views of life, his principles of duty to God, to one's country and
to one's self, had been faithfully chronicled by his pen, and taught
by the example of his serene and patient virtue. His hour was come,
and in loving peace with all mankind, with words of faith on his
lips, and the bright smile of Christian hope on his countenance, he
breathed forth his pure spirit into the hands of his Maker. After
his death, no funds were discovered belonging to him. They had been
all distributed among the poor. He was buried without pomp in his
church of Cambrai. During the Reign of Terror, the ancient tombs of
that church were rifled, the leaden coffins were sent to the arsenal
to be melted into bullets, and their contents thrown into the common
burial ground. But when the invaders came to the bier of Fenelon,
it was borne with decency and veneration into the city, and placed
in a monument erected to his memory at a time when the sepulchres
of emperors and kings were ruthlessly dismantled, and their ashes
scattered pitilessly to the four winds of heaven.

Other great men of the age of Fenelon still live in history; few are
admired more than he, and none is so much loved by men who upon other
points are far from agreeing together. The wish expressed by one of
his distinguished countrymen, that his memory might have the same
advantage as his life, namely, that of making men love religion, has
been fulfilled.

He wrote learnedly and eloquently in defence of his faith, and in
refutation of the views of his opponents; and yet he avoids in all
his works the extremes both of flattery and of harshness. Men of all
religions recognize in him a friend, for all were embraced in his
world-wide Christian charity; and yet they must bear with us, his
fellow-Catholics, when we claim for our church the special honor of
having made him the great and good man which all acknowledge him to
have been. The earliest lessons he received came from the lips of
devoted Catholic parents; and when his will was opened after his
death, the first words read were the following emphatic expressions:
"I declare that I wish to die in the arms of the Catholic, Apostolic,
and Roman Church, my mother. God, who reads the heart, and will be my
judge, knows that there has not been an instant of my life in which
I have not cherished for her the submission and docility of a little
child." A noble tribute this, and one which leads us to look not
despondingly to the tree which is capable of producing such sound and
genial fruit.

This transient reflection, ladies and gentlemen, presents itself
naturally to the mind, and nothing is further from my thoughts than
an attempt to enlist your hearts against your cool judgment in
favor of the Roman Catholic Church. The claim which that church puts
forth to your attention is based officially by her on her divine
right to the reverence of mankind. She has never refused to give man
the history of her origin, and to submit to his earnest scrutiny
the proofs of her divine commission. She claims to be the only
institution established on this earth to teach man what is necessary
that he may be saved, and asks and accepts no stinted or divided
allegiance. She alleges distinctly that human reason is unable
without assistance to find and embrace the true, and that the human
will is unable without assistance to find and embrace the good. She
undertakes to impart the highest truth and the highest good to all
who take her for their guide and their mother. She has been more
cordially hated, and more devotedly beloved, than any object that
history in all its witnessing can tell of. She claims not only to be
a teacher, but a teacher endowed with unerring authority, and offers
as vouchers for that claim the clear promise of her divine Founder,
to abide with her until the end of time, and the lives and deaths
of innumerable men and women taught by her to live perfectly upon
earth. She has never disguised the greatness of that sacrifice of
self which must be made by every man who would enjoy the peace here
and the immortality of happiness hereafter, which she pledges to her
faithful children; but she promises, in the name of God, supernatural
assistance for making that sacrifice in spite of its seeming terrors.
She uses no efforts to gain popularity; her system moves slowly,
and rarely in such form as to take advantage of the interests or
aspirations of the day. She never aims to be found on the side of
human passions. She hesitates not to condemn those who differ with
her authorized teachings, and she intimates to every man who sets up
an altar against her altar that he does God and his fellow-mortals no
good service, either temporal or eternal.

Whatever religious symbolism has been offered in the world hitherto
as a substitute for her apostolic creed, has been founded on the
principle that man is fit to take into his own hands the management
of the affairs of his own soul; but the Catholic Church tells man
that his private judgment is sure to mislead him in matters of
religion, in spite of lofty aspirations and purity of intention;
that he is bound not only to render obedience to his God, but in the
manner God requires it; and nevertheless that religious direction
need not be arbitrary; that it no more violates the freedom of man's
will than the strong hand of a parent violates the freedom of the
little child whom it leads lovingly onward and prevents from falling
weakly to the ground.

No system which presents to man effort and self-restraint in the
present, and advantage and freedom in the future only, can flatter
his love of ease and selfish enjoyment. He is thus, at intervals
at least, impatient of order, though it is heaven's first law; of
legislation, though it has for its object the greatest good of the
greatest number; of society, though its proper aim is to make each a
friend and a helper to all, and all friends and helpers to each; and
of science, that teaches him the laws of nature and the sad effects
of their violation. By the same spirit is man urged to resent and
cast off the restraints imposed upon him by religion and the church.
But in this case, and in the others the opposition comes not from
reason; it is the uprising of selfish interest or passion, assuming
to speak out for the whole man, and for all time.

Again, that which is spoken against as the church is not the
church; that which is spoken against as the belief, or practice, or
requirement of the church, is hers perhaps in appearance, but in very
truth it is not what she upholds, but what she reproves and opposes.
There is a weird presentment bodied forth in English literature and
called popery. It is certainly a figure of no amiable or attractive
lineaments; it is worthy of the hatred of honest men. But it is not
the Catholic Church. If the Catholic Church were the same thing as
this ghost which goes by the name of popery, we should hate it too;
for it deserves to be hated, and we are men possessing the same
faculties as our neighbors who hate it. We do not hate the Catholic
Church; we love her, and honor her as our mother, and so would our
neighbors, if they saw her and knew her as we do.

Let us here understand the thing plainly. I uphold the doctrine and
the practice of the Catholic Church; for I believe her to be the true
church that the Son of God established on this earth, and ransomed
at the price of his precious blood. But I can say for myself and for
every Catholic who has been properly instructed in his religion, that
we do not undertake to defend what has been done weakly or wickedly
by men, even though they too called themselves Catholics.

I believe that light travels from east to west, and the faith
which Judea gave to Rome, and Rome to Europe, and Europe to us, is
the faith by which we are to be saved, if saved at all. But while
thanking Europe for the true religion, I pray to my God that all
the ancient feuds and heart-burnings which have distracted older
countries in the name of religion may not be transplanted to this
virgin soil.

Allow me to close my remarks, ladies and gentleman, with the
heart-felt wish that we may all live faithful to our honest
convictions, preach our religion by word and example, and force upon
each other nothing but the endearing offices of fraternal charity.

FOOTNOTE:

[193] A Lecture delivered before the Young Men's Christian
Association of Boston, by the late Rev. Dr. Cummings, pastor of St.
Stephen's Church, New York.




DION AND THE SIBYLS.

A CLASSIC, CHRISTIAN NOVEL.

BY MILES GERALD KEON, COLONIAL SECRETARY, BERMUDA, AUTHOR OF "HARDING
THE MONEY-SPINNER," ETC.


PART II.

CHAPTER I.

The die was cast, and Paulus went away plighted to an undertaking
which appeared sufficiently arduous, and some of the chances of which
were even full of horror.

The news of the arrangement spread through the palace of the Mamurras
before he had well quitted Formiae. From the palace it circulated
through the town, from the town it reached the camp the same evening;
and next day the surrounding country knew it. Carrier-pigeons[194]
had borne to Rome a hint of the gayeties, the interest, and the
splendor which the simultaneous occurrence of the emperor's visit,
and the collection of an army for real fighting purposes, (in fact,
to repel the German invasion,) were likely to call forth in the old
Latian town; and now the same aerial messengers apprised many a sated
circus-goer in the capital that a very pretty novelty indeed would be
added to the contests of gladiators and the battles of wild beasts.

The concourse pouring into and converging from all parts toward
Formiae, which had already been so extensive, increased, therefore,
into an enormous concentric movement. Nothing can better show what
a prodigious multitude was thus accidentally collected than the
fact that, even at Rome, (which then contained four millions of
inhabitants,) a diminution of pressure was perceptible, for the
time, to those who remained. This change resembled what Londoners
experience on the Derby day.

Paulus, that evening, having passed a considerable time with
his mother and sister, (to whom he communicated the fact of his
engagement without alarming them by explaining its peculiar horrors,)
felt little inclined to sleep. When, therefore, the lanista Thellus,
who had, as Claudius said he would invite him to do, brought back
Benigna to Crispus's inn, was taking his leave of the Lady Aglais and
of Agatha, Paulus said to him,

"Do not go soon; but come down into the garden and let us take
a stroll. We may not often be able to converse with each other
hereafter."

"Gladly, my valiant youth," said Thellus; and they descended together.

A beautiful starry and moonlit night looked down over Italy, as
they sauntered in the fragrant garden, conversing a little and then
relapsing into thoughtful silence.

Presently Thellus said,

"This adventure of yours makes me unhappy."

"Well," returned Paulus, "my mother and sister have such need of my
protection that I feel no levity about it myself. I confess that it
is a grave business."

They now walked up and down the laurel alley a few turns, absorbed in
thought.

Suddenly two men approached them along two different gravel-walks in
the garden, one dressed as a slave, the other in the uniform of a
decurion, a legionary officer, slightly more important than a modern
sergeant of the line in the English army.

The slave had one of the worst countenances, and the decurion one
of the most honest, that Paulus in his very limited or Thellus in
his immense experience had ever beheld. Paulus recognized the slave
at once; it was that Lygdus who had endeavored to bring him to the
ground by a side-sweep of Cneius Piso's sword, which this man, as the
reader will remember, was carrying at the time.

The decurion gave Paulus a letter, directed in the same handwriting,
folded in the same style, and its silk thread sealed with the same
device of a frog, as a certain communication which he had once before
received.

The moon shone high, and so calm was the night that it proved easy to
read the bold characters.

They ran thus:

"Velleius Paterculus, military tribune, salutes Paulus Lepidus
AEmilius. Renounce this absurd engagement, which cannot concern
you. It is yet possible, but will be too late to-morrow, to plead
ignorance of what you were undertaking. Leave wretched slaves to
their fate!--VALE."

Paulus, after reading this note, begged the decurion to wait, and,
turning to Lygdus, asked his business.

The slave stated his name, and said he was appointed to receive,
dating from the day after the next, the provender which he understood
Paulus to be desirous of furnishing for the use of the Sejan horse.

"Has Tiberius Caesar appointed you."

"Sir, yes."

"Of course, then, you are used to horses?"

"Sir, I have always belonged to the stable," said Lygdus.

"But," pursued Paulus, "am I then forbidden to enter the stable
myself, and make acquaintance with the horse I have to break?"

"Sir, I have orders," answered this Lygdus--who, as I think I have
already mentioned, was destined, as the instrument of Cneius Piso
and Plancina, some few years later, to be the cruel assassin of
Germanicus--"I have orders always to admit you, and always to watch
you."

"_You_ to watch a Roman knight!"

"For that matter, most honored sir," answered Lygdus, "the rank of
the person watched does not alter the eyes of the watcher. I could
watch a Roman senator, or even a Roman Caesar, if necessary."

"I will be security you could," said Thellus, whose great and almost
diaphanous nostrils quivered as he spoke.

Lygdus, by way of answer, withdrew a pace.

The decurion, meanwhile, had taken off his helmet, and the starry
heavens were not more clear than his indignant, simple countenance.

"It is well," said Paulus. "I will ask for you at Formiae. Go now."

Lygdus therefore went away.

"Decurion," said Paulus, "say to the esteemed Velleius Paterculus
that I am very grateful to him; but what must be, must be."

"And what is _that_, noble sir?" answered the decurion, "in case my
commanding officer should ask me for an explanation?"

"That I have given my word advertently, and will keep it faithfully,"
replied Paulus.

"Is this, noble sir," said the decurion, "what you mean by _that
which must be_?"

"Have I, then," answered Paulus, "said any thing obscure or confused?"

"Only something unusual, excellent sir," said the decurion; "but not
any thing confused or obscure. Permit me to add, that the whole camp
knows the circumstances of this miserable undertaking, and wishes you
well; and I feel in my single bosom the good wishes of the whole camp
for your success."

"What is your name, brave decurion?"

"Longinus."

"Well," replied Paulus, "if I survive the struggle with this
creature, I mean to join the expedition of Germanicus Caesar, and I
will have my eye upon you. I should like to be your informant that
you were promoted to a higher rank, and to call you the _Centurion
Longinus_."

Tears were standing in the Roman decurion's eyes as he bowed to take
leave.

Thellus and Paulus, being now left again alone, resumed their walk up
and down the laurel alley.

"I am not so conversant with horses," observed Thellus, "as I could
for your sake at present wish to be. But all animals, I notice, are
more quiet _when blinded_."

At this moment the branches of a cross-walk rustled, and a stately
figure in the Greek _laena_ ~chlaina~ approached them.

"Are you not AEmilius, the nephew of the triumvir?" asked the stranger.

"Yes," replied Paulus.

"Who is this?" continued the new-comer, looking at Thellus. "I have
something to say which may concern your safety."

"You may trust this brave man," said Paulus; "it is my friend
Thellus."

"Well," pursued the other, in a very low tone, "take this little pot
of ointment; and two hours before you have to ride the Sejan horse,
go into his stable, make friends with him, and rub his nostrils with
the contents. He will be then muzzled, you know. You will find him
afterward docile."

"Whom have I to thank for so much interest in me?" demanded Paulus.

"My name is Charicles," replied the stranger hesitatingly, and still
speaking almost in a whisper; "and I have the honor of numbering
Dionysius of Athens among the best of my friends."

"My mother," returned Paulus, "would, I think, be glad to see you
some day soon."

"I shall feel it an honor; but pray excuse me to her to-night," said
Charicles. "Tiberius Caesar knows nothing of my absence, and I had
better return at once to Formiae. I will visit you again."

"But would this ointment injure the horse?" inquired Paulus.

"Not by any means," said Charicles; "it comes from a distant eastern
land. It will merely make him sleepy. I have been more than an hour
and a half handling the ingredients, and I can hardly keep awake
myself. Forgive my hurry--farewell." And the stately Greek made an
obeisance as he disappeared.

Paulus remained, holding the pot, which consisted of some kind of
porcelain, in his hand, and looking at it, when Thellus exclaimed,

"Why, this laurel hedge is alive!"

In a moment he had sprung through it and returned, dragging in his
mighty grasp Lygdus the slave.

"Not yet departed?" said Thellus.

"Sir, I was asleep," replied the slave, with a look of terror.

"I have but to tighten my fingers," cried Thellus, "and you will
sleep so as not to awake in a hurry."

"Thellus," observed Paulus, "I am not depending either on this man's
knowledge or on this man's ignorance. I have quite other hopes and
other grounds of confidence. Let him go."

"Ah!" said Thellus, "I would like to have the chastising of you. But
go, as this noble gentleman desires; go, then, as the young Roman
knight bids you!"

He shook the reptile-headed, down-looking, and side-looking slave
away, and the latter disappeared.

"O friend and noble sir!" said Thellus, "it nearly breaks my heart to
see you thus bound hand and foot, and doomed to destruction."

"Have a good heart, dear Thellus," said Paulus.

So they parted, the gladiator returning to his vehicle, and Paulus
retiring to his room, where, as he lay on his bed and listened to
the plash of the fountain in the impluvium, he silently and calmly
offered back to the great unknown God whom Dionysius worshipped the
life which he, that unknown Deity, could alone have given.


CHAPTER II.

Next morning, before the family were out of their beds, Phylis the
slave had returned from Monte Circello with the following note:

"Marcus Lepidus AEmilius hails the widow of his brave and valiant
brother. Come with your children. The last of mine has, alas! died
under the clemency of one man, and the liberality of another. The
clement man is Augustus, the liberal man was Maecenas. All that I
now retain is yours; and yours shall be all I may be able to leave.
Farewell."

But despite of this note, Paulus could not persuade his mother
to depart from that neighborhood till after the trifling display
of horsemanship, as he called it, which he had to afford for the
amusement of the Roman world on the evening of the third day ensuing.
A little ruffled at his failure to persuade the Lady Aglais to go
away, he summoned their freedman Philip, and with him for a companion
started on foot for Formiae before noon, along a road as thronged at
that moment and as animated as the road to Epsom is the eve of what
Lord Palmerston has rather affectedly, and, as applied to an annual
event, very incorrectly, called the Isthmian games of England.

Scarcely had he and Philip entered the southern gate, when they
noticed a little crowd around some nurses, one of whom, apparently
a Nubian, held the hand of a magnificently-attired child of any age
between five and eight. At his side was an eastern-looking youth
of about eighteen, whom the reader has met before. Thellus the
gladiator was standing with folded arms on the outskirts of the
suddenly-collected concourse. The child had dropped some toy, which a
dog had seized in his mouth, and had thereby defaced. The dog was now
a prisoner, held fast by the throat in a slave's hands.

"The poor dog knew not what he was doing," said the nurse.

"I care nothing for that," cried the child, who was purple with
passion. "Strangle him, Lygdus."

And accordingly Lygdus tightened his grasp of the dog's throat till
the animal's tongue was thrust forth; the grasp was yet longer
maintained, and the dog was throttled dead.

"Is it dead?" screamed the child.

"Quite; see," replied Lygdus, casting away upon the street the
breathless carcass.

"Ah! beautiful!" cried the child; "now come away."

"Nice and neat as an execution," said a powerfully-built, dusky,
middle-aged man, having a long, ruddy beard, streaked with gray,
around whom were several slaves in Asiatic dress. This person also
the reader has met before. "But," added he, "I am going up for my own
trial, and I hope it will not be followed by another execution."

"I only hope it _will_" cried the interesting child. "What fun it
would be to see a man strangled."

"Who is that infant monster, Thellus?" asked Paulus.[195]

"He is the son of Germanicus and Agrippina; his name is Caius. You
see, young as he is, he already wears the _caligae_ of the common
soldiers, among whom he continually lives. It is his delight. They
nickname him Caligula. Do you know, there are good chances he yet
wears the purple, and succeeds Augustus, or at least Augustus's next
heir, as emperor of the world."

"Happy world will it be under his rule," said Paulus.

Suddenly there were cries of "Make way." Lictors moved, making large
room among the crowd. Sejanus appeared in the robes of a praetor; and
Paulus and his friend Thellus found themselves borne along, like
leaves in a stream, toward the back of the Mamurran palace, in a
large room on the ground floor of which they presently beheld the
big, dusky-colored man of fifty or thereabouts, with the long, ruddy,
gray-streaked beard, standing before a sort of bar. Behind the bar,
on a chair of state, like the curule chair of the senators, Augustus
was sitting. A crowd of famous persons, many of whom we have already
had occasion to mention, stood behind him, and on either hand Livy,
Lucius Varius, Haterius, Domitius Afer, Antistius Labio, Germanicus,
and Tiberius Caesar were there. In a row behind were Cneius Piso,
Pontius Pilate, and the boy Herod Agrippa.

"And so," said Augustus, "you tell us you are the son of Herod the
Great, as he is called; in other words, Herod the Idumaean; his son
Alexander?"

"We have seen," said Paulus to Thellus, in a whisper, "the fate of
a dog; we are now to learn that of a king, or a pretender to the
dignity."

"Great and dread commander, such I am," answered the red-bearded,
big, dark man.

"But," said Augustus, "the accredited rumor runs that Herod condemned
his two sons, Aristobulus and Alexander, to death. Nay, I have the
official report sent to me at the time by the prefect of Syria, and
letters from Herod the Idumaean himself."

"Herod condemned them, but the executioner killed others instead,"
answered the Jew. "_They_ escaped to Sidon."

"_Them and they!_" said Augustus; "you mean that others were executed
instead of _them_?"

"Yes, my commander."

"Why do you not," pursued Augustus, "say INSTEAD OF US?"

"I do not understand," replied the Jew.

"Are you not," asked Augustus, "one of them?"

"I am the son of Herod."

"You speak as though you had gone out of that person. You speak
rather like a historian than like a sufferer and an actor. You are
talking of yourself and your brother, yet you say THEY, not WE!"

"Such is the style of the east, emperor."

"Pardon me," said Augustus; "I know the style of the east perfectly
well. Solve me now another difficulty: I also well know Herod the
Idumaean, many cases connected with whom were litigated before me,
and decided by me. Now, I never knew a man who, having determined
that any body was to die, took such methodical pains to carry that
determination into effect. He dealt largely in executions; and if
there was a person in the world, it was Herod, who saw with his own
eyes that his intended executions should be realities."

"Mine was not," said the Jew, and a laugh arose in court. "All the
Jews in Sidon know that I am Alexander, son of Herod; all those in
Crete know it; all those in Melas know it; and when I landed at
Dicearchia, all the Jews received me as their king; and you are not
ignorant, great emperor, that thousands of my countrymen in Rome, the
other day, carried me upon a royal litter through the streets, and
clothed me in royal robes and ornaments, and received me, wherever I
went, with shouts of welcome as Herod's son."

"And you have then," replied Augustus, after a pause, "been nurtured
as a royal person is in the east?"

"Always," answered the Jew.

"I myself," returned Augustus, "have seen and known the son
Alexander, as well as his father Herod; and though you are not unlike
the son, yet you--_show me your hands_."

The Jew stretched forth his hands.

"Those hands have toiled from infancy. Uncover your neck and
shoulders."

This was done.

Augustus immediately ordered the room to be cleared; and it was
afterward known that he had extorted a confession of his imposture
from this Alexander; and that, sparing his life, he condemned him to
row one of the state galleys in chains for the rest of his days.

"Not much like dotage, all this," muttered Tiberius to Cneius Piso.

The eastern-looking youth, holding the hand of the child Caius
Caligula, and followed by Pontius Pilate, waited for Augustus in a
passage--through which Paulus and Thellus were now trying to make
their way into the street.

When the emperor came out, observing that the youth desired to speak
with him, he stopped, saying,

"What wish you, Herod Agrippa?"

"Emperor, I have told you that this man is not my uncle."

"And I," said Augustus "have now settled the question. He is not."

"This officer behind me (Pilate is his name) has been very obliging
to us ever since our arrival. I wish, my sovereign, you would send
him to Judea as procurator."

"He is too young," replied Augustus; "but I will put his name in my
tablets. Perhaps, under my successor, he may obtain the office."

"I want a favor," cried the child Caius.

"What is it, orator?" asked Augustus. (Caligula displayed as a child
a precocious volubility of speech, which procured him the epithet by
which he was now addressed.)

"That man, that black Jew--who pretended to be my friend's
uncle--won't you put him to death?"

"_Externi sunt isti mores_," replied Augustus, quoting Cicero; "that
would be quite a foreign proceeding. The anger that sheds unnecessary
blood belongs to the levity of the Asiatics, or the truculence of
barbarians."

Meanwhile Paulus and Thellus, who had unavoidably overheard these
scraps of conversation, emerged now once more into the street, and
Thellus guided Paulus to the stables of Tiberius Caesar, where they
found Lygdus expecting the visit. He led them into a long range of
buildings, and showed them, standing in a stall which had a door to
itself, so contrived as to avoid the necessity of letting any other
horses, when coming or going, pass him without some intervening
protection, the famous Sejan steed. The walls were tapestried with
leafy vine-boughs, and the stable seemed very cool, clean, and well
kept.

The stature of the ominous horse, as we have had occasion already
to mention, was unusually large; but the fineness of his form took
away the idea of unwieldiness, and gave a guarantee of both power and
speed. However, any person who had studied horses, and was learned
in their _points_, (which to a great extent merely means learned in
their anatomy,) would at a glance have condemned this one's head.
It was, indeed, not lacking in physical elegance, although not lean
enough; the forehead was very broad, but the eye was not sufficiently
prominent nor mild in expression, and it shot forth a restless light;
the muzzle and the ears, moreover, were coarse; the bones, from
the eye down, were too concave, and the nostril appeared to be too
thick. Something untrustworthy, and almost wicked, characterized the
expression of the head altogether. The jaws were wide, and the neck
was extraordinarily deep. The shoulders were not so flat or so thin
as the Romans liked them to be; the girth round the heart was vast;
the chest broad and full; the body barrel-shaped. The limbs were
long, (which, says Captain Nolan, "is weakness, not power;") but then
the bones were everywhere well covered with muscle, the hind-legs
being remarkably straight in the drop; in short, they promised an
immense stride, when the animal should be urged to his fastest gallop.

"Now," said Paulus, after attentively examining these and a great
many other points, which it would be too technical for us to detail,
"I see he is not muzzled, but tied by the head, and I perceive a
curious arrangement--that platform behind his manger, and raised
somewhat higher than it. The object is to feed him thence, and
approach him there, I suppose? Moreover, I observe you have pulleys
in the roof and broad bands depending from them; do you then lift him
off his legs when you groom him?"

Lygdus assented. Paulus, after looking attentively at the animal's
hoofs, and forming an idea of the state of his feet, inquired,

"Is he savage to all alike, or can you, for instance, approach him?"

"Sir, I always take my precautions," answered the slave.

Paulus went round, and stood some ten minutes in front of the horse
on the raised platform behind the manger, then shook a double handful
of corn down before him and watched him eat it. Satisfied at length
with this scrutiny, he now made arrangements for Philip to remain
constantly in the stable, even sleeping there at night, and quitting
it only to accompany the horse when taken out for exercise; and he
made it clearly understood that Philip should superintend the feeding
and grooming of the animal till he should be led forth for Paulus to
ride him at the appointed time. We have said nothing to explain why
the youth did not ride him muzzled, as often and as long as possible,
during the two days which were still left for preparation; the fact
being that he proposed even now to do so; but found that, not having
thought of stipulating for this as one of the conditions, when he
had his interview with Tiberius, orders had been given to Lygdus that
no person whatever was to mount the horse till the hour when Paulus
was to attempt his subjugation, in presence of the court, camp, and
people. Very much disappointed, and blaming his own want of foresight
in not having extorted so important a right, Paulus now left the
freedman "on duty" in the stables, Thellus volunteering to revisit
him, and to bring plenty of provisions of all sorts, and thus to save
the necessity of purveying for him from the distance of Crispus's
inn. When our hero and the gladiator had retired, Philip began to
make a couch of fresh and fragrant hay for himself on the platform
behind the manger, muttering,

"But, if I sleep, it shall be with one eye open and the other not
quite closed. If I find that scoundrel, for he looks a scoundrel,
playing any tricks, I'll strangle him so surely as I have five
fingers on each hand."

As Philip thus muttered, Lygdus drew nigh and addressed him.

"Your young master, I fear," he said, "has not long to live; no one
can ride this horse."

"Three circumstances," replied Philip, seating himself deliberately
on a roll of hay, "are unknown to you. I will tell you them. The
first is, that this is not at all a case for mere horsemanship,
although it is not to be denied that horsemanship is necessary.
Courage and wit are more needful than any bodily adroitness in
reminding brutes that their master is man. That is the first
circumstance. The second is, that my young master learnt his riding
among the AEtolians, who are not matched in the world."

"Take a sip of wine," said Lygdus, handing him a flask of hide.

"After you," said the wary old freedman.

Lygdus drank a little, wiped the mouth of the flask with a vine-leaf,
and tendered it once more to Philip, saying,

"The first and second of your remarks seem to me to be appropriate,
although I think the Gaulish riders equal to the AEtolians. I should
like to hear the third circumstance."

Philip sipped some of the wine, gave back the vessel to the slave,
and proceeded,

"The third has relation to your phrase, 'I fear.' My master,
Paulus Lepidus AEmilius, has been born and reared to fear death not
over-much."

"_Edepol!_" cried Lygdus; "what is to be feared more?"

"Well," said Philip, "various things _he_ fancies, and _I_ fancy
so too. Considering that all men must die, and can die only once,
and that it has become somehow, I suppose, by practice and decree,
as natural as to be born, and that we have been doing nothing for
thousands of years but making way for each other in that manner, it
would be an error to look upon death as the greatest evil. Why, man,
I should go mad if that which none can avoid was the greatest evil
that any can incur."

"_Edepol!_" exclaimed the slave again; "you are apparently right. Yet
what can be conceived worse than death? You mean immense pain, long
continuing; in which case a wise man would put an end to himself."

"_Wise!_" returned Philip; "but it would be useless to reason with
such as you. You should have heard, as I have heard him, Dionysius
the Athenian upon this topic. When you make such reflections, is it
your big toe, for example, or your belly, or your elbow, or any part
of your body, that makes them? You may put an end to your body, and
we know what becomes of it. When it is no longer fit, as the young
Athenian says, to be the house of that which thinks and reflects
within it, this last departs; for the body, once dead, ceases to
think or reflect, and as soon as the _thinker_ does thus depart, the
body rots.

"But _that other thing_ which kept the body from rotting, that other
thing which thinks and reflects, and which is conscious that it is
always the same, that it always has been itself--that _other thing_
which knows its own unalterable identity through all the changes of
the body, from squalling childhood to stiff-kneed age--how can that
other thing, which may easily depart out of the body and leave it
to perish, _depart out of itself_? A thing may leave another thing;
but how can any thing be left by itself? When this thing, says
Dionysius, goes away from the body, the body always dies. It was,
therefore, the body's life. But out of its own self this life cannot
go (can any thing go out of itself?) and if it goes out of the body
unbidden, what will it say to him who had put it therein when he
asks, Sentinel, why have you quitted your post? Servant, why have you
left your charge? What brings you hither? I am angry with you! What
will this always conscious, always identical thing, then reply?"

"You frighten me," said Lygdus. "What, then, can be more feared by a
reasonable man than death?"

"My young master, for example," replied Philip, "so long, be it
always understood, as he is not his own murderer, would prefer to die
in honor than to live in shame. His father, the brave Roman tribune,
used to say to him as a boy, that a disgraced life was worse than a
useless life, and a useless life worse than a noble death. But who
comes hither?"

The interesting little child Caius Caligula, and the boy Herod
Agrippa, entered the stable as Philip spoke.

"Oh! there is the big wild horse," cried the sweet infant, who had
only just arrived at the use of his reason; "but where is the young
man that is to be eaten? I want to tell him what will become of him,
and then to watch his face."

"He is, I see, even, now coming back," said Philip sternly. He stood
up as he spoke, and an instant afterward Paulus, who was attended by
the slave Claudius, bearing a basket of provisions for old Philip,
crossed the threshold.

"Ah!" said Caligula, "you are the person, are you not, who are to
be first thrown off that horse, next to be danced upon by him, and
finally to have your head crunched between his grinders, and that
fine wavy hair of yours will not protect your head?"

"That is a graphic description," said Paulus; "but I trust it will
not be realized."

"Are you not very frightened? Do not you feel very unhappy?"

Paulus seemed to experience some repugnance to converse with this
child; but guessing him to belong to the imperial family, he answered
with a calm smile,

"Well, I do not feel the grinders yet."

"I will fix my eyes fast upon you," returned the child, "from the
moment you mount."

"May they be blinded before they witness what they wish to behold!"
muttered Philip.

During this short conversation, Lygdus noticed something white
gleaming in a fold of Paulus's tunic at the side, and picked it,
unperceived by any one, out of the species of pocket where it lay.
Caligula, after scrutinizing Paulus's face, turned away, and ran
rapidly up the stable, passing behind the horse.

He skipped and danced a few moments on the other side, gazing at the
animal, and exclaiming, "Good horse! fine horse! beautiful horse!"

Lygdus immediately called out to him not to come back till he had
closed the door of the box, the leaf of which was on the hither
side, and could be flung to, and the slave proceeded to do this.
But Caligula, with a sort of skipping run, still uttering his
exclamations and looking sideways into the stall as he passed, had
already begun to return, giving Sejanus's heels as wide an offing as
the place allowed. A short, ferocious whinny, more like the cry of
some wild beast than the neigh of a horse, was heard, and Sejanus
lashed out his hind-legs.

Caligula would probably have crossed, beyond range of harm, the
line of this acknowledgment which the brute was making to him, in
return for his ejaculatory compliments, only for the very precaution
which Lygdus had taken, and which actually furnished the animal with
a projectile, and transmitted to a further distance, by means of
the door-leaf, nearly the full force of the blow. As the door was
swinging home, the powerful hoofs met it, and, shivering it from top
to bottom, dashed it open again, and sent the outer edge of it and a
large detached splinter against the middle of Caligula's forehead and
face, from the hair down along the whole line of the nose; for, as we
have remarked, his face happened to be turned sideways to receive the
blow just when it was delivered. He fell insensible; but having been
already in motion, the united effect of the two forces was to cast
him beyond the reach of any further usage on the part of the Sejan
steed. Lygdus immediately lifted him up, and he, with Herod Agrippa,
carried Caligula into the open air. Paulus and Philip followed; but
ascertaining that the injury was superficial, they returned to the
stable, where they were now left alone.

"I heard him tell you, my master," said Philip to Paulus, "that he
would fasten his eyes upon you, when you mounted yonder brute; now,
he will not open those eyes for a week, and whatever happens to you,
he is not going to see it. He is not seriously hurt; he'll be as well
as ever in ten days; but for the present his beauty is spoilt, and
he's as blind as the dead."

Paulus now in a low tone related to the freedman, whose services
would be necessary in the matter, the visit of Charicles, and the
gift to him by that learned man of an unguent which, if rubbed into
the horse's nostrils, would render him sleepy, and, therefore, quiet.
The old servant expressed great wonder and admiration at such a
device, and Paulus felt with his hand for the little porcelain pot
where he remembered to have placed it. Needless to say, it was gone.

"Well," said the youth, after a few questions and answers had been
exchanged, "I must even take my chance without it. Charicles, I hear,
has just been summoned to Rome, so that I cannot get any more of the
compound. Farewell; I must now return to Crispus's inn."


CHAPTER III.

The day when the singular struggle was to occur, the expectation
of which had excited such curiosity, arose bright, breezeless, and
sultry, and so continued till long past noon; but the sun was now
sinking toward the Tyrrhenian Sea, and a cool, soft air had begun to
blow as the hour approached when the nephew of the triumvir was to
mount the horse Sejanus, in the presence of such a multitude as the
fields of Formiae had never before beheld, whether in times of peace
or times of war.

At the distance of a few miles on every side, the fair vales and
slopes of Italy presented the appearance of a deserted land, over
which no sound was heard save the drowsy hum of insects, the
occasional sough of the rising breeze in the tops of the woods, and,
predominant over all, far and near, the piercing ring of the cicala,
with its musical rise and fall and its measured intervals. The fire
of the wayside forge lay under its ashes; all its anger taking rest,
its hoarse roar asleep, till the breath of the bellows should once
more awaken it to resistance and torment it into fury. All the labors
of tillage were suspended; the plough wearied no team of oxen; little
girls were watching the flocks and herds. Their fathers and mothers
and brothers had all gone away since early morning, and would not
return till night-fall. A lonely traveller from the south, whose
horse had cast a shoe and fallen lame, had no alternative but to
take off bridle and housings, leave them under a tree in charge of
a little damsel five or six years old, turn his steed loose in a
soft field of clover, and continue his own journey on foot along the
silent highway, amid the silent land.

The seats of the temporary amphitheatre were all filled; while within
and beneath them, standing, but standing on three several elevations,
contrived by means of planks, (the rearmost being the highest,) were
six ranks of soldiers from the camp; the two inner ranks consisting
exclusively of AElius Sejanus's praetorians. Immediately behind the
centre of the amphitheatre, where Augustus with his court sat upon
a strongly-built, lofty, and somewhat projecting wooden platform,
canopied from the glare, a grove of tall and shady trees offered in
their branches an accommodation of which the fullest advantage had
been taken by a vast miscellaneous multitude, chiefly youths and
boys; but among them soldiers who had received a holiday, and had
found no room for themselves in the amphitheatre, were also numerous,
their costumes rendering them easily distinguishable. On each side of
the large canopied platform of the emperor and the Caesars, with their
court, were several seats of honor lined with purple and scarlet
cloths, and connected with the _estrade_ in question by continuous
pavilion roofs, but having their own benches. Here many ladies and
some boys and girls sat. It is in one of these we are ourselves going
to take post, invisible but watchful, unheard but hearing.

On the seat immediately in front of ours, and of course a little
below it, is a group of three persons, attended by a slave. With
these persons, and even with their slave, we have already made more
or less acquaintance. One of them the doctors had forbidden to go
forth; but he had come. He is a mere child; his pretty face is
shockingly disfigured; both his eyes are closed and blacked; all
the flesh round them is a discolored and contused mass, his head is
bandaged, and every nerve in his countenance is twitching with the
furious eagerness and curiosity of one whose organs of sight, if
he could only see with them, would ravenously devour the spectacle
which all the rest of that mighty multitude were to enjoy, and from
which he alone was to be debarred. Amid the immense murmur of so many
human voices, we have to listen with attention, in order to catch
distinctly what the child says in his shrill treble tones.

"Now mark you, good Cneius Piso, and you, Herod Agrippa, I am as
blind as a stone; and I have brought you here in no other character
than as my eyes, my left and my right eye. If a single iota of what
passes escapes me, may all the gods destroy you both, worse than any
Roman or Jew was ever destroyed before! Has that beast of a horse (if
it was mine, I'd tether it by all four legs to the ground, and make
a squadron of cavalry back their horses against it, and kick it into
shreds and little bits)--has that beast of a horse come forth yet?"

"Not yet, orator," answered Piso. "I see that your father, the
illustrious Germanicus, has not taken his place in the emperor's
pavilion; he is riding about yonder in the arena, and so is Tiberius
Caesar. I dare say they will prefer to remain on horseback; for they
can thus see quite as well, while the scene continues to be enacted
in this place, and if the Sejan horse should break away through the
opening in the amphitheatre opposite to us, they could follow and
still assist at the issue, whereas we could not.'

"But I _want_ to see; I _must_ see; I'll get on my pony too! Ah my
sight! I could not ride blind! O that accursed horse!"

"Then," said Piso, "do you wish the youth to conquer the horse, or
the horse his rider?"

The child yelled, and struck his forehead furiously with his fists.

"Oh! If I could only see! I ought not to have come! It is worse to
be here, knowing what is to happen, and having it all close under
my eyes, and not to see it, than if I was far away and without the
temptations around me. It is the hell of Tantalus; I cannot, _cannot_
bear it."

After a pause of impotent rage, he asked Piso was the crowd of
spectators very large?

"It is the largest I ever beheld," answered Piso; "it would be
impossible to count it, or to guess the number."

"I wish every one present was stone blind at this very moment," said
the dear child.

"Thanks, orator, on the part of all here present," answered Piso.

"Understand me--only for the moment," hastily returned Caligula; "I
would give them their sight again when I recovered my own." A pause.
"Or even when to-day's show was over, perhaps."

While yet he spoke, the hum and murmur, which had been incessant,
died rapidly away.

"What is it?" asked Caligula.

"The Sejan horse is being led into the arena; two men, as usual, hold
two cavassons on opposite sides. He is muzzled; two other grooms are
now slackening the muzzle, in order to get the bit well back between
his teeth by pulling up the reins which are under the muzzle, as the
horse opens his mouth.

"They have the bit properly placed now, and have quitted his head.
Oh! what a spring! It has jerked the further cavasson-holder clean
off his feet. O gods! he has lost the cavasson, and the other man
must be destroyed. No, bravo! the fellow has regained the loop of his
rein or thong, and hauls the beast handsomely back!"

"How can one man on either side," asked Caligula, "hold him? I have
seen two on each side."

"I understand," replied Piso; but before he could finish his
explanation or remark, or whatever it was designed to be, a sudden
and impressive silence fell upon that vast assembly, and Piso stopped
short.

"What has happened now?" whispered the child.

"The rider has come forth," answered Piso, "and is walking toward
the horse from the direction of the open space in front of us. By
Jupiter! a splendid youth; it is not to be denied."

"How is he dressed? Has he his whip and _stimuli_ (spurs)? He will
not need such helps, I surmise."

"He has no spurs, and he carries nothing in his hands. He wears that
foreign-looking head-gear, the broad-rimmed petasus, as a shade, no
doubt, against the level rays of the sunset; for I see he is giving
directions to the grooms, and they are contriving to bring the horse
round with his head toward the west. Ah! he thus faces the opening;
I dare say he will try to push the animal into the excitement of a
grand rush, and thus weary him at the outset. In that case, we shall
not see much of the business; he will be miles away over the country
in a few minutes."

"You will find that such an injustice will not be allowed," answered
the child. "We must not be cheated out of our rights."

"His tunic," continued Piso, "is belted tight, and I perceive that
he wears some kind of greaves, which reach higher than the knee,
that will protect him from the brute's teeth. Moreover, I notice a
contrivance in the horse's housings to rest the feet--you might call
them _stapedae_; they seem to be made of plaited hide."

"I don't care for his greaves," returned the child; "the teeth may
not wound him, but they will pull him off or make him lose his
balance all the same. It is agreed, is it not, that, as soon as he is
mounted, the muzzle is to be slipped off the horse?"

"Certainly," said Piso.

"Then the rest is certain," said the other. "How is it contrived, do
you know?" added he.

"The muzzle consists of a mere roll of hide," replied Piso; "and
it is those long reins alone which keep it folded, being passed in
opposite directions round the animal's nose; while therefore both
the reins are pulled, or held tight, they bind the muzzle; but when
one of them only is pulled, it opens the muzzle. Each groom has the
same kind of double rein; and each, acting in concert, will set the
beast free as soon as they receive the signal."

"Who gives the signal?"

"The rider himself, when he is fairly seated; but Tiberius will tell
him when to mount."

"Go on with your description of his dress and his looks. Does he seem
afraid?"

"He still wears that queer sword; I should have fancied it cumbersome
to him. Afraid! I should say not. No sign of it.

"_Ver omnes!_"

At first, this dialogue was sustained in a whisper; but as the lull
of all noise was again gradually replaced by that hoarse hum, which
is blent out of a hundred thousand low-toned murmured words, Piso and
the child Caligula raised their own voices, and the last exclamation
of Piso was as loud as it was sudden.

"Has any thing further taken place?"

"Why, yes," said Cneius Piso; "and something which I do not
understand. That old freedman of the youth, together with Thellus
the gladiator, have approached him, and Thellus holds in each hand
a sort of truncheon about a yard or more long; the top of which for
more than a foot is black; the rest is sheathed or plated in bronze;
the black top of the truncheon is thick; the rest, which is sheathed
in the metal, is much thinner. The freedman who is by Thellus's side
holds a small horn lantern in one hand, and tenders with the other
a pair of large woollen _chirothecae_ (gloves) to his young master,
who is even now putting them on. As he puts on his gloves, he looks
round the benches; he is looking our way now. What can he mean?
He has the audacity to wave his hand, and smile, and nod in this
direction!"

The slave whom we have mentioned as forming the fourth in this group
was no other than Claudius, whose part Paulus was now performing.

"By your leave, most honored lords," said Claudius, "I think I am the
person whom that valiant youth is saluting."

"True," said Piso; "he has taken your destined office to-day, has he
not?"

"Yes, my lord," returned Claudius; "and having caught sight of me, he
beckoned to me, doubtless, to bid me have good courage."

"Well!" ejaculated Piso, "that is a good joke. I think it is you who
ought to beckon to him to have good courage. He needs it more than
you."

A moment after this remark, Cneius Piso suddenly turned to the child
Caligula, and informed him that Tiberius was signing to him (Piso)
to go down into the arena, and mount one of the spare horses; and,
although unwillingly, he must go.

"And how shall I know what occurs?" cried the passionate, voluble
boy. "It is like plucking out one of my eyes. Herod Agrippa here
speaks Latin with such a dreadful, greasy accent, and so slowly; he
is but learning the language."

Piso rose and said, "I have no choice but to obey; you have the slave
Claudius with you; he not only speaks fluently, but I'll answer for
it he will watch all the stages of the struggle with at least as much
attention as any person in all this crowd will! His liberty, his
wedding, and fifty thousand sesterces are at stake."

Saying this, he descended the steps of the narrow gangway which was
(with scores of similar stairs) the means contrived for reaching and
quitting the higher seats in the temporary circus. A few moments
afterward, he was seen in the arena riding by the side of Tiberius to
and fro.

"Now, slave, remember your duty," cried the child Caligula; "let
nothing escape _your_ eyes or my ears. What next?"

"Those queer-looking staves, my lord, which the illustrious Cneius
Piso has mentioned as being in the hands of Thellus, have passed into
those of the young knight, who is to conquer the terrible brute."

"What? the two truncheons with black, thick ends, and the rest of
their length sheathed in metal? do you say that the knight Paulus has
taken them into his hands? What good can they do him?"

"Yes, my lord; he has now passed both of them into his left hand, and
holds them by the thin ends. Thellus has withdrawn a few paces; the
old freedman, Philip, remains still near the youth. Ha!"

"What!"

"Tiberius Caesar has signalled the arena to be cleared. O gods! we
shall soon see the issue now. I care not for my freedom; I care for
the safety of that brave young knight."

"Does he, then, seem to shrink?" asked the child.

"I do not," replied Claudius, "observe any shrinking, my lord. It is
I who shrink. He has drawn slowly near the horse in front, and stands
about half a yard from his left shoulder. He is following Tiberius
Caesar with his eyes."

"Go on!"

"The arena is now clear of all save on the one hand the two Caesars
and their retinues, who have taken their stand very near to us, just
opposite to and beneath this platform, my lord; and on the other
hand, the group around that horrible animal. Ah! me miserable!
Tiberius Caesar lifts his hand, and you hear the trumpet! That is the
signal."

"I hear it! I hear it!" cried the child, in a sort of ecstasy. "What
follows now? Has the knight Paulus mounted?"

"No, my lord; he has--"

"He shrinks, does he not?" interrupted the other with a taunting
giggle.

"The horse trembles in every limb," said the slave; "his nostrils
dilate and quiver, and show scarlet, as if on fire; and his eyes
shoot forth a blood-red gleam, and he has stooped his head, and--"

"But the man, the man?" screamed Caius; "what of him? Has he not
failed, I say--lost heart?"

The most profound stillness had succeeded to the hubbub of blended
sounds which a moment previously filled the air.

A trumpet blew a shrill prolonged minor note, and the child, laying
his hand upon Claudius's shoulder, and shaking him violently, cried
to him to proceed with his descriptions; addressing to him again the
query, "Has that young man mounted? And if so, in what style, with
what success?"

Notwithstanding the despotic impatience with which the inquiries were
urged, the slave Claudius did not at first reply; and the infant
heard rapid, eager murmurs on all sides follow the trumpet blast,
then a general burst of exclamations, which were instantly hushed.

"Why do you not speak?" said Caius, in a species of whispered scream.

"Pardon a momentary abstraction," replied Claudius. "While the
trumpet was yet sounding, the young knight Paulus took off his
hat quickly, and bowed toward Tiberius Caesar and the emperor; and
replacing his hat, he beckoned to the freedman Philip. This last has
approached him, and they are even now speaking together."

"Ha! ha!" interrupted the child; "then he has not mounted. He neither
dares nor can he."

"Philip," pursued Claudius, "has opened the lantern; his young master
is thrusting the staves toward the light; the ends have caught fire,
in a dull degree, with some smoke accompanying the flame. He turns
quickly away from the freedman, and holding the staves still in
his left hand, and a little away, he approaches the horse; now he
stands with his feet close together. Oh! he has sprung clean from
the ground; he is in his seat. He has seized the bridle in his right
hand, and carried it to his mouth; he takes it between his teeth. He
is now relieving his left hand of one of those torches; he holds one
in each hand, somewhat away from the body, nearly horizontal. The
cavasson-holders at a distance are removing the muzzle, and the rider
sends his feet firmly, yet I think not very far, through those rests
which the illustrious Cneius Piso mentioned, those _stapedae_ of hide,
the like of which I never saw before. I wonder they are not always
used."

"What of the horse? Is he motionless?"

"Not less so than a statue," replied the slave; "excepting the eyes
and nostrils, which last exhibit a tremulous movement, and show
scarlet, like hollow leaves or thin shells on fire. The brute's
concave head, from the scarlet nostril to the lurid eye, looks wicked
and dire."

"How looks the rider?"

"Calm and heedful; the slight occasional breath of air from the east
carries away to the front the slow flame, blent with a little smoke
of those torches which he holds one in each hand."

"What can they be for?"

"I know not," replied Claudius.

"I suppose they are intended," said the child, "to compel the Sejan
horse to keep his head straight. Thus your volunteer-substitute need
not fear the beast's teeth. The issue seems then to be reduced to a
trial of sheer horsemanship."

"And in such a trial, most honored sir," replied the slave, "I begin
to have hopes. You should see the youth. The leading-reins are now
loose. The muzzle is snatched away, and the contest has begun. Surely
it seems one between a wild beast and a demigod."

"Is he thrown?"

"No; yes; so help me! he is off, but is off standing."

"Explain; proceed--I tell you, proceed!"

"The horse, after a series of violent plunges, suddenly reared till
he had nearly gained a perpendicular position upon his hind-legs,
the fore-feet pawing the air. The rider, who seemed to be as little
liable to fall as though he had been part of the animal, then quickly
passed his right foot out of the far _stapeda_, and dropping the
bridle from his teeth, slipped down on the hither side. Hark! did you
hear the crash with which the fore-paws have come down? The steed
seemed to be very near falling backward, but after a struggle of two
or three seconds, recovered himself; the centre of his weight had
not been carried rearward of the vertical line; and, O ye gods! just
as you heard that ponderous thud with which he descended upon his
fore-feet, the youth darted from the ground with a spring like his
first, and he is now on the brute's back as before. He stoops to the
horse's neck; he has caught the bridle in his teeth, and lifts that
brave, clear face again. Listen to the multitude! Oh! how the _euge_,
_euge_, thunders from a hundred thousand sympathetic voices!"

"Ah my sight!" cried the child Caligula.

"Ha! ha!" continued Claudius, transported out of himself. "I shall
get my liberty to-day! Nor will my benefactor be injured. Ha! ha!
The fell beast of a horse seems astonished. How he writhes his back,
curving it like some monstrous catamount. And lo! now he leaps from
the ground with all four feet at the same time! I never saw the like,
except in animals of the cervine tribe. Ha! ha! leap away! Yes, stoop
that ferocious-looking head, and shake it; and lash out with your
death-dealing hoofs. Your master is upon you, in his chair of power,
and you'll shake your head off before you dislodge him from it. It
is not with the poor literary slave Claudius that you have to deal!
Oh! what a paroxysm of plunges. I was frightened for you, then, brave
young knight; but there you sit yet, calm and clear-faced. If I was
frightened for you, you are not frightened for yourself."

"Oh! for a few minutes' sight!" said the child. "Has not the horse
tried to twist his head round, and so to bring his teeth into play?"

"Even now he tries," replied Claudius; "but he is met on either side
by the torch. The fiercest beast of the desert shrinks from fire.
Prudent and fortunate device! Lo! the horse seems at last to have
ascertained that he who has this day mounted him is worthy of his
services; do you hear the tread of his hoofs, as he traces the circle
of the arena, guided by those steady hands from which flames appear
to flow. Faster and faster rushes the steed, always restrained and
turned by the outer torch, which is brought near his head, while
the inner is held further to the rear. His sides are flecked with
foam. The pace grows too rapid for a short curve, and the steed is
now guided straight for the western opening in the arena opposite
to where we sit; while the light breeze from the east counteracts
the current of air made by the animal's own career, and keeps the
flare of those torches almost even. They are gone; and again hark!
Is not that shout like the roar of waters on a storm-beaten shore,
as a hundred thousand men proclaim the success of a generous and
brave youth, who could face the chance of being torn limb from limb
in order to give to a poor slave like me, condemned to a frightful
death, his life and his liberty, a home and a future?"

"But surely," said the imperial child, "it is not over so soon. It is
like a dream."

"I have tried to make you see what I saw," returned Claudius. "It
was a wonderful struggle--the youth looked beautiful; and in the
swift whirl, as you beheld the graceful and perfect rider, his hands
apparently streaming with flames, and his face so calm and clear,
you would have imagined that it was one of those beings whom the
poets have feigned and sung, as having gifts superior to the gifts of
ordinary mortals, who was delivering some terror-stricken land from a
demon, from a cruel monster, and compelling ferocity, craft, uproar,
and violence to bend to far higher forces, to man's cool courage and
man's keen wit."

Augustus, in his later years, showed a decreasing relish for the
bloodier sports of the arena; and, in deference to his taste, the
next spectacles were, first a mere wrestling-match, and then a combat
at the cestus, in which the effort was to display skill rather than
inflict injury.

This contest was just over, and the sun, as if in wide-flowing
garments of red and golden clouds, had sunk level with the broad
western opening of the amphitheatre, when the hum of voices was
hushed once more, and Claudius was commanded in a whisper to resume
his task of rendering the scene upon which the child's bodily eyes
were temporarily closed, visible to his mind.

"I cannot with certainty discern," said the slave, "what occurs;
there is such a vast heavenly shield of red light hanging opposite
to us in the western sky. Against it, approaching at a walking pace
toward the gap in the arena, along that avenue of chestnut trees in
the country, I see a horseman. All eyes are turned in that direction.
It is _he_; it is Paulus Lepidus AEmilius, returning on the Sejan
steed; the animal is enveloped in sweat, and dust, and foam; and
rather stoops the head which looked so fierce two hours ago; the
rider has thrown away those torches, and now holds the reins low down
on either side, a little in front of the beast's shoulder. His hat is
gone, and his brown locks, as you see them against the sun, are so
touched with the light that he seems to wear a head-gear of golden
flames. Hark! again, as before, the people and the army shout to him.
He is bowing to them on each side; and now, as he advances, what do I
see?"

The slave paused, and the child impatiently cried--

"How can I tell what you see, you dog? You are here for no other
purpose than to tell _me_ that."

"He has streaks of blood upon his forehead," resumed Claudius.

"Oh! oh!" cried the other; "the branches of the trees have no doubt
struck him. Is he pale? Does he look faint? Is he going to fall off?"

"No," said Claudius; "he has reined in the horse, which stands like a
horse of stone in the middle of the arena. Tiberius and Germanicus
have both ridden toward him, with their retinues of mounted officers
behind them. They have halted some six yards from him. They are
speaking to him. As they speak, he bows his head and smiles. A crowd
of people on foot have broken into the arena. The grooms have drawn
near, at a sign from Tiberius; they are cautiously approaching the
Sejan beast; but this last shows no restiveness. They have slipped
the muzzle round his nose, under the reins. The youth dismounts. I do
not see him now; he has become mixed with the crowd, I think; yes, it
must be so, for I miss him altogether."

Augustus now rose, and his rising was taken by the multitude as a
signal that the entertainments of the amphitheatre for that evening
had closed.

Half an hour more and the scene was left to its solitude; and where
the cries and shouts of that mighty assemblage had mounted to the
very heavens, there was no sound left except the humming of the
insects and the rustling of the trees.

That night, in the large veranda or bower, which hung its arch of
leaves and flowers over the landing of the Lady Aglais's apartments,
at the Inn of the Hundredth Milestone, were assembled an exceedingly
heterogeneous but mutually attached company, with every member
of which the reader has made acquaintance. Paulus's mother, his
young sister Agatha, Claudius, (no longer a slave, and now wearing
the _pileus_,) Crispina, with her daughter Benigna, the betrothed
of this slave Claudius, Thellus the gladiator, and Dionysius the
Athenian, were there, and they all heard Paulus relate a very strange
occurrence, with which he made them acquainted in the following terms:

"Mother," said he, "the most extraordinary incident connected with
this happy day remains to be told. I am sure that the great and
mysterious Being who is expected by Dionysius here soon to descend
upon earth, and to whom I offered my life, has protected me this day.
He has surely protected me, and has received with favor my endeavor
to rescue from brutal power an oppressed and innocent young couple.
The most extraordinary incident connected with my undertaking, I
say, is not yet known to you. Last night I could not sleep soundly.
At last, long before daybreak, I rose, dressed myself, and, kneeling
down, besought that Being who is to appear among us to remember that
I was trying to please him by this enterprise, and that I was acting
just as Dionysius and I had concluded it would be agreeable to this
beneficent being. An inexpressible feeling of calmness and confidence
arose in my heart as I rose from my knees. I then took my hat and
went out of doors. I first strolled yonder, up and down that laurel
walk in the garden, and afterward sauntered into the fields and
wandered pretty far, but I observed not whither. Presently I began to
feel that inclination to sleep which had deserted me in my bedroom;
and, knowing the sun would soon rise, I chose a shady spot under a
clump of trees, and, lying down, fell fast asleep immediately. _I
had no dream_, but was waked by feeling a hand upon my forehead.
Opening my eyes, I beheld a woman, very aged and venerable, but
with a most beautiful countenance, despite her years, bending over
me. Her countenance was solemn as the stars, and, I know not how,
impressed me like the face of the heavens at midnight, when the
air is clear and calm. Her hair was not gray, but white--white as
milk. She wore a long, black mantle, the hood of which, like that
of Agatha's _ricinium_, was brought over the head, but not further
than the middle of the head, so that I could see, when I rose to my
feet, (as I instantly did,) that her long flowing white locks were
parted evenly and fell below the shoulder on each side. She held in
her left hand a long staff, and her right was extended toward me as
if bespeaking attention. She said to me in Greek these words: 'BY
MEANS OF FIRE YOU CAN SUBDUE THE FEROCIOUS BEAST.' She then laid the
hand which was stretched forth upon my head for a second, drew the
hood further over her head, and departed with swift steps, leaving
me to gaze after her in amazement--an amazement which increased when
I perceived that her words could be applied to the Sejan horse. It
was those words, mother, and nothing else, which gave me the idea of
employing the torches, which my good Thellus here afterward prepared
for me out of some gladiatorial exercise-weapons which he possessed;
and I may for certain say that, without the torches, I must have been
destroyed by that horrible brute."

"You truly describe this incident as extraordinary, my son," said the
Lady Aglais, after a pause.

"Paulus," said Dionysius, "_you have seen the Sibyl_. You must
accompany me in a few days to Cumae, where we will seek an interview
with her, upon the subject concerning which all the Sibyls sing and
prophesy--the general reparation of this disorder-tortured world."

    TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[194] It was some fifty years before, at the siege of Modena, that
the first recorded instance, so far as I am aware, occurred of making
the pigeon a letter-carrier.

[195] I am aware of an apparent anachronism here of some four or five
years, according to Dio, Tacitus, Suetonius, and others; but Caligula
was, I think, a few years older than these authors represent; for
Josephus furnishes a somewhat different calendar from theirs.




TRANSLATED FROM LE CORRESPONDANT.

MATTER AND SPIRIT IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN SCIENCE[196]


There is nothing more advantageous, and at the same time more
dangerous; more beneficial to the cause of truth, and yet more apt to
induce error, than the modern idea of studying man in nature alone;
or rather, of scrutinizing its depths with the design of discovering
all that concerns him.

Doubtless there were times when philosophy did not pay sufficient
regard to the study of the physical sciences; when philosophers put
themselves too far outside the physical world. Metaphysics were too
full of abstractions, too much confined to the _me_ and consciousness.

Some systems wished to dig an abyss between the world of matter and
that of spirit, regarding the passage from the one to the other as
impossible. Even the discoveries of Des Cartes in the realms of
physical nature, as well as in the kingdom of his own consciousness,
notwithstanding their importance and grandeur, only served to widen
the abyss; for the Cartesian theory supposed the mind to be incapable
of communicating with the exterior world save by a chain frequently
broken--by a long and devious path. The _preestablished harmony_ of
Leibnitz was the last term of the separation of these two worlds,
which had no longer any thing in common even in their agreement, and
only existed in juxtaposition without mutual action or reciprocal
influence.

This was an excess of which metaphysics was at the same time the
author and the victim; it deprived itself of a powerful element of
investigation; it veiled one of the faces of nature; and closed
the door to research and knowledge in one of the great domains of
the world. Metaphysicians, in striving to obtain the exclusive and
victorious reign of spirit, compromised its triumph.

Doubtless that which at the same time unites and separates the
intellectual from the material world will never be perfectly
understood. But it will always be necessary to throw light on both
sides of the problem by comparing them without confounding them;
to place both face to face without partiality or exclusion; the
working of thought and of matter, and between the two the mysterious
phenomenon of life which is their connecting link and term of
similitude.

It could not be expected that philosophy should first and alone
prepare the ground of this conciliation and comparison. The
peculiarly speculative studies of metaphysicians would not naturally
carry them to this point; and besides, the very elements necessary
for this comparison were wanting to them.

It is, therefore, to the natural sciences, as they are called,
that we must owe the most of our knowledge and comprehension
of the two worlds, which co-penetrate each other. Not that the
sciences have preconceived the thought of this result, and formed
a plan on the subject; for the science of the day, especially that
which really deserves the name, has confined itself generally to
impartial discoveries, and for premise and conclusion has taken
merely the facts themselves. Notwithstanding evil examples, which
would persuade a different course, it still perseveres, and on this
account it deserves praise in its isolated labors and exclusive
studies. It would not be difficult to cite the names of some of the
most distinguished _savants_, who, impartially and without being
preoccupied with conclusions, have enriched the domain of truth with
most important and curious discoveries. But the occupation of the
_savant_, which is not without merit and trouble, cannot satisfy
mankind.

By a natural instinct man feels the want of synthesis; he is not
content with mere phenomena. He wants to go further than analysis;
he longs to generalize and draw consequences. He wishes to profit by
past labor; he wants to know not only results but causes.

Here philosophy must again be called in to judge of and compare
facts, to deduce consequences from, and erect systems upon them. If
the spiritualist philosophers, quitting abstractions and leaving
the solitude of consciousness, have by an enlightened change, which
will be serviceable both to truth and to their own cause, begun to
dig deeply into the scientific mine which is so rich and productive;
on the other hand, the positivists and materialists, forced by the
natural inclination of the human mind to draw conclusions and build
theories, even after proclaiming the sovereign reign of matter, and
after trying to remain in it alone; after attributing to it every
property and every function; after making it the absolute foundation
of their doctrine and teaching, have here admitted that an inferior
supposes a superior order; there accepted final causes; elsewhere
invoked the ideal or spoken of truths which are eternal; and in their
desire to explain the phenomena of matter or the forms of life, they
have been compelled to leave the region of purely material facts
and to ascend to those metaphysical ideas which in theory they so
strenuously reject.[197]

But although the human mind, placed in presence of problems, goes
faster and further than science, yet it cannot do without its aid; it
rightly seeks its assistance, and finds in it one of its most solid
and safe foundations.

We have, therefore, deemed it interesting to indicate at what point
the labors of the physicists have arrived, even by exhibiting their
premature solutions. We think it useful to examine some of their
conclusions, which have been deduced rather precipitately perhaps,
but which, while treating only of bodies, concern more or less
directly the sovereign questions of the soul and of the intelligence.

We must say that, in consequence of so many deep researches and
fruitful experiments, the empire of the natural sciences has been
so vastly extended that nothing in the future seems impossible of
attainment, while most unexpected results, intoxicating, as it
were, and turning the heads of _savants_, have seemed to furnish a
justification of their defence of even the most rash and surprising
theories.

There has been a regeneration of ideas regarding the material world;
analysis has probed to its lowest depths and let in the light of
day. Men think they have discovered its mode of action and arrived at
its very elements.

Two leading theories have been produced, both of which pretend to be
based on the most minute verification of details and the most recent
facts. If they are not absolutely irreconcilable, they present at
least very different formulas.

The one affirms that there is nothing in matter except movement.

The other declares that there is nothing in matter but forces.


I.

The system which reduces every thing in matter to movements is as
simple as it is curious. It exhibits at the same time a character of
grandeur and of unity which is seductive. Matter in the universe, it
says,[198] remains the same in quantity; it is neither created nor
destroyed; its phenomena are merely transformations.

According to this system, the _abstract notion of force_ does not
exist. Force is a cause of motion; and the cause of motion is a
motion itself. Physical phenomena, as heat, light, electricity, and
magnetism, are certain kinds of motion, which beget each other.
Heat is transformed into electricity and electricity into light.
Transformations take place according to fixed rules, and are reduced
to rigorously determined unities.

In another order of facts, cohesion, chemical affinity, and gravity,
are equally the effects of communication of motion, since the
phenomena which derive from them exist only by attraction--that is
to say, by the movement of molecules and bodies toward each other.

The same rule holds good in the system of the universe; the heavenly
as well as the terrestrial bodies have not in themselves that which
attracts them to each other. Universal gravitation is only the
expression of a result; it merely means that every thing happens as
if bodies had the intrinsic property of attracting each other in
the direct ratio of their quantity and the inverse ratio of their
distance.

It is not this force or property; it is the ether which is the cause
of attraction. The ether is composed of atoms which collide with each
other and with neighboring bodies. It is everywhere diffused, forming
a universal medium, and exercising a continual pressure on all the
molecules in nature. The gravity of bodies is owing to the pressure
of this medium. Their movement is, as it were, a transformation of
the motions of ether. Thus, the ether, moving in every direction, and
obeying no fixed pressure, produces material attraction without being
subject to it; it gives to bodies their gravity, while it remains
itself imponderable.[199]

It had been already physically demonstrated that sound and light
were the result of undulations--that is, of motions; sonorous and
luminous movements which have been measured and verified in all their
modes. The nature of caloric movement has not yet been so completely
understood; but the mechanical effects of heat have been established
in the most precise manner. The identity of heat and of mechanical
labor has become a commonly received idea for several years past.
Heat, which was formerly regarded as a material substance, is now
considered as a mere mode of motion; it is by their repercussion
that the molecules of bodies cause us to experience the sensation of
heat; and the intensity of these repercussions determines the degrees
of temperature. This heat, manifesting itself by different effects,
produces now light or sounds, again mechanical labor.

The energy or the living force which molecules or bodies in motion
possess, in a degree exactly known, is partially lost if these
molecules produce a work, that is to say, if they displace a quantity
of matter; but in that case the living force which they lose is
stored up in the labor produced, and is reborn when the latter ceases
to exist.

Just as the calorific and luminous fluids are no longer regarded as
possessing a special substance and existence, so also the electric
fluid, positive as well as negative, and the magnetic fluid, which is
only one of its derivatives, are but opposite movements of matter.
The electrical movement of imponderable matter, or ether, is not even
a vibratory motion; it is a real current, a real transport which
takes place in the conducting body; and it is so far of the same
nature as the luminous motion that it has approximately the same
velocity--that is to say, it travels seventy-five thousand leagues a
second.

Now, all these motions of heat, all these motions of light and
electricity, which correlative phenomena offer, are all reducible to
the idea of mechanical labor. Produced by one labor, they reproduce
another. Thus disappear from chemistry, as from the natural sciences,
the forces called repulsive as well as those called attractive. The
molecules no longer act at a distance; actions take place by contact,
by the communication of movements. In the same way the pressure
exercised by the ethereal atoms on the molecules of the sidereal
bodies takes the place of the initial force or acquired velocity
which astronomy regarded as the cause of their movements.

According to this sovereign unity, the physical world is composed
of one single element. There are no simple bodies. Oxygen and
hydrogen, like gold or platina, are composed only of atoms. There is
no difference in material quality; properties vary according to the
diversity of movements. Becoming grouped and interwoven, the atoms
form the molecules, and the changes of these movements constitute for
us the different phenomena, the mode of which depends on the masses
and the velocities which are in play.

Consequently, ethereal atoms, elementary molecules, compound
or chemical molecules, particles of gaseous bodies, liquids,
solids--such is the hierarchy of phenomena.

The system is triumphantly epitomized in these words:

Atoms and motion form the universe.

Let us pause before this conclusion, the simplicity of which is not
without grandeur, although the theory is absolute and hasty. Let us
be allowed to interfere in the name of the notion of causality, in
the name of that metaphysics to which the system itself, although
taking its starting-point from facts alone, renders homage by
its generalizations and by its synthesis. If it confined itself
exclusively to its conclusion, that atom and movement form the
supreme axiom of the universe, we should have downright materialism.
The author avoids this absolute conclusion, which would cause us,
moreover, to go outside the limits of scientific research, and he
admits that even in motion there are original causes which remain
entirely unknown.

But this cannot suffice. Our mind sees this reserve and will not rest
satisfied with it.

If the system merely gives to ethereal atoms the intrinsic force and
primitive motion which it takes away from the molecules and bodies,
it only postpones the difficulty and avoids the true solution. It
merely admits an effect without assigning to it an origin or a reason
of being. It does not indicate the primary cause of motion; it does
not make known the prime mover, which neither facts nor reason can
place in the atoms or in the phenomena.

Nor can the formation of worlds be explained by atoms and motion.
The author[200] gives up facts, reality, and the logic of his own
system when he supposes some of the chief primitive atoms forming the
centre of a group for several others, and thus constituting a sphere.
Then, after this operation in the universal mass, the molecular
groups appear gifted with gravity and enter into that evolution which
constitutes the admirable order of the universe.

We have no longer modern science arriving, by way of decomposition
and analysis, at results as curious as they are incontestable. It is,
in truth, but the renewal of an old system which goes as far back
as ancient philosophy--to Leucippus, to Democritus, to Epicurus;
a system without foundation or reality, which brings us to gross
materialism, and gives us no rational or experimental explanation of
phenomena.

For whence have these atoms come? Do you give them their reason of
being by simply calling them primitive? Do they exist from all
eternity, or have they created themselves? After being proclaimed
indivisible points, they are, contrary to this principle of unity,
made unequal and preponderating. Whence do they derive these
contradictory, and at the same time indispensable characters, which
enable them to perform their functions? Who has given them the first
motion necessary for their meeting? Or, if they have been eternally
in motion, does it not follow that the formations that are attributed
to them must be also eternal? What causes them to produce ponderable
molecules and to become heavy bodies while they are essentially
imponderable and devoid of attraction?

As for us, a friend of truth, and believing that it can never be
opposed to itself, having in its regard no fear or party prejudice,
we are disposed to accept willingly the results given by scientific
observation and experience, provided there be no disposition to draw
conclusions from them which are not legitimate. We are far from
disputing that matter is one in its grand simplicity, and that it
is reducible to elements of one species; that phenomena of a single
order, motion, produce all the effects of nature which we admire. The
spiritualist philosophy will readily find in these atoms their first
author, God, and in these movements God, the prime mover.

We also admit willingly that this theory holds good even in the
domain of organized matter, and that, in the regular order of
succession, it runs through all the kingdoms. We see nothing in this
admission which contradicts directly our belief.

In fact, the system extends even to the order of living nature, and
there it points out two things.

On the one hand, it indicates, as the basis and chief constituent
of living beings, the very materials of the inorganic world, the
solid bodies, liquids, gases, which we find in all organizations, and
especially in the human organization, the most complex of all; for
this organization comprises fourteen of those elements which we call
simple bodies, because we have not been able as yet to reduce them.

On the other hand, in animated nature itself there takes place a
series of motions which succeed each other according to a determined
order, with an especial character, yet not opposed to the laws of
molecular mechanism; so that in the human body in motion heat is
transformed into work and work into heat, according to the ordinary
relation of calorics, and the human mover gives in labor the same
proportion of heat produced as the other movers.[201]

Does this mean, continues the author of the system, that we have in
this process all the elements of life? What is the cause which forms
the first cell, the basis of living bodies? What deduces from it the
developments of being? What limits and regulates its evolution? "Here
we must suspend our judgment, or admit a special cause, the principle
of which is peculiar to vital phenomena."

This cause, although its nature is unknown and undetermined, is
manifested by movements, and may take, according to the same order
of ideas, the _role_ and name of vital force. This force is endowed
with a peculiar activity, which transforms without creating, just as
motion only transforms in virtue of anterior movements.

This doctrine, pushed to extremity, seems to infer that the phenomena
of thought and volition are only pure movements, the result of
physical or vital actions. But is not the human soul, the animating
principle, thereby put in danger?

The author thinks not. "In the midst of material transformations,"
says he, "causes active by nature may intervene, and we have
instanced some of them, in marking the nature and limits of such
intervention. This is sufficient to leave the ground free to all the
solutions of metaphysics."

We are more affirmative and precise. These causes, from the
starting-point of the atom and movement, necessarily exist and act.
In fact, if the atom and movement are the universe, outside the
universe there must be and there is something superior to the atom
and to motion--that which has given them birth; for we cannot suppose
that the atom exists by itself, nor that motion is produced by
itself. All that we see and conceive about atom and motion only gives
us phenomenal relations and contingent results. Beyond this is the
absolute. The observations and relations which experience offers us
may be fruitful enough to render an account of the facts, to extend
and enlighten our knowledge, to establish laws and attest actions.
But let us not grow tired in repeating that these actions are not
produced alone, and that these laws suppose an ordainer.

Especially when we endeavor to understand the nature of life, atoms
and movement may come again into play; but the cause increases and
is detached from the functions of beings; and the superiority of the
effects more imperiously establishes the necessity of an author.


II.

The second theory admits only forces in nature, and places in these
forces the principle of all that is produced. It also goes up to the
atom, and considers it as equally indivisible and imponderable. It
attributes to matter properties, so to speak, immanent which give it
its power and action. Atoms, separated from each other in the bodies
which they compose, and forming mere simple mathematical points,
possess, when they are reunited in mass, a force of attraction which
acts at a distance, and then reacts on them in order to produce all
the sensible phenomena.

Several _savants_ and certain spiritualist philosophers agree on
this theory. Both take facts as the starting point in establishing
their synthesis; the former build it on a foundation more
exclusively physical; the latter give to their generalization a more
philosophical basis.

M. Magy and M. Laugel, hardly overstepping the limits of the
experimental world, follow the action of forces into their different
modes and transformations.

M. Paul Janet, in his turn, delivers his theory on matter.[202]

    "It is in fact," he writes, "force and not extent which
    constitutes the essence of bodies; an atom in motion occupies
    successively places which it fits exactly. What distinguishes
    this atom from the space previously occupied by it? It is not
    the extent, since in both cases the shape is the same; every
    thing which relates to extent is absolutely identical in the
    empty and in the full atom. It is, therefore, something else
    which distinguishes them, and this something is solidity or
    weight; but neither solidity nor weight is a modification of
    extent; both are derived from force, and represent it."

M. Ch. Leveque adds:[203]

    "How do we make the extension which we need? Always by
    resistance; when extension is not a pure abstraction, when
    it is real and concrete, it is always equivalent to a sum of
    resisting points or forces. There is no longer occasion to ask
    how, with unextended elements, we may form extension. There is
    but one question possible, and it is this: How to form a sum of
    resistance with resisting points?"

This is what a learned Englishman, P. Bayma, establishes with
precision.[204] According to him, the elements, or atoms, are
indivisible points without material extent, and extension is not an
essential property of matter.

    "The extension of bodies is an appearance caused by the
    dissemination in space of the elements which compose them;
    abstract space is extension; consequently the science of
    extension, or geometry, is not a science of observation but of
    abstraction."

According to this theory, the forces placed from the beginning in
elements govern every thing in the world. Nature is under their
control; matter obeys them, or is, rather, entirely a compound
of forces. One of the partisans of this system[205] lays down
these conclusions: 1st, the last element of matter is always an
active, simple, and indivisible force like the soul itself; 2d,
the properties of matter are only manifestations of this simple
active force. Then, pushing the consequences of this notion of force
further, he admits

    "that there is only one substance, material and spiritual,
    at the same time; spiritual in its elements, material in its
    composition. The soul, conscious of its personal energy,
    conceives physical beings as forces acting like itself."

A contemporary philosopher,[206] developing further the thesis of
conciliation and relation between the two orders of existence, adds:

    "Matter has at bottom no other substantial element than spirit.
    The essence of both is active force, consequently materialism
    has no reason to exist; there is no longer in nature any thing
    but spiritualism, or, to speak more correctly, dynamism. This
    dynamism has nothing which attacks the dignity and preeminence
    of the soul. The soul alone is capable of thinking or willing,
    because it alone is a simple force, whereas the smallest body
    is a compound of simple forces."

Such are the theories which, according to their supporters, are
sustained by the most recent discoveries of science.

As for us, we admit that from a scientific stand-point there have
been many new and curious observations collected; that the analysis
of matter has exposed to view the most astonishing phenomena;
that the material element has been almost apprehended, its depths
investigated; that it has been stripped of extension as an essential
property, its mode of action and constituting principle discovered;
that it has been reduced to a unity as sovereign as it is marvellous;
and we follow with the most lively interest these results of
disinterested and impartial science. We go further; according as the
plan gains in unity and grandeur, appearing at the same time more
imposing and probable, it brings us nearer to Him who has conceived
it, who has given it order and completion. The more of mystery we
discover in the universe, the more we bow with admiration, but
without astonishment, before the thought and will of the Sovereign
who is the origin and reason of the existence of these wonders and of
their laws.

But our reason cannot go beyond its limits, and the metaphysical
consequences which some have attempted to draw from these phenomena,
we have not up to the present been able to admit.

The theory which reduces all to force, which recognizes in bodies
an intrinsic mode of acting, whether it divide these forces in the
mass of matter, or cause them to mount up to the primitive element,
to the atom, indivisible point, or monad, seems to us in every case
to beg the question. What is in fact a force, and especially a force
attributed to any object? It is undoubtedly neither a being, since it
is joined to a first element, nor a substance, since it is considered
as an attribute. It is only a manner of indicating an action, the
cause of which is unknown. To say that matter acts because it bears
in it the power of acting, is simply to say that it acts because it
acts; to reply by asserting the fact itself which is in question.
Therefore we have only one of those words, new or old, which may
cause illusion for an instant, but which do not stand a serious
analysis.

Moreover, to attempt to compare and assimilate matter and spirit
by giving to both the name of force, and attributing to them the
properties attached to this name, is merely to use a word without a
definite meaning; for if they were both forces, they would be forces
of entirely different, if not opposite action. And if we say that
force, being half body and half spirit, is the link which unites them
to each other, we create, merely to suit our purpose, a third being
which is discovered nowhere, a mere phantasmagoria without reality,
which the imagination itself is incapable of representing to us.

Finally, in the parallel and assimilation between body and soul,
to reserve, with the power of thinking, preeminence to the mind
because it is a simple and unique force, while the smallest body is a
compound of these same simple forces, amounts to saying that a body
could think if it were only decomposed and reduced to its simple
elements, and to the unity of force. There is such a difference in
act, mode, and aim between what is called the force of resistance,
attributed to bodies, and designated, we know not why, by the name
of active force, and between the faculty of thinking, that no common
appellation, no matter how specious it may be, can ever confound or
identify them.

We would not be able to comprehend how the soul, considered as a
monad or simple element, should have by this fact the faculty of
thinking, and yet two or several monads united and forming a body
would not possess the same power. Why, in the latter case, should
there be absence of thought instead of a union of two or several
thoughts, concordant or contrary? How could we say that, because
there is an assemblage of forces, there is an impossibility of
thinking, and that the part is capable of doing what the whole
cannot do? It is useless to choose and isolate the most delicate
and ethereal element in a body; we can never imagine the soul to be
really one of its parts, no matter how pure that part may be.

The notion of force, for the soul as well as for the body, must be
put among those appellations which explain nothing, and only serve to
cloak our ignorance.

Science itself begins to renounce this name of force; and the first
theory which we have exposed, that which recognizes only motions in
matter combats the theory of forces with energy, and considers it as
vain and illusory. It is not here, consequently, that we shall find
the philosophical explanation of phenomena, nor the reconciliation
between the two orders of spirit and matter.

The theory of motions rests on a more solid foundation; at least,
it employs a word having a precise signification and resting on a
real fact, motion. It is only by induction and reasoning that it
ascends to ether and the atom. It has never seen either of them,
although it affirms their existence. It makes a synthesis. It admits
in the universe something else besides atoms and movement, since the
thought which it expresses implies the idea of being, of substance
and cause. It has seen motions, vibrations, radiations, currents,
and it has concluded from them that there is something which moves,
vibrates, radiates; thus it has mounted up to a second cause, to
ether, to the atom. But this is not sufficient. If it has seen that
there is no motion without an object which moves, logic compels it
to acknowledge that there is no change without an agent, no movement
without a mover; and if the atom exists and moves, this atom also has
an origin, a reason of being, a principle from which it has received
the gift of existence and the power of motion.

If an admirable plan embraces the universe, if a sovereign unity
directs and governs all phenomena, there must be a cause for them.
The plan appears more manifestly, and the cause shows itself more
necessarily in the very simplicity of the work, in its grandeur in
this double quality raised to a higher power.

If the world be, as it is acknowledged to be, the work of thought; if
a general and supreme reason presides over the universe, this thought
lives in a spirit, this reason belongs to a soul.[207] Can there be
a thought without a thinking subject and being? A thought implies a
thinking being; reason means a living intelligence; or it must mean
nothing, and then there is no sense in words, no reality in things.

It is useless to object; the human mind will have it so; it is the
law of its conscience, it is the result of its profound conviction
that it does not derive all from itself, and that nothing can produce
nothing.

Now, can we say of the atom and motion combined, behold the universe?
Yes, the mechanical universe, perhaps. But the mechanical universe
is not self-sufficing; for we can always say, Who has made the atom?
who has created motion? And then we have the right to propose another
affirmation and to conclude: the notion of causality is the entire
world--the physical, intellectual, and moral world.

This has been true from the very beginning of thought and the
commencement of human reason. This has been true from the days of
ancient philosophy, proclaiming through its greatest logician that
whatever is in the effect ought to be found in the cause, that the
cause must really exist before the effect, and that the perfection
of all effects supposes the existence of a primary cause which
contains them--a living, spiritual, and perfect cause, which cannot
be produced by what is imperfect, inferior, material, or deprived of
life, but which is and must be necessarily its generating principle
and producing power.


III.

Thus the two systems of motions and of forces, brought before the
metaphysical world, for they call themselves syntheses, fall short
of the mark and do not reach the true principle. The one assigns
no cause for the elements and phenomena which it represents. The
other attributes to these same elements and phenomena, a word and
a name which cannot be a cause. The former does not give, and does
not pretend to give, a real explanation. The latter formulates an
explanation, but presents nothing satisfactory.

It appears, however, that all the tendencies of modern science
are toward the idea of unity in the universal system, toward a
simplification and spiritualization in the plan; and the belief of
some goes so far as to admit that this plan offers parallel lines
more or less similar in both the material and the spiritual world.
But here again the rock rises and the danger appears. In making
bodies so like spirits, we run the risk of making the spiritual
too much like the material, and, in both cases, by such confusion
we almost touch on pantheism, the theory of which, consisting in
the admission of but one substance, is equally dangerous whether
this one substance be material or spiritual. We will allow matter,
therefore, to raise itself toward unity, purify itself more and more,
and disentangle its essence from its innumerable and marvellous
combinations, provided that it be admitted that it possesses a real
existence, that it is really matter, that it can never become spirit
or thought, and that it is not its own force or cause or reason
of being. What would be gained for it from a spiritualist point
of view, to admit in matter an immediate power, to clothe it with
intrinsic qualities which nothing either in ideas or facts manifests
or demonstrates? No problem would be solved thereby, no mystery
cleared up; it would be necessary to establish why and how the same
substance, at the same time and alternately, feels and does not
feel, wills and is inert, thinks and is devoid of intelligence, is
immovable in the stone, awakes in the plant, and is organic in the
animal, and finally creates and vivifies the genius of man.

There must be logic in the assertion that the essence of matter is
found in an atom or in a force, that it is inactive or endowed with
movement, that there is in bodies unity or variety of substance,
that the different kingdoms are united by greater affinities or
separated by more marked distinctions; these properties, comparisons,
and differences must have their logic and their reason of being,
and do not derive the laws which govern them from a spontaneous or
fortuitous formation.

Nothing, consequently, in the secondary explanations which are given
to us, can satisfy our metaphysical wants. The mind of man will never
stop at the mere properties of things or their effects. Its instinct
of causality does not accept incomplete theories and theses which
do not sound the depths. Casting aside all idea of confusion and of
inexact comparison, the human mind wishes to rise higher; it wishes,
in its admiration for order and the harmony of phenomena, to ascend
to the very summit of being. Yes, it admits and recognizes the fact
that every thing which exists has a single and sovereign cause, and
this cause is itself the most spiritual of spiritual substances--God
the creator and ordainer of worlds. Author of all things, God causes
with the qualities which belong to him the different manifestations
of nature; he acts on matter, possesses it, causes it to subsist,
gives it the power of producing its phenomena, is its force, its
order, its law; and thus, if we may say so, he animates the world,
not indeed in the same manner as the human soul animates the body,
because we cannot compare essences and actions so unlike each other,
but with a certain superior and divine power of animation which
produces the being, motion, and life of all that exists in the
universe, moves or breathes, as the soul is the source and focus of
the life of the body.

To destroy this supreme cause is to degrade at the same time the
material and the intellectual world; it is to renounce the notion of
perfection and of the absolute; it is to condemn, together with one
of the mother-ideas, one of the axioms of the human mind, that logic
which can never see aught complete or satisfactory in mere effects
or phenomena; it is to attack one of the most beautiful faculties of
the intelligence, of that intelligence which the contingent cannot
content, which will not allow itself to be restrained by the mere
limits of time and space, which, from the present which it studies,
from facts which it investigates, and peculiarities which it admires,
ascends to the infinite, to the all-powerful, to the Eternal.

Thus we consider that the most recent discoveries of science, in
their rational and superior interpretation, lead us naturally to God,
and we have at the same time the belief and the hope that materialism
will be involuntarily stricken down, and will perish perhaps by the
very hands of those who study and search after matter alone.

No doubt the considerations which might be actually drawn from the
results obtained do not lead to definite theories nor do they offer
any thing but premature conclusions. The majority of the _savants_,
moreover, properly refuse to touch on the domain of the supernatural
and metaphysical; they confine themselves to facts; some so veil
their opinions and philosophical doctrines as even to cause us
to doubt whether they follow the standard of spiritualism or of
materialism. They do not arrogate to themselves either the right or
the power of drawing conclusions; and the synthesis which results
from their experiments can only be a premature conjecture, more or
less plausible.

But since their researches already give occasion to perceptions so
simple and so grand, since they open horizons in the distance where
light certainly exists, since there is from the stand-point of truth
a serene and unalterable confidence in the final and definite results
of modern discoveries, we may be permitted even now to describe
them for the elevation and the encouragement of the mind, for the
justification and the honor of human science, for the revindication
of the grandeur and of the glory of God.

FOOTNOTES:

[196] _La Physique Moderne. Essai sur l'Unite des Phenomenes
Naturels._ Par Emile Saigey. Paris: Germer-Bailliere. 1867.

_Les Problemes de la Nature--les Problemes de la Vie._ Par Laugel.
Paris. 1867.

_De la Science et de la Nature. Essai de Philosophie premiere._ Par
Magy. 1867.

_Elements de Mecanique Moleculaire._ Par le P. Bayma.

_Physique Moleculaire._ Par l'Abbe Moigno. 1868.

_Revue des Deux Mondes: la Nature et la Physiologie idealiste._ Par
Ch. Leveque. 15 Janvier, 1857.

_Le Spiritualisme Francais au dix neuvieme siecle._ Par P. Janet. 15
Mai, 1868.

[197] See for further details: _Recueil des Rapports sur les Progres
des Lettres et des Sciences; la Philosophie en France au dix-neuvieme
siecle_. Par Felix Ravaisson. _Revue des Cours Litteraires_, No. 24;
art. by M. E. Beaussire.

[198] This system has been formulated with great talent by M. Emile
Saigey, who advocated it, first in several very remarkable articles
in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_; and afterward in his book, _La
Physique Moderne. Essai sur l'Unite des Phenomenes Naturels_.

[199] The swiftness of molecules and the vibratory motion of ethereal
atoms are astonishing, and surpass all imagination. The former,
measuring two thousand metres, give eight millions of collisions in a
second; while the latter, within the same space, produce every second
several hundreds of millions more of undulations.

[200] M. Saigey.

[201] According to the very curious experiments of M. Hirn, the
unity of heat or caloric in man, as well as in inorganic matter,
corresponds to four hundred and twenty-five unities of mechanical
labor--that is to say, to four hundred and twenty-five kilogrammes
raised one metre high. Man gives in work twelve per cent of the heat
produced, which is almost equal to the labor of our most perfect
machines.

[202] _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 15 Mai, 1863.

[203] _Ibid._ 15 Janvier, 1867.

[204] _Elements de Mecanique Moleculaire._

[205] M. Magy, _De la Science_, etc.

[206] Ch. Leveque, _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 15 Janvier, 1867.

[207] Ch. Leveque, _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 15 Janvier, 1867.




NAZARETH.


After a residence of two months in the holy city of Jerusalem, the
writer of this sketch left the shrines of the Cross and the Tomb
to visit the sacred localities of Palestine. Going northward, and
passing by Jacob's well and Samaria, our party came to Jenin, on
the borders of the plain of Esdraelon, where we encamped for the
night; and on the next day, which was Thursday, April 5th, 1866,
went to Jezreel, to the great fountain which springs from the base
of the mountain of Gilboa, on which Saul and Jonathan were slain;
then passed through Nain, where our Lord raised the widow's son, and
Endor. Leaving Mount Thabor on our right, we came to the foot of the
steep hill on the other side of which is Nazareth. After a wearisome
ascent, in the middle of the afternoon, we saw the city of the
annunciation at our feet.

Nazareth is in a valley about one mile long, running east and west,
and only a quarter of a mile wide. Fifteen hills inclose this small
space. The whole of this valley, not occupied by the houses, is
filled with gardens, corn-fields, and small groves of olive and
fig-trees. The houses are irregularly placed, and are evidently more
comfortable than many others in the Holy Land. Being all constructed
of white stone, they have a substantial appearance. But the streets
cannot be praised. Irregular in their course, they are the filthiest
we had anywhere seen. This wretched condition of the streets is the
more noticeable because the people are superior to other dwellers
in the land, and apparently more intelligent, well-fed, and housed.
Several buildings were in the course of erection; and it seemed that
the village was prospering. The houses stand on the lower slope of
a hill about four hundred feet high, and on the adjacent ridges.
About four thousand people make up the population, all Christians
except seven hundred Mohammedans. Of the Christians, the schismatic
Greeks number about one thousand, and the Roman Catholics and Greek
Catholics have each about five hundred persons. There is an air of
independence and relative comfort about all the people here which
contrasts with the sad and desponding manners of the residents in
other eastern places. Wherever Turks rule, cheerfulness is unknown.

On entering Nazareth, we rode to the further end of the village, and
encamped in a pleasant spot quite near the fountain of the Virgin,
a place to which all travellers who remain in their tents resort, as
it is usual to encamp in the vicinity of water. Besides this, the
fountain is the best place to see the people of the village, it being
the common place of resort, especially for women. This spring is the
only one in the place; and for that reason it has many visitors.
From early dawn until late in the afternoon, women of every age come
here with jars or pitchers on their heads or shoulders. The streams
of water are not copious, and there is often delay in obtaining the
supply, especially in seasons of drought. While waiting here to
fill their jars, the women gossip and chat, and thus each one hears
the news of the day. Women of every rank go to the fountain for
water--partly that they may not appear to be above their neighbors,
and partly, it may be surmised, to hear what is going on. Little
girls are trained to carry the water-jar on the head--for them, of
course, the jar is small--and every person has a small pad or cushion
on her head to support the jar and prevent injury. From this habit
of so bearing these jars, all the women of Nazareth are straight
and erect in their carriage, and have much grace and dignity of
motion. Not only are they finely formed, but their faces are the
most beautiful in Palestine; and there is a pleasing tradition that
the Blessed Virgin Mary left the gift of beauty to the women of
her city. Their dress is also graceful, consisting of large, short
trowsers, a close-fitting jacket, and a long white veil which does
not cover the face. For ornament they use a string of silver and
gold coins around the head and chin, many of which are very heavy
and valuable--uncomfortable decorations at the best, but showing the
dowry of the wearer.

I thought that the water of the fountain of Nazareth was the best I
had ever tasted; perhaps this was fancy, but certainly the water is
most pure and excellent, and is renowned for those qualities. To this
fountain, without doubt, the Blessed Virgin came hundreds of times,
being trained like other children to bear the water-jar from early
years. Here she talked with her neighbors, and lived in a manner
undistinguished from other poor girls. And whoever will go to-day
to that fountain in Nazareth, or to the one near the shrine of the
Visitation in the hills of Judea, will see young women looking just
as Mary did eighteen hundred years ago; for habits of life and dress
have scarcely changed in the east during that long time. The water
at Nazareth rises about eight or ten rods from the place where it
is poured into the jars, being conveyed to the latter place in an
aqueduct; and the schismatic Greek Christians have built a church
at the spot where it issues from the ground, on account of an old
tradition that the annunciation took place at the spring when the
Blessed Virgin went there for water. There is this great advantage
resulting from the error of the Greeks, that, on account of their
belief in it, they leave the spot where the annunciation really took
place in the quiet possession of the Catholics, the Franciscan monks
being the custodians of the shrine.

Now let us walk to the most holy place, which is at the other end
of the village, and some distance from our tents. The premises are
extensive, and consist of large buildings, surrounded by a high wall.
Passing through the gate, we come to a court, around which are the
school-rooms, the pharmacy, the quarters of the superior and other
monks; from this larger area we go to a smaller one immediately
in front of the church The church itself is about seventy feet
square, and the roof is supported by four very heavy piers or square
columns. These piers, and much of the walls, are covered with
tapestry hangings, with embroidery and paintings; and the whole
edifice, though not very large, has a fine, rich, and cheerful
appearance, as if arranged for a perpetual festival. As we enter
the church, immediately before us is a flight of fifteen very broad
steps, leading down to the shrine. At the foot of these stairs is a
vestibule, about twenty-five feet long by ten wide, and a low arch,
opening in the middle of this space, admits to the holy place. There
is a marble altar, and under the altar is a marble slab, four inches
above the floor; it has the Jerusalem cross in the centre, with
the Franciscan coat of arms on the right, and the sacred stigmata,
or five wounds of the crucified Saviour, on the left. This marble
marks the spot where the Blessed Virgin stood at the time of the
annunciation. On the back wall, under the altar, is the inscription,
"VERBUM CARO HIC FACTUM EST," (_Here the Word was made flesh_,)
the most wonderful and important inscription in the world. That at
Bethlehem, where it is written that "HERE, OF THE VIRGIN MARY, JESUS
CHRIST WAS BORN," could never have been engraved but for the event
commemorated in the words of the shrine at Nazareth. Above the altar
is a picture well painted and old, but spoiled by the flat gold
crowns which have been fastened to the canvas over the heads of the
Blessed Virgin and the angel. Below the table of the altar, and over
the marble slab, hang several silver lamps which burn continually.
Immediately behind this altar and picture are another altar and
picture, back to back with those of the shrine. The second altar has
the inscription, "HIC ERAT SUBDITUS ILLIS," (_Here He was subject to
them_.) Behind these, and reached by a narrow rock-hewn stairway, is
the kitchen of the Blessed Virgin, where the fireplace and chimney
are shown.

As we come into the church by the chief entrance, a most cheerful and
pleasant scene welcomes the pilgrim. The gay decorations, the many
paintings, the statues and silver lamps, with other objects, make a
contrast with the dreariness of the ride to Nazareth, which seems to
the Christian like a glimpse of heaven. He raises his eyes, and sees
the choir where the Franciscan monks chant their office. Here is an
altar with a large statue of the Blessed Virgin and the Infant Jesus,
surmounted by a canopy. There are two large organs in the choir,
one at the right, the other at the left. This choir is raised about
sixteen steps above the floor of the church, and is immediately over
the most holy place, of which it may be said to form the roof. As the
shrine is about fifteen steps below the level of the church floor,
the distance between the spot of the annunciation and the choir above
it is about thirty steps. It gives the idea of three churches--the
first being the main building, the second that of the holy place,
which is below, and the third that of the monks' choir, which is
immediately over the shrine. As we look down the broad stair which
leads to the shrine, we see that the walls are cased with marble and
adorned with paintings. Before us is the holy place, to which the
eye is at once drawn; but before we reach it, in the vestibule, on
the right and left hand, stand beautiful marble altars, each with a
painting over it. In the whole arrangement there is a dignity and
propriety which strike the pilgrim most favorably, and he recognizes
it as planned by men who had a vivid realization of the event which
is the glory of Nazareth. To the left of the altar of the shrine is
the upper two thirds of a large granite column suspended from the
roof, with a fragment of a marble column under it; though these are
both of dark stone, and of nearly the same color and size, it is easy
to note the difference in the material of which they are composed.

It was on Friday, April 6th, that I first said mass at the shrine of
the annunciation. The interest of this spot is very great, even when
compared with other places in Palestine; and I had looked forward,
with great hope and expectation, to the day when I would be permitted
to kneel and pray here. At last my wish was realized, and I offered
the holy sacrifice on the very spot where the incarnation of God took
place. By a concession of the holy see, the mass of the annunciation
may be said on this altar nearly every day in the year; so that the
pilgrim, coming at any season may have the consolation of being
present at the same mass as is said on the 25th of March. Of course,
every priest avails himself with eagerness of this privilege; and
no words can express the emotion of his soul as, when reading the
last gospel, in speaking the words ET VERBUM CARO FACTUM EST, he
kneels down on the very spot where that mystery took place, where the
incarnation of God began. For it was to Nazareth that God sent his
holy Archangel Gabriel:

    "to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the
    house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel
    being come in, said to her, Hail, full of grace, the Lord is
    with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she had
    heard, she was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself
    what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said
    to her, Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God.
    Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth
    a son: and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great,
    and shall be called the Son of the Most High: and the Lord
    God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he
    shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom
    there shall be no end. And Mary said to the angel, How shall
    this be done, because I know not man? And the angel answering,
    said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power
    of the Most High shall overshadow thee; and therefore also the
    Holy which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of
    God.... And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it
    done to me according to thy word. (St. Luke i.)

    And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." (St. John i.)

After having prayed a long time, prostrate at the shrine, I sat down
at the side of the broad flight of steps leading to the holy place,
and meditated for an hour. Before me was the spot where all these
things occurred, and where man's redemption was begun. It was easy
to go back one thousand eight hundred years, and picture the scene.
The lowly maiden in her humble home, engaged, it may have been, in
the ordinary occupations of the day, or perchance resting for a time
from them, and meditating on God, when suddenly the room was filled
with light, and the angel appeared and delivered his august message.
Then in the house which once stood here the child Jesus lived, and
grew in favor with God and man. He ran about the humble but sacred
home in his boyhood, and wandered among the hills that are so close
around Nazareth. Many a time did he go with Mary to the fountain when
she brought water for the use of the family. By her side he kept in
his early years, as children are wont to cling to their mothers. When
he had grown older, he helped Joseph in the work of carpentry, and
went with him as he journeyed to the various places where he found
work. No doubt the employment was humble, the tools rude and few; and
it is reasonable to suppose that such work as a humble carpenter
might find among poor villagers or fishermen at the Lake of Tiberias
was not of the most elegant and costly kind. Even to this day there
is great simplicity and rudeness in all the mechanic arts, which is
noticed by the traveller, and it must have been equally so in the
country places in the days of our Saviour.

Thus for thirty years did Jesus dwell in Nazareth, undistinguished
from others by any external appearance, and leading a hidden life of
contemplation and communing with his heavenly Father.

When his ministry had begun, after his baptism in the Jordan and his
temptation of forty days in the wilderness, he came to Nazareth, and
went into the synagogue, according to his custom, and read out of the
book which was handed to him the words of Isaias,

    "The spirit of the Lord is upon me; wherefore he hath anointed
    me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal
    the contrite of heart, to preach deliverance to the captives,
    and sight to the blind; to set at liberty them that are
    bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day
    of reward. And he began to say to them, This day is fulfilled
    this Scripture in your ears."

When they had rejected his teaching, he went to Capernaum, on the
borders of the Sea of Galilee, fifteen miles east from Nazareth, and
the people there were astonished at his doctrine and the miracles
which he performed. Subsequently he visited Nazareth a second time,
and was taunted by the people of the place, who regarded him as only
one of their neighbors. They said, "Is not this the carpenter, the
son of Mary, the brother of James and Joseph, and of Jude and Simon?
are not also his sisters here with us? And they were scandalized in
regard of him." The greater portion of our Lord's life, during the
three following years, was passed in the neighborhood of the Lake of
Tiberias, or near Jerusalem.

Nazareth has one or two other places of interest, yet they are of
small note in comparison of the shrine of the annunciation. One of
these is the place where stood the workshop of Joseph; a chapel is
built here. Another is the rock called _Mensa Christi_, or Table of
Christ, which is venerated as the place where our Lord often ate his
food. It projects three feet above the ground, and is about twelve
feet long and eight feet wide. A new church is over it.

The hill back of Nazareth is always ascended by travellers for the
sake of the fine view which may be had there. The whole country
for miles around is visible--Mount Hermon, Mount Carmel, the
Mediterranean Sea, and the great plain of Esdraelon. Just around
Nazareth the hills are rather bare; but everywhere else they are
wooded, and sink down into green valleys. We see how the city lies
off all the great routes of travel in former days, and is shut up by
the hills, and thus _separated_ (as the name Nazareth implies) from
other places. Its isolated position, and the resulting obscurity, is
the reason why it was unknown to ancient writers, and there is no
mention made of it in the Old Testament. From the Gospel narrative we
learn that the contemptuous inquiry was made "Can any good thing come
out of Nazareth?" To this the Christian answers from the depth of his
soul, Yes! all good cometh thence. The Child of Nazareth has passed
from obscurity and a hidden life to a prominence which no description
can adequately portray. He who was conceived of the Virgin Mary in
this little village is our Lord and our God, and in him centre all
our hopes. He who condescended to be subject to Mary and Joseph in
Nazareth, is the King of kings and Lord of lords, and now and for
ever reigneth in the heaven which is his home.




THE YOUNG VERMONTERS.


CHAPTER XI.

PASTIMES AND PARTINGS.

In accordance with the teacher's announcement, the day following
Michael's return was given up to rejoicings, and Mr. Blair invited
the school to pass it at his place.

It was one of those golden days not so frequent in our autumnal
season as to lose the charm of novelty, or the full sense of their
value in redeeming its general sternness; and it seemed to the boys
as if nature herself shared in the universal delight. The spacious
ground encircling Mr. Blair's residence afforded ample scope for
their pastimes, and their dinner was served under the trees in the
yard.

To those who had known Michael Hennessy only as the thoughtless,
frolicsome boy, it did not seem possible that a few short weeks could
have wrought the change now apparent in him. The fiery trial through
which he had passed accomplished the work of time upon his character,
and he emerged from it purified and matured.

His face still wore the sunny smile that had made it a joy to all,
but the light which lingered upon it was chastened and subdued. His
manners still charmed by the warm, ingenuous frankness that made him
the village pet, but their former reckless gayety was sobered by the
spirit of piety, which had established its abode within his youthful
heart from the moment when the blessed hand of adversity opened wide
its portals, and prepared it to become thenceforth a chosen home of
the celestial guest.

He was more than ever the favorite of the boys, and the leader in
all their sports; but his devotion to study was more faithful, his
attention to every religious duty more regular, and his conduct under
all circumstances more exemplary than ever before.

Soon after his return, farmer Brown celebrated the event by inviting
the school--without any exceptions this time--to spend another day at
the farm, as the season for gathering nuts had arrived. Such a gay
time as they had! whisking the deep beds of fallen leaves about in
search for hidden treasures, and watching the squirrels gleaning in
the path from which they had thrown off nature's covering for stray
nuts, whose hiding places had thus been revealed.

The day passed delightfully, but not, like their former holidays, in
unalloyed and careless pleasure. The thought would intrude upon its
happiest moments, that their little band was soon to be broken up,
and that this was to be the last occasion upon which they would all
meet in the hey-day of boyish glee, to join in boyish pastimes.

For the change was now stealing upon them apace which presses closely
on the footsteps of boyhood--and from which our "young Vermonters"
were not to be exempted--when one and another must pass from its
arena, to enter upon a new stage of action and form new associations.
When the dear old school-house, with all the memories that were to
link it with the shifting scenes of each single life--to which it had
been the starting-point in quest of knowledge--was to be exchanged
for college halls, the office, the counter, or the farm, with all
their excitements, laborious duties, and temptations, and their weary
anxieties.

The next week after their visit to the farm, Frank Blair took his
leave of home and friends to enter the naval school at B----. Not
long after, George Wingate, Henry Howe, and Johnny Hart entered the
College of the Holy Cross. The same week, Patrick Casey was appointed
clerk in a railroad office, and Dennis Sullivan left to take his
place as clerk in a wholesale establishment in Boston.

Who shall say what pangs all these changes, so easily related, and
so much a matter of course in this changeful world, cost the young
exiles now banished from the sheltering bosom of home, and standing
for the first time face to face with the stern realities of life?
The homesick looking back to the dear and peaceful past, the timid,
shrinking glances into the dim vista of the dreaded future--the one
bathed in all the effulgence of morning, the other bearing already
upon its sombre wings foreshadowings of the night!

And who shall describe the loneliness of each home from which
the brightest, warmest ray of sunshine had been stricken, when
the school-boy with his "shining morning face" vanished from its
precincts, to return no more for ever with the light of his young
life upon his brow?

None but mothers can know the depth of the shadow that remains
to them in the place of their mirthful boys. But take courage,
ye mothers! Rest not in supine regrets and gentle memories, but
betake yourselves with renewed energy and diligence to the use of
the all-conquering weapon of prayer, for now more than ever do your
darlings need its aid. Remember what the holy bishop said to the
afflicted St. Monica in the olden time, "It cannot be that the child
of so many tears should perish." Let your sons, in the midst of
their temptations and trials, be shielded and sustained by the firm
assurance that their mothers are constantly lifting up pure hands and
fervent hearts to heaven in their behalf. So, following the example
of that saintly mother, may you hope to gain that mother's reward.
For it is true now as it was then, and will be unto the end of time,
that, "They who sow in tears shall reap in joy!"

Michael remained at home, pursuing his studies diligently until the
winter was far advanced, when his father was taken alarmingly ill,
and he was obliged to relinquish them and devote himself to his care,
and that of the family. He had long known that some trouble was
weighing upon his father, and he was now made acquainted with it.

When Mr. Hennessy first came to M----, he rented a very pretty place
just out of the village, to which they became so much attached that
he finally purchased it, and had from time to time been able to make
improvements and add little embellishments within and around the
premises, besides meeting the payments as they fell due. Latterly,
with failing health and an increasing family, he had been unable to
do more than support his household comfortably, and two payments
remained to be met; they were now both due, and his creditor
threatened to foreclose the mortgage upon the place, if they were
not promptly paid.

Michael was deeply distressed when the state of their affairs was
made known to him. The thought of losing their all, and the home
they so dearly loved, the scene of so many tranquil joys, weighed
heavily upon his young heart. He sought in fervent prayer the refuge
of the Catholic, commending himself and all his dear ones anew to the
protection of the Blessed Virgin Mother, and leaving all his troubles
at her feet. Suddenly it flashed upon his remembrance that Mr. Blair
had told him if he should ever need assistance or advice not to fail
of applying to him, and that he should consider it a favor if he
would do so. To him, therefore, he resolved to go at once, though it
was not without much of the old apprehension of his sternness that
he sought the office of that gentleman, mingled with uprisings of a
pride that rebelled against asking favors from one who had formerly
despised his people. For duty's sake, however, he mastered all these
feelings, and was received with the utmost kindness. With a faltering
voice he laid the whole case open to Mr. Blair, and concluded by
saying, "Now, sir, you see the sum due on the place is not a large
one, and if you feel disposed to advance it, I will guarantee the
payment of interest and principal as soon as I can leave my father
and get into a situation to earn it."

"What do you intend to do?" said Mr. Blair.

"I must seek a place as book-keeper or clerk in some establishment;
and will do so without delay."

"Do you prefer such a position to any other?" inquired his friend.

"I have," said Michael, blushing with bashful earnestness, "always
indulged the hope that I might be able to study law; but this must
now be relinquished," he added after a slight pause.

"Well, my young friend," said Mr. Blair kindly, "I will now tell you
what I think had better be done. I will raise this money for you,
and you may take your own time to pay it. I have no fears on that
score. I will see that matters in relation to the home are put upon
a safe footing without delay. You will take care of your father and
the family until he is sufficiently recovered to spare you, and then
you will enter my office as a student. I have felt very lonely since
Frank went away, and will be pleased to have his best friend with me.
Besides, you are an excellent and rapid penman; I need such a one in
my business just now very much, and can afford to pay you liberally
for your assistance. My old hands are getting too stiff to write
much, and my business is increasing. If this proposal suits you,
consider the matter settled for the present."

It need not be told how thankfully Michael accepted the offer, nor
what fervent thanksgivings were poured from pious hearts in that home
when the arrangement was made known.

Mr. Hennessy recovered rapidly when the pressure of adverse
circumstances and the fears of impending calamity were removed; and
Michael soon entered Mr. Blair's office as a student. Here his close
attention to business, his application to study, and his fidelity to
every duty, gained for him the highest esteem and confidence of his
superior, who would often exclaim to himself, "Oh! why could not my
boy have been such a one as this? With every obstacle removed from
his path and every encouragement offered, why would he persist in
casting all his advantages aside, to pursue a reckless career of
folly?"

And indeed he heard little that was encouraging from Frank in his
new position. He was so homesick, discontented, and dissatisfied
with everything as to unfit him for the studies and duties of the
school, the discipline and restraints of which were insupportably
irksome to him. But his father was only convinced that they were
remedies the more necessary to a restless spirit which chafed so
fiercely under them. His passion for mischief and fun continually
drew the chains he hated more closely around him, and involved
him daily in new difficulties. One circumstance alone--humanly
speaking--prevented him from falling into utter ruin. He had formed
an enthusiastic friendship for his sister Fanny's dearest friend,
the eldest daughter of Mrs. Plimpton, Julia Plimpton--one of those
gentle, lovely girls, who wield a controlling influence over such
impetuous, restless characters. He was in correspondence with her,
and to her he communicated all his troubles and his peevish, fretful
repinings, in perfect confidence, receiving just the advice he needed
from time to time to keep him from breaking rudely away from all
restraint.


CHAPTER XII.

DEVELOPMENTS.

Two years elapsed without any material changes in the circle to which
this narrative relates.

During this period, Miss Carlton, one of Miss Blair's best friends,
near her own age, and a lady of intelligence and wealth, with strong
philanthropic impulses, had set herself with great enthusiasm to
gather a large number of poor French Catholic children, who would
not attend the public schools, into a sort of boarding-school at
her own cottage on the confines of the village. She solicited aid
from Miss Blair in dressing her young wards suitably, and entered
zealously into the task of educating them, as a necessary prelude to
their conversion to Protestantism, which must inevitably follow. Miss
Blair willingly assisted her with funds, and the use of her needle
in preparing clothing; but could not be persuaded to go any further.
Miss Carlton at length becoming vexed and irritated by the cool
scepticism with which her efforts were regarded, insisted on knowing
the reason.

"I am sure it is not want of benevolence," said she; "for I have
known you too long and too well to doubt the kindness of your heart.
Do tell me, then, why you will persist in looking upon my exertions
with so much apathy?"

"Precisely because," said Miss Blair, laughing, "I once tried the
experiment myself, under as much more promising auspices as the
superior numbers and greater necessities of that class of children in
a city could furnish. My failure was more grand than yours will be,
because my operations were on a grander scale."

"But why must I of necessity fail?"

"Ah! there lies the mystery. I cannot tell you why; nor do I deny
but you may benefit them so far as learning to read and write, and
even some little smattering of further knowledge may go; but make
Protestants of them? Never! When you think you have secured them by
catching the unfledged brood and attaching them to the Protestant
cage by food and favors, just one chirp from the mother-bird, and
_Presto!_ your flock is gone! If you will take the pains to follow,
you will find them nestled under the parent wing and peeping out at
you so contentedly and complacently! I know, for I have tried it;
and am forced to laugh now when I think how provoked I was, and how
puzzled to account for the mysterious, irrepressible, and apparently
irresistible power that majestic mother exercised. Since I came
to this part of Vermont, my conviction of the futility of all such
attempts has been confirmed. There have been great rejoicings among
the Methodists and Baptists, at one time and another, over accessions
to their numbers from the ancient ark; but let a priest appear in
those localities and utter the rallying call of their church--away
scamper the converts, and their Protestant _confreres_ have seen the
last of them!"

As Mrs. Blair had intimated during the colloquy with Mrs. Plimpton,
her sister-in-law had become interested in the converts of M----
and in reading their books. She began listlessly, from a mere
willingness to hear what could be said on that side, and to see fair
play, perhaps unconsciously hoping to find some solution for that
"mysterious power" which so puzzled her. But the investigation thus
indolently opened soon awakened new ideas as to the importance of
issues which involved eternity. From that moment nothing could exceed
the fervent energy with which she followed up the subject, determined
to know and follow the truth, if it was to be found on earth. Her
labors resulted as all such labors honestly entered upon, diligently
pursued, and governed by the spirit of justice, must inevitably
result. She found herself safely sheltered under the wings of the
gentle mother whose loving attractions had formerly astonished her
ignorance. Her brother made no comments, but poor Mrs. Blair was
utterly disgusted.

Meanwhile her favorite niece--because Frank's favorite and petted
sister--Fanny was drawn by casually looking into the books which her
aunt was studying so closely to take a lively interest in the same
subject. But the reading of "prosy books of controversy," as she
called them, was an effort quite beyond her patience, so she would
seek the office occasionally and question Michael. He declined, as
far as he could in conscience, to assist her in the matter, thinking
that to do so would be in some sort a breach of the confidence
reposed in him by her father.

At length one day, when he had been even more provokingly indifferent
than usual, and pursued his writing diligently despite her
questioning, she exclaimed,

"I never did see such a vexatious fellow as you are! I can't imagine
what Frank could have seen in you to like so well. One might just
as well talk to a stick; there's nothing interesting or sociable
about you! I suppose you think you're going to keep me from being a
Catholic by your hateful ways; but you won't, I can tell you. I can
_read_, if you won't talk, only I _do_ hate the trouble." And she
departed, leaving him amused beyond measure at her vehemence.

She was engaged in a correspondence with Julia Plimpton, of the
frequent and confidential nature in which girls of that age are wont
to indulge, and of course opened her heart to her friend upon the
subject which now most interested her. Their letters were soon filled
with the discussion of religious questions, in which after a time
Mrs. Plimpton joined, expressing her surprise that so much could be
said in favor of a creed which she had always regarded as the height
of absurdity, and the last stronghold of bigotry, superstition, and
ignorance, in this progressive age.

At the stage of our narrative upon which this chapter opens,
Mr. Hennessy was one day looking over the columns of the Boston
_Pilot_--to which Mr. Sullivan was a subscriber--when his eye fell
upon the following paragraph:

    "If Patrick Hennessy or any of his family, who landed in Boston
    from the ship Hibernia in the summer of 18--, will call at
    the _Pilot_ office, they will hear something greatly to their
    advantage."

After consulting with Mrs. Hennessy, Michael, and Mr. Blair, he
decided to start for Boston without delay.

The editor of the _Pilot_, when found, asked him many questions as
to his place of residence in Ireland, the name of his wife, of the
priest who married them, of his other family connections, and where
he had lived since he came to America; all which being satisfactorily
answered, the following letter was put into his hands to read:

                              "SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 8, 18--.

    "TO THE EDITOR OF THE BOSTON PILOT:

    "DEAR SIR: When I was on board the Golden City, bound for this
    place early in the summer of 18--, the sailor on the 'look-out'
    discovered an object floating at some distance astern, and
    notified the captain, who ordered the boat manned to overhaul
    it. The object proved to be a man lashed to a table and
    apparently dead. They brought him to the vessel, where, after
    a time, he began to show signs of life, and in a few hours was
    able to give an account of himself. The Polar Queen, on which
    he was a passenger, was struck by an iceberg in the night. At
    the first shock he secured himself firmly to the table and
    sprang overboard; after which he remembered nothing, and could
    give no idea how long it was since the event, but supposed the
    vessel went down with all on board, as she was badly shivered
    and rapidly filling the last he knew of her.

    "His name was Michael Hennessy, and he was a tradesman like
    myself, and from the same county at home. He had a brother
    Patrick, who was to sail for America the same year. The two
    brothers married two sisters, by name Mary and Bridget Denver,
    the year before. Michael married Bridget. They had no children
    when Michael left home. There was great call for work at our
    trades in San Francisco, and Michael came on here with me. As
    soon as we reached this place, he wrote home to the parish
    priest, Father O'Reilly, to have Patrick come to California,
    sending money which I loaned him. He received answer that his
    brother, with their two wives and Patrick's new-born infant,
    left soon after he did on the Hibernia, bound for Boston. He
    then applied to you, as you may remember, to get information
    of them, if you could. In due course you informed him that
    the Hibernia arrived safely at Boston; that you found the
    people with whom they stopped, who stated that Michael's wife
    and child died during a severe storm on the voyage out; that
    Patrick stopped in Boston until he heard of the loss of the
    Polar Queen with all on board, when he started for the western
    country, and they had heard nothing from him since.

    "Michael then sent notices to papers in all the western cities,
    but could get no tidings from his brother. We continued to
    work at our trades, and the master builder who employed us,
    owning a deal of land near the city, paid us in city lots, on
    which we built houses, to rent according as we could, when
    work was scant. Rents were very high, for there was a great
    rush to the city, and buildings scarce, and the city lots
    went up in a way that would astonish the world. So Mike and I
    found ourselves rich of a sudden; but he always uneasy about
    his brother. At last, when he could stand the heavy heart no
    longer, he determined to go in search of him. In case any thing
    might happen him on his travels, he executed papers leaving
    all he had with me in trust for his brother or family, should
    they ever be found. Just when he was ready to start, he took
    sick of a fever and died the fourth day, which was the 27th of
    last month. I will do all in my power, as I promised him, to
    find his brother if he is still living; and my request is that
    you will help me. I have notices out through all the western
    country. He left a large amount in gold on deposit, and a
    still larger property in buildings and lots in the city. The
    rents are accumulating on my hands, but I will make no further
    investments until I know what will happen.

            Yours respectfully,

                                              "JAMES TRACY."

After making arrangements to communicate with Tracy through the
editor, who was to receive and forward drafts for him, Mr. Hennessy
set out for home.

The surprise of all upon hearing the news may be imagined.

After a long consultation with his wife, Mr. Hennessy sought Mr.
Blair, to whom he communicated the fact that the Michael of our
narrative was the son of his brother Michael; that their own baby
died in a fit on the night of Bridget's death, and they adopted the
little motherless one in its place, without saying any thing to their
companions, but intending to inform his brother of the fact when
they should meet. Subsequent events determined them to keep it still
concealed; but now that Michael was the rightful heir to all this
wealth, it must be revealed.

Mr. Blair urged that, as his brother left the property to him, it was
just as well to make no revelation on the subject; but Mr. Hennessy
insisted that his brother made that arrangement in ignorance of the
existence of his own child, and it would not be right for him to take
advantage of it, and, in fine, that he would have nothing to do with
the property. It was far more painful for him to give up his claim
upon Michael as his son, and he did not feel equal to doing it in
person. He therefore begged Mr. Blair to communicate these facts to
Michael for him.

That gentleman lost no time in fulfilling the commission, and Michael
was of course overwhelmed with amazement. He hastened to assure his
father that he would not consent to any release of claims on the
score of family ties, and they both went into a council with Mr.
Blair upon "the situation." Finally they determined that Michael
should transfer all the money to his father, and, retaining the real
estate in his own hands, go into the practice of law in San Francisco
himself. He at first proposed to have the family go with him to that
place; but they had lived so long in Vermont, and become so much
attached to M----, that they preferred not to leave.

Before Michael set out for California, he had a long conversation
with Mr. Blair, at the conclusion of which it was arranged that,
after he had established himself in his new home, and opened an
office there, he should come back, and if a certain young lady (who
was about to become a Catholic in "spite of him") could be persuaded
to accompany his return--as he had good reason to hope she would--his
next journey to that far off land would not be a solitary one.


CHAPTER XIII.

CONCLUSION.

During the progress of these events, the health of George Wingate had
been gradually failing, but so imperceptibly as to create no serious
alarm; and he could not be prevailed upon to abandon his studies, or
the hope that he would live to consecrate his young life to his God
in holy orders, until it was near its close. Henry Howe and Johnny
Hart devoted themselves tenderly to him, and watched his decline with
the grief which under such circumstances always attends friendships
created and cemented by religion. He began at length to fail so
rapidly that his family were sent for, and he never returned to the
home of his childhood, but sleeps in peace under the shadow of the
"Holy Cross" which he so dearly loved.

His mantle seemed to have fallen upon his devoted friend, Johnny
Hart, who in due course of time entered upon the vineyard from which
his beloved companion had been withdrawn while the dews of the
morning still lingered upon his head, and the labors of the day were
hardly begun.

Soon after the death of George, his oldest sister, Mary, joined the
Sisters of Charity.

In the same year, Henry Howe took his father's place in the
mercantile business, which was rapidly increasing in importance with
the growth of the village, and Dennis Sullivan went into partnership
with him.

After Michael reached San Francisco, he arranged his affairs, and
opened an office in one of the best locations in the city, without
delay. He found a home in James Tracy's house, and one of the best
friends in that worthy man, who took a pride and interest in the son
of his lamented friend scarcely less than that of a father.

Frank Blair became importunate in his solicitations for the hand of
Julia Plimpton. Her mother steadfastly declining to consent until
he should have established a character for sobriety and stability,
he became exasperated, and abruptly left the navy. His disconsolate
family could get no trace as to the course of his flight.

One day, as Michael Hennessy was passing down the street to his
office, he observed a young man walking rapidly in advance of him,
and, accidentally catching a side glimpse of his face, what was his
astonishment to recognize Frank Blair.

"Why Frank, my lad, where in the world did you come from?" he cried
out.

"Rather answer that question on your own account!" replied the
astonished Frank. "How in the world do you happen to be in San
Francisco?"

"If I could have seen you as I passed through New York, you would
have known all; but I could not find you, and had no time to spare
for a long search," said Michael. "It is a long story; so come with
me to the office, and you shall hear it."

When the friends were seated, Frank told Michael that he had left the
navy without a discharge, and shipped as seaman on board a vessel
bound for Panama; and that he supposed his friends were wild with
anxiety about him.

Michael communicated the details relating to his own affairs, with
which our readers are already acquainted. He then wrote to Mr.
Blair the story of Frank's arrival in safety, and that if he had no
objections Frank would study law with him in San Francisco. Upon
receiving the letter, Mr. Blair obtained an honorable discharge for
his son from the navy, and consented to his remaining with Michael.
In the course of time he went into partnership with his friend--now
his brother-in-law--who has become one of the most celebrated
criminal lawyers in that city.

Two years after the marriage of Michael, Frank was permitted to claim
the hand of Julia Plimpton. At the same time, Henry Howe was married
to Mrs. Plimpton's youngest daughter, Mary, and her mother came to
live with them.

Mrs. Plimpton's son Charles is a lawyer in Massachusetts, and it is
said he is coming for Lucy Wingate soon.

The people of M----, having noticed the frequent visits of Dennis
Sullivan and Patrick Casey at Mr. Hennessy's, and that two beautiful
cottages are building on lots purchased by that gentleman each side
of his own, have settled the question that two more weddings are soon
to take place in M----, but have not yet "named the day."




READING HOMER.


    How my dreamy childhood pondered
        On that old heroic tongue!
    Then, the dream-land where I wandered
        Was the Olympus Homer sung;
        The cloud-cleaving peaks that trembled
        When the mighty gods assembled.

    Dazzled saw I blue-eyed Pallas
        Throned by Zeus on golden seat,
    Sipped from Hebe's nectar chalice,
        Plucked Cythera's roses sweet--
        Breathless watched, as from those portals
        Battleward clashed down the immortals.

    Naiads from Scamander's fountain
        Lifted to my lips the cup;
    Oreads skimming Haemus' mountain
        To the tryst-place caught me up;
        Gleamed athwart the forest's grace
        The white light of Dian's face.

    Burst upon my ear the townward
        Thunder of Achilles' wheel,
    When the fair long locks trailed downward,
        And the shriek made Ilium reel.
        Conquering torches, steep to steep,
        Flashed along the wine-dark deep.

    But my heart--that restless roamer--
        Quit those fields of kingly strife,
    That old world of Greece and Homer,
        For the world of love and life.
        Dead, like leaves on autumn clay,
        Those old gods and wonders lay.

    O the spirit's aspiration,
        Glorious through all nature's bound!
    The soul yearning through creation--
        All the sought, and all the found!
        Oh! what is--and what shall be
        In far immortality?

    For truth's marvels well are able
        All of fiction to eclipse,
    And the wine of classic fable
        Tasteless palls upon the lips.
        From the living fount of truth
        Wells the soul's immortal youth.

    Still at times when basks the river
        The long summer afternoon,
    When the broad green pastures quiver
        In the rippling breeze of June,
        I unclose the Iliad's pages,
        To unearth those buried ages.

    But no Ilium now, nor tragic
        Plains I find in Homer's lay;
    With a new and stranger magic
        Now it leads another way--
        Whirls me on a sudden track
        To my merry childhood back.

    All that fresh young joy rejoices,
        Beats the child heart as of yore,
    And again I hear--oh! voices
        That I thought to hear no more,
        Till--the dusk has round me grown;
        Close the book--the dream has flown.

                                                    C. E. B.




THE WORKS OF GERALD GRIFFIN.[208]


Of the works of fiction in the English language of which the first
half of this century has been so prolific, Ireland has contributed at
least a fair proportionate share. Her writers in this department of
literature are numerous, and their productions have been generally
received with due favor on this side of the Atlantic as correct
portraitures of the habits and manners of a people in whom we take so
deep an interest, and whose very contradictions of character render
them interesting studies for the curious and philosophic. Of so large
a number four at least deserve special notice, standing, as they
do, prominently in the front rank of Irish authors and exhibiting
in a marked degree a pleasant diversity of talent and invention, as
varied as the peculiar characteristics of the provinces to which
they belong. Carleton, for example, was an Ulster-man, rugged and
ungraceful, yet possessing a deep vein of caustic humor, while his
figures are struck out as distinctly as if his pen had some of the
power Of Michael Angelo's chisel; John Banim was the embodiment of
Leinster propriety and stability; Lever is never so much at home as
at the mess-table of the "Rangers," or when endangering the neck
of his hero or heroine over a Galway fence; while through Gerald
Griffin's pages flow, now gently as a meandering stream and anon
with the impetuosity of a mountain torrent, the poetry and passion
of Munster. Still, in the strictest sense, none of these novelists
can be considered national; yet all are true to Irish character. To
those unacquainted with the radical difference of mind, temperament,
and even physique, which is to be found in so comparatively small
a country, this may seem paradoxical; but it is nevertheless true.
Mickey Frees and Lowry Lovbys are plentiful enough in Ireland,
but only in their respective sections; while Valentine McClutchy
terrifies the northern tenant each recurring gala-day, and Banim's
Paddy Flynn, to use the pithy remark of Sir Philip Crampton, "is
hanged twice a year regularly in the south of Ireland."

If any of them be entitled to the term national, that honor should
be awarded to Griffin, who in his _Invasion_, _Duke of Monmouth_,
and some minor stories, has travelled out of his favorite province
with some degree of success. But even in his wanderings in Wicklow,
Taunton dene, and the wilds of Northumbria, we are constantly
catching glimpses of the Shannon and Killarney. The reason of
this is obvious. He aimed to be a strict and minute copyist of
nature; and nature to him was bounded by the lovely scenery of
Munster and the people with whom he had been in daily intercourse
for almost the whole of his short life. His power of observation,
thus limited, became intensified, and what he lost in breadth of
view and amplitude of knowledge, he gained in the distinctness and
fidelity of his pictures. Besides, the merits of the true novelist,
like those of the painter, should never be estimated by the square
of the canvas, but by his faithfulness, either to human figure,
action, and circumstance, or to the embodiment of noble ideas. It
is not so difficult as it may seem to call up imaginary kings and
princes, noble lords and ladies, clothe them with all the gorgeous
panoply so easily found in the pages of dear old Froissart, or in
the latest book of fashions, and make them speak and act in the most
approved manner of our modern romances, because few of us care to
inquire into the correctness either of design or execution. Cervantes
and Goldsmith painted the men and manners of their day with rare
fidelity, and their works will be read by the learned and unlearned
as long as the languages in which they wrote shall exist; and no one
can doubt that two of the most popular authors of our time, Balzac
and Dickens, no matter how inferior in some respects to the authors
of _Don Quixote_ and the _Vicar of Wakefield_, have truly held up to
us panoramas of modern society in the two great cities of Europe. For
Gerald Griffin we may not, perhaps, claim the universality of those
great masters; but in purity of expression, truthfulness to nature,
and delicacy of moral perception he is the equal of any of them.

There are some persons conversant with Irish character who maintain
that its essential element is neither gayety nor combativeness, but
melancholy, and sustain their apparently singular theory by reference
to the national music and poetry. Griffin's writings would afford
an additional argument in favor of this position. His genius was
decidedly tragic, his muse sad and retrospective. His pauses to give
us a glimpse of fireside enjoyment appear to be more as tributes to
old home memories, than as arising from any natural desire to linger
over the recollections of such tranquil scenes; and his snatches
of humor and merriment seem thrown in artistically, not so much
to relieve the sombre shading of his picture as to give its most
prominent figures greater depth and boldness. He also labored under
the disadvantage of all tragic minds; for, though he never can be
said to have ignored the "eternal fitness of things" in rewarding
the good and punishing the wicked, we close many of his volumes with
a feeling more akin to sorrow than rejoicing, and while admitting
the righteousness of his judgments, we sigh to think how God's best
gifts to man may be turned to his own destruction. It seems to be the
law of tragedy that the bad men must be more men of action than the
good, in order to produce the proper effect. They dress better, talk
more persuasively, and display high mental and physical qualities
which, say what we may, will generally provoke a certain sympathy
for them, evil as may be their acts. This inherent defect Griffin
labored to modify, if he could not entirely eradicate. His moral
heroes are good enough in their way, but their virtues are of too
negative a character. Kyrle Daly, in the _Collegians_, and young
Kingsly, in the _Duke of Monmouth_, have all the qualities we could
desire in a friend or brother; but while we honor and respect them, a
something akin to sympathy is clandestinely stealing out to the proud
and wilful Hardress Cregan, and even to the cool malignity of that
unparalleled scoundrel, Colonel Kirke. O'Haedha, in the _Invasion_,
is an exception. He is _sui generis_ in Griffin's pantheon, being not
only a man of pure morality and well up in the lore of his times,
but he is also a chieftain governing wisely and firmly, a man of war
as well as of love and peace, strong in his affections and hatreds,
living, moving, and breathing like one who has a subtle brain, warm
blood, and a powerful arm to enforce his authority. He is decidedly
not only Griffin's grandest conception, but will stand in favorable
comparison with any we can recall in historical romance.

The _Collegians_ is Gerald Griffin's best known and most popular
novel; and, when we consider the early age of the author at the
time it was written, and the circumstances amid which it was
composed, we are equally surprised at his knowledge of the springs
of human action, and at the excellences of the book, both as regards
correctness of style and completeness of plot. Though the working
of some of the strongest passions of our nature is portrayed in
it--love, hatred, revenge, ambition--there is nothing about them
sensational or melodramatic; and though many different characters
are introduced, and incidents necessarily occur in a short space
of time, there is nothing hurried or disjointed, one character
acting upon another and each event following and hinging on the
one preceding so gracefully and naturally that the reader is borne
along on an unbroken current, as it were, from cause to effect till
he reaches the final catastrophe. It is related that a portion of
this admirable book was written in court while the author, who had
attained considerable proficiency as a short-hand writer in London,
was engaged in reporting an important law case. During an interval
in the proceedings, Griffin took out his manuscripts, and, as was
his habit, when a moment of leisure presented itself, proceeded to
continue his story, regardless of his surroundings. It happened that
Daniel O'Connell was employed professionally in the suit, and not
knowing the writer, and supposing him to be occupied transcribing his
notes, looked over his shoulder to read the evidence; but finding
that it was something very different from the dry question and
answer of counsellor and witness, the great advocate turned away in
silent indifference. He little thought at the time that the quiet,
industrious young reporter was Gerald Griffin, and that the work upon
which he was so intently engaged was the _Collegians_--a work which,
from the day of its publication, was ever the favorite solace of the
hours of relaxation of that illustrious statesman.

The moral of the book, however, is its greatest merit. The character
of Hardress Cregan is inimitably drawn. Young, gifted both in person
and mind, with a disposition naturally inclined to good, but warped
and misled by a fond, proud, worldly mother, and the example of a
dissolute father and his associates; early left to his own guidance
and the indulgence of his whims and fancies, he descends from the
high position in which we find him at the opening chapter, through
all the stages of crime--parental disobedience, ingratitude, deceit,
debauchery, and finally murder. Through each step in guilt we can
trace the cause of his ruin--moral cowardice, false pride, absence
of self-control, alternating or uniting, but always with disastrous
effect, until in the culminating scene, in which, torn by remorse
and conscious guilt, he leaves his native shores a condemned felon
and dies at sea, we feel that the punishment, no matter how severe,
is but in strict accordance with our highest sense of retributive
justice. Nor are the almost equally, though perhaps unconsciously,
guilty parents forgotten. Like a just judge, Griffin not only
punishes the actual perpetrator of crime, but metes out penalties to
those whose duty it is to correct the excesses of youth, restrain
their passions, and lead them by precept and example to the practice
as well as the knowledge of good, and who neglect the sacred trust.
What parent, after reading the _Collegians_, can contemplate without
a shudder the pangs of the haughty mother and the utter hopelessness
of her dissipated husband, when they found their only child, so
tenderly nurtured and so thoroughly schooled, torn from their arms
in chains, and dying the death of an outcast and a convict. Their
punishment abided in their parental hearts, and the author goes
no further. Many years ago, we casually overheard one of the most
thoroughly read, as well as one of the most profound thinkers in
America, say, upon being asked his opinion of the _Collegians_,
that he considered it the best novel in the language; for, while it
made you hate the crime, it did not take away your charity for the
criminal; an opinion which we think will be concurred in by all who
have attentively read the book and applied the moral it contains.
Kyrle Daly is an antipode of his friend and fellow-student, Hardress
Cregan. His filial reverence and moral rectitude are depicted in his
every action, and his whole character is as beautiful and lovable as
that of the other is dark and fraught with terrible warnings. Not
that young Daly is presented as a model lackadaisical individual, by
any means; but as a strong man of matured mind and deep feelings,
true in friendship and trusting in love; yet withal guided by the
dictates of his religion and directed by the authority and advice of
his father and mother, a weakness, if it be one, we are sorry to say,
not often indulged in at the present day.

Did the limits of our article permit, we might furnish many extracts
from this remarkable novel in testimony of the high opinion of the
merits found in its pages by so many distinguished scholars, but the
_Collegians_ is now so generally read that this is hardly necessary.
We transcribe, however, the following brief sketch of a morning on
the Shannon, and a breakfast scene, as a specimen of the author's
power of minute description of rural scenery and felicitous rendering
of social life:

    "They had assembled, on the morning of Eily's disappearance, a
    healthy and blooming household of all sizes, in the principal
    sitting-room, for a purpose no less important than that of
    dispatching breakfast. It was a favorable moment for any one
    who might be desirous of sketching a family picture. The
    windows of the room, which were thrown up for the purpose
    of admitting the fresh morning air, opened upon a trim and
    sloping meadow, that looked sunny and cheerful with the bright
    green after-grass of the season. The broad and sheety river
    washed the very margin of the little field, and bore upon its
    quiet bosom (which was only ruffled by the circling eddies
    that encountered the advancing tide) a variety of craft, such
    as might be supposed to indicate the approach to a large
    city. Majestic vessels, floating idly on the basined flood,
    with sails half-furled, in keeping with the languid beauty
    of the scene; lighters burdened to the water's edge with
    bricks or sand; large rafts of timber borne onward toward the
    neighboring quays under the guidance of a shipman's boat-hook;
    pleasure-boats with gaudy pennons hanging at peak and topmast;
    or turf-boats with their unpicturesque and ungraceful lading,
    moving sluggishly forward, while their black sails seemed
    gasping for a breath to fill them--such were the incidents that
    gave a gentle animation to the prospect immediately before the
    eyes of the cottage dwellers. On the further side of the river
    arose the Cratloe hills, shadowed in various places by a broken
    cloud, and rendered beautiful by the checkered appearance
    of the ripening tillage and the variety of hues that were
    observable along their wooded sides. At intervals, the front of
    a handsome mansion brightened up a passing gleam of sunshine,
    while the wreaths of blue smoke, ascending at various distances
    from among the trees, tended to relieve the idea of extreme
    solitude which it would otherwise have presented.

    "The interior of the cottage was not less interesting to
    contemplate than the landscape which lay before it. The
    principal breakfast-table (for there were two spread in the
    room) was placed before the window, the neat and snow-white
    damask cloth covered with fare that spoke satisfactorily for
    the circumstances of the proprietor, and for the housewifery
    of his helpmate. The former, a fair, pleasant-faced old
    gentleman, in a huge buckled cravat and square-toed shoes,
    somewhat distrustful of the meagre beverage which fumed out
    of Mrs. Daly's lofty and shining coffee-pot, had taken his
    position before a cold ham and fowl which decorated the lower
    end of the table. His lady, a courteous old personage, with a
    face no less fair and happy than her husband's, and with eyes
    sparkling with good nature and intelligence, did the honors of
    the board at the further end. On the opposite side, leaning
    over the back of his chair with clasped hands, in an attitude
    which had a mixture of abstraction and anxiety, sat Mr. Kyrle
    Daly, the first pledge of connubial affection that was born to
    this comely pair. He was a young man already initiated in the
    rudiments of the legal profession; of a handsome figure, and
    in manner--but something now pressed upon his spirits which
    rendered this an unfavorable occasion for describing him.

    "A second table was laid in a more retired portion of the
    room, for the accommodation of the younger part of the family.
    Several well-burnished goblets, or porringers, of thick
    milk flanked the sides of this board, while a large dish of
    smooth-coated potatoes reeked up in the centre. A number
    of blooming boys and girls, between the ages of four and
    twelve, were seated at this simple repast, eating and drinking
    away with all the happy eagerness of youthful appetite.
    Not, however, that this employment occupied their exclusive
    attention; for the prattle which circulated round the table
    frequently became so boisterous as to drown the conversation
    of the older people, and to call forth the angry rebuke of the
    master of the family.

    "The furniture of the apartment was in accordance with the
    appearance and manners of its inhabitants. The floor was
    handsomely carpeted, a lofty green fender fortified the
    fireplace, and supplied Mr. Daly in his facetious moments with
    occasions for the frequent repetition of a favorite conundrum,
    'Why is that fender like Westminster Abbey?'--a problem with
    which he never failed to try the wit of any stranger who
    happened to spend a night beneath his roof. The wainscoted
    walls were ornamented with several of the popular prints of the
    day, such as Hogarth's Roast Beef, Prince Eugene, Schomberg at
    the Boyne, Mr. Betterton playing Cato in all the glory of

        'Full wig, flowered gown, and lackered chair;'

    of the royal Mandane, in the person of Mrs. Mountain,
    strutting among the arbors of her Persian palace in a lofty
    _tete_ and hooped petticoat. There were also some family
    drawings done by Mrs. Daly in her school-days, of which we
    feel no inclination to say more than that they were prettily
    framed. In justice to the fair artist, it should also be
    mentioned that, contrary to the established practice, her
    sketches were never retouched by the hand of her master, a
    fact which Mr. Daly was fond of insinuating, and which no
    one who saw the pictures was tempted to call in question. A
    small book-case, with the edges of the shelves handsomely
    gilded, was suspended in one corner of the room, and, on
    examination, might be found to contain a considerable number
    of works on Irish history, for which study Mr. Daly had
    a national predilection, a circumstance much deplored by
    all the impatient listeners in his neighborhood, and (some
    people hinted) in his own household; some religious books,
    and a few volumes on cookery and farming. The space over the
    lofty chimney-piece was assigned to some ornaments of a more
    startling description. A gun-rack, on which were suspended a
    long shore gun, a brass-barreled blunderbuss, a cutlass, and a
    case of horse-pistols, manifested Mr. Daly's determination to
    maintain, if necessary, by force of arms, his claim to the fair
    possessions which his honest industry had acquired.

    "'Kyrle,' said Mr. Daly, putting his fork into a breast of cold
    goose, and looking at his son, 'you had better let me put a
    little goose (with an emphasis) on your plate. You know you are
    going a-wooing to-day.'

    "The young gentleman appeared not to hear him. Mrs. Daly, who
    understood more intimately the nature of her son's reflections,
    deprecated, by a significant look at her husband, the
    continuance of any raillery upon so delicate a subject.

    "'Kyrle, some coffee?' said the lady of the house; but without
    being more successful in awakening the attention of the young
    gentleman.

    "Mr. Daly winked at his wife.

    "'Kyrle!' he called aloud, in a tone against which even a
    lover's absence was not proof, 'do you hear what your mother
    says?'

    "'I ask pardon, sir--I was absent--I--what were you saying,
    mother?'

    "'She was saying,' continued Mr. Daly, with a smile, 'that you
    were manufacturing a fine speech for Anna Chute, and that you
    were just meditating whether you should deliver it on your
    knees or out of brief, as if you were addressing the bench in
    the Four Courts.'

    "'For shame, my dear! Never mind him, Kyrle; I said no such
    thing. I wonder how you can say that, my dear, and the children
    listening.'

    "'Pooh! the little angels are too busy and too innocent to pay
    us any attention,' said Mr. Daly, lowering his voice, however.
    'But, speaking seriously, my boy, you take this affair too
    deeply to heart; and whether it be in our pursuit of wealth,
    or fame, or even in love itself, an extreme solicitude to be
    successful is the surest means of defeating its own object.
    Besides, it argues an unquiet and unresigned condition. I have
    had a little experience, you know, in affairs of this kind,' he
    added, smiling and glancing at his fair helpmate, who blushed
    with the simplicity of a young girl.

    "'Ah sir!' said Kyrle, as he drew nearer to the breakfast-table
    with a magnanimous affectation of cheerfulness, 'I fear I have
    not so good a ground for hope as you may have had. It is very
    easy, sir, for one to be resigned to disappointment, when he is
    certain of success.'

    "'Why, I was not bidden to despair indeed,' said Mr. Daly,
    extending his hand to his wife, while they exchanged a quiet
    smile, which had in it an expression of tenderness and of
    melancholy remembrance.

    "'I have, I believe, been more fortunate than more deserving
    persons. I have never been vexed with useless fears in my
    wooing days, nor with vain regrets when those days were ended.
    I do not know, my dear lad, what hopes you have formed, or
    what prospects you may have shaped out of the future; but I
    will not wish you a better fortune than that you may as nearly
    approach to their accomplishment as I have done, and that time
    may deal as fairly with you as he has done with your father.'
    After saying this, Mr. Daly leaned forward on the table, with
    his temple supported by one finger, and glanced alternately
    from his children to his wife while he sang in a low tone the
    following verse of a popular song:

        'How should I love the pretty creatures,
          While round my knees they fondly clung!
        To see them look their mother's features,
          To hear them lisp their mother's tongue;
        And when with envy time transported,
          Shall think to rob us of our joys,
        You'll in your girls again be courted,
          And I--'

    with a glance at Kyrle--

        'And I go wooing with the boys.'"

We cannot close this imperfect sketch of the _Collegians_ without
commending the treatment of the humbler personages introduced,
equally free as they are from that stilted phraseology and broad
caricature which too often disgrace Irish novels and so-called Irish
plays. Poor Eily O'Connor, in all her simple innocence and ignorance
of the world, is a beautiful creation; and though travestied in three
or four different forms on the stage, she still holds a lasting place
in our affections. Her meeting with her discarded lover, Myles Murphy
the mountaineer, presents us a scene of touching pathos such as only,
we imagine, an Irish peasant could express in his native tongue:

    "'There is only one person to blame in all this business,'
    murmured the unhappy girl, 'and that is Eily O'Connor.'

    "'I don't say that,' returned the mountaineer. 'It's no
    admiration to me you should be heart-broken with all the
    persecution we gave you day afther day. All I'm thinking is,
    I'm sorry you didn't mention it to myself unknownst. Sure it
    would be betther for me than to be as I was afther, when I
    heerd you were gone. Lowry Lovby told me first of it, when I
    was eastwards. Oh ro! such a life as I led afther. Lonesome as
    the mountains looked before, when I used to come home thinkin'
    of you, they looked ten times lonesomer afther I heerd of that
    story. The ponies, poor crathers--see 'em all, how they're
    lookin' down at us this moment--they didn't hear me spring
    the rattle on the mountain for a month afther. I suppose they
    thought it is in Garryowen I was.'

    "Here he looked upward, and pointing to his herd, a great
    number of which were collected in groups on the broken cliffs
    above the road, some standing so far forward on the projections
    of rock as to appear magnified against the dusky sky, Myles
    sprang the large wooden rattle which he held in his hand, and
    in an instant all dispersed and disappeared, like the clan of a
    Highland chief at the sound of their leader's whistle.

    "'Well, Myles,' said Eily, at length collecting a little
    strength, 'I hope we'll see some happy days in Garryowen yet.'

    "'Heaven send it! I'll pack off the boy to-night to town,
    or I'll go myself, if you like, or I'll get you a horse and
    truckle, and guide it myself for you, or I'll do any thing in
    the whole world that you'll have me. Look at this. I'd rather
    be doing your bidding this moment than my own mother's, and
    heaven forgive me, if that's a sin! Ah Eily! they may say this
    and that o' you, in the place where you were born; but I'll
    ever hold to it, I held to it all through, an' I'll hold to it
    to my death, that when you darken your father's door again, you
    will send no shame before you.'

    "'You are right in that, Myles.'

    "'Didn't I know I was? And wasn't it that that broke my heart!
    If one met me afther you flitted away, an' saw me walking
    the road with my hands in my pockets and my head down, an' I
    thinking; an' if he sthruck me on the shoulder, an' "Myles,"
    says he, "don't grieve for her, she's this an' that," and if he
    proved it to me, why, I'd look up that minute an' I'd smile in
    his face. I'd be as easy from that hour as if I never crossed
    your threshold at Garryowen! But knowing in my heart, and as my
    heart told me, that it never could be that way; that Eily was
    still the old girl always, an' hearing what they said o' you,
    an' knowing that it was I that brought it all upon you--O Eily!
    Eily!--O Eily O'Connor! there is not that man upon Ireland
    ground that can tell what I felt. That was what kilt me! That
    was what drove the pain into my heart, and kept me in the
    doctor's hands till now.'"

Altogether different in design and scope is the _Invasion_, a
historical novel intended to describe the institutions, manners, and
ways of life of the ancient Irish, and it is much to be regretted
that it is so little read by the descendants of that peculiar
people, especially by those who turn aside from the difficulties of
nomenclature presented by the actual history of Ireland. With the
same motive that actuated Scott to present the otherwise unattractive
and obscure facts of the early history of Britain in the fascinating
garb of romance, our author, always deeply imbued with love of
country and reverence for the past, sought in this book to give
a complete picture of the public, social, and religious life of
his ancestors as it was known or supposed to exist in the eighth
century, before the repeated incursions of the Northmen had desolated
their valleys, razed their towns, and pillaged their churches and
seats of learning. To most men of a fine imagination and poetic
temperament like Griffin, the study of laws long disused and customs
forgotten centuries ago, wrapt up as they were in a language almost
unintelligible to modern scholars, would have presented insuperable
difficulties; but to him it seems to have been a labor of love, and
it is a source of lasting regret that his opportunities for research
were not in proportion to his diligence. The invaluable records
of Irish history and antiquities since brought to light through
the labors of O'Curry, Pietrie, O'Donovan, and others, were then
slumbering in the mouldy archives of Trinity College, or scattered
in inaccessible places over England and the continent; nor are we
aware that the author of the _Invasion_ had such thorough knowledge
of his native language as would enable him to decipher those ancient
manuscripts, even had he the facility for so doing. The barbarous
policy of the dominant power, which formerly not only sought to
destroy the language of the conquered people by prohibiting its being
taught in colleges, but made it penal to allow it to be spoken in
the humbler country schools, was equally interested in keeping from
the world at large the Irish people's records and book of laws, the
evidences of their former glory and greatness and the muniments of
their nationality; and even in this advanced age we owe mainly to
local enterprise and private generosity whatever contributions to
ancient Irish history we have been favored with for the last twenty
years. The government of England is willing to spend annually tens
of thousands of pounds sterling to facilitate the discovery of the
sources of the Nile or to encourage the translation of the high-flown
vagaries of East Indian poets; font it cannot afford, it appears, a
miserable allowance to rescue from obscurity the annals of one of the
most ancient and civilized nations of Europe; a nation, too, that has
the misfortune to be called an integral portion of the British empire.

This necessarily limited knowledge of the epoch which he proposed
to illustrate, while it in some degree unfortunately lessens the
authority of the novel in an antiquarian point of view, does not
impair its harmony of design, or weaken the moral and intellectual
beauty of its entire composition; and even its technical defects
are, to a great extent, corrected in the edition before us, by the
insertion, in the form of an appendix, of the very valuable critical
notes of the late Professor O'Curry. The principal figure in the
book is O'Headha, (O'Hea,) a young chieftain born on the day of
his father's death in battle. It describes the ceremonies of the
marriage of his parents and of his own baptism, as introductory to
his career. His education is supposed to be conducted at Mungharid
(Mungret) Abbey, then famous for the number and rank of its scholars;
and this gives the author an opportunity of describing the monastery,
a description which may be taken as applying equally to the many
similar institutions of piety and learning which at that time, and
for centuries before, dotted the then happy island:

    "Unlike many of the religious foundations of that period,
    which were constructed, after the national manner, of wood,
    the college of Muinghairid was a damhliag, or stone building,
    and its grouted fragments, diffused at this day over an
    extensive tract of ground, demonstrate the masonic skill of
    its founders. The religious, who were of the order of St.
    Mainchin, the founder of the abbey, and of prodigious number,
    had, as is usual in such establishments, their various duties
    appointed to them. Some devoted themselves wholly to a life of
    contemplation and of manual labor. Others employed themselves
    in the care of the sick, the entertaining of strangers, the
    giving of alms, and the instruction of the numerous youth who
    flocked hitherward in great numbers from different parts of
    the island, from the shore of Inismore, and even from those of
    some continental nations. Those who were skilled in psalmody
    succeeded each other in the choir, night and day, which for
    many a century sent forth its never-ceasing harmony of praise;
    while far the greater number were employed in cultivating with
    their own hands the extensive tracts of ground which lay around
    the convent and the neighboring city. Morn after morn, regular
    as the dawn itself, the tolling of the convent-bell, over the
    spreading woods which then enriched the neighborhood, awoke the
    tenants of the termon-lands, warning them that its cloistered
    inhabitants had commenced their daily rule, and reminding them
    also of that eternal destiny which was seldom absent from the
    minds of the former. The religious, answering to the summons,
    resumed their customary round of duties. Some aided the almoner
    in receiving the applications of the poor and attending to
    their wants. Some assisted the chamberlain in refitting the
    deserted dormitory. Some were appointed to help the infirmarian
    in the hospital. Some aided the pittancer and cellarer in
    preparing the daily refection, as well for the numerous
    members of the confraternity as for the visitors, for whose
    accommodation a separate refectory was furnished; and after the
    solemn rite of the morning, at which all assisted, had been
    concluded, the great body of the monks departed to their daily
    labor on the adjoining tillage and pasturage lands.

    "Sometimes at this early hour the more infirm and aged, as
    well as the more pious of the neighboring peasantry, were seen
    thridding their way along the woodland paths to mingle in the
    morning devotions of the religious. The peasant as he trotted
    on by his car, laden with the produce of the season, paused
    for an instant to hear the matin hymn, and added a prayer that
    heaven might sanctify his toil. The fisherman, whose curach
    glided rapidly along the broad surface of the river, rested on
    his oars at the same solemn strain, and resumed his labor with
    a more measured stroke and less eager spirit. The son of war
    and rapine, who galloped by the place, returning with sated
    passions from some nocturnal havoc, reined up his hobbie at
    the peaceful sounds, and yielded his mind unconsciously to an
    interval of mercy and remorse. The oppressive chieftain and
    his noisy retinue, not yet recovered the dissipation of some
    country _coshering_, hushed for a time their unseemly mirth
    as they passed the holy dwelling and yielded in reverence the
    debt which they could not pay in sympathy. To many an ear the
    sounds of the orison arrived, and to none without a wholesome
    and awakening influence."

Arrived at manhood, the future chieftain is duly installed in office
according to the prevailing customs of the sept, and henceforth we
find him performing all the duties appertaining to his high position,
including his attendance at the triennial assembly of Tara, _a
propos_ to which we have an elaborate and highly interesting account
of that historical gathering of all the estates of the kingdoms into
which the island was then divided. A romantic adventure, ending in a
love scene, of course, brings him among the Hooded people, the last
remnant of those who, rejecting the teachings of St. Patrick and his
disciples, continued to practise the Druidical rites in seclusion;
and, as a consequence, we find a detailed description of the objects
and forms of that extinct species of idolatry. The invasion itself,
the first descent of the Northmen on the coast, successfully repulsed
by O'Hea's forces, naturally leads to a disquisition on the gloomy
superstition and uncouth manners of those terrible barbarians. Thus
we find grouped together, gracefully and artistically, the leading
historical features of the period, the old superstitions and the
beneficent fruits of the new faith, the faults and follies, virtues
and graces of the christianized Celts, contrasted with the physical
prowess and ferocious temperament of the hordes who were so soon to
deluge with blood, not only Erin, but the adjacent isles and the
greater part of the coasts of Europe. Strange to say, the _Invasion_
is the only Irish historical novel ever written, and, as Augustin
Thierry was induced to write his celebrated history of the _Norman
Conquest of England_ by reading Scott's _Ivanhoe_, may we not hope
that some present or future writer may be inspired by the _Invasion_
to give us a detailed and intelligible account of the Danish wars in
Ireland?

The _Duke of Monmouth_ is also a historical novel, but more modern in
its character and incidents. It is intended to describe the condition
of the people of the rural districts in the west of England about the
close of the seventeenth century; and the principal events upon which
the story depends are the invasion of England by the ill-starred Duke
of Monmouth, the illegitimate son of Charles II., during the reign
of the latter's successor, the fatal battle of Sedgemoor, and the
execution of the adventurer and his principal followers. The style is
faultless, the prominent actors mostly taken from real life, though
few are truthfully drawn. Still, we cannot but regret for the sake of
poetical justice that Griffin chose this subject for a novel, from
the fact that the truth of history compelled him to let the notorious
Kirke, who figures so largely in his pages, go unwhipped of justice.
The portrait of this infamous soldier, whose vices were proverbial,
is thus briefly sketched:

    "He beheld before him a man somewhat over the middle size, and
    rather spare than otherwise; his features not ill-looking, but
    marked by that expression of malign placidity which is no less
    characteristic of the genuine tyrant than all the ogre-like
    contortions and grimaces vulgarly associated with the idea of
    habitual cruelty. There was something like a smile upon his
    lips; but it was a smile that spoke not of benevolence of the
    heart, and held out no light of promise to the hope of the
    supplicant. His very courtesy, all easy as it was, seemed the
    refined dissimulation of a callous nature. There was a kind
    of sternness in his very courtliness of manner, a severity
    even in the smoothness and gentleness of his demeanor and
    discourse, that was more withering than the open violence of
    the unmasked and ruffian oppressor. At times, too, it was said
    he could be all the savage; but it was only when the security
    of his position afforded a free scope to license. His hair
    was already tinged with gray, though in so slight a degree as
    to be scarcely perceptible. His complexion had much of the
    sallowness, but little of the languor, usually acquired by long
    residence in tropical countries; and, as he stood glancing
    rapidly over the paper which he held in his hand, it might be
    judged from the keenness and concentration of his look that his
    mind, in like manner, had lost nothing of its activity beneath
    the enervating influence of an African sun."

Notwithstanding the fault referred to, the book is one that merits
attention both as being the production of the author's more mature
years and as furnishing us an insight into the modes of life,
manner of living, and unreasonable preconceptions of politics and
religion of the humbler classes of England at the period immediately
preceding the downfall of the house of Stuart. The so-called
reformation in that country, while it deprived the peasantry of all
the attractions and consolations of true religion, as well as of the
innocent sports and pastimes so much encouraged by the church, left
nothing in their stead to lighten the heavy burden of labor save
the sensual attractions of the ale-house, or the more invigorating,
if more hazardous, luxury of rebellion. Deprived of the refuge
always afforded by the eleemosynary institutions of the monks to the
deserving needy and afflicted, the wants of the widow and the orphan
were neglected, the poor became poorer and more discontented, and
the nobles more haughty and overbearing. The reformers succeeded
in unsettling the religious faith of the masses, as the wars of
the Commonwealth destroyed their ideas of authority and obedience.
Hence followed in rapid rotation the restoration of Charles II., the
dethronement of James, the Scotch rebellions of 1715 and 1745, and
many if not all the evils which have afflicted the people of Great
Britain up to the present time--evils which have become so glaring
that a thousand acts of parliament cannot hide them, and distress,
ignorance, and its attendant vices, so gross and general as to be
beyond the cure of the poor-house and the penitentiary. Considered
in the aggregate, England is one of the wealthiest countries in the
world. Individually, her people are the poorest in Christendom; for
she contains within her boundaries a larger percentage of paupers and
those who live by crime of various degrees than any civilized country
on the face of the globe.

It was while in this transition state, from "merrie" England in
Catholic times to her present anomalous condition, that the Duke of
Monmouth, relying on the ignorance and anti-Catholic prejudices of
the rustic population, resolved to dispute the possession of the
throne with James II., whose only fault, in the eyes of his enemies
at that time, was his desire to concede some degree of toleration
to his dissenting and Catholic subjects. Monmouth's miserable
failure is a matter of history; but in this book we have likewise a
glimpse of the feeling of the people who followed his standard, and
which afterward led to the elevation of William of Orange, and of
the sentiments which actuated the British portion of that prince's
army in his subsequent wars in the sister island. The author also
gives a very just idea of Monmouth and his subordinate rebels. The
duke himself is represented as possessing all those exterior graces
which are said to have distinguished the Stuarts, with more than
all their vices and instability of character--false to his friends,
cringing to his enemies, superstitious without faith, and ambitious
without the courage or capacity to command success. Fletcher, his
chief counsellor and best officer, is a keen, hard-headed, but
passionate Covenanter, a theoretical republican of the Roundhead
school engrafted on the antique; Lord Grey and Ferguson are simply
respectable adventurers, equally destitute of honesty or brains,
and worthy instruments in so desperate an enterprise. In comparison
with those men, the devotion of young Fullarton to a hopeless
cause becomes less blamable; and even the ultra loyalty of the old
cavalier, Captain Kingsly, is respectable.

In addition to what we have before remarked of the design of this
work, there is a feature in its composition which by some readers
may be considered a grave defect. The interest which surrounds the
heroine, Aquila Fullarton, from the very beginning of the tale
deepens by degrees until it becomes painfully intense, and the
scene between her and Kirke, wherein that monster perpetrates one
of the greatest crimes known to humanity, and she in consequence
loses her reason, though founded on well-authenticated facts, and
described with all the delicacy of diction possible, is almost too
horrible to receive mention. The necessarily gloomy pages of the
story are occasionally enlivened by the introduction of two Irish
characters--brothers--Morty and Shamus Delaney, who, like so many
of their countrymen, then and since, have left home to seek their
fortunes, and find themselves in Taunton on the eve of the stirring
events related in the novel. Morty, being of a practical turn of
mind, forthwith enlists in "Kirke's Lambs;" but Shamus, whose tastes
are also pugnacious, but whose ambition is to wear epaulettes, takes
service on the other side, and raises a company of ragamuffins not
unlike that which shamed the redoubtable Falstaff at Coventry. There
are many exquisite bits of humor scattered through Griffin's works,
which might be quoted as evincing his keen appreciation of the
ludicrous; but we prefer to extract the following address of Captain
Delaney to his command, for the benefit of our military readers who
have neglected studying the articles of war. Shamus _loquitur_:

    "'Well, I see ye're all here, exceptin' those that's absent.
    Well, then, fall in, fall in, an' much good may it do ye! An'
    now attind to my ordhers, an' mind 'em well. Every man is to
    fight, an' nobody is to run; that's plain enough. Secondly,
    any man that wants arms, is to fight hard _for_ 'em first, an'
    to fight _with_ 'em at his aise afther. Thirdly, any booty
    whatsomever that any o' ye may take in the war, such as goold
    rings, watches, sails, valuable clothing, an' the likes--but
    above all things, money--ye're to bring it all to me. Do you
    hear me?'

    "'Ay, ay, ay!'

    "'Very well. Because I'm captain, ye know, an' best judge how
    it ought to be divided. For it is one o' the maxims of war,
    that it's the part o' the common sodgers for to fight, an' for
    the ladin' officers for to have all the call to the booty an'
    the likes, how 'tis to be shared, an' what's to be done with
    it. Do ye hear?'

    "'Ay, ay!'

    "'An' if there's any thing that's very dangerous--certain
    death, for instance--as a place where one would be blown up,
    an' the likes, it's the custom o' war for the common sodgers
    to have it all to themselves, an' for the officer to give 'em
    ordhers for to face it, but to stay behind himself, bein' more
    valuable. Do ye hear?'

    "'Ay, ay!'

    "'An' if there be a scarcity o' food or clothin', or beddin',
    an' the likes, or a dale to do, sech as diggin' threnches an'
    the likes o' that, then it's the custom o' war for the officer
    to have the first o' the victuals an' things that way; but
    the sodgers is to have the first o' the labor always. Do ye
    understand?'

    "'Ay, ay!'

    "'Very well, why. Now, mind the word! Shoulder your picks!
    Quick, march!'"

Of Griffin's minor works, included under the titles of _Tales
of the Munster Festivals_ and _Tales of my Neighborhood_, the
_Rivals_, _Barber of Bantry_, and _Shuil Dhuv_ are decidedly the
most entertaining. The latter particularly, though irregular in
composition, is a story evincing great dramatic power and knowledge
of the human heart. The dark-eyed hero, if such he may be called, who
gives the title to the tale, stands out before us in all the enormity
of his guilt as distinctly as if he had been an actual acquaintance,
and we venture to say that there are few who have read the book but
have experienced that feeling. In this story, also, Griffin departs
from his usual custom of avoiding personal description of his female
characters, and gives us an elaborate picture of his heroine, which,
whether it be drawn from life or the creation of his own imagination,
calls up before us an image of surpassing loveliness.

Griffin's other tales, such as the _Half-Sir_, _Card-Drawing_,
and _Tracey's Ambition_, have all much merit, and, though not so
prolonged as those we have mentioned, exhibit in a greater or lesser
degree the skilful hand and rich imagination of the author. The
_Christian Physiologist_, comprising a series of beautiful tales
intended to illustrate the use and abuse of the senses, is worthy a
place near the writings of that friend of childhood, Canon Schmidt.

As a poet, Griffin is remarkable for the beauty of his delineations
of natural scenery, his elevation of sentiment and purity of
conception. His lyrics remind us of Moore, and are scarcely inferior
to some of the best of that immortal bard's in feeling and choiceness
of metaphor; but being somewhat deficient in rhythm, they have never
found much favor in the drawing or concert-room, "A Place in thy
Memory, Dearest," "My Mary of the Curling Hair," and one or two
others excepted. Many of his poems were from time to time contributed
to the London journals, while he was yet a literary drudge in that
city; others are to be found interspersed in his novels, and not a
few were written to gratify his friends, and were first given to the
public when his entire poetical works, as far as it was possible,
were collected together in book-form, and now fill a large volume,
not the least important of the present edition. We are not aware
that he ever attempted an epic or any thing more extended than the
beautiful ballad of _Matt Hyland_, of the merits of which we can only
judge by the fragment which has been preserved, the original having
been destroyed by the author immediately previous to his joining
the order of Christian Brothers; nor do we think his ambition ever
soared to higher flights than songs and short descriptive poems. The
most meritorious of these, or, at least, the one which has obtained
the greatest popularity, is the _Sister of Charity_, written on
the occasion of a dear friend becoming a religious; and, though
several gifted pens have been employed on the same subject, we know
of none who has embodied so true an appreciation of the self-denial
and entire devotion which mark that order--the boast and glory of
all womanhood. Several of his best pieces, indeed, are written in
the same devotional spirit, particularly the following verses, in
illustration of a seal, representing a mariner on a tempestuous ocean
who, reclining in his bark, fixes his eye on a distant star, with the
motto--


    "SI JE TE PERDS, JE SUIS PERDU.

    (IF I LOSE THEE, I'M LOST.)

    "Shine on, thou bright beacon,
      Unclouded and free,
    From thy high place of calmness,
      O'er life's troubled sea!
    Its morning of promise,
      Its smooth seas are gone,
    And the billows rave wildly--
      Then, bright one, shine on.

    "The wings of the tempest
      May rise o'er thy ray,
    But tranquil thou smilest,
      Undimmed by its sway;
    High, high o'er the worlds
      Where storms are unknown,
    Thou dwellest, all beauteous,
      All glorious, alone.

    "From the deep womb of darkness
      The lightning flash leaps,
    O'er the bark of my fortune
      Each mad billow sweeps;
    From the port of her safety
      By warring winds driven,
    Had no light o'er her course
      But you lone one of heaven.

    "Yet fear not, thou frail one,
      The hour may be near
    When our own sunny headlands
      Far off shall appear;
    When the voice of the storm
      Shall be silent and past,
    In some island of heaven
      We may anchor at last.

    "But, bark of eternity,
      Where art thou now?
    The tempest wave shrieks
      O'er each plunge of thy prow;
    On the world's dreary ocean
      Thus shattered and lost--
    Then, lone one, shine on,
      If I lose thee, I'm lost."

Of his dramas but one remains to us, _Gisippus_, and enough dramatic
ability is displayed in that to make us regret that Griffin abandoned
writing for the stage so early in life. We are inclined to imagine
that a young man, scarcely twenty years of age, who was capable of
managing so successfully a subject that required the highest powers
of Boccaccio, could in his maturer years have effected even greater
things. However, we must console ourselves with the reflection that
what has been lost to the drama, we have gained in the excellent
works before us; and as the drama is necessarily limited to the few,
the world is also the gainer by the change.

FOOTNOTE:

[208] _The Life and Works of Gerald Griffin._ 10 vols. 12mo. New
York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co.




THE POPE AND THE COUNCIL, BY JANUS.


III.

Of all arguments brought forward by _Janus_ to undermine what he
would term the historical groundwork of papal supremacy, and the
prerogatives exercised by the successors of St. Peter, none seem
to have greater weight, or more forcibly convince his admirers,
than the long narration on "Forgeries;" and hence throughout his
work the "Isidorian fabrications" play a great _role_. Ostensibly
these forgeries are developed at great length with a view of
merely overthrowing and combating this "powerful coalition" of
ultramontanism, but in reality the arguments deduced from these
forgeries go far beyond this _avowed_ intention of our authors.

Up to the ninth century no change had taken place in the constitution
of the church, as they readily admit:

    "But in the middle of that century, about 845, arose the huge
    fabrication of the Isidorian decretals, which had results far
    beyond what its author contemplated, and gradually but surely
    changed the whole constitution and government of the church."
    (P. 76.)

1st. In our first article (p. 330) we have already pointed out
this illogical inconsistency of _Janus_, when assuming a lawful
development of the constitution of the church in the first eight
centuries; whereas he by no means defines what he understands by a
_lawful_ development of the _divine_ constitution of the ancient
church. How can he, therefore, decide that the Isidorian decretals
wrought an entire and unlawful development of the rights and
privileges of the primacy?

2d. If the _picture of the organization of the ancient church_ is
quietly, and as a matter of course, presented as one of _divine_
origin,[209] we have no hesitation in declaring that picture a false
one, and contrary to the most ancient history of the church. It
cannot even claim apostolic origin in so comprehensive a meaning
as _Janus_ would have it. The different grades of the hierarchy,
established between the primacy and episcopacy, is the result of a
_historical_ development, whereas _divine_ institution can only be
claimed for the _primacy_ and _episcopacy_ themselves.[210]

What difference is there between bishops as to power and jurisdiction
over one another by _divine_ right? If patriarchs, primates, and
metropolitans have exercised certain prerogatives _greater_ than
those enjoyed by other bishops, will _Janus_ tell us that this is
owing to divine origin? How, then, will he account for the fact that
no such distinction was universally acknowledged[211] until the
_third_ century in the east? nay more, that in the west there were
no metropolitans before the latter half of the _fourth_ century, if
we except Africa, and even in this latter country many bishops were
exempt, and directly subject to the see of Rome?[212]

It is a notorious fact, though _Janus_ elsewhere so boldly denies
it, that the bishops of Rome deputed other bishops as their
representatives in many provinces, who by that very fact exercised
authority over other bishops, because to them the popes delegated
the exercise of primatial prerogatives. Thus, the Bishop of
Thessalonica is constituted, by the pope, Primate of Illyricum, and
the Bishop of Arles, Primate of Gaul.

There are still many letters of the popes addressed to the bishops
of Thessalonica as early as the fourth century, by Innocent I.,
Boniface I., Celestine I., and Sixtus III., wherein instructions are
given concerning the exercise of the _special_ power conferred on
them.[213] Hence it came to pass that certain episcopal sees retained
that high rank granted to their first incumbents, either as primates
or metropolitans, after having acted in the beginning in the quality
of apostolic legates. St. Leo the Great, in his letter to Anastasius
of Thessalonica, says:

    "We have intrusted our charge in such a way to you that you
    are called on to _share_ our solicitude, _not_ possessing the
    plenitude of power."[214]

To grant to the Bishop of Rome the honor of being the "first
patriarch," is nothing less than ignoring or setting aside numerous
and indubitable facts _long before_ the existence of the Isidorian
decretals.[215] We should like to be informed by _Janus_ and his
abettors where the documents exist proving the rights of patriarchs
as of _divine_ institution? All canonists of any repute maintain that
the preeminence of rank and jurisdiction accorded to patriarchs,
primates, and metropolitans is _not_ due to the episcopate by
_divine_ institution; but, on the contrary, all agree that this
is a concession, whether _express_ or _tacit_, on the part of the
popes of Rome as successors of Peter, being admitted by them to
a _participation_ of their primatial prerogatives. Hence all are
the representatives of the primacy, whenever they are appealed to
as a _higher_ tribunal, and as such can only lawfully hold this
preeminence among their brother bishops as long as they do not come
in conflict with the divinely established order in the church, which
consists in the principle that the pope possesses, by _divine_
ordinance, _jurisdiction over the entire episcopate_. Pope St. Leo
the Great gives a beautiful portrait of this organization in the
church very dissimilar from that of _Janus_.[216]

    "The connection of the whole body demands unanimity, and
    especially unity among the prelates. While the dignity is
    common to all, there is no general equality of order; because
    even among the blessed apostles, though sharing the same
    honor, there was a difference of power, (_quaedam discretio
    potestatis_,) and while all were equally chosen, yet to one
    was given the prerogative of presiding over the others.[217]
    From which precedent also arose a distinction among bishops,
    and with perfect order was it enacted that all should not in
    like manner assume all powers, but that there be in every
    province some who exercise the right of _first_ judges among
    their brethren; and again, that there should be some (bishops)
    in the larger cities possessing more ample powers, through
    whom the care of the universal church devolves upon the one
    chair of Peter, and that in this manner there may never be any
    separation from the head."

3d. According to _Janus_, Nicolas I., by means of the Isidorian
forgery,

    "opened to the whole clergy in east and west a right of appeal
    to Rome, and made the pope the supreme judge of all bishops and
    clergy of the whole world." (P. 79.)

That "bold but non-natural" torturing of the seventeenth canon of
the Council of Chalcedon attributed to Nicolas I., is nothing else
but a pure fiction on the part of _Janus_. The letter sent by the
pope to the Emperor Michael III. is a document evincing the learning,
sagacity, and prudence of Nicolas I., in that grave disturbance
caused by Photius and corrupt courtiers against the lawful patriarch,
Ignatius of Constantinople.

When the latter, for the conscientious discharge of his pastoral
duty and vigilance toward a licentious court, had been violently
deposed, and Photius, a relative of the emperor, put in his place,
recourse was had to Rome to obtain sanction of these proceedings. The
pope sent legates to Constantinople to investigate the matter laid
before him; these in their turn, being partly misled, partly bribed,
ratified all that had been done. Pope Nicolas, upon hearing this,
excommunicated the legates and annulled the election of Photius.
The latter, seconded by the intrigues of the court, protested
against this act of the pope whose authority he had previously
invoked. Hence, Nicolas I., in the above-mentioned letter, reasons
by _analogy_ that the seventeenth canon of the Council of Chalcedon,
respecting appeals to primates or to the patriarch of Constantinople,
was in a higher sense applicable to the _Bishop_ of Rome.[218] It
clearly follows from the canon in question[219] that it merely
intended to regulate the several instances of appeal for clerics, and
alluded to the special privilege of appealing to the Patriarch of
Constantinople.[220]

In the present instance, however, is it not evident that the
patriarch could not be his own judge, and, since a final decision
was demanded, on whom did this right devolve, we may ask, if not on
the Bishop of Rome? A similar and even more striking argument may
be seen in the letter addressed by Nicolas I. to the Frankish king,
Charles the Bald. Rothad, Bishop of Soissons, having been deposed by
Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, appealed to Pope Nicolas, who, after
examining, caused the bishop to be restored; and in his reasons for
doing so sustains, first, the _divine_ right of the chair of Peter
to receive appeals and to act as supreme judge; and then goes on
stating that, as the canon of Chalcedon granted the right of judging
to the primates or to the see of Constantinople, in like manner also,
and with much more reason, must the same rule be observed regarding
the right of the see of Rome. If, therefore, adds the pope, Rothad
of Soissons appealed to the chair of Peter conformably to the Synod
of Sardica, this action was perfectly lawful, and there were many
precedents for this in history; as, for example, the appeals made
by St. Athanasius to Julius I. and St. John Chrysostom to Innocent
I.[221] Here, then, the reader will judge of the _historical_
fairness of our authors, when asserting that Pope Nicolas I., by
torturing a single word against the sense of a whole code of law,
"managed to give a turn to a canon of a general council."

Are we to believe, upon the sole word and authority of _Janus_, that
the whole constitution of the church underwent a change by means of
these Isidorian decretals, when so many men, distinguished for their
learning and deep researches, have exploded this theory long ago
advanced by the Magdeburg Centuriators? It is certainly nothing else
than presumption and arrogance to disparage the knowledge and science
of so many eminent men,[222] who unanimously agree on the following
points: 1. That the pseudo-Isidorian decretals were not written with
a view of exalting the papal power, but rather that of the bishops.
2. That the contents of this collection are, for the most part, taken
from ancient and genuine documents. 3. That the fictitious decretals
contained therein are quite generally known, and even these imply
nothing novel or contradictory to the then established discipline of
the church. 4. It is certain that this collection was _not_ compiled
at _Rome_, and much less known or used by Pope Nicolas as a _genuine_
document of binding force.

It will be necessary to support these points by a few and, we
hope, unexceptionable arguments. _Janus_ might have indeed spared
himself the pains of such a minute and tedious disquisition on these
Isidorian forgeries, as many[223] of similar disposition with himself
made extensive use of this unauthorized collection of pseudo-Isidore,
in order to show upon what grounds were based the principles of
the present constitution of the church, and particularly that the
prerogatives exercised by the Roman see rested on these forged
documents. If the power of the Bishop of Rome had no other foundation
but the Isidorian forgery, then indeed might we be obliged to join in
the triumphant chorus of _Janus_ and his abettors; but the question,
not to be misplaced or adroitly shifted, is simply this: Did the
prerogatives exercised by the popes need these forgeries to establish
the lawfulness of their claims? It is to no purpose to conceal and
cover up, as it were, the principle in question by tedious and showy
digressions--whether these decretals were fictitious and whether
they were used; but the whole problem to be solved is, Has the
pseudo-Isidorian collection introduced or enforced an _innovation_
in the _ancient_ constitution of the church, as it was in vigor at
that period, or were the principles enunciated by pseudo-Isidore
conformable to the doctrine of the church and in accordance with the
canons of former councils, or not? What does it matter whether one or
another theologian, and even a pope, made use of these decretals, not
doubting of their genuineness, and consequently deceived, provided
nothing new and unwarranted by previous tradition was thereby
acknowledged or enacted? If such a theologian as St. Thomas Aquinas
was deceived as to a spurious passage of St. Cyril, and followed
herein by Bellarmine, is that enough to condemn their whole system or
to impeach their honesty?

We might by such a method of arguing overthrow the entire historical
edifice of the first thousand years of the church, and begin to
build up a new system on this _tabula rasa_ with the aid of this
hypercritical process of _Janus_ and his school, and we scarcely
doubt but that he himself would be in the worst plight.

It is certainly true that the author of the Isidorian decretals, as
he himself avows in the preface, wished to give a complete code of
ecclesiastical laws to the clergy, though for the greater part he
insists on such points of discipline as were at that time greatly
endangered and often neglected.

    "The immediate object," says _Janus_, "of the compiler of this
    forgery was to protect bishops against their metropolitans and
    other authorities, so as to secure absolute impunity." (P. 77.)

This should be effected, of course, by the right of appealing to
Rome, and, consequently, making the pope the supreme judge of all
the bishops and clergy, that is, of the entire church. These are the
principles that worked their way and became dominant; and that they
"revolutionized the whole constitution of the church, introducing a
new system in place of the old on that point," our authors assert
"there can be no controversy among candid historians." (P. 79.) With
all deference to the historical erudition of our authors, we cannot
refrain from interrogating history and assuring ourselves of the
truth of these grave charges.

Having once granted that Christ intrusted Peter and his successors
with the chief care of his flock--both pastors and people--it is
impossible to suppose that in this supreme charge should not be
included the right of hearing appeals and giving final decision;
for where could this preeminence find any application, if the whole
church be thus cut off from communicating with its head?

The Synod of Sardica had formally defined this right of hearing
appeals in several of its canons, as our authors acknowledge, though
their efforts to cancel this ancient testimony and to do away with
the binding force of these canons are useless and unavailing; for the
canons of the Council of Sardica[224] did nothing more than solemnly
acknowledge what had been handed down from _apostolic_ times,
attesting the doctrine of the church as fully practised long before.
We may be permitted to signalize two most remarkable and indubitable
instances from history. Marcianus, Bishop of Arles, having espoused
the heretical doctrine of Novatian, was denounced by Faustinus of
Lyons, and other bishops, to the see of Rome; at the same time
Faustinus also informed St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, who, in his
turn, begged Pope Stephen to terminate this affair by his power as
supreme pastor of the church, requesting the deposition of Marcianus
and the appointment of another in his place.[225] Another no less
conspicuous proof we find in the fact of the two Spanish bishops,
Basilides and Martial, in which case St. Cyprian[226] approved of
the action of Pope Stephen, and saw no usurpation of power when the
latter restored Basilides to his bishopric, and only regretted that
by a false statement of facts the pope was misled and deceived.[227]
Our argument becomes more conclusive from the following great event
in the eastern church, where the jurisdiction in the _greater causes
(causae majores)_ appears in most resplendent light. In the case
of Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria, when the Eusebians,[228]
supported by the weak and tyrannical Emperor Constantius, drove him
from his episcopal see, we find, first, that a numerous assembly of
Egyptian bishops who met at Alexandria appealed to Pope Julius I.
After the Arian Synod of Antioch in 314, Gregory, a Cappadocian, was
forced on the episcopal see of Athanasius, and the latter, with the
Bishops Marcellus of Ancyra, Lucius of Adrianople, Asclepas of Gaza,
Paul of Constantinople, and many others, fled to Rome, imploring the
protection of Pope Julius, who caused a synod to be held in 343, at
which a great number of _eastern_ prelates from Thrace, Coelesyria,
Phoenicia, and Palestine attended. The case of St. Athanasius and
his fellow-exiles was examined, and they were declared innocent of
the charges brought against them, and reinstated in their sees, from
which only violence and force kept them for some time. Here, then, we
have another argument for these high prerogatives exercised by the
Bishop of Rome _four years before_ the Synod of Sardica. Confront
this fact with the following passage from our authors:

    "Only after the Sardican Council, and in reliance solely on it,
    or the Nicene, which was designedly confounded with it, was a
    right of hearing appeals laid claim to."[229]

We have to deal with men of far too _evasive_ minds, in the authors
of this "contribution to ecclesiastical history," to limit ourselves
to any one point of their argumentation. If, on the one hand, we
adduce from history long _before the existence_ of the Isidorian
forgeries, the testimony of such great and holy popes as Innocent
I.,[230] Zozimus,[231] Boniface I.,[232] Celestine I., Leo the
Great,[233] Gelasius I.,[234] and even before, Julius I.,[235] (337
to 352,) who all claim, assert, and exercise the right of final
decision as supreme judges for both east and west, from whom there
is no appeal, and this, too, in all great and weighty matters,
(_graviora negotia_,) as Pope Gelasius says; then we are told
that this right rests only on the canons of Sardica, and that the
"fathers gave the see of Rome the privilege of final decision." If,
on the other hand, we show ourselves satisfied with so ancient and
indubitable an authority as the great Synod of Sardica, why, then,
does _Janus_ resort to the simple _expedient_ of declaring that the
"Sardican canons were never received at all in the east"? Nor can
his _bon-mot_, in styling _greater causes_ (in which final decision
is reserved to the Roman see) an "elastic term," supply the want
of logic and historical accuracy. A slight acquaintance with the
historical incidents connected with the Council of Sardica[236] will
at once convince every unbiased mind that the opposition came from a
party of reckless Eusebians, who withdrew from the synod when they
could not attain their nefarious object, and repaired to Philippolis
in order to crown their treacherous proceeding by excommunicating
such holy and illustrious prelates as Athanasius and the aged Hosius,
legate of Pope Julius, and even the pontiff himself, who remained
steadfast in their defence of the Nicene doctrines. And such are the
reasons, let it be observed, which cause _Janus_ to say that the
canons of Sardica were not at all received in the east. What can be a
more convincing proof than their insertion into collections or codes
of law compiled by official authority,[237] having been inserted not
only in the Latin collection of Dionysius,[238] under the pontificate
of Anastasius II., about the year 498, and later in the Spanish code
called _Liber Canonum_, commonly attributed to Isidore of Seville,
but also in the _Greek_ collection of canons by John Scholasticus,
and in the _Nomocanon_ compiled by the same author, who died
Patriarch of Constantinople in 578.[239]

From these premises we arrive at the following conclusions: 1st,
that the right of appeal to Rome and her jurisdiction, in all
_greater causes_, was taught and practised in the church at _least_
four centuries before the Isidorian decretals were known; 2d,
that the jurisdiction of the pope as supreme judge of the whole
church is triumphantly attested by historical documents of the
same age; 3d, that the canons of Sardica acknowledged a _divine_
right of the bishops of Rome--merely introducing a new _form_ that
affected the _application_ and _exercise_ of this right, from which,
however, the popes could deviate for reasons of wise and prompt
administration.[240]

In this connection we must briefly notice another charge made by
_Janus_, namely, that on the fabrication of pseudo-Isidore,

    "was based the maxim that the pope, as supreme judge of the
    church, could be judged by no man." (P. 78.)

In this maxim our authors discover the foundation of the edifice of
papal infallibility already laid. If such be the case, let us inquire
whether this maxim was not known before pseudo-Isidore. A synod of
Rome held in 378, under Pope Damasus, declared in a letter to the
Emperor Gratian[241] that it was sanctioned by ancient custom that
the Bishop of Rome, since his case was not submitted to a general
council, should answer for himself before the council of the emperor;
_but this was only to be understood in accusations of civil and
political offences_. The highest judicial authority in the church
having been vested by Christ in Peter and his successors, their
voice was the judgment from which there was no appeal; neither did
any bishop or any assembly of bishops receive power over the head of
the church. This principle, acknowledged by civil codes in temporal
principalities, was likewise solemnly affirmed by the Roman synod
in the year 501, which was called by King Theodoric to examine
the complaints brought against Pope Symmachus, and to judge him
accordingly. But behold the declaration of the assembled bishops,
protesting that it belonged to the bishop of the apostolic chair of
Peter to convene a synod; for it was a thing unheard of that the
high-priest of the aforesaid see should be placed in judgment before
his own subjects.[242] The bishops pronounced that he was innocent
before men, and left all to the tribunal of God. An apology, written
for this Roman synod by the Deacon Ennodius,[243] afterward Bishop of
Pavia, declared that a council on the more important affairs could
be assembled only by the pope, or at least must be confirmed by him.
Another striking passage illustrating this principle is to be found
in the letter of Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, addressed to the senators
of the city of Rome in the name of the bishops of Gaul, as follows:

    "That the pope, as superior, could be judged by no one
    according to reason or law; and that if this privilege of the
    pope be called in question, the whole episcopacy would be
    shaken."[244]

_Janus_ likewise lets Pope Nicolas assert, on the strength of the
Isidorian forgery, "that the Roman Church keeps the faith pure, and
is free from every stain." (P. 80.) Now, who does not know that
beautiful testimony of St. Irenaeus, according to which "the whole
church, that is, all the faithful, must be in union with this church,
on account of its more powerful principality; in which communion the
faithful of the whole world have preserved the tradition that was
handed down by the apostles"?[245]

That the words in question employed by St. Irenaeus, _propter
potentiorem principalitatem_, are by no means capable of the
construction as meaning _greater antiquity_, is clearly demonstrated
by Dr. Doellinger.[246] St. Irenaeus likewise concludes from the
uninterrupted succession of bishops in the Church of Rome by saying,
"When, therefore, you know the faith of this church, you have learned
the faith of the others." St. Cyprian, too, uses the following
expressive language, "He who does not preserve the unity of this
church, how can he hold the faith?"[247]

Theodoret, about the year 440, calls the Roman see

    "That most holy see which possesses the supremacy of the
    churches in the whole world, in virtue of many privileges,
    and above all others, of this one, that she has always
    remained free _from the stain of heresy_; nor has any one had
    possession of it holding any thing contrary to faith, but she
    has preserved entire this apostolic privilege!"[248] "Nec ullus
    fidei contraria sentiens in illa sedit, sed apostolicum gratiam
    integram servavit."

We might multiply our references[249] on this point to exhibit
the _historical_ fabrications of _Janus_ and his school; but we
trust that all judicious and discriminating minds will have come
to the conclusion, from the testimonies already adduced, that the
pseudo-Isidorian principles have neither changed nor _revolutionized_
the _ancient_ constitution of the church, and that the papal
prerogatives, at which our authors seem so very much incensed, did
not stand in need of forgeries--least of all, of those that came
from the "Isidorian workshop;" and we, at the same time, apprehend
that they will have to go further back--perhaps to the apostolic
fathers--to trace _another_ history of the constitution of the church
and the prerogatives claimed by the successors of St. Peter.

As to the materials from which these Isidorian decretals were
formed, we may briefly state that they were ancient documents to
which the author had access. In many instances he attributes some
_genuine_ letters of popes to others than their real authors, and
many other spurious documents had already been inserted in private
collections, as the brothers Ballerini have demonstrated most
clearly by their profound researches. Sixteen pieces of this kind
are enumerated by them.[250] According to the most ancient code,
this collection of pseudo-Isidore is divided into three parts, as
we find in the _Codex Vaticanus_, n. 630, recorded by Ballerini;
and in more recent times,[251] this codex being brought into the
library of Paris, Camus compared it again with four other manuscript
_codices_.[252] Part I. comprises the fifty apostolic canons which
were compiled about the time of the Council of Chalcedon, as is
generally supposed; fifty-nine spurious letters of the first
thirty popes, from Clement to Melchiades;[253] the introduction to
the whole is taken partly from the old Spanish collection, which
circulated under the name of St. Isidore, Bishop of Seville. Part
II. gives, after a brief preface, the false act of donation by the
Emperor Constantine;[254] two introductory pieces, one taken from
the _Spanish_ code, the other from the _Gallic_ code;[255] lastly,
the acts of Greek, African, Gallic, and Spanish councils, as the
Spanish code of the year 683 recorded them. In the third part we find
another introduction copied from the Spanish collection, and then
follow in order of time the decretals of the popes, from Sylvester
(died 335) to Gregory II., (died 731.) Among these latter there are
thirty-five _forged_ letters and several false councils, though, let
it be clearly understood, in many portions the _contents_ of these
forged decretals corresponded to _genuine_ documents which the author
extracted for this purpose.[256] Two councils are falsely attributed
to Pope Symmachus. All these records of pseudo-Isidore cover the
whole field of ecclesiastical discipline; they are partly dogmatical,
directed against the errors of the Arians, Nestorians, and
Monophysites; partly they contain moral precepts and exhortations;
partly they refer to liturgy, giving the accompanying ceremonies to
the administration of the sacraments; another no less conspicuous
part is the enactments of papal decrees and canons of councils,
regarding the protection of the clergy against arbitrary oppression,
accusations, and depositions, the security of ecclesiastical
property, the dignity and rights of the Roman Church, the appeals to
the apostolic see, and the prerogatives of patriarchs, metropolitans,
and bishops. From all this we can infer, that the object of the
author in compiling this code was a very comprehensive one, and he
drew quite copiously from the Scriptures, from the Roman pontifical
book,[257] the historical books of Rufinus[258] and Cassiodorus,
the author of the _Historia Tripartita_;[259] also from the writings
of the Latin fathers, and from many collections or commentaries of
Roman law. By a subsequent multiplying of copies, several changes and
additions were made during the eleventh and twelfth centuries.[260]

Having already produced testimonies to prove that the
principles--which are said to have "surely but gradually changed
the ancient constitution of the church" by means of these Isidorian
fictions--were known and acknowledged long _before_ pseudo-Isidore,
we have thereby made good our third point, and we can fully concur
in the following conclusion of a learned historian, who says of the
pseudo-Isidorian code:

    "Had his book been in open variance with the chief points of
    the prevailing discipline, it would at once have awakened
    suspicion; examinations would have been instituted, and in an
    age which possessed critical acumen sufficient to detect the
    falsity of the title of a book (the _Hypognosticon_) which was
    circulated under the name of St. Augustine, the imposition
    would have been detected--an imposition which, such as it
    really was, lay concealed, because the principles and laws of
    ecclesiastical discipline of the age corresponding with the
    contents of the work, they excited no surprise."

That the Isidorian collection was not compiled at Rome, is admitted
by all historians[261] and canonists of any standing;[262] nor did
_Janus_ dare to revive an antiquated and unfounded opinion of this
import. However, we have to deal with another no less hazardous, nay,
we might state at once, _false_ assertion in the following lines:

    "About a hundred pretended decrees of the earliest popes,
    together with certain spurious writings of other church
    dignitaries and acts of synods, were then fabricated in the
    west of Gaul, and _eagerly seized upon by Pope Nicolas I. at
    Rome_,[263] to be used as genuine documents in support of the
    _new_ claims put forward by himself and his successors." (P.
    77.)

In order to judge fairly of this whole question raised by _Janus_,
and by others before him, we may be pardoned for premising that the
collection of pseudo-Isidore became first known in Gaul about the
middle of the ninth century. The most recent document which has been
traced is the Synod of Paris, of 829, from which extracts are made.
Other researches have led Ballerini[264] and others to suppose that
the Synod of Aix-la-Chapelle, held in the year 836, was known to the
author, since he dwells at great length on the rights of primates or
apostolic vicars, which dignity was restored in France, or western
Gaul, after a long interruption, in the year 844. Mention is first
made of these decretals at the Synod of Chiessy,[265] in 857, so that
the time of their compilation must certainly be assigned between
these last-named dates of 845 and 847. We might arrive at a more
precise time by the fact that a collection of _Capitularies_,[266]
made by Benedict, _levita_ or deacon of Mainz, between the years
840 and 847, contains entire passages _identical_ with those in the
pseudo-Isidorian code. The only explanation of this similarity is
either to be sought in the fact that both collections come from the
same author, or that the Capitularies of Benedict have copied from
the Isidorian code; and in that issue, the latter must have been
compiled before the year 847.[267] The correspondence between Pope
Nicolas I. and Hincmar of Rheims attracted general attention to the
pseudo-Isidorian collection, and in this way Pope Nicolas I. was
first apprised of their existence, as is evident from his letter
to the bishops of Gaul,[268] where he upholds the authority of the
papal decretals in general, independently of their insertion in
any collection. The pope mentions the sources from which the Roman
Church took its ecclesiastical discipline, alluding to the codex of
Dionysius. The objection usually brought forward, that the pope says
that these decretals were preserved in the _archives of the Roman
Church_, does not refer to the pseudo-Isidorian decretals, since
there is only question of the authority to be attributed to those
documents in general.[269] Hincmar, who had previously appealed to
the pseudo-Isidorian collection, later rejected the authority of
those decretals which seemed to condemn his own views and position
in the affair with Hincmar, Bishop of Laon.[270] To leave no doubt
on this head in the mind of the reader, we submit the very words of
Nicolas I.:

    "We do not unreasonably complain," (addressing the bishops of
    Gaul,) "that you have set aside the decrees of several bishops
    of the apostolic see in this matter. Far be it from us of
    not receiving with due honor either the decretals or other
    enactments concerning ecclesiastical discipline, all of which
    the holy Roman Church has preserved and given over to our care,
    retaining them previously in her archives and in ancient and
    genuine monuments."[271]

A few lines further the same pope exhibits the inconsistency of
Hincmar and other bishops, when acknowledging only such decretals
as favor their own position, and rejecting others merely because
they were not found in the code known to themselves. The principle,
as though the authority of a decree of the popes or a synod was not
to be recognized unless it has been received into some code, is
combated and the whole issue comes to this, whether such decrees are
authentic and genuine. In fine, the pope in this epistle combines
an extraordinary knowledge of the ancient canons with great force
of logic and historical accuracy. Our conclusion is that Pope
Nicolas I. has never appealed to the pseudo-Isidorian decretals,
though he frequently had occasion to do so. This is admitted by
the reformed preacher Blondel,[272] and by Blasco,[273] and, among
other modern historians, by Dr. Doellinger, who remarks that Pope
Nicolas I. "makes no use of the Isidorian collection, adduces none
of its decretals, and it may be even doubted whether he had seen the
work."[274] During the eleventh century only, the popes begin to
quote from pseudo-Isidore. Here, then, we have given another specimen
of the "historical fairness" and "canonical erudition" of _Janus_
and associates; and if our authors imagined that it was enough to
_impose_ on their readers by the mass of "original authorities,"
they have indeed succeeded to some extent, and we have but one
restriction to make, that is, that they cannot be saved from the
charge of _deliberate falsification_. For, singularly enough, and
much to the credit of the historical erudition of _Janus_, let it be
remarked that there is always something in the authorities quoted
bearing on the point under discussion. Who is there who does not see
that _Janus_ stamps himself as a falsifier of history, whenever he
mutilates and distorts the contents of authorities quoted by him? In
conclusion, we wish to allude to one more insidious passage of our
authors, when they say,

    "The spurious character of the Isidorian decretals had been
    exposed by the Magdeburg Centuriators, and no one with any
    knowledge of Christian antiquity could retain a doubt of their
    being a later fabrication." (P. 319.)

Alas! Nothing easier than to claim this merit for such _candid_
and _impartial_ historians as the avowed champions of Lutheranism!
Besides the doubts entertained by Hincmar and other bishops in the
ninth century, a writer of the twelfth century, Peter Comestor,[275]
called the genuineness of this collection in question. In the middle
of the fifteenth century, the learned Cardinal Nicolas Cusanus[276]
and such an eminent divine as John de Turrecremata[277] proved the
fictitious character of the most ancient papal decretals contained in
pseudo-Isidore; they were followed in these investigations by other
eminent scholars, both in Germany and France, _before_ the dawn of
the sixteenth century, and hence no trophies on this field could have
been won by the _historians_ of Magdeburg!

If, notwithstanding all these elucidations, a certain Jesuit,
Turrianus, wrote in defence of the pseudo-Isidorian decretals,
we do not see how from this fact _Janus_ concludes that the
"Jesuit order were resolved to defend them." (P. 319.) Did not the
illustrious Jesuit Bellarmine acknowledge the fictitious character of
pseudo-Isidore? And yet our authors thus boldly continue as follows:

    "Bellarmine acknowledged that without the forgeries of the
    pseudo-Isidore, ... it would be impossible to make out even a
    semblance of traditional evidence." (P. 319.)

We are sorry to say that we have not been able to discover any such
admission on the part of Cardinal Bellarmine; but on the contrary,
when answering the objection of the Centuriators concerning the
fictitious letters of the first thirty popes to Melchiades, we find
the following clear view on this subject:

    "Although I do not deny that some errors have slipped into
    these letters, nor do I dare to claim for them undoubted
    authority, yet I doubt not but that they are of very ancient
    origin."[278]

It was not precisely on the faith of the Isidorian collection or
its compiler that Bellarmine used any of these documents; but he
endeavored to demonstrate their authenticity according to the rules
laid down by historical criticism. It is simply false that he made
"copious use of the Isidorian fictions." None deserve greater credit
for the clear and elaborate elucidation of this great question of
pseudo-Isidore than the brothers Ballerini, who have supplied an
immense material whence the eminent canonists and historians of
our days have been enabled to weigh every thing carefully, and the
result has been a glorious one to _Catholic_ learning and science.
The attempts which have been made for three hundred years, and more,
to create a fictitious foundation for the present constitution of
the Catholic Church, and to brand it with the specious appellation
of _forgery_--these inglorious attempts, we say, have in our days
been renewed by _Janus_ and his deluded admirers. If _Janus_ hoped to
strengthen his position by a novel method, we dare assert his signal
failure--indeed, our enemies have secured a poor and feeble leader.
Should the present contribution produce further curiosity, and lead
to more extended and serious researches on this subject, we are
confident enough to express the hope that many unfounded prejudices
will be thereby dispelled, and the triumph of _ancient_ and _present_
Catholic doctrine be hastened.[279]

FOOTNOTES:

[209] P. 69.

[210] Thomassin, Vet. et Nov. Eccl. Disc. l. i. capp. vii. xlv.

[211] See Canon vi. Council of Nice in 325, which recognizes the
patriarchal rights of Antioch and Alexandria, in the east, introduced
by ancient custom. (~ta archaia ethe~.)

[212] Schelestrate, Eccl. Afric. sub prim. Carthag. Thomass. l. c. c.
xx. n. 8.

[213] Constant. Ep. Rom. Pontif. Inn. I. ep. 13. Bonif. I. ep. 4.
Coelest. I. ep. 3. Sixt. III. ep. 10.

[214] "Vices enim nostras ita tuae credidimus caritati, ut in partem
sis vocatus sollicitudinis, non in plenitudinem potestatis." Ep. 14.
ad Anast. Thessal. edit. Ball. tom. i.

[215] The name of _patriarch_ is first mentioned in the Council of
Chalcedon, Act 3, where Pope St. Leo is thus addressed: "Sanctissimo
et universali Archiepiscopo et _Patriarchae_ magnae Romae." (Labbe, Col.
tom. iv.)

[216] Leo M. ep. 14, cap. 11.

[217] "Quum omnium par esset electio, uni tamen datum est, ut caeteris
praeemineret."

[218] Mansi, xv. col. 202.

[219] Cf. canon ix. of the same council.

[220] That is, in the East. Pithoeus, Codex Canon. Vetus, p. 102,
(edit. Paris.)

[221] Mansi. l. c. p. 688.

[222] Thomassin, Ballerini, Devoti, Walter, Philipps, Schulte,
Doellinger, Blondel, Luden, Schoenemann, the last three Protestants,
all of whom, says _Janus_, betray a very imperfect "knowledge of the
decretals." (P. 78.)

[223] Launoy, Arnould, Febronius, Baluze, De Marca.

[224] Held A.D. 447.

[225] Epist. 47.

[226] See Epist. 45, ad Antonian.

[227] Doellinger, Church Histor. vol. i. pp. 260, 261, 262.

[228] Named after the ambitious Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, an
ardent follower of _Arius_.

[229] P. 66.

[230] Apud Constant. Epist. Rom. Pontif. Epist. 37, ad Felic. col.
910.

[231] Epist. I. ad Episc. Gall. col. 938.

[232] Epist. ad Episc. Illyr. col. 1038.

[233] Epist. ad Episc. Vienn. Prov. (Baller Opp. tom. i. col. 634.)

[234] Epist. ad Episc. Dardan. (Hardouin Concil. tom. ii. col. 909.)

[235] Epist. ad Euseb. col. 385, ap. Const.

[236] Doellinger, _Hist. of the Church_, vol. ii. pp. 103, 109.

[237] The code of Dionysius presented by R. Hadrian to Charlemagne,
known hence in Gaul as the Codex Hadrianeus.

[238] Biblioth. Jur. Canon. tom. i. p. 97-180. Fr. Pithoeus, Codex
Canon. Eccl. Rom. Vet. pp. 119, 120, can. iii. vii. (edit. Paris.)

[239] Biblioth. Jur. Canon. tom. ii. pp. 499, 603.

[240] Doellinger, _Hist. of the Church_, vol. ii. p. 229, gives
several remarkable instances of such exceptions.

[241] Concil. Rom. ad Gratian. Imperat. cap. 11.

[242] Mansi, tom. viii. p. 247.

[243] Libell, Apologet. Ennod. apud Mansi, tom. vii. p. 271.

[244] Epist. ad Senator. Urbis Rom. ann. 502. Mansi, viii. col. 293.

[245] "In qua (Eccl. Rom.) ab his qui sunt undique conservata est ea,
quae est ab apostolis traditio." Adv. Haer. l. iii. c. 3.

[246] Hist. vol. i. p. 257. If "potentior principalitas" signified
only _greater antiquity_, how could the church of Rome claim
preeminence above the churches of Antioch and Ephesus?

[247] "Hanc Ecclesiae unitatem qui non tenet, _tenere se fidem
credit_?" De Unit. Eccl. p. 349. (Edit. Wir.)

St. August, in his 43d epist., says of the church of Rome, "Semper
viguit apostolicae cathedrae principatus."

[248] Epist. cxvii. ad Renat. Presbyt. Rom.

[249] The very words of pseudo-Isidore on the purity of the "faith of
Rome" are literally transcribed from the epistle of Pope Agatho to
the Emperor Constantine in the year 680. (Mansi, tom. xi. col. 239.)

[250] De Antiquis Collect, pars iii. capp. iv. Gallandi, Sylloge.
tom. i. p. 528 sqq.

[251] About 1809, under Napoleon.

[252] _Notices et Extraits des Manuscr. de la Biblioth. Nation._ tom.
vi. p. 265 sqq.

[253] Died 313.

[254] Which was already known from its being inserted in former
collections.

[255] Known in the fifth century. (Quesnel's edit.)

[256] Blondel. Prolegom. cap. 12. Blascus, De Collect. Canon. Isid.
Mercat. cap. ii. Gallandi, tom. ii. p. 100.

[257] Muratori's edit. tom. iii. pars i. Rer. _Italic._ Script.

[258] Rufinus translated nine books of Eusebius, to which he added
two more.

[259] Edit. Ven. 2 vol.

[260] Blondel, Proleg. cap. 18.

[261] See Alzog's Hist. vol. i. Sec. 186.

[262] Philipps, Compend. of Canon Law, vol. i. p. 52.

[263] The italics are our own.

[264] Ball. Part. iii. cap. 6. n. 13. Galland, t. i. p. 540.

[265] Mansi. tom. xv. col. 127.

[266] Laws of the empire of Charlemagne, divided into _Capitula_ or
chapters.

[267] Baller. de Canon. Collect. p. iii. cap. cit.

[268] Epist. 42. ad Univ. Episc. Gall. in the year 865. (Mansi, xv.
col. 695.)

[269] Mansi, xv. col. 693, et sqq.

[270] Epist. ad Hinc. Laudun. tom. ii. (edit. Sirmondi,) Paris.

[271] "Sancta Romana Ecclesia conservans, nobis quoque custodienda
mandavit, et penesse in suis archivis, et vetustis rite monumentis
recondita veneratur." (l. c. col. 694.)

[272] Prolegom. cap. 19.

[273] De Collect. Isid. cap. 4.

[274] Ch. Hist. vol. iii. p. 202.

[275] Blasc. De Collect. Canon. Isidor. (Galland Syllog. tom. ii. c.
v. p. 30.)

[276] De Concordia Cath. lib. iii. cap. 2.

[277] Summa Eccl. lib. ii. cap. 101.

[278] De Rom. Pontif. lib. ii. cap. xiv.

[279] The English translation of Dr. Hergenroether's complete and
masterly refutation of _Janus_, which we reviewed some time since in
the original German, is announced in the English papers as nearly
ready, and will be for sale at the office of this magazine as soon as
it is issued.--ED. CATHOLIC WORLD.




THE SUPERSTITION OF UNBELIEF.


When an age has abandoned God, sensuality delivers it over, like
Faust, to the devil, and he becomes its deity. Unbelief is everywhere
followed by superstition. Where the gods are not, the demons reign,
says a modern German poet. "We are ready to believe every thing when
we believe nothing," remarks Chateaubriand. "We have augurs when we
have no longer prophets; witchcraft when we have no longer religious
ceremonies. When the temples of God are closed, the caves of the
sorcerers are opened."

It is certainly a monstrous pairing when, with boasted
enlightenment, fortune-telling, card-divining, and the other
superstitions of darkness go hand in hand. But it is nevertheless
an old and well-known fact-one constantly demonstrated by human
experience--that unbelief is invariably associated with the grossest
superstition. A rapid glance at the history of peoples in all other
essentials most widely differing from each other will readily prove
this.

Beginning with the Hindoos, the oldest people on the earth, we find
that A. W. Schlegel has already effectually refuted the theories
of modern writers on religion by demonstrating to us a steady
retrogression from the spiritual to the sensual, from belief to
unbelief and superstition. Dubois, who had spent thirty years among
the Brahmins, and studied their philosophy, traces the degrading
superstition into which the Hindoos have lapsed to their having lost
faith in the religion of their ancestors. Once their schools taught
the maxim, Before earth, water, air, wind, fire, Brahma, Vishnu,
Chieva, sun, and stars, there was the only and eternal God, who had
sprung out of himself. These pure ideas of religion have long been
abandoned for an atheistic materialism. A superstitious demonology,
spirit-raising, sorcery, and magic have grown out of this unbelief,
and the same people now adore Kapel, the serpent, and Gamda, the
bird. They observe annually a feast in honor of Darhba, an ordinary
weed, and offer up sacrifices to spade and pick. To kill a cow is
by them considered a crime more heinous than matricide, and their
philosophers esteem it a great piece of good luck, a sure passport
to paradise, if they can catch hold of a cow by the tail instead of
the head, when dying. "Modern materialism," observes Dr. Haeffner,
comparing the unbelief of the Hindoos with our own, "has closely
approached the abyss of Buddhism." Manifestations like Mormonism, or
the spiritualism of New York, Paris, and Berlin, already suggest to
us the religious and moral practices of the Hindoos, and we bid fair
soon to reach their lowest and vilest forms--the Lamaism of Thibet
and Ceylon. As in the opening of the present century, admiration of
genius led men to adore the poetical genius of Schiller and Goethe,
so, changing their idols, they will eventually worship those who
have deified matter. The Buddhas of modern atheism can only be the
materialistic notabilities of the day; and for this reason a humorous
writer recommends Carl Vogt for Delai-Lama, he being not only a high
scientific but a great political authority.

Passing from the east to the west, we find, and especially in Roman
history, that the increase of superstition has steadily kept pace
with the diminution of faith. The religious decadence of ancient Rome
dates from the close of the Punic wars and the domestic commotions
of the republic, at which period we first notice that strange
hankering after what is obscure and mysterious in paganism, and
which attained its zenith under the Caesars. This remark applies,
however, more to the cities than the country; for, from the days
of Augustus down to those of the Antonines, the latter had not yet
been so generally corrupted as the former. Sulla, the dictator--to
cite a few examples--put the utmost confidence in a small image of
Apollo, brought from Delphi, which he carried about on his person,
and which he embraced publicly before his troops with a prayer for
victory. Augustus, who allowed himself to be worshipped as a god in
the provinces, regarded it as an evil omen to be handed the left
shoe instead of the right when he rose in the morning. He neither
set out on a journey after the Nundines nor undertook any thing of
importance during the Nones. When one of his fleets had been lost at
sea, he punished Neptune by excluding his image from being carried
in procession at the Circensian games.

After the doctrine of Polybius, that religion is nothing more than
a tissue of lies and traditions, began to prevail at Rome, the
phenomena which usually attend the decadence of a people became
plainly apparent. Those who are familiar with the epidemic capers
of the fanatics of that age, who jerked their heads and distorted
their limbs while pretending to utter the will of the gods, will be
reminded of that moral and religious degradation which has produced
the same effects in all countries and times--effects distinctly
visible among all Christian peoples into whose life the ancient
heathenism still enters, or where false civilization once more
tends to barbarism. The story of Alexander of Obonoteichos shows
the extremes to which superstition may lead men. This audacious
impostor buried in the temple of Apollo, at Chalcedon, but so that
they could be easily found, a set of bronze tablets, promising that
Esculapius and his father Apollo would shortly come to Obonoteichos.
He also secreted an egg containing a small snake, and mounted the
next day the altar in the market-place to proclaim as one inspired
that Esculapius was about to appear. He produced the egg, broke
its shell, and the people rejoiced over the god who had assumed
the form of a serpent. The news of this miracle attracted immense
crowds. A few days later, Alexander announced that the serpent-god
had already reached maturity, and he exhibited himself to the public
in a partially darkened room, dressed as a prophet, with a large
tame serpent--secretly imported from Macedonia--so twisted around
his waist that its head was out of sight, and its place supplied by
a human head of paper, whence protruded a black tongue. This new
serpent-god, Glykon, the youngest Epiphany of Esculapius, received
the honors of temple and oracle service. Alexander became a highly
respected prophet; Rutelia, a noble Roman, married his daughter, and
the prefect Severian asked him for an oracle on taking the field
against the king of the Parthians.

If we wish to see how the same impostures are reenacted in our own
times, we need only read the accounts of certain evening amusements
at the Tuileries. There sat one night the Emperor Napoleon III.,
the Empress Eugenie, the Duke de Montebello, and Home, the medium.
On a table before them were paper, pens, and ink. Then appeared a
spirit-hand, which picked up a pen, dipped it into the ink, and
wrote the name of Napoleon I. in Napoleon's handwriting. The emperor
prayed to be permitted to kiss the spirit-hand, which advanced to
his lips, and then to those of Eugenie. This _seance_, and one of a
similar kind at the Palais Royal, where the Red Prince, known for his
hatred of the church, devoutly watched the ball which Home caused to
move over a table, remind us involuntarily of the Jesus-contemning
apostate Emperor Julian, as he followed Maximus, the Neo-Platonist,
into a subterranean vault for the purpose of seeing Hecate, and
looking credulously on when the former secretly set fire to a figure
of Hecate, painted in combustible materials on the wall, and at the
same time let fly a falcon with burning tow tied to his feet. Fuller
information on this subject the curious may glean from the stories
published in the French journals, of hands growing out of table-tops
and sofa-cushions, which furnish the Paris _elite_ with the only
luxury of terror it seems still capable of enjoying; or they may
consult the numerous patrons of the fashionable clairvoyants and
physiognomists, the Mesdames Villeneuve, of the Rue St. Denis, as
well as the successors of Lenormand, the famous coffee-grounds seer,
toward whom Napoleon I. felt himself irresistibly attracted, (though
he sent the luckless Cassandra occasionally to prison,) and whom the
Empress Josephine held in high esteem.

The eighteenth century furnishes some striking illustrations of
our theory. An epidemic tendency to unbelief, like that which
characterizes this century, is without precedent since the dawn of
Christianity. Its fruits recall the worst abuses of the Manichaeans
and the Albigenses. We do not here allude to the thousands of
innocent superstitions, which Grimm says are a sort of religion for
minor domestic purposes, and may be met with in all ages, but to
those more glaring ones which show how inseparable are an arrogant
unbelief and the grossest superstition. Hobbes, who labored already
in the seventeenth century to undermine the Christian religion,
was so afraid of ghosts that he would not pass the night without
candles. D'Alembert, the chief of the Encyclopaedists, used to
leave the table when thirteen sat down to it. The Marquis D'Argens
was frightened out of his wits at the upsetting of a salt-cellar.
Frederick II. had faith in astrology. At the court of his successor,
General Bishopswerder imposed on the king by magic tricks, and his
accomplice, Woellner, who raised spirits by the agency of optic
mirrors, became minister. The custodian of the National Library
at Paris related to Count Portalis that some time previous to the
great revolution books on fortune-telling and the black arts were
in general demand. Oerstedt speaks of a man who paraded his atheism
with great insolence, but whom nothing could have tempted to pass
through a graveyard after dark. Napoleon I. dispatched, in 1812, a
special messenger to Beyreuth, with instructions not to be lodged
in the apartments which the "white woman" of the Hohenzollerns was
reputed to haunt. In the same way we see by the side of this league
of unbelieving philosophers spring up such superstitious sects as
the Butlerians, whose head, Margaret Butler, with Justus Winter for
God the Father, and George Oppenzoller for God the Son, represented
herself to be the Holy Ghost.

The alleged miraculous cures on the grave of Paris, the Jansenist
deacon, in the first, and the exorcisms of the devil by Gassner, in
the second half of the eighteenth century, form another instructive
chapter in the history of superstition. While the Archbishop of
Vontimiglii, the Bishop of Sens, and other distinguished prelates,
denounced the cures performed with the earth from the grave of Paris
as a cheat, Montegon, the atheist, wrote three volumes to prove their
authenticity. While the Archbishop of Prague and the papal chair,
by a decree of the Congregation of Rites issued in October, 1777,
condemned the miraculous pretensions of Gassner, Walter, Leitner,
and other deistic physicians, upheld them. While the mountebank
Cagliostro, who pretended to have learnt in Egypt the secret of
generating magical powers from reflecting surfaces, was called to
account at Rome, the Free-Masons of Holland made him visitator, and
_feted_ him in their lodges. The unbelief of the eighteenth century
reached at last its culminating point during the French revolution in
the abolishment of the Supreme Being, though the rites of Mlle. Aubry
or Mme. Momoro were as silly as the worship of the cotton plucked
from Voltaire's _robe de chambre_. The names in the philosophical
calendar remind us strongly of the Hindoo worship of the spade
and pick, and who knows but some super-enlightened atheist may be
prepared to subscribe to the Brahminic dogma about the ox, an animal
which has already played a prominent _role_ at a red-republican
festival? Burke's prediction has been fulfilled, "If we discard
Christianity, a coarse, ruinous, degrading superstition will replace
it."

This war against faith and every thing spiritual has continued
into the nineteenth century, until once more gross materialism is
found on every side. Already, during the fourth decade, the darkest
superstition threatened to overwhelm the so-called intelligent world
with the manifestations of magnetism. The campaign against the
supernatural opened with the trial of the devil. As the Strasbourg
_Catholic_ satirically observed, the very day and hour had been fixed
when it was required that he should establish his own existence by
tangible proof. Disregarding the summons, the scamp was promptly
declared _in contumaciam_ outlawed and cashiered along with the
entire host of unclean spirits. The same summary mode of treatment
was pursued with the opposite side, and the same judgment was
passed on the angels, cherubim, and seraphim. All were pronounced
to be equally tasteless, scentless, inaudible, and imponderable,
and declared to be mere creatures of the imagination. Their Lord
and Master was next put on trial; at first very considerately with
closed doors and in a secret inquisitorial manner. The results of
the trial were put on record, and for a while imparted only to the
initiated, who gradually divulged the news to the masses. At last
the spirituality of our own soul was arraigned, and its activity
explained as the result of a mere change of matter. The Beelzebub of
ancient superstition was thus exorcised and expelled; but he soon
returned to the house which the besom of criticism had cleaned, and
brought back with him seven other evil spirits, so that nothing
was gained by the proceeding. The age, having cut loose from the
invisible, naturally plunged into a most abject dependence on the
visible. As the negro races kneel before their fetiches, trees and
serpents, so this century kneels before sleeping somnambulists,
dancing and writing tables, and mixtures and nostrums from the
apothecary shop.

Should civilization much longer continue on the present road,
the most deplorable consequences must follow. As in all former
times, so in this age unbelief has led where it always will
lead--to superstition. Man, created for immortality, needs the
wonderful, a future, and hope. When such a sceptical enlightenment
as distinguishes modern philosophy has sapped the foundations
of religion, its absence leaves in his thoughts and feelings an
immeasurable void which invites the most dangerous phantoms of the
brain. The moment man boldly declares, "I no longer believe in any
thing," he is preparing to believe in all things. It is high time
that so-called philosophy should again draw near to that religion
which it has misunderstood, and which alone is capable of giving to
the emotions of the heart a generous impulse and a safe direction.




REFORMATORIES FOR BOYS.--METTRAY.


It needs but a slight glance at the condition of things around us
to discover, as a consequence of the criminal and most deplorable
neglect of the moral education of a large proportion of our children,
that if they be not already on the broad road to ruin, they give, at
least, little hope of becoming useful members of society. This remark
is intended chiefly, but not exclusively, for boys, whose constantly
increasing lawlessness, connected with the steady growth of crime
among us, cannot fail to awaken the most serious apprehensions in the
mind of every attentive observer of passing events, while nothing
adequate to the emergency is offered to check this growing evil;
yet on the children of the present generation are based our hopes
for the future of our country. Every one knows with what facility
these young, fresh minds may be guided toward what is truly good;
for, though the tendency of our human nature to the descending scale
in morals as well as in physics is sufficiently evident, the one
may be counteracted with almost as much certainty as the other, if
judicious measures be early taken to give them a right direction.
The writer has had much experience in the domestic training of boys,
and yields the heartiest adhesion to the precept, "Train up a child
in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from
it." This training, however, is not by means of pampering animal
appetites or self-will, but by inculcation of strict though gentle
laws of obedience and self-denial. These habits once acquired, a
solid basis is laid for good principles and conduct, and these can, I
venture to say, _always_ be fairly established within the first ten
years of life, which have been justly pronounced the most important
period of human existence, for they contain the germ from which the
future character is formed. A profound thinker remarks, that "in the
education of the family is concentrated the strength of the nation;"
an observation which may well be applied to these United States,
where the moral character of every individual, through our system
of universal suffrage, assumes a certain weight, and thus, to a
greater or less extent, influences the best interests of the whole
country. We may here be permitted, in view of the immense importance
of this education of early childhood, to suggest a hint of a strange
inconsistency which is scarcely ever noticed in the systems of
education adopted to prepare the fathers and mothers of our posterity
for their respective callings. Everywhere, even where _moral_
influences are neglected, means are provided for the preparation of
boys for their career in life; yet, notwithstanding the multitudinous
volumes of philanthropy expended upon "woman's sphere," "her rights,"
etc., etc., we have scarcely heard of a single well-directed effort,
beyond the _chances_ of the domestic circle, to educate young women
in the supreme, the inexpressibly momentous knowledge of the vocation
that must surely be the lot of nearly every one of them. They are
destined to be mothers--to train up tender minds for time and for
eternity! To them is confided the most precious of our earthly
treasures; for what is untold gold but dust in comparison with the
well-being of our children? Why are they not imbued with the most
profound respect for the dignity of motherhood, as well as instructed
conscientiously in its practical duties and responsibilities?

When the mother's work is ill done, or, as is but too often the case,
totally neglected, of what avail are the labors of the professor,
but to make a bad man intellectually strong and more capable for
the accomplishment of his evil designs? Who can predict the safety
of the noblest structure if superimposed on a false or insecure
foundation? Knowledge is a power equally available for good or evil
purposes, according to the direction given by the moral force that
applies it. May the Almighty disposer of events teach us even at this
late day to learn wisdom from the experience of the past. If, for
example, a single volume were prepared and placed among the closing
studies of the course in girls' schools, embracing instructions in
the duties of woman--as mistress of the family, as the wife, the
mother, whose highest faculties are requisite in the early training
of children--and if the whole were placed in so attractive a garb
as to win their love and admiration for these womanly duties and
perfections, might we not hope that many young and guileless minds
would be gained from the mazes of folly ever ready to obscure their
true instincts and affections? Craving pardon for this digression, we
proceed to the primary object of this article.

    A VISIT TO THE AGRICULTURAL AND REFORMATORY COLONY OF METTRAY,
    NEAR THE CITY OF TOURS, FRANCE.

This admirable institution, which has received the highest stamp
of public approbation in the form of more than eighty kindred
institutions that have adopted its rules and practice as their
models, in France, Belgium, and other countries, was founded about
thirty years since, by the venerable M. Demetz, at that time a
distinguished magistrate, in union with a saintly man[280] whose
honored remains repose in the neighboring cemetery. M. Demetz still
lives to bless and guide this noble monument of his early wisdom and
beneficence.

In the midst of a beautiful and highly cultivated rural district, the
pretty village of Mettray is built in the form of a spacious hollow
square, and consists of some twenty or thirty detached cottages of
brick, symmetrically placed on two opposite sides of the quadrangle,
each having pendent roofs to protect the walls. A circular basin of
running water occupies the centre, and the open space is planted with
fine shade-trees. Between each of the cottages there is a gallery
about thirty feet wide, and roofed to protect from rain the plays
of the inmates of the adjoining cottages. All are white and of two
stories, chiefly covered with climbing vines and flowers.

The entrance is on the side opposite the fine church, which, with
the school-house and grounds, fills that portion of the spacious
quadrangle. On entering, between two houses of larger dimensions,
(one being appropriated to the use of the director, the other to the
normal school, in which the future teachers of Mettray are trained
in their work,) the visitor is a little startled at the view of a
large ship with all its spars and rigging, moored in the solid earth.
This is intended for the instruction of boys who manifest a taste
for the sea. The view of the whole is most pleasing. Every cottage
bears an inscription on its front, which on inspection makes known
the interesting fact that each building is the donation of the
individual lady or gentleman whose name is inscribed thereon, or of
some benevolent association. Thus the expenses of building, usually
so great as in many instances to render such a foundation hopeless,
are here readily and piously assumed by various benefactors. The
manifest advantages of these separate buildings, each adapted for
the occupation of some thirty to thirty-five boys, will appear in
the sequel. In the architecture,[281] all is of the simplest kind;
for it is thought best not to awaken luxurious tastes or habits
among a class destined to earn their living by the sweat of their
brow. The boys are not crowded together in large masses, but enjoy
a free and open circulation of air, conducive to health and energy;
and the inmates of each cottage are under the permanent government
of a director and sub-director, who are regarded as the fathers of
the household, and live with them, eating, sleeping, etc., in the
same house, and to whom the boys become devotedly attached, and they
thus enjoy, so far as it is possible, the blessing of the family
relations. Sisters also are there, in their separate apartments
adjacent to the church, prepared to nurse the sick in the infirmary,
and to give their invaluable influences and aid, especially to the
little ones, on every proper occasion.

The village is adapted to receive seven hundred boys,[282] from seven
or eight years of age and upward. The "colony," as it is termed, is
chiefly agricultural, but many of the children, from various causes,
being better adapted to indoor employments, are applied to trades,
and in winter, when the farm work is interrupted, all the boys are
employed in the shops, to acquire the art of manufacturing their
own tools. In these shops, where, as we have said, the boys are
permanently associated in separate families, they are taught to be
tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, blacksmiths, agricultural instrument
manufacturers--in short, any or every trade that may be made useful
or profitable.

In the rear of the village are the farm buildings, the stables,
cow-houses, etc. etc., with the gymnasium and a small pond of running
water for bathing and swimming. Further on is the cemetery, with
its alleys of cypress and well-kept gardens, (for gardening is a
prominent branch of industry here;) and we may well imagine that
nothing is neglected to beautify the surroundings of the honored tomb
of their first benefactor, and of the lowly graves of the departed
who were once their companions. Flowers--beautiful flowers--are
strewed everywhere, and with their fragrance seem to hallow the
sacred place.

Neither walls nor ditches nor any means of restraint or confinement
are resorted to for the compulsory seclusion of these seven hundred
juvenile culprits, who have all been adjudged as fit subjects for
this penitentiary; yet escape is so rare as to be almost unknown.
As we entered the square, the boys, ranging from seven or eight to
twenty years of age, were enjoying their midday recreations--leaping,
playing, laughing, or shouting at their pleasure. Within a few
minutes, at the sound of a clarionet, their sports suddenly ceased,
and a moment later, at a second call, they separated, each to join
his "family" at its allotted ground, to prepare to march; and then
a lively quick-step was heard. This was the signal of the band,
composed of their comrades most expert in music, who had meantime
taken their post near the centre of the square, at which the various
groups, joined by their two directors, filed off cheerily, each
to its home. The musicians then laid aside their instruments and
hastened after their companions. They partake of their frugal but
wholesome and cheerful meals in the second story of their respective
cottages, accompanied by their directors, and in the evening, when
the last repast is ended, the tables are expertly suspended against
the walls, and a single row of hammocks, which were laid aside after
the same fashion before breakfast, are again placed in order for
the night. The rooms are perfectly well ventilated, and there is a
great gain in economy from this double arrangement. After each meal
there is recreation, and the hour being past, music again recalls
each family to the square, from which, to the sound of lively airs,
they move off in high spirits to their various employments. Here goes
a class of farmers, there are the gardeners, and further on, the
carters, etc. etc., all on their way to the farm, while the lesser
numbers of shoemakers, tailors, and others turn their steps in the
direction of their various shops, and a goodly class wind their way
to the school. Thus the children are accustomed to repair to their
allotted labor as if on a holiday. Music salutes their departure, and
its notes leave a joyous impression on the mind. The lower floors of
the cottages are all occupied as workshops.

From this brief sketch may be inferred the regularity that prevails
in the colony. Every thing is done to habituate the boys to a
willing and cheerful performance of their duty. No harshness is
permitted that might again chill these young hearts, that have once
been abandoned to vice before they were capable of discrimination.
The system of rewards is quite original, and serves its purpose
admirably. For grave offences confinement in a cell is the only
punishment found necessary. Lying is regarded as the worst of faults.

Within the narrow limits prescribed for this article it would be
impossible to give any adequate account of an institution which,
wherever it is known, is recognized as being equalled only by such
others as most closely obey its spirit and maxims. Its founders
have aimed, so far as possible, to restore and cultivate the family
affections, prematurely shattered through vicious examples, by
dividing, as we have seen, into groups this large mass of youthful
humanity, and forming them into families under regulations tending
to establish a sincere and lasting attachment among its members.
In their respective cottages they live and work together, in the
interchange of mutual kindness and regard, and are inspired with
the idea that each, in a certain sense, is responsible for the good
conduct, the respectability, the happiness, of his brothers. The
ever-ready sympathy and motherly counsels of the sisters must not be
forgotten. The directors at Mettray are, thus far, laymen; but in
many other like institutions it has been found impossible to dispense
with the aid of religious orders. In this country we should be
obliged to have recourse to them for want of laymen possessed of the
needful qualifications; for they must give their entire lives to the
work.

The success achieved by this institution during its thirty years'
existence in the entire reformation of the youths subjected to its
wise and wholesome discipline, is unexampled. The statistical tables
of France, unsurpassed in exactness, inform us that an average of
96.81% of the youth brought up at Mettray are restored to society,
thoroughly reformed, and continue to fulfil their parts in life as
useful citizens. They are usually detained in the colony to the
age of twenty-one, when suitable situations having been provided,
according to the trade of each, they are allowed to depart. Still, a
sort of guardianship is maintained for years over those within reach;
and the young men who find employment among the neighboring farmers
are expected to pass the Sundays at their old home; a privilege which
they relish in the highest degree. Nearly half their number engage in
agricultural work. Others enter the army or navy, in both of which
several have attained honorable distinction. Many are married, and
present good examples in domestic life. An honorary association has
been formed, which affords additional incentives to good conduct
after leaving Mettray. Two years of an irreproachable life entitles
each who merits it to a diploma; and this secures him a membership.

It is really difficult to do justice to this admirable institution
without being suspected of exaggeration. To understand the
wonder-working power of the wisdom that pervades it, that transforms
the juvenile criminal into a sober-minded, industrious, and devout
man, it must be seen and closely scrutinized. Christian education has
taken the place of the penal code, and the boy is "trained in the way
he should go," on the firm basis of religious principles of faith and
practice. The general expression beaming on every countenance, of
cheerful confidence, even of the gentle and affectionate temper that
prevails, affords an affecting contrast to that of the newly-arrived
boy, fresh from the haunts of vice. His pale and haggard looks
betray evil propensities, as well as wasted health. His little
heart is already filled with hatred, restrained only by the fear
that he betrays, either by attempts at a hypocritical humility or an
impudent daring. Years pass on, and this incipient wild beast becomes
benevolent, frank, and good.

       *       *       *       *       *

Within a few years a kindred institution has grown up, adjoining
the village, but skilfully concealed from the public gaze by thick
shrubbery. This is the "Paternal Home," for the reformation of
the disobedient sons of families in the higher walks of life. A
close white wall, behind which trees and climbing vines appear, is
pierced in the centre by an equally close door. A small bell-pull
is touched, and the visitor enters a pretty court laid out with
flowers and shrubs. Through this the home appears at the distance of
a few paces. We enter a narrow hall, furnished with simple elegance.
Doors on either side lead into small rooms, containing a bed, table,
book-case, etc. Engravings representing some generous or noble action
adorn the walls. As the youth becomes more docile and studious, a
singing bird in a cage is given him for a companion; and, finally,
he is permitted to occupy two rooms. During all this period, the
boy is made to understand that he is the object of the tenderest
affection of his family, who inflict the greatest pain upon their own
feelings in subjecting him to this temporary punishment, which is
solely for his own good. Professors attend him, and continue, without
interruption, the collegiate course which has been interrupted, and
he has the daily benefit of fresh air on foot, or on horseback,
attended by a professor.

It must be understood that this sojourn at the Paternal Home is
unknown to all but the family. M. Demetz alone is made acquainted
with his name.[283] To others who approach him, he is simply Mr.
A----, B----, or C----. Gradually this isolation produces its
effects--and the intractable spirit in this seclusion begins to
meditate, to reflect, to examine himself--to condemn his former
vices, and to love the studies that alleviate the weariness of
solitude. Two or three months usually suffice to effect this
favorable change. He finds relief in occupation, and as he carries on
the course of the classes he has left, he begins to take an interest
in competition. Let it not be imagined that this seclusion, though
severe, is allowed to affect the health of the recluse. This would be
entirely to misunderstand the parental foresight of the founder. The
boys take long walks in the country, each in turn, as we have said,
accompanied by a professor. They visit the neighboring farms, and
sometimes enter a cottage on a visit of charity; practise gymnastics,
or take lessons in fencing and when their conduct is unexceptionable,
they are invited to dine with M. Demetz. If, after returning home,
they are tempted to relapse into bad habits, they are sent back
again, but to a more austere _regime_. Such is the effect produced by
this system, at once tender and severe, that very often his former
pupils request of M. Demetz the privilege of again passing a few days
of calmness in peaceful retreat, or to finish some task that demands
seclusion, at the Paternal Home. To them, the retreat where they were
restored to a sense of duty is really a home of the heart, and the
hand that raised them up is blessed as that of the father, who spared
neither severity nor tenderness for their complete restoration. What
wonder that he is the object of their devoted affection? Is there no
American capable of imitating such a model?

FOOTNOTES:

[280] Viscount Bretiznieres de Courteilles.

[281] The church only is handsomely decorated.

[282] Insubordinate female children are confided by the government
to the care of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, in their vast
establishment at Angers, where they are subject to rules similar to
those at Mettray, and with at least an equal success.

[283] The chapel is so constructed that, though each individual is in
full view of the altar and the priests, not one of the recluses can
have even a glimpse of another. Two brothers once passed some time in
this house, and neither was aware of the proximity of the other.




THE FIRST OECUMENICAL COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN.

NUMBER SEVEN.


The preamble and first four chapters of the dogmatic constitution _de
Fide Catholica_ having been irrevocably disposed of in the public
session held on Low-Sunday, are now before your readers and the world.

The withdrawal of the veil of secrecy from this portion of the
_schema_ has removed from the eyes of many, the scales of doubt and
misgiving, blinded as they were by the repeated statements of certain
newspaper correspondents; and as future decrees come to light, they
will equally confound the pretensions of the false prophets, and
amply reward the patient hope of the faithful.

The Vatican Council took a fresh start on the following Friday, April
29th. In the general congregation of that day, the fathers passed
from faith to discipline, and began to discuss the reformed _schema_
on the _Little Catechism_.

After the mass, which was said by the Archbishop of Corfu, the
council was addressed by Mgr. Wierzchleyski, Archbishop of Leopoli,
in Galician Poland, who spoke in the name of the deputation on
discipline, of which he is a distinguished member.

Speeches were afterward made by the Cardinal Archbishop of Bordeaux,
Cardinal Rauscher of Vienna, and by the Bishops of Guastalla,
Saluzzo, and St. Augustine, Florida.

The next morning, Saturday, the 30th, the discussion was resumed.
The Archbishop of Avignon, and the Bishops of Lucon and Parma
made some remarks on the general features of the _schema_. These
prelates were followed by the distinguished Bishop Von Ketteler of
Mayence, the Bishops of Plymouth and of Clifton in England, and the
Bishop of Treves in Germany; all of whom confined themselves to
some particular points of the document. Bishop Von Ketteler, who
belongs to a baronial family in Germany, before becoming a chief in
the church militant, served his country with distinction as colonel
in the German army. He must be at least six feet high, has quite a
soldierly bearing, and is concise and to the point in his remarks.
The last speaker was the Bishop of Seckau in Germany, a member of the
deputation.

As the rules of the council authorize the members of the deputation
to reply to the observations of the fathers at any stage of the
discussion, the committee avail themselves of that privilege by
making the final speech, which in ecclesiastical convocations, as
well as in civil meetings, is generally the most telling one.

At the conclusion of the remarks by the Bishop of Seckau, the
president declared that the debate on the _Little Catechism_ was
closed, and that the vote would be taken on the following Wednesday,
on all the amendments proposed.

In the congregation of Wednesday, May 4th, the Bishop of Tyre and
Sidon celebrated mass in the peculiar and impressive form of the
Maronite rite. The president asked the prayers of the fathers for
the venerable Bishop of Evreux in France, who died in his seventieth
year, and survived only two days after returning home from the
council.

Permission was granted to nine foreign bishops to return to their
sees. Among them were the Bishops of Arichat and Charlottetown, in
British America. The regular business commenced with a second speech
by the Bishop of Seckau, who reviewed all the amendments proposed
in the preceding congregation. The final vote was then taken on
the _Little Catechism_ as a whole. Each bishop voted _viva voce_.
The term _placet_ was used by the prelates who gave unqualified
approbation to it; _placet juxta modum_ by those who had some
modification to propose, while assenting to its general features;
and _non placet_ by those who dissented from the measure. The total
number of votes given was 591.

The _Little Catechism_, which has received no small share of public
attention, now "lies over" till the final seal of approbation is
stamped upon it at the next public session.

The general congregations were resumed on the 13th. After the usual
religious exercises, leave of absence without the obligation of
returning was granted to the following prelates:

    The Bishop of Gezira, Mesopotamia, Syriac rite; the Bishop of
    Merida, Venezuela, South America; the Bishop of Ferns, Ireland;
    the Bishop of Goulbourne, Australia; the Bishop of Puno, Peru;
    the Bishop of Santiago, Chili; the Archbishop of Marasce,
    Cilicia, Armenian rite; and the Bishop of Mardin, Chaldea,
    Armenian rite.

The oral discussion then commenced on the great and fundamental
question _de Romani Pontificis Primatu et Infallibilitate_, which is
comprised in a preamble and four chapters, and which forms the first
part of the dogmatic constitution _de Ecclesia Christi_.

These four chapters had already passed through several manipulations
before being submitted to oral discussion. First, the text had been
distributed to the fathers, who in due course of time transmitted
their observations upon it to the deputation _de fide_. These
observations were then maturely examined by the members of the
deputation, and a printed report of their views on them was sent to
the residence of each bishop.

The Bishop of Poitiers, in the name of the deputation, opened the
discussion with a lucid exposition and vindication of the substance
and form of the text. With this lengthy and learned speech closed the
congregation of the 13th.

Next day, the debate was resumed. The Venerable Constantine Patrizzi,
Cardinal Vicar of Rome, and, with the exception of Cardinal Mattei,
the oldest member of the Sacred College, commenced the discussion. He
was followed by the Archbishop of San Francisco, United States; the
Archbishop of Messina, Sicily; the Archbishop of Catania, Italy; the
Bishop of Dijon, France; the Bishop of Vesprim, Hungary; the Bishop
of Zamora, Spain, and the Bishop of Patti, kingdom of Naples.

On Tuesday, the 17th, Archbishop Dechamps, Primate of Belgium,
addressed the fathers in the name of the deputation. Speeches were
also delivered by the Bishops of St. Brieux, France; Santo Gallo,
Switzerland, and of Rottenburg, Wuertemberg. The president announced
the death of the Bishop of Olinda, in Brazil, and recommended him to
the prayers of the council.

Wednesday, the 18th. The Archbishop of Saragossa opened the
discussion, representing the deputation. The other speakers in the
congregation were all cardinals, namely, Cardinal Schwarzenberg,
Archbishop of Prague, Bohemia; Cardinal Donnet, of Bordeaux, and
Cardinal Rauscher, of Vienna.

Thursday, the 19th. Cardinal Cullen of Dublin was the first speaker,
and was succeeded by the Cardinal Archbishop of Valladolid, Spain,
and by the Greek-Melchite Patriarch of Antioch.

Friday, the 20th. The Primate of Hungary had the advantage of the
opening speech. The venerable Dr. McHale came next. "The Lion of
the fold of Juda," as he is called, looks as _hale_ as a man of
forty-five, though he is a bishop since 1825. The Archbishops of
Corfu and Paris occupied the pulpit during the remainder of the
session.

Saturday, the 21st. Bishop Leahy, of Cashel, reviewed some of the
preceding speeches as a delegate of the deputation, and was followed
by the Bishops of Strasburg, Forli, and Castellamare, Italy.

Intense and unwavering interest was manifested in each of the
foregoing congregations, both on account of the grave character of
the subjects under deliberation, and the eminent prelates that took
part in the discussion. I wish that, together with the names, I were
permitted to give also the living words which fell from the lips of
these learned and eloquent prelates. They would prove to you that
the Christian oratory of the fourth and fifth centuries is reechoed
in the nineteenth, and that it is confined to no nation, but extends
over the length and breadth of the Catholic world.

The longest speech yet pronounced in the council was delivered by the
Cardinal Archbishop of Dublin, who spoke for an hour and forty-two
minutes. Its length was the more remarkable, as Cardinal Cullen
trusted to his memory, and illustrated his discourse by an abundance
of facts and figures.

It is well known that all the bishops not only have the same faith,
but speak the same language in council; and, with the exception of
the orientals, and members of religious orders, they wear the same
episcopal garb. Yet it is worthy of remark that, in spite of this
uniformity in dress and language and outward mien, scarcely has a
prelate opened his mouth from the pulpit when his nationality is at
once discovered. He utters his _shibboleth_, which reveals him to his
brethren as soon as Ephraim was betrayed to Galaad.

You will hear a bishop whisper to his neighbor, That speaker belongs
to the Spanish family of nations. He hails either from the mother
country or from one of her ancient colonies of South America, or
Mexico, or Cuba. How does he know? He forms his judgment not merely
from the little green tuft you see on the crown of the speaker's
_birettum_ or cap, but chiefly from his pronunciation. He will detect
the Spaniard at once by his guttural sound of _qui_, and his lisping
_placet_, besides many other peculiarities of utterance.

The Spaniards and their South American and Mexican cousins, though
models of episcopal gravity, have not acquired the reputation in
the council of being generally the best models of elocution. Their
delivery is said to be sometimes indistinct, and their pronunciation
so peculiar that, like the rose in the wilderness, they waste the
odor of their wisdom on the desert air. Gems of thought fall, indeed,
in profusion from their lips, but they escape occasionally in the too
rapid current of words.

There are several bishops of Spanish origin, however, who have
distinguished themselves alike by distinctness of utterance and by
a remarkable fluency. Among others, I might mention the Bishop of
Guamango, in Peru, and the Bishops of Havana, and S. Concezione, in
Chili.

The next speaker is evidently an Italian. You know it from the
musical sentences, which flow from his lips in such a smooth and
measured strain that he almost appears to be reciting a select piece
of Virgilian poetry. He might seem, were not his classical style so
natural to him, to be aiming at making a good impression not only on
your mind and heart, but also on your ear. Whenever the letter _c_
is followed by _e_ or _i_, he gives it the soft sound of _ch_, as in
our English word _cheerful_; and he is careful to soften down every
word which would sound harsh or grating. Sometimes, indeed, a prelate
of another country will adopt for the nonce the Roman style of
pronunciation; but nobody is deceived. Jacob's voice is recognized,
though he tries to clothe his words in the form of his brother's.

It is almost impossible for an Italian bishop to make a speech
without a formal introduction and peroration, either because of his
respect for his hearers or for the great classical masters. He may
protest he will be brief, but that word has a relative meaning. But
it must be admitted that, for delicacy and refinement of thought, for
fecundity of ideas, and clearness of exposition, some of the Italians
have seldom been surpassed.

The prelate now before you, as you can tell at once, belongs to
the Teutonic family. He is an Austrian, or Prussian, or Bavarian,
or perhaps a Hungarian. The German pronounces _g_ hard before _e_
or _i_, contrary to the usual practice of Latin speakers. He makes
_sch_ soft before the same vowels, pronouncing, for instance, the
word _schema_ as if it were spelled without a _c_. Hence the gravity
of the English-speaking bishops is occasionally relaxed, on hearing
_schematis_ sound as if it were written _shame it is_.

The German is more tame in delivery than either the Italian or the
Spaniard. His colder climate tends to subdue his gestures, as well
as to moderate his sensibility. He is not so fond of dealing in
compliments as the Italian speakers, but goes at once _in medias
res_. He is generally short and precise, and more inclined to appeal
to your head than to your heart. At the same time, religious and
logical, the sublime superstructure of his faith is built upon the
solid foundation of common sense.

If a French prelate were not known by his _rabat_, he would be easily
distinguished by his utterance of Latin. He has a strong tendency
to shorten the infinitive in the second conjugation, and to lay a
particular stress on the last syllable. There is indeed no bishop
in the council who is so readily recognized by his voice as the
Frenchman. Every one can say to him what the Jews said to St. Peter:
"Surely thou art one of them, for thy speech doth discover thee."
But, like Peter, he has no reason to be ashamed of the discovery; for
his speech is not less pleasant than peculiar. He is no exception
to the cultivated taste of his countrymen. He is generally well
understood, because he speaks distinctly, and listened to with
pleasure, because to solid learning he unites an animated and a
nervous style.

For obvious reasons, a continental writer would be the fittest person
to pronounce a correct judgment on the style and Latinity of the
English-speaking prelates of the council.

I will venture, however, an observation. Though the style of the
American, English, and Irish prelates may have less claim to merit
for polish and studied classical Latinity, their discourses will
certainly compare favorably with those of their episcopal brethren
from other parts in strength of argument, in clearness of expression,
as well as in their telling effect upon their discriminating audience.

The bishops of these countries adopt what is called the parliamentary
style. They are usually concise, and always practical. They are in
earnest. They look and talk like men fresh from the battle-field
of the world, who have formidable enemies to contend with, and
come before the council well stocked with experimental knowledge.
They content themselves with a brief statement of the measure they
propose, and a summary of the reasons best calculated to support it,
without occupying the council with elaborate disquisitions.

The number of English, Irish, and American bishops up to the present,
who have delivered oral discourses before the Vatican Council is
comparatively small. It must not, however, be inferred from this
that the other prelates of these nations have all remained inactive
spectators, for many of them have handed in written observations on
the subjects under deliberation.

The following are the English-speaking fathers who, up to the present
date, (June 2d,) have addressed the council:

Archbishops Spalding, Kenrick, and Purcell, and Bishops Whelan and
Verot, United States; Archbishop Connolly, Nova Scotia; Archbishop
Manning, and Bishops Ullathorne, Vaughan, Clifford, and Errington,
England; Cardinal Cullen, and Bishops Leahy, McEvilly, and Keane,
Ireland.

None of the Scotch or Australian bishops have as yet spoken.

Three hundred years have elapsed since the close of the Council of
Trent. Of the two hundred and seventy bishops who assisted at that
council, only four were from the British Isles, of whom three were
Irish and one English; and we think it doubtful if these three Irish
bishops spoke the English language.

The Council of the Vatican has upward of one hundred and twenty
English-speaking prelates, representing not only Great Britain and
Ireland, but also the United States, British America, Oceanica, and
the East Indies; and should the twentieth oecumenical council be
called within the course of another century, judging from the past,
it is not unlikely that the English tongue will then be what the
Italian is to-day--the language of the majority.

Comparisons have been drawn between the Council of the Vatican and
the United States Congress. Perhaps it would be easier to point out
the lines of divergence than those of resemblance between these two
deliberative bodies.

As to the relative ages of the members of the Council and the members
of Congress, the former are decidedly in advance of the latter.
I have taken the pains to refer to the _Annuario Pontificio_ for
1870, which gives the age of nearly all the bishops of the Catholic
world. From this book I learn that the oldest bishop in the council
is in his eighty-fifth year, while the youngest bishop, the Vicar
Apostolic of North Carolina, is thirty-five. The Archbishop of Lima,
who was prevented by infirmities from coming to Rome, is the dean
of the entire episcopacy, being now in his ninety-sixth year. Thus
we see that both extremes of age meet on the American continent;
North America having the youngest, and South America the oldest
representative of the episcopal hierarchy.

Of the thousand bishops now in the church, fully three fourths are
between the ages of fifty-five and ninety-six. The ages of the other
fourth range between thirty-five and fifty-five. Scarcely half a
dozen of these prelates are more advanced in years than the Holy
Father, who yet exhibits more physical endurance and mental activity
than any bishop ten years his junior.

So much for a comparison as to age. Next as to the speeches in both
assemblies. The bishops embrace a wider field in their discourses
than our senators. They are circumscribed by no limits of country.
They make laws which bind the consciences of two hundred millions of
souls--Europeans, Americans, Australians, Asiatics, and Africans;
while Congress legislates for scarcely one fifth that number, and
these confined within a portion of a single continent. Hence, in this
single aspect of the case, the great ecclesiastical synod as far
excels the Federal Congress of the United States as Congress itself
surpasses the New York Legislature, or this latter the city council.

The speeches of the Vatican Council are usually much shorter than
those delivered in Congress. The addresses of the fathers seldom
exceed half an hour,[284] except those of the members of the
deputations, whose remarks generally embrace a critical analysis
of the questions before the council and a review of the amendments
proposed by the bishops, usually occupying about the space of an
hour. The reason for this brevity is obvious. No prelate would wish
to be guilty of the bad taste of occupying unnecessarily the precious
time of his brother bishops. He is fully convinced, on ascending the
pulpit, that every word he says will be carefully weighed in the
balance by a discriminating body of judges, who are influenced only
by sound logic, and not by plausible rhetoric.

Besides their brevity, perhaps I might also add that the speeches
of the fathers are characterized by more personal independence,
sincerity, and earnestness of tone, than those of our legislators in
Washington, while it must be admitted that public opinion commonly
attributes to the episcopal character a higher order of virtue.
Yet, apart from this consideration, we may find a reason for this
difference in the fact that our national representatives have more
temptations to sin against singleness of purpose than the prelates
of the council. Besides the members on the floor of the House and
Senate, there are often well-filled galleries ready to hiss or
to applaud, according to the prejudices of the day, and we know
how human nature dreads the finger of scorn and loves the popular
plaudits. There is a political party which must be sustained _per fas
et nefas_, and though last, not least, there are dear constituents to
be pleased.

The fathers of the council have no such temptations to withdraw them
from the strict line of duty which conscience dictates. All their
general congregations are so many secret sessions. There are no
frowning or fawning galleries to allure or to intimidate. There is no
party lash hanging over the bishops' heads; for they have no private
measures to propose in behalf of their "constituents." Indeed, one of
the rules of the council requires that every bill brought before it
must necessarily affect the general interests of the church, and not
the special wants of any particular diocese or country.

The consoling unanimity which marked the public session held on
Low-Sunday, seems to have put an effectual quietus on the erratic
correspondent of the London _Times_; for he no longer, like another
Cassandra, utters his prophetic warnings to the council, since the
fathers, on the occasion alluded to, by a single breath demolished
all his previous predictions about the threatened rupture of the
assemblage.

Directed, no doubt, to view every thing in Rome with distorted
vision, this writer literally fulfilled his instructions. If he
met bishops walking to St. Peter's, he would despise them as a
contemptible set. Should they prefer to ride, they were, in his
estimation, pampered prelates crushing poor pedestrians under their
Juggernaut. Should a _schema_ be approved by the bishops after a
brief discussion, they were pronounced by our seer a packed jury,
the obsequious slaves of the pope. If the discussion happened to be
prolonged, he would solemnly announce to his readers the existence of
an incipient schism among the fathers. The truth is, the gentleman
could never ascend high enough to comprehend the true character of
the bishops. He could not associate in his mind independence of
thought and the fullest freedom of debate with a profound reverence
for the Holy Father.

Upon every question, from the beginning of the council, there has
been prolonged and animated discussion. A council necessarily
supposes discussion ever since that of Jerusalem. Deprive an
oecumenical synod of the privilege of debate, and you strip it at
once of its true character and the bishops of their manhood. No stone
was left unturned that the whole truth might be brought to light.

But if there has been "_in dubiis libertas_," there has been also
"_in necessariis unitas_." There is no Colenso in the Council of
the Vatican. With regard to doctrines of the Catholic faith already
promulgated, there has not been a whisper of dissent. A bishop might
as well attempt to pull down the immortal dome of Michael Angelo
suspended over his head, as touch with profane hands a single stone
of the glorious edifice of Catholic faith.

There has been also "_in omnibus caritas_." Never was more dignity
manifest in any deliberative assembly. A single glance at the council
in session, from one of the side galleries, would at once impress the
beholder not only with the majesty of the spectacle, but also with
the mutual respect which the members exhibit toward each other, and
the patient attention with which the speakers are listened to, often
under a trying ordeal of several hours' continuous session. As for
violent scenes, there have been none, except in the imagination of
some correspondents; nor bantering, nor personalities; nor collisions
between the presidents and speakers. Since the commencement of the
discussion on the present _schema_, upward of sixty fathers have
already spoken, only one of whom was called to order--and he at the
end of his discourse, because, in the judgment of the president,
he had broached a subject foreign to the debate. In a word, there
is learning without ostentation; difference of sentiment without
animosity; respect without severity; liberty of discussion without
the license of vituperation.

May 23d, the congregations were resumed. The opening speech was
delivered by the Armenian Patriarch. The Bishops of Mayence,
Angouleme, and Grenoble occupied the attention of the fathers during
the remainder of the session.

On the following day, permanent leave of absence was granted to
eight prelates, among whom were two Canadians, namely, the Bishop
of St. Hyacinthe, and the coadjutor of Dr. Cooke, Bishop of Three
Rivers, lately deceased. The council was then addressed by the Bishop
of Sion, Switzerland, one of the deputation, and by the Bishops of
Urgel, Spain, S. Concezione, Chili, and Guastalla, Italy.

In the congregation of the 25th, England and Ireland had the whole
field to themselves, the only speakers being Archbishop Manning,
and Bishops Clifford and McEvilly. Dr. Manning's reputation as
an English speaker is established wherever the English language
prevails. His Latin oration in the council, which was but three
minutes shorter than that of his eminence of Dublin, exhibited the
same energy of thought and the same discriminating choice of words
which are so striking a feature of his public discourses. Dr. Manning
has a commanding figure. His fleshless face is the personification
of asceticism. His sunken eyes pierce you as well as his words.
He has a high, well-developed forehead, which appears still more
prominent on account of partial baldness. His favorite, almost his
only gesture, is the darting of his forefinger in a sloping direction
from his body, and which might seem awkward in others, but in him
is quite natural, and gives a peculiar force to his expressions.
His countenance, even in the heat of an argument, remains almost as
unimpassioned as a statue. He knows admirably well how to employ to
the best advantage his voice, as well as his words. When he wishes to
gain a strong point, he rallies his choicest battalion of words, to
each of which he assigns the most effective position; then his voice,
swelling with the occasion, imparts to them an energy and a power
difficult to resist.

The next congregation, the sixtieth from the opening of the council,
was held on the 28th, the speakers being the Bishops of Ratisbonne,
St. Augustine, Csanad and Gran Varadin in Hungary, and Coutance
in France. At the close, the president announced that the fathers
henceforth would meet at half-past eight A.M. instead of nine.

The fathers assembled again on the 30th. The Archbishop of Baltimore
delivered the opening speech, which lasted about fifty minutes.
He spoke without the aid of manuscript, confiding in his faithful
and tenacious memory. He was succeeded by the Bishops of Le Puy in
France, Bale in Switzerland, Sutri and Saluzzo, Italy, Constantina,
Algiers, and the Vicar Apostolic of Quilon, on the coast of Malabar.

The following day, indefinite leave of absence was granted to
Bishops Demers of Vancouver, and Hennessy of Dubuque, and the newly
consecrated Bishop of Alton was permitted to remain at home. The
Archbishop of Utrecht commenced the debate, being the first of the
bishops of Holland that has addressed the council; the other speakers
were the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, the Bishop of Trajanopolis,
the Archbishop of Cincinnati, who spoke without notes, and the
Archbishop of Halifax. The death of the saintly and apostolic
Archbishop Odin, of New Orleans, was announced. The venerable prelate
finished his course among his kindred near Lyons, on the auspicious
festival of the Ascension.

The sixty-third general congregation was held on the 2d of June. The
speakers were the Archbishop of Fogaras, Transylvania, Roumenian
rite, and the Bishops of Moulins, Bosnia, Chartres and Tanes.

At the close of the session, the death of the Rt. Rev. Thomas Grant,
Bishop of Southwark, England, was announced. Dr. Grant was born of
English parents in Ligny, in the diocese of Arras, France, November
25th, 1816, and was promoted to the episcopal dignity June 22d, 1851.
He was much esteemed by his English brethren in the episcopacy for
his profound learning and solid judgment, as well as for his amiable
disposition. He was one of the deputation on oriental rites.

Thus far, fourteen general congregations have been held on the
four first chapters of the _Dogmatic Constitution of the Church of
Christ_. Sixty-one fathers have already spoken on the general aspects
of the question, leaving forty-nine prelates who have declared their
intention to speak on the same subject. As soon as the draught of the
_schema in general_ has been sufficiently discussed, the debate will
commence on each particular chapter.

As our readers would like, no doubt, to form a more intimate
acquaintance with the venerable bishops now assembled in council,
especially with those who play a more conspicuous part in its
deliberations, we propose in the present number to give a brief
sketch of a few of the twenty-four fathers who constitute the
committee on faith.

It is quite unnecessary to our present purpose to speak of the
two American prelates belonging to this deputation, namely, the
Archbishops of Baltimore and San Francisco, who are well known in
the United States, and whose learning, zeal, and piety are not only
gratefully acknowledged at home, but fully appreciated here, as the
merited honors conferred upon them testify.

We will commence with Aloysius, Cardinal Bilio, president of the
deputation on faith, and one of the five presiding officers of the
council. He was born May 25th, 1826, at Alexandria, the celebrated
fortified town of Piedmont, which of late years has played so
important a part in the history of northern Italy. His father
was of a noble family. At the early age of fourteen the youth,
already remarkable for great piety and a maturity of character
beyond his years, asked to be admitted into the congregation of St.
Paul, founded by the venerable Antonio Zaccaria. He was received
as a student and postulant, and devoted himself to study with an
earnestness which soon broke down his health, apparently never very
strong. He was obliged to suspend his studies for several years. In
fact, for a time it was thought his health never would rally. At
last, however, he did recover, and at once returned to the purpose
from which his mind and heart had never wandered. Having finished
his course and received ordination, he was made in turn professor of
Greek, of rhetoric, and of mental philosophy in the college of Parma,
and afterward in the university of the same city.

It is the custom of the religious orders and congregations which
devote themselves either entirely or in great part to teaching, first
by a long and thorough course of study to prepare carefully their
younger members for future labors in the professorial chair, and
then in their early years of teaching to appoint them from one chair
to another, through the whole cycle, perhaps. So Father Bilio was
sent from Parma to Caravaggio, and then to Naples, occupying various
chairs, and finally was made professor of theology and canon law in
the Barnabite College at Rome. His professorships were for the world
outside his congregation. Within it, his brethren recognized his
high personal qualifications, and elected him to various offices in
their congregation, until at length he was made assistant-general.

Rome could not fail to appreciate qualities and talents like those of
this learned and exemplary, religious and able man. He was pressed
into service in many of the departments for transacting religious
affairs, and finally, June 23d, 1866, he was named cardinal. He
presided over one of the sub-commissions of theologians, who studied
out and prepared the draughts for the council, and he is, as was said
in a former number, chairman of the special committee or deputation
of twenty-four prelates to treat of all matters relating to faith.

With the single exception of Cardinal Bonaparte, Cardinal Bilio is
the youngest member of the Sacred College.

France, the eldest daughter of the church, is represented in the
deputation by Bishop Pie of Poitiers, and Archbishop Regnier of
Cambrai.

Louis Francis Desire Edward Pie was born at Pontgouin, in the diocese
of Chartres, the 26th of September, 1815. Ordained priest in 1839, he
exercised at first the functions of curate of the cathedral church
of Chartres; and in 1845, the bishop of that diocese appointed him
vicar-general, notwithstanding his comparative youth.

From that period, the young priest was ranked among the most
distinguished preachers of France, and was heard with great success
in different cities of that country. His panegyric of Joan of Arc,
which he preached at Orleans, is one of his best discourses.

Named Bishop of Poitiers under the presidency, he took possession
of his see in December, 1849. He was then only in his thirty-fourth
year, an unusually early age for conferring the mitre in Europe.

Bishop Pie directed his eloquence and zeal on various occasions
against two sorts of adversaries: those who sap the foundations of
faith itself by reducing every thing to naturalism, both in religion
and society; and those who attempt to weaken Catholicity by the ruin
of the temporal power. Against the former the bishop issued three
_Synodal Instructions on the Principal Errors of the Present Time_.
Against the latter he wrote, three years before the last Italian
revolution, his _Synodal Instruction on Rome considered as the See of
the Papacy_, in which he ably refuted the sophistries of those who
sought the demolition of the temporal power.

Those best acquainted with the Bishop of Poitiers say that his pulpit
oratory is characterized by an authority, brilliancy, and force of
argument worthy of St. Hilary, whose successor he is.

In personal appearance Bishop Pie is prepossessing. His round,
full face without a wrinkle, and his auburn hair, make him seem
much younger than he really is. Though stout, and even inclined to
corpulency, he is quick and active in his movements.

He speaks with admiration of the late Bishop of Boston, with whom
he studied at St. Sulpice, Paris. The Sulpician fathers have been
accustomed to select as catechists in the parochial church some of
their ablest and most promising students. To both seminarians a class
was assigned, and the Bishop of Poitiers says that his American
friend, afterward Bishop Fitzpatrick, always excelled in his position.

Emmanuel Garcia Gil, Archbishop of Saragossa, in Spain, was born in
St. Salvador, March 14th, 1802.

Having completed his literary studies in his native city, he passed
through his philosophical and theological course in the diocesan
seminary of De Lugo. In 1825, he entered the order of St. Dominic,
in which he made his religious profession November 1st, 1826.

He was ordained the following year, and immediately after the
responsible position of professor of philosophy and theology in the
convents of the order at De Lugo and Compostello was assigned to him.

Expelled in 1835 from Spain, with all the members of his order, he
soon returned to his post at De Lugo, where for thirteen years he
filled the chair of philosophy and divinity in the seminary of which
he was successively director and vice-rector.

Having subsequently devoted himself to the more active pursuits of
the ministry, he labored with great success in preaching the word of
God, and in the administration of the sacraments.

Appointed to the see of Badajoz in December, 1853, he was consecrated
in the city of De Lugo by the Archbishop of Compostello; and five
years later, at the request of the Spanish government, he was
transferred to the archiepiscopal see of Saragossa.

Among his fellow-members of the Committee on Faith, Mgr. Garcia Gil
has the merited reputation of being profoundly conversant with the
writings of his great master, the "Angel of the Schools," and hence
is called among them the St. Thomas of the deputation.

Another prominent member of the committee is Mgr. Hassoun, Patriarch
of Cilicia for the Armenians. He was born in Constantinople, June
13th, 1809, of Armenian parents. He passed through his elementary
course in his native city, and completed his studies in Rome, where,
in 1832, he obtained the degree of doctor of divinity. A few months
later, having been ordained priest, and named apostolic missionary,
he was sent to Smyrna, where he devoted himself to the Armenian
Christians of that city. Removed thence to Constantinople, Father
Hassoun exercised the ministry in several churches, and filled the
office of chancellor in the archiepiscopal palace. Chosen by the
primate as vicar-general and visitor of the diocese and province, the
young Armenian priest was unanimously elected by the assembly of his
nation civil prefect of the Armenian church, in which office he was
confirmed by the Ottoman Porte.

In 1842, he was appointed coadjutor to the Primate of Constantinople,
with the right of succession; and on the death of the latter, in
1846, he was chosen to fill the vacant see.

On the 16th of September, 1866, the Armenian archbishops and bishops
assembled in council proclaimed Mgr. Hassoun Patriarch of Cilicia,
with the title of Anthony Peter IX. The holy see confirmed the
nomination, and decided that in future the patriarchal see of Cilicia
and the archi-primatial see of Constantinople, which hitherto were
separate and independent, should form one patriarchate, under the
title of Patriarchate of Cilicia, with residence at Constantinople.

By his exertions the episcopal hierarchy was reestablished in 1850
in the ecclesiastical province of Constantinople, and a special see
for the Armenians erected in Persia. He has succeeded in building
in the Turkish capital, and endowing a seminary to serve for the
whole ecclesiastical province. In 1843, Mgr. Hassoun founded the
first female convent in the same capital; and we may well imagine
the degree of pious audacity that was required to plant this colony
of virgins in the midst of the sultan's seraglios. This institution
is devoted to the education of young girls, and to the instruction
of women abandoning schism. The convent has sixty nuns, who educate
three hundred poor girls, besides some resident scholars.

The patriarch, by an imperial firman, is charged with all the civil
and ecclesiastical affairs of the Armenians who are subjects of the
Ottoman empire. He gratefully acknowledges the kind disposition
always manifested toward him by the government of the Sublime Porte,
which has extended to him every facility for carrying out the works
of his ministry.

Victor Augustus Isidore Dechamps, one of the most prominent members
of the deputation _de fide_, was born at Melle, Eastern Flanders, in
the chateau of Scailmont, December 16th, 1810. His early education
was intrusted to private tutors, under the eyes of his father, who
was a laureate of the ancient University of Louvain. He afterward
completed his studies of humanity and philosophy with his brother
Adolph, who was successively Belgian minister of foreign affairs and
minister of state.

In the national movement, from which sprung the independence of
Belgium, the two brothers, though yet young, distinguished themselves
as publicists during this glorious epoch of patriotism.

In 1832, M. Dechamps entered the seminary of Tournai, studied
afterward in the Catholic university of Mechlin, and concluded
his theological course at Louvain, where he was ordained priest,
December, 1834, by Cardinal Sterckx.

Having soon after joined the Redemptorist congregation, Father
Dechamps made his novitiate in 1835. Five years later, his career
as a preacher began, and in this capacity he greatly distinguished
himself.

After the death of Queen Louise of Belgium, in obedience to the
express desire of that pious princess, he was charged with the
religious instruction of the royal princes, and of the Princess
Charlotte. Rev. Father Dechamps was named Bishop of Namur, September,
1865. Two years later, he was transferred to the archdiocese of
Mechlin, in which Brussels is included; and since the opening of
the council he has been elevated by the holy see to the primacy of
Belgium.

Monsgr. Dechamps has written several valuable works, the most
important of which are: 1st. _The Free Examination of the Truth
of Faith_; 2d. _The Divinity of Jesus Christ_; 3d. _The Religious
Question resolved by Facts; or, Certainty in Matters of Religion_;
4th. _Pius IX. and Contemporary Errors_; 5th. _The New Eve, or,
Mother of Life_, all of which have been translated into most of the
languages of Europe.

The style of Archbishop Dechamps is calm, concise, and profound,
blended with an attractive unction. His round and pleasing
countenance bears upon it the stamp of intellect and energy. Like so
many of his gifted countrymen, the prelate of Mechlin unites in his
person the mental activity of the Frenchman with the solidity of the
German.

John Baptist Simor, Archbishop of Strigonium and Primate of Hungary,
was born August 24th, 1813, in the ancient Hungarian city of
Fehervar, which is memorable in history as being the place where the
kings of Hungary were formerly crowned and buried.

He pursued his philosophical course in the archiepiscopal lyceum of
Magy-Szombat, and his course of theology in the University of Vienna,
which honored him with the title of doctor of sacred theology. After
the successful completion of his studies, he was ordained priest of
the archdiocese of Strigonium in 1836.

Appointed, first, assistant pastor of a church in Pesth, Father
Simor soon after received a professor's chair in the university of
that city, and subsequently filled several responsible positions,
both in the government of souls and in instructing the more advanced
candidates for the ministry in a higher course of theology.

On the 29th of June, 1857, he was consecrated Bishop of Gyoer, and ten
years later, on the demise of Cardinal Scilovszky, Bishop Simor was
chosen to succeed that eminent prelate as Prince-Primate of Hungary
and Archbishop of Strigonium.

Besides his ecclesiastical eminence, the Primate of Hungary has had
distinguished state honors conferred on him. He is the first member
of the king's privy council. By established law, the ceremony of
crowning the king devolves exclusively on the primate. Otherwise
the coronation is not considered legitimate. The Bishop of Veszprim
crowns the queen. The present Emperor, Francis Joseph of Austria,
received the crown of the kingdom of Hungary from the hands of
Archbishop Simor, on the vigil of Pentecost, 1867, in the presence
of an immense assembly of people from all parts of the kingdom. The
primate is moreover _ex-officio_ chief secretary and chancellor of
the sovereign of Hungary. He is also first magistrate of the county
or department of Strigonium. Hungary contains fifty-two of these
departments, each presided over by a chief magistrate.

He has also a seat in the general assembly or parliament of Hungary,
a privilege which is enjoyed in common with him by every Catholic
bishop of the kingdom. Many other prerogatives were inherent in the
primatial dignity till they were swept away by the revolution of 1848.

Monsgr. Simor informed us that the faithful of his diocese number
a million of souls, comprising three distinct nationalities,
Hungarians, Sclaves, and Germans, who speak as many distinct
languages.

The primate is consequently obliged, in the visitation of his
diocese, to employ these three tongues. In corresponding with his
clergy, whether Hungarian, Sclavonic, or German, he invariably uses
Latin, of which he is a perfect master, and which, till a recent
date, was the common language of the greater part of Hungary.

ROME, June 2, 1870.

       *       *       *       *       *

We add to the remarks of our correspondent the following items of
information concerning the doings of the council since the date of
his letter. Between June 2d and June 18th ten general congregations
were held. The preface, and the first two chapters of the _schema_
on the Roman Pontiff, were voted on and adopted; the discussion of
the third chapter, was closed, and on the 15th of June the discussion
of the fourth chapter, concerning the infallibility of the Roman
Pontiff, was opened. At that date, seventy-four fathers had inscribed
their names as intending to speak, and this number had been increased
to one hundred at the general congregation of June 18th.

FOOTNOTE:

[284] The speeches on the _Primacy and Infallibility of the Roman
Pontiff_ have exceeded in length those delivered on the preceding
subjects, their average duration having been forty-three minutes up
to the present date, June 2d.




FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.


Within the past six months the literary bulletins of France, England,
and Germany are full of notices of new works on the subject of the
Apostle St. Paul and his writings. One of the latest in England
is by Dr. Arnold, who--Anglican as he is--takes direct issue with
an opinion of the French rationalist Renan, which on its first
appearance gave great gratification to the Protestant world. In his
work on St. Paul, Renan said in his flippant way:

    "After having been for three hundred years, thanks to
    Protestantism, the Christian doctor _par excellence_, Paul is
    now coming to the end of his reign."

On this remarkable opinion, Dr. Arnold thus comments:

    "Precisely the contrary, I venture to think, is the judgment
    to which a true criticism of men and things leads us. The
    Protestantism which has so used and abused St. Paul is coming
    to an end; its organizations, strong and active as they look,
    are touched with the finger of death; its fundamental ideas,
    sounding forth still every week from thousands of pulpits,
    have in them no significance and no power for the progressive
    thought of humanity. But the reign of the real St. Paul is only
    beginning; his fundamental ideas, disengaged from the elaborate
    misconceptions with which Protestantism has overlaid them, will
    have an influence in the future greater than any which they
    have yet had--an influence proportioned to their correspondence
    with a number of the deepest and most permanent facts of human
    nature itself."--_From St. Paul and Protestantism, by Matthew
    Arnold._

       *       *       *       *       *

One of the most important events of the reign of Louis XIV., and,
indeed, in the entire religious history of France, was the assembly
of the clergy of France in the year 1682. Numerous works have been
written and published concerning it, the best and most exhaustive of
which are the two last. In 1868, M. Charles Gerin, a judge of the
Civil Tribunal of the Seine, published his _Recherches Historiques
sur l'Assemblee du Clerge de France de 1682_. The author brought
to his task great learning, decided ability, and an industry that
proved itself by the number of original documents from the public
archives for the first time presented by him. The result of M.
Gerin's labors was generally accepted in France as final. With
this verdict, however, Monseigneur Maret, Bishop of Sura, did not
agree, and protested against it in his work, _Du Concile et de la
Paix religieuse_, intimating therein that the documents cited in
M. Gerin's book needed fresh revision and interpretation, which
they should receive. This announcement was naturally accepted as
signifying that a new work on the assembly of 1682 might be looked
for. That was indeed its signification, and early in 1870 appeared
an announcement of the publishers, Didier & Co., Paris, of a book
entitled, _L'Assemblee du Clerge de France de 1682 d'apres des
documents dont un grand nombre inconnus jusqu'a ce jour_. Par l'Abbe
Jules-Theodose Loyson, Docteur et Professeur en Sorbonne. 8vo,
530 pages. To this, Judge Gerin soon replied in his _Une Nouvelle
Apologie du Gallicanisme, Reponse a M. l'Abbe Loyson_. Outside of the
historical statements concerning the events attending the assembly
of 1682, these works are, in fact, a rather animated polemical
discussion of the questions of the temporal power and the papal
infallibility.

       *       *       *       *       *

When St. Patrick entered upon his great apostolic work in Ireland,
he was careful not to offend the attachment borne by his converts
to their ancient national traditions, the songs of their bards, and
the laws by which they were governed. On the contrary, he advised
Lacighaise, king of the country, to have reduced to writing all the
ancient judicial decisions, and, with the aid of two other bishops,
commenced the work himself. To the body of laws thus collected was
given the title of _Senchus Mor_, (collection of ancient knowledge.)
Written A.D. 440, this book served as the Irish code before the
departure of the Romans, and was in legal force up to the period of
the accession of James I., traces of its influence being to this
day plainly visible. The most authentic manuscripts containing the
_Senchus Mor_ formerly belonged to an English literary amateur, and
through the efforts of Edmund Burke were acquired by the English
government. Their publication was commenced in 1852, and has been
resumed, as we perceive by the following announcement: _Ancient Laws
of Ireland. Senchus Mor._ Part II. Edited by W. Neilson Hancock,
LL.D., and the Rev. Thaddeus O'Mahony. Dublin: Printed for Her
Majesty's Stationery Office. 1870. 8vo.

       *       *       *       *       *

Some curious information and revolting details concerning the
continuation of the slave-trade in Africa are furnished in a work
lately published at Paris, _La Traite Orientale_. The Mussulman
still needs slaves and concubines, and three great slave marts still
exist to supply them. These are the Island of Zanzibar, the southern
portion of Egypt, and Arabia. At Zanzibar a healthy man sells for
$42, while the women bring $80, and more, if good-looking.

       *       *       *       *       *

During the past ten years the history, geography, and topography
of the biblical countries have been studied with immense activity,
and the best travellers and scholars of Germany, France, Italy, and
England have contributed their offerings to the common fund of our
knowledge concerning these most interesting regions. Successful
research on the banks of the Euphrates and the Tigris, the Nile and
the Jordan, not to speak of many other points, have all in turn
confirmed the perfect veracity of the writers of the Old and of the
New Testament. And to these, the broken walls, the palaces, the
towers, and the sculptures of Babylon, of Nineveh, of Persepolis, of
Jerusalem, and of Samaria, rising in testimony of the truth from the
gathered ruins of ages, bear also their testimony. A learned German
ecclesiastic, Dr. Gratz, uniting and fusing all the information
on this subject, composed an admirable geographical history of
oriental and occidental countries, with special reference to the
biblical period. Dr. Allioli, the celebrated scriptural commentator,
recommended the work of Dr. Gratz as marked by so much erudition
and exactness that the readers of his commentary are recommended
to it for information on all points touching biblical localities.
An excellent French translation of Dr. Gratz's work has just been
published: _Theatre des Evenements racontes dans les divines
Ecritures, ou l'ancien et le nouvel Orient etudie au point de vue de
la Bible et de L'Eglise_. 2 vols. 8vo.

       *       *       *       *       *

Here are two new works on the Council of Trent: _Histoire du Concile
de Trente_, par M. Baguenault de Puchesse; 1 vol. 8vo. _Journal
du Concile de Trente, redige par un secretaire Venitien presant
aux sessions de 1562 a 1563._ This Venetian secretary was Antonio
Milledonne, attached to the embassy sent to the Council of Trent by
the republic of Venice. To the diary of the secretary, which forms
the body of the latter publication, are added several original
documents of the period heretofore unpublished, among them a summary
of the dispatches of the Venetian ambassadors to the council. M.
Baschet, the editor, suggests that the publication of the French
diplomatic dispatches relative to the council would be of the highest
interest. These dispatches would certainly form one of the most
curious literary monuments of the sixteenth century, and, in point of
fact, the history of the latter period of the council cannot well be
written without them.

       *       *       *       *       *

Baron Huebner, formerly Austrian Ambassador at Paris and at Rome, and
well known in the diplomatic and literary world, has just presented
the fruit of many years' labor among the state archives of Paris,
Vienna, Florence, Venice, Simancas, and the Vatican, in the shape
of a work entitled _Sixte Quint_; 3 vols. 8vo. Written on an epoch
already well investigated, and upon a life which has been the subject
of many pens, Baron Huebner's life of Pope Sixtus V. is by far the
most remarkable and the most trustworthy we have had. And yet it is
not perhaps exact to call his work a life of Sixtus V. The author
does not so style it, and takes up Cardinal Montalto at the conclave
where he is elected pope. He scarcely refers retrospectively to the
early years of his life, and pays not the slightest attention to
the semi-fabulous stories which tradition has interwoven with the
name of the great Sixtus. If he finds documentary evidence for
any part of them, he gives it. If not, silence falls upon them. At
the outset of his work he merely mentions the three great names
connected with histories of Sixtus--Leti, Tempesti, and Ranke. But he
merely mentions them, and in no case quotes them. As to more modern
historians of Sixtus--Segretain and Dumesnil, for instance--he does
not appear to have the slightest idea of their existence. Baron
Huebner has written his work exclusively from original materials, and
appears to have used them conscientiously and with excellent judgment.

       *       *       *       *       *

For nearly ten months an animated historico-ecclesiastical discussion
has been going on in France, which, according to the reports of
literary journals, has passed the stage of "_vive polemique_," and
reached that described as "_la controverse passionee_." The subject
matter of the discussion is Pope Honorius. Father Gratry (of the
Oratory) led off with a pamphlet entitled, _Mgr. l'Eveque d'Orleans
et Mgr. l'Archeveque de Malines_, and gave the texts of three
councils which condemned Honorius, and the confirmation of their
sentence by Pope St. Leo II. To this came a reply by M. Chantrel,
_Le Pape Honorius, Premiere Lettre a M. l'Abbe Gratry_, in which he
presented an abridged text of the letters of Honorius and testimony
in his favor. Archbishop Dechamps also answered Father Gratry in _La
Question d'Honorius_, citing an interesting passage from St. Alphonse
de Liguori. Then, in its numbers of the 10th and 25th January, and
10th February, _Le Correspondant_ gave an extract from the fourth
volume (not yet published) of the _Histoire des Conciles_, by Bishop
Hefele, in which the prelate-author is severe on Honorius. Father
Colombier, on the contrary, defends the orthodoxy of the incriminated
letters of Honorius in a series of articles published in the _Etudes
Religieuses, Historiques, et Litteraires_. Dom Gueranger also treated
the question in his _Defense de l'Eglise Romaine contre les Erreurs
du R. P. Gratry_, published in the _Revue du Monde Catholique_.
Then comes _L'Univers_ with a letter from M. Amedee de Margerie,
Professor at Nancy, in defence of Honorius. We can merely enumerate
other defenders of Honorius who have entered the lists. They are
the Abbe Constantin, (_Revue des Sciences Ecclesiastiques_,) the
editors of the _Civilta Cattolica_, Canon Lefebre, (_Revue Catholique
de Louvain_,) Abbe Larroque, Abbe Belet, Father Roque, and Father
Ramiere. The _Avenir Catholique_ endeavors to demonstrate that
Honorius wrote the letters in dispute not as pope, but as a simple
doctor. M. Leon Gautier published a series of articles on the
question of infallibility, the last of which is specially devoted
to Honorius. These articles collected have lately been published by
Palme in a pamphlet, entitled _L'Infaillibilite devant la Raison,
la Foi et l'Histoire_. Then comes a second letter from Bishop
Dechamps, and, finally, the Bishop of Strasburg issues an energetic
condemnation of the letters of Father Gratry.

       *       *       *       *       *

The history of the city of Milan is, in Italian history, one of great
importance; for it is the history of Lombardy, and of nearly all of
the north of Italy. Of chronicles and histories of the great Lombard
city there were many, but none so good in its day as the four large
and beautiful volumes of the Chevalier Rosmini de Roveredo, which is
now in its turn surpassed and superseded by the admirable work of
Cusani, _Storia di Milano, dall' origine ai nostri giorni_. Vols. I.
a V. a 8vo, Milano, 1861-1869.

       *       *       *       *       *

Ricotti's great work on the history of the Piedmontese monarchy
still approaches completion. The sixth volume, just out, brings the
work down to the end of the seventeenth century. The _Storia della
Monarchia Piemontese_ is no mere dry record of dates; but presents
an animated picture of the legal, intellectual, social, and artistic
life of Piedmont at the different epochs of its existence.

       *       *       *       *       *

Professor Ferdinando Ranalli's new work on the history of the fine
arts, _Storia delle Belle Arti in Italia_, 3 vols., attracts much
attention.

       *       *       *       *       *

Professor Ciavarini, of Florence, has published an interesting work
on the philosophy of Galileo, _Della Filosofia del Galilei_, and
on his scientific method. The Italian press does not vomit forth
the flood of yellow-covered literature with which some countries
are afflicted; but the number of serious and meritorious works in
history, literature, and science constantly published would surprise
most persons who suppose that the Italian mind is at a stand-still.

       *       *       *       *       *

Almost simultaneously in Germany and in England appear two works on
the Epistles to the Corinthians by St. Clement of Rome. They are
_Clementis Romani ad Corinthios Epistola_, by J. C. M. Laurent,
published at Leipsic; and _S. Clement of Rome: the Two Epistles to
the Corinthians_, a revised text with introduction and notes, by J.
B. Lightfoot. They are mainly valuable for their discussion as to the
merits of the texts of the various MSS.

       *       *       *       *       *

The most interesting archaeological discovery of our age, incomparable
for its antiquity and its historic and philological interest, is
unquestionably the one lately made by M. Clermont-Ganneau, dragoman
of the consulate of France at Jerusalem. It is that of a Hebrew
inscription of the year 896 before Christ, cut on a monolith
by order of Mescha, King of Moab, a contemporary of the kings
Joram and Josaphat. The stone on which the inscription is graven
is in dimension three feet four inches by about two feet. The
inscription itself is in thirty-four lines, each line containing
from thirty-three to thirty-five letters. It is said that there is
no known Hebrew monument comparable in antiquity with this. M. le
Comte de Voguee lately presented a memoir concerning it to the French
Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, which is now published
by Baudry, Paris: _La Stele de Mesa, Roi de Moab, 896 avant Jesus
Christ_.




NEW PUBLICATIONS.


    LIFTING THE VEIL. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1870. Pp.
    200.

This book was probably suggested by _Gates Ajar_. It is an attempt
to say something about the future state of the human race. In some
respects the volume is more valuable than Miss Phelps's endeavor
to convey an idea of the happiness of paradise. It is not so
materialistic. Yet both works are very defective, because of the
simple fact that neither of the authors know any thing of that which
makes heaven to be heaven--the beatific vision. Their highest ideal
is perfect intellectual contentment, with unimpeded exercise of our
natural capacities and the companionship of our friends and our
blessed Saviour. Yet it is encouraging to see that Protestants are
writing such books as these. They are the expression of the deepest
wants of the human soul. They prove that the Protestantism of to-day
has failed to answer these wants. If we were not already perfectly
convinced, they would convince us, that when the truth is adequately
presented to these souls, they will gladly accept it.

       *       *       *       *       *

    PASSAGES FROM THE ENGLISH NOTE-BOOKS OF NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
    Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co. 1870. 2 vols.

One great charm of these two volumes lies in the fact that they were
never written for publication. But we regret the omission of certain
passages. The editor of the volumes thought it wise to withhold
a portion of the notes which were afterward absorbed into one or
another of the romances or papers in _Our Old Home_. Yet surely it
would have been a pleasure to contrast the rough sketch contained
in his notes with the elaborate and finely-finished picture which
Mr. Hawthorne afterward presented to the public. The editor tells
us that these cartoons were carefully finished even "at the first
stroke." However, the volumes will always be valuable, because they
give a clear insight of their author's character. If one writes his
every-day impressions of places, persons, and events, he gives the
world a picture of his mind. Thus when these series of notes are
completed by the notes upon America and Italy, we shall be enabled
to form a far truer estimate of this distinguished American writer
than we could possibly do from those works which have given him a
name in literature, both in his own country and in more critical and
fastidious England.

       *       *       *       *       *

    HIDDEN SAINTS: LIFE OF SOEUR MARIE. New York: D. & J. Sadlier
    & Co. 1870. Pp. 215.

In many respects this is a useful contribution to our Catholic
literature. It tells the story of a workwoman who attained a very
high degree of Christian perfection. In its matter, the book reminds
one of _Marie-Eustelle Harpain_, but it does not greatly resemble
it in its composition. A religious biography can do good in two
ways. It can edify the readers with the history of remarkable piety
and virtue. And it can also elevate and refine our minds, if it be
written in pure and correct English. Unfortunately, this biography
does not possess this character. Its very title is an example of a
fault which is frequently seen throughout the volume. It is the "Life
of _Soeur Marie_," not Sister Mary. When this good girl addresses
her director, she does not say "Father," but it must be "_Mon Pere_,"
and without the accent to which that word is lawfully entitled.
Surely it is absurd affectation to ruin a beautiful thought and a
good English sentence by mixing with it two or three French words.
But this is not the only fault of the volume. It speaks of "promises
of milk and water," an expression which contains no definite idea.
It informs us that Sister Mary "went _straight_ to church." Who
can tell whether the author intends to say that she went to church
_immediately_ or went there by the most direct way? Then, too, if
this book be intended to form one of a series of biographies of
persons who are not canonized, why call them "Hidden _Saints_"? The
holy see has always wished us to be most careful in the use of this
word. But these faults do not destroy the value of the book. They
are only blemishes, and in a future edition we hope to find them
completely removed.

       *       *       *       *       *

    MARION. A Tale of French Society under the Old Regime.
    Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1870. Pp. 176.

Marion is a woman of "stiff figure, bony hands, bloodshot eyes, and
innumerable wrinkles, always reminding one of stories about vampires
and ghouls." (P. 4.) This sentence gives a fair idea of the style and
literary value of this novel. It is filled with similar nonsensical
and overdrawn descriptions. We must, therefore, beg leave to differ
from the very modest opinion expressed in the preface, that the book
has a character "which stamps it as one that the young may read with
profit." On the contrary, it is a shame that such a story should be
translated and allowed to live in another language than the one in
which it was originally written. However, we will do it justice.
There is one mark of common sense about the book. It is this--both
the author and translator have concealed their names.

       *       *       *       *       *

    THOMAS FRANCIS MEAGHER. By Captain W. F. Lyons. New York: D. &
    J. Sadlier. 1870. Pp. 357.

We do not believe the sentiment which Shakespeare has put in the
mouth of Mark Antony, that

    "The evil which men do lives after them;
    The good is oft interred with their bones."

It is not true that men delight in recalling the faults of their
fellow-men; and especially do the dead claim our forgiveness and
compassion. We are truly sorry, therefore, to find in this volume
speeches which reflect no credit from a literary point of view upon
General Meagher, and which, moreover, contain doctrines most clearly
condemned by the Catholic Church. Out of respect to the many good
qualities of Meagher, we wish to forget his faults. We would wish
also to remember, and we wish his countrymen to remember, his manly
virtues. But until the speech beginning on page 280 of this volume
is omitted, we cannot recommend this book to the Catholic public, or
consider it a worthy monument of Thomas Francis Meagher.

       *       *       *       *       *

    HISTORY OF THE FOUNDATION OF THE ORDER OF THE VISITATION.
    Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1870. Pp. 271.

Few books issued by Catholic publishers are more interesting and
useful than this history of the Order of the Visitation. Besides the
history of their foundation, it contains the lives of several members
of the order; among them Mademoiselle De La Fayette, a relative of
the general so distinguished in our war for independence. The book
merits a wide circulation.

       *       *       *       *       *

    ALASKA AND ITS RESOURCES; By W. H. Dall. Boston: Lee & Shepard.
    1870.

Mr. Dall was "the director of the scientific corps of the late
Western Union Telegraph Expedition." His book is the result of great
industry, and is highly creditable to him every way. Those who desire
to know something worth knowing about this singular region will find
this work very interesting. The writer says in his introduction
that he "has specially endeavored to convey as much information as
his scope would allow in regard to the native inhabitants, history,
and resources of the country. This end," he adds, "has been kept
steadily in view, perhaps, at the risk of dulness." We think he has
succeeded admirably, and have no fear whatever that any one capable
of appreciating the book is likely to find it dull.

       *       *       *       *       *

    PARADISE OF THE EARTH. Translated from the French of Abbe
    Sanson by Rev. F. Ignatius Sisk. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co.
    New York: Catholic Publication Society. 1870. Pp. 528.

This book was originally written for religious, though we presume it
is now intended to have a wider circulation. The means of finding
happiness is treated under a two-fold head: First, Removal of
obstacles; second, Practice of the solid virtues. The chapters which
treat of the mortification of the passions are carefully written.
Indeed, the author has wished to present the teaching of the saints
and doctors of the church rather than his own opinions.

       *       *       *       *       *

    LORETTO; OR THE CHOICE. By George H. Miles. New and enlarged
    edition. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1870. Pp. 371.

This story presents a very fair picture of Southern Catholic society.
The characters in it are mostly well conceived. They are not
impossible persons. Nothing extraordinary happens to any one of them.
They speak in a natural manner. The plot, too, though simple, is
very pleasingly developed, and the interest of the reader constantly
maintained. For all these good qualities, so rare in modern works of
fiction, the book deserves a hearty recommendation. But beyond all
this, the story merits praise for the sound principles of morality
which appear on every page, and which the author presents in a manner
at once pleasing and truthful.

       *       *       *       *       *

    DEVOTION TO THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS. By Secondo Franco, S.J.
    Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1870. Pp. 305.

This manual of devotion makes a very handsome appearance in its dress
of blue and gold. Its object is to explain clearly the essence of
the worship of the Sacred Heart. Yet this book is not in any sense a
controversial work. It is written for devout Catholics. It will be
of service to any one who wishes to gain a knowledge of the interior
life of our Redeemer by studying his sacred heart. The book is filled
with fervent sentences and devout aspirations, which will help the
reader to become like Him "who was meek and humble of heart."

       *       *       *       *       *

    BEECH BLUFF: A Tale of the South. By Fannie Warner.
    Philadelphia. P. F. Cunningham.

In this volume we have what purports to be the experience of a
Northern lady in the sunny South, during a three years' residence
as governess in the State of Georgia. The tale, which is written in
a pleasing and natural style, is entirely free from all sensational
incidents, and has a strong under-current of sound practical
Catholicity. It will be none the less acceptable to many as being
descriptive of a phase of society which is now (happily, in some
respects) "among the things that were."

       *       *       *       *       *

    WONDERS OF ARCHITECTURE. Translated from the French of M.
    Lefevre. To which is added a chapter on English Architecture.
    By R. Donald, 1 vol. 12mo. New York: Charles Scribner & Co.
    1870.

A beautiful little book, containing illustrations of some of the
finest creations of the great architects of the world. It is both
entertaining and instructive.




THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XI., No. 66.--SEPTEMBER, 1870.


HEREDITARY GENIUS.[285]


Mr. Galton is what in these days is called a _scientist_, or
cultivator of the physical sciences, whose pretension is to confine
themselves strictly to the field of the sciences as distinguished
from science; to assert nothing but positive facts and the laws of
their production and operation, ascertained by careful observation
and experiment, and induction therefrom. Their aim would seem to
be to explain all the facts or phenomena of the universe by means
of second causes, and to prove that man is properly classed with
animals, or is only an animal developed or completed, not an animal
transformed and specificated by a rational soul, which is defined by
the church to be _forma corporis_.

Between the scientists and philosophers, or those who cultivate not
the special sciences, but the science of the sciences, and determine
the principles to which the several special sciences must be referred
in order to have any scientific character or value, there is a
long-standing quarrel, which grows fiercer and more embittered every
day. We are far from pretending that the positivists or Comtists have
mastered all the so-called special sciences; but they represent truly
the aims and tendencies of the scientists, and of what by a strange
misnomer is called philosophy; so-called, it would seem, because
philosophy it is not. Philosophy is the science of principles, as say
the Greeks, or of _first_ principles, as say the Latins, and after
them the modern Latinized nations. But Herbert Spencer, Stuart Mill,
and the late Sir William Hamilton, the ablest representatives of
philosophy as generally received by the English-speaking world, agree
with the Comtists or positivists in rejecting first principles from
the domain of science, and in relegating theology and metaphysics
to the region of the unknown and the unknowable. Their labors
consequently result, as Sir William Hamilton himself somewhere
admits, in universal nescience, or, as we say, absolute nihilism or
nullism.

This result is not accidental, but follows necessarily from what
is called the Baconian method, which the scientists follow, and
which is, in scholastic language, concluding the universal from
the particular. Now, in the logic we learned as a school-boy, and
adhere to in our old age, this is simply impossible. To every valid
argument it is necessary that one of the premises, called the major
premise, be a universal principle. Yet the scientists discard the
universal from their premises, and from two or more particulars,
or particular facts, profess to draw a valid universal conclusion,
as if any conclusion broader than the premises could be valid! The
physico-theologians are so infatuated with the Baconian method that
they attempt, from certain facts which they discover in the physical
world, to conclude, by way of induction, the being and attributes of
God, as if any thing concluded from particular facts could be any
thing but a particular fact. Hence, the aforenamed authors, with
Professor Huxley at their tail, as well as Kant in his _Kritik der
Reinen Vernunft_, have proved as clearly and as conclusively as any
thing can be proved that a causative force, or causality, cannot
be concluded by way either of induction or of deduction from any
empirical facts, or facts of which observation can take note. Yet the
validity of every induction rests on the reality of the relation of
cause and effect, and the fact that the cause actually produces the
effect.

Yet our scientists pretend that they can, from the observation and
analysis of facts, induce a law, and a law that will hold good
beyond the particulars observed and analyzed. But they do not obtain
any law at all; and the laws of nature, about which they talk so
learnedly, are not laws, but simply facts. Bring a piece of wax to
the fire and it melts, hence it is said to be a law that wax so
brought in proximate relation with fire will melt; but this law
is only the particular fact observed, and the facts to which you
apply it are the identical facts from which you have obtained it.
The investigation, in all cases where the scientists profess to
seek the law, is simply an investigation to find out and establish
the identity of the facts, and what they call the law is only the
assertion of that identity, and never extends to facts not identical,
or to dissimilar facts.

Take mathematics; as far as the scientist can admit mathematics, they
are simply identical propositions piled on identical propositions,
and the only difference between Newton and a plough-boy is, that
Newton detects identity where the plough-boy does not. Take what is
called the law of gravitation; it is nothing but the statement of a
fact, or a class of facts observed, and the most that it tells us is,
that if the facts are identical, they are identical--that is, they
bear such and such relations to one another. But let your positivist
attempt to explain transcendental mathematics, and he is all at
sea, if he does not borrow from the ideal science or philosophy
which he professes to discard. How will the geometrician explain his
infinitely extended lines, or lines that may be infinitely extended?
A line is made up of a succession of points, and therefore of parts,
and nothing which is made up of parts is infinite. The line may be
increased or diminished by the addition or subtraction of points, but
the infinite cannot be either increased or diminished. Whence does
the mind get this idea of infinity? The geometrician tells us the
line may be infinitely extended--that is, it is infinitely possible;
but it cannot be so unless there is an infinite ground on which it
can be projected. An infinitely possible line can be asserted only
by asserting the infinitely real, and therefore the mind, unless
it had the intuition of the infinitely real, could not conceive of
a line as capable of infinite extension. Hence the ancients never
assert either the infinitely possible or the infinite real. There is
in all Gentile science, or Gentile philosophy, no conception of the
infinite; there is only the conception of the indefinite.

This same reasoning disposes of the infinite divisibility of matter
still taught in our text-books. The infinite divisibility of matter
is an infinite absurdity; for it implies an infinity of parts or
numbers, which is really a contradiction in terms. We know nothing
that better illustrates the unsoundness of the method of the
scientists. Here is a piece of matter. Can you not divide it into
two equal parts? Certainly. Can you do the same by either of the
halves? Yes. And by the quarters. Yes. And thus on _ad infinitum_?
Where, then, is the absurdity? None as long as you deal with only
finite quantities. The absurdity is in the fact that the infinite
divisibility of matter implies an infinity of parts; and an infinity
of parts, an infinity of numbers; and numbers and every series of
numbers may be increased by addition, and diminished by subtraction.
An infinite series is impossible.

The moment the scientists leave the domain of particulars or positive
facts, and attempt to induce from them a law, their induction
is of no value. Take geology. The geologist finds in that small
portion of the globe which he has examined certain facts, from
which he concludes that the globe is millions and millions of ages
old. Is his conclusion scientific? Not at all. If the globe was in
the beginning in a certain state, and if the structural and other
changes which are now going on have been going on at the same rate
from the beginning--neither of which suppositions is provable--then
the conclusion is valid; not otherwise. Sir Charles Lyell, if we
recollect aright, calculated that, at the present rate, it must
have taken at least a hundred and fifty thousand years to form the
delta of the Mississippi. Officers of the United States army have
calculated that a little over four thousand years would suffice.

So of the antiquity of man on the globe. The scientist finds what he
takes to be human bones in a cave along with the bones of certain
long since extinct species of animals, and concludes that man was
contemporary with the said extinct species of animals; therefore
man existed on the globe many, nobody can say how many, thousand
years ago. But two things render the conclusion uncertain. It is
not certain from the fact that their bones are found together that
man and these animals were contemporary; and the date when these
animals became extinct, if extinct they are, is not ascertained
nor ascertainable. They have discovered traces in Switzerland of
lacustrian habitations; but these prove nothing, because history
itself mentions "the dwellers on the lakes," and the oldest history
accepted by the scientists is not many thousand years old. Sir
Charles Lyell finds, or supposes he finds, stone knives and axes,
or what he takes to be stone knives and axes, deeply embedded in
the earth in the valley of a river, though at some distance from
its present bed; and thence concludes the presence of man on the
earth for a period wholly irreconcilable with the received biblical
chronology. But supposing the facts to be as alleged, they do not
prove any thing, because we cannot say what changes by floods or
other causes have taken place in the soil of the locality, even
during the period of authentic history. Others conclude from the
same facts that men were primitively savages, or ignorant of the use
of iron. But the most they prove is that, at some unknown period,
certain parts of Europe were inhabited by a people who used stone
knives and axes; but whether because ignorant of iron, or because
unable from their poverty or their distance from places where they
were manufactured to procure similar iron utensils, they give us no
information. Instances enough are recorded in history of the use of
stone knives by a people who possessed knives made of iron. Because
in our day some Indian tribes use bows and arrows, are we to conclude
that fire-arms are unknown in our age of the world?

What the scientists offer as proof is seldom any proof at all. If
an hypothesis they invent explains the known facts of a case, they
assert it as proved, and therefore true. What fun would they not make
of theologians and philosophers, if they reasoned as loosely as they
do themselves? Before we can conclude an hypothesis is true because
it explains the known facts in the case, we must prove, 1st, that
there are and can be no facts in the case not known; and, 2d, that
there is no other possible hypothesis on which they can be explained.
We do not say the theories of the scientists with regard to the
antiquity of the globe and of man on its surface, nor that any of the
geological and astronomical hypotheses they set forth are absolutely
false; we only say that their alleged facts and reasonings do not
prove them. The few facts known might be placed in a very different
light by the possibly unknown facts; and there are conceivable any
number of other hypotheses which would equally well explain the facts
that are known.

The book before us on _Hereditary Genius_ admirably illustrates
the insufficiency of the method and the defective logic of the
scientists. Mr. Galton, its author, belongs to the school of
which such men as Herbert Spencer, Darwin, Sir John Lubbock, and
Professor Huxley are British chiefs, men who disdain to recognize a
self-existent Creator, and who see no difficulty in supposing the
universe self-evolved from nothing, or in tracing intelligence, will,
generous affection, and heroic effort to the mechanical, chemical,
and electrical arrangement and combination of the particles of brute
matter. Mr. Galton has written his book, he says, p. 1, to show

    "that a man's natural abilities are derived from inheritance,
    under exactly the same limitations as are the form and the
    physical features of the whole organic world. Consequently, as
    it is easy, notwithstanding those limitations, to obtain by
    careful selection a permanent breed of dogs or horses, gifted
    with peculiar powers of running, or of doing any thing else,
    so it would be quite practicable to produce a highly-gifted
    race [breed] of men by judicious marriages during several
    consecutive generations."

Mr. Galton, with an air of the most perfect innocence in the world,
places man in the category of plants and animals, and in principle
simply reproduces for our instruction the _Man-Plant_, from which
there is but a step to the _Man-Machine_ of the cynical Lamettrie,
the atheistical professor of mathematics in the university of
Berlin, and friend of Frederick the Great. The attempt to prove
it is a subtle attempt to prove, in the name of science, that the
soul, if soul there be, is generated as well as the body, and that
a man's natural abilities are derived through generation from his
organization. The author from first to last gives no hint that his
doctrine is at war with Christian theology, with the freedom of the
human will, or man's moral responsibility for his conduct, or that
it excludes all morality, all virtue, and all sin, and recognizes
only physical good or evil. He would no doubt reply to this that
science is science, facts are facts, and he is under no obligation to
consider what theological doctrines they do or do not contradict; for
nothing can be true that contradicts science or is opposed to facts.
That is opposed to actual facts, or that contradicts real science,
conceded; for one truth can never contradict another. But the author
is bound to consider whether a theory or hypothesis which contradicts
the deepest and most cherished beliefs of mankind in all ages and
nations, and in which is the key to universal history, is really
science, or really is sustained by facts. The presumption, as say
the lawyers, is against it, and for its acceptance it requires the
clearest and the most irrefragable proofs, and we are not sure that
even any proofs would be enough to overcome the presumptions against
it, founded as they are on reasons as strong and as conclusive as it
is in any case possible for the human mind to have. The assertion
that man's natural abilities originate in his organization, and
therefore that we may obtain a peculiar breed of men, as we can
obtain a peculiar breed of dogs or horses, is revolting to the
deepest convictions and the holiest and most irrepressible instincts
of every man, except a scientist, and certainly can be reasonably
received only on evidence that excludes the possibility of a rational
doubt.

Mr. Galton proves, or attempts to prove, his theory by what he
no doubt calls an appeal to facts. He takes from a biographical
dictionary the names of a few hundreds of men, chiefly Englishmen,
during the last two centuries, who have been distinguished as
statesmen, lawyers, judges, divines, authors, etc., and finds that
in a great majority of cases, as far as is known, they have sprung
from families of more than average ability, and, in some cases, from
families which have had some one or more members distinguished for
several consecutive generations. This is really all the proof Mr.
Galton brings to prove his thesis; and if he has not adduced more, it
is fair to conclude that it is because no more was to be had.

But the evidence is far from being conclusive. Even if it be true
that the majority of eminent men spring from families more or less
distinguished, it does not necessarily follow that they derive their
eminent abilities by inheritance; for in those same families, born
of the same parents, we find other members whose abilities are in no
way remarkable, and in no sense above the common level. In a family
of half a dozen or a dozen members one will be distinguished and
rise to eminence, while the others will remain very ordinary people.
Of the Bonaparte family no member approaches in genius the first
Napoleon, except the present emperor of the French. Why these marked
differences in the children of the same blood, the same breed, the
same parents and ancestors? If Mr. Galton explains the inferiority of
the five or the eleven by considerations external or independent of
race or breed, why may not the superiority of the one be explained
by causes alike independent of breed? Why are the natural abilities
of my brothers inferior to mine, since we are all born of the same
parents? If a man's natural abilities are derived by inheritance from
organization, why am I superior to them? Every day we meet occasion
to ask similar questions. This fact proves that there are causes
at work, on which man's eminence or want of eminence depends, of
which Mr. Galton's theory takes no note, which escape the greatest
scientists, and at best can be only conjectured. But conjecture is
not science.

This is not all. As far as known, very eminent men have sprung from
parents of very ordinary natural abilities, as of social position.
The founders of dynasties and noble families have seldom had
distinguished progenitors, and are usually not only the first but
the greatest of their line. The present Sir Robert Peel cannot be
named alongside of his really eminent father, nor the present Duke
of Wellington be compared with his father, the Iron Duke. There is
no greater name in history than that of St. Augustine, the eminent
father and doctor of the church, a man beside whom in genius and
depth, and greatness of mind as well as tenderness of heart, your
Platos and Aristotles appear like men of only ordinary stature;
yet, though his mother was eminent for her sanctity, his parents do
not appear to have been gifted with any extraordinary mental power.
Instances are not rare, especially among the saints, of great men
who have, so to speak, sprung from nothing. Among the popes we may
mention Sixtus Quintus, and Hildebrand, St. Gregory VII.; and among
eminent churchmen we may mention St. Thomas of Canterbury, Cardinal
Ximenes, and Cardinal Wolsey. The greatest and most gifted of our own
statesmen have sprung from undistinguished parents, as Washington,
the elder Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Webster, Calhoun.
Who dares pretend that every saint has had a saint for a father or
mother; that every eminent theologian or philosopher has had any
eminent theologian or philosopher for his father; or that every
eminent artist, whether in painting, architecture, sculpture, or
music, has been the son or grandson of an eminent artist?

Then, again, who can say how much of a great man's greatness is due
to his natural abilities with which he was born, and how much is due
to the force of example, to family tradition, to education, to his
own application, and the concurrence of circumstances? It is in no
man's power to tell, nor in any scientist's power to ascertain. It is
a common remark that great men in general owe their greatness chiefly
to their mothers, and that, in the great majority of cases known,
eminent men have had gifted mothers. This, if a fact, is against
Mr. Galton's theory; for the father, not the mother, transmits the
hereditary character of the offspring, the hereditary qualities of
the line, if the physiologists are to be believed. Hence nobility in
all civilized nations follows the father, not the mother. The fact of
great men owing their greatness more to the mother is explained by
her greater influence in forming the mind, in moulding the character,
in stimulating and directing the exercise of her son's faculties,
than that of the father. It is as educator in the largest sense that
the mother forms her son's character and influences his destiny. It
is her womanly instincts, affection, and care and vigilance, her
ready sympathy, her love, her tenderness, and power to inspire a
noble ambition, kindle high and generous aspirations in the breast of
her son, that do the work.

Even if it were uniformly true that great men have always descended
from parents remarkable for their natural abilities, Mr. Galton's
theory that genius is hereditary could not be concluded with
scientific certainty. The hereditary transmission of genius might
indeed seem probable; but, on the empirical principles of the
scientists, it could not be asserted. All that could be asserted
would be the relation of concomitance or of juxtaposition, not the
relation of cause and effect. The relation of cause and effect
is not and cannot, as the scientists tell us, be empirically
apprehended. How can they know that the genius of the son is derived
hereditarily from the greatness of his progenitors? From the
juxtaposition or concomitance of two facts empirically apprehended
there is no possible logic by which it can be inferred that the
one is the cause of the other. Hence, Mr. Herbert Spencer, Stuart
Mill, Sir William Hamilton, Professor Huxley, and the positivists
follow Hume, and relegate, as we said, causes to the region of the
unknowable. In fact, the scientists, if they speak of the relation
of cause and effect, mean by it only the relation of juxtaposition
in the order of precedence and consequence. Hence, on their own
principles, though the facts they assert and describe may be true,
none of their conclusions from them, or hypotheses to explain them,
have or can have any scientific validity. For, after all, there may
be a real cause on which the facts depend, and which demands an
entirely different explanation from the one which the scientists
offer.

We refuse, therefore, to accept Mr. Galton's hypothesis that genius
is hereditary, because the facts he adduces are not all the facts
in the case, because there are facts which are not consistent with
it, and because he does not show and cannot show that it is the only
hypothesis possible for the explanation even of the facts which he
alleges. Even his friendly and able reviewer, Dr. Meredith Clymer,
concludes his admirable analysis by saying, "A larger induction is
necessary before any final decision can be had on the merits of the
question." This is the verdict of one of the most scientific minds
in the United States, and it is the Scotch verdict, not proven. Yet
Mr. Galton would have us accept his theory as science, and on its
strength set aside the teachings of revelation and the universal
beliefs of mankind. This is the way of all non-Christian scientists
of the day, and it is because the church refuses to accept their
unverified and unverifiable hypotheses, and condemns them for
asserting them as true, that they accuse her of being hostile to
modern science. They make certain investigations, ascertain certain
facts, imagine certain hypotheses, which are nothing but conjectures,
put them forth as science, and then demand that she accept them, and
give up her faith so far as incompatible with them. A very reasonable
demand indeed!

Press these proud scientists closely, and they will own that _as yet_
their sciences are only tentative, that _as yet_ they are not in a
condition to prove absolutely their theories, or to verify their
conjectures, but they are in hopes they soon will be. At present,
science is only in its infancy, it has only just entered upon the
true method of investigation; but it is every day making surprising
progress, and there is no telling what marvellous conclusions it
will soon arrive at. All this might pass, if it did not concern
matters of life and death, heaven and hell. The questions involved
are too serious to be sported with, too pressing to wait the slow
and uncertain solutions of the tentative science which, during six
thousand years, has really made no progress in solving them. The
scientists retard science when they ask from it the solution, either
affirmative or negative, of questions which confessedly lie not in
its province, and dishonor and degrade it when they put forth as
science their crude conjectures, or their unverified and unverifiable
hypotheses. They, not we, are the real enemies of science, though it
would require a miracle to make them see it. Deluded mortals! they
start with assumptions that exclude the very possibility of science,
and then insist that what they assert or deny shall be accepted
by theologians and philosophers as established with scientific
certainty! Surely the apostle must have had them in mind when he said
of certain men that, "esteeming themselves wise, they became fools."

Genius is not hereditary in Mr. Galton's sense, nor are a man's
natural abilities derived by inheritance in the way he would have us
believe; for both belong to the soul, not to the body; and the soul
is created, not generated. Only the body is generated, and only in
what is generated is there natural inheritance. All the facts Mr.
Galton adduces we are prepared to admit; but we deny his explanation.
We accept, with slight qualifications, his views as summed up by Dr.
Clymer in the following passage:

    "The doctrine of the pretensions of natural equality in
    intellect, which teaches that the sole agencies in creating
    differences between boy and boy, and man and man, are
    steady application and moral effort, is daily contradicted
    by the experiences of the nursery, schools, universities,
    and professional careers. There is a definite limit to the
    muscular powers of every man, which he cannot by any training
    or exertion overpass. It is only the novice gymnast who,
    noting his rapid daily gain of strength and skill, believes
    in illimitable development; but he learns in time that his
    maximum performance becomes a rigidly-determinate quantity.
    The same is true of the experience of the student in the
    working of his mental powers. The eager boy at the outset of
    his career is astonished at his rapid progress; he thinks for
    a while that every thing is within his grasp; but he too soon
    finds his place among his fellows; he can beat such and such
    of his mates, and run on equal terms with others, while there
    will be always some whose intellectual and physical feats he
    cannot approach. The same experience awaits him when he enters
    a larger field of competition in the battle of life; let him
    work with all his diligence, he cannot reach his object; let
    him have opportunities, he cannot profit by them; he tries
    and is tried, and he finally learns his gauge--what he can
    do, and what lies beyond his capacity. He has been taught the
    hard lesson of his weakness and his strength; he comes to rate
    himself as the world rates him; and he salves his wounded
    ambition with the conviction that he is doing all his nature
    allows him. An evidence of the enormous inequality between
    the intellectual capacity of men is shown in the prodigious
    differences in the number of marks obtained by those who gain
    mathematical honors at the University of Cambridge, England. Of
    the four hundred or four hundred and fifty students who take
    their degrees each year, about one hundred succeed in gaining
    honors in mathematics, and these are ranged in strict order of
    merit. Forty of them have the title of 'wrangler,' and to be
    even a low wrangler is a creditable thing. The distinction of
    being the first in this list of honors, or 'senior wrangler'
    of the year, means a great deal more than being the foremost
    mathematician of four hundred or four hundred and fifty men
    taken at haphazard. Fully one half the wranglers have been boys
    of mark at their schools. The senior wrangler of the year is
    the chief of these as regards mathematics. The youths start on
    their three-years' race fairly, and their run is stimulated by
    powerful inducements; at the end they are examined rigorously
    for five and a half hours a day for eight days. The marks are
    then added up, and the candidates strictly rated in a scale of
    merit. The precise number of marks got by the senior wrangler,
    in one of the three years given by Mr. Galton, is 7634; by
    the second wrangler, 4123; and by the lowest man in the list
    of honors, 237. The senior wrangler, consequently, had nearly
    twice as many marks as the second, and more than thirty-two
    times as many as the lowest man. In the other examinations
    given, the results do not materially differ. The senior
    wrangler may, therefore, be set down as having thirty-two
    times the ability of the lowest men on the lists; or, as Mr.
    Galton puts it, 'he would be able to grapple with problems
    more than thirty-two times as difficult; or, when dealing with
    subjects of the same difficulty, but intelligible to all, would
    comprehend them more rapidly in, perhaps, the square-root of
    that proportion.' But the mathematical powers of the ultimate
    man on the honors-list, which are so low when compared with
    those of the foremost man, are above mediocrity when compared
    with the gifts of Englishmen generally; for, though the
    examination places one hundred honor-men above him, it puts no
    less than three hundred 'poll-men' below him. Admitting that
    two hundred out of three hundred have refused to work hard
    enough to earn honors, there will remain one hundred who, had
    they done their possible, never could have got them.

    "The same striking intellectual differences between man and man
    are found in whatever way ability may be tested, whether in
    statesmanship, generalship, literature, science, poetry, art.
    The evidence furnished by Mr. Galton's book goes to show in how
    small degree eminence in any class of intellectual powers can
    be considered as due to purely special faculties. It is the
    result of concentrated efforts made by men widely gifted--of
    grand human animals; of natures born to achieve greatness."

We are far from pretending that all men are born with equal
abilities, and that all souls are created with equal possibilities,
or that every child comes into the world a genius in germ. We believe
that all men are born with equal natural rights, and that all should
be equal before the law, however various and unequal may be their
acquired or adventitious rights; but that is all the equality we
believe in. No special effort or training in the world, under the
influence of the most favorable circumstances, can make every child
a St. Augustine, a St. Thomas, a Bossuet, a Newton, a Leibnitz,
a Julius Caesar, a Wellington, a Napoleon. As one star differeth
from another in glory, so does one soul differ from another in its
capacities on earth as well as in its blessedness in heaven. Here we
have no quarrel with Mr. Galton. We are by no means believers in the
late Robert Owen's doctrine, that you can make all men equal if you
will only surround them from birth with the same circumstances, and
enable them to live in parallelograms.

We are prepared to go even farther, and to recognize that the
distinction between noble and ignoble, gentle and simple, recognized
in all ages and by all nations, is not wholly unfounded. There is
as great a variety and as great an inequality in families as in
individuals. Aristocracy is not a pure prejudice; and though it has
no political privileges in this country, yet it exists here no less
than elsewhere, and it is well for us that it does. No greater evil
could befall any country than to have no distinguished families
rising, generation after generation, above the common level; no born
leaders of the people, who stand head and shoulders above the rest;
and the great objection to democracy is, that it tends to bring
all down to a general average, and to place the administration of
public interests in the hands of a low mediocrity, as our American
experience, in some measure, proves. The demand of the age for
equality of conditions and possessions is most mischievous. If all
were equally rich, all would be equally poor; and if all were at the
top of society, society would have no bottom, and would be only a
bottomless pit. If there were none devoted to learning, no strength
and energy of character above the multitude, society would be without
leaders, and would soon fall to pieces, as an army of privates
without officers.

There is no doubt that there are noble lines, and the descendants of
noble ancestors do, as a rule, though not invariably, surpass the
descendants of plebeian or undistinguished lines. The Stanleys, for
instance, have been distinguished in British history for at least
fifteen generations. The present Earl Derby, the fifteenth earl
of his house, is hardly inferior to his gifted father, and nobly
sustains the honors of his house. We expect more from the child of
a good family than from the child of a family of no account, and
hold that birth is never to be decried or treated as a matter of no
importance. But we count it so chiefly because it secures better
breeding, and subjection to higher, nobler, and purer formative
influences, from the earliest moment. Example and family traditions
are of immense reach in forming the character, and it is not a little
to have constantly presented to the consideration of the child the
distinguished ability, the eminent worth and noble deeds of a long
line of illustrious ancestors, especially in an age and country
where blood is highly esteemed, and the honorable pride of family is
cultivated. The honor and esteem in which a family has been held for
its dignity and worth through several generations is a capital, an
outfit for the son, secures him, in starting, the advantage of less
well-born competitors, and all the aid in advance of a high position
and the good-will of the community. More is exacted of him than of
them; he is early made to feel that _noblesse oblige_, and that
failure would in his case be dishonor. He is thereby stimulated to
greater effort to succeed.

Yet we deny not that there is something else than all this in blood.
A man's genius belongs to his soul, and is no more inherited than
the soul itself. But man is not all soul, any more than he is all
body; body and soul are in close and mysterious relation, and in this
life neither acts without the other. The man's natural abilities are
psychical, not physical, and are not inherited, because the soul is
created, not generated; but their external manifestation may depend,
in a measure, on organization, and organization is inherited. Mr.
Galton's facts may, then, be admitted without our being obliged to
accept his theory. The brain is generally considered by physiologists
as the organ of the mind, and it may be so, without implying that the
brain secretes thought, will, affection, as the liver secretes bile,
or the stomach secretes the gastric juice.

The soul is distinct from the body, and is its _form_, its life, or
its vivifying and informing principle; yet it uses the body as the
organ of its action. Hence, De Bonald defines man, an intelligence
that serves himself by organs, not an intelligence served by organs,
as Plato said. The activity is in the soul, not in the organs. The
organ we call the eye does not see; the soul sees by means of the
eye. So of the ear, the smell, the taste, the touch. We speak of the
five senses; but we should speak more correctly if we spoke, not of
five senses, but of five organs of sense; for the sense is psychical,
and is one like the soul that senses through the organs. In like
manner, the brain appears to be the organ of the mind, through which,
together with the several nerves that centre in it, the mind performs
its various operations of thinking, willing, reasoning, remembering,
reflecting, etc. The nature of the relation of the soul, which is
one, simple, and immaterial, with a material body with its various
organs, nervous and ganglionic systems, is a mystery which we cannot
explain. Yet we cannot doubt that there is a reciprocal action and
reaction of the soul and body, or, at least, the bodily organs can
and do offer, at times, an obstacle to the external action of the
soul. I cannot by my will raise my arm, if it be paralyzed, though
my psychical power to will to raise it is not thereby affected. If
the organs of seeing and hearing, the eye and the ear, are injured
or originally defective, my external sight and hearing are thereby
injured or rendered defective; but not in other psychical relations,
as evinced by the fact that when the physical defect is removed,
or the physical injury is cured, the soul finds no difficulty in
manifesting its ordinary power of seeing or hearing. So we may say
of the other organs of sense, and of the body generally, in so far
as it is the organ of the soul, or used by the soul in its external
display or manifestation of its powers.

No doubt the organization may be more or less favorable to this
external display or manifestation, or that, under certain conditions,
and to a certain extent, the organization is hereditary, or
transmitted by natural generation. There may be transmitted from
parents or ancestors a healthy or diseased, a normal or a more or
less abnormal organization; and so far, and in this sense, genius
may be hereditary, and a man's natural abilities may be derived
by inheritance, as are the form and features; but only to this
extent, and in this sense--that is, as to their external display or
exercise; for a man may be truly eloquent in his soul, and even in
writing, whose stammering tongue prevents him from displaying any
eloquence in his speech. The organization does not deprive the soul
of its powers. My power to will to raise my arm is not lessened by
the fact that my arm is paralyzed. And in all ordinary cases, the
soul is able, at least by the help of grace, freely given to all,
to overcome a vicious temperament, control, in the moral order, a
defective organization, and maintain her moral freedom and integrity.
It has been proved that the deaf-mute can be taught to speak, and
that idiots or natural-born fools can be so educated as to be able to
exhibit no inconsiderable degree of intelligence.

We do not believe a word in Darwin's theory of natural selection; for
all the facts on which he bases it admit of a different explanation,
nor in its kindred theory of development or evolution of species. One
of our own collaborators has amply refuted both theories, by showing
that what these theories assume to be the development or evolution
of new species, whether by natural selection or otherwise, is but a
reversion to the original type and condition, in like manner as we
have proved, over and over again, that the savage is the degenerate,
not the primeval man. It is not improbable that your African negro
is the degenerate descendant of a once over-civilized race, and that
he owes his physical peculiarities to the fact that he has become
subject, like the animal world, to the laws of nature, which are
resisted and modified in their action by the superior races. We do
not assert this as scientifically demonstrated, but as a theory which
is far better sustained by well-known facts and incontrovertible
principles than either the theory of development or of natural
selection.

Yet the soul as _forma corporis_ has an influence, we say not how
much, on organization; and high intellectual and moral culture may
modify it, and, other things being equal, render it in turn more
favorable to the external manifestation of the inherent powers of
the soul. This more favorable organization may be transmitted by
natural generation from parents to children, and, if continued
through several consecutive generations, it may give rise to noble
families and to races superior to the average. Physical habits are
transmissible by inheritance. This is not, as Darwin and Mr. Galton
suppose, owing to natural selection, but to the original mental and
moral culture become traditional in certain families and races,
and to the voluntary efforts of the soul, as is evident from the
fact that when the culture is neglected, and the voluntary efforts
cease to be made, the superiority is lost, the organization becomes
depraved, and the family or race runs out or drops into the ranks
of the ignoble. The blood, however blue, will not of itself alone
suffice to keep up the superiority of the family or the race;
nor will marriages, however judicious, through no matter how many
consecutive generations, without the culture, keep up the nobility,
as Mr. Galton would have us believe; for the superiority of the
blood depends originally and continuously on the soul, its original
endowments, and its peculiar training or culture through several
generations.

It is in this same way we explain the origin and continuance of
national characteristics and differences. Climate and geographical
position count, no doubt, for something; but more in the direction
they give to the national aims and culture than in their direct
effects on bodily organization. It is not probable that the original
tribes of Greece had any finer organic adaptation to literature
and the arts than had the Scythian hordes from which they sprang;
but their climate and geographical position turned their attention
to cultivation of the beautiful, and the continual cultivation
of the beautiful through several generations gave the Greeks an
organization highly favorable to artistic creations. Then, again,
Rome cultivated and excelled in the genius of law and jurisprudence.
But under Christian faith and culture, the various nations of Europe
became assimilated, and the peculiar national characteristics under
Gentilism were in a measure obliterated. They also revive as the
nations under Protestantism recede from Christianity and return
to Gentilism, and are held in check only by the reminiscences of
Catholicity, and by the mutual intercourse of nations kept up by
trade and commerce, literature and the arts.

The facts alleged by Mr. Galton and his brother materialists
are, therefore, explicable without impugning the doctrine of the
simplicity and immateriality of the soul, and that the soul is
created, not generated as is the body. They are perfectly explicable
without supposing our natural abilities originate in or are the
result of natural organization. They can be explained in perfect
consistency with revelation, with the teachings of the church, and
with the universal beliefs of mankind. Thus it would be supreme
unreason to require us to reject the Gospel, or our holy religion,
on the strength of the unverified and unverifiable hypotheses of the
scientists, and degrade man, the lord of this lower creation, to the
level of the beasts that perish. The quarrel we began by speaking
of is in no sense a quarrel between faith and reason, or revelation
and science; but simply a quarrel between what is certain by faith
and reason on the one side, and the unverified and unverifiable
hypotheses or conjectures of the so-called scientists on the other.
We oppose none of the real facts which the scientists set forth; we
oppose only their unsupported theories and unwarranted inductions. We
conclude by reminding the scientists that others have studied nature
as well as they, and are as familiar with its facts and as able to
reason on them as they are, and yet have no difficulty in reconciling
their science and their faith.

FOOTNOTE:

[285] 1. _Hereditary Genius, its Laws and its Consequences._ By
Francis Galton, F.R.S., etc. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1870.
8vo, pp. 390. 2. _Hereditary Genius._ An Analytical Review. From
the _Journal of Psychological Medicine_, April, 1870. New York: D.
Appleton & Co. 1870. 8vo, pp. 19.




DION AND THE SIBYLS.

A CLASSIC, CHRISTIAN NOVEL.

BY MILES GERALD KEON, COLONIAL SECRETARY, BERMUDA, AUTHOR OF "HARDING
THE MONEY-SPINNER," ETC.


CHAPTER IV.

Two days afterward, Dionysius the Athenian called at the inn, and
informed Aglais, Paulus, and Agatha, that after the banquet in the
Mamurran palace at Formiae, that evening, there was to be a great
gathering of the witty, the noble, the fashionable, and the wise, and
that he was charged to invite Aglais and her two children as friends
of his.

Aglais declined the honor for herself and her daughter, but said she
wished Paulus to go with Dionysius. Paulus, therefore, laid aside
the outlandish costume in which he had travelled from Thessaly, and
dressed himself with care in the fashion suitable to a young Roman
of equestrian rank. Dionysius remained to join the family in their
repast, which was virtually what we should in modern times call the
early dinner, after which the two friends mounted Dion's chariot, and
proceeded toward Formiae at an easy pace, along the smooth pavement of
the "queen of roads."

During the drive they had a conversation which was, for good reasons,
very interesting to Paulus.

"A most capricious course," said Dionysius, "is your suit or claim
running. In seeking to recover your family estates you prudently
avoid at first bringing the holder into a court of law; for the
judges might shrink from voiding a title which not only arises out
of an express gift of Augustus, but is identical with the title
under which half the land of Italy has been held since the battle
of Philippi. Instead of an immediate lawsuit, therefore, you try a
direct appeal to Augustus, offering to show him that at the very
time when your father's estate was taken away he had just rendered
the same services for which, had he been willing to accept it, he
would, like so many others, have had a right to be endowed with a new
estate, taken from some member of the defeated party. But Augustus
refers you back to the courts, where, for the two reasons mentioned,
you fear the result. But two other reasons might be added for fearing
it still more: first, the present holder is dreaded on account of his
political power and his station; Tiberius is the man who, by marrying
the daughter of Agrippa Vipsanius, has come into possession of your
property; secondly, wealth is necessary for the success of such a
suit; wealth he has, and wealth you have not. The courts present,
consequently, but small hopes; yet you fail to get Augustus to decide
your case himself.

"Have I correctly stated the position of your affairs?"

"To a nicety," replied Paulus. "Had I interest at court, I should
find justice there."

"In your case," said Dionysius, "interest _at court_ would be
equivalent to justice _in the courts_. As I took precisely this view
of the business, and as Augustus has paid me such honor, and shown
me such partiality as few have found with him for many years, it
occurred to me that if I threw my unclaimed and unexpected _interest_
into the same scale wherein your just demands already lay--"

"Ah kind and generous friend!" interrupted Paulus; "I understand."

"Not so kind, nor so generous," replied Dionysius, "to my friend
Paulus, as I saw Paulus show himself to be the day before yesterday
to a stranger and a slave. But hear me out. No sooner did I tell
Augustus that I had a favor to ask of him, than he placed his hand
on my mouth, and said, 'I like to hear you talk; but mine has been
too busy a life to permit me to draw forth by properly opposing you
the full force of your own opinions--OR THE TRUTH. The truth in these
matters (not your affair, Paulus, but philosophy) is the only truth
which can interest a man about to die. You must state these views in
the presence of young, vigorous, and not preoccupied intellects. If
you hold your own as well against what they can allege as against
my objections, submit to me afterward your petition. One thing at a
time.' This and the like, with the indomitable whim and obstinate
waywardness of age, he has continued to fling at me, whenever I have
renewed the attempt to state your case; and I have done so five or
six times. Titus Livy and Quintus Haterius, whom I have consulted,
advise me to take literally and in the spirit of downright business
this curious caprice. Now, do you know, to-night is appointed for a
sort of arena-fight? All the gladiatorial intellects of the west are
to be arrayed to crush the fantastic theories and pretty delusions
of a Greek, an Athenian. All motives chain me, all pledges prevent
me; moreover, honor and truth, to say nothing, my friend, of your own
personal future, interdict me from flight."

"Flight!" cried Paulus; "_you_ fly?"

"Ah!" said Dionysius; "you know not all that I mean. You and I have
been differently reared, yet in the same spirit. However, as you
said, when at the risk of your own life you stood between oppression
and an innocent young couple, the great Being whom we both expect
will be pleased with a willing effort after what is right.

"But here we are at the gates of Formiae. How the palace of the
Mamurras glitters! How these narrow streets flare with torches! We
must go at a walk. Charioteer, let the litters pass first. Yes,
my friend, in the painful position in which I shall be forced to
stand to-night, (and I blush beforehand, knowing my incompetence,
my ignorance, and the intrinsic difficulty of what I am expected to
do,) your future fortunes and the rights of your family are by a
strange caprice made dependent upon the success with which I may be
able to defend ideas of general and unchangeable value, beauty, and
truth; ideas which it debases a man not to have, and exalts him to
entertain; ideas which were always dear to the greatest minds that
have preceded us, and which are reflected in every calm and pure
soul, as the stars in fair, sweet lakes, although the putrid, slimy
pool, and the waters tossed with storms, and an atmosphere darkened
with clouds, may forbid the image, by intercepting the heavenly light
or defacing the earthly mirror."

While Dionysius thus informed Paulus of the singular and close
connection which had arisen between the future prospects of his
mother, his sister, and himself, as well as the establishment of
their rights, and the success with which Dionysius might this night
be able to make good his philosophical doctrines against the wits,
the orators, and the sophists of the Augustan court, at the same
moment Tiberius was conversing upon the same subject with Domitius
Afer and Antistius Labio in a room of the Mamurran palace.

"Just," said he, in continuation of a conversation previously
commenced, "as if a person's claim to an estate could be rendered
either better or worse by the style of his horsemanship!"

Here Domitius Afer laughed heartily, and showed his admiration of
Caesar's wit. Labio, a saturnine, laborious man, son of one of the
assassins of Julius Caesar, and author of numberless works, preserved
a grim, unsmiling air, as he observed,

"A man may ride over an estate, and over all its hedges and ditches;
but he must be no bad rider if he can jump his horse into a title to
become its proprietor."

"Nevertheless, the infatuation of Augustus for the Greek friend
of the claimant is such that if the Athenian acquits himself
successfully to-night in the Maecenas-like criticisms and Plato-like
discussions which are, I suspect, to vary our entertainments, he will
next suffer the golden-tongued youth to state the case of Paulus
Lepidus AEmilius. The effect at which you must aim is to make a fool
of the Athenian; and you are the men to do it. Refute every thing he
says, ridicule him, cover him with confusion; make him the gibe of
the whole court, the derision of the brilliant circle assembling here
to-night. Put an end to his influence. We want no more mind-battles
in Italy. I set dogs upon a dog. Arouse all your attention. Bend all
your energies. Let the stranger retire from among us in disgrace."

That night, the most brilliant company which could then be culled
out of the human race was assembled in the central impluvium of the
Mamurran palace and its arcades. Lamps, hanging from the festoons of
creeping plants which adorned and connected the porphyry pillars of
the colonnades, mingled their gleam with the light of the moon and
stars. The variety of rays, of shadows, and of coloring which were
thus sprinkled over the flowers, the leaves, the walls and pillars,
the faces, figures, and dresses, produced a scene which a painter
could better render than words can. The central fountain was smitten
into a sorcery of tints, as it shed into a large basin of green
marble the drooping sheaf of waters, of which the materials were
perpetually changing, and the form and outlines perfectly maintained,
or instantly and perpetually renewed.

The Emperor, and the Caesars, Tiberius and Germanicus, with the famous
authors we have already more than once mentioned, Livy, and Lucius
Varius, and Velleius Paterculus were present. AElius Sejanus, the
prefect of the Praetorians; Cneius Piso, the gambler; Plancina, his
rich wife; Lucius Piso, his brother, governor of Rome; with many
persons who then sparkled in the court orbits, but whose names have
perished out of human memory; and Julia, the emperor's daughter,
Tiberius's new wife; and Agrippina Vipsania, lately his wife; and
Agrippina Julia, daughter of the former, sister of the latter, wife
of Germanicus, and mother of Caligula; and Livia, the aged wife of
Augustus himself, all appeared among the guests. Chairs and couches
had been placed here and there. Augustus and the ladies we have
mentioned were seated, some just within, others just without one of
the arcades, between two of its columns, so that the moonlight fell
upon some heads, the lamplight upon others; and a wayward, dubious
mixture of both upon the golden tresses of Agrippina Julia, and of a
beautiful young girl near her, on whom Domitius Afer, the celebrated
orator, was gazing with admiration. But she, when she at last
observed his glance, fixed upon him such a look of combined scorn
and amazement that the advocate winced and became livid. She was
destined, one day, to be the subject of his fatal eloquence, and to
appease by nothing less than her execution the vindictive vanity of
the _orator_, because she had spurned the ambitious love of the man.

Tacitus alludes to the poor Claudia Pulchra's brief tale. Quintus
Haterius, whose Shakespeare-like variety of mind and bewitching
eloquence had, as Ben Jonson implies in a comparison already
cited by us, few rivals, was seated not far from Augustus. Next
sat Livy. Antistius Labio and his rival Domitius Afer, who now
occupied the place and fame in the forum from which Haterius on
account of his age had withdrawn, stood leaning against a pillar,
each with his arms folded. Both these persons, as well as Livy and
Haterius, wore the toga; Sejanus, the scarlet _paludamentum_. The
other male guests--except Tiberius, whose dark purple robe was
conspicuous, and Germanicus, who was dressed in the costume of a
commander-in-chief--wore a species of large tunic, called _lacerna_,
which (contrary to the taste of the emperor, and despite of his
frequently expressed disapproval) had become fashionable. The story
mentioned by Suetonius is well known. One day Augustus, seeing
numbers of the people wearing the _lacerna_, asked indignantly, in a
line of Virgil's, could these be Romans, "_Romanos rerum dominos_,
GENTEMQUE TOGATAM," and ordered the aediles to admit none but
toga-wearers into either the forum or the circus. But this was many
years before the evening with which we are now engaged.

Among the groups collected in the Mamurran palace were
representatives of the three great arts, in mastering which the
highest education of classic antiquity was exhausted; we mean the
arts of politics, of public speaking, and of strategy--government,
eloquence, and war. They were all represented, each of them had its
proper image in the groups we have described. As those pursuits
constituted the favorite intellectual sphere, and comprehended all
the fields of ambition, to be eminent in any one of them was to
succeed in life, and to be adopted into that class of society of
which so many distinguished members were entertained in the Formian
palace on the night at which our tale has arrived.

If a man excelled, like Julius Caesar, in all the three arts named,
he could revolutionize the world. The mechanic arts, the fine arts,
philosophy, physical science, mathematics, attracted individual
votaries indeed; but were neglected by the ambition of a few, as well
as by the indolence of many.

The mention of physical studies recalls Strabo, the geographer, who
was among the guests this evening at the palace.

Many others who were there we need not enumerate; but some will
claim a word and a glance. When Dionysius arrived, and introduced
Paulus to the aged knight, Mamurra, the company was already numerous.
Mamurra patted Paulus on the shoulder, and said, although the other
day in the road he had not at once recalled old times, he remembered
Paulus's brave father very well at the battle of Philippi; and that
he, Mamurra, had seen him and Agrippa Vipsanius together, rallying
the wing which Mark Antony had broken, and that he himself had
charged with the cavalry to help him. This speech was very gracious,
and our hero, who well knew it to be true, blushed with pride and
pleasure. While the glow of this natural and honorable emotion was
still coloring his young face, as he bowed to Mamurra, the latter
took him by the arm, and said in a low voice,

"Come, let an old soldier present the son of a former comrade, whose
life was honorable, and whose memory is glorious, to the master for
whom they both fought with equal zeal, although unequal fortune."

Augustus returned Paulus's low salutation with a faint yet not
unkindly smile, and then looked with a sort of sleepy steadiness at
Tiberius, who heard Mamurra's words, and whose face was apparently
flaming with a dark red rage. Near Tiberius, who now threw himself
upon the cushions of a couch plated with gold, just opposite the
chair which Augustus had selected, stood a tall, regular-featured,
Brahmin-like man, in Asiatic dress, and next to this individual,
Sejanus, with his usual air of supercilious composure, yet intent
watchfulness.

The couch we have mentioned was long and large, and two ladies,
one old, the other young, were already sitting at the further end
of it. The first was Antonia, the mother of Germanicus, the second
was Agrippina Julia, his wife. Just in front of them, upon a low
stool, sat the son of the latter, Caius Caligula, with his eyes
yet bandaged, as the reader will not be surprised to hear; while
at his side, fidgeting with large, red, lubberly hands, stood a
big, loutish, heavy-looking boy, who was considerably the senior of
that dear child. This was no other than Claudius, the fourth of the
Caesarian dynasty, (or the fifth, if Julius Caesar be accounted the
first,) reserved, against his will, to mount the throne of the world
amid panic and horror, that day when Caligula shall be hacked to
pieces by Cassius Chaerias, in the theatre of the palace at Rome.

Thus, three future rulers of mankind, destined to bear dire sceptres
in dark and evil days, were around the white hairs of Augustus Caesar
to-night.

As Paulus stepped backward after Augustus's languid but not unkindly
reception of him, Dionysius, who was just behind, moved quickly and
gracefully out of his way, and Claudius, the big, loutish lad, being
impelled thereto by the nature of him, shuffled forward so as to come
in collision with Paulus.

"Monster!" exclaimed Antonia, ashamed of her son's awkwardness; "if
I wanted to prove any one void of all mind, I would call him more
stupid than you!"[286]

Paulus glided into the background, saying with a bow and a smile,
"_My_ fault!"

He now found himself in the immediate neighborhood of that eastern
group which his young sister had described as presenting themselves
one morning at the entrance of the bower in the inn garden, when she
was there listening to the strange conversation of Plancina; we mean
Queen Berenice and her daughter Herodias, and her son Herod Agrippa.

They all three fixed their gaze upon him with that unabashed, hardy
manner peculiar to the family, and Paulus was beginning to feel
uncomfortable in their vicinity and under their scrutiny, when
Germanicus Caesar approached, and complimenting him upon his brilliant
exploit two evenings before, asked him whether he would like to join
the expedition which was to start next day to drive the Germans from
the north-east of Italy?

If he would, Germanicus offered to mount him splendidly, and keep
him near his own person, and make him the bearer of orders to the
generals; in modern phrase, give him a place on the staff. Paulus
thanked the commander-in-chief briefly and respectfully, and asked to
be allowed to wait till noon next day before giving a more definite
answer than that he should rejoice to accept the gracious offer; his
mother and sister had no protector except himself, and he should not
like to leave them, without first hearing what they said. Germanicus
assented.

During the short conversation of which this was the substance,
Germanicus had moved slowly up the gravel-walk; and Paulus of course
attended him, listening and answering, not sorry besides to put some
space between himself and the unpleasant Jewish group. By the time
they had finished speaking they had arrived opposite the couch where
Tiberius, Antonia, and Agrippina were seated, with Germanicus's
child, Caligula, as we have described, occupying a low stool in front
of his mother Agrippina. Close by, leaning against a pillar, stood
a youth in the uniform of a centurion who had a most determined,
thoughtful countenance.

On the approach of Germanicus, he briskly quitted his lounging
attitude to salute his commander.

"Young knight," said Germanicus to Paulus, "let me make you
acquainted with as brave a youth, I think, as can be found in all the
Roman legions; this is _Cassius Chaerias_."

"Who, father," asked the shrill voice of the child Caligula, "is the
brave youth, do you say?"

"_Cassius Chaerias._"

"Are you so brave?" persisted the impudent child, shoving up his
bandage impatiently, and disclosing a truly disfigured and malicious
little face.

"I can't see you, or what you are like. But I think I could make you
afraid if I was emperor."

The man destined hereafter to deliver mankind from the boundless
profligacy, the wicked oppression, and the insane, raging, incredible
cruelties of which it was daily the miserable victim by killing
Caligula the emperor, looked steadily at Caligula the child, and said
not a word.

"I should like to feel your sword, whether it is heavy," pursued the
child. "Give it me." And he started to his feet.

"Silence! pert baby," said Germanicus, pushing him back into his
place.

"It seems to me," said Augustus, looking round, and there was an
instantaneous hush of general conversation as he did so; "that we
have represented around us Europe, Asia, and Africa. Young Herod and
his friends may count for Asia."

"You," added Augustus, addressing the tall, Brahmin-like man who
stood near Tiberius, "come from Egypt, do you not?"

"Mighty emperor," returned the other in measured and sepulchral
tones, "I come from the land where great Babylon once was the seat of
empire."

No sooner had this man opened his mouth than the observant Sejanus
started.

Approaching his mouth to the other's ear, he whispered,

"I have heard your voice before; you are--?"

"I am," replied the other, composedly eyeing his questioner,
"Thrasyllus Magus--Thrasyllus, the student of the stars."

Sejanus smiled, twisted his moustache in his white fingers, and
asked,

"Are you sure that you are not the god Hermes? and that you do not
sometimes ride of nights, with your horse's hoofs wrapped in cloth?"

It was now the other's turn to start.

"Do you suppose," pursued Sejanus, still in a whisper, "that I had
not every stable in Formiae searched the night you played that trick
on the road? I know my master Tiberius's taste for divination and
the various deep things you practice. You, then, are the oracle who
reveals to him the decrees of fate?"

The exchange of further remarks between these worthy men was here
suspended; for Augustus again spoke amid general attention.

"I think," said he, "that we should all now be glad to hear Dionysius
the Athenian." An eager hum of assent and approval arose from the
jaded and sated, but inquisitive and critical society around.

"There are in your philosophy," continued Augustus, "two leading
principles, my Athenian, in support of which I am both curious and
anxious to hear you advance some solid and convincing reasons. You
despise, as Cicero despised it, the notion of a plurality of gods.
You affirm there is only one. You say that a god who could begin to
be a god, or begin at all, can be no god; and that the true King of
all kings, is the giver of whatever exists, and the recipient of
nothing. That he is without a body, a pure and holy intelligence.
That as every thing else is his work, there never were, and never
will be, and never could be, any limits either of his power or of his
knowledge. At the same time, you reject the notion, adopted in some
Greek systems, that he is the soul of the visible universe, and this
universe his body; affirming him to be antecedent to and independent
of all things, and all other things to be absolutely dependent upon
him.

"Is it not so?"

"Yes," answered Dionysius; "such is my assured conviction."

"This, then," said Augustus, "is the first question upon which I
wish to hear you; and the second is, whether that force or principle
within each of us which thinks, reflects, reasons, and is conscious
of itself, will perish at our death, or will live beyond it, and
is of such a nature that it will never perish, as Plato, Xenophon,
Cicero, and many other illustrious men and very great thinkers have
so ardently contended."

"Ah!" said Dionysius, in a voice indescribably sweet and thrilling,
while all turned their eyes toward him; "unless that God himself
assist me, I shall be quite unequal to the task you impose upon
me, Augustus. I am not worthy to treat the subject upon which you
desire me to speak. You are aware that many learned persons in
our Europe expect, and for a long time have expected, some divine
being to appear one day among men. I see the able governor of Rome,
Lucius Piso. None will accuse Piso of credulity, none suppose him a
weaver of idle fancies, or a dreamer of gratuitous reveries. An able
administrator, an accomplished man of the world, and, if he will
pardon me, more inclined to be too sarcastic than too indulgent,
he, nevertheless, despises not this expectation. Our learned
friend Strabo, whom I see near me, will tell you moreover how it
prevails, and has from immemorial times prevailed, in various and
often perverted forms, yet with an underlying essence of permanent
identity, among the innumerable nations which make some thirty
languages resound through the immense expanses of Asia. But Domitius
Afer desires to interrupt me."

Afer said,

"I do not discern how this ancient and mysterious expectation which
floats vaguely through the traditions of all mankind, and in a more
definite shape forms the groundwork for the whole religion of the
Jewish nation, can be at all connected either with the immortality
of the thinking principle inside of us, or with the question whether
there is one supreme, absolute, and eternal God who made this
universe."

"All I would have added," replied Dionysius, "in regard to that
expectation was, that after the appearance of this universal
benefactor, many sublime ideas which hitherto only the strongest
intellects have entertained, will probably become familiar to the
meanest--common to all.

"I pass to the two questions which Augustus desires to hear argued;
and, first, let me collect the opinions of this brilliant company; I
will then compare them with mine. What does Antistius Labio think?"

"I should have to invent a term to express my notion," said Labio.
"I think all things are but emanations from, and return to, the same
being. What might be called _pantheism_, if we coined a word from the
language of your country, best explains, I fancy, the phenomena of
the universe. Every thing is growth and decay; but as decay furnishes
larger growth, every thing is growth at last and in the total sum."

"Is this growth of all things under any general control?" asked
Dionysius.

"Each thing," replied Labio, "is under the control of its own nature,
which evidently it cannot change, and every inferior thing besides
is under the control of any superior thing with which it may come
into relations. Thus what is _active_ is superior as such to what is
_passive_; it is more excellent and a higher force to act upon, or
sway, or change, or move, or form, than to be acted upon, moved, or
modified. The mind of an architect, for instance, is a higher force
than the dead weight of the inert stones from which he builds a
palace."

"Then you hold that some things have force, and that there are
greater and smaller forces?" asked Dionysius.

"Undoubtedly," said Labio.

"Which is more excellent," asked Dionysius, "a force which can move
itself, or a force which, in order to exist, must be set in motion by
another?"

"This last," said Labio, "is only the first prolonged; it is but a
continuation, an effect."

"And an effect," pursued the Greek, "is inferior, as such, to what
controls it; and inferior also in its very nature to that which
requires no cause?"

"Certainly," returned Labio; "I am not so dull as to gainsay that."

"Now favor me with your attention," returned the Athenian; "I
want you to extricate me from a dilemma. Either every thing which
possesses force has received its force from something else; or there
is something which possesses force, and which never received this
force from any thing else, and which, therefore, has possessed it
from all eternity. Which of these two alternatives do you select?"

Labio paused, and by this time the whole of that strangely mixed
society was listening with the keenest relish and the most genuine
interest to the conversation.

"I see whither you tend," replied Labio, "but I do not believe in
that universal ruler and original mind, or first force, which you
think to demonstrate. All things go in circles, and serially. Every
force which exists has been derived from some other; and each in its
turn continues the movement, or communicates the impact."

"Prettily expressed," remarked Velleius Paterculus.

"I beg Augustus," said the Athenian, "to mark and remember Labio's
words. Every thing which has force has received its force from
something else. Do you say _every thing_, Labio, without exception?"

"Yes, every thing," said Labio. "I conceive the chain to be endless."

"But _not having_, good Labio," replied the Athenian, "goes before
_receiving_. I cannot, and you cannot, receive that which we have
already. In order to say that we receive any thing, we must first be
without it--must we not? The state of not having, I repeat, precedes
the act of receiving. Does any person deny this? Does Labio?"

No one here spoke.

"Then," said the Athenian, "in maintaining that every thing which
possesses force _has received_ that force from something else, Labio
necessarily maintains that every thing which possesses force _was
first without it_. I therefore perceive there must have been a time
when nothing possessed any force whatever. The very first thing which
possessed any, received it; but whence? For, at that time, there was
nothing to give it. What says Labio? Is pantheism silent?"

"I wish to hear more," said Labio; "I will answer you afterward."

A momentary smile, like a passing gleam, lit up the faces of those
around, as the Athenian, looking toward Domitius Afer, requested him
the next to favor the company with his opinion upon the two momentous
questions propounded by Augustus.

"I need not, like Labio, coin a term from the Greek," said Afer,
"to describe my system. I am a materialist. I believe nothing save
what my senses attest. They show me neither God nor soul; and I am
determined never to accept any other criterion."

"Are you quite sure," asked Dionysius, "that you are thus determined?
I should like to shake such a determination."

"You'll fail," replied Afer, smiling. "Which of your senses, then,
has attested to you that very determination? Can you see, taste,
smell, hear, or touch it? And yet you tell us you are sure of it. If
so, you can believe in, and be sure of, something which has never
been submitted to the criterion which alone you admit."

"A determination is not a thing," said Afer hastily, and with a
little confusion.

"Was Julius Caesar a thing?" persisted Dionysius; "because if you
believe that Julius Caesar existed, having heard of him and read of
him, your senses of hearing and seeing do not attest to you in this
case the existence of Julius Caesar, but simply the affirmations of
others that he has existed. My hearing attests to me that Strabo says
he has been in Spain; and this, if there were no other reason, would
satisfy me that Spain exists; yet it is Strabo whom I hear. I do not
hear Spain."

Augustus clapped his hands gently, and laughed. Domitius Afer, with
visible anger, exclaimed,

"I mean, that I will take nothing but upon proof. Prove that the soul
is immortal; prove that one supreme God exists. Every thing which a
reasonable man believes ought to be demonstrated."

"I hope," said Dionysius, "to prove those two truths to your
satisfaction. But as you say that all we believe ought to be
demonstrated, I will first offer you a demonstration, that it is
impossible to demonstrate every thing. To prove any proposition,
you require a second; and to prove the second, in its turn, you
require a third; and it is upon this third, if you admit it, that
the demonstration of the first depends. But if you had fifty
propositions, or any number, in the chain, what proves _the last of
them_?"

"Another yet," said Afer.

"But," said the Greek, "either you come to a last, or you never come
to a last. If you never come to a last proposition, you never finish
your proof; you leave it uncompleted; _it remains still no proof at
all_; you have not performed what you undertook. And if you do come
to a final proposition, which is supported by no other, what supports
it?"

There was a little start of pleasure in the company at the sudden
and clear closes to which the Athenian was, each and every time,
bringing what seemed likely to have grown into intricate and long
disquisitions.

"My object, Augustus," pursued Dion, "was to show that we are all so
made that we feel compelled to believe much more than we can prove.
Otherwise, our knowledge would be confined within narrow limits
indeed. He who knows no more than he can demonstrate, knows but
little. May I now ask the distinguished orators, Montanus and Capito,
for their theories respecting the questions which interest us so much
to-night?"

Quintus Haterius prevented any answer to this appeal. "The eloquent
and learned thinker," said he--"who will yet, I have no doubt, be the
ornament of the Athenian Areopagus--has placed me, and, I think, many
others near me, completely on his side, in what has hitherto passed.
Young as he is, he has made us feel the masterful facility with which
he is able to throw light upon errors placed where truth ought to
stand. The operation is highly amusing; we could pass a long evening
in watching it repeated against any number of antagonists. But come,
Dionysius, reverse the process; take your own ground; maintain it;
raise there your system like your castle; and let those assail it,
if they please, whom your aggressive genius on the contrary turns to
assail."

"Haterius is right," said Augustus. "I could assist at any number of
these collisions; but they take a form which presents your mind to
us, my Athenian, as a hunter and conqueror rather than a founder."

"But I am no founder," replied the youth, earnestly and modestly;
"and I aspire to nothing of the kind. The fact is merely and simply
this: After much study I have arrived at the conviction--first,
that there is one absolutely perfect and eternal Being who governs
the universe; and, next, that what thinks within each of us never
will die. Since you desire to hear the reasons which have brought
me to these conclusions, I cannot decline to state one or two of
them at least--though this place, this occasion, and this dazzling
company befit the subject far less, I fear, than if a few studious
friends discussed it, sitting under the starry sky, on some quiet,
unfrequented shore."

"Now we shall hear Plato," said Tiberius, with something almost like
a sneer.

"Pardon me," said Dionysius, "Plato may speak for himself. You have
him to read; why should I repeat him? Those who miss Plato's meaning
in his own pages would miss it in my commentary."

Julia uttered a taunting laugh, as she glanced at her new husband
Tiberius, whom she always treated with scorn.

"You remember, Augustus," Dionysius continued, "that a few minutes
ago, Antistius Labio, in answering one of my questions, stated that a
force which could move itself was more excellent, as such, than one
which required to be set in motion by another, as the mind of the
architect, said he, is superior to the stones from which he builds a
palace. Labio then very justly added, in reply to another question,
that what was moved only by the force of something else possessed no
proper force of its own, its force being but a continuation of the
first, an effect of the impact. He finally assented, when I showed
that it is impossible that every thing without exception which
possesses force should have received it, because _not having_ goes
before receiving, and because this is only another mode of saying
that every thing without exception was once devoid of force. If a
particular being has received the force it possesses, that particular
being must once have been without it; and if all beings without
exception who possess force have received it, they likewise without
exception must all, in the same manner, have first been without it,
a supposed state during which no force at all existed anywhere. That
any being should ever acquire force, when there was nowhere any force
for it to acquire, would be an unsatisfactory philosophy."

"There has, perhaps, been," said Tiberius, "an eternal chain of these
forces transmitting themselves onward."

"If," said the Athenian, "you admit the existence of any one being
who possesses a force which he never received from another, that
being is evidently eternal. But to say that a being has received its
force, is to say that its force has had a beginning; and to say that
any thing begins, is to say that once it was not. A chain of forces
all received is, therefore, a chain of forces all begun--is it not?
Now, if they have all begun, they have all had something prior to
them. But nothing can be prior to what is eternal; such a chain or
series, therefore, cannot itself be eternal."

"No link is eternal," said Tiberius; "but all the links of the chain
together may surely be so."

The Athenian looked round with a smile at Tiberius, and said, "If all
the forces which exist now, and all those which ever existed in the
universe, without exception, have been received from something else,
what is that something else _beyond all the forces of the universe_?
They would all without exception have begun. To say this of them, is
merely to say that they were all non-existent once; and this without
exception. In other words, the whole chain, even with all its links
taken together, is short of eternal. If so, it has been preceded
either by blank nothing, or by some being who has a force _not_ thus
received, a force which is his own inherently and absolutely, as I
maintain. Tell me of a chain, the top of which recedes beyond our
ken, that the lowest link depends on the next to it, and this on
the third, I understand you; but if I ask what suspends the whole
chain, with all its links taken together, it is no answer to say that
the links are so numerous and the chain is so long that it requires
nothing but itself to keep it in suspension. The longer it is, the
greater must be the necessity of the ultimate grasp, and the stronger
must that grasp be; and observe, it must be truly ultimate, otherwise
you have not solved the difficulty; nay, the suspending force must
be distinct from and beyond the chain itself, or you do not account
for the suspension. But I will put all this past a cavil. What I
said respecting proofs to Domitius Afer, I say respecting causes to
Tiberius Caesar. No one denies that various forces are operating in
the universe. Now, of two things, one: Either there is a first force,
acting and moving by its own freedom, which; being antecedent to all
other forces, not only must be independent of them all, but can alone
have produced them all; or else there is in the universe no force
which has not some other antecedent to it. This last proposition is
easily shown to be an absurdity; _for to say that every force has a
force antecedent to it, is the same as to say that all forces have
another force antecedent to them; in other words, that, over and
above all things of a given class, there is another thing of that
class_. Can there be more than the whole? Can there be another thing
of a certain kind, beyond all things of that kind? Besides every
force, is there yet another force? If any one is here who would say
so, I wait to hear him."

No one said a word.

"Then remark the conclusion," pursued Dionysius. "It is a
self-contradiction to contend that there can be one thing more of
a class than all things of that class; therefore there is not,
and cannot be, a force antecedent to every force in the universe;
therefore there is, and must be, in the universe, a force which
is the first force, a force which has not and could not have any
other antecedent to it. Now this force, being the first, could be
controlled by no other; by its action every other must have been
produced, and under its control every other must lie."

"Do not you contradict yourself?" inquired Afer; "you show there
cannot be a force antecedent to all forces, and still you conclude
that there is."

"There cannot," said Dionysius, "be a force antecedent to all forces,
because this would be one more of a class beyond all of a class. But
there may be the first of the class, before which no other was;
and this is what I have demonstrated to exist. That first force
is antecedent, not to _all_, but to all _others_; there you stop;
there is none antecedent to _Him_. As he is the first force, all
things must have come from him. He made and built this universe; it
is his imperial palace. You have asked me to prove that one eternal
and omnipotent God lives. I have now given you an argument which I
am by no means afraid, in this, or any other assembly, to call a
demonstration. And it is but one out of a great many."

A low murmur of spontaneous plaudits and frank assent ran round
that luxurious, but highly cultivated, appreciative, and brilliant
company; and one voice a little too loud was heard exclaiming,

"It is as clear as the light of day, dear Dion!"

All eyes turned in one direction, and Paulus, whose feelings of
admiration and sympathy had thus betrayed him, blushed scarlet as he
withdrew behind the stately form of Germanicus, who looked round at
him smiling, half in amusement, half in kindness.

"I do think it a demonstration indeed," said Augustus, musing gravely.

"How strangely must that stupendous Being," said Strabo, the
geographer, "deem of a world which has come so completely to forget
and ignore him!"

"Your reasoning," resumed Augustus, "differs much, as you said it
would, from Plato's. Plato is too subtle for our Roman taste."

"So is he," said Dionysius, "too subtle, and, I think, too
hesitating, for the taste of most men everywhere. I admire his
genius, but I disclaim many of his theories, and am not a disciple of
his school."

"Of what school are you?"

"I am dissatisfied with every school," replied the future convert of
St. Paul, blushing. "But I am quite certain that there is only one
God, and that he is eternal and all-perfect.

"What I have said, I have said because I believe it; not in order
to play at mental swords with these eloquent and gifted men, whom
I honor. There is, if we would look for it, a reflection of this
great Being in our minds like that of a star in water; but the water
must be undisturbed, or the light wavers and is broken. We see many
beings, greater and smaller. Now, who can doubt that, where there
are greater and smaller, there must be a greatest? Each one of us is
conscious and certain of three things: first, that he himself has not
existed from all eternity; secondly, each of us feels that he did not
make his own mind; and thirdly, that he could not make another mind.
Now, the mind who made ours must be superior to any thing contained
in what he thus made; therefore, although we can conceive a being of
whose power, knowledge, and perfection we discern no possible limit,
this very conception must be inferior to its object. There must exist
outside of our mind some being greater still than the greatest of
which we can form any intellectual idea, however boundless. The lead
fused in a mould cannot be greater in its outlines than the mould
which presents the form. Again, no person will contend that the
sublime and the absurd are one and the same thing--that the terms are
convertible. But yet, if an absolutely perfect and sovereign being
did not exist, the conception which we form of such a being, instead
of constituting the highest heaven of sublimity to which our thoughts
can soar, would constitute the lowest depth of absurdity into which
they could sink."

A little pause followed.

"Do you, then," said Afer, with a subtle smile, "introduce to us the
novel doctrine, that whatever is sublime must therefore be true?"

"If I said yes," replied Dionysius, "and I am not a little tempted,
you would succeed in drawing me aside into a very long and darkling
road. But I have advanced nothing to that effect. My inference
depended not on assuming that every thing which is sublime must be
true, but on the supposition that nothing which is absurd could be
sublime."

"Quite so," remarked Haterius; "and was there not another inference
dormant in what you said?"

"There was," said Dionysius; "but it looks like subtilizing to wake
it and give it wings; and, as I am a Greek, I fear--I--in short, I
have tried to confine myself to the plainest and broadest reasonings."

"Fear not," said Germanicus; "learned Greece, you know, has conquered
her fierce vanquishers."

Tiberius gnawed his under-lip; and the Lady Plancina, glancing at him
and then at her husband Cneius Piso, who was listening attentive but
ill at ease, exclaimed,

"Enervated them, you mean!"

Germanicus threw back his head, smiled, and remarked, "To-morrow the
legions are going forth to try against the Germans whether the Roman
heart beats as of old; what was the further inference, Athenian?"

"Since there must," said Dion, "where greater and smaller beings
exist, be a greatest, we can all try to form some conception of him.
Now, this conception must fall short of his real greatness. Why?
Because as I have demonstrated that this being is the first force,
from which all others in the universe, including our minds, must
have come, no idea contained in our minds can be greater than the
very power which made those minds themselves. But, apart from this
demonstration, every one of us can say, a being may exist so great
as to be incapable of non-existence. Such a being is conceivable;
it is his non-existence which then, by the very supposition, is
inconceivable. Now, if there be something the non-existence of which
would be inconceivable, while of the being himself you possess a
notion, thinking of him as, for example, and terming him, the first
force, eternal, boundless--giver of all, recipient of naught--the
certainty of his existence is established already _for the heart_;
for that faculty which precedes demonstration in accepting truth--for
remember I have shown, and I have proved, that we are so made as to
be compelled to believe far more than any of us can ever demonstrate."

"This, then," said Augustus, "is the dim image of which you spoke;
the reflection of the star in water?"

"Yes, emperor," replied Dionysius; "but not always dim; the deepest
and the purest of all the lights which that water reflects. Often
it reflects no image, however; and often it reflects but clouds and
storms. To say you truly conceive a thing, is to say you are certain
of it _in the way you conceive it_. If you conceive any thing to be
certain, you possess the certainty of it. You may be certain that a
thing is _un_certain; in other words, you have arrived at a clear
notion of its uncertainty. To conceive the contingency of an object,
is to possess the positive idea that it is contingent. To conceive
a necessary being, is to have the clear idea not simply that he is,
_but that he must be_. He could not be conceived at all, he could not
even be an object of thought, as both necessary and non-existent. All
conceivable objects, except one, are conceived as either possible
or actual. But that one alone is conceived as necessary, and,
therefore, _necessarily actual_. Either a necessary being is not
conceivable--and which of us, I should like to know, cannot sit down
and indulge in the conception?--or, if he be so much as conceivable,
then his reign is recognized, because far more than his existence is
involved--I mean the impossibility of his non-existence."

"Are all the dreams," said Domitius Afer, "of a poet's imagination
truths because they are conceptions?"

A few moments of silence followed, and Paulus AEmilius looked at his
friend with an expression of terror which he had not exhibited in his
own contest with the Sejan horse.

"When the poet," replied Dionysius, "imagines what might have been,
he believes it might have been, and asks you to believe no more; but
he would be shocked if you believed less; would be shocked if you
told him he was depicting not that which had not been, for this he
cheerfully professes, but that which _could not ever be supposed_.
What I say here," added the Athenian, "belongs to a different and
somewhat higher plane of thought. The impossibility to suppose
non-existent an infinitely perfect being, who, on the other hand, is
himself found not impossible to suppose, ought to bring home _to the
heart_ the fact that he lives. To be able, in the first place, to
conceive him existing, and straightway thereafter to feel an utter
inability to form even the conception of his non-existence, because
it is only as the necessary being and first force that we can think
of him at all, are a handwriting upon the porch of every human soul.
He lives, I say it rejoicing, an eternal, necessary, and personal
reality; the very conception of him would be an impossibility if his
existence were not a fact; yes, and far more than a fact, a primeval
truth and a primordial necessity."

As the Athenian thus spoke in a clear and firm voice, which seemed
to grow more musical the more it was raised and exerted, Augustus
stood up and paced to and fro a few steps on the gravel walk of the
impluvium, with his hands behind him and his eyes cast down. All who
had been sitting rose at the same time, except Livia, Julia, Antonia,
and the two Agrippinas.

"This," whispered Tiberius in Afer's ear, "is not much like failure,
or derision, or disgrace for the Greek."

"My predecessor, Julius Caesar," said Augustus at length, looking
round as he stood still, "was the best astronomer and mathematician
of his age--we have his calendar now to record it; the best engineer
of his age--look at his bridge over the Rhine; the best orator,
except one, to whom Rome perhaps ever listened; a most charming
talker and companion on any subject; a very great and simple
writer; as great a general probably as ever lived; a consummate
politician; a keen, wary, swift, yet profound thinker at all times;
a man whose intellect was one vast sphere of light; and yet I
remember well in what anxiety and curiosity he lived respecting the
power which governs the universe, and with what minute and even
frivolous precautions he was forever trying to propitiate a good
award for his various undertakings; how he muttered charms, whether
he was ascending his chariot or descending, or mounting his horse
or dismounting--in short, at every turn. Evidently it is not the
brightest intellects, or the most perfectly educated, which are the
most disposed to scout and scorn such ideas as we have just heard
from Dionysius; it is precisely they who are prepared to ponder them
the most."

"Julius Caesar," said Tiberius, "thought, I suspect, pretty much as a
great many others do, that this is a very dark, difficult subject;
and that we cannot expect to come to any certain conclusions."

"Not to _many_ conclusions," said Dionysius; "that much I fully
grant. But two or three broad and general truths are attainable by
means of reasonings as close, secure, and irresistible as any in
geometry. One such proof--and pray do not forget that I said it was
only one out of many--making clear the fact that a single eternal
God reigns over all things, I have laid before Augustus and this
company already. My _last_ remarks, however, were not disputations,
but were only intended to show how those conceptions--to tear which
from the mind would be to tear the heat from fire and the rays
from light--tend exactly to that conclusion which I had _first_
established by a rigorous demonstration."

"Would not some call your inference from those conceptions themselves
a demonstration also?" asked Germanicus.

"I think," replied the Athenian, "that all would so call it if we had
but time to examine it thoroughly. There are three other complete
lines of argument, however, each of them as interesting as a poem;
but so abstruse that I will not travel along them. I will merely
show the gates which open into these three ascents of the glorious
mountain. It could, then, be demonstrated, first, that all things
are objects of mind or of knowledge, _somewhere_; secondly, that all
things undergo some action, or are objects of power, _somewhere_;
thirdly, that all things are loved and cared for _somewhere_; and
this as forming one whole work or production that is, in their
relations with each other. Now, the knowledge, the power, and the
love (or care) in question can belong only to that first force of
whom I speak; and I distinctly affirm, Augustus, that I believe
I should be quite able, not to prove by probable reasons merely,
but to demonstrate positively and absolutely, the existence of one
omnipotent God, by three distinct arguments, starting from the three
points I have here mentioned. Yet I pass by those golden gates with a
wistful glance at them, and no more."

"It is the _horn_ gates, you know," said Labio, smiling, "which open
to the true dreams."

"Ah! poor Virgil!" said Augustus, first with a smile, and then with a
long, heart-felt sigh. "I wish he could have heard you, my Athenian."

"The natures of things," said the Athenian, "and the number of
individuals are known and counted _somewhere_; the attraction of
physical things is weighed in a balance somewhere, and all things
are maintained in their order by _limits_, and protected in their
relations by a measured mark, _somewhere_. But as I have forbidden
myself this vast and difficult field, I will turn elsewhere."

"Before you turn elsewhere," exclaimed Antistius Labio, "I would fain
test by a single question the soundness of the principle from which
you will draw no deductions; you say all things undergo some action.
Does not this imply the actual presence of some force in or upon all
things?"

"It is not to be denied," answered the Athenian.

"What force," asked Labio, "is actually present in or upon _inert
matter_?"

"The force of cohesion," replied the Athenian; "and, moreover, the
force of weight, which I take to be only the same force with wider
intervals ordained for its operation."

A dead pause of an instant or two followed, and was broken by Herod
Agrippa, who was a person bad indeed and odious, but of great
acuteness and natural abilities, exclaiming "The Athenian reminds me
of the _number_, _weight_, _and measure_ of our holy books."

"It is there, indeed, I found them," said Dionysius.

"You mentioned," observed Augustus, after musing a few seconds, "that
the demonstration you gave us a while ago of a single eternal God was
only one out of many. I do not want many more, nor several more; but
one more, might gluttony ask of hospitality? We roam the halls of a
great intellectual fortress and mental palace to-night, superior to
the palace of the Mamurras."

"Has it such an impluvium, Augustus?" chuckled the old knight,
caressing his white moustache.

"The impluvium," said Dionysius, "is that part of the palace where
the light of heaven falls. But the palace, Augustus, I take to be
the sublime theme; my poor mind is only its beggarly porter and
ostiarius. Suppose, then, there were only two beings in all the
universe, one more excellent than the other, which of them would have
preceded the other?"

No one replied.

"If the inferior be the senior," pursued the Greek, "by so much as
the superior afterward came to excel him, by so much that superior
must have obtained his perfections from nothing whatever, from blank
nonentity; because the inferior, by the very supposition, (_ex
hypothesi_,) had them not to bestow."

"The superior being," answered Augustus, "must therefore be the
elder."

"You speak justly, Augustus," said the Athenian. "Therefore the less
perfect could never exist, if the more perfect had not first existed.
The existence, then, of imperfect beings proves the prior existence
of one all-perfect being, self-dependent, from whom the endowments
of the others must unquestionably have been derived."

"Cannot things grow?" asked Labio.

"Growth is feeding," answered Dion; "growth is accretion,
assimilation, condensation in one form of many scattered elements.
Growth is possible, first, if we have a seed, that is, an organism
capable, when fed, of filling out proportions defined beforehand;
and, secondly, if we have the food by which it is sustained. But who
defines the proportions? Who ordained the form? Who formed the seed?
Who supplies the air, the light, the food? Would a seed grow of its
own energy if not sown in fostering earth, or placed in fostering air
and light--in short, if not fed by the proper natural juices? Would
it grow if starved of air, earth, light--thrown back upon its sole
self? Is not growth necessarily stimulated _from without_?"

"Growth is a complicated and manifold operation," said Augustus,
"implying evidently a whole world previously set systematically in
motion."

"Whence, Labio," asked the Athenian, "comes your seed that will grow?"

"From a plant," replied Labio.

"Whence the plant?" pursued the Greek.

"From a seed."

"Which was first?" asked Dion.

"The plant."

"Then that plant, at least, never came from a seed," said Dionysius.
"Whence came it?"

"The seed was first," said Labio.

"Then _that_ seed," said Dionysius, "never came from a plant. Whence
came it?"

There was a laugh, in which not only Labio, but even Tiberius joined.

"No," said Dionysius; "whatever the power which traced out
beforehand the limits and proportions which the seed, by growing or
feeding, is to fill; whatever the power which surrounds that seed,
or other organism, with the manifold conditions for its development,
that power must be something more perfect and excellent than the
elements which it thus dispenses and controls; and the existence
of these less perfect things would have been impossible, had not
the other existed first. Thus, ascending the scale of beings, from
the less to the more excellent, the simple fact that each exists,
proves that a being superior to it must somewhere else be found,
and that the superior was in existence first; until we reach that
self-existent, all-perfect, eternal being whose life accounts for a
universe which his power governs, and which without him would have
been an impossibility.

"Without him imperfect things could never have obtained existence,
and could not keep it for an instant; and without recognizing him
they cannot be explained. This, Augustus, is the second demonstration
for which you have asked me. I have just touched, in passing, the
porches which led to three others. A sixth could be derived from the
nature of free force. No force is real which is not free. The force
of a ball flung through the air, is really the force of something
else, not of the ball; a hand imparted it; that hand was moved by
the mind. In the mind at last, and there alone, the force becomes
real, because there alone it is free. All the forces of nature could
be shown to be thus communicated, or derivative; and the question,
where do they originate? would ultimately bring us to some mind, some
intelligence. That intelligence is God."

"Could not all the forces of the universe be blind and mechanical?"
said Afer.

"If so, they would none of them be free," said the Athenian.

"Well, be it so," said Afer.

"If not free," persisted the Greek, "they are compulsory; if
compulsory, who compels them? I say, _God_. You would have to say,
_nothing_; which is very like _having nothing to say_."

A clamor of merriment followed this, and Dionysius had to wait until
it subsided.

"I am only showing," he resumed, "where and how the proof could be
found. A seventh demonstration can be derived from the moral law.
To deny God, or to misdescribe him, would necessitate the denial
of any difference between good and evil, between virtue and vice.
It would be a little long, but very easy to establish this; far
easier than it was to make intelligible the two proofs which I have
already submitted to you. I have said enough, however. This brilliant
assemblage perceives that the belief in one sovereign and omnipotent
mind is not a vain reverie for which nothing substantial can be
advanced; but a truth demonstrable, which neither human wit nor human
wisdom can shake from its everlasting foundations."

"I wonder," said Strabo, "whether this being, of whose knowledge and
power there are no limits, is also mild and compassionate."

Dionysius was buried in thought for a short time, and then said,

"Pray favor me with your attention for a few moments. Love draws nigh
to its object; hatred draws away from its object, which it never
approaches except in order to destroy it. But the non-existent cannot
be destroyed; therefore the non-existent never could draw hatred
toward it. Hatred would say, those things are non-existent which I
should hate, and which I would destroy if they existed; therefore let
them continue non-existent. But this sovereign being is antecedent
to all things; in his mind alone could they have had any existence
before he created them. If, then, he drew near them, so to speak,
approached them, called them out of nothing into his own palace, the
palace of being, love alone could have led him. Therefore, by the
most rigorous reasoning, it is evident that creation is inexplicable
except as an act of love. It is more an act of love than even
preservation and protection. This omnipotent being, then, must be
love in perpetual action; love in universal action, boundless and
everlasting love."

"Certainly yours is a grand philosophy," said Augustus.

"This sublime being," pursued Dionysius, "is, and cannot but be,
an infinite mind; he is boundless knowledge, boundless power, and
boundless goodness. The mere continuance from day to day of this
universe--"

Here the Athenian suddenly stopped and looked round.

"Why, were the most beneficent human being that ever lived,"
exclaimed he, "able by a word to cast the universe into
destruction; were it in his power to say, at any moment of wrath or
disappointment, that the sun should not rise on the morrow, mankind
would fall into a chronic frensy of terror."

"If," cried a shrill voice--that of the child Caligula--"if the sun
shines and one cannot see, it is no use! I know what I would do with
the sun to-morrow morning, unless I recover the use of my eyes."

"What?" asked Dionysius.

"I'd blow it out!" cried the dear boy, tearing off his bandage,
stamping his feet, and turning toward his interrogator a face neither
beautiful in feature nor mild in expression.

"The sun is in good keeping," said the Athenian.

Augustus turned, after a short, brooding look at Caligula, to
Haterius, and said,

"What think you, my Quintus? Has our Athenian made good his theories?"

"He has presented them like rocks of adamant," responded Haterius.
"Dionysius has convinced me perfectly that the universe has been
produced and is governed by the great being of whom he has so
earnestly and so luminously spoken."

"Yet one word with you, young philosopher," said Antistius Labio,
sending a glance all round the circle, and finally contemplating
intently the broad, candid brow and kindly blue eyes of the Athenian;
"one word! You remarked that you could prove all things to be cared
for and loved somewhere. You afterward mentioned that the care or
love in question could be exercised by none save the stupendous
king-spirit whose existence, I confess, you almost persuade me to
believe. But now solve me a difficulty. You have alluded to the moral
law. You maintain, although this has not been a subject of our debate
to-night, the immortality of our souls. Finally--none can forget
it--you hinted that there could be no morality, no difference between
right and wrong, virtue and vice, were there not one sovereign God.
Does this mean, or does it not, that morality is that which pleases
his eternal and therefore unchanging views?"

"Ah!" said Dionysius, "I perceive your drift. You land me amid real
enigmas. But go on; I answer honestly--_Yes_."

"Then," pursued Labio, "if the ghost within us be immortal, it will
be happy after death, provided it shall have pleased this being, and
miserable should it have offended him."

"Yes."

"Now, Augustus," persisted Labio, "what would you think of the
justice of a monarch who proclaimed rewards for conforming with his
will, and punishments for thwarting it, but at the same time would
not make it known what his will was, nor afford any protection to
those who might be desirous of giving it effect?

"Can Dionysius of Athens or any body else tell us what are the
special desires of this great being in our regard? Does he imagine
that unlettered, mechanical, toiling men have either understandings
or the leisure to arrive at the conclusions which his own splendid
intellect has attained? Then why is there not some authoritative
teacher sent down among men from heaven?"

Dionysius answered not. Labio continued,

"I speak roughly and plainly. I transfix him with his own principles.
He is too honest not to feel the force of what I say. He cannot
reply. Mark next: we live but a short while in this world; and if we
be immortal, our state here is downright contemptible in importance
compared with that which has to come; and yet he tells us that
this contemptible point of time, this mere dot of existence, is
to determine our lot for everlasting ages, and he that says this
proclaims the being whose existence he certainly has demonstrated
to be the very principle of love itself. Yet this being who will
establish our destinies according as we please him, tells us not how
to do it."

Again the Athenian refrained from breaking the expectant silence
which ensued.

"Would not one imagine," said Strabo, "that the most particular
instructions would be given to us how to regulate a conduct upon
which so much depends?"

"Yes," observed Labio; "and not instructions alone, but instructors,
to whom occasional reference would be always possible."

All eyes turned toward Dionysius. He blushed, hesitated, and at last
said,

"You only echo thoughts long familiar to my mind. I cannot answer; I
am not capable of solving these difficulties. Time is not completed.
I think, like the Sibyls, that some special light is yet to come down
from heaven."

Here the conversation ended.

Half an hour afterward, Dionysius, who had begged to be excused for
that night from entering upon the second of the two doctrines which
he had been challenged to sustain, was walking part of the way with
Paulus toward the Inn of the Hundredth Milestone, along the fretwork
of light which was shed upon the Appian Road by the moon and stars
through the leaves of the chestnut-trees.

"I feel confident, Paulus," said he, "that Augustus will restore your
family estates; and should you accept the liberal offer of Germanicus
Caesar, and depart upon this German expedition to-morrow morning, I
will watch your interests while you are absent."

"I know it well, generous friend," replied the other youth; "and I do
hope my mother will not object to my going. Only think, I may come
back a military tribune! Only think!"

"Yes," said Dion, "and enter that great castle which glitters yonder
in the moonlight as proprietor."

"If so, will you not," said Paulus, "come and stay with us?"

"That is an engagement," said the Athenian, "provided some day you
will all pay me a return visit at Athens."

"We'll exchange the _tessera hospitalis_ on it," exclaimed Paulus.

Thus they parted on the moonlit road, Dionysius returning to Formiae,
and Paulus walking onward with long, rapid strides.

    TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTE:

[286] "_Mater Antonia portentum eum hominis dictabat; nec absolutum
a natura, sed tantum inchoatum; ac si quem socordiae argueret,
stultiorem aiebat filio suo Claudio._" _Sueton._ in Claud. s. 3.




TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.

OUR LADY OF LOURDES.

BY HENRI LASSERRE.


PART I.

INTRODUCTION.

The full and complete history of the remarkable apparition of Lourdes
is now, for the first time, presented to the English-speaking
Catholic public. Mr. Lawlor has given an abridgment of M. Lasserre's
narrative, with some interesting additions from other sources, in his
charming volume, _Pilgrimages in the Pyrenees and Landes_. A short
sketch of the history of the events at Lourdes has also been given
in the _Irish Ecclesiastical Record_, of Dublin. In this country the
_Ave Maria_ is now engaged in republishing Mr. Lawlor's sketch of
the history. We trust our readers will thank us for placing before
them the full and authentic history of M. Lasserre, a work which
has received the favorable notice of the most competent judges, and
has been honored by a brief of felicitation from the Holy Father.
The author, who was himself one of the subjects of the miraculous
efficacy of the water of the fountain of Lourdes, has spared no
pains to make his work perfectly satisfactory. The evidence, which
he has collected and arranged with consummate care and skill, leaves
nothing to be desired in respect to the proof of the reality and
the supernatural character of the events related. The charm of his
style, the subtle and powerful irony which he employs with so much
effect against the sceptics who deny the possibility of any sort
of supernatural incidents, and the vivacity of his descriptions,
make his work extremely pleasant and profitable reading. Our devout
Catholic readers will find great delight in perusing M. Lasserre's
narrative; and others, although they may receive it with a smile of
incredulity, and perhaps favor us with a few witticisms in respect to
its contents, will find it to be, as the French sceptics have found
it, a very tough subject for any thing like serious and reasonable
refutation.--EDITOR OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD.


I.

The little town of Lourdes is situated in the department of the
Upper Pyrenees, at the entrance to the seven vales of Lavedan, and
between the low hills that sink into the plain of Tarbes and the
steeper ranges which grow into the Grande Montagne. Its houses, built
irregularly on a natural terrace, are grouped, in almost absolute
disorder, around the base of a rocky spur, on the summit of which the
formidable castle sits like an eyrie. Along the base of the cliff,
on the side opposite the town, the Gave dashes boisterously through
groves of alder, ash, and poplar, and, pausing at numerous dykes,
turns the equally sonorous machinery of several mills. The hum of the
driving-wheels and the jar of the rattling stones mingle with the
music of the winds and the splash of the rushing water.

The Gave is formed by several torrents from the upper valleys, which
spring from the glaciers, whose spotless snow covers the barren sides
of the Haute Montagne. The principal tributary comes from the cascade
of Gavarnie, which falls from one of those peaks never scaled by man.
Leaving on its right the town, the castle, and, with one exception,
all the mills of Lourdes, the Gave hastens toward Pau, which it
passes with all speed, to throw itself into the Adour, and thence
into the sea.

In the neighborhood of Lourdes, the country which skirts the Gave is
by turns wild and savage, and fair and smiling. Blooming meadows,
cultivated fields, woodland, and barren cliffs are alternately
presented to the gaze. Here are fertile plains and smiling
landscapes, the highway of Pau, never without its wagons, horsemen,
and pedestrian travellers; yonder, the giant mountains and their
awful solitudes.

The castle of Lourdes, almost impregnable before the invention of
artillery, was formerly the key of the Pyrenees. Tradition says that
Charlemagne, warring with the infidels, was unable to carry this
stronghold. Scarcely had he determined to raise the siege, when an
eagle seated itself on the highest tower of the citadel, and let
fall a large fish which it had caught up from some neighboring lake.
Either because it happened on the day when the holy church prescribes
abstinence from flesh-meat, or because the fish was at that time the
popular symbol of Christianity, the infidel commander, Mirat, saw in
this fact a prodigy, and, demanding instruction, was converted to
the true faith. This conversion was all that was necessary to bring
his castle into the hands of Christendom. Nevertheless, the Saracen
stipulated, as says the chronicler, "that in becoming the knight of
Our Lady, the Mother of God, his lands, both for himself and his
descendants, should be free from every worldly fief, and should
belong to her alone."

The arms of the town still bear, in testimony of this extraordinary
fact, the eagle and the fish. Lourdes carries, on a red field, three
golden towers, pointed with sable, on a silver rock; the middle tower
is higher than the others, and is surmounted by a black spread eagle,
limbed with gold, holding in his beak a silver trout.

During the middle ages, the castle of Lourdes was an object of terror
to the surrounding country. At one time in the name of the English,
at another in that of the Counts of Bigorre, it was occupied by
robber chieftains, who cared for little besides themselves, and who
plundered the inhabitants of the plain for forty or fifty leagues
around. They even had the audacity, it is said, to seize goods and
men at the very gates of Montpellier, and then to retreat, like birds
of prey, to their inaccessible abode.

In the eighteenth century, the castle of Lourdes became a
state-prison. It was the Bastille of the Pyrenees. The revolution
opened the gates of this prison to three or four persons, confined
there by the arbitrary command of despotism, and in return peopled
it with several hundred criminals of quite another description. A
contemporary writer has copied from the jailer's record the offences
for which the prisoners had been immured. Besides the name of each
prisoner, the specifications of the crime are thus formulated:
"Unpatriotic.--Refusing to give the kiss of peace to citizen N----
before the altar of our country.--Busybody.--Drunkard.--Indifferent
about the revolution.--Hypocritical character, reserved in his
opinions.--Lying character.--A peace-loving miser.--Indifferent
toward the revolution," etc., etc.[287]

We may thus see what reason the revolution had to complain of the
arbitrary conduct of kings, and also how it changed the frightful
despotism of the monarchy into a reign of peace, toleration, and
perfect liberty.

The empire still retained the fortress of Lourdes as a state-prison,
and this character it kept until the return of the Bourbons. After
the restoration, the terrible castle of the middle ages naturally
became a place of less importance, garrisoned by a company of
infantry.


II.

The tower still remains the key of the Pyrenees, but in a very
different way from what it was formerly. Lourdes is at the junction
of the roads to the various watering-places. In going to Bareges,
to Saint-Sauveur, to Cauterets, to Bagneres-de-Bigorre, or from
Cauterets or Pau to Luchon, in any case, one must pass through
Lourdes. During the fashionable season, countless diligences,
employed in the service of the baths, stop at the Hotel de la Poste.
Generally they allow the travellers sufficient time to dine, to visit
the castle, and to admire the country, before passing on.

Thus from the constant visits of bathers and tourists from all parts
of Europe, this little town has been brought to quite an advanced
state of civilization.

In 1858, the earliest date of our story, the Parisian journals were
regularly received at Lourdes. The _Revue des Deux-Mondes_ counted
there many subscribers. The inns and cafes presented their guests
with three numbers of the _Siecle_, that of the latest date and
the two preceding ones. The _bourgeoisie_ and clergy divided their
patronage between the _Journal des Debats_, the _Presse_, _Moniteur_,
_Univers_ and _Union_.

Lourdes had a club, a printing-house, and a journal. The _sous
prefet_ was at Argeles; but the sorrow which the inhabitants of
Lourdes showed for the absence of this functionary was tempered by
the joy of possessing the _Tribunal de premiere instance_, that is,
three judges, a president, a _procureur imperial_, and a deputy.
Around this brilliant centre revolved as inferior satellites, a
justice of the peace, a commissary of police, six constables, and
seven gendarmes, one of whom was invested with the rank of corporal.
Inside of the town we find a hospital and a prison; and circumstances
sometimes come to pass, as we shall have occasion to state, in which
independent spirits, nourished with the sound and humane doctrines of
the _Siecle_, think that criminals should be put into the hospital
and the sick into the jail. But these gentlemen of such extraordinary
reasoning powers are not in exclusive possession at the bar of
Lourdes and in the medical profession; men of great learning and high
distinction are to be met--remarkable minds and impartial observers
of facts--such as are not always to be found in more important cities.

Mountaineers are generally endowed with strong and practical good
sense; and the people of this neighborhood, almost unmixed with
foreign blood, excel in this respect. Scarcely one place in France
could be cited where the schools are better attended than at
Lourdes. There is hardly a boy who does not for several years go to
lay-teachers or to the institution of the "Brothers;" hardly a little
girl who does not complete the course of instruction at the school of
the Sisters of Nevers. Far better taught than the mechanics of most
of our cities, the people of Lourdes still preserve the simplicity
of rural life. They have warm veins and southern heads, but upright
hearts and a perfect morality. They are honest, religious, and not
over-inclined to novelties.

Certain local institutions, dating back to forgotten times,
contribute toward maintaining this happy state of things. The people
of these regions, long before the pretended discoveries of modern
progress, had learned and practised, under the shadow of the church,
those ideas of union and prudence which have given rise to our
mutual aid societies. Such associations have for centuries existed
and worked at Lourdes. They date from the middle ages; they have
survived the revolution, and philanthropists would long since have
made them famous, if they had not drawn their vitality from religion,
and if they were not called to-day, as in the fifteenth century,
"confraternities."

    "Nearly all the people," says M. de Lagreze, "enter these pious
    and benevolent associations. The mechanics, whom the title
    of brotherhood thus unites, place their labor under heavenly
    patronage, and exchange with one another assistance in work and
    the succors of Christian charity. The common alms-box receives
    a weekly offering from the stout and healthy artisan, to return
    it at some future day when the charitable hands can no longer
    earn wages."

On the death of a laborer the association pays the funeral expenses
and accompanies the body to its resting-place.

    "Each confraternity except two, who share the high altar
    between them, has a particular chapel, whose name it takes,
    and which it supports by the collection made every Sunday.
    The confraternity of Notre Dames des Graces is made up of
    farmers, tillers of the soil; that of Notre Dame de Monsarrat,
    of masons; that of Notre Dame du Mont Carmel, of slaters; that
    of St. Anne, of carpenters; that of St. Lucy, of tailors and
    dress-makers; that of the Ascension, of quarry-workers; that
    of the Blessed Sacrament, of church-wardens; that of St. James
    and St. John, of all who have received either of these names in
    holy baptism."

The women are likewise divided Into similar religious associations.
One of them, "the Congregation of Children of Mary," has a special
character. It is also a society for mutual aid and encouragement, but
in relation to spiritual things. To enter this congregation, although
it is merely an association of persons living in the secular state,
and not a religious society, a young person must give evidence that
she possesses a well-tried steadiness of character. The young girls
look forward to it for a long time before they reach the proper age
for admission. The members of the congregation are bound never to
put themselves in danger by frequenting worldly festivities where
the religious spirit is lost, nor to adopt eccentric fashions, but
to be exact in attending the meetings and instructions on Sunday. It
is an honor to belong to this association, a disgrace to be excluded
from it. And the amount of good which it has done in maintaining
public morality and preparing good mothers of families, is truly
incalculable. In many dioceses, confraternities have been founded on
the same plan and after this model.

This part of the country has ever shown great devotion to the Blessed
Virgin. Her sanctuaries are numerous throughout the Pyrenees from
Pietat or Garaison to Betharram. All the altars of the church of
Lourdes have been dedicated under the invocation of the Mother of
God.


III.

Such was Lourdes ten years ago.

The railway did not pass through it; indeed, no one then dreamed that
it ever would. A much more direct route seemed to be marked out in
advance for the line through the Pyrenees.

The entire town and fortress are situated, as we have said, on
the right bank of the Gave, which, prevented from going north by
the rocky foundation of the castle, turns at a right angle to the
west. An old bridge, built at some distance above the first houses
communicates with the plains, meadows, forests, and mountains of the
left bank.

On this side of the stream, below the bridge, and nearly opposite
the castle, an aqueduct conducts much of the water of the Gave into
a large canal. The latter rejoins the main stream at the distance
of one kilometre below, after having passed along the base of the
cliffs of Massabielle. The long island thus formed by the Gave and
by the canal is a large and fertile meadow. In the neighborhood it
is called l'Ile du Chalet, or more briefly, le Chalet. The mill of
Savy is the only one on the left bank, and is built across the canal,
thus serving as a bridge. This mill and le Chalet belong to a citizen
of Lourdes, M. de Laffite. In 1858, as wild a place as could be
found in the neighborhood of the thriving little town, which we have
described, was at the foot of these cliffs of Massabielle, where the
mill-race rejoins the Gave. A few paces from the junction, on the
banks of the river, the steep rock is pierced at its base by three
irregular excavations, fantastically arranged, and communicating
like the pores of a huge sponge. The singularity of these excavations
renders them difficult to be described. The first and largest is on
a level with the ground. It resembles a trader's booth, or a kiln
roughly built, and cut vertically in two, thus forming a half dome.
The entrance, formed into a distorted arch, is about four metres in
height. The breadth of the grotto, a little less than its depth, is
from twelve to fifteen metres. From this entrance the rocky roof
lowers and narrows on the right and left.

Above and to the right of the spectator, are found two openings
in the rock, which seem like adjoining caves. Seen from without,
the principal one of these openings has an oval form, and is about
the size of an ordinary house window or niche in a church wall.
It pierces the rock above, and at a depth of two metres divides,
descending on one side to the interior of the grotto and ascending
on the other toward the outside of the rock, where its orifice forms
the second cave of which we have spoken, which is of use to let in
light upon the others. An eglantine growing from a cleft in the
rock extends its long branches around the base of this orifice, in
the form of a niche. At the foot of this system of caves, so easy
to comprehend to one who looks upon it, but complicated enough for
one who tries to give merely a word-sketch, the water of the canal
rushes over a chaos of enormous stones to meet the Gave, a few steps
farther on. The grotto, then, is close by the lower point of the
Ile du Chalet, formed, as we have said, by the Gave and the canal.
The caverns are called the Grotte de Massabielle, from the cliffs
in which they are situated. "Massabielle" signifies in the _patois_
of the place, "old cliffs." On the river banks, below, a steep and
uncultivated slope, belonging to the _commune_, extends for some
distance. Here the swineherds of Lourdes frequently bring their
animals to feed. When a storm arises, these poor people shelter
themselves in the grotto, as do likewise a few fishermen who cast
their lines in the Gave. Like other caves of this kind, the rock is
dry in ordinary weather, and slightly damp in times of rain. But
this dampness and dripping of the rainy season can be noticed only
on the right side of the entrance. This is the side on which the
storms always beat, driven by the west wind; and the phenomena here
take place which can be noticed on the honey-combed walls of stone
houses, similarly exposed, and built with bad mortar. The left side
and floor, however, are always as dry as the walls of a parlor. The
accidental dampness of the west side even sets off the dryness of the
other parts of the grotto.

Above this triple cavern the cliffs of Massabielle rise almost into
peaks, draped with masses of ivy and boxwood, and folds of heather
and moss. Tangled briers, hazel shoots, eglantines, and a few trees,
whose branches the winds often break, have struck root in clefts of
the rock, wherever the crumbling mountain has produced or the wings
of the storm have borne a few handfuls of soil. The eternal Sower,
whose invisible hand fills with stars and planets the immensity of
space, who has drawn from nothing the ground which we tread, and its
plants and animals, the Creator of the millions of men who people
the earth, and the myriads of angels who dwell in heaven, this God,
whose wealth and power know no bounds, takes care that no atom shall
be lost in the vast regions of his handiwork. He leaves barren no
spot which is capable of producing any thing. Throughout the extent
of our globe, countless germs float in the air, covering the earth
with verdure, where there seemed before no chance of life for even a
single herb, or tuft of moss. Thus, O Divine Sower! thy graces, like
invisible but fruitful motes, float about and rest upon our souls.
And, if we are barren, it is because we present hearts harder and
more arid than the rocky and the beaten highway, or covered with
tangled thorns that prevent the up-growing of thy heavenly seed.


IV.

It was requisite to the ensuing narrative to describe first the scene
where its events took place. But it is of no less importance to point
out in advance that profound moral truth, which is the starting-point
from which this history begins, in the course of which, as we shall
see, God manifested his power in a visible manner. These reflections
will, moreover, delay only for an instant the commencement of our
narrative.

Every one has noticed the striking contrasts presented by the
various conditions of men who live on this earth, where wicked and
good, rich and needy, are mingled together, and where a thin wall
often separates the hovel from the palace. On one side are all the
pleasures of life, softly arranged in the midst of rare delicacies,
comfort, and the elegance of luxury; on the other, the horrors of
want, cold, hunger, sickness, and all the sad train of human woes.
For the former, adulation, joyous visits, charming friendships. For
the latter, indifference, loneliness, and neglect. Whether it fears
the importunity of his spoken or his mute appeals, or shrinks from
the rebuke of his wretched nakedness, the world avoids the poor man,
and makes its arrangements without regard to him. The rich form an
exclusive circle, which they call "good society," and they regard
as unworthy of serious attention the existence of those secondary
but "indispensable" beings. When they hire the services of one of
the latter--even when they are good people and accustomed to succor
the needy--it is always in a patronizing way. They never use, in
this case, the language and tone which they apply to one of their
own kind. Except a few rare Christians, no one treats the poor man
as an equal and a brother. Except the saint--alas! too rare in
these days--who follows out the idea of looking upon the wretched
as representing Christ! In the world, properly so called, the vast
world, the poor are absolutely forsaken. Weighed down beneath the
burden of toil and care, despised and abandoned, does it not seem
as if they were cursed by their Maker? And, yet, it is just the
contrary; they are the best beloved of the Father. While the world
has been pronounced accursed by the infallible word of Christ, on
the other hand, the poor, the suffering, the humble, are God's "good
society." "Ye are my friends," he has said to them in his Gospel. He
has done more; he has identified himself with them. "What you have
done to the least of these, you have done also to me."

Moreover, when the Son of God came upon the earth, he chose to be
born, and to live and die, among the poor, and to be a poor man.
From the poor he selected his apostles and his principal disciples,
the first-born of his church. And, in the long history of that same
church, it is upon the poor that he lavishes his greatest spiritual
favors. In every age, and with few exceptions, apparitions, visions,
and particular revelations have been the privilege of those whom the
world disdains. When, in his wisdom, God sees fit to manifest himself
sensibly to men, by these mysterious phenomena, he descends into the
dwellings of his servants and particular friends. And mark why he
prefers the houses of the poor and humble. Two thousand years have
only served to verify that saying of the apostle, "The weak things of
the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the strong." (1 Cor.
i. 27.)

The facts which we are about to state will perhaps furnish further
proof of this truth.


V.

In 1858, the eleventh of February opened the week of profane
rejoicing which from time immemorial has preceded the austerities of
Lent. It was the _Jeudi-Gras_, or Thursday before Quinquagesima. The
weather was cold and slightly overcast, but very calm. The clouds
hung motionless in the heavens; there was no breeze abroad; and the
atmosphere was perfectly still. At times a few drops of rain fell
from the skies. This day is celebrated by special privilege in the
diocese of Tarbes as the feast of the illustrious shepherdess of
France, St. Genevieve.[288]

Eleven o'clock in the morning had already sounded from the church
tower of Lourdes.

While all the neighborhood was preparing for the festivities, one
family of poor people who lived as tenants of a miserable dwelling
in the Rue des Petits-Fosses, had not even enough wood to cook their
scanty dinner. The father, still a young man, was by trade a miller,
and had for some time endeavored to run a little mill which he had
leased on one of the streamlets that go to make up the Gave. But
his business exacted advances, the people being accustomed to have
their wheat ground on credit; and the poor miller had been forced to
give the mill back to the firm, and his labor, instead of putting
him in better circumstances, had only helped to throw him into utter
poverty. Waiting for brighter days, he labored--not at his own place,
for he had no property, not even a small garden--but at various
places belonging to his neighbors, who employed him occasionally as
a day laborer. His name was Francois Soubirous, and he was married
to a faithful wife, Louise Casterot, who was a good Christian, and
kept up his courage by loving sympathy. They had four children: two
daughters, the elder of whom was fourteen years of age; and two boys,
still quite young, the smaller being scarcely four years old.

For fifteen days only, had their older daughter, a puny child from
infancy, lived with them. This is the little girl who is to play an
important part in this narrative, and we have carefully studied all
the details and particulars of her life. At the time of her birth,
her mother, being ill, was unable to nurse the child, and she was
consequently sent to the neighboring village of Bartres. Here the
infant remained after being weaned. Louise Soubirous, having become
a mother for the second time, would have been kept at home by the
care of two children and hindered from going out to daily service
or to the fields, which, however, would not be the case if her care
were limited to one. Accordingly the parents left their first-born at
Bartres. They paid for her support, sometimes in money, more often in
kind, five francs a month.

When the little girl grew old enough to be useful, and the question
arose as to bringing her home, the good peasants who had reared her
found themselves attached to her, and, considering her as one of
their own, no longer charged her parents any thing, and employed her
to tend their sheep. Thus she grew up in her adopted family, passing
her days in solitude on the lonely hill-tops, where her humble flock
grazed.

Of prayers she knew none except the rosary. Whether her foster-mother
had recommended it to her, or whether it was the dictate of her pure
and innocent heart, she kept up the hourly practice of reciting this
prayer of the simple. Then she amused herself with those natural
playthings which kind providence furnishes for the children of the
poor, and with which they are more content than their richer cousins
with costly toys. She played with the pebbles, piling up miniature
castles, with the flowers which she culled on every side, with the
water of the brooklet, where she launched and followed great fleets
of leaf-boats; besides, she had her pets among the flock. "Of all
my lambs," she said, "there is one that I prefer to all the rest."
"And which is it?" asked somebody. "The one that I most love is
the smallest one." And she delighted in fondling and caressing it.
She herself was among children like her own darling in the flock.
Although she was already fourteen years old, she seemed no more than
eleven or twelve. Without being rendered infirm, she was subject to
asthmatic affections, which at times caused her great pain. She bore
her ills patiently and accepted her physical sufferings with that
resignation which seems so difficult to the rich, but to the needy so
very natural.

In this innocent and silent school the poor shepherdess learned that
which the world knows not; the simplicity of soul which pleases the
heart of God. Far from every impure influence, conversing with the
Blessed Virgin Mary, passing her time in crowning her with prayers
and telling her chaplet, this little maid preserved that absolute
purity and baptismal innocence which the breath of the world so
easily tarnishes, even in the best. Such was this childish soul,
bright and calm as the unknown lakes which lie hidden among lofty
mountains and silently reflect the splendors of heaven. "Blessed are
the clean of heart," says the Gospel; "for they shall see God."

These great gifts are concealed treasures, and the humility which
possesses them is often unconscious of their presence. The little
girl of fourteen years charmed all who happened to approach her, and
yet she was entirely unaware of it. She considered herself as the
least and most backward of her age. Indeed, she did not know how to
read or write. Moreover, she was an entire stranger to the French
tongue, and knew only her own poor _patois_ of the Pyrenees. She had
never learned the catechism, and in this respect her ignorance was
extraordinary. The Our Father, Hail Mary, Apostles' Creed, and Glory
be to the Father, which make up the chaplet, constituted the sum of
her religious knowledge. Hence it is unnecessary to add that she had
not yet made her first communion. It was to prepare her for this,
that the Soubirous determined to bring her home, in spite of their
poverty, and send her to the catechetical instructions at Lourdes.

She had now been for two weeks under her father's roof. Alarmed by
her asthma and her frail appearance, her mother watched over her with
particular care. While the other children went barefoot in their
sabots, (wooden shoes,) she was provided with stockings; and while
her sister and brothers went freely out of doors, she was constantly
employed in the house. The child, accustomed to the open air, would
very gladly have gone out into it.

The day, then, was _Jeudi-Gras_, eleven o'clock had struck, and these
poor people had no wood to cook their dinner.

"Go, and gather some sticks by the Gave or on the common," said the
mother to Marie, her second daughter.

Here, as in many other places, the poor have a sort of customary
right to glean the dried branches which the wind blows from the trees
in the _commune_, and to the driftwood which the torrent leaves among
the pebbles on its bank.

Marie put on her sabots. The eldest child, of whom we have been
speaking, the little shepherdess of Bartres, looked wistfully at her
sister.

"Let me go, too?" she finally asked of her mother. "I will carry my
little bundle of sticks."

"No," replied Louise Soubirous, "you have a cough, and you will catch
more cold."

A little girl from a neighboring house, named Jeanne Abadie, about
fifteen years of age, having come in during this conversation, was
likewise preparing to go for wood. All joined in importuning, and the
mother allowed herself to be persuaded.

The child at once covered her head with her kerchief, tied on one
side, as is the custom among peasants of the south. This did not
appear sufficient to her mother.

"Put on your _capulet_," said the latter. The capulet is a graceful
garment worn by the dwellers in the Pyrenees. It is at once a hood
and a mantle, made of very stout cloth, sometimes white as fleece,
sometimes of a bright scarlet color; it covers the head and falls
over the shoulders to the waist. In cold or stormy weather, the women
use it to wrap their neck and arms, and, when the garment is too
warm, they fold it up in a square and wear it as a cap upon their
heads. The capulet of the little shepherdess of Bartres was white.


VI.

The three children left the town, and crossing the bridge, reached
the left bank of the Gave. They passed the mill of M. de Laffite and
entered the Chalet, gathering here and there sticks for their little
fagots. They walked down the river's course, the delicate child
following at some distance her stronger companions. Less fortunate
than they, she had not yet found any thing, and her apron was empty,
while her sister and Jeanne had begun to load themselves with twigs
and chips.

Clad in a black gown, well worn and patched, her pale countenance
inclosed in the fold of the capulet which fell over her shoulders,
and her feet protected by a large pair of sabots, she wore an air
of grace and rustic innocence which appealed more to the heart than
to the senses. She was still quite small for her age. Although her
childish features had been touched by the sun, they had not lost
their natural delicacy. Her fine black hair scarcely appeared from
beneath her kerchief. Her brow, open to the air, was free from any
line or wrinkle. Under her arching eyebrows, her eyes of brown, in
her softer than blue, had a deep and tranquil beauty whose clearness
no evil passion had ever disturbed. Hers was the "single" eye of
which the Gospel speaks. Her mouth, wonderfully expressive, revealed
the habitual tenderness of her soul and pity for every kind of
suffering. Her whole appearance, while it pleased, also possessed
that extraordinary power of attraction exerted by lofty minds. And
what was it that gave this secret power to a child so poor, so
ignorant, clothed in tatters? It was the greatest and rarest of
possessions, the majesty of innocence.

We have not yet told her name. She had for her patron a great and
holy doctor of the church, whose genius was especially sheltered
under the protection of the Mother of God, the author of the
_Memorare_, the illustrious St. Bernard. Following a fashion which
has its charms, his great name, given to this humble peasant, had
taken a childish and rustic form. The little maid bore a title as
gracious and as pretty as herself. She was called Bernadette.

She followed her sister and companion through the fields that belong
to the mill, and sought, but vainly, among the grass and shrubbery
for some bits of wood to warm their family hearth. So Ruth or Noemi
might have appeared, going to glean in the harvest-fields of Booz.


VII.

Straying in this manner, the three little girls reached the lower end
of the Chalet opposite the triple cave, the grotto of Massabielle,
which we have endeavored to describe. They were separated from it
only by the mill-race, which bathes the foot of the cliffs, and
whose current is usually very strong. To-day, however, the mill of
Savy has stopped work, and the small quantity of water which leaks
into the aqueduct makes but a slender stream, very easy to wade. The
fallen branches of various trees lie thick among the rocks in this
lonely and ordinarily inaccessible place. Rejoiced at this discovery,
bustling and active as Martha, Jeanne and Marie took off their
sabots, and in an instant were across the stream.

"The water is very cold," they cried as they hastily put on their
wooden shoes.

It was the month of February, and these mountain torrents, fresh
from the glacial snows, are always icy cold.

Bernadette, less alert or less eager, tarrying behind, was still on
the nearer side of the stream. It was a more serious undertaking for
her to cross. She wore stockings, while Jeanne and Marie had only to
take off their sabots, in order to wade. Even before the exclamation
of her companions, she feared the cold of the water.

"Throw in a couple of large stones," she cried, "so that I may go
over without getting wet."

The two little girls, already engaged in making up a pair of fagots,
did not wish to lose time by turning from their task.

"Do as we have done," said Jeanne, "take off your shoes."

Bernadette resigned herself, and, seated on a large stone, began to
do as she was bid.

It was about noon; the Angelus was about to sound from all the
belfries of the Pyrenees.


VIII.

She was in the act of drawing off her first stocking, when she heard
near her a shock like a blast of wind, bursting with irresistible
force upon the fields. She thought it was a sudden storm, and
instinctively looked behind her. To her great surprise, the poplars
which border the Gave were perfectly motionless. Not even the
slightest breeze stirred their boughs.

"I must be dreaming," she said, and, still thinking of the noise,
she could not believe that she had heard it. She turned again to her
stocking. At this instant the impetuous roar of this unknown wind was
heard again. Bernadette raised her glance, and uttered, or would have
uttered, a loud cry, but it died upon her lips. Her limbs trembled
and gave way. Astounded by what she saw, and as if shrinking from
it, she fell upon her knees.

A vision of surpassing wonder was before her eyes. The child's
story, the countless inquiries to which she has since been subjected
by thousands of active and shrewd investigators, have brought out
all the details, and enabled us to trace each line of the general
appearance of that wonderful being who met at this moment the
ravished glance of Bernadette.


IX.

Above the grotto, before which Marie and Jeanne, busily employed and
bent toward the ground, were gathering sticks, in the rude niche
formed by the rock, surrounded by a heavenly glory, stood a lady of
matchless beauty.

The ineffable radiance which floated around her did not hurt the
eyes, like the brightness of the sun. On the contrary, this aureole
of soft and gentle light irresistibly attracted the glance, which
it seemed to relieve and fill with pleasure. It was like the gleam
of the morning-star. But there was nothing vague or misty about the
apparition. It had not the shifting contour of a fantastic vision; it
was a reality, a human body, which to the eye seemed palpable as our
own flesh, and which resembled the figure of an ordinary human person
in all respects, except that it was surrounded by a luminous halo,
and was radiant with celestial beauty. The lady was of medium height.
She looked very youthful, like one who had attained her twentieth
year, without losing any of the tender delicacy of girlhood, which
usually fades so soon. This beauty bore in her countenance the
impress of everlasting durability. Moreover, in her features the
heavenly lines blended, without disturbing their mutual harmony, the
peculiar charms of the four seasons of human life. The innocent
candor of the child, the spotless purity of the virgin, the calm
tenderness of the loftiest maternity, a wisdom surpassing the lore
of centuries, blended together without effacing each other, in this
wonderful and youthful countenance. To whom shall we liken her in
this sinful world, where the rays of beauty are scattered, broken, or
discolored, and seldom reach us without some impure mixture? Every
image, every comparison would only abase this unspeakable type. No
majesty, no excellence, no simplicity here below could ever give us
an idea whereby we might better understand it. It is not with the
lamps of earth that we can light up the stars of heaven.

The regularity and ideal beauty of these features surpassed all
description. It could only be said that their oval curve was of
infinite grace, that the eyes were blue and of a tenderness that sank
through the heart of the beholder to its very depths. The lips wore
an expression of heavenly goodness and mildness. The brow was like
the seat of the highest wisdom; that wisdom which combines universal
knowledge with boundless virtue.

Her garments were of an unknown fabric, woven in the mysterious looms
which serve to robe the lily of the valley; for they were white as
the stainless mountain snows, and yet more splendid than the raiment
of Solomon in all his glory. The vesture, long and trailing in
chaste folds, revealed her virginal feet, which lightly pressed the
broad branch of eglantine, and on each of which blossomed the golden
mystical rose.

From her waist a sky-blue cincture, loosely tied, hung, in long
bands, to the instep of her foot. Behind, and enveloping in its
fulness her arms and shoulders, a white veil descended from her
head to the hem of her robes. No ring, no necklace, no diadem or
gem; none of those ornaments were there that human vanity loves to
parade. A chaplet, whose drops of milky white slid on a golden cord,
hung from her hands, fervently clasped together. The beads glided
through her fingers. Yet the lips of this Queen of Virgins remained
motionless. Instead of reciting the rosary, she was, perhaps,
listening to the eternal echo in her own heart of that first Ave! and
the deep murmur of invocation ever rising from this earth of ours.
Each bead was undoubtedly a shower of heavenly graces that fell upon
souls like the liquid diamonds into the chalice of the flower.

She kept silence; but later, her own words and the miraculous facts
which we shall have to record, were to attest that she was truly the
Immaculate Virgin, the sinless and stainless among women, Mary, the
Mother of God.

This wonderful apparition looked upon Bernadette, who, as we have
seen, shrinking and speechless, had fallen upon her knees.


X.

The child, in her first movement of fear, had instinctively seized
her rosary; and, holding it in her hands, endeavored to make the
sign of the cross. But she trembled so violently as to render this
impossible. "Fear not," said Jesus to his disciples, when he came
walking on the waves of the sea of Tiberias. The look and smile of
the Blessed Virgin appeared to say the same thing to this frightened
little shepherdess.

With a sweet, grave gesture, which seemed like a benediction to earth
and heaven, she, as if to encourage the child, made the sign of the
cross. And the hand of Bernadette, raised, as it were, by her hand
who is called the Help of Christians, repeated the sacred sign.

"Fear not, it is I," Jesus said to his disciples.

The child felt no more fear. Astonished, charmed, scarcely trusting
her senses, and wiping her eyes, whose glance was riveted by the
heavenly vision, no longer knowing what to think, she humbly recited
her rosary: "I believe in God"--"Hail, Mary! full of grace!"

When she had finished saying the last "Glory be to the Father, and
to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost," the bright Virgin suddenly
disappeared, reentering that eternal paradise, the dwelling of the
Holy Trinity, whence she had come.

Bernadette felt like one who has suddenly fallen from a great height.
She stared vacantly around. The Gave still flowed on, moaning over
the pebbles and broken rocks; but the noise seemed to her more
sorrowful than before; the waters themselves seemed more gloomy, the
landscape and sunlight less bright than formerly. In front the cliffs
of Massabielle extended, and beneath them her companions were still
engaged in collecting the sticks of wood. Above the grotto were still
the niche and the arch of eglantine; but nothing unusual appeared
there; no trace remained of the celestial visitor. They were no
longer the gate of heaven.

The scene which we have just related must have lasted for a quarter
of an hour; not that Bernadette was conscious of the lapse of time;
but it may be measured by the circumstance that she had been able to
recite five decades of the rosary.

Completely restored to herself, Bernadette finished removing her
shoes and stockings, and rejoined her companions. Absorbed by what
she had seen, she did not dread the cold of the water. All her
childish powers were concentrated in recalling the facts of this
strange apparition.

Jeanne and Marie had seen her fall upon her knees and betake herself
to prayer; but as this, thank God, is not a rare occurrence with
these mountaineers, and as they were occupied at their task, they had
paid no further attention.

Bernadette was surprised at the perfect calmness which her sister and
Jeanne evinced. They had just finished their work and, entering the
grotto, began to play as if nothing extraordinary had happened.

"Have you seen nothing?" asked the child.

They then noticed that she seemed disturbed and agitated. "No," they
replied; "have you seen any thing?"

Was it that Bernadette feared to tell what filled her soul, for fear
of profanation? Did she wish to enjoy it in silence? Or was she
restrained by a bashful timidity? Nevertheless, she did obey that
instinct which prompts humble souls to conceal as a treasure the
special graces with which God favors them.

"If you have seen nothing," said she, "I have nothing to tell you."

The little fagots were bound up. The three children began to retrace
the road to Lourdes. But Bernadette could not conceal her trouble. On
the way, Marie and Jeanne teased her, to find out what she had seen.

The little shepherdess yielded to their entreaties and their promise
of eternal secrecy.

"I saw," she began, "something dressed in white." And she went on to
describe her marvellous vision. "This is what I saw," said she in
conclusion; "but do not, for the world, say anything about it."

Marie and Jeanne did not doubt a syllable. The soul in its first
innocence is naturally believing. Doubt is not the besetting sin of
childhood. And even were they disposed to be sceptical, the earnest
accents of Bernadette, still agitated and full of what she had seen,
would have irresistibly led them to believe. Marie and Jeanne did
not doubt, but they were frightened. The children of the poor are
naturally timid. Nor is it strange, since sufferings come to them
from every side.

"It is, perhaps, something that will do us harm," said they. "Let us
never go there again, Bernadette."

Scarcely had the confidants of the little shepherdess reached the
house, when the secret fairly boiled over. Marie told it all to her
mother. "What is all this stuff, Bernadette, that your sister has
been telling me?" The little girl repeated her story. Marie Soubirous
shrugged her shoulders.

"You have been deceived, child. It was nothing at all. You thought
that you saw something, but you did not. This is all fancy and
imagination."

Bernadette still adhered to her story.

"At any rate," said her mother, "never go near that place again. I
forbid it."

This prohibition wounded Bernadette to the heart. For, ever since the
apparition had vanished, she had felt the greatest desire to see it
once more.

Nevertheless, she was resigned, and said nothing.


XI.

Two days, Friday and Saturday, passed. The extraordinary event
was continually present to the mind of Bernadette, and became the
absorbing topic of conversation with her sister Marie, with Jeanne,
and a few other children. Bernadette still bore in her mind the
memory of this heavenly vision; and a passion--if one may use a word
so profane to designate so pure a sentiment in a heart so innocent
and girlish--a burning desire to see again this incomparable lady had
taken possession of her soul. This name of "lady" was the one which
they naturally used in their rustic language.

Whenever she was asked if this apparition resembled any one
celebrated in the place for beauty, she shook her head and said
sweetly, "Not at all. This does not give the faintest idea of her.
She is of a beauty impossible to express."

She longed to see her once more. The other children were divided
between fear and curiosity.


XII.

On Sunday morning, the sun rose brightly; the weather was beautiful.
The open winter in the valleys of the Pyrenees frequently has days
which equal spring.

On returning from mass, Bernadette begged Marie and Jeanne and two or
three other children to insist with her mother and persuade her to
take off the prohibition and permit them to return to the cliffs of
Massabielle.

"Perhaps it may be some wicked thing," said the children.

Bernadette answered that she was not afraid, for it had such a
wonderfully kind face.

"At all events," replied the children, who, better taught than the
poor shepherdess of Bartres, knew something of the catechism--"at all
events, we must throw some holy water at it. If it comes from the
devil, it will go away. Say to it, 'If you come from God, approach!
If you come from the devil, be off!'"

This is not the precise formula for exorcism; but these little
theologians of Lourdes could not have reasoned better in this
matter, if they had been doctors of the Sorbonne.

It was therefore decided, in this juvenile council, that one of them
should carry the holy water. A certain feeling of apprehension had
stolen over Bernadette on account of this talk. Nevertheless it only
remained to obtain permission.

The children assembled after dinner to ask for it. The mother was
still unwilling to remove the prohibition, alleging that the Gave
ran close to the cliffs of Massabielle, and that there might be
danger; that the hour for vespers was near at hand, and that they
ought not to run the risk of being late; and that the whole story was
pure childish prattle, etc. But every body knows what a regiment of
children can do. All promised to be careful, to be quick, etc., and
the matter ended by the mother's yielding.

The little band went to the church, and there prayed for some time.
One of Bernadette's companions had provided a small bottle. It was
now filled with holy water.

On arriving at the grotto, nothing was to be seen.

"Let us pray," said Bernadette, "and recite the rosary."

The children knelt and began the rosary, each to herself.

Suddenly the face of Bernadette appeared to be transfigured.
Extraordinary emotion was manifested on her features, and her
countenance seemed to shine with heavenly light.

With feet resting upon the rock, clad as formerly, the marvellous
apparition again stood before her.

"Look! look!" she cried, "there it is!"

Alas! the vision of the other children was not miraculously cleared
from the film which hides glorified bodies from our sight. The little
girls saw nothing but the lonely rock and the branches of eglantine,
which descended to the foot of that mysterious niche, where
Bernadette contemplated an unknown being. The features of Bernadette
wore an expression that made it impossible to doubt that she really
saw something. One of the children placed the bottle of holy water in
her hands. Then, Bernadette, remembering what she had promised, arose
and sprinkled the wonderful lady, who stood in the niche before her.

"If you come from God, approach!" said the little girl. And, at her
words, the Blessed Virgin advanced close to the edge of the rock. She
seemed to smile at the precautions of Bernadette, and, at the sacred
name of God, her face shone even brighter than before.

"If you come from God, approach!" repeated Bernadette. But, seeing
the heavenly goodness and love of her glorious visitor, she felt
her heart sink when about to add, "If you come from the devil, go
away!" These words, which had been dictated to her, seemed monstrous
in the presence of this incomparable being; and they fled from her
thoughts without mounting to her lips. She prostrated herself again,
and continued to recite her rosary, to which the Blessed Virgin
seemed to listen, telling also her own. At the end of her prayer, the
apparition vanished.


XIII.

Returning to Lourdes, Bernadette was full of joy. She rehearsed in
the secrecy of her heart these extraordinary scenes. Her companions
felt a sort of terror in her presence. The transfiguration of the
countenance of Bernadette had convinced them of the reality of the
supernatural vision. And every thing that surpasses nature brings
with it a sense of awe. "Let not the Lord speak to us lest we die,"
said the Jews of the Old Testament.

"We are afraid, Bernadette. Never go to that place again. Perhaps
what you have seen will do us mischief." So said the timid companions
of the little seer.

According to their promise, the children returned in time for
vespers. When they were over, numbers of people came out to walk and
enjoy the last rays of the sun, so delightful on these fine winter
days. The story of the little girls was told among various groups of
walkers, and passed from mouth to mouth. Thus it was that the rumor
of these strange things began to spread in the town. The report,
which at first had agitated only a humble band of children, increased
like a tide-wave, and reached every fireside. Quarry-workers, (very
numerous at this place,) tailors, laboring-men, peasants, servants,
waiting-maids, and other poor people conversed about this matter,
some believing, some denying, others openly scoffing at, and many
exaggerating, the facts of this rumored apparition. With one or two
exceptions, the bourgeoisie did not pay the least attention to all
this talk. Strange to say, the father and mother of Bernadette, while
they confided fully in her sincerity, regarded the apparition as an
illusion.

"She is only a child," they said. "She thinks she has seen something;
but she has seen nothing. It is only the imagination of a little
girl." Nevertheless, the extraordinary precision of Bernadette's
recital startled them. At times, won by the earnest accents of their
daughter, they felt their incredulity shaken. And while they desired
that she should not revisit the grotto, they did not dare to forbid
her. She did not do so, however, until Thursday.


XIV.

During the first days of the week, several persons came to see
the Soubirous, in order to question Bernadette. Her answers were
brief and exact. She might be laboring under a delusion, but it was
only necessary to see her to know that she was in good faith. Her
perfect simplicity, her innocent age, her tone of earnestness, all
contributed to give her words a force which carried conviction.
All who visited her were entirely satisfied of her veracity, and
persuaded that something extraordinary had happened at the cliffs of
Massabielle.

The statement, nevertheless, of an ignorant little girl could not
suffice to establish firmly an event so entirely out of the ordinary
course of things. There must be other proofs besides the word of a
child.

But what was this apparition, supposing it to have been real? Was
it an angel of light, or a spirit from the abyss? Was it not some
suffering soul, wandering and seeking prayers? Might it not have
been so-and-so or so-and-so, who, but recently dead in the odor of
sanctity, had appeared to manifest the glory of the life to come?
Faith and superstition each proposed their hypotheses.

Did the mournful ceremonies of Ash-Wednesday help to incline a
certain lady and a young girl of Lourdes to one of these solutions?
Did they see in the shining whiteness of the garments which the
apparition wore, some likeness to a shroud or some sign of a ghost?
We know not. The young girl was named Antoinette Peyret, and was a
member of the society of the Children of Mary; the other was Mme.
Millet.[289]

"It is undoubtedly some soul from Purgatory, who implores us to have
masses offered up for it." So they thought; and they went to see
Bernadette.

"Ask this lady who she is, and what she wishes," said they. "Get her
to explain it to you; or, if you cannot understand, let her put it in
writing."

Bernadette, who felt a keen desire to return to the grotto, obtained
from her parents a new permission; and the following morning,
Thursday, February the 18th, about six o'clock, at daybreak, and
after having heard mass at half-past five, she, together with
Antoinette Peyret and Mme. Millet, turned her steps in the direction
of the grotto.


XV.

The repairs in the mill of M. de Laffite had been completed, and
the canal which moved the machinery had been opened to the current;
so that it was impossible to reach the end of their journey by the
old way of the Chalet. They were obliged to ascend the side of the
Espelugues, choosing a steep path which led to the forest of Lourdes;
then to descend by a break-neck route to the grotto, over crags, and
the steep, loose soil of Massabielle.

In the face of these unforeseen difficulties, the two companions
of Bernadette were somewhat dismayed. But she, on the contrary,
even then trembled with an eager desire to reach their destination.
It seemed as if an invisible power sustained and endowed her with
unwonted energy. She, usually so frail and weak, felt at that moment
stout and strong. Her steps became so rapid as they began the ascent,
that Antoinette and Mme. Millet, though both were strong and in
perfect health, had a good task to keep up with her. The asthma,
which usually hindered her from running, seemed to have left her for
the time being. On reaching the summit, she was neither tired nor out
of breath. Although her companions were perspiring and panting, her
face was perfectly calm. She descended the cliffs, which she thus
traversed for the first time, with the same ease and agility, feeling
conscious that an invisible power guided and sustained her. Over
these steep and sharp declivities, among slippery stones, hanging
over the abyss, her step was as bold and firm as if walking upon the
highway. Mme. Millet and Antoinette did not endeavor to follow at the
same gait. They descended slowly, and with the precaution required by
so perilous a way.

Consequently, Bernadette arrived at the grotto some minutes before
them. She prostrated herself and began reciting her chaplet,
earnestly regarding the niche, still empty and embowered by the
entwining boughs of the eglantine.

Suddenly she uttered a cry. The well-known light of the aureole shone
from the depths of the cave; she heard a voice calling her.

The wonderful apparition was again visible a few steps above her. The
lovely Virgin turned toward the child her face lit up with eternal
beauty, and with her hand beckoned her to approach.

At this moment, after surmounting a thousand and one difficulties,
the two companions of Bernadette, Antoinette and Mme. Millet, reached
the spot. They saw the features of the child transfigured with
ecstasy. She heard and saw them.

"She is there!" the girl cried, "she beckons me to draw near!"

"Ask if she is annoyed because we are here with you. If so, we will
go away."

Bernadette looked at the Blessed Virgin, invisible to all save
herself. Then she turned toward her companions. "You may remain," she
answered.

The two women knelt beside the child and lighted a blessed taper,
which they had brought with them. It was, beyond doubt, the first
time that such a light had ever shone in this savage place. This
simple act, which seemed to inaugurate a sanctuary, had in itself a
mysterious solemnity.

This visible sign of adoration, this humble flame lighted by two
poor women, on the supposition that the apparition was divine, was
never more to be extinguished but to brighten daily, and to grow with
the lapse of years. The breath of incredulity was to exhaust itself
against it in vain efforts. The storm of persecution was to arise;
but this flame, lit by the devotion of the people, was to point for
ever toward the throne of God. While these rustic hands lighted the
first illumination in this strange grotto where a child was praying,
the east had changed its color from gray to gold and purple, and the
sun had begun to flood the world with light and to peep over the
highest crest of the mountains.

Bernadette, in ecstasy, contemplated a cloudless beauty. "_Tota
pulchra es, amica mea, et macula non est in te_:" Thou art all
beautiful, my beloved, and there is no spot in thee.

Her companions spoke to her again.

"Go toward her, if she makes a sign. Go, ask her who she is, and
why she comes here?... Is she a soul from purgatory that needs our
prayers, or wishes us to have masses offered up for her?... Ask her
to write on this paper what she desires. We are willing to do any
thing she wishes--all that is needful for her rest."

The little seer took the paper, ink, and paper, which were given her
and advanced toward the apparition, whose maternal glance brightened
on seeing her draw near. Nevertheless, at each step that Bernadette
made, the apparition receded into the interior of the cave. The child
lost sight of it for a moment, and it went under the arch of the
lower grotto. There, just above her and much nearer at hand, she saw
the Blessed Virgin shining in the opening of the niche.

Bernadette held in her hand the objects which had been given her; she
stood on tiptoe to reach the height of the supernatural being. Her
two companions advanced to hear, if possible, the conversation which
was about to take place. But Bernadette, without turning, and as if
obeying a gesture of the vision, signed to them not to approach.
Abashed, they withdrew.

"My Lady," said the child, "if you have any thing to tell me, will
you not please write what you wish?"

The heavenly Virgin smiled at this naive request. Her lips parted and
she spoke:

"What I have to tell you I do not need to write. Only do me the favor
to come here every day for two weeks."

"I promise to do so!" said Bernadette.

The Blessed Virgin smiled again and made a gesture of satisfaction,
showing her full confidence in the word of this poor little peasant
of fourteen years. She knew that the little shepherdess of Bartres
was pure as one of those little ones whose golden heads Jesus loved
to caress, saying, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven."

To the promise of Bernadette, she replied by a solemn engagement:

"And I for my part promise to make you happy, not in this world, but
in the next."

To the child who accorded her a few days, she promised, in return,
eternity.

Bernadette, without losing sight of the apparition, returned to her
companions.

Following her glance, she noticed the eyes of the Blessed Virgin
resting kindly and for some time on Antoinette Peyret, who was
unmarried and a member of the Confraternity of the Children of Mary.

Bernadette told them what she had seen.

"She is looking at you now," said the child to Antoinette.

The latter was filled with pleasure by these words and always
recalled them with joy.

"Ask," said they, "if she is willing to have us accompany you hither
during the fortnight."

Bernadette addressed the apparition.

"They may come with you," answered the Blessed Virgin, "and also any
other persons. I desire to see every body here."

Saying these words, she disappeared, leaving behind her that
brilliant light with which she was surrounded, and which slowly
melted away.

In this instance, as in others, the child noticed something which
seemed a rule with regard to the aureole which always surrounded the
Blessed Virgin.

"When the vision appears," said she, in her own language, "I see
first the light and then the 'Lady;' when it disappears, the 'Lady'
first vanishes and afterward the light."

    TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[287] Bascle de Lagreze, Conseiller a la Cour Imperial de Pau,
_Chronique de la Ville et du Chateau de Lourdes_.

[288] The Ordo of the diocese of Tarbes for 1858, Feb. 12, contains
the rubric, _Sanctae Genovefae_, (_Proprium Tarbense_.)

[289] These two persons are still living. Unless the contrary be
expressly stated, all those named in the course of this work are
still alive, and can be questioned. We would urge our readers to
examine and verify all our assertions.--THE AUTHOR.




THE "PARADISE LOST" OF ST. AVITUS.


The indebtedness of Milton to Andreini for the conception of
_Paradise Lost_, is proved not only by internal evidence, but by the
ascertained fact that the English poet was well acquainted with the
work of the Italian. Another poet of merit, centuries before, had
produced a noble work on the subject, with which we may suppose,
from Milton's classical and theological learning, he was familiar,
though no proof exists that he had read it. We refer to the three
poems of St. Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, _The Creation_, _Original
Sin_, and _The Judgment of God_, which form a triad, or a poem in
three parts. Its resemblance to _Paradise Lost_, in general idea and
in some important details, is very striking, and a curious fact in
literature. These, with other works of the author, were published at
the beginning of the sixteenth century, though written long before.

Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus, born about the middle of the fifth century,
was of a senatorial family in Auvergne. He became bishop A.D.
490, dying in 525. His part in the church of Gaul was active and
important, as he was chief among the orthodox bishops of the east and
south of Gaul, and Vienne belonged to the Burgundian Arians. In the
struggle to maintain the true faith against the Arians, St. Avitus
had to contend not only against theological adversaries, but the
civil power. In the year 499 he held a conference at Lyons with some
Arian bishops, in the presence of King Gondebald; and he influenced
King Sigismund to return to the true belief.

He was the most distinguished among all the Christian poets from
the sixth to the eighth century, and only the obscurity of the age
can account for the oblivion into which his works have fallen. It is
true that his poetry abounds in labored comparisons and artificial
antitheses; but in treating of sacred subjects he adheres to the
scriptural simplicity, and though living much nearer to the days of
paganism than Milton, has nothing like his mythological allusions
and ornaments. He wrote a hundred letters on his own times, besides
homilies and treatises. His six poems are in hexameter verse. They
are, _The Creation_, (_De Initio Mundi_,) _Original Sin_, (_De
Originali Peccato_,) _The Judgment of God_, (_De Sententia Dei_,)
_The Deluge_, (_De Diluvio Mundi_,) _The Passage of the Red Sea_,
(_De Transitu Maris Rubri_,) and _In Praise of Virginity_, (_De
Consolatoria Laude Castitatis_, etc.) The first three constitute what
may be called the _Paradise Lost_ of St. Avitus.

In the _Creation_, the peculiar features of the descriptive poetry
of the sixth century appear, resembling the school founded by the
Abbe Delille; elaborate beyond good taste, dissecting and anatomizing
in details. This is almost painfully shown in the account of the
creation of man, in which the anatomical particulars are minute and
scientific to the utter destruction of the picturesque. Then comes
the description of paradise, which is in curious analogy to Milton's.
We translate part of it:

    "Beyond the Indies, where the world begins,
    Where, it is said, the confines meet of earth
    And heaven, there spreads an elevated plain
    To mortals inaccessible, inclosed
    By barriers everlasting since for sin
    Adam was cast out from that happy home.
    There never change of seasons brings the frost;
    There summer yields not place to winter's reign;
    And while elsewhere the circle of the year
    Brings stifling heat, or fields with crisp ice bound,
    There bides eternal spring. Tumultuous winds
    Come not, and clouds forsake skies always pure.
    No need of rains; the ever genial soil
    With warm, sweet moisture of its own, keeps fresh
    Its vivid verdure; herbs and foliage live
    Fadeless, their vigor drawn from their own sap,
    Mingling their leaves with blossoms. Annual fruits
    There ripen every month; the lily's sheen
    The sunbeams taint not, nor the violet's blue;
    The fresh rose never fades; the laden boughs
    Shed odoriferous balm; the gentle breeze
    Skimming the woods, with softest murmur stirs
    The leaves and flowers, thence wafting sweet perfume.
    Clear founts gush out from their pellucid source,
    And polished gems have not their flashing lustre.
    Along the crystal's margin emeralds gleam,
    With varied hues of every jewel's sheen
    The world holds rich, enamelling the sands,
    And glistening in the meads like diadems."

                                             Book i. 211-257

The Latin is as follows:

    "Ergo ubi transmissis mundi caput incipit Indis,
    Quo perhibent terram confinia jungere coelo,
    Lucus inaccessa cunctis mortalibus arca
    Permanet, aeterno conclusus limite, postquam
    Decidit expulsus primaevi criminis auctor,
    Atque reis digne felici a sede revulsis,
    Coelestes haec sancta capit nunc aula ministros,
    Non hic alterni succedit temporis unquam
    Bruma, nec aestivi redeunt post frigora soles,
    Excelsus calidum cum reddit circulus annum,
    Vel densante gelu canescunt arva pruinis.
    Hic ver assiduum coeli clementia servat;
    Turbidus Auster abest, semperque sub aere sudo
    Nubila diffugiunt jugi cessura sereno.
    Nec poscit natura loci quos non habet imbres,
    Sed contenta suo dotantur germina rore.
    Perpetuo viret omne solum, terraeque tepentis
    Blanda nitet facies; stant semper collibus herbae,
    Arboribusque comae; quae cum se flore frequenti
    Diffundunt, celeri confortant germina succo.
    Nam quidquid nobis toto nunc nascitur anno;
    Menstrua maturo dant illic tempora fructu.
    Lilia perlucent nullo flaccentia sole,
    Nec tactus violat violas, roseumque ruborem
    Servans perpetuo suffundit gratia vultu.
    Sic cum desit hiems, nec torrida ferveat aestas,
    Fructibus autumnus, ver floribus occupat annum.
    Hic quae donari mentitur fama Sabaesis
    Cinnama nascuntur, vivax quae colligit ales,
    Natali cum fine perit, nidoque perusta
    Succedens sibimet quaesita morte resurgit;
    Nec contenta suo tantum semel ordine nasci;
    Longa veternosi renovatur corporis aetas,
    Incensamque levant exordia crebra senectam,
    Illic desudans fragrantia balsama ramus
    Perpetuum promit pingui de stipite fluxum.
    Tum si forte levis movit spiramina ventus,
    Flatibus exiguis, lenique impulsa susurro,
    Dives silva tremit foliis, ac flora salubri,
    Qui sparsus late maves dispensat odores.
    Hic fons perspicuo resplendens gurgita surgit.
    Talis in argento non fulget gratia, tantam
    Nec crystalla trahunt nitido defrigore lucem.
    Margine riparum virides micuere lapilli,
    Et quas miratur mundi jactantia gemmas,
    Illis saxa jacent; varios dant arva colores,
    Et naturali campos diademate pingunt."

The parallel passage of Milton runs thus:

              "Thus was this place,
    A happy rural seat of various view;
    Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm,
    Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind,
    Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true,
    If true, here only, and of delicious taste.
    Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks
    Grazing the tender herb, were interposed,
    Or palmy hillock; or the flowery lap
    Of some irriguous valley spread her store,
    Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose;
    Another side, umbrageous grots and caves
    Of cool recess, o'er which the mantling vine
    Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps
    Luxuriant; meanwhile, murmuring waters fall
    Down the slope hills, dispersed, or in a lake
    That to the fringed bank with myrtle crowned
    Her crystal mirror holds, unite their streams.
    The birds their choir apply; airs, vernal airs,
    Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune
    The trembling leaves, while universal Pan
    Knit with the graces and the hours in dance,
    Led on th' eternal spring."

                              _Paradise Lost_, iv. 246, etc.

The Nile, according to religious traditions, was one of the four
rivers of paradise. In his description of its fertilizing inundation,
St. Avitus paints, in a poetical figure, the view presented in
after-years:

    "When, swollen, the river overflows its banks,
    Strewing the plains with dark slime, fertile then
    The soil with calm skies and terrestrial rain;
    Then Memphis in the midst of a vast lake
    Appears, and o'er their fields submerged in crafts
    The laborers sail. The flood's decree sweeps forth
    All boundaries, equalizing all, and stays
    The season's labors. Joyful sees the shepherd
    His meadows swallowed, and from foreign seas
    Strange shoals of fish where erst his herds were fed.
    Then, when the waters have espoused the earth,
    Impregnating its gems, the Nile recedes,
    Calls back its scattered waters, and the lake,
    Once more a river, to its bed returns,
    Its floods encompassed in the ancient dyke."

                                            Book i. 266-281.

We give also the original:

    "Nam quoties tumido perrumpit flumine ripas
    Alveus, et nigris campos perinundat arenis,
    Ubertas taxatur aqua, coeloque vacante
    Terrestrem pluviam diffusus porrigit annis.
    Tunc inclusa latet lato sub gurgite Memphis,
    Et super absentis possessor navigat agros.
    Terminus omnis abest, aequatur judice fluctu
    Annua suspendens contectus jurgia limes.
    Gramina nota videt lactus subsidere pastor,
    Inque pecorum viridantis jugere campi
    Succedunt nantes aliena per aequora pisces.
    Ast postquam largo fecundans germina potu
    Lympha maritavit sitientis viscera terrae,
    Regraditur Nilus, sparsasque recolligit undas:
    Fit fluvius pereunte lacu; tum redditur alveo
    Pristina riparum conclusis fluctibus obex," etc.

An analogous phenomenon--far more vast and terrible--the descent
of the waters of the upper firmament, and the overflow of earthly
floods, is described by St. Avitus in his poem on _The Deluge_.

In the second part of the triad, _Original Sin_, the sacred
traditions are implicitly followed; something is to be found of
Andreini's conception of the prince of hell preserving in the demon
the grandeur of the angel, carrying into the pit of evil the traces
of a heavenly nature. The Satan of St. Avitus is not the devil of
mere traditions, odious, hideous, malignant, with no elevation of
feeling. He retains some traits of his first estate and a certain
moral grandeur. Nevertheless the conception lacks the sublimity of
Andreini's and Milton's, presenting none of those fierce conflicts of
the soul, those appalling contrasts, which are so effective. It has,
however, originality and energy, forcibly impressing the reader.

Satan, first entering paradise, and perceiving Adam and Eve, is thus
portrayed:

    "When he beheld the new-created pair
    In their fair home, their happy sinless life,
    Under God's laws the sovereigns of the earth,
    With tranquil joy surveying all around
    In peace their sway confessing--jealous rage
    Like lightning raised a tempest in his soul;
    Like to volcanic fires his fury burned.
    Too recent his great loss; hurled down from heaven,
    Down to the infernal pit, and with him fallen
    The troop who shared his fate! The agony,
    The shame of such defeat, with added pangs
    And horror, rose afresh, when he beheld
    Those happy ones; and full of bitter grief,
    Envy, despite, he poured his anger forth.
    Ah! woe is me; this new world sprung to life,
    This odious race the offspring of our ruin!
    Woe! Heaven was mine; from heaven I am expelled,
    This dust of earth to angels' pomp succeeding!
    Frail clay, to fair form moulded, will usurp
    The power, the sovereignty torn from our hands,
    To him transferred! Yet not of all despoiled,
    Some power we hold, some evil we can do.
    Be it done without delay! I yearn for strife!
    I long to meet these foes; yea, now to meet them,
    In their simplicity, which knows as yet
    Naught of deceit; naught but the things they see,
    Which leaves them shieldless. Easier the task
    To tempt them and mislead, while thus alone,
    Ere they have thrown a vast posterity
    Into the eternity of ages!--No--
    We will not suffer any thing immortal
    To rise from earth! Let us destroy the race
    Here in its source! Oh! that its chiefs defeat
    May be the seed of death! Life's principle
    Give rise to pangs of death! all struck in one!
    The root cut and the tree for ever prone!
    Such consolation in my fall is mine;
    If I must never more ascend to heaven,
    At least its portals shall be closed 'gainst these!
    The misery I suffer is less keen
    Knowing these creatures lost by a like fall;
    If they, accomplices in my destruction,
    Become companions in my punishment,
    Sharing with us the flames I now discern
    Prepared for us!
                  But to allure them on,
    I, who have fallen, must show them the same road,
    That the same pride which drove me out of heaven
    May chase man from the bounds of paradise.
    He spoke, and heaving a deep sigh, was silent."

                                            Book ii. 60-117.

The Latin is as follows:

    "Vidit ut iste novos homines in sede quieta
    Ducere felicem nullo discrimine vitam,
    Lege sub accepta Domino famularier orbis,
    Subjectisque frui placida inter gaudia rebus;
    Commovit subitum zeli scintilla vaporem,
    Excrevitque calens in saeva incendia livor.
    Vicinus tunc forte fuit, quo concidit alto,
    Lapsus, et innexam traxit per prona catervam.
    Hoc recolens, casumque premens in corde recentem,
    Plus doluit periisse sibi quod possidet alter.
    Tunc mixtus cum felle pudor sic pectore questus
    Explicat, et tali suspiria voce relaxat.
    Proh dolor, hoc nobis subitum consurgere plasma,
    Invisumque genus nostra crevisse ruina!
    Me celsum virtus habuit, nunc arce reje
    Pellor, et angelico limus succedit honori.
    Coelum terra tenet, vili compage levata
    Regnat humus, nobisque perit translata potestas.
    Non tamen in totum periit; pars magna retentat
    Vim propriam, summaque cluit virtute nocendi,
    Nec differre juvat; jam nunc certamine blando
    Congrediar, dum prima salus, experta nec ullos
    Simplicitas ignara dolos, ad tela patebit.
    Et melius soli capientur fraude, priusquam
    Fecundam mittant aeterna in saecula prolem,
    Immortale nihil terra prodire sinendum est;
    Fons generis pereat, capitis dejectio victi
    Semen mortis erit; pariat discrimina lethi
    Vitae principium; cuncti feriantur in uno;
    Non faciet vivum radix occisa cacumen.
    Haec mihi dejecto tandem solatia restant.
    Si nequeo clausos iterum conscendere coelos,
    His quoque claudentur," etc.

Thus Milton's Satan:

    "O hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold!
    Into our room of bliss thus high advanced
    Creatures of other mould; earth-born perhaps,
    Not spirits, yet to heavenly spirits bright
    Little inferior; whom my thoughts pursue
    With wonder, and could love, so lively shines
    In them divine resemblance, and such grace
    The hand that formed them on their shape hath poured.
    Ah gentle pair! ye little think how nigh
    Your change approaches, when all these delights
    Will vanish and deliver ye to woe!
    More woe the more you taste is now of joy;
    Happy, but for so happy ill secured
    Long to continue, and this high seat your heaven
    Ill fenced for heaven to keep out such a foe
    As now is entered; yet no purposed foe
    To you, whom I could pity thus forlorn,
    Though I unpitied; league with you I seek,
    And mutual amity, so strait, so close,
    That I with you must dwell, or you with me
    Henceforth; my dwelling haply may not please,
    Like this fair paradise, your sense; yet such
    Accept your Maker's work; he gave it me,
    Which I as freely give. Hell shall unfold,
    To entertain you two, her widest gates,
    And send forth all her kings; there will be room,
    Not like these narrow limits, to receive
    Your numerous offspring; if no better place,
    Thank him who puts me loath to this revenge
    On you, who wrong me not, for him who wronged.
    And should I at your harmless innocence
    Melt as I do, yet public reason just,
    Honor and empire with revenge enlarged,
    By conquering this new world, compel me now
    To do what else, though damned, I should abhor."

                      Milton's _Paradise Lost_, iv. 358-392.

More elevated, impassioned, and complex are the feelings of Milton's
Satan, more eloquent his expression; yet the simple energy, the
menacing concentration of the arch-fiend painted by St. Avitus, has a
powerful effect.

The third book exhibits the despair of Adam and Eve after the fall;
the coming of the divine Judge; his sentence, and their expulsion
from paradise. Where Milton represents Adam as giving way to
indignation against Eve, St. Avitus causes him to rage against the
Creator himself.

    "Adam thus saw himself condemned: his guilt
    By inquiry made manifest. Yet not
    In humble suppliance did he sue for mercy:
    Nor with deep penitence, and tears, and prayers,
    And self-accusing, shamed confession, plead
    For the remission of his punishment;
    Fallen, miserable, no pity he invoked.
    With lifted front, with anger flushed, his pride
    Broke forth in clamorous reproach.
                    'Twas then
    To bring my ruin that the woman was given
    To be my helpmeet! That which from thy hand,
    Creator! was received as best of blessings--
    She--overcome herself--has conquered me
    With counsels sinister! prevailed with me
    To take the fruit she had already tasted;
    She is the source of evil; from her came
    The sin, beguiling me too credulous;
    And thou, Lord, thou didst teach me to believe her
    By giving her to be my own in marriage,
    With sweet ties joining us! Ah! if my life,
    Lonely at first, had so continued--happy!
    If I had never known this fatal union,
    The yoke of such companionship!
                    These words
    Of Adam the divine Creator heard,
    And thus severely spoke to desolate Eve;
    Woman, why hast thou in thy fall drawn down
    Thy wretched spouse? Deceived, and then deceiving,
    Instead of standing in thy guilt alone,
    Why sought'st thou to dethrone the higher reason
    Of this thy husband?
                    And the woman, full
    Of shame and sorrow, daring not to raise
    Her face with conscious blushes all suffused,
    Answered: The serpent did beguile me; he
    Persuaded me to taste the fruit forbidden."

                                           Book iii. 96-112.

The original poem runs thus:

    "Ille ubi convictum claro se lumine vidit,
    Prodidit et totum discussio justa reatum,
    Non prece submissa veniam pro crimine poscit,
    Non votis lacrymisve rogat, nec vindice fletu
    Praecurrit meritam supplex confessio poenam.
    Jamque miser factus, nondum miserabilis ille est.
    Erigitur sensu, timidisque accensa querelis
    Fertur in insanas laxata superbia voces.
    Heu male perdendo mulier conjuncta marito!
    Quam sociam misero prima sub lege dedisti,
    Haec me consiliis vicit devicta sinistris,
    Et sibi jam notum persuasit sumere pomum.
    Ista mali caput est, crimen surrexit ab ista.
    Credulus ipse fui, sed credere tu docuisti,
    Connubium donans, et dulcia vincula nectens
    Atque utinam felix, quae quondam sola vigebat,
    Coelebs vita foret, talis nec conjugis unquam
    Foedera sensisset, comiti non subdita pravae.
      Hac igitur rigidi commotus mente Creator,
    Moerentem celsis compellat vocibus Evam.
    Cur miserum labens traxisti inprona maritum
    Nec contenta tuo deceptrix femina casu,
    Sublimi sensum jecisti, ex arce virilem!
      Ilia pudens, tristique genas suffusa rubore,
    Auctorem sceleris clamat decepta draconem,
    Qui pomum vetito persuasit tangere morsu."

Thus Milton:

    "Whom thus afflicted when sad Eve beheld,
    Desolate where she sat, approaching nigh,
    Soft words to his fierce passion she essayed;
    But her with stern regard he thus repelled.
    Out of my sight, thou serpent! That name best
    Befits thee with him leagued, thyself as false
    And hateful; nothing wants, but that thy shape,
    Like his, and color serpentine, may show
    Thy inward fraud, to warn all creatures from thee
    Henceforth; lest that too heavenly form, pretended
    To hellish falsehood, snare them! But for thee
    I had persisted happy; had not thy pride
    And wandering vanity, when least was safe,
    Rejected my forewarning, and disdained
    Not to be trusted, longing to be seen,
    Though by the devil himself; him overweening
    To overreach; but with the serpent meeting,
    Fooled and beguiled; by him thou; I by thee
    To trust thee from my side, imagined wise,
    Constant, mature, proof against all assaults;
    And understood not all was but a show,
    Rather than solid virtue; all but a rib
    Crooked by nature, bent, as now appears,
    More to the part sinister, from me drawn;
    Well if thrown out, as supernumerary
    To my just number found. Oh! why did God,
    Creator wise, that peopled highest heaven
    With spirits masculine, create at last
    This novelty on earth, this fair defect
    Of nature, and not fill the world at once
    With men, as angels, without feminine;
    Or find some other way to generate
    Mankind? This mischief had not then befallen,
    And more that shall befall; innumerable
    Disturbances on earth through female snares,
    And strait conjunction with this sex.'"

                                _Paradise Lost_, x. 863-897.

The scriptural simplicity of this passage, as found in the poem
of St. Avitus, will be by many esteemed better than Milton's
ornamentation.

The book ends with a prediction of the advent of Christ, who is to
triumph over Satan. The leaving of paradise is touchingly described
at the close of the poem.

    "The sentence given, and by the trembling pair
    Received, with skins of beasts the Lord himself
    Clothed both the man and woman.
                              Then he drove
    Them out for ever from the happy garden
    Of paradise. Prone to the ground they fell,
    Those hapless ones. They entered on the world
    That was to them a wilderness. They fled
    With hasty steps, as by the avenging sword
    Pursued. The earth before them had its bowers
    Of trees and verdant turf; green meads and fountains,
    And winding streams, appear to greet their sight;
    Yet ah! how hideous is the landscape drear
    After thy lovely face, O Paradise!
    Startled, the pair survey the doleful scene,
    And weep to think of all that they have lost;
    They do not see the limits of the world;
    And yet it seems a narrow cell; they groan
    Immured in such a prison! Even the day
    Is darkness to their eyes; while the clear sun
    Is shining in his strength, they bitterly
    Complain that all the light has vanished from them."

A Dutch poet also--Joost Van Den Vondel--wrote a drama on the fall
of man, before Andreini's. Among the personages are Lucifer and his
attendant evil spirits, Gabriel, the King of Angels, Michael, Uriel,
etc. Adam and Eve are attended in paradise by a chief guardian angel.
The lyrics of the heavenly host have considerable poetic beauty.




THE WILLIAN GIRLS


Some persons have a natural enjoyment of tribulation. They take a
real pleasure in raising their eyebrows lugubriously, holding their
heads a little on one side with a sorrowful and resigned expression,
and looking at the world through blue spectacles. They "always sigh
in thanking God," and can find a cloud in the sunniest sky. You can
never conquer such people on their own ground. If you have a slight
pain in your little finger, they have an excruciating pain in their
thumb; if you have caught your robe on a nail, theirs has been rent
on a spike; if you have been wet in a shower, they have been soaked
in a torrent. These persons have minor voices, make great use of
chromatics in speaking, and their affections seem to be situated in
the liver.

Mr. Christopher Willian had a taint of this "green and yellow
melancholy" in his disposition, and his rapidly increasing family
gave full scope for its development.

"If Eva were a boy, now," he sighed, "I could soon have some one to
help me in the shop. But--nothing but girls!"

"Eva is a treasure!" Mrs. Willian answered stoutly. "I wouldn't
exchange her for the best boy in the world."

"But girls are so expensive," the father objected, "and they can't
earn any thing; that is, mine can't. I don't want a daughter of mine
to leave my house till she marries."

"And there is no need of their doing any thing, my dear," the mother
replied cheerfully. "We own our house, and your business is very
good. Then, when the mortgages are paid off on your building, the
rent of the upper flats will make us quite independent. In three or
four years we shall be out of the wood, all our pinching and toiling
over."

Mrs. Willian was a thrifty, clear-headed, energetic woman; but,
though she would not have owned it, she herself found the prospect
appalling. As she sat there after her husband left her, she glanced
out the chamber window and saw Dinah, the one servant of the house,
putting out the washing, her accusing face looming darkly over the
interminable lines of wet dry-goods. Oh! the strings to tie, the
buttons to button, the hooks to hook! And here on her knees lay
another candidate for such services, an unconscious little affliction
of two weeks old! Oh! the rents and rips to mend, the darnings and
makings over, the little faces to wash and locks to comb, the faults
to chide, the teasings to bear, the questions to answer! She had just
got a glimpse through the door of Eva with her hair in a snarl, and
of Helen with soiled stockings on; she knew that Frances had tumbled
downstairs and set her nose bleeding; she could hear Anne crying
pathetically for mother to come and rock her to sleep, and she was
almost sure that every thing was at sixes and sevens in the kitchen.

"But I will not lose my courage!" she exclaimed vehemently, and, in
proof that she would not, burst into hysterical weeping.

The fifth girl grew apace, and after her came Josephine, and after
Josephine came Jane.

"Mr. Willian is among the blessed," said the priest when this seventh
daughter was carried to him for baptism. "_Verily, he shall not be
confounded when he shall speak to his enemies in the gate._"

Others besides the priest had their jest concerning this regiment of
girls. Tradesmen smiled when purchases were made for them, people
laughed and counted when invitations were to be sent to them,
neighbors went to their windows to see the Willian procession start
for church. They became proverbial, especially with their father.

But as years passed, words of praise began to drop in among the
jests. Mothers marvelled to see how early the Willian girls learned
to sew and mend, how deftly they could use the broom and duster,
what womanly ways the elder had toward the younger. These mothers
reproachfully told their shiftless daughters what a dignified and
careful maiden Miss Eva was, and how even Anne could put a room
to rights after the smaller fry, and sing Jenny to sleep with a
voice like a bobolink's. For all these children took to singing as
naturally as birds do, and warbled before they could speak.

Nor were their happy hearts less valuable in the house than their
helpful hands. Half the mother's load of care melted from her
in the brightness of their faces, and the anxious cloud on Mr.
Christopher Willian's brow lightened in spite of him whenever some
gushing sprite, all laughter and kisses, ran to welcome him home.
He was sometimes vexed on recollecting how he had been lured from
a good grumble by their baby wiles. Indeed, he was not nearly so
dissatisfied as he pretended to be. Such sweet and healthy affections
as theirs were, which, never having been checked, flowed out in
joyous innocence; such pure, unerring instincts, that needed no
knowledge of baseness in order to shrink from its contact; such
open hands for the poor, such tender hands for the afflicted; and,
crowning all, such steadfast, unassuming piety. Among the young
ladies who, dressed to attract attention, promenaded the public
streets, the Willian girls were never found; their father's house was
the place where they made new acquaintances and entertained old ones.
And what did they conceal from their parents? Nothing. Their hopes
and plans and fears, their mistakes, their faults, all were freely
told. And how pretty they were! Their father secretly made the most
flowery comparisons when looking at them. He mentally challenged the
dew-washed morning roses and violets to vie with their fresh faces
around the breakfast table. When at evening they formed a ring of
bloom around the piano, and sang for their parents, or for visitors,
his private opinion was, that a choir of angels could not far excel
them; and when the circle broke, like a wreath falling into flowers,
and each went about some pretty employment, then Mr. Willian had
not eyes enough with which to watch his seven girls. But once own
to any such feeling, and there would be an end to his privilege
of grumbling. He well knew what a chorus would assail his first
grievance: "Why, papa, you said that we were--" etc.; or, "Now, Mr.
Willian, do be consistent! With my own ears I have heard you say--"
etc. So he wrapped the silver lining of his cloud inward, and showed
them only the gray.

But one evening, for a wonder, he came home with a joyful face and
no word of fault-finding. When Jenny, the youngest, ran to meet him,
he gave her a toss nearly to the ceiling; he gave one of Fanny's
curls a pull in passing her; he presented his wife with a bunch of
late flowers, he praised every thing on the supper-table. Finally,
when they were gathered in the evening, he told them the cause of
this unusual hilarity. He had that day made the last payment on the
building in which he had his shop, and now their weary economies were
at an end.

"But don't imagine, you young witches, that all this is to go in
finery," he said, giving the nearest one a pinch on the cheek. "The
house here needs a little fitting up, and perhaps we will have a new
piano. But I must begin now to lay by something. A man with such a
load of girls on his shoulders has to think of the future."

They were too much accustomed to remarks like the last to be greatly
disturbed by them, but this threw a momentary dampening. Then the
silence was broken by Miss Eva's calm and musical voice: "The house
needs to be painted and papered and furnished from basement to attic.
It is very shabby."

Mr. Willian forgot to exclaim at the dimensions of this proposition
when he looked in the fair face of his eldest daughter, and saw the
serene grace with which she seated herself beside her mother, and
smoothed down the folds of her dress. Eva was now twenty, calm,
blonde, and stately.

"O papa!" cried Florence across the fireplace; "do buy a lovely
landscape of Weber's we saw to-day. It is just what we want to put
over the mantel-piece in the front parlor." Again the father looked,
but said nothing.

Florence was a girl of artistic tastes, was frail and excitable, and
had brilliant violet eyes and an unsteady scarlet in her cheeks.

"Now at last I can have a watch!" cried Frances in a ringing voice.
"I've nearly got a curvature of the spine from looking round at the
clock to see if I have practised long enough."

"My dear Fanny," interposed her mother, "we need a new set of china
much more than you need a watch."

Frances was the romp of the family, a large girl of sixteen, with
heaps of brown curls around a _piquante_ face.

"I wish I had a little rosewood writing-desk and a pearl pen-handle,"
came in a clear, insinuating voice very high up the scale. Anne sat
in a low chair, with her chin in her hand, her elbow on her knee, and
her gaze fixed intently on the cornice of the room. But perceiving
no notice taken of her remark, she lowered her glance, and gave her
father a look out of the corners of her eyes, which thereby got the
appearance of being nearly all whites.

Anne was fourteen years of age, and had a quiet way of doing as she
pleased and getting all she wanted without seeming to try. Frances
called her pussy-cat.

"O papa!" broke in Georgiana, "can't I have a pair of skates and
learn to skate?"

"I want a silver mug!" cried Jane, the youngest, striking in before
Josephine.

Josephine sat in the shadow of her father's chair, and had two small
wrinkles between her brows.

"Is there any thing else any one will have?" asked Mr. Willian with
excessive politeness, after having caught breath. "Don't be bashful,
I beg! It is a pity there are only seven of you, with your mother
making eight. Possibly by putting a mortgage on the house, I may be
able to gratify your wishes. Speak up--do!"

Ever so slight a cloud settled upon the gentleman's audience as he
glanced over them, bowing suavely, and rubbing his hands with an
appearance of great cordiality.

"Papa!" came in a little voice out of the shadow. Every one had
forgotten Josephine.

A real smile melted the waxen mask of a smile on Mr. Willian's face.

"Poor Josie!" he said.

She came out of her corner and stood by his side. "Papa, have you got
the block insured?" she asked.

Her father colored suddenly as he put his arm about the child and
drew her closer to him. "Here girls," he said, "is one who thinks
of the means as well as the end. She never will ruin any one by her
extravagance."

"But have you, papa?" she persisted.

"This house is all right, dear; and I'm going to insure the store
to-morrow."

He spoke carelessly, but there was a slight stir of uneasiness
perceptible beneath.

His wife looked at him with surprise. "Why, father, how happened you
to let it run out?"

"I was so busy to-day I forgot all about it," he said almost
pettishly. "The policy expired only yesterday. I'll see to it the
first thing in the morning. Go and sing something, girls."

All but Josie gathered about the piano, and sang one of William
Blake's songs:

    "Can I see another's woe,
    And not be in sorrow too?
    Can I see another's grief,
    And not seek for kind relief?

    "Can I see a falling tear,
    And not feel my sorrow's share?
    Can a father see his child
    Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?

    "Can a mother sit and hear
    An infant groan, an infant fear?
    No, no! never can it be;
    Never, never can it be!

    "And can He, who smiles on all,
    Hear the wren with sorrows small,
    Hear the small bird's grief and care,
    Hear the woes that infants bear,

    "And not sit beside the nest
    Pouring pity in their breast?
    And not sit the cradle near,
    Weeping tear on infant's tear?

    "And not sit both night and day,
    Wiping all our tears away?
    Oh! no; never can it be;
    Never, never can it be!

    "He doth give his joy to all;
    He becomes an infant small,
    He becomes a man of woe,
    He doth feel the sorrow too."

In the midst of the last soft strain Eva's hands paused on the keys,
her sisters ceased singing, and her father and mother lifted their
faces to listen; for a loud gamut of bells outside had run up the
first stroke of the fire-alarm. At the last stroke, Mr. Willian
started up and went into the entry for his hat. Not a word was said
as he went out; but the girls gathered about their mother, and stood
with the breath just hovering on their lips, counting the alarm over
and over, hoping against hope. But, no; they had counted rightly at
first. The loud clear strokes through that silence left no room for
doubt.

The girls drew nearer their mother, their faces losing color.

"I can't bear the suspense, Eva," she said. "Get our bonnets, and we
will go down-town. Don't cry, Josie! You children all stay here and
say the rosary while we are gone. We will soon be back, and perhaps
we shall bring good news."

Florence took her beads from her pocket, put her arm around the
weeping Josie, and drew her down to her knees before their mother's
chair. Mrs. Willian glanced back as the others knelt too, then shut
the door, breathing a blessing on them. "If it should be God's will
to spare us now," she said, "I shall be the happiest mother in the
world."

It was not God's will to spare them, she soon found. As they turned
the last corner and came in sight of Mr. Willian's building, they
saw it the centre of a vast crowd, firemen, volunteer workers, and
lookers-on. There was no appearance of fire in the lower stories, but
smoke was gushing through all the interstices of the upper windows.

Mrs. Willian wrung her hands and turned away. "There go the savings
and toil of a lifetime!" she said.

It was impossible for the firemen to work well at that height,
and the flames were creeping to the air. In a few minutes the
smoke reddened, a little tongue of flame crept through a crevice,
broadened, and the fire burst forth. No effort could stay it.
Leisurely descending from floor to floor, it carried all before it.
A thread of smoke in a corner of the ceiling, a tiny flame, and soon
the whole room would be an intolerable brightness with masses of
falling flaming timbers.

At midnight the family were all at home again; Mr. Willian lying
half-senseless upon a sofa, his wife and children ministering to him.
In his frantic efforts to save something from the burning building,
one of his arms had been broken by the falling bricks.

Those were sorrowful days that followed, verifying the proverb
that it never rains but it pours. Josephine was taken ill the week
after the fire; but she was sure to be well soon, they said. She
was not very ill. There was a little cough, a little fever, and a
great weakness. The girls thought not much of it. They were too much
engaged, indeed, attending to their father, and doing an immense deal
of mysterious outside business.

"If Eva were only a boy!" sighed the father weakly. "A boy of twenty
could earn a good salary."

"Father," Eva began very decidedly, "a girl of twenty can earn a
good salary. Let me tell you what your good-for-nothing daughters
are going to do. We haven't been idle the fortnight past. I am to
take immediate charge of a class in the N---- school, with a salary
of five hundred dollars to begin with, and a yearly advance. I shall
stay at home, by your leave, and nearly all my money will go toward
the housekeeping expenses. Besides that, I have a music class of
four. So much for me. I doubt if that wonderful son would spare you
more out of his earnings. Florence is to take a few more lessons in
Indian-ink from Mr. Rudolf, and he says that in four or five weeks
she will be able to earn ten dollars a week, painting photographs.
Frances has got tatten and crochet-work to do for Blake Brothers, and
they promise to pay her well. She does such work beautifully. Anne is
to cut out paper bordering for Mr. Sales, who is building blocks upon
blocks of houses. He says that he will keep her busy three months.
Georgiana is to help mother about the house, and Dinah is going
away. So now, father, you can lie on your sofa and rest, and your
troublesome daughters will not let you starve."

Miss Eva ended with her cheeks very red, and her head very high in
the air. But her pride softened immediately when she saw her father's
quivering lips, that vainly attempted to speak.

"It is our turn now, dear papa," she said, kissing him; "and we are
quite proud and eager to begin. You have cast your bread upon the
waters in former times; now you must lie still and see it float back
to you."

"What can I do?" asked a weak little voice from the arm-chair where
Josie reclined.

"You can see which will get well the most quickly, you or papa," Mrs.
Willian said, bending with tearful eyes to caress the child. In this
careful little one she saw embodied all the unconfessed sadness and
anxiety of the one despondent period of her life. Poor Josie was the
scape-goat on whose frail shoulders had been laid her mother's doubts
and fears, and her father's selfish complaining.

Success almost always attends brave and cheerful effort, and the
Willian girls succeeded. Besides, they were heroines in their way,
and every one was sympathizing and helpful to them. But for their
father's depression, they would have been happier than ever before.
At last they were of use, and not only of use, but necessary. They
were no longer a burden tenderly but complainingly borne, but they
bore the family cares and labors on their own young shoulders.
What wonderful consultations they held, what plans they laid, what
economies they practised! What latent administrative powers were
developed at the hour of need, and what superlative managers they
proved themselves to be! How elastic a little money could be made
when smoothed out by such coaxing taper fingers, and shone upon by
such bright and careful eyes! Besides, they could not see but that
they lived as well as ever. Their breakfasts and dinners and suppers
were as good, and their home was the same.

"Half the pleasure of wealth is in the consciousness of possessing
it," said Florence philosophically. "Was it John Jacob Astor who said
that all he had from his riches was food and lodging? Well, we have
that. Of course it is a pity that papa's arm is still bad, though it
gives him time to develop his capacity for novels. What! ascetical
works are they? Yes; but I have seen novels too, papa. And here's a
new one for you. Take it easy. Just lie there and make believe that
you have become so rich that you have retired from business. Oh! what
blocks of houses you have. What ships, what lands, what bank-stock!
Isn't it weary to think what heaps of money you have to spend and
give away. Don't let's think about it!"

"I came past the ruins of the fire to-day, papa," Eva said, seating
herself by his sofa, and looking at him with her calm, sweet eyes.
"At first I was so foolish as to shrink and turn my head away, but
the next moment I looked. And I thought, papa, that may be what has
seemed to us a calamity may turn out a great blessing. We had built a
good many hopes into that brick and mortar, and instead of the fire
destroying, perhaps it has only purified them." Seeing that tears
came into his eyes, she added hastily, "Fanny was with me, and, of
course, took a grotesque view of the affair. She said that row of
tall buildings, with ours gone, looked like somebody who had lost a
front tooth."

Mr. Willian smiled faintly, but could answer nothing to their
cheerful talk. Even while it comforted him, it made him feel bitterly
ashamed of himself. Besides, he was very anxious about Josie.

It came upon them like a thunderbolt: Josie was dying! They could
scarcely believe the doctor, or the evidence of their own senses.
They hoped against hope. There was no definable disease; but the
child was dying merely because, instead of having had a healthy,
careless childhood, and time to learn gradually that life is not all
joy and sunshine, her infant eyes had looked too early upon the cross
of pain, and she had seen the shadow and felt the weight of it before
she could understand its consolation.

"That'll make one less, papa," she said faintly, looking up with
faded eyes as he bent over her.

"One less what, my dear?"

"One less girl to support," says Josie.

The father's face sank to the pillow. Oh! what a bitter punishment
for his selfish complainings, when his own child, in dying out of
his arms, thought only that she was ridding him of a burden! He
could scarcely find words in which to sob out his love, his regrets,
his entreaties that her tender spirit might be spared at least long
enough to witness his expiation. But even while he prayed it escaped
him. He clasped only a frail waxen form that answered no kiss,
uttered no more any childish, plaintive word.

"God forgive me!" he said. "Now I know what real loss is; and I
deserve it."

How they missed the careful, pathetic little face! How often they
became suddenly speechless when, in laying their plans--they found
that they had unconsciously included Josie! But they worked on
bravely in spite of pain--worked the better for it, indeed. And when
in after-years, all happy and prosperous and with homes of their own,
they talked over the past, and Mr. Willian told of the wonderful time
when his daughters had made caryatides of themselves to support the
edifice of his fallen fortunes, Josie was gratefully mentioned as the
noblest helper there. "For it was by her means that the cornerstone
of our new home was laid in heaven," he said.




RELIGION IN EDUCATION.


In every century there has arisen some question which, by reason of
its intrinsic importance, or immediate influence on society, may
be called the problem of the age. Our century, though differing
in so many respects from all the others, is not, however, an
exception to this seeming law of history. Not a few long-standing
grievances have been righted, knotty political intricacies severed,
and brilliant scientific triumphs achieved; yet important as was
the emancipation of 1829 or the disestablishment of 1869, the
laying of the transmarine cable, or the cutting of Suez, we believe
with the _Dublin Review_ that the great problem of our age is the
adjustment of the oft-debated educational question. Much has been
said, many editorials have been written, and pamphlets published
on this subject. It has afforded a noble theme for such orators as
Lacordaire, Montalembert, and Archbishop Hughes; and a trying task
for the skill and practical wisdom of such eminent statesmen as
Thiers, Lord Derby, and Gladstone. We know no better proof of the
vital importance of education, than the active part thus taken in its
discussion by men of every religious persuasion and political shade.
In fact, few questions affect so directly the welfare and interests
of the people; and assuredly in this country there is none of more
moment as regards the well-being and permanence of our national
institutions.

Two centuries ago, Leibnitz declared the proper training of youth
to be "the foundation of human happiness;" in the last century,
Washington called it the "pillar" of society; and in our own, Bishop
Dupanloup assures us that it and it alone "forms the greatness
of a nation, maintains its splendor, and prevents decay." But it
may be argued that intellectual discipline without the cooperation
of any religious element will produce these great and inestimable
results. This we deny. Did polite literature, for instance, save
the most refined nation of antiquity? Listen to the masters of the
lyre bewailing the degradation of their countrymen, and sighing for
a purer and loftier virtue than any their religion could inspire.
Did the plastic arts? Phidias and Apelles will return the melancholy
answer. The eloquence of the orator? The noblest appeals of duty,
the most patriotic harangue or spirit-stirring philippic palled
alike upon a degenerate race. The wisdom of the legislator? All
the sagacity of Solon and Lycurgus could but retard the downfall
of the country. In fine, did philosophy? Its schools were often
sinks of immorality, and vice. A few great minds, indeed, rose
above the absurd creations of mythology, and taught the precepts
of natural morality; but, like the dragon-fly of the tropics, they
flitted across the night of paganism, lights to themselves and mere
ornaments of the surrounding darkness. No wonder that the Grecian
states declined, that their last day soon "quivered on the dial of
their doom," and that they went down into a night which never knew a
morrow. The Romans once added to the speculative wisdom of the Greeks
an almost heroic practice of all the natural virtues. Yet they, too,
were swept by a torrent of vice into the common tomb of nations; and
only a few broken columns remain to-day to tell the traveller what
was once the seat of a world-wide empire.

Separate religion, then, from education, as Mr. John Stuart Mill
would fain do; banish it entirely from the class-room, and you
will have taken the most effective means of insuring proximate
dissoluteness and ultimate ruin. Even the author of _Lothair_
recognizes that "without religion the world must soon become a scene
of universal desolation." If, when children are asked how they are
occupied in school, they cannot say with the Joas of Racine,

    "J'adore le Seigneur, on m'explique sa loi,"

sooner or later, we may have to say with Abner,

    "Juda est sans force, Benjamin sans vertu."

Intellectual culture, therefore, even in its highest perfection,
can gain at best but an ephemeral triumph. It cannot perpetuate the
civilization to which a people in the meridian of their greatness may
attain; and it certainly has never raised a fallen empire, nor poured
a quickening stream through the veins of a superannuated nation. This
inefficiency can be accounted for only by the absence of that pure
and sublime faith which commanded the respect of the hordes that
poured from the north, to batter down the last remains of a gigantic
fabric, as well as of that sublime moral code which tamed these rude
nomads and raised them from a savage state to the loftiest heights of
Christian civilization.

The term education is from the Latin _e_ and _duco_, meaning
literally to lead or draw out. Some writers have attempted to define
it "the drawing out or development of the mental faculties." This
may be a "scientific" view of head-culture; but as a definition of
education, it is defective and very unphilosophical. Defective,
because it embraces only a part; unphilosophical, because it
substitutes the secondary for the essential. We maintain that
instruction is but a branch of education, to which religion is as
the parent stem. If we consult the masters of thought, and those
who shape the destinies of nations, we shall be surprised to find
how unanimously they hold moral training paramount to intellectual
culture, and how strongly they insist on making the latter always
subservient to the former. The better to substantiate our assertion
against the cavillings of sceptics, we will give a few quotations,
selecting only from Protestant authors. The end of education,
according to Milton, "is to fit man to perform justly, skilfully,
and magnanimously all the offices both public and private of peace
and war." "The hard and valuable part of education," says Locke, "is
virtue; this is the solid and substantial good which the teacher
should never cease to inculcate till the young man places his
strength, his glory, and his pleasure in it." "The educating of a
young man," writes Lord Kames, "to behave well in society is of
still greater importance than making him a Solomon in knowledge;"
and "We shall never know," says Sir Walter Scott, "our real calling
or destiny, unless we have taught ourselves to consider every thing
else as moon-shine compared with the education of the heart." And
Lord Derby: "Religion is not a thing apart from education, but is
interwoven with its whole system; it is a principle which controls
and regulates the whole mind and happiness of the people." And
Guizot: "Popular education, to be truly good and socially useful,
must be fundamentally religious."

Thus, then, the essential element of education--its pith and
marrow, so to speak--is the religious element. To exclude it from
the school-room is, therefore, a crying injustice to the rising
generation and a crime against society.

It is not one portion of the "triple man," but the whole--the
physical, intellectual, and moral being--the body, the mind, the
head--that must be cultivated and "brought up." Neglect any one part
of man's nature, and you at once disturb the equilibrium of the
whole, and produce disorder; educate the body at the expense of the
mind and soul, and you will have only animated clay; educate the
intelligence at the expense of the moral and religious feelings, and
you but fearfully increase a man's power to effect evil. You store
the arsenal of his mind with weapons to sap alike the altar and
the throne, to carry on a war of extermination against every holy
principle, against the welfare and the very existence of society.

Catiline, the polished patrician, was more dreaded by the Roman
senate than the steel of his hired assassins. The French revolution,
the most violent outbreak that ever convulsed society, was ushered
in by a blaze of genius; but, like the high intelligence of the
"archangel ruined," it brought desolation and death in its fiery
track. Science without religion is more destructive than the sword in
the hands of unprincipled men. "Talent if divorced from rectitude,"
says Channing, "will prove more of a demon than a god." It is these
enlightened infidels that arrest the progress of true civilization
and prepare those terrible catastrophes which deluge a country with
blood. Who were the leaders in the work of destruction and wholesale
butchery in the Reign of Terror? The nurslings of lyceums in which
the chaotic principles of the "philosophers" were proclaimed as
oracles of truth. Who are those turbulent revolutionists who now long
to erect the guillotine by the Tuileries? And who are those secret
conspirators and their myrmidon partisans who have sworn to unify
Italy or lay it in ruins? Men who were taught to scout the idea of a
God and rail at religion; to consider Christianity as a thing of the
past and a legion of "isms" as the regenerators of the future; men
who revel in wild chimeras by night, and seek to realize their mad
dreams by day.

The frightful excesses to which irreligion directly leads so struck
one of the most frantic revolutionists of 1793 that, yet dripping
with blood, he mounted to the pediment of a temple and with a pencil
wrote this memorable inscription, "The French nation recognizes the
existence of a Supreme Being;" and a few hours before ascending the
scaffold to suffer the just penalty of his enormities, he cried out
to his countrymen, "The republic can only be established on the
eternal bases of morality." Terrible confession wrung from a regicide
in the most impious moment of history!

Robespierre proclaimed the truth. The only safety for a commonwealth,
the only source of greatness and prosperity for a nation, as well as
of tranquillity and happiness for the individual, is religion. When
men reject its heavenly guidance, duty becomes as void of meaning to
them as "honor" was to a well-known Shakespearean character, the most
sacred obligations dwindle down into mere optional practices, and the
moral code itself soon becomes little more than the bugbear of the
weak-minded. "The safeguard of morality," says De Tocqueville, "is
religion;" and he concludes a chapter of his _American Republic_ with
the following pertinent remark: "Religion is the companion of liberty
in all its battles and triumphs; the cradle of its infancy, and the
divine source of its claims; it is the safeguard of morality, and
morality is the best security of law as well as the surest pledge of
freedom."

The philosophers of the eighteenth century, by their monstrous errors
and shameless depravity, have shown but too clearly that science
without religion

    "Leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind."

These vaunted _esprits forts_ had entered the realms of learning
and returned as conquerors laden with treasures; but instead of
consecrating the spoil to the service of the true, the good, and
the beautiful, they paid it as a votive tribute to the evil genius
of license and disorder. The world then saw these very men to whom
princes had offered the incense of adulation enthrone an impure
goddess on the altar of the Most High, and fall prostrate before a
public harlot.

If further proof were needed of the immoral tendency of science
separated from religion, we could silently point to the nameless
abominations of the Communists, Fourierists, and other such vile and
degraded fraternities; we could dwell on the cold-blooded murders and
frightful suicides that fill so many domestic hearths with grief and
shame; the scarcely concealed corruption of public and professional
men; the adroit peculation and wilful embezzlement of the public
money; those monopolizing speculations and voluntary insolvencies so
ruinous to the community at large; and, above all, those shocking
atrocities so common in unbelieving countries--the legal dissolution
of the matrimonial tie and the wanton tampering with life in its very
bud. These humiliating facts are sufficient to convince any impartial
mind that there can be no social virtue, no morality, no true and
lasting greatness without religion.

Here we meet the question, When should these salutary doctrines
be inculcated? As well might it be asked when the builder should
lay the foundation of his edifice, or the farmer sow his field. If
religious principles be not laid broad and deep in childhood, there
is great danger that the superstructure will topple and fall. Youth
has been called the seed-time of life; and experience as well as
reason proves the same law to hold good in mental as in material
husbandry; "What you sow that you shall reap." Men do not seek grapes
from thorns, nor figs from thistles. Yet, by a strange inconsistency,
some would expect virtuous youths from godless schools. But the order
of nature cannot be reversed. Like generates like.

In childhood the mind is simple and docile; the soul, pure and
candid; and the heart may easily be cast into any mould. It is of the
highest importance for parents and educators to bear in mind that
the first impressions are the last forgotten. The pious child may in
after-life, in an evil hour, be led astray by the force of passion or
bad example, but at least, when the fires of youth have cooled with
advancing age, there is great probability that he will return again
to virtue and piety. With great truth the poet has said,

    "Take care in youth to form the heart and mind,
    For as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined."

One of the greatest thinkers of our age, thoroughly convinced of
the paramount importance of early moral training, would have the
air of the school-room, as it were, impregnated with religion.
"It is necessary," says Guizot, "that natural education should be
given and received in the midst of a religious atmosphere, and that
religious impressions and religious observances should penetrate
all its parts." It would, indeed, be well if those who advocate the
exclusion of religion from our schools would read and maturely weigh
these words of the illustrious Protestant statesman and historian. A
little further on occurs the following remarkable passage: "Religion
is not a study or an exercise, to be restricted to a certain place
and a certain hour; it is a faith and a law which ought to be felt
everywhere, and which in this manner alone can exercise all its
beneficent influence upon our minds and lives." In the same spirit
Disraeli says, "Religion should be the rule of life, not a casual
incidence." It is then absurd to devote six days of the week to
the teaching of human learning, and trust to a hurried hour in the
Sunday-school for the imparting of religious knowledge. By such a
system, we may make expert shop-boys, first-rate accountants, shrewd
and thriving "earth-worms," as Bishop Berkeley says; but it would
be presumption to think of thus making good citizens, still less
virtuous Christians.

To-day more than ever we need a thorough religious education. The
enemies of Christianity are now making war upon its dogmas more
generally and craftily than at any former period. Their attacks, for
being wily and concealed, are all the more pernicious. The impious
rage of a Voltaire, or the "solemn sneer" of a Gibbon, would be less
dangerous than this insidious warfare. They disguise their designs
under the appearance of devotion to progressive ideas, hatred of
superstition and intolerance, all the better to instil the slow
but deadly poison. By honeyed words, a studied candor, a dazzle of
erudition, they have spread their "gossamer nets of seduction" over
the world. The press teems with books and journals in which doctrines
subversive of religion and morality are so elegantly set forth that
the unguarded reader, like Roger in Ariosto, is very apt to be
deceived by the fascination of false charms, and to mistake a most
hideous and dangerous object for the very type of beauty. The serpent
stealthily glides under the silken verdure of a polished style.
Nothing is omitted. The passions are fed and the morbid sensibilities
pandered to; firmness in the cause of truth or virtue is called
obstinacy; and strength of soul, a refractory blindness. The bases
of morality are sapped in the name of liberty; the discipline of the
church, when not branded as sheer "mummery," is held up as hostile
to personal freedom; and her dogmas with one or two exceptions are
treated as opinions which may be received or rejected with like
indifference.

Nor is this irreligious tendency confined to literary publications;
it finds numerous and powerful advocates in men of scientific
pursuits, who, like Belial in Milton, "strive to make the worse
appear the better cause." The chemist has never found in his crucible
that intangible something which men call spirit; so, in the name of
science, he pronounces it a myth. The anatomist has dissected the
human frame; but failing to meet the immaterial substance--the soul,
he denies its existence. The physicist has weighed the conflicting
theories of his predecessors in the scales of criticism; and finally
decides that bodies are nothing more than the accidental assemblage
of atoms, and rejects the very idea of a Creator. The geologist,
after investigating the secrets of the earth, triumphantly tells us
that he has accumulated an overwhelming mass of facts to refute the
biblical cosmogony and thus subvert the authority of the inspired
record. The astronomer flatters himself that he has discovered
natural and necessary laws which do away with the necessity of
admitting that a divine hand once launched the heavenly bodies
into space and still guides them in their courses; the ethnographer
has studied the peculiarities of the races, he has met with
widely-different conformations, and believes himself sufficiently
authorized to deny the unity of the human family; in a word, they
conclude that nothing exists but matter, that God is a myth, and the
soul "the dream of a dream."

Thus do men attack these sacred truths which, in the words of Balmes,
"cannot be shaken without greatly injuring and finally destroying
the social edifice." What, then, must be done to save society from
the perils that menace it--to stem the tide that bids fair to sweep
away eventually even civilization itself? What is the remedy for
the profligacy that disgraces some of our crowded centres, and the
demoralization that is fast gangrening our rural districts? There is
_one_, and we believe there is _but_ one. Let the rising generation
be "brought up" in a "religious atmosphere." If we Christianize our
youth, we may be sure of having a virtuous and a virile people; for
it is an ethical truth, that "the morals are but the outward forms
of the inner life."

The Father of our country, then, was right, when he said, in his
farewell address to the American nation, that religion and morality
are the "props" of society and the "pillars" of the state. History
tells in its every page that the decline and downfall of nations have
ever been caused by immorality and irreligion.

Our national institutions, our prosperity and civilization depend
for their permanence and perpetuity not so much on the culture of
the arts, sciences, literature, or philosophy, as on the general
diffusion of the salutary and vivifying principles of religion.

Let us then infuse good morals by the most powerful of all means,
Christian education; let doctrine be taught simultaneously with
science; let the class-room be impregnated with the sweet and
life-giving aroma of Christianity, and we shall soon check the
torrent of infidelity, avert impending evils, and prepare the golden
age of our republic.




TRANSLATED FROM THE REVUE MILITAIRE FRANCAISE.

THE JOURNAL OF THE CAMPAIGN OF CLAUDE BLANCHARD,

COMMISSARY-GENERAL TO THE AUXILIARY TROOPS SENT TO AMERICA UNDER THE
COMMAND OF LIEUTENANT-GENERAL THE COUNT DE ROCHAMBEAU. 1780-1783.


"I spent three years, in the capacity of commissary-general, with the
body of troops which General Rochambeau brought to the assistance of
the Americans. During the entire war, I wrote down every day, dating
from our departure from Brest, both the events I witnessed, and those
that were personal. This journal is not in very good order, and now
that I have leisure, (Messidor, second year of the Republic,) I
intend to copy it out clearly, without making any important change in
either the style or the matter. I wrote, however, merely for my own
amusement, and for an occupation in idle moments."

Thus begins a manuscript, hitherto unpublished and entirely
unknown, which appears worthy of being noticed and rescued from
oblivion. The author of this journal, Commissary Blanchard, became
later commissary-general, but was deprived of this position by
the government of the Reign of Terror, whose persecutions at the
time--the eve of the fall of Robespierre--ending generally in a
sentence of death, he hid himself in Paris. Such is the leisure he
speaks of in the passage cited above; leisure very short, however,
and which he occupied in the manner indicated, by reviewing his
notes of past times and collecting his personal reminiscences of the
American expedition so dear to all who had taken part in it. Soon
afterward he was restored to active service, and thought no more,
in a career occupied with the wars of the period, of the manuscript
which he had not intended for publicity, and which, after his death
in 1803, remained forgotten among family papers, as so many other
documents have which are still unknown. Compared with the works
published on the same events which he writes of, this journal, now
ninety years old, certainly has its own value and special interest.
It is apparent from the first lines of the manuscript, quoted at the
beginning of this article, that M. Blanchard wrote without special
thought--merely for his own satisfaction, and prompted by the
natural desire to note down whatever he saw, without any intention
of composing a history or a book of memoirs. This is an excellent
disposition for sincerity, and our epoch loves and prefers to all
others these unstudied writings, when they refer, as they do in this
case, to interesting periods of the past.

The author of this journal was forty years of age at the time of
the American war. Though now completely forgotten, he attracted
considerable attention in his day, and he figures in the "Biographies
Universelles" of the beginning of the century. Born at Angers, on
the 16th of May, 1742, and sprung from a distinguished family of
that city, he appears, for the first time in 1762 in the war bureau,
under the orders of one of his relations, M. Dubois, "Chief of the
War Bureau and General Secretary of the Swiss and Grisons."[290]
He was appointed commissary in 1768, and served in this capacity
throughout the Corsican campaign, remaining on the island ten years.
As commissary-general, in 1780 he accompanied General Rochambeau to
America. In 1788, he was commissary at Arras, where the following
year he was put in command of the national guard of the city; and
soon afterward became, with Carnot, then unknown, its representative
in the legislative assembly. Here M. Blanchard played a modest but
active and useful part, and he, with Lacuee and Matthieu Dumas,
formed the standing committee on military questions. Removed by
the Committee of Public Safety, he afterward held the position of
commissary-general successively to the army of Sambre-et-Meuse, to
that of the interior, to the army of Holland, and finally to the
Hotel des Invalides, where he died, leaving the reputation of an
officer "remarkable for his talents and virtues."[291]

The First Consul, on hearing of his death, expressed deep regret,
according to the testimony of General Lacuee. Blanchard, although
at the time but sixty years of age, was the oldest among the
commissaries of the army.[292]

The journal of M. Blanchard will give a more correct idea of the
character of the man, of his upright and honest nature, and of his
strong and good sense. A few words are necessary, however, on the
events of which we have to speak, and of the writers who have related
them at first hand.

The violent struggle of the English colonies against the mother
country began in 1775; Declaration of the Independence of the United
States--the hundredth anniversary of which is near at hand--was made
on the 4th of July, 1776. Soon afterward, when the Americans were
hard pressed, France came to their aid, and the war with England
opened with the fight at Ouessant on the 17th of June, 1778. It was
at first a naval war which spread over the whole ocean. Subsequently,
when the American cause was in a most critical condition, France,
at the request of Congress, sent pecuniary assistance, and also a
body of troops, who were placed under the chief command of General
Washington.

This war, in which we acquired glory at sea, and which raised up our
navy--this reappearance of the white flag in the new world, from
which the seven years' war had excluded it[293]--the part taken by
France in establishing the independence of the United States, and
in founding a nation destined for so grand a future--are events
of far more than ordinary importance, and which possess the same
interest to-day as when they transpired. Nevertheless their details
are, as a general thing, but imperfectly known; and particularly
the campaign of the corps sent to America, which brought into
close contact the soldiers of old France and the militia of the
young republic, is in the larger histories usually summed up in a
few lines.[294] This doubtless arises from the fact that no work
of importance has treated this subject in a special manner. It is
true that the little army commanded by General Rochambeau had few
opportunities of distinguishing itself. But, although its active
services were confined to a few important marches, and to the taking
of York town, which was forced to surrender, together with a division
of the English army, it gave the Americans no inconsiderable moral
support, as well as effective assistance which was most opportune.
The revolution which followed soon after, and the twenty-five years
of war rendered glorious by so many famous campaigns, effaced the
remembrance of the naval combat of Chesapeake Bay and the taking
of Yorktown, and turned attention from military operations which
are insignificant, if we consider the number of troops engaged, but
important, if we look to the result. In fact, these battles between
a few thousand men, decided the fate of one of the most powerful of
modern nations as well as the future balance of the world.

It is not, however, because documents on the American campaign
are wanting; on the contrary, they are numerous and interesting;
our archives should possess intact the official reports; while
individual reminiscences contained in a number of books published at
different times, are valuable sources of information from which as
yet nothing has been drawn. Four distinguished officers engaged in
this expedition among the French (not to mention American or English
writers) have found pleasure in recalling the memory and narrating
the incidents of what they considered the noblest or the dearest
portion of their career; the _Memoires du Marechal de Rochambeau_,
(1809,) the first source of information, give with clearness
and precision, but without embellishment, a detailed account of
the campaign which above all else has served to render his name
illustrious. Next comes the _Correspondance et Manuscrits du General
La Fayette_, (1837,) although La Fayette took part in the war of
independence as a volunteer and an American general, independent of
the action of the royal forces. The _Souvenirs du Comte de Segur_,
(1835,) and those of _Comte Matthieu Dumas_, (1839,) young and
brilliant aides-de-camp to General Rochambeau, also furnish some
particulars about this campaign worthy of note. We must not forget
the _Memoires du Duc de Lauzun_, (1822,) colonel of a regiment in the
expeditionary corps, and the _Voyages dans l'Amerique Septentrionale
de M. le Marquis de Chastellux_, (1786,) major-general; this work,
though full of description and of anecdote, is of only moderate
ability; but the name of its author, a member of the Academy and a
friend of Voltaire, gave it a certain degree of success at the time
of its appearance, owing to curiosity and to circumstances.

After these works, which possess each a peculiar interest, and
without pretending to the importance which they derive from the names
of their distinguished authors, the journal of Commissary Blanchard
(who is mentioned in all of them) deserves certainly an honorable
place. It is remarkable for great exactness, variety of information,
and a genial and pleasant tone. Moreover, as it is devoted solely to
the American expedition, it is naturally more diffuse on this special
subject than books which treat of an entire life.

We shall now let the journal speak for itself:

    "Lieutenant-General the Count de Rochambeau, having been
    appointed to the command of the corps which was under orders
    to embark, although their destination was not yet positively
    known, engaged me to serve with these troops, in my capacity of
    commissary.

    "I accordingly repaired to Brest on the 20th of March, 1780. M.
    de Tarle, commissary of provisions, who performed the duties
    of purveyor to the troops, did not arrive for eight or ten
    days after; he brought me a commission as commissary-in-chief.
    Finding myself alone at Brest, I assisted both the land and
    naval commanders to ship all the supplies and whatever would
    be necessary for the troops after they had landed. As the
    navy had not been able to furnish a sufficient number of
    transports, they were obliged to leave in France the regiments
    of Neustrie and Anhalt, which were to have accompanied the
    expedition as well as two or three hundred men of the legion of
    Lauzun. Those who embarked numbered five thousand, consisting
    of the regiments of Bourbonnais, Soissonnais, Saintonge,
    Royal-deux-Ponts, about five hundred artillery-men, and six
    hundred of the legion of Lauzun, of whom three hundred were
    to form a body of cavalry. These troops, their baggage, the
    artillery, and other things necessary to an army, were put on
    board twenty-five to thirty transports or store-ships; they
    were accompanied by seven vessels of war and seven frigates.
    La Fantasque, an old vessel, was armed as a store-ship and
    intended for a hospital; they put on board of her the money,
    the heavy artillery, and a considerable number of passengers.

    "All the general officers slept on board the 14th of April; I
    was there also, and embarked on the Conquerant, commanded by La
    Grandiere.

    "The following are the names of the principal persons who
    composed our army:

    "Count de Rochambeau, lieutenant-general, commander-in-chief.

    "The Baron de Viomenil, the Count de Viomenil, the Chevalier de
    Chastellux, field-marshals, (the last mentioned performs the
    duties of a major-general.)

    "De Beville, brigadier-general and quartermaster, (de Choisy,
    brigadier, did not arrive till the 30th of September.)

    "De Tarle, general commissary, acting as purveyor.

    "Blanchard, commissary-general.

    "De Corny, de Villemanzy, chief of ordnance.

    "Gau, commissary of artillery.

    "D'Aboville, commander-in-chief of artillery.

    "Desandrouins, commander of the engineers.

    "Daure, purveyor of provisions.

    "Demars, purveyor of the hospitals.

    "There were yet many other purveyors, for forage, meat, etc.;
    in general there were too many employed, particularly as
    purveyors-in-chief; all this was according to the taste of M.
    de Veymerangers, in whose hands had been left the organization
    of the commissary department of our army; a man skilful in
    business matters, but given to expense and extravagance, and
    who needed looking after.

    "M. de Menonville and the Chevalier de Tarle, brother of the
    commissary, were general staff officers; M. de Beville junior,
    and M. Collot, were assistant quartermasters.

    "M. de Rochambeau had for his aides-de-camp M. de Fersey, de
    Damas, Charles Lameth, Closen, Matthieu Dumas, Lamberdiere, de
    Vauban, and Cromot-Dubourg.

    "M. de Viomenil had also several, among whom were MM. de
    Chabannes, de Pange, d'Olonne, etc.

    "Those of M. de Chastellux were MM. Montesquieu, grandson of
    the president, and Lynch, an Irishman.

    "The colonels were:

    "Of the regiment of Bourbonnais, the Marquis de Leval and the
    Count de Rochambeau, (as second in command,) son of the general
    in chief.

    "Of the Royal-Deux-Ponts, MM. de Deux-Ponts, brothers.

    "Of the Saintonge, MM. de Custine and the Viscount de Charlus,
    son of M. de Castries.

    "Of the Soissonnais; MM. de Sainte-Mesme and the Viscount de
    Noailles.

    "Of the legion of Lauzun, the Duke de Lauzun and M. de
    Dillon."[295]

I have copied this page because it shows to some extent the formation
of the staff of an army corps of the last century, and also on
account of the names which it gives. They are those of the very
highest nobility of France, who threw themselves with enthusiasm into
this expedition, which they called the "crusade of the eighteenth
century."

Among the companions in arms of M. Blanchard, whose names often recur
in his journal, many who were then young afterward became celebrated.
Not to speak of two generals already distinguished, Rochambeau and La
Fayette, and the Chevalier, later the Marquis, de Chastellux, known
by his connection with the encyclopedists, and who died in 1788,
the following are worthy of mention: Biron (the Duke de Lauzun) and
Custine, two generals of the republic, who shared the same tragic
fate; the Prince de Broglie, field-marshal in the army of the Rhine,
indicted before the revolutionary tribunal, and executed in 1794;
the Count de Dillon, general in 1792, falsely accused of treason,
put to death by his troops, and to whom the Convention, in gratitude
for his devotion, decreed the honors of the Pantheon; Pichegru, at
that time only an artillery-man; the Viscount de Noailles, who, on
the famous night of the fourth of August, was the first to propose
the abolition of the feudal laws; (his military future promised to
be brilliant when he died in consequence of a wound received in
the expedition to San Domingo.) By the side of these men, whose
careers were cut short by death, we find others whose lives were
long and illustrious. Berthier, then an under-officer, destined to
become marshal of France and minister of war, Prince of Wagram and
Neufchatel, etc. The Count de Segur, general, diplomatist, historian,
whose son, equally distinguished and still alive, is the author of
the _Campaign of_ 1812, that touching recital of an eye-witness.
Matthieu Dumas, a general, an able commissary and esteemed military
writer, a peer of France in 1830; Aubert-Dubayet, an inferior officer
in the expeditionary corps, minister of war under the republic.[296]
The Duke de Damas, the faithful companion of the Bourbons during
their exile; Charles de Lameth, equally brilliant in speech and in
action, a member of the assembly, lieutenant-general in 1814, deputy,
and peer of France. The Count de Vauban, aide-de-camp to the Count
d'Artois, who fought in the army of Conde and of Quiberon; the Duke
de Castries, who died in 1842, a peer of France, etc.

On the 9th of July 1780, after a voyage of sixty-nine days, America
was signalled by the French squadron. Nevertheless, the disembarkment
did not take place at Newport, Rhode Island, for some days after.

    "On the 12th, the troops had not yet landed; there had even
    been an express prohibition against their going ashore; and
    I had not permission to do so until four o'clock in the
    afternoon. I then landed at Newport. This town is small and
    pretty; the streets are straight, and the houses, though for
    the most part built of wood, make a good appearance. There was
    an illumination in the evening. A citizen invited me to his
    house and treated me well. I there took tea, which was served
    by the daughter of my host."

The daily business and special occupations of a commissary as well
as the incidents of a campaign life, date from this day for M.
Blanchard. In an army in active service, the position of a commissary
affords him an opportunity, if he is so inclined, to carefully
observe, if not military operations, at least the strange country
to which the war has brought him. After his immediate duties, he
should acquaint himself with its resources, and have relations
with the population, be they friendly or otherwise, of every kind.
Hence arises a great variety of impressions and remarks which we
accordingly find in this journal.

A short time after landing, M. Blanchard was sent to the assembly
in Boston, to ask the immediate assistance of the provincial troops
in case of an attack upon Rhode Island by the English, which they
anticipated. A German dragoon in the American service, with whom
he was obliged to converse in Latin, acted as his guide. Boston,
with its Presbyterian population descended from some of Cromwell's
followers who had emigrated to America, was still the active head of
the revolution. M. Blanchard met there some of the remarkable men
connected with it: Dr. Cooper, John Adams, and Hancock. He describes
the general appearance of the city which reminded him of Angers.
He met among the inhabitants of Boston two who bore the same name
as himself; they were the descendants of refugees driven from this
country by the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and who in less
than a century had become completely American.

The expedition to America lasted from July, 1780, to December,
1782, a period of two years and a half, and during that interval it
seems to us that comparatively little was done. Certainly in those
days they did not move so fast as now, and no one appeared to be in
a hurry; it was reserved for our revolution to give a quickening
impulse to the world.

The corps of five thousand men under General Rochambeau had, when
they landed in America, no less than eight hundred on the sick-list;
a frightful number, being nearly one fifth of the effective force.
The length of the voyage, and the bad quality of the food on
shipboard, were the causes of this. We learn, however, from another
statement of a similar kind made by M. Blanchard, that such a
proportion on the sick-list after a sea voyage was by no means
unusual. The first thing to be done was to restore the health of
the army, and for that purpose it remained a whole year inactive
at Rhode Island, if we except the sailing of an expedition with a
party on board intended for land-service, which was the occasion of
a naval engagement in Chesapeake Bay. Finally the army moved from
its quarters to effect a junction with Washington and La Fayette,
and, supported by the flotilla of M. de Grasse, commander of the
squadron, who landed an additional body of three thousand men, they
proceeded in concert to invest Yorktown, where Cornwallis, the
English commander, was besieged, and not long after was forced to
capitulate.[297] The small French army passed its second winter in
America, in the State of Virginia, in the vicinity of Yorktown. In
1782, it returned northward, threatened New York, the last place of
which the English held possession, and reembarked at the close of
1782.

Such is the framework to the descriptive reminiscences of M.
Blanchard. Those two long marches from north to south, and again from
south to north, gave him particular facilities for observing the
country. Sometimes with the army, oftener alone, and going in advance
to make preparations for the sick and the commissariat of the army--a
double duty with which he was charged--he visited the chief cities of
the United States, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Hartford, Fredericksburg,
Williamsburg, Wilmington, Alexandria, Providence, etc. Philadelphia,
then the seat of Congress, counted at that time thirty-five thousand
inhabitants; it has now seven hundred thousand. Every village, every
station passed through, is recorded and described by M. Blanchard;
frequently they are but the small beginnings of what are now great
and flourishing cities. These pictures of other times extracted from
the note-book of a French officer, the rude attempts at agriculture,
improvements then in their infancy, the plantations, as they then
existed, and roads and public works just laid out but incomplete,
present the contrast of what existed then with what is to be seen
to-day, and give us an idea of the immense progress that has been
made in the interval. There is also for the American reader a
particular interest attached to the names given of several families
with whom he merely lodged, or whose hospitality was pressed upon
him, and whose great-grandchildren perhaps still reside in the same
places.[298] When our troops marched on Yorktown, they traversed that
portion of Virginia so often the scene of conflict in the late civil
war; and in this recital, which seems to treat of times and events
long since gone by, we meet with many names of localities common to
both wars. There were, even at this time, indications of different
tendencies on the part of the populations of the North and South, and
the following extract from the journal makes allusion to this in very
striking terms:

    "The inhabitants of these southern provinces are very different
    from those of the North, who, as I have already said, cultivate
    their own lands. In the South, they have negro slaves whom
    they compel to work, while they themselves lead an idle life,
    chiefly occupied with the pleasures of the table. In general,
    neither as to morality nor honesty can they compare with the
    Americans of the North, and in some sort the North and South
    represent two different races."

Expeditions sent out for provisions, wood, and forage; transports
for the troops; difficulties arising from want of roads and bridges,
and the depreciation of American paper money; remarks on the food,
the furniture, the price of articles, the fuel, (they had great wood
fires,) the quality of the soil and state of cultivation; frequent
accidental meetings with refugees from the edict of Nantes, (not far
from New York there was a village built entirely by refugees from
Rochelle, called New Rochelle, which a number of our officers went to
see;) such are the usual matters treated of in his journal, on which
in a few words he frequently throws much light, and makes his journal
interesting to those who take pleasure in such details. Agriculture
and the aspects of nature are among the subjects that most occupied
the attention of M. Blanchard: he does not omit to name the plants
and shrubs, both such as reminded him of France, and such as were
till then unknown to him. This life of movement and activity seemed
to be his delight. On one occasion, he explored a large portion of
the forest to find the most suitable place for cutting down winter
fuel for the army, and superintended the work himself. "I love the
woods," says he, "I was there in some sort alone, far from the world.
I rode on horseback, and led the life of a man who dwelt upon his
own estate." That expression of feeling recurs more than once in
his journal, and mingles with some natural observations, like the
following:

    "To-day, after dinner, while walking as usual alone in the
    woods, (not far from Baltimore,) I saw a humming-bird. I knew
    such birds were to be found in North America, and some had
    already seen them; but this was the first I met with. I easily
    recognized it from the description given of it. Its small size,
    its swiftness on the wing, its beak, and the brilliancy of its
    colors are remarkable. It makes a humming noise with its wings
    while flying. At first one might imagine that he had met the
    insect called the _demoiselle_ in some provinces of France. It
    is no larger; it has also a peculiarity of stopping suddenly
    without beating its wings. I saw it rest upon a shrub very
    close to me; after that, I had the pleasure of observing it for
    a long time."

All the documents in reference to the war in America agree in stating
that the relations of our troops with the army and population of
the United States were excellent, and that the discipline of the
auxiliary corps was admirable; every one in fact seems to have
carried away the most favorable impressions of the expedition. The
universal enthusiasm which gave rise in France to this expedition
still lasted; the Americans were everywhere popular, and the new
ideas which prepared the way for our revolution led our countrymen
to look with interest and partiality on institutions, manners,
and characteristics so different from ours. We find this bias, so
general at the time, in the journal of M. Blanchard, but still
without leading him into exaggeration, and with some of those slight
criticisms that a regard to truth made necessary.

At that period, the American character, if well examined,
foreshadowed all that it has become since; but the manners were still
very different, and contrast singularly with those of Americans of
to-day. M. Blanchard, brought into daily intercourse with their
ancestors, says of them that they are "slow, distrustful, and wanting
in decision of character." In another place he speaks of them as
spending a great portion of the day at table, even in the cities of
the North.

    "As they have little occupation, and seldom go out during
    winter, but pass their days by the fireside, and by the side of
    their wives, without reading or any employment, it is a great
    distraction, a remedy against _ennui_, to eat so frequently."

"Oh! we have changed all that," will be the answer of the Americans
of 1869.

Their morals were singularly pure, and it is on that basis that
liberty grew to its present greatness. The journal speaks of but
one woman in an important city, who was talked of for her levity
of conduct, and she was a European. Here and there throughout the
journal we find allusion to young American girls, already possessed
of that liberty and that queenly dignity, founded on universal
respect, which have continued there to be the privilege of their sex.
Here are two charming illustrations of the manners of that period:

    "During my stay at Boston, I dined with a young American
    lady in whose house M. de Capellis lodged. We had made the
    acquaintance of her sister and brother-in-law at Newport. It
    was a singular contrast to our customs to see a young girl
    who, at most, could not have been more than twenty years of
    age, lodge and entertain a young man. I shall surely find an
    opportunity of explaining the causes of this singularity."

On another occasion, it is the daughter of the host who comes to keep
company with M. Blanchard in the room assigned to him.

    "She remained there a long time; sometimes we conversed. At
    other times she would leave me to attend to my business,
    and this without constraint and with a natural and innocent
    familiarity."

It was the period when our eighteenth century, disgusted with the
corruption of the court of Louis XV. and the upper classes, indulged
in dreams of a golden age, and a morality pure and unaffected. The
Americans seemed to offer the realization of this day-dream; hence
the success of their cause, and the universal enthusiasm in their
favor throughout France.

The general morality of a people who boldly founded a republic in the
face of the old monarchies of Europe, was naturally to Frenchmen of
the old _regime_ the most interesting spectacle in the new world. The
journal abounds in this respect with facts and significant remarks
written incidentally in the course of the narrative. I shall limit
myself to a few quotations:

    "The inhabitants of these provinces (those of the North) are in
    general more affable and more sprightly than those of Virginia.
    When our soldiers come into camp, they are met by crowds of
    women anxious to hear the music, and even to dance when they
    find an opportunity, which sometimes happens. Afterward they
    return home to attend to household duties, milk the cows, and
    prepare the meal for the family. During this time the men are
    at work cultivating the fields without any distinction or
    inequality, all well housed and well clad. They choose from
    among themselves those whom they wish, by reason of their
    merit or consideration, to be captains of the militia or
    deputies to Congress. At East Hartford, I was lodged in a very
    excellent house furnished with order and good taste. I had a
    bed as elegant in appearance as any to be found in our best
    country houses in France. The house belonged to the widow of a
    merchant who had two very handsome and very modest girls; one
    of these was affianced to a shoemaker, the owner also of a very
    beautiful house. I have often made this remark, but I cannot
    help repeating it; the greatest equality prevails in these
    Northern States. All the husbandmen have farms of their own;
    there is no one who does not know how to read and write, and
    there are no poor to be met with. This is as it should be in
    all the states."

    "NOTE.--It was in 1782 I made those reflections. I did not
    think that ten years after I should see the same equality
    established in France."[299]

M. Blanchard remarks everywhere this equality in education, and
a high standard of manners accompanied by dignity and elegant
refinement. One day, having negotiated for the transport of some wood
with a rich proprietor, a man of position in society, and brother
of the celebrated American General Green, he saw him afterward come
up driving his own wagons. He mentions the fact on his journal that
evening, adding this exclamation, "Such are the customs of America!"

In general, the towns, villages, and country houses strike him as

    "Possessing a something indescribably becoming that pleases
    one. Instead of tapestry, the walls are papered; and the
    effect is pleasing to the eye. The houses are, almost without
    exception, well-built, and kept remarkably clean, whether they
    chance to belong to a farmer or an artisan, a merchant or a
    general. Their education is pretty nearly the same, so that
    a mechanic is often sent as a deputy to the assembly where
    no distinction is made; there are no separate orders. I have
    already said that all the inhabitants of the country cultivated
    their own fields; they work themselves on their farms, and
    drive their cattle. This kind of life, this pleasing equality,
    possesses a charm for every thinking being."

Here we recognize the language of the reign of Louis XVI., an echo of
Jean-Jacques and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre.

We have theorized on equality, and often lulled ourselves with
chimerical dreams regarding it; but we find that a hundred years ago
the Americans had practically realized it by adopting as a basis the
participation of all citizens in the benefits of instruction and
education, and the respect paid to all honorable labor.

So much for equality. We pass on to some facts of practical liberty.

While the French corps was passing through the little town of
Crampond, an American asked a very high indemnity for some
depredations committed by the troops on his property. This claim was
taken into consideration; but without waiting for a decision, the
American carried his complaint before the judge of his district,
who, according to law, could not refuse to send an officer to arrest
the commander of the French troops. This officer, in accordance with
the legal custom, put his hand, with many apologies, however, on the
shoulder of General de Rochambeau, in the presence of the troops.
All the officers present were indignant, and wished to interfere;
but General de Rochambeau said he would submit to the laws of the
country; and he was dismissed on giving bail. This anecdote, related
by Rochambeau himself, and by La Fayette, in their memoirs, is also
mentioned by M. Blanchard, with the additional circumstance that he
(M. Blanchard) found himself, a few days after, quartered on the
same officer of the law to whom the mission of arresting the French
commander-in-chief had been intrusted.

A Masonic procession is described as follows:

    "It was St. John's day, a great day with the Free-Masons, and
    they held a meeting at Providence. It was announced in the
    public papers; for these kinds of societies are authorized
    here. I met these Free-Masons in the streets, formed in ranks
    and marching two by two, holding each other by the hand, all
    wearing their aprons, and preceded by men carrying long rods.
    The one who closed the procession, and who appeared to be the
    chief, had two brothers by his side, and all three had ribbons
    round their necks, as ecclesiastics do when they wear the
    _cordon bleu_."

What conclusion must we draw from these facts? That it would seem
that republican manners had been anterior in the United States to the
constitution itself. The laws of Congress have only ratified, so to
speak, that which already existed.

General Washington frequently appears in the recital of M. Blanchard,
who sometimes had personal relations with him. Even at that time, in
the eyes of all who knew him, the commander-in-chief of the American
troops was a great man. No one doubted that this judgment of his
contemporaries would be ratified by posterity. At the close of the
first interview of our generals with Washington, M. Blanchard writes:

    "A gracious and noble air, broad and upright views, the art
    of making himself beloved--these points in his character were
    observed by all of us who saw him. It is his extraordinary
    ability that has defended the liberty of America, and if she
    one day enjoys freedom, it will be to him she will owe it."

    In a note; "I wrote the above in 1780. The Americans are
    indebted for their success to the courage of Washington, to his
    love for his country, and to his prudence. He never committed
    an error, and was never discouraged. In the midst of successes
    as well as in reverses, he was ever calm and undisturbed,
    always self-possessed, and his personal qualities have kept
    more soldiers in the American army, and procured more adherents
    to the cause of liberty, than the enactments of Congress."

There is, I think, something to blame in this judgment, where there
is evidently a tendency to personify a cause in a single man--a
tendency so prevalent among us.

An American dinner in the tent of Washington is thus described:

    "On the 29th, (June, 1781,) I mounted my horse to look at the
    barracks in which an American regiment had been quartered
    during the winter at Fishkill Landing. My intention was
    to establish a hospital there. On the way I met General
    Washington, who, having recognized me, stopped and invited
    me to dine with him that day at three o'clock. I went. There
    were twenty-five covers laid. The guests were officers of his
    army, besides the lady of the house in which the general was
    stopping. We dined in a tent. The general placed me beside him;
    one of the aides-de-camp did the honors. The dinner was served
    in the American style, and every thing was in abundance. There
    were vegetables, roast-beef, lamb, chicken, salad, pudding, and
    a pie--a kind of tart very much in use in England and among the
    Americans; and all was served together. They gave on the same
    plate, meat, vegetables, and salad, (which was eaten without
    dressing except vinegar.) When dinner was over, the cloth
    being removed, Madeira wine was passed round, and they drank
    the health of the King of France, the army, etc. The general
    made apologies for the reception he had given me; to which I
    replied that I had enjoyed myself very much in his company, as
    I did everywhere in America, which I liked much better than
    Corsica, where I had been for many years. He then told me that
    the English papers announced that the Corsicans were about to
    rise in rebellion. I replied that I did not believe it; that
    the Corsicans were not dangerous, and besides, that Paoli was
    not General Washington. The countenance of the general has
    something grave and serious about it; but it is never severe.
    On the contrary, it is gentle, and usually wears a pleasant
    smile. He is affable, and talks in a familiar and lively manner
    with his officers. I forgot to mention that at the beginning of
    the meal a clergyman who was present asked a blessing, and at
    its close returned thanks. I knew that General Washington was
    accustomed to say grace himself when he had no clergyman at the
    table, as is the custom of the heads of families in America;
    the idea being that a general in the midst of his army is as
    the father of a family."

Here is a last quotation, in which we see the American general at a
very critical period of his career:

    "On the 24th and 25th, (August, 1781,) the troops finished
    crossing the North River. The passage was a tedious one, as the
    river was wide, and they were obliged to cross it on boats and
    rafts, which had been brought together in great numbers. On the
    25th, I went myself to the place, and saw many troops cross
    with their baggage. General Washington was there. They had
    arranged a sort of observatory for him, whence he superintended
    every thing with close attention. He seemed to see in this
    passage, in the march of our troops toward Chesapeake Bay,
    and in our junction with M. de Grasse--he seemed, I say, to
    see the dawn of a better destiny for America, which, at that
    stage of the war, with her resources exhausted, had need of
    some great success to raise her courage and her hopes. He shook
    my hand with much emotion when he quitted us, and crossed the
    river himself. It was about two o'clock. He immediately joined
    his army, which marched the next morning.

    "NOTE.--The event justified his anticipations; for the taking
    of Yorktown, after our junction with M. de Grasse, did much
    toward bringing about peace, and the acknowledgment of American
    independence."[300]

As for General Rochambeau, wisely chosen by Louis XVI. himself to
command this expedition undertaken under such peculiar circumstances,
he made the French character appear in his own person in the
noblest light. The Americans, before his arrival, imbued with
English prejudices--prejudices often justified in the eighteenth
century--against the light tone and reputed affectation of our young
nobility, were prepared to find the French general (as several of
them afterward confessed) a mere courtier, opposed to their ideas
and customs, and with whom their relations would be constrained, in
consequence of difference of character. They saw, on the contrary, a
type of our old France, who seemed formed on the same model as their
own leading men, loving justice, seeking good, worthy and dignified.

"He has served well in America," wrote our commissary, "and has given
a favorable idea of our nation. They pictured to themselves a French
fop, and they found a thoughtful and dignified gentleman. '_Your
general is very self-possessed_,' said an American who dined beside
me, and who observed the moderation with which General Rochambeau
responded to the numerous toasts proposed, and which were drunk as
they went round by all present. He has given many other proofs of
moderation and wisdom."

He had also his faults, and they are related with impartiality: a
mistrustful character, unamiable manners, and an unpleasant temper,
of which his officers often complained. Nevertheless, General
Rochambeau remains on the whole a fine specimen of the old army.

We meet many allusions, also, to La Fayette:

    "On that day, (September 17th, 1781, a short time before the
    taking of Yorktown,) and the following days, I was constantly
    with M. de La Fayette, who wished to assist me in the
    provisioning of the troops. It would be difficult to find more
    clearness, patience, and honesty in the discussion of business
    matters. He reminded me of Scipio Africanus in Spain, equally
    young and modest, and with the reputation already of an able
    general; for his recent campaign, in which, with inferior
    forces, he maintained himself against Cornwallis, has brought
    him much glory, and justly."

If America and the Americans of the war of independence constitute
the chief interest of this journal, whatever relates to the
organization of our troops at that time, as well as to their spirit
and military customs, is not the less deserving of attention.

In this "_memento_" of an expeditionary army corps, there naturally
appear, in the course of the recital, the shortcomings of the past,
and in contrast the progress since made--for instance, in the
_materiel_ and weapons of war. It was necessary, at that time, to
erect the baking-houses in the neighborhood of the encampments; and
when the army advanced, men were sent to establish them ahead. But
they did not march very rapidly in those days.

There was a certain want of discipline among our soldiers, and a
carelessness on this point in the officers, which shock our modern
ideas; and yet the army corps of General Rochambeau, which was
composed of picked troops, was cited for its exemplary conduct
at that period. The Marquis de Custine,[301] then colonel of a
regiment, having allowed himself, in a fit of passion, to make use of
intemperate language toward one of his officers, the latter committed
suicide. The news spread at the moment of parade, when M. de Custine
was hooted, insulted, and his life threatened by his soldiers.
"Unless some officers had interfered, worse would have happened to
him," says M. Blanchard. It does not appear that any punishment
was inflicted for this serious insubordination. It would seem as
if a disturbance of this kind did not cause much uneasiness to the
commander-in-chief.

The distinctions between the officers were less marked than at
present. The military spirit was not then what it has since become,
and, in truth, war was a less serious matter at that time than it is
now.

We might mention, also, the punishments of the past, and thus mark
the changes that have since been made. A French soldier struck an
officer with his sword. He attempted to kill himself afterward, but
was taken, tried, and condemned to death. What kind of death? His
hand was cut off, and he was then hanged. Some years have elapsed
since 1789!

These soldiers of Rochambeau are of our race and blood. They are our
great-grandfathers. Nevertheless, how widely the French army of that
period, which is so near and so far at the same time, differs from
our present army in its _esprit_, its conduct, and its habits!

We said in the beginning that the history of the French intervention
had not been written by any contemporary historian. If one were to
appear to-day who would treat fully this subject, hitherto so much
neglected, we should have lost nothing by the delay. Indeed, after
nearly a century of the greatest changes, the moment would doubtless
be excellent to treat this important episode of our military and
political history, and compose a work based on authentic documents,
which would have at each step the interest of thrilling contrasts.
The author would draw a parallel between the military organization
of the expedition of 1781 and of one of the present day of equal
importance. The means of action, the expenses, and the general way
of doing things, the improvements of every kind, would be compared,
and give rise to curious and useful observations. But above all, we
would see in this retrospective view the dawning of a nation which
has since developed to a degree which has no parallel, when we
consider the shortness of the time. A century has not yet elapsed,
and these three millions of rebellious English colonists have become
the forty millions of Americans who hold so important a place in the
world of to-day. Finally, the author would endeavor to depict the
extraordinary part assigned to this nation toward whose foundation we
contributed, and of which we might be truly called the god-parents.
He would show its tendencies, its work, its future. Has not, in fact,
the birth of the United States, even to the dullest mind, become an
historical fact of equal importance with the French Revolution? In
an important document of recent date, (the diplomatic circular of M.
de La Valette, of September 16th, 1866,) appear the following words,
which deserve attention:

    "While the old populations of this continent, in their confined
    territories, increase with measured slowness, the republic
    of the United States may, before a century, number a hundred
    millions of men."

Some will say that the independence of the United States was a
necessity, and that it would have been accomplished without any
assistance from France. In the course of time, very likely. But if
France had not come forward when she did, with men and money, we can
readily believe that the new state would have fallen again, for some
time to come, under the yoke of the mother country. As a consequence,
the development of this people, which has been owing largely to the
principles of the American constitution, would have been greatly
retarded, and the United States would not be to-day at that point
where we now behold her.

Be this as it may, it is curious to see the old French monarchy
lending its aid to the birth of a society most opposed to its
principles and traditions. This arises from the fact that all unite
to aid a cause when its hour has come. However, Bourbon royalty,
carried away by the national sentiment, performed then a wise and
generous act of the highest importance, the remembrance of which will
never be effaced on either side of the Atlantic.

FOOTNOTES:

[290] Thus designated in the royal almanacs from 1762 to 1768. His
successor in the office of general secretary to the "Swiss Grisons"
was the Abbe Barthelemy, author of _Le Jeune Anacharsis_.

[291] These expressions are copied from the letter of General
Berruyer, "Gouverneur des Invalides," announcing to the minister the
death of the commissary.

[292] Claude Blanchard had a son who was himself a commissary, and
who died recently, at the age of ninety, at La Fleche, (Sarthe.) The
writer of this review is a great-grandson of Claude Blanchard.

[293] The treaty of Paris (1763) had deprived France of Canada and
Louisiana.

[294] The only contemporary history is the Abbe de Longchamp's
_Histoire de la Derniere Guerre_, in three volumes.

[295] This first expedition comprised five thousand men; it was
followed a year afterward, by a second corps of three thousand,
brought from the West-Indies, but which remained only a short time in
America. They were commanded by MM. de Saint-Simon and d'Autichamp.

[296] Duportail, camp-marshal, who was minister of war for some time
toward the end of 1790, went through the American campaign as a
volunteer in the service of the United States.

[297] Cornwallis, a skilful general, though unfortunate on this
occasion, was highly esteemed by Napoleon I.

[298] "We quartered with the Americans, but we asked nothing from
them but shelter. Each officer brought with him his provisions and
cooking utensils, his bed and bedding, and we occasioned no expense
whatever to our hosts. I had for my use two wagons or covered
conveyances drawn by good horses, and I had all I stood in need of."

[299] Does not this remark, written in the darkest period of the
Reign of Terror, and under danger of death, indicate the most
profound convictions? A very tragical equality! and one that brought
M. Blanchard and the royal family together under circumstances
deserving of notice. On the 10th of August, when Louis XVI. and his
family sought refuge in the hall of the Legislative Assembly, they
were kept with their suite for many hours in a small apartment, and
when the dauphin, who afterward perished in the Temple, was in danger
of being stifled with heat, he was let down from the chamber into the
hall, and received upon the knees of Deputy Blanchard, who held him
there for a long time.

[300] The preliminaries of this peace, which recognized the existence
of a new nation, were signed the 10th of January, 1783. M. Blanchard
received the news the following March at Porto-Cabello, New Spain,
where the fleet which had brought our troops with a view to an
expedition against the English Antilles, was lying at this moment.
"The assurance of this peace caused me great joy, both because I am a
citizen, and because I saw in it the termination of my anxieties in
regard to my family. The news was received with enthusiastic joy by
all, with the exception of some few ambitious men who thought only of
themselves and their own fortunes."

[301] What has become of the journal of M. de Custine, of which the
manuscript of M. Blanchard makes mention in the following passage?
"To-day, M. de Custine, who has just been travelling into the
interior of America, showed me his journal and the result of his
observations, which appear to me wise and liberal." We have found no
other trace of the Memoirs of General de Custine on the campaign in
America.




THE EMIGRANT.


CHAPTER I.

"Willy, Willy darlin'! Rise, agra, rise; day is breakin', and ye've
many a long mile afore ye this mornin'--and for many a mornin' after
it."

As she spoke the last words the woman's voice trembled, and she hid
her face in the bed-clothes to stifle the grief that was welling up
in great sobbing waves from her breaking heart. As the sound of her
voice broke in upon his slumbers, a man rose from the bed where he
had thrown himself, half-dressed, a couple of hours before, and, not
yet quite awakened to consciousness, he looked around the room in a
bewildered way.

Then he sat down on the side of the bed, and covered his eyes with
his hand, vainly endeavoring to hide the tears that half-blinded him.

A chair stood near the bedside, and the wife drew it toward her and
sat down, laying her head upon his knee. Very softly and tenderly he
stroked the dark hair two or three times, then, while a great sob
convulsed his frame, he bent his own head till his lips touched her
forehead. "Willy, Willy, don't you give way," she said passionately,
looking up at him with sorrowful eyes; "keep a brave heart, asthore;
it's often ye'll need it where ye're goin'."

With a desperate effort he checked his emotion, and smiled sadly,
still tenderly smoothing her hair.

"Shure it's dreamin' I was, Mary," he said; "and the strangest
dream! I thought I was away in America, and walkin' in the purtiest
greenwood your heart ever picthured. The birds were singin' and the
daisies growin' as they wud be in heaven; the sky was as bright and
as blue as our own. But through the middle of the land ran a great
wide river, and it was between you and me. I didn't care for the
beauty and greenness, Mary, when I hadn't you wid me; and although
where you stood wasn't half so purty a spot as where I was, it seemed
the most beautiful place in the world, because ye wur there. Ye were
longin' to cross over to me, and the children pullin' at your gown
and pintin' to me always. Some how, it seemed to me of a sudden that
if I stretched out my hands to ye, ye might come; and I did it; and
ye came without any fear of the wather, right through and across it,
and I almost touched Katie with my hands, and felt her sweet breath
on my cheek. But just as ye would have set your feet on the ground
beside me, something came between us like a flash of fire, and ye
were gone, all o' ye, and I held out my hands to the empty air. And
then, thank God! I heard ye callin' 'Willy, Willy darlin',' and I saw
yer own sweet face bendin' over me as I woke."

The wife put one arm around her husband's neck as he ceased speaking,
and with the other smoothed back the masses of wavy brown hair that
fell over his forehead, while she said in tones scarcely audible
through her tears, "It's nothin', nothin', alanna; shure it's a
sin to mind dreams at all; and ye know that it's often when we're
throubled, we carry the throuble wid us into our sleep. It was all
owin' to the talk we had before ye lay down of the weary, weary way
ye were goin', and leavin' us behind. But we won't feel the time
passin' till we'll be together again, and we'll all be as happy as
the day is long. 'As happy as a queen;' do ye mind it, Willy, the
song ye wur so fond of hearin' me sing when I was a colleen and you
the blithest boy in the three parishes?"

"Do I mind it, _acushla_--do I mind it? Ah! well as I mind the merry
voice, and the bright eye, and the light step that are gone for ever.
God is good, Mary, God is good; but English tyrants are cruel, and
Irish hearts are their meat and dhrink."

"God _is_ good to us, Willie; better than we deserve. He's leadin' us
to himself by hard and bitter ways; but he loves his own. He's takin'
you to a land of plenty, where there'll be no hard landlords nor
tithe proctors to make yer blood boil and yer eyes flash, and me and
the little ones'll soon follow."

By this time two little girls had crept from a bed at the foot of the
larger one; tiny things, scarcely more than babies, either of them,
and they stood looking wonderingly up into the faces of their father
and mother.

The elder of the two, dark-eyed and black-haired like her mother,
seemed, as she nestled close to her parents, to take in some
of the sorrow of the situation; but the younger, a beautiful
blue-eyed, fair-haired little creature, buried her curly head in the
bed-clothes, and began to play "peep" with all her heart.

"May be I'm foolish, Mary," said her husband as he watched the
playful child, "and it's ashamed I ought to be, breakin' down when
you're so brave; but you'll have the little ones to comfort ye, and
I'll be all alone."

Then with an effort he arose, and busied himself in completing the
arrangements of his dress, while his wife placed breakfast on the
table. It was a very poor and scantily furnished room in which the
little family sat down to take their last meal together, but it was
exquisitely clean and neat. They had known comfort and prosperity,
and even in their poverty could be seen the traces of better days.

When William Leyden married Mary Sullivan, "the prettiest and
sweetest girl in the village," they were unanimously voted the
handsomest couple that ever left the parish church as man and wife.
All the world seemed bright before them; they had youth, health, and
strength, and sorrow and pain seemed things afar off from them then;
and they loved one another. Smile, cynic! as cynics do--but love is
the elixir of life, and without it any life is poor and incomplete.

For a time--a sweet, short, happy time--all went well. Then
misfortunes began to gather, one by one.

First the crops failed, the cows died, and Leyden fell ill of a
fever, and lay helpless for many months. Little by little their
savings dwindled into insignificance, and to crown all, the landlord
gave them notice to vacate their farm, for which he had been offered
a higher rent.

There was but one hope and prospect for the future. Through many a
sorrowful day and weary night the husband and wife endeavored to
combat the alternative, but at last they could no longer deny that
the only hope for days to come lay in a present parting.

So it had come to pass that Leyden was starting for America, leaving
his wife and children partly to the care of a well-to-do brother of
the former, partly to the resources she might be able to draw from
fine sewing and embroidery, in both of which she was very skilful.
Our story opens on the morning of his departure.

It did not take the sorrowful couple many minutes to finish their
morning meal. As the hour for parting approached, each strove to
assume a semblance of cheerfulness before the other, while each read
in the other's eyes the sad denial.

Soon kind-hearted neighbors dropped in, one by one, to wish the
traveller God-speed, and to take a sorrowful leave of the friend from
whom poverty and misfortune had not estranged his more prosperous
neighbors. For it is in adversity that the fidelity of the Irish
character manifests itself, and proves by what deep and enduring ties
heart clings to heart.

It was not long before the car that was to convey Leyden to the
next town came rolling along the road. As he heard the sound of the
wheels, he turned from the fire-place where he had been standing, and
motioned to a young fellow near him to carry out the heavily-strapped
box that contained all a thoughtful though straitened love could
provide for his comfort.

As though respectful of their grief, the neighbors passed from the
room and the husband and wife were left alone.

Very quickly but tenderly the man lifted each of the children from
the floor, and kissed them several times.

Then he turned to where his wife stood, close to him, yet not
touching him, as though she felt that a nearer presence would
destroy her well-assumed calmness. He looked at her for an instant
yearningly, then held her away from him for another, while she buried
her face in her hands; then with a convulsive sob he flung both
strong arms around her, and they wept together.

"God and his blessed mother and the angels guard ye, mavourneen," he
said at last; "guard ye and keep every breath of evil away till I
hold you again. The great sea seems wider than ever, darlin', and the
comfort and the meetin' further and further away. You wur always dear
to me, always the dearest; but I never thought it wud be so hard to
part wid ye till now. Mauria, Mauria, acushla machree."

No answer--no wail of anguish from her woman's lips; but her woman's
heart grew cold as death, her head leaned more heavily upon his
shoulder, the clasp of her arms about his neck grew tighter, then
slowly relapsed; and placing her gently upon the bed, with one long,
lingering look he left the house.

When Mary Leyden lifted her aching head from the pillow, kind,
womanly hands and compassionate voices were near to soothe and
comfort her; but her husband was far on his lonely journey.


CHAPTER II.

Swiftly the emigrant ship cut the blue waves, boldly her sails wooed
the winds, and hearts that had been despondent at parting grew
hopeful and buoyant as they neared the promised land.

Port at last; and, with a party of his countrymen, William Leyden
sought the far West, and before many months had elapsed, the letters
he dispatched to the loved ones at home contained not only assurance
of his good fortune, but substantial tokens of the fact; and Mary
wrote cheerfully and hopefully, ever looking forward to the time when
they would be reunited.

For two years our brave Irishman struggled and toiled. Sometimes
his heart would almost fail him when he thought of the ocean that
intervened between him and his dearest treasures; but these sad
thoughts were not familiar visitants, for unusual good fortune had
attended his efforts. By the end of the second year he had cleared
and planted several acres of rich, fruitful land, and the first
flush of autumn saw the completion of as neat and compact a little
dwelling as ever western pioneer could claim. Then went "home" the
last letter, glowing with hope and promise, and sending wherewith
to defray the expenses of wife and children, who were at length to
rejoin him in the land where he had toiled for them so hard and so
patiently.

"My heart is so light," Mary wrote to him; "my heart is so light that
I can hardly feel myself walkin'; it seems to be flyin' I am all the
time. And when I think of how soon I'll be near you, of how short the
time till ye'll be foldin' yer arms about me, many and many's the
time I'm cryin' for joy. Was there ever a happier woman? And Katie
and Mamie haven't forgotten a line o' your face or a tone of your
voice; ye'll not know them, Willy, they've grown so tall. My tears
are all happy ones now, alanna; my prayers are all thankful ones,
asthore machree."

How often Leyden read and reread this letter, its torn and ragged
appearance might indicate, and as the intervening days sped by,
each seemed longer than the last. Mary and the children were to
come direct from New York with a party who also expected to meet
friends in the West, and he felt quite easy as to their safety and
companionship. But ever and anon, as the time drew near, he half
reproached himself that he had not gone to meet them, a pleasure he
had only foregone on account of his scanty resources.

At last they were in St. Louis--they would be with him in three days.
How wearily those days dragged on. But the beautiful October morning
dawned at last; a soft mist hung over the tree-tops, and the balmy
breath of the Indian summer threw a subtle perfume over the thick
forest and its wide stretch of meadow-land beyond.

It was fifteen miles to the nearest town, and fifteen more to the
railway station. The earliest dawn saw William Leyden up and
impatient to be away. In company with one of his old neighbors, he
took his place in the rough wagon that was to figure so prominently
in the "hauling home." About eight o'clock they reached their first
stopping-place, where Leyden's friend had some little business to
transact that would detain him a short time in the town.

Not caring to accompany him, too restless to sit still in the public
room of the tavern, the impatient husband and father wandered into
the spacious yard behind the house. A young girl stood washing and
wringing out clothes near the kitchen door. Mechanically he took
in every feature of the place; the long, low bench over which she
leaned; her happy, careless face; her bare, red arms and wrinkled
hands; the white flutter of garments from the loosened line; the
green grass, where here and there others lay bleaching; the broken
pump and disused trough; two or three calves munching the scattered
herbage; in the distance a wide, illimitable stretch of prairie.

How well he remembered it all afterward!

As he stood watching her, the girl nodded smilingly and went on
with her work. After a while she began to hum softly to herself.
Leyden caught the sound, and listened. "What tune is that?" he asked
eagerly. "Sing it loud."

"Shure I dunno," the girl answered. "I heard my grandmother sing it
many's the time in the ould counthry, and I do be croonin' it over to
mysel' sometimes here at my washin'."

"Have you the words of it a', colleen?" he inquired. "I'd give a dale
to hear them again. 'Tis the song my own Mary likes best; and, thanks
be to God! I'll hear her own sweet voice singin' it shortly. It's to
meet her this mornin' I'm goin'--her and the childer, all the way
from Ireland; but if ye have the words of it and will sing it for me,
I'd like to hear it."

"Ayeh but you're the happy man, this day!" she replied. "I'm not much
of a hand at singin', but I believe I have all the words, and I'm
shure ye're welcome to hear them as well as I can give them."

With a preparatory cough and a modest little blush, the girl began
in a timid voice the familiar melody. It was a sad, dirge-like air,
as are so many of that sad, suffering land, "whose children weep in
chains."

And yet it was not in itself a mournful song. Ever and anon the glad
refrain broke forth exultingly and joyously from the monotone of the
preceding notes.

Simple as were the words, they found a welcome in the heart of the
listener; and unpretending as they seem written, they may find a like
responsive echo in the heart of the Irish reader.

    "My love he has a soft blue eye
    With silken lashes drooping;
    My love he has a soft blue eye
    With silken lashes drooping.
    Its glances are like gentle rays
    From heaven's gates down stooping,
    As bright as smiles of paradise, as truthful and serene.
    And when they shine upon me, I
    Am jewelled like a queen.

    "My love he has the fondest heart
    That maiden e'er took pride in;
    My love he has the fondest heart
    That maiden e'er took pride in;
    'Twas nurtured in that fair green land
    His fathers lived and died in;
    He holds us dear, his native land and me his dark Aileen;
    And just because he loves me, I am happy as a queen.

    "My love he wraps me all around
    With his true heart's devotion;
    My love he wraps me all around
    With his true heart's devotion;
    With wealth more rare than India's gold, or all the gems of ocean.
    He clothes me with his tenderness, the deepest ever seen,
    And while I wear that costly robe, I'm richer than a queen.

    "Oh! kindly does he soothe me when
    My trust is faint and low;
    Oh! kindly does he soothe me when
    My trust is faint and low;
    My joy is his delight and all
    My griefs are his, I know.
    In the spring-time he is coming, and I count the days between;
    For with such a royal king to rule, who would not be a queen?"

William Leyden wiped the tears from his eyes as the girl concluded
the song.

"Thank you, dear. God bless you," he said, "for singin' me Mary's
song!"

The next moment he saw his friend advancing toward him, and in
another they had resumed their journey.

Not much was said on either side as they rode along. At intervals our
hero's heart gave a great throb, almost painful in its joy, and once
in a while he made some casual remark; but that was all.

As they neared their destination, they noticed an unusual stir and
excitement in the vicinity; and as they approached the depot, they
saw knots of men scattered at intervals, apparently engaged in
discussing some event that had recently transpired.

"There must have been a fight hereabouts, Will," said his friend;
"but as every minute will seem an hour to you now, we'll not stop to
ask questions. The train has been in half an hour by this time. I
wonder if Mary'll know ye with that great beard?"

Leyden had no time to answer him, for at that moment a man advanced
from a crowd that blocked up the road in front of them, and, checking
the horses, said quickly, "Can't drive any further. Way up yonder
blocked with the wreck."

"What wreck?" exclaimed both men with a single voice. "Haven't heard
about it?" he replied. "Down-train, this morning, met the up-train,
behind time--collision--cars smashed--fifty or sixty killed--as many
wounded--terrible accident--no fault anywhere, of course."

But he checked his volubility at sight of the white face that
confronted him, and the strong, convulsive grasp that seized his
hand. Then in a softened tone he said,

"Hope you an't expecting no one;" and moved back a pace.

There was no answer; for William Leyden had sprung from the wagon,
dashing like a lunatic through the group of men on the road-side,
and in an instant had cleared the hundred yards between him and the
station.

The crowd that stood upon the platform made way for him as he
advanced; for they felt instinctively that he had come upon a
melancholy quest, and the man whom he had clutched violently as he
asked, "Where are the dead?" pointed to the inner room, where lay the
mangled corpses of the victims.

Alas! in a few minutes after he had stepped across the threshold his
eye fell upon the corpse of a fair-haired little girl, beside whom,
one arm half thrown across the child, a woman lay, with a calm, holy
expression on her dead face. Just at her crushed feet, which some
merciful hand had covered, the body of another child was lying; but
the black, wavy hair had been singed, and the white forehead burned
and scarred, and the little hands were quite disfigured.

And they had left the dear old land for this! They had borne poverty
and separation, and the weariness of waiting; through lingering days
of anticipation they had traversed miles upon miles of dangerous
ocean to be dashed, on the threshold of a new life, at the portal of
realization, into the pitiless, fathomless abyss of eternity! Ah! no;
rather to be gathered into the arms of a merciful God--to be folded
close to his heart, for ever and ever. Truly his ways are not our
ways, and who can understand them?

In a moment more the husband and father had sunk upon his knees
beside the lifeless group; but no words came from his lips save
"Mauria, Mauria avourneen, acushla machree." Then he would pass his
hands caressingly over the ghastly faces, pressing tenderly and often
the little childish fingers in his own, and kissing the scarred and
disfigured forehead.

He never knew who it was that bore him away from the dreadful spot;
what hands prepared his loved ones for the grave, he never knew,
and never asked to know. He only remembered waking momentarily from
a stupor on that sad night, and seeing the benevolent face of the
priest bending over him, and hearing something he was saying about
Calvary and the cross, to which he replied half unconsciously, but
with a feeling as though there were angels near him, "God's will be
done."




TRANSLATED FROM THE HISTORISCH-POLITISCHE BLATTER.

NICOLAUS COPERNICUS.


The material for the biography of this remarkable man is not very
abundant. More than a century after his death, Gassendi published a
life of Copernicus in Latin; this life, however, was compiled from
printed sources only. A German biography, by Westphal, appeared at
Constance in 1822. In 1856, an anonymous author in Berlin wrote
concerning Copernicus. Besides these we have essays by L. Prowe. Last
of all, a life of Copernicus has appeared by Dr. Hipler; of which we
purpose in this article to give a compendium.

There are nineteen folio volumes among the episcopal archives
of Frauenburg, which contain the remnants of an uncommonly rich
correspondence by Dantiscus, Bishop of Ermland, who was for a time
the ambassador of Sigismond of Poland at the court of Charles V. Rich
as this collection still remains, it is to be regretted that the
greater part of it was carried off to Sweden by Gustavus Adolphus and
his successors, to be there divided and scattered.

A portion of the fragments was collected and returned in 1833,
upon a demand made by the Prussian government; another portion was
subsequently discovered by Prowe in the library of the university of
Upsal. Through the mediation of the Prussian minister of worship,
this collection was put at the disposal of Dr. Hipler. In both
collections, that of Frauenburg and that of Upsal, very interesting
essays on Copernicus are contained. Of these Dr. Hipler has made good
use, and thereby elucidated the history of the celebrated canon.
According to Hipler's researches, the life of Copernicus may be
summed up as follows:

Nicolaus Copernicus was born on the 19th of February, 1473, at
Thorn. His father, "Niklas Copernigk," was a respectable merchant of
extensive business relations. His mother Barbara was the daughter
of Lucas Watzelrode, who left besides Barbara a son, also named
Lucas, afterward Bishop of Ermland and the chief patron of his nephew
Copernicus. It is probable, as Hipler shows, that after receiving
primary instruction in the excellent schools of his native town,
Copernicus completed his third and fourth years' course in the
high-school of Kulm. In the autumn of 1491, we find him matriculated
at the university of Cracow, which was then famous for the
remarkable ability of its professor of mathematics, Adalbert Blar,
commonly known as Brudjewski.

It was in this university that the foundations were laid of the
subsequent success of Copernicus in astronomy. He commented already
on the writings of the great astronomers, Peurbach and Regiomonban;
and he afterward declared that he was indebted for the principal part
of his learning to the university of Cracow; a fact to be attributed,
without doubt, to the superior instructions of Brudjewski.

At the expiration of four years, being then twenty-two, he returned
to Prussia, where he obtained from his uncle, the bishop a canonry
at Frauenburg in 1495. A statute of the chapter required that every
canon who had not received a degree in theology, jurisprudence,
or medicine, should before taking rank enter one of the chartered
universities, and there during three years apply himself without
interruption to one of the three afore-mentioned branches. Copernicus
not being a graduate, went to Bologna in 1497, and there gave
his attention to law. His choice of this branch of learning was
determined by the circumstance of his being a member of the cathedral
chapter, which naturally constituted the senate or council of the
bishop, who in those days was also a temporal sovereign. We can
easily conceive that the youthful canon would make special endeavors
to excel in his department, that he might by the eminence of his
knowledge be able to cast a veil, as it were, over his great youth.
We know nothing further concerning his legal studies, but the skill
with which as ambassador of the chapter and administrator of the
diocese he defended, both orally and by writing, the privileges of
the seignory of Ermland against the aggressions of the German order
clearly proves that he had passed his three years in the study of law
with great success.

At Bologna, his legal studies did not hinder him from perfecting his
mathematical and astronomical acquirements. An efficient aid to him
for this purpose was his intercourse with the learned Dominican,
Maria of Ferrara. It seems that he first led Copernicus to doubt the
truth of the system of Ptolemy. It is possible, also, that through
him he became acquainted with Pythagorean and Platonic philosophy,
and its theory regarding the motion of the earth. In 1499, Copernicus
was still sojourning at Bologna, where he experienced the common
misfortune of students, financial embarrassment. The maintenance of
his brother Andrew, who had followed him to that city, occasioned him
considerable expense; but he was finally rescued from his troubles
by his uncle, the bishop. In 1500, we find him at Rome lecturing
on mathematics before a large assembly of hearers. He returned to
Frauenburg with the resolution, however, to revisit Italy at any
cost. It was a cause of annoyance to him, as he himself discloses,
that the motion of the great mechanism of the world, devised for
our sake by the greatest and most orderly of artificers, had not
been more clearly and satisfactorily explained. That he might enter
upon this investigation with a greater prospect of success, he
determined to learn Greek also; for the acquisition of which, Italy
alone at that period afforded good opportunities. He therefore, in
1501, applied to the chapter for another leave of absence for two
years. At the same time his brother Andrew, who had become a canon,
requested permission to enter upon the three years' course prescribed
by a statute of the chapter.

Copernicus pledged himself, in case his brother's request was
granted, to apply during his stay in Italy to the study of medicine
also, that he might afterward act as physician to the chapter.
The chapter had previously numbered among its members a practical
physician, whose death had left in their midst a painful void.
From this circumstance it is plain that Copernicus had not as yet
received any of the higher orders; nor did he subsequently receive
any; for the practice of medicine, including, as it necessarily did,
dissecting and searing, constituted an irregularity which debarred
from holy orders.

Moreover, Mauritius, Bishop of Ermland, wrote in 1531 that his
chapter had but one priest among its members. Copernicus had probably
received minor orders only; nor does he mention himself that he ever
received any others.

In 1501, with the consent of the chapter, he went to Padua, began
the study of medicine, made himself master of Greek, had frequent
intercourse with Nicolaus Passara, and Nicolaus Vernia, of the
Aristotelian school of philosophy, and, after graduating in medicine,
returned to Frauenburg in 1505.

At the episcopal residence of Heilberg he served as private physician
to his uncle, and took a lively interest in the extensive projects
and undertakings of that prelate. One of these projects was the
establishment of a high-school at Elbing. It failed, however, in
consequence of the narrow prejudices of the people of that town, who
were opposed to having many strangers in their midst The failure of
this enterprise is much to be regretted; for without a doubt this
institution would have afforded a fine field for the intellectual
activity of the great astronomer. His life under these circumstances
continued to be simply that of a physician and canonist. His
monumental work on the revolutions of the heavenly bodies progressed
in secret, according as the ailments of members of the chapter and
the lawsuits of Ermland left him leisure for such occupation.

In his case, as in the case of so many others, modesty exhibits
itself as the characteristic of genius and true greatness. After
the death of his uncle, in 1512, Copernicus returned to Frauenburg,
where the residence of the canons on the banks of the Haff, affording
an unobstructed view, presented great facilities for astronomical
observations. Here he continued to enjoy much popularity as a
physician. It must, however, be admitted that a prescription and a
_regimen sanitatis_ which we have from him show that he possessed but
the limited science of those times. Still he enjoyed the confidence
of the people. His brother Andrew, who was afflicted with a species
of leprosy, engaged much of his attention.

From 1512 to 1523, Fabian Tettinger was Bishop of Ermland. At his
decease, Copernicus was chosen by the chapter as administrator. When
he had filled this office for nearly one year, Mauritius Ferber
became bishop, and administered the diocese from 1523 to 1537. This
prelate, who also was an invalid, placed great reliance on the
medical skill of the learned canon.

After his death, Copernicus was associated with three others on the
list of candidates for the bishopric. But Dantiscus, Bishop of Kulm,
the same who has left the valuable manuscripts for the biography of
Copernicus, was nominated. The canon lived on terms of the closest
intimacy with this prelate.

At the very beginning of his administration, the new bishop was
attacked by a dangerous illness; which, however, the skill of
Copernicus succeeded so effectually in relieving, that the bishop was
enabled to undertake a long journey as a special envoy. Copernicus
rendered effective medical assistance to his friend also, and
former classmate, Tiedemann Giese, who in 1538 had been appointed
Bishop of Kulm. Tiedemann prevailed on him to dedicate his work on
the revolutions of the heavenly bodies to Pope Paul III.; and in
return, at the instance of Copernicus, composed a work, entitled
_Antilogicon_, against the errors of Luther; a circumstance which is
of decisive significance as regards the religious views of the great
astronomer. They lived together thirty years on terms of the most
intimate friendship. Duke Albrecht also summoned him to Koenigsberg to
the sick-bed of one of his jurists, notwithstanding that Koenigsberg
boasted several physicians of eminence.

In 1539, Joachim Rheticus, then twenty-six years of age, who had
been for two years associated with Luther and Melancthon, came from
Wittenberg to Frauenburg to place himself under the tuition of
Copernicus. In a work which has not been preserved, he described
the impression made on him by the astronomer. There is, however,
another production from the same pen, _Rhetici Narratio Prima_, in
which much is said about Copernicus, and which is, consequently, a
valuable source of information for his biographer. Rheticus is full
of admiration for his instructor. It was he who superintended the
publication of the latter's famous work, which appeared at Nuremberg,
in 1542. Rheticus repaired to that town expressly for this purpose.

But the last moments of the great scholar were drawing near. After
an illness of six months, fortified with the rites of the church,
he died on the 24th of May, 1543, yielding up his spirit to Him "in
whom is all happiness and every good," as he expresses himself in the
preface of his work, the first printed copy of which was placed in
his hands on the day of his death.

Such is the miniature biography given by Dr. Hipler of the great
reformer of astronomy. We would gladly have learned more about his
political career, which Hipler only notices in passing. It is to be
hoped that he will some day present us with a full-sized portrait of
his great countryman.

Dr. Hipler has, however, succeeded in establishing, on documentary
evidence, drawn from archives, the chronology of the life of
Copernicus, which rested before on the unsustained authority of
Gassendi. He has, likewise, exhibited in a clear light, and with that
certainty which results only from the study of reliable sources,
the education, teachers, friends, and offices of Copernicus, the
origination of his system, and the attitude he assumed in regard to
the Reformation.

We have seen that his attitude was decidedly unfriendly. Hence, it
naturally occurred to his biographer to show how the reformers were
affected toward Copernicus. Protestant writers generally indulge
in the strange fancy that all the great minds of the period of the
Reformation belong to their ranks; and it is almost a subject of
surprise that Copernicus escaped an inscription on the monument
raised to Luther, at Worms. No doubt, however, at Luther's feet
would have been an uncomfortable place for the man of whom we read
in Luther's _Table-Talk_: "People gave ear to an upstart astrologer,
who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens, or the
firmament, the sun and moon.... But such is now the state of things.
Whoever wishes to appear clever, must devise some new system which of
all systems is, of course, the very best. This fool wishes to reverse
the entire science of astronomy. But sacred Scripture tells us that
Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth."

Later on, Melancthon wrote in a work entitled, _De Initiis Doctrinae
Physicae_: "The eyes are witnesses that the heavens revolve in the
space of twenty-four hours. But certain men, either from the love
of novelty or to make a display of their ingenuity, have concluded
that the earth moves, and they maintain that neither the eighth
sphere nor the sun revolves. Now, although these clever dreamers
find many ingenious things wherewith to recreate their minds, it is,
nevertheless, a want of honesty and decency to assert such absurd
notions publicly, and the example is pernicious. It is the part of a
good mind to accept the truth as revealed by God, and to acquiesce in
it."

Both reformers condemned the system of Copernicus, as opposed to the
teaching of the sacred Scriptures.

How differently did Rome deal with the doctrine of Copernicus! From
an entry made in the _Codex Graecus_, CLI., in the State Library
of Munich, it appears that as early as 1533, Clement VII. had the
learned Widmanstadt to explain the system to him in the gardens of
the Vatican, and that he recompensed Widmanstadt for his services
with the gift of the Greek work above mentioned. The entry in
the book, setting forth these facts, was made by the hand of the
recipient of the gift.

Paul III. accepted the dedication of the work of Copernicus. The
sentence pronounced on Galileo by the Congregation of the Index was
never ratified by the pope, and was actually afterward revoked.
The Catholic Church has always ignored that extravagant notion of
inspiration, so justly censured by Lessing, according to which the
Bible is to be received as a text-book even of astronomy, geography,
and other natural sciences.

The importance of the system of Copernicus cannot be over-rated.
It was a bold and successful attempt to explain the mechanism of
the world. According to his theory, the world was no longer to be
considered the centre of the universe, but merely a wandering planet
of an inferior order. Its _role_ in the economy of the spheres seemed
to be that of the lost sheep which the Good Shepherd came to find.
The system of Copernicus contained also a caution against trusting
over-much to those appearances which are made known to us by the
senses, and against attending to the dead-letter of the Bible merely.
Hence it was calculated to exert an influence in other departments
of science, as well as in that of astronomy. At first it met with no
sympathy. The inhabitants of Elbing, who had refused the university
with which Lucas Watzelrode felt disposed to present them, were
the first to exhibit a burlesque play directed against Copernicus.
The people of Nuremberg had a medal struck, whereon were ironical
inscriptions directed against him. Nevertheless, his discovery
gradually won the recognition of the intelligent scientific world.

In searching the archives of Ermland, Dr. Hipler has met with two
pictures, the one of Luther, the other of Copernicus--both from the
pen of Dantiscus, the last spiritual superior of the latter--between
which there exists so great a contrast that he has thought it worth
while to give them to the public. As has been already observed,
Dantiscus was at one time the ambassador of Sigismond of Poland
at the court of Charles V. He had travelled over nearly one half
of the globe, had been at all the European courts, and also in
Asia and Africa. He was a great admirer and patron of literary and
scientific accomplishments, and he corresponded with many statesmen
and men of learning, among whom were Wicel, Thomas Cranmer of
Canterbury, Melancthon, Cochlaeus, and others. In 1523, happening to
be in the neighborhood of Wittenberg, a desire to see Luther, rather
inordinate, as he himself acknowledges, took possession of him.
Luther consented to see him. The following is Dantiscus's account of
the interview: "We sat down and entered upon a conversation which
lasted four hours. I found the man witty, learned, and fluent; but
I also noticed that he uttered scarce any thing but sarcasm and
invectives against the pope, the emperor, and several other princes.
Were I to attempt to write it all down, the day would pass before
I would have done. Luther's countenance resembles his books. His
eyes are sharp, and sparkle with the weird fire to be noticed in
lunatics. His manner of speaking is violent, and full of irony and
ridicule. He dresses so as not to be distinguished from a courtier.
He seems like a first-rate boon companion. So far as holiness of life
is concerned, which some have attributed to him, he differs not at
all from the rest of us. Haughtiness and vanity are very apparent in
him; in abusing, slandering, and ridiculing he observes no moderation
whatever." The comparison between Luther and Copernicus which then
follows is indeed very instructive:

"It would be difficult to imagine a more decided contrast than exists
between these two men, the dates of whose birth and death differ but
by a few short years. For indeed, to say nothing of the striking
dissimilarity in talents, disposition, and other particulars,
what could be more unlike than the character and destiny of the
great revolutions in the sphere of intellect which were originated
by the gigantic powers of these men? On the one hand, we behold
reason, through an excessively mystic tendency, enslaved to a blind
faith--in fact, stifled; and faith itself, as a consequence, deprived
of its foundation, lifeless and powerless. On the other hand, we
behold reason in a wisely adjusted harmony with faith and science,
triumphing over the dead-letter of the Bible, the deceiving testimony
of sense, and every other illegitimate influence, and thereby
imparting firmness to faith in the suprasensible, and in all real
authority.

"On the one hand, we perceive the joyous acclaim with which the
Reformation was at first hailed, and the general desertion, at
the present day, of the principle of salvation by faith alone, a
principle destructive of all church organization. On the other hand,
we behold the universal recognition, at the present time, of the
system of Copernicus, which, at its first appearance, was assailed
with mockery, and branded with the title of revolutionary."

Dr. Hipler has plainly shown that Copernicus belongs to the Catholic
ranks. The question now arises, Does he belong also to Germany?
Politically, the bishopric of Ermland was in his time under Polish
dominion. Nevertheless, to say nothing of the quiet, modest, and
genial industry which Copernicus seems to have possessed as a German
inheritance, it is certain that not only he, but also his mother,
wrote letters in German; and a Greek inscription in a book belonging
to his library shows that his name was pronounced Kopernik, with the
German accent. Justly, therefore, does his statue occupy a place in
the Walhalla of Ludwig I.




THE CHURCH BEYOND THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.


The States and territories of the Pacific coast are, in many
respects, "a land apart" from the rest of the Union. Separated from
the other States by an immense tract of unsettled territory, no
inconsiderable part of which must ever continue a desert, as well as
by the great barrier of the Rocky Mountains, the western slope of
that chain presents to the new-comer an aspect not less different
from the shores of the Atlantic than the latter differ from the
countries of Europe. The climate, with its semi-tropical division of
wet and dry seasons, the evidently volcanic formation of its surface,
the huge mountain chains, with all their accessories of valleys,
precipices, torrents, and cataracts, which occupy most of its area,
and the peculiar vegetation that covers its soil, all wear a foreign
appearance to an Eastern visitor; and the people themselves, though
forming an integral part of his own nation, are scarcely less
strange to his eyes. Men of races hardly known on the eastern side
of the Rocky Mountains meet him at every step; and not only do the
different European and Asiatic races retain their national customs
and characters much more tenaciously than the immigrant population
of the Eastern States, but they have very considerably modified
the character of their American fellow-settlers. The way in which
California, and, to a considerable degree, Oregon, were settled was
altogether different from the usual system of colonization which has
added so many States to the Union, from Ohio to Nebraska, and from
Mississippi and Texas to Minnesota. The journey to the Pacific coast
before the completion of the Pacific Railroad involved as complete a
separation from home associations, and as great a change from early
habits, to an American, as does the voyage across the Atlantic to
the European immigrant; and at its end he found himself in a country
entirely different, both physically and socially, from all that he
had been previously accustomed to. The influence of the old Spanish
settlements, in which for years was to be found the only established
society of the country, the mixture of men of all the European races
on a footing of perfect equality in the pursuit of wealth, and the
peculiarly adventurous and uncertain nature of mining life, which
long formed the chief employment of the whole population, all tended
to rub off the new-comers' national peculiarities and prejudices; and
the result has been the growth of a well-marked national character
among the few hundred thousand inhabitants of the Pacific coast.

Amid this cosmopolitan population the Catholic Church has taken
firm root, and in no other part of the country does she reckon
as large a proportion of the people within her fold, or exercise
more influence over the public mind. She had preceded the march of
American enterprise and the rush of gold-seekers on the shores of
the Pacific; and when the pioneers of the new population pushed
their way across the continent and descended the slope of the Sierra
Nevada, they found her missions already established in California.
While the American Republic was yet a thing of the future, and the
west of the Alleghanies was still an almost untrodden wilderness,
Catholic priests had already begun to gather into the fold of
Peter the tribes beyond the Rocky Mountains. In the early half of
the eighteenth century, the Jesuit Reductions of Lower California
were only less famous than those of Paraguay; and to the zeal of
the Franciscans who succeeded the Jesuits in 1767, Upper California
owes the introduction of Christianity and civilization. In 1769,
or a few months more than one hundred years ago, Father Junipero
Lerra, with a company of his Franciscan brethren and a few Mexican
settlers, founded the mission of San Diego, the first settlement
made by civilized men within what is now the State of California.
Before that year, indeed, although the ports of Monterey and San
Diego were well known to the Spanish navigators, no European had ever
penetrated into the interior of California, and even the existence
of the noble bay of San Francisco was unknown to the civilized world
until it was discovered and named by the humble friars. The salvation
of souls, the hope of making known to the Indians the doctrines of
Catholicity, were the motives which inspired the Franciscans to
undertake a task which had long been deemed impracticable by the
Spanish court in spite of its anxiety to extend its dominions to
the north of Mexico. To raise up the despised aborigines to the
dignity of Christian men, to show them the road to eternal happiness
in another life, and, as a means to that end, to promote their
well-being in this world, such were the objects for whose attainment
the devoted missionaries separated themselves from their native land
and the society of civilized men, to spend their lives among savages,
who often rewarded their devotion only by shedding their blood. The
Indians of California are in every respect a much inferior race to
the tribes on the east of the Rocky Mountains. Many of them went
wholly naked, they had no towns or villages, and although the country
abounded in game, they were indifferent hunters, and depended mainly
for subsistence on wild berries, roots, and grasshoppers. In tribal
organization they were little if at all superior to the Australian
savages, and of religious worship or morality they had scarcely
an idea. Many of the southern tribes, especially, were fierce and
warlike, and belonged to a kindred race to the Apaches, who still
set at defiance all the attempts of the United States government
to dislodge them from Arizona. Such were the men from whom the
Franciscans undertook to form a Christian community; and of their
success in so doing, the history of California for over sixty years
is an irrefragable witness.

In spite of occasional outbreaks of hostility on the part of the
Indians, and the destruction by them of a mission, the whole of the
region between the coast range and the ocean, as far north as the
Bay of San Francisco, was studded with such establishments before
the close of the century. Fifteen thousand converted Indians enjoyed
under the mild sway of the Franciscans a degree of prosperity almost
unparalleled in the history of their race. The missions, which were
eighteen in number, differed in size and importance, but were all
conducted on the same general plan. The church and the community
buildings, including the residence of the fathers, the store-houses
and workshops, formed the centre of a village of Indian huts, the
inhabitants of which were daily summoned by the church bells to
mass, as a prelude to their labors, and again in the evening called
back to rest by the notes of the Angelus. Religious instruction was
given to all on Sundays and holidays, and to the newly converted
and the children also. At other times during the day, the men worked
at agricultural labor, or looked after the cattle belonging to the
mission, and the unmarried women were employed at spinning, or
some other labor suited to their strength, in a building specially
provided for the purpose. The fathers, two or more of whom resided
in each Reduction, were the rulers, the judges, the instructors, and
the directors of work of their neophytes, who held all property in
common. The white population was few in number, consisting mainly of
small garrisons at different posts, intended to hold the wild Indians
in awe, and some families of settlers who were chiefly engaged in
stock-raising. The military commandant, who resided at Monterey,
might be regarded as the governor of the country; but the fathers and
their converts were entirely exempt from his jurisdiction, and were
independent of all authority subordinate to the Spanish crown. The
mission farms usually sufficed for the support of their inhabitants,
but the external expenses of the communities were defrayed by a
subsidy from the Spanish government and the "pious fund" of Spain, an
association very similar to the Society for the Propagation of the
Faith.

Such was the condition of California down to the end of the Spanish
rule; and during the whole of that period, and for several years
afterward, the missions continued to grow in numbers and prosperity.
The payments of the government subsidy and the remittances from the
pious fund became indeed very uncertain and irregular during the
struggle of Mexico for independence; but the industrial condition
of the missions was then such that they stood no longer in need of
external aid, and indeed they were able to contribute largely to the
support of the administration of the territory. The establishment
of the Mexican Republic made for some years little change in the
condition of the missions of California, and the services rendered
by the fathers to civilization were more than once acknowledged by
the Mexican Congress. But the mission property was too tempting a
bait to the needy revolutionists who disputed for supreme power in
that ill-starred country. In 1833, a decree of Congress deprived the
Franciscans of all authority over the missions, and placed their
property in the hands of lay administrators. The Indians were to
receive certain portions of land, and some stock individually, and
the rest was to be applied to the use of the state. The results were
such as might be expected from the history of similar confiscation in
foreign lands. The fruits of sixty years' patient toil were wasted
during a few years of riotous plundering, in the name of state
administration; the cattle belonging to the missions were stolen or
killed; the churches and public works allowed to fall into ruin;
the cultivation of the soil neglected; and the unfortunate Indians,
deprived of their protectors, and handed over to the tender mercies
of "liberal" officials, wandered away in thousands from their abodes,
and either perished or relapsed into barbarism. The population of the
missions in nine years dwindled from upward of thirty to little over
four thousand Indians; and when their property was sold at auction in
1845, its value had fallen from several millions to a mere nothing.
The native Spanish Californians, who clearly saw the fatal results
of the overthrow of the missions to the prosperity of the country,
made several attempts to restore them to their former condition, but
in vain. The constant revolutions of which Mexico was the theatre
effectually prevented such a restoration, and the fate of the
Indians was sealed by the political changes which shortly afterward
threw the country into the hands of another race and another
government. Under the American _regime_ they have dwindled to less
than one tenth of their former numbers, and, with the exception of a
certain number of the converts of the Franciscans, who have adopted
partially the usages of civilized life, and become amalgamated with
the Spanish population, the whole race seems doomed to disappear from
the land.

Serious, however, as was the blow which the church received from
the overthrow of the Franciscan missions, she did not abandon her
hold upon California. From the date of Father Lerra's arrival in the
country, a small stream of Spanish or Mexican immigration had been
flowing into it, and building up its "pueblos" near, but altogether
distinct from, the mission establishments. The separation of the
races was one of the points jealously attended to by the Franciscans,
as essential to the success of their civilizing efforts among the
Indians; and the Indian churches and Indian cemeteries, which still
remain in several of the missions, at a short distance from the
Spanish churches and Spanish burying-grounds, show how far this
policy was carried out. The experience of centuries of mission work
had taught the Franciscans that free intercourse between a civilized
and an uncivilized race invariably leads to the demoralization of
both, and much of their success must be ascribed to the care with
which they kept their neophytes apart from the white settlements. The
latter, at the time of the secularization, contained a population of
some five or six thousand, and, including the half-civilized Indians
who still remained around the missions, the whole Catholic population
probably amounted to fifteen thousand at the epoch of the American
conquest. For the benefit of this population, after the overthrow
of the missions, the holy see established in 1840 the diocese of
California, including the peninsula of Lower California within its
boundaries.

Had Upper California continued a portion of the Mexican republic,
there would have probably been little difference between its
ecclesiastical history and that of Sonora or Chihuahua; but the
American conquest, and still more the subsequent discovery of gold
in the Sacramento River, entirely changed the face of affairs. The
crowd of immigrants that flocked into the country was so great as
to reduce the original population to comparative insignificance in
a few months. A single year sufficed to quadruple the number of
inhabitants, and two to increase it tenfold. The new population was
indeed a strange one. American it was in its dominant political
elements, but fully one half of it was made up of natives of other
countries than the United States. Frenchmen, Spaniards, Italians,
Germans, Scandinavians, Irish, English, Mexicans, South Americans,
Indians, Kanakas, and Chinese all poured by thousands into the New
Eldorado, which might with equal justice be styled the modern Babel.
Seldom has so radical a change taken place in the population of a
country in so short a time, and the church, if she did not wish
to lose the territory she had conquered with so much toil, had to
commence her mission work over again, and under entirely different
circumstances from those under which the Franciscans had begun the
work. A very large number of the new-comers were Catholics; but
in the excitement of gold-seeking, the hold of religion on their
minds had been seriously loosened, and a reckless disregard of
all social and moral restraint pervaded the whole population. To
restore the sway of religion over minds that had forgotten it, to
provide priests, churches, schools, and all the various institutions
of Catholic charity, for thousands of her own children, and to
make known her doctrines to a still larger number of those who did
not belong to her fold, such was the task before the church in
California, and to its accomplishment she addressed herself almost as
soon as the first immigrants landed in San Francisco.

A frame church, the first in California, was erected in that city
for the use of the Catholic miners in 1849, and, as the different
"camps" sprang up through the State, other churches were rapidly
built up in the more important centres of population. The following
year, a new diocese was formed of the territory lately acquired by
the United States, and its government intrusted to the Right Reverend
Bishop (now Archbishop) Allemany, who was called to that office from
his Dominican convent in Kentucky. The new bishop lost no time in
hastening to his post, and began his arduous task with rare wisdom
and energy. The ranks of the secular clergy were largely recruited
from various countries; the Jesuits, who had long been engaged in
evangelizing the Indians of Oregon, were installed in the old mission
of Santa Clara; a branch of the Sisters of Notre Dame was established
in the neighboring town of San Jose; and the Sisters of Charity took
charge of an orphan asylum and hospital in San Francisco.

All this had been done before the close of 1853, or in the height of
the excitement of the early colonization, an excitement such as it is
hard for the sober dwellers of more settled communities to form any
idea of. The population of California resembled an ill-disciplined
army rather than a well-ordered community; the immense majority
of its members had neither families, fixed abodes, nor permanent
occupations, and were ready to rush anywhere at the slightest rumor
of rich "diggings." The mines were the great centre of attraction to
all, and, as the old ones were worked out or new ones discovered,
the entire population moved from one part of the country to another.
Towns were built up only to be abandoned in a few months, and even
San Francisco itself, in spite of its unrivalled commercial position,
more than once was nearly deserted by its inhabitants. Fortunes were
made or lost in a few hours, not merely by a few bold speculators,
but by every class of the people; and the wild excitements which
now and then cause such commotion in Wall street, were constantly
paralleled in every mining camp of California. The sudden acquisition
of fortune was the hope of every man; and while men were thus
uncertain about what position they might occupy on the morrow, few
cared to settle down to the routine of domestic life. Except among
the Spanish Californians, scarcely any families were to be found
in the country, and the standard of morality was such as might be
expected under the circumstances. Laws there were, indeed, but the
authorities were utterly unable to enforce them, and bullies and
duellists settled their quarrels with arms, even on the streets
of San Francisco, unchecked by police interference. Murderers and
robbers promenaded the towns unmolested, and the idea of official
honesty, or of seeking redress for wrongs at the hands of the law,
was deemed too absurd to be entertained by a sensible man. Vigilance
committees, the last refuge of society seeking to save itself from
destruction, offered almost the only protection to persons and
property that could be had in many districts. Bands of desperadoes,
such as the "hounds" in San Francisco, and Joaquin's gang in the
southern counties, openly set the law at defiance, and, in the fever
of gold-seeking that pervaded the whole community, no force could be
obtained to make it respected.

Such was the population of California when Bishop Allemany commenced
his episcopal career; and the prospect of making religion flourish
on such a soil was indeed such as might well dismay a fainter heart.
Nevertheless he addressed himself to the task, and his toils were
not unrewarded. Gradually but decidedly, the moral character of
California began to improve, and the more glaring offences against
public decency to grow rare. The rush of immigrants slackened in
1852, and something like settled society began to form among the
older residents. Of the agents which helped to bring order out of
the social chaos of "'49," none was more powerful than the influence
of the Catholic Church. Most of the Protestant population had thrown
off all allegiance to any sect, and this fact, while it contributed
to make them to a great extent regardless of the rules of morality,
had at least the good effect of banishing anti-Catholic prejudices
from their minds. The church and her institutions were regarded with
much respect by all classes in California, even at the time when
the Know-Nothing movement was exciting such a storm of fanaticism
in the Eastern States. Many Americans had married Catholic wives,
or been long settled among the Spanish Californians; the history
of the Franciscan missionaries was well known to all, and their
devotedness appreciated by Catholics and Protestants alike. All
these causes combined to give Catholicity considerable importance
in the public opinion, and lent immense strength to her efforts in
behalf of morality and religion. Catholic charities stood high in
the public favor; the public hospital of San Francisco, after an
experience of official management which swept away no small portion
of the city property, was intrusted to the charge of the Sisters
of Charity; Catholic schools for a long time shared in the public
school funds; and Catholic asylums and orphanages were liberally
aided by the public. Bishop Allemany was not slow in taking advantage
of this favorable state of public feeling to provide his diocese
with Catholic institutions. New churches were erected all over the
State; schools established wherever it was practicable; and so great
progress made generally that, in less than three years after his
arrival in San Francisco, it became necessary to divide his diocese.
The southern counties of the State, comprising most of the Spanish
Californians among its inhabitants, were formed into the diocese of
Monterey and Los Angeles in 1853. At the same time San Francisco was
raised to the archiepiscopal rank. The membership of the Protestant
churches of all denominations in the State was then almost nominal,
scarcely amounting to two per cent of the population, while the
Catholics formed at least thirty per cent. The public, as a general
rule, regarded the Catholic Church as _the_ church, and this feeling
to a great extent still prevails.

For some years after the erection of the diocese of Monterey, there
was little increase in the population of California; indeed, owing
to the falling off in the yield of the precious metals, and the
discovery of new mines in the neighboring territories, there was
at times a considerable decrease in its numbers; nevertheless, the
number of Catholics continued to increase, owing partly to the large
proportion of Irish among the later immigrants, and partly to the
natural growth of the Catholic population, which was more settled
than the rest of the community. A further division of the archdiocese
of San Francisco was found necessary in 1861. The northern portion
of the State, with the adjoining territories of Nevada and Utah,
was formed into the Vicariate of Marysville, which was subsequently
raised to the rank of a bishopric, with its see at Grass Valley.

Since that period no changes have been made in the episcopal
divisions of California; but the second order of the clergy, the
Catholic population, Catholic institutions, and Catholic churches
have continued to grow in numbers. At present, the proportion of
priests to the whole population is nearly three times greater in
California than the average for the whole of the Union, being about
one priest to every three thousand five hundred inhabitants; while
throughout the United States the average does not exceed one to ten
thousand. Nevertheless, owing to the extent of the country over
which the population is scattered, and the very large proportion
of Catholics in it, there is still a great want of more priests
and churches, and it will doubtless be some years before it can be
adequately supplied.

In no State of the Union have the religious orders taken deeper
root or thriven better than in California. The Franciscans, the
Dominicans, the Jesuits, the Vincentians, the Christian Brothers, the
Sisters of Charity, of Mercy, of Notre Dame, of the Presentation,
of the Sacred Heart, and of the order of St. Dominic, all have
establishments within its boundaries.

The Franciscans, as we have seen, were the pioneers of Christianity
in California, and, in spite of the oppression of the Mexican
government, they have never abandoned the land. A number of them
continued to attend to the spiritual wants of the population, both
Spanish and Indian, after the control of the latter had been taken
from them, and the order has shared in the growth of the church since
the American conquest. Two of their former mission establishments are
still in their hands, in the diocese of Monterey, in which they have
also two schools.

The Vincentians have the only establishment they possess in
California in the same diocese, where they opened a college some two
and a half years ago, and have since conducted it with considerable
success. Los Angeles City also possesses an orphan asylum and a
hospital, under the management of the Sisters of Charity, and there
are several convents of nuns in different parts of the diocese.

The Jesuits were the first missionaries of California, though the
tyrannical suppression of their order, and the barbarous exile of
its members from the dominions of the king of Spain, prevented them
from extending their spiritual conquests beyond the peninsula of
Lower California. It was not until after the American conquest that
they were permitted to enter Upper California; but as soon as that
event opened the country to them, their entry was not long delayed.
In 1851, several fathers of the society, who had been previously
engaged in the Indian missions of Oregon, arrived in California, and
were put in possession of the old Franciscan Mission at Santa Clara,
about fifty miles south of San Francisco. There they founded a
college, which at present ranks perhaps first among the institutions
of learning on the Pacific coast, and is one of the largest houses
of the order on the American continent. The crusade against the
monastic orders, which had been inaugurated in Italy shortly before,
proved highly profitable to California, as a large number of Italian
Jesuits were thus obtained for Santa Clara. A second college was
subsequently opened in San Francisco, which has attained an equal
degree of prosperity with the older academy, and, in addition, the
parishes of Santa Clara and San Jose are administered by the priests
of the order. Altogether, the Jesuits number about thirty priests,
and as many, or rather more, lay brothers in California. In the
internal administration of the order, California is dependent on the
provincial of Turin in Italy, whence most of its missionaries came,
and has no connection with the provinces established in the Eastern
States. It possesses a novitiate of its own at Santa Clara, and
only requires a house of studies to have all the organization of a
province complete in itself.

The Dominicans are also established in the archdiocese of San
Francisco, where they have a convent at Benicia on the Sacramento
River, besides furnishing pastors to several other parishes. The
archbishop himself is a member of the order, which well maintains in
California its reputation for learning and strictness of discipline.
Several of the Californian Dominicans, including the archbishop, are
natives of Spain, but the majority are Irish or Irish-Americans. The
Dominican nuns also have a convent and academy at Benicia, which
ranks deservedly high among the educational institutions of the
State; and a free school in San Francisco, which affords instruction
to several hundred children.

The Christian Brothers are, in point of time, the newest of the
religious orders in California, having only come to the State some
two years ago, at the invitation of Archbishop Allemany. Their
system of education is eminently adapted to the requirements of her
people, as is shown by the rapid success of their first college,
which already numbers more than two hundred and twenty resident
students. The marked success which has so far attended the efforts of
the brothers gives every reason to believe that they (and it may be
added, they alone) can solve the great problem of Catholic education
in California, which is, how to provide Catholic common schools
for the children of the working-classes. Those classes there, as
everywhere else throughout the Union, form the bulk of the Catholic
population, and desire to procure for their little ones the advantage
of schooling. If possible, they wish to obtain it from Catholic
sources; but if this cannot be, they will, there is ground to fear,
avail themselves of the educational facilities offered by the State
schools, even at the risk of their children's faith. As the number
of these children must be reckoned by tens of thousands, the task of
providing them with suitable education is no easy one; but the object
and spirit of the order instituted by the venerable De La Salle, and
the success which has attended its system of parochial schools in
Missouri and other States, give good grounds to hope that it will
prove equal to the work that lies before it in California, where the
circumstances of the country are peculiarly favorable to the growth
of Catholic institutions. Nowhere else has anti-Catholic bigotry less
power in the government, or is public opinion more favorable to the
church; and though the infidel common-school system finds strong
support in a numerous class, yet we believe that in no part of the
Union can the battle for religious education be fought out under
more favorable auspices. The urgent need that exists for Catholic
schools at present, may be judged of from the fact that while the
different colleges and boarding-schools under the management of the
Jesuits, Franciscans, Christian Brothers, and Vincentians, provide
education for about a thousand boys, the Catholic common schools
throughout the State contain a number scarcely greater, or less than
a tenth of their due proportion. Female education is better provided
for in this respect. The Presentation and Dominican Sisters, and
the Sisters of Charity and Mercy, have about four thousand pupils
in their free schools in San Francisco, and there are also several
similar establishments in different parts of the State; but even
these are inadequate to the wants of the Catholic population, and in
California, as in the Eastern States, the problem of how to provide
schooling for the children of the poor is the most serious and
difficult one that the church has to solve.

California, in proportion to its population, is rich in institutions
for the relief of suffering and distress. The male and female orphan
asylums in the dioceses of San Francisco, Grass Valley, and Monterey
maintain about six hundred of these bereaved little ones. The Sisters
of Mercy and Charity have each a general hospital under their charge
in San Francisco, where the latter have also a foundling hospital.
They have also a hospital in Los Angeles, and the Sisters of Mercy
have a Magdalen asylum in San Francisco. Altogether, the number of
religious, of both sexes, engaged in works of instruction or charity
in California, approaches three hundred, and this in a population of
little over half a million.

Reference has already been made to the variety of races that forms so
peculiar a feature in the Californian population. It may not be amiss
to devote a few words to each separately, especially with regard to
their relations with the church.

As the original settlers of the country, the Spanish element deserves
to be mentioned first, although no longer occupying the chief place
in political or numerical importance. The Spanish Californians are
mostly descended from a few families, chiefly Europeans, who settled
in the country in the palmy days of the missions, and whose posterity
have increased in the course of a century to a population of several
thousand. The prevalence of a few family names among them is quite as
remarkable as in certain districts of Ireland and Scotland, where a
single sept name is borne by almost all the inhabitants of a parish
or barony; and nearly all the more wealthy families are connected
with one another by the ties of blood or marriage. As a general
rule, they have less intermixture of Indian blood than the southern
Mexicans, though such of the mission Indians as have survived the
overthrow of their protectors regard themselves as Spaniards, and are
so styled by the rest of the population. Some of these Indians occupy
respectable positions in society, and one at least, Senor Dominguez,
was a member of the convention which drew up the State constitution
of California. The Spanish Californians are generally hospitable and
generous, and, though imperfectly acquainted with the refinements
of civilization, they display much of the old Spanish politeness
in their dealings with each other and with strangers. They retain
the Spanish taste for music and dancing, and, we are sorry to say,
for bull-fights and games of chance; in Los Angeles and the other
southern counties, all the scenes of the life of Leon or Castile may
still be witnessed. Cattle-raising forms their chief occupation,
and in the management of stock they display a good deal of skill
and energy; but their inexperience in the ways of modern life, and
their ignorance of American law, have gradually deprived them of the
ownership of most of the lands they held at the discovery of the
gold "placers." Many of them sold their property at ridiculously
low prices, others were deprived of them by the operation of the
land tax, which was entirely new to their ideas; while the distaste
for settled industry and the improvident habits engendered by their
former mode of life unfitted them for competing in other pursuits
with the enterprise of the new-comers. The generation which has grown
up since the American conquest, however, displays a much greater
spirit of enterprise than its fathers have shown, and promises to
play a more important part in the country. Politically and socially,
the Spanish Californians enjoy a good deal of consideration; some
of them usually occupy seats in the State Legislature, and on the
judicial bench; the Spanish language is used as well as the English
in legal documents, and the acts of the Legislature; and one of the
higher State offices is generally filled by a Spaniard.

There is also a considerable Spanish-American population, chiefly
Mexicans and Chilenos, in the Pacific States. Most of them are
engaged in mining or stock-raising; but a considerable number are
engaged in business, in which several of them occupy prominent
positions. The Chilenos are generally possessed of at least the
rudiments of schooling, and are tolerably well organized for mutual
aid; but the Mexicans, owing to the political condition of their
country, are much behind them in both these respects. Altogether, the
population of California of Spanish origin must number from forty to
fifty thousand.

Closely connected with the Spanish population are the Portuguese,
who, of late years, have begun to immigrate to California in
considerable numbers, and now number several thousands there. The
majority of them are engaged in farming or gardening. They are,
as a class, sober, industrious, and peaceable. They are settled
principally in the counties around the Bay of San Francisco, and very
few of them are to be found in the city itself.

The American population, as it is customary in California to style
the natives of the other States of the Union, has been drawn in not
very unequal proportions from the North and South, and its character
partakes of the peculiarities of both sections, with a general
spirit of recklessness and profusion that is peculiarly its own. The
public opinion of California is much more liberal and tolerant than
that of the Eastern States, and it is rarely indeed that Catholics
have to complain of any open display of offensive bigotry on the
part of any influential portion of their fellow-citizens. On one
occasion, about a year ago, a leading evening paper of San Francisco
attempted to raise an anti-Catholic cry during the excitement of a
political campaign; but the attempt met with such reprobation from
all parties, that the proprietors found it expedient to apologize for
it in the course of a day or two as best they could. The great foe
of the church in California is not Protestantism, but unbelief; and
although the latter is in its nature as full of bitterness against
her as the former, yet its champions find it necessary to assume
liberality, even if they do not feel it, in obedience to public
sentiment. Some of the Protestant sects are indeed outspoken in their
bigotry, but their power is very trifling, as the entire Protestant
church membership does not amount to five per cent of the population,
and not one sixth of the whole people comes under the influence of
any Protestant denomination whatsoever. The number of converts in
California and Oregon is considerable, including several individuals
of high political and literary eminence, and there are also many
American Catholics, chiefly from Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri,
scattered through the State.

The Irish are the most numerous of the European nationalities
represented in the Californian population, and enjoy a much greater
degree of prosperity than their countrymen in any other State of
the Union. A much larger proportion of their numbers are engaged in
farming than is the case in the Eastern States, and the advantages
arising from such an employment of their labor are evident to the
dullest eye. Much of the cultivated land of the State is in their
possession, and some of them are among its largest land-owners. The
city population also enjoys a greater degree of comfort than the
same class in New York or Boston. Three of the savings-banks of San
Francisco, representing nearly half the capital of the entire number
of such institutions in that city, are under Irish control, and
Irishmen are also among the most successful merchants, bankers, and
manufacturers of California. The late mayor of San Francisco, and
an ex-governor of the State are Irishmen and Catholics, and three
Irish-Americans in succession have filled the office of United
States senator, one of whom still represents the State in Washington.
We are not able to give the precise amount of the Irish population in
California; but, including the children of Irish parents, it cannot
be less than a fourth of the whole. It is needless to state that the
immense majority of the Irish in California are Catholics, and that
their zeal for every thing pertaining to religion forms a marked
contrast to the indifference of their non-Catholic fellow-citizens.

The Germans come next to the Irish in importance, probably amounting
to two thirds of their number. They are more blended with the rest
of the population than in the Eastern States, and there is only one
distinctively German settlement in California, namely, the town
of Anaheim on the southern coast. About one fourth of them are
Catholics, but they only possess one German church in the state,
forming, in this respect, a strong contrast to their countrymen
in the Mississippi Valley and on the Atlantic seaboard. Of the
non-Catholic Germans, the Jews form a considerable and very wealthy
portion, and preserve their distinctive national habits much more
tenaciously than the rest of their countrymen. The synagogue Emmanuel
in San Francisco is the most costly and elegant place of worship
on the Pacific coast, while the German Protestants have scarcely a
church in California, and indeed, few of them can be regarded as
Christians in any sense.

The French population of California is very considerable, amounting
to probably from ten to fifteen thousand, though, as comparatively
few of its members become naturalized, it is not so easy to estimate
its numbers. In itself it is more completely organized than any
other class of the population, having its own benevolent societies,
hospitals, military companies, savings-banks, press, and other
institutions, all distinctively French in their management. The
Italians, who are nearly as numerous as the French, resemble them in
the number of their national organizations; but they are not as well
managed as those of the former. The Italians are engaged chiefly in
trade, fishing, and gardening, in which pursuits they are industrious
and usually prosperous. The French are engaged in almost every
avocation. The Italians have a national church in San Francisco, and
the French have a special pastor attached to one of the parochial
churches of the city for their benefit.

The Sclavonians from Austria are also a numerous body; they usually
are classed with the Italians, though possessing several associations
of their own nationality. Nearly one half of them are schismatics;
and the Russian government has lately established a schismatic church
in San Francisco for their use and that of the few Russians residing
there. It is even in contemplation to make that city the residence of
the Bishop of Sitka, who has recently been transferred along with his
flock to the allegiance of the United States, but who, nevertheless,
still receives his orders from the Russian synod. It is a curious
example of the way religious affairs are managed among the subjects
of the czar, that the president of the Sclavonian Church Society is
a German Lutheran, who fills the office of Russian consul, and on
that account alone is considered sufficiently qualified to direct the
spiritual concerns of his fellow-subjects.

The Chinese form a very large, and, in many respects, the strangest
element in the population of the Pacific coast. They are spread
through all its States and territories, and, according to the most
reliable accounts, number at least a hundred thousand. Few of
them have families, or ever intend to settle permanently in the
country, but after a few years' toil as servants or laborers they
almost invariably return to China. The immense majority of them are
pagans or atheists, and they have several temples or joss-houses in
different cities of California. A few Catholics, however, are to be
found among them, and a small chapel has lately been opened in San
Francisco for their special use. The morals of the pagan Chinese are
of the most licentious kind, and slavery in its worst form exists
among them in spite of the laws, their ignorance of the language
acting as an effectual bar to their availing themselves of its
safeguards to personal freedom. As in all other Chinese settlements,
so in California, they have practically a government of their own,
under the name of companies, the chief men of which exercise almost
absolute authority over their countrymen, extending, it is believed,
occasionally to the infliction of capital punishment. The white
laboring classes are bitterly opposed to the Chinese, on account
of the low rate of wages for which they work, and the belief that
they are slaves of the companies; but nevertheless their numbers
are steadily on the increase, and it is not impossible but they
may eventually become the majority of the population of the entire
Pacific slope.

The greater part of the preceding remarks are applicable mainly to
California and the adjoining mining territories of Nevada, Montana,
Idaho, and Arizona, which have been chiefly settled from it, and
whose inhabitants partake of the character of its people. The
State of Oregon and the adjoining territory of Washington number a
population of nearly two hundred thousand, of an entirely different
character from that of California.

While Catholic missionaries were the first settlers in California,
the colonization of Oregon was mainly effected under the direction
of Methodist ministers and the auspices of the Methodist Church.
Catholic priests, it is true, had preceded Methodism on its soil,
and the present Archbishop of Portland and the Vicar-Apostolic of
Vancouver had visited its Indian tribes in 1838; but the Methodist
colonies, which arrived in the country a few years later, were
deeply imbued with hatred to Catholicity, and a good deal of their
intolerant spirit still remains among the people. The Jesuits have
been, indeed, very successful in converting and civilizing the
Indians; but the white population, with the exception of a few
Canadian colonies and a not very large number of Catholics in the
city of Portland and the mining districts of southern Oregon, is
mainly under Methodist influence. Indeed, so high did anti-Catholic
prejudice run among the first settlers of Oregon, that a Methodist
conference seriously proposed to Mr. Lane, the first governor of the
territory, to expel all Catholics from his jurisdiction by force,
a proposition which it is scarcely needful to say he indignantly
rejected. Of late years, however, the number of Catholics is on the
increase, and with the greater facilities for settlement offered
by the lines of railroads now in course of construction, their
numbers will no doubt grow still faster in the future. Portland
in Oregon is an archiepiscopal see, and Washington territory is a
separate diocese, so that Catholic immigrants need not fear the
want of religious aids in spite of the limited number of their
fellow-worshippers in these northern districts of the Pacific coast.

Such, in brief, is the past history and the present state of the
church beyond the Rocky Mountains; and a Catholic can hardly fail to
find in them the brightest hopes for its future. Obstacles will have
to be encountered, no doubt; fights be fought and sacrifices made;
but the successes which Catholicity has already achieved, and the
vantage-ground she now occupies in California, leave little reason
to doubt of her final triumph. The soil, fertilized by the sweat and
blood of the Franciscan missionaries, cannot prove a barren one; and
no part of the Union gives promise of a richer harvest than that
California which a few years ago was regarded throughout the world as
the chosen abode of lawlessness and crime.




OUR LADY'S NATIVITY.


    Star of the morning, how still was thy shining,
      When its young splendor arose on the sea!
    Only the angels, the secret divining,
      Hailed the long-promised, the chosen, in thee.

    Sad were the fallen, and vainly dissembled
      Fears of "the woman" in Eden foretold;
    Darkly they guessed, as believing they trembled,
      Who was the gem for the casket of gold.[302]

    Oft as thy parents bent musingly o'er thee,
      Watching thy slumbers and blessing their God,
    Little they dreamt of the glory before thee,
      Little they thought thee the mystical Rod.

    Though the deep heart of the nations forsaken
      Beat with a sense of deliverance nigh;
    True to a hope through the ages unshaken,
      Looked for "the day-spring" to break "from on high;"

    Thee they perceived not, the pledge of redemption--
      Hidden like thought, though no longer afar;
    Not though the light of a peerless exemption
      Beamed in thy rising, immaculate star!

    All in the twilight, so modestly shining,
      Dawned thy young beauty, sweet star of the sea!
    Only the angels, the secret divining,
      Hailed the elected, "the Virgin,"[303] in thee.

                                                    B. D. H.

FOOTNOTES:

[302] "Thou art the casket where the jewel lay."--_George Herbert._

[303] ~he Parthenos~. LXX. _The_ Virgin, not _a_ Virgin; which is
also more in accordance with the Hebrew and the Latin.




PLUTARCH.


The moral influence which Plutarch exerts over posterity is of a
very peculiar kind. He has not, like Aristotle, laid down the law
to an entire world for nearly two thousand years. He has not been
deemed so perfect a master of style as Virgil or Cicero, who were
the models, first of the Benedictines, and then of the prose writers
and poets of the humanitarian school. His reputation pales by the
side of the brilliant fame which the resurrected Plato enjoyed
during the fifteenth century; and yet he has done what all these
immortals, whose authority far surpasses in extent and duration that
of his biographies, have failed to do. Among the revived ancient
authors none has surpassed Plutarch in inspiring the moderns with
the same keen appreciation of the classic characteristics, with the
same love and enthusiasm for whatever is really or supposedly great
in antiquity; and none has therefore contributed so much to the
revelation of what we understand by the purely human in man's nature.

From the days of Macchiavelli and Charles V. down to the present, we
rarely fail to meet with the name of Plutarch among those writers who
have made an abiding impression on the youthful minds of prominent
statesmen and warriors. In turning over the leaves of the biographies
of our modern great, we are constantly reminded of the words which
Schiller puts into the mouth of Carl Moor: "When I read of the great
men in my Plutarch, I loath our ink-staining age." This sentiment has
found an echo in every civilized land, and especially in France.

The first French translation of Plutarch's Parallels was welcomed
by Montaigne with expressions of the liveliest joy. "We would have
been swallowed up in ignorance," exclaims he, (essay ii. 4,) "if this
book had not extricated us from the slough; thanks to Plutarch, we
now dare to speak and write." Rabelais refreshes his soul with the
_Moralia_. "There is," writes the translator Amyot to King Charles
IX., "no better work next to holy writ." The "perennially young"
Plutarch is the "breviary," the "conscience" of the century, and he
remains until the beginning of the most modern time--as Madame Roland
calls him--"the pasture of great souls," and the "fellow-companion
of warriors." Conde had him read out aloud in his tent, and in the
historical part of the books for a camp library which Napoleon
Bonaparte ordered from the citoyen J. B. Soy, "_homme de lettres_,"
March, 1798, Plutarch stands first, and Tacitus, Thucydides, and
Frederick II. last.

The home of Plutarch's admirers is, as we have already observed,
France. Like all Latin races, the French delight to revel in pictures
of ancient greatness; their historical imagination is governed by
fantastic ideals of antiquity, especially of ancient Rome, and the
fountain from which they drew, mediately and immediately, their
inspiration, is Plutarch's Lives. Hence the exaggerated estimate of
Plutarch's historical merits, against which modern criticism begins
to protest with much vigor, is greatest in that country. Indeed,
the principle upon which Plutarch has selected his historical
authorities, and the manner in which he has used them, are decidedly
open to objection. They are not chosen according to their scientific
or critical value, but according to their wealth of picturesque
detail and psychologically remarkable characteristics. He follows
a leading author, whose name he usually omits to state, and whose
testimony he only compares with that of other writers when there is
a conflict of authorities. The text is never cited. He reproduces
the sense, but with that latitude which is natural to an imaginative
mind endowed in an unusual degree with the gift of realizing the
past. In the choice of his subject matter he follows the instincts
of a historical portrait-painter. To describe campaigns, to analyze
great political changes, is not his province. His acquaintance with
the political and military systems of the ancient Greeks and Romans
is very superficial, and he seems to care little for a more intimate
knowledge of them. His main purpose is not the study of history, but
that of the personal career of interesting individuals. "It is not
histories we write," Plutarch tells us himself in his introduction to
the life of Alexander the Great; "but life-pictures;" and for these,
he maintains, some small trait, some apt expression, be it only a
witticism, is often more available than the greatest military deeds,
the most bloody victories, or the most splendid conquests.

In making this distinction, which Plutarch repeatedly acknowledges
to be a rule with him, he forgets that he violates the natural
connection, inasmuch as all historical personages are part and
parcel of the time they live in; he forgets also that, thus treated,
historical characters degenerate into ordinary mortals. But Plutarch
does not aspire to the dignity of a historian; he simply claims to
"paint souls;" and those readers who ignore this distinction have
never comprehended him.

Some of the works which Plutarch was still able to consult are lost,
and we depend, therefore, upon him for light on certain important
periods of history. This has led many to regard him as a historical
authority, to consider his biographical narratives as the main
object of his writings, and to skip the moralizing comparisons of
the parallel biographies which show that these portraits are to him
nothing more than a means of illustrating his peculiar ethics by
examples. This point is of great importance; for it proves the only
view from which the literary character of Plutarch can be justly
estimated.

Not only his narratives, but the judgments which he bases upon them,
and the views of the world from which they spring, have left their
mark on posterity, and this to an extent surprising even to the
initiated. And here it behooves us to exercise still greater caution,
a still greater distrust, than we entertain for his statements of
fact. Plutarch stands as far removed from the times of the heroes
upon whom he passes judgment, as we are from the characters of the
Crusades. The full effects of this remoteness can only be estimated
by those who have made Plutarch's age and the moral condition
reflected in his non-historical writings their special study.
"Plutarch's biographies," remarks a French scholar of this class,
"are an explanatory appendix to his _Moralia_; both equally reflected
a Greek provincialist's views of the world under the empire; the
views of one who sought to console himself for the degradation and
emptiness of the present by a romantic idealization of the real and
imaginary grandeur of a former age." Plutarch is an out-and-out
romancist, and to this must be mainly ascribed the influence he
wields over a certain order of minds. The historical errors which
we are so slowly correcting are due to this discovery. To show how
little Plutarch was fit to play the part of interpreter to a period
which had already become remote antiquity in his day, we need only
cast a single glance at the times in which he lived.

From Plutarch's own writings we glean nothing that is authentic
in regard to his life. Rich as they no doubt are in interesting
contributions to the moral and intellectual history of his times,
they are barren as regards every thing relating to the author's
biography. In truth, the biographer of the ancients is himself
without a biography. We know, in the main, that he was born in
Chaeronea, about the time of Nero's visit to the Delphic temple; that
he studied at Athens under the philosopher Ammonius; that he visited
Greece, Egypt, and Italy as a peripatetic scholar. After having
taught many years at Rome, he finally returned to his native place
and commenced that prolific literary activity which he displayed
in nearly all departments of ancient knowledge. In these labors
the indefatigable student was rather assisted than retarded by his
various public duties, first on the urban police, then as archon, and
lastly as the high-priest of the Delphic Apollo.

The story that Plutarch was once the teacher of Trajan, and that the
latter appointed him governor of Hellas and Illyricum, first told
by Symkellas and Suidas, then repeated by John of Salisbury and the
scholars of the Renaissance, is a silly Byzantine fable. The latter
portion of Plutarch's life, as we learn from his confessions, passed
in a retirement entirely inconsistent with the Byzantine story. The
world within whose bounds the archon of Chaeronea and priest of Apollo
lived was a contracted one, and only romance could gild such an
existence with the halo of departed glory.

Plutarch may be said to have done wonders. At a time when the old
love of country and state had long died out, he, the philosopher,
determinedly opposed the petty, baneless cosmopolitanism of his day.
In a world which had long lost its ancient faith, and in which the
Gospel of Christ had not yet attained the ascendency, the priest of
the Delphic oracle battled undismayed for the old gods and against
the anarchy of the renegade schools of philosophy. In both cases he
is, however, himself, and more than he seems aware or is willing to
concede, tainted by the prevailing scepticism, and it is this, in
consequence, which colors his own views of the world with what we
call romanticism.

Let us follow Plutarch for a moment on those two battle-fields of his
polemics, and observe the distinctive features of the _Moralia_.

The warm appreciation which he displays for every thing that is great
in humanity or history is surprising when we remember the incredible
hollowness of the surroundings amidst which his heroes were drawn,
and the society in which he lived, not as a soured misanthrope, but
as a stirring official. The petty Chaeronea was hardly the place to
prepare the mind for the reception of great thoughts. The population
of the municipality, though active and bustling, lived far from the
great world. It had its share of orators, sophists, lecturers; it had
party divisions to quicken the heart to love and hate; it had games
to excite the passions and to stimulate ambition. But what were the
questions which the people quarrelled about with all the readiness
and vehemence proverbial of the Hellenic race? They were mainly where
the best baths might be found; which party was most likely to triumph
at the next dog or cock-fight; what kind of man the new official
from Rome, or the next travelling sophist, would turn out to be; how
such a one had made his fortune, or how Ismenodora, the wealthy
widow, could have espoused an obscure man? These were the principal
topics which the Chaeroneans of Plutarch's day discussed when they
went to sleep at night, and resumed again on waking in the morning.
And yet how dearly Plutarch loved this small, petty fatherland! How
happy he appears to be that it should enjoy the golden peace which
at last fell upon the world after the empire had put an end to the
terrible civil wars! Under the iron rule of Rome all provinces once
more breathed freely. Whatever imperialism meant at the capital,
in the provinces it was still popular; and even under Domitian, as
Suetonius assures us, the moderation and justice of the Caesars was
the theme of general praise. In contemporary Hellas, in the province
of Achaia, the people appreciated these blessings, though they felt
most painfully the loss of their former power and renown. Even the
monuments of their ancient glory, which attracted annually crowds
of strangers, became so many tombstones full of bitter memories,
and the explanations of the garrulous guides must have sounded like
reproaches in the ears of the degenerate race.

The policy which imperial Rome pursued toward the land from which she
had received in the palmy days of her transition to a more refined
culture the most admired models in science and art, and from which
she obtained in the following centuries the best instructors, the
most learned writers, and the most desirable nurses, was a strange
compound of severe brutality and flattering caresses. When the great
Germanicus, accompanied by a single lictor, reverentially entered the
sacred precincts of Athens, and graciously listened to the vaunts
of the rhetoricians on the splendor and glory of Greece, and when
immediately afterward the brutal Piso descended on the city like a
thunderbolt to remind the frightened provincials in a bullying manner
that they were no longer Athenians, but the sweepings of nations,
(_conluvies nationum_, Tac. Annal. iii. 54,) then this people learnt
by abrupt changes how they stood in the regard of the Romans.

When the Greeks became the subjects of Rome, they were but too
speedily taught what she meant by the "liberation of the oppressed."
All the accustomed safeguards of the law were suspended at one sweep.
No marriage contract, no negotiation, no purchase, no sale, between
city and city, village and village, was binding unless ratified by
special act of grace from Rome. All sources of prosperity, all public
and private rights, passed into Roman hands. Nothing remained to the
Greeks save the memory of their former prestige, and the old rivalry
between the tribes and cities, which invariably burst out afresh
whenever the emperor or one of his lieutenants favored one more than
the other. So humiliating and painful were the results of this state
of things, that even such a zealous local patriot as Plutarch advises
the people, in his pocket oracle for embryo statesmen, to forget
the unfortunate words Marathon, Plataea, and Eurymedon. And yet the
same Plutarch is so thoroughly Boeotian, that he cannot prevail on
himself to forgive the "father of history" the malicious candor with
which he relates the bad conduct of the Thebans in the Persian war.

Chaeronea, the home of Plutarch, ranked among the most favored
cities of the empire, being a _municipium_, or free city, under the
protectorate of Rome, but governed in accordance with its ancient
laws by officers elected by the people. Plutarch gives us a very
interesting picture of the local administration. His political
precepts, and his treatise on the part which it behooves an old man
to play in the state, thoroughly enlighten us on all these points.
The municipal officers, though merely honorary and unsalaried, were
as much an object of contention as in former days when they were
lucrative. The candidates were often obliged to make extraordinary
exertions for popular support; they erected public edifices; endowed
schools and temples; built libraries, aqueducts, baths; distributed
bread, money, and cakes; got up games and feasts, and many wealthy
men were thus ruined by their ambition. The benefits secured by
public office were exemption from local taxation, precedence at the
theatres and games, the erection of busts, statues, inscriptions, and
pictures; and, after the expiration of office, perhaps promotion in
the imperial service.

In addition to the expenses incident to such a canvass, the
candidates, if not of low extraction and mean spirit, had to give
up many prejudices which must have greatly hurt the pride of every
true Greek. Plutarch fully explains in his political precepts what a
patriot might expect in those days on entering the public service.

    "Whatever position," he tells his young countrymen, "you may
    attain, never forget that the time is past when a statesman
    can say to himself with Pericles on putting on the chlamys,
    Remember that thou presidest over a free people, over Hellenes,
    or Athenians. Rather remember that though thou hast subjects,
    thou thyself art a subject. Thou rulest over a conquered
    people, under imperial lieutenants. Thou must therefore wear
    thy chlamys modestly; thou must keep an eye on the judgment
    seat of the proconsul, and never lose sight of the sandals
    above thy crown. Thou must act like the player, who assumes the
    attitudes prescribed in his part, and, turning his ear toward
    the prompter, makes no mien, motion, or sound but such as he is
    ordered."

Even the officials of this free city were therefore only puppets,
whose functions presented no temptation to the ambitious. All that
was left to the local government were the inferior market and street
police, the care of the local security and order, and a partial
participation in the apportionment of the imperial taxes. But while
there was nothing to stimulate the ambition of the Chaeroneans,
the system had a tendency to promote sycophancy. The subordinate
officials entirely ceased to think and act independently, and applied
to the emperor in person for directions on the veriest trifles,
especially when the ruler seemed inclined to encourage this spirit
of subserviency. Such an emperor was Trajan, admired by Pliny for
his untiring activity, which led him to meddle with every thing. He
took up his pen to defend the exchange of two soldiers, to decree
the removal of a dead man's ashes, and to assign an athlete's
reward. Pliny, his lieutenant, ruled Bithynia like an automaton. In
Prusa, Nicodemia, Nicea, not a man, not a sesterce, not a stone,
was suffered to change its place without the imperial sanction. The
selection of a surveyor was made a question of state. The emperor
seems finally to have found the work too much for him; for he writes
on one occasion to his lieutenant: "Thou art on the spot, must
know the situation, and shouldst determine accordingly." In the
correspondence of these two men can be traced the corruption which
gradually seized and overwhelmed rulers and ruled in the Roman empire
on the inclined plane of a rapidly spreading super-civilization.

It is greatly to the honor of Plutarch that he condemns this
mischievous tendency. He does not find fault with it for the
political reasons which would lead us to oppose a paralyzing
centralization, but for the sake of the manly dignity, the moral
self-respect, which should never be forgotten. "Let it suffice,"
exclaims he, "that our limbs are fettered; it is unnecessary to place
our necks also in the halter."

We perceive here in the honest archon of Chaeronea still something
of the sturdy spirit of ancient Hellas. Not in vain had he read
the history of his ancestors; in spite of the unpropitious
times, he still holds what survives of their virtues worthy of
preservation; and it is gratifying to find a man of this stamp
serving an ungrateful public, while the conceited philosophers of
his day regarded politics a contamination. Nor was it without a
good influence upon the literary labors of Plutarch that he did not
boast, with Lucan, to know "no state or country," but was content
to contribute his share to a better state of things. Yet it is
nevertheless easy to see that in such an atmosphere no state like the
one for which Themistocles, Pericles, and Demosthenes had worked and
striven on the field and the tribune--no country like that for which
heroes had fought and bled at Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea--could
hope to thrive. In this cramped, commonplace sphere, amidst the
provincial gossip and the petty interests of such surroundings,
the fierce passions which had once inspired parties, which in Rome
had fired the hearts of the Gracchi and the other martyrs of the
declining commonwealth, were altogether impossible. Here were only
the citizens of a small provincial town, the descendants of an
ancient and highly renowned nobility but of beggarly presence, the
wards of a subjugated land. The enthusiasm with which the higher
minds of such an era revelled in the reminiscences of departed
greatness was perfectly natural; no less natural was the dim twilight
in which its heroes appeared to eyes so little accustomed to
discriminate. We can understand why such a profound impression should
have been made by all that was foreign in the olden times, especially
when the means to analyze, probe, and comprehend it were wholly
wanting.

Plutarch's keen appreciation of all the qualities in which the
ancients had the advantage over his own contemporaries reflects
much credit upon him. Yet he is incapable of comprehending them
individually, for there was nothing to correspond with them in the
world he lived in. His ideas of state and freedom, of country and
virtue among the ancients, are distorted, because in his time their
meaning had partly been changed, and partly been lost. To Plutarch's
susceptible mind, the heroes of Roman and Grecian history appeared
like the effigies preserved in some ancestral hall. He experienced,
however, something of the thrill of exultation which electrified
Sallust, when he, a warm-hearted youth, first tasted the same
sensation; but when he endeavors to communicate this feeling to the
reader, he succeeds only in demonstrating his unfitness for the task.
An historian, in our sense of the word, Plutarch, we know, does
not aspire to be; he claims merely to "paint souls" and "to teach
virtue," but even herein he fails. His men are no real personages,
no flesh and blood beings, whom he makes step out from the frame of
tradition, but puppets gaudily and incongruously arrayed in all kinds
of odds and ends. He has never produced a single _genre_ portrait,
but merely supplied the raw materials; and these may be even more
valuable than any artistically finished but misdrawn historical
likeness would have been. This is, however, all that can be said in
the behalf of Plutarch's creations, and when we have followed him
to his home and visited his mental laboratory, we perceive that it
could not well have been otherwise. It is in this light that we have
to depict to ourselves Plutarch in the character of the romancist of
the ancient ideal of state and country. And when, in conclusion, we
regard him further as the romancist of the ancient faith, he may be
taken for the predecessor of the apostate Emperor Julian, whom David
Strauss so admirably sketched twenty years ago as the romancist on
the throne of the Caesars.

And here also the priest of the Pythian Apollo was once more
compelled to accommodate himself to the sad changes of his time. The
priestess still sat on the tripod; the sacred fumes still rose out
of the earth; the seeress was still beset by curious questioners,
and the fountains of the oracle still continued to flow. But how
different was the nature of the questions which the contemporaries of
Plutarch addressed to the deity! Not war or peace between nation and
nation, not rupture or alliance between state and state, as in former
days, now demanded its solution. It was what should be eaten, drunk,
sown, or harvested; what the deity thought of a nuptial, of the
portion set apart for a son or daughter! Such were the things that
tempted the curiosity of the oracle-seekers; and to answer them no
longer in poetry, but in homely prose, had become the trivial duty of
the sanctuary. And yet the magnificence of the gifts and endowments
had of late rather increased than fallen off.

    "Like the trees," exultingly exclaims Plutarch, "whose vigorous
    sap shoots forth continually new sprouts, so grows the Pylum of
    Delphi, and extends day by day in the number of its chapels,
    consecrated water-fonts, and assembly halls, which rise in a
    splendor unknown for years. Apollo has saved us from neglect
    and misery to overwhelm us with wealth, honors, and splendors;
    it is impossible that such a revolution should have been caused
    by human agencies without divine intervention; it is he who has
    come to bestow his blessing on the oracle."

But not even Plutarch could disguise to himself the sad fact that
the worship of the oracle had by no means kept pace with the
progress of superstitious faith. Still, while the heathen deities
had multiplied to an extent which led Pliny to declare that the gods
in Olympus outnumbered the men on earth; while the number of secret
and public sects steadily increased in the east and west; while all
the abominations of a misdirected religious instinct in both worlds
united as in one common sewer at Rome, when Tacitus said that among
the rising sects the one prospered most which proclaimed not only a
new god, but a new license for all who were oppressed and poor; while
all this was going on, the higher classes of society, the flower of
the intellect of the heathen world, had repudiated the superstitions
of the masses, partly to deny the existence of the gods, and partly
to adopt strange and exclusive mysteries.

    "This estrangement from the gods," exclaims Plutarch, "may be
    divided into two streams: the one seeks a bed in those hearts
    which resemble a rocky soil, where every thing of a divine
    nature is rejected; the other waters gentle souls like a
    porous soil with exactly opposite effects, producing there an
    exaggerated and superstitious fear of the gods."

Against both these illusions Plutarch protests in a whole series of
works, and the manner in which he does it exhibits the best side of
his character. "It is so sweet," he assures us, "to believe;" and we
also readily believe him when he describes the feelings with which he
witnesses the solemnities of divine worship.

    "The unbeliever," he says, "sees in prayer only an unmeaning
    formula, in sacrifices only the slaughter of helpless animals;
    but the devout feels his soul elevated, the heart relieved of
    sorrow and pain."

He implores a pious and child-like reverence for the faith of his
forefathers; it was these gods who have made Greece great, protected
it in good and evil seasons; and those who will not pray to them from
their inmost hearts, should at least suffer others to enjoy their
peace of mind and happy simplicity. They should imitate the Egyptian
priest, who, when too closely questioned by Herodotus, placed his
finger upon his lips in mysterious silence. He thinks it shows little
delicacy in the Stoics and Epicureans to attempt to represent the
gods as merely another name for the elementary forces. Those who
mistake fire, water, air, etc., for the gods, accept the sails,
ropes, and anchor of a vessel for the pilot, the wholesome drug for
the physician, and the threads of the web for the weaver.

"You destroy," says he to the Epicureans, "the foundations of
society; you murder the holiest instincts of the human soul." To the
Stoics he says,

    "Why attack what is universally accepted? why destroy the
    religious idea which each people has inherited in the nature
    of its gods? You ask, above all things, proofs, reasons, and
    explanations? Beware! If you bring the spirit of doubt to every
    altar, nothing will be sacred. Every people has its own faith.
    That faith, transmitted for centuries, must suffice; its very
    age proves its divine origin; our duty is to hand it down to
    posterity, without stain or change, pure and unalloyed."

But what of Plutarch's own orthodoxy? It is just what we might have
expected from one who was too intelligent to believe the ancient
myths and too much of an enthusiast calmly to test his religious
heritage. Socrates was not remiss in offering up prayers and
sacrifices; no Athenian goddess could rationally complain of him;
he believed not only in a Daimonion, or Deity, but (if the Apology
be genuine) also in a Son of God; yet he was an atheist. Plutarch's
piety is no doubt more enthusiastic in a ratio to his lack of the
Socratian keenness of intellect, but strictly considered he has no
greater claims to the odor of orthodoxy. With him also the different
gods resolve themselves into demons, and it is only in his heart that
he knows the one true God--a tenet which has nothing in common with
the cheerful anthropomorphism of the Hellenic national creed.

In brief, we discover in Plutarch's character the same
inconsistencies which are peculiar to all men of his kind. He stands
between two eras. He flies from an aged civilization, which holds
him in the iron bonds of custom, to new views of a world which, even
imperfect as they are, involuntarily master his reason, though they
fail to satisfy his imagination and feelings. From the prose of
every-day life he turns to the memory of the glories of his nation,
and becomes their chronicler. Repulsed by the unbelief and degeneracy
of his contemporaries, he seeks consolation in the poetical fables
of the ancient faith, and becomes thus the panegyrist of antiquity.
He is, however, unable to reproduce this antiquity in a pure state.
He cannot entirely divest himself of all sympathy with those among
whom he lives, and remains more than he will admit the child of his
own day. Hence what he transmits to us is veiled in that solemn but
indistinct semi-obscurity which we meet not only in the ancient
temples, but in the heads of the romancists themselves.




THE MIRACLE OF ST. FRANCIS.

FROM THE SPANISH OF FERNAN CABALLERO.


We are not telling a romance, but relating an occurrence exactly as
its details proceeded from the mouth of the responsible narrator, who
is an ox-driver. He who takes offence at the source, the stream, and
the receptacle, that is to say, at the ox-driver, his story, and the
recipient who is going to set it down in black and white, had better
pass this by; for the thought that we were going to be read with
prejudice would change the nimble pen we hold in our hand into an
immovable petrifaction.

In a town of Andalusia that lifts its white walls under the sky that
God created solely to canopy Spain, from the heights of Despenaperros
to the city that Guzman el Bueno defended, upon an elevation at the
end of a long, solitary street, stands a convent, abandoned, as they
all are, thanks to the _progress_ of ruin. This convent is now, more
properly than ever before, the last house of the place. Its massive
portal faces the town, and its grounds reach back into the country.
In these grounds there were formerly many palm-trees--the old people
remember them--but only two remain, united like brothers. In this
convent there were formerly many religious; now but one remains.
The palms lean upon each other; the religious is supported by the
charity of the faithful. He comes every Tuesday to say mass in the
magnificent deserted church, which no longer possesses a bell to call
worshippers.

No words can express the sentiments that are awakened by the sight
of the venerable man, in this vast temple, offering the august
sacrifice in silence and solitude. One cannot help fancying that
the sacred precinct is filled with celestial spirits, in the midst
of whom the celebrant only is visible. The church is of an immense
height, and so peacefully cheerful that it would seem to have been
built solely to resound to the sublime hymn of the _Te Deum_, and the
no less sublime canticle of the _Gloria_.

The high altar, exquisitely carved in the most elaborate and lavish
style of adornment, astonishes the sight with the multitude of
flowers, fruits, garlands, and gilded heads of angels it displays
with a profusion and lustre which prove that in its execution neither
time nor labor were taken into account. What use is made of gold in
our day? Or of time? Are they better employed? He who can show us
that they are, will console us for the suppression of the convents.
Until it is proved, we shall continue to mourn that noble choir,
those sumptuous chapels, that splendid tabernacle, cold and empty as
the incredulous heart.

Incredulity! Grand triumph of the material over the spiritual, of
earth over heaven; of the apostate angel over the angel of light!

The small square that separates the convent from the street which
leads to it is overgrown with grass, and in it, in their hours of
rest, the drivers let their oxen loose.

Within the inclosure, in place of stairs, a slight terraced ascent,
sustained at the sides by benches of stone mason-work, leads to the
door of the church. On the right is the chapel of the third order;
the path to the left conducts to the principal entrance to the
convent.

Reader, if you love the things of our ancient Spain, come hither.
Here the church still stands; here still flourish, without care, the
two palms; here is still a Franciscan friar who says mass in the
unoccupied temple. Here are still found ox-drivers who tell tales,
in which things humorous and pious are mingled with the good faith
and wholesomeness of heart of the child that plays with the venerated
gray hairs of its parent without a thought that in doing so it is
wanting in filial respect. But hasten! for all these things will soon
disappear, and we shall have to mourn over ruins--ruins to which the
past, in reparation, will lend all its magic.

The third day of the week shone pure and gay, ignorant, doubtless,
of the unlucky quality which men attribute to it, and very far from
suspecting that its enemy--a foolish saying--would fain deprive it of
the happiness of witnessing weddings and embarkations.[304]

On a Tuesday, then, that was as innocent of any hostile disposition
as if it had been a Sunday, the lady who told us that which we are
going to repeat, walked up the long street of San Francisco to the
vacant convent to hear the weekly mass in which God himself would
fill the abandoned temple with his most worthy presence. She arrived
before the priest, and finding the church closed, sat down to wait
upon one of the benches that sustain the terrace. The morning was
cool enough to make the sunshine agreeable. In sight rose the two
palms, like a pair of noble brothers, bearing together persecution
and slight, without yielding or humiliating themselves. The oxen
lying down within the inclosure ruminated measuredly, but with so
little motion that the small birds passing poised themselves upon
their horns. The efts, gazing at all with their intelligent eyes,
glided along the walls in a garden of gilly-flowers and rose-colored
caper-blooms. Light clouds, like smoke from a spotless sacrifice in
honor of the Most High, floated across the enamel of the sky--if it
is permitted to compare that with enamel with which no enamel that
was ever made can compare. It was a morning to sweeten life, so
entirely did it make one forget the narrow circles in which we fret
our lives away, and in which living is a weariness.

Two drivers seated themselves upon the same bench with the lady.

Your Andalusian is never bashful. The sun may be eclipsed; but, in
the lifetime of God, not the serenity of an Andalusian. Sultan Haroun
Al-raschid might have spared himself the trouble of the disguises he
employed when he mingled among his people without causing them the
least diffidence, if he had ruled in Andalusia. Not that the people
despise or cannot appreciate superiority; but they know how to lift
the hat without dropping the head.

Therefore it happened that, although the lady was one of the
principal persons of the place, and although there were other benches
to sit on, that one appearing to them the pleasantest, on that one
they sat down, without thought or care as to whether their talk
would be overheard. In the northern provinces, where the people are
entirely good, and as stupid as they are good, they think little
and speak less; but in Andalusia thought flies, and words follow in
chase. These people can go two days without eating or sleeping, and
be little the worse for it; but remain two minutes silent, they
cannot. If they have no one to talk with, they sing.

"Man," said one to the other, "I can never see that chapel without
thinking of my father, who was a brother of the third order, and
used to bring me here with him to say the rosary, which the brothers
recited every night at the Angelus."

"Christian! and what sort of man must your father have been? There
are no stones out of that quarry nowadays."

"And how should there be? My father--heaven rest him!--used to say
that the guillotine war of the French upset the cart. Men nowadays
are a pack of idlers, with no more devotion than that of San Korro,
the patron of drunkards. But to come back to what I was telling
you--a thing his worship once told me, that happened in this very
convent.

"All the people of the barrier used to send to the friars for
assistance to enable them to die in a Christian fashion. In these
times the majority go to the other world like dogs or Jews. Every
night, therefore, one of the fathers remained up, so as to be ready
in case his services should be wanted. Each kept watch in his turn.
One night, when it was the turn of a priest named Father Mateo, who
was well known and liked in the town, three men knocked and asked for
a religious to succor a person who was at the point of death. The
porter informed Father Mateo, who came down immediately. Hardly was
the door of the convent closed after him, when they told him that,
whether it pleased him or not, they were going to bandage his eyes.
It pleased him as much as it would have pleased him to have his teeth
pulled. There was nothing for it, however, but to drop his ears; for
although he was young, and as tall as a foremast, with a good pair
of fists to defend himself with, the others were men of brass, all
armed. Besides, neither could his reverence neglect his ministry; and
only God knew the intentions of those who had come for him.

"So he said to himself, 'Rome will have this matter to look after;'
and let them blindfold him.

"No one can know what streets they made him walk; into this and out
of that, till they came to a miserable den, and led him up a flight
of stairs, pushed him into a room, and locked the door.

"He took off the bandage; it was as dark as a wolfs mouth, but in the
direction of one corner of the room he heard a moan.

"'Who is in distress?' asked Father Mateo.

"'I am, sir,' answered the doleful voice of a woman; 'these wicked
men are going to kill me as soon as my peace is made with God.'

"'This is an iniquity!'

"'Father, by the love of the Blessed Mother, by the dear blood of
Christ, by the breasts that fed you, save me!'

"'How can I save thee, daughter? What can I do against three men that
are armed?'

"'Untie me, in the first place,' said the unhappy woman.

"Father Mateo begun to feel about, and, as God vouchsafed him
deftness, to undo the knots of the cords that bound the poor
creature's hands and feet; but they were hard, he could not see, and
time flew as if a bull had been after it.

"The men were knocking at the door. 'Haven't you got through,
father?' asked one of them.

"'Ea! don't be in a hurry!' said the father, who, though his will was
good enough, could hit upon no means of saving the woman, who was
trembling like a drop of quicksilver, and weeping like a fountain.

"'What are we to do?' said the poor, perplexed man.

"A woman will think of an artifice if she has one foot in the
grave, and it entered into this one's head to hide herself under
Father Mateo's cloak. I have told you that the father was a man who
couldn't stand in that door. 'I would prefer another means,' said his
reverence; 'but, as there is no other, we must take this, and let the
sun rise in Antequera.'[305]

"He stationed himself at the door with the woman under his cloak.

"'Have you ended, father?' asked the villains.

"'I have ended,' answered Father Mateo, with as calm a voice as he
could command.

"'Do not forsake me, sir,' moaned the poor woman, more dead than
alive.

"'Hush! Commend yourself to our Lord of the forsaken ones, and his
will be done.'

"'Come,' said the men, 'be quick; we must blindfold you again.' And
they tied on the bandage, locked the door, and all three descended
into the street with the father in custody, for fear that he might
take off the blind and know the place.

"They turned and turned again, as before, till they came to the
street of San Francisco; then the rascals took to their heels, and
disappeared so quickly that you would have thought they had been
spirited away.

"The minute they were out of sight, Father Mateo said to the woman,
'Now, daughter, scatter dust, and find a hiding-place. No; don't
thank me, but God, who has saved you; and don't stop; for when
those brigands find the bird flown, they will come back and perhaps
overtake me.'

"The woman ran, and the father in three strides planted himself
inside of his convent.

"He went right away to the cell of the father guardian and told him
all that had happened, adding that the men would surely come to the
convent in search of him.

"The words were hardly out of his mouth when they heard a knocking at
the door. The guardian went down and presented himself. 'Can I serve
you in any thing, gentlemen?' he asked.

"'We have come,' answered one, 'for Father Mateo, who was out just
now confessing a woman.'

"'That cannot be, for Father Mateo has confessed no woman this night.'

"'How! he has not, when we have proof that he brought her here?'

"'What do you mean, you blackguards? brought a woman into the
convent! So this is the way you take to injure Father Mateo's
reputation, and cast scandal upon our order!'

"'No, sir, we did not say it with that intention; but--'

"'But what?' asked the guardian, very indignant. 'What honorable
motive could he have had in bringing a woman here at night?'

"The men looked at each other.

"'Didn't I tell you,' grumbled one, 'that the thing wasn't natural,
but miraculous?'

"'Yes, yes,' said another; 'this is the doing of God or the
devil--and not of the devil, for he wouldn't interfere to hinder his
own work.'

"'In God's name go, evil tongues!' thundered the guardian; 'and take
heed how you approach convents with bad designs, and lay snares, and
invent calumnies against their peaceful dwellers, who, like Father
Mateo, sleep tranquilly in their cells; for our holy patron watches
over us.'

"'You can't doubt now,' said the most timid of the three, 'that it
was the very St. Francis himself who went with us to save that woman
by a miracle.'

"'Father Mateo,' said the guardian when they had gone, 'they are
terribly frightened, and have taken you for St. Francis. It is better
so; for they are wicked men, and they are furious.'

"'They honor me too much,' answered the good man; 'but give me leave,
your fathership, to depart at daybreak for a seaport, and from thence
to America, before they have time to think better of it, and hang
upon me this miracle of St. Francis.'"

FOOTNOTES:

[304] _Martes ni te cases, ni te embarques._ "Tuesday, neither marry
nor embark."--Spanish saying.

[305] _Y salga el sol por Antequera._ A common saying, equivalent to,
And let the sky fall; let the consequences be what they may.




THE FIRST OECUMENICAL COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN.

NUMBER EIGHT.


The proceedings of the Vatican Council have reached a stage that
allows us to witness again its external splendor and imposing
presence. Grand and most august as it certainly is, still every thing
that strikes the eye fades away as one thinks of its sublime office,
of its important, unlimited influence and effect. The nature of the
subject it has just treated will necessarily make that influence
overshadow all ages to come, and that effect cease to be felt only
with the last shock of a world passing away.

The question that for more than a year has agitated all circles
of society, that for the past three months has been a subject of
exciting debate among the fathers of the council, could not have
been of greater weight. It is one of those truths essential to the
existence of the church, and had it not been practically acknowledged
among the faithful throughout the world, Christianity, unless
otherwise sustained by its Author, would have been an impossibility.
The vital point examined was the essence of the union of the church,
of the union of faith, to determine dogmatically in what it consists,
who or what is the person or body that can so hold and teach the
faith as to leave no doubt of any kind whatsoever regarding its
absolute divine certainty.

Up to the present day the infallibility of an oecumenical council,
or of the whole church dispersed throughout the world, has been
recognized as the ultimate rule by all who lay claim to orthodoxy;
but with that council, or with that church dispersed throughout the
world, as a requisite--_sine qua non_--was the communion and consent
of the sovereign pontiff. Where he was with the bishops, there was
the faith; no matter how many bishops might meet together and decree,
if Peter was not with them, there was no certainty of belief, no
infallible guidance. Nay, their decrees were received only in so far
as approved by him. _Ubi Petrus, ibi ecclesia_, was the formula
recognized by tradition. In a word, where Peter was, there was to
be found infallible teaching; where Peter was not, there neither
was the teaching infallible. None in the church ever thought of
gainsaying this. But there came a time when the element all agreed
hitherto to look on as essential began to be a subject of doubt and
of discussion. Writers went so far as to say that the pope could be
judged by the other body of teachers, the bishops; and this followed
naturally from a mistrust in the unfailing orthodoxy of the sovereign
pontiff. The greater phases of this movement are well known. The
Council of Constance had hardly closed when the Council of Basle put
in practice the principles broached by its predecessor, and deposed
the reigning head of the church, putting in his stead Amadeus of
Savoy with the title of Felix V. In the midst of this confusion,
Eugenius IV. held the Council of Florence, in which the remarkable
decree was published that declared the pope the vicar of Christ,
the ruler of the flock, and the doctor of the universal church.
Those of the French clergy who clung with tenacity to the principles
of Basle, refused to receive this decree, under pretence of the
unoecumenical character of the Council of Florence. The Jansenists
availed themselves of the advantage this pretext gave them. Although
eighty-five French bishops wrote in the year 1652 to Innocent X.,
according, they say, to the custom of the church, in order to obtain
the condemnation of these heretics, the latter still held their
ground, and were able to accuse the French assembly of 1682 of
inconsistency, in attempting to force on them a decision of the pope,
whom the assembly itself declared fallible. The celebrated Arnould
taught that the refusal of its approbation to a papal decision on
the part of one individual church was enough to make the truth of
such a decision doubtful.

We shall try to give some idea of the importance of the question
of papal infallibility by a parallel development of two opposite
teachings, in a rapid sketch.

The cardinal principle of Gallicanism is the denial of the inerrancy
of the sovereign pontiff in his solemn ruling in matters of faith and
morals when teaching the whole church. Any one who attentively looks
at the question must see the close connection of the primacy with the
claim to unerring certainty in teaching. The domain of the church is
in faith, in spirituals; temporals being secondary, and the subject
of legislation only in so far as necessarily bound up with the
former. The only reason why a teacher can lay claim to obedience is
because he teaches the truth, and this is especially the case where
faith and conscience are concerned. If the sovereign pontiff have not
this faculty of teaching the truth without danger of error, then he
cannot demand implicit submission. The church dispersed throughout
the world, being infallible, cannot be taught by one who is capable
of falling into error. The ordinances therefore and decrees of
the pontiff, being intimately connected with faith, and issued on
account of it, must follow the nature of the submission to his
teaching. But as this latter, in the Gallican view, is not obligatory
unless recognized as just by the whole church, so neither are the
ordinances and decrees to be looked on as binding except under a
like reservation. It follows from this, clearly and logically, that
the supremacy of the pope can be called supreme only by an abuse of
terms; consequently, 1st, the texts of canon law and of the fathers
that teach a perfect supremacy are erroneous or false, and have no
foundation in tradition, which is the truth always, everywhere,
and by every one held in the same way; 2d, the texts of Scripture
that refer to Peter are to be restricted to him personally, or,
when seeming to regard his successors, are to be interpreted in a
sense not favorable to the idea of a perfect supremacy. The pope
thus becomes amenable to the church; he is a divinely constituted
centre, nothing more; the official representative of the bishops of
the whole church dispersed throughout the world, which alone is the
ultimate criterion of truth. He can, therefore, be judged by the
bishops, be corrected by them, deposed by them, and his asserted
right to reserve powers to himself to the prejudice of ordinaries,
or to legislate for dioceses other than his own, is to be set aside.
A species of radicalism is thus introduced into the church. The
bishops themselves are not to be looked on as infallible judges of
the faith of their flocks even, and the faithful themselves, or
the people, become the ultimate judges of what is to be held as of
faith. Instead of being taught, they teach; instead of being a _locus
theologicus_, they become the _ecclesia docens_; and the teachers
and rulers become the ruled and taught. As the people themselves are
liable to be swayed by the influence and teaching of artful men, we
have in consequence a weak and uncertain rule to go by; weak, because
of the moral impossibility of knowing the sense of the whole church,
for even the members of an oecumenical council might not exactly
represent the faith of their individual churches; uncertain, because
of the facility with which in past time the people of many individual
churches have been led astray.

As we write, it seems as if we heard some indignant protest
against what we have just said. We reply that we do not refer to
individual opinions; many Gallicans refused to go the length of their
principles; a sense of danger alarmed their piety and put them on
their guard. For our part, we treat of the principles themselves, and
deem perfectly consequent what we have asserted. It would be an easy
matter to illustrate it with facts of the present as of the past; but
it would be beyond our scope just now. Any student of history will
have no difficulty in recalling the manner in which defections from
the church have been brought about, and the errors of those who once
seemed columns of the temple. The inadequacy of the Gallican rule is
still further shown by its practical inconvenience. It is fortunate
that in the early church it had no place whatsoever. Peter being then
recognized as the head and teacher of the church, all controversies
were referred to him, and by him they were settled. _Petrus per
os Leonis, per os Agathonis locutus est_; so spoke the fathers of
Chalcedon and of the Sixth Council. Suppose for a moment it had
been otherwise; suppose, when the Pelagian heresy arose, it had
been necessary to hear the voice of the whole church scattered over
the earth--this being the rule--the whole church, not any one part,
was to give the doctrine from which it was not lawful to depart.
Zosimus was but one bishop; so, too, was Innocent I.; Augustin was
only one learned man, and Prosper of Aquitaine, a Christian poet and
polished scholar, but only one other father after all. Those who
wrote with them bore witness each for his own particular church.
What had become of the churches of Scythia, of Lybia, of Ethiopia,
of Arabia? Who had penetrated into the Indies, or set sail for the
islands of the sea, or reached the far-off coasts of the Sinenses?
Who was to explain with accuracy to those distant Christians the
cunning dealing of Celestius and Pelagius, that had deceived the
vigilance of the eastern fathers, and lay bare the hypocritical
professions that had misled even Zosimus? Who was to bring back
the opinion or belief of these isolated churches without danger of
misunderstanding or misinterpretation? Those were not days when
communication was easy. Weeks and months amid all kinds of dangers
and uncertainty were required to reach even those places that lay
near the shores of the Mediterranean. It was physically impossible to
ascertain with unerring sureness the belief or condemnation of those
far-off Christians; and as long as their assent was not given there
was no adequate rule of faith. Consequently, there was no prompt or
efficacious means of correcting error; the means at hand were of
probable worth, therefore not sufficient to use against heresy, that
could always appeal to the universal church dispersed throughout
the world, and when condemned by those near, fly to the probable
protection of those at a distance, without the least possibility
of ever knowing the belief of those to whom they appealed. In the
meanwhile, heresy crept into the flock, established itself there; for
there was none to cast it forth; and the fold became tainted. Thus
from age to age Christianity would have been a mass of error, the
truth being obscured or suffocated by the weight of falsity from the
want of a prompt practical means by which heresy could be detected
and crushed at its birth. Happily no such state of things existed;
the chair of Peter was the abode of truth; it was set up against
error, and the quick ear and intuitive eye of Christ's vicar heard
and saw the evil, and met it at the outset.

The doctrine which teaches the opposite of what we have been
describing, and which is now of faith, clears up all difficulties,
and comes to us in all the beauty and consistency that adorns truth.
Jesus Christ has made Peter and his successors the foundation of the
church. He has given to him, and to each of those who succeed him,
of his own firmness, and strengthened his faith that it fail not,
that he may confirm his brethren. In this office of confirming his
brethren, Peter holds the place of Christ, and acts in his name. The
gift he possesses, however, is not one of inspiration; but he is
assisted and kept from erring in his judgment of what is contained
in the revelation made by Christ to man. To arrive at a knowledge of
what that revelation is, he seeks in his own church, and, according
to the need, in the churches every where that he may know their
traditions. The judgment he makes is infallible, and in promulgating
it he lays down the tenets of faith for the whole church. Hence he
becomes the immovable rock upon which the faithful are builded, he is
the centre around which they revolve, the orb from which they receive
the light of faith. Hence he has subject to him the minds of all, and
the character of his primacy becomes more clear and fully evident. It
is no longer a mere point of visible communion, but an active power
placed by God to rule, with unfailing guidance in faith, and with
a consequent spiritual intuitiveness, that makes him discern what
is for the good of the church at large throughout the world. Hence
all are bound to obey him in what regards the faith and teachings
of Christ; who is with him, is with Christ; whosoever is against
him, is against his Master. Hence, too, by a direct consequence,
there can be no power set up against his; all the bishops of the
church depend on him, receive their jurisdiction from him, and can
exercise it only at his word. What a sublime picture of unity, of
order, and of strength! As an army in array the church advances to do
battle against the foes of Christ, never more successful, never more
glorious, than when her children, recognizing their dependence, and
harkening to her voice, with one mind and with one heart follow the
leadership of Peter. No wonder this spectacle struck the unbelieving
mind with astonishment, or made the gifted writer of England burst
forth into the glowing description so familiar to all!

The difference of opinion that existed among the bishops on the
subject of the infallibility is known throughout the four quarters
of the globe. What was the cause of it? If any one imagines that all
who joined in opposing a definition from the outset were actuated by
the same motives, he would certainly be wide of the mark. While the
main point of the controversy was held by the _ultramontanes_ without
exception, and there was but the one question as to the formula to
be used, the opposition, as they were generally called, taken all
together, had no fixed principle of accord, save an agreement to
disagree with the defining the doctrine as of faith. To analyze the
constituent parts of this body we shall class them according to ideas.

First in conviction, in determination, and in influence were the
Gallicans, properly so called, who held and taught the very opposite
of the proposed dogma. They were mostly men who had been bred in this
teaching, and who deeply reverenced the memories of those who held
and taught it in past times. This class was not very numerous, though
it grew larger in the course of the council by the accession of those
whose examination of the question convinced them of the claim of
Gallicanism to their adherence.

The second class comprised those who, believing the doctrine
themselves, or at least, favoring it speculatively, did not think it
capable of definition, not deeming the tradition of the church clear
enough on this point.

A third class, the most numerous, regarded the definition as
possible, but practically fraught with peril to the church, as
impeding conversions, as exasperating to governments. For the sake of
peace, and for the good of souls, they would not see it proclaimed as
of faith.

All of these dissident prelates, we are bound to say, acted with
conscientious conviction of the justice of the cause they defended.
They were bound in conscience to declare their opinions, and to make
them prevail by all lawful influence. If on one side or the other of
this most important and vital question any went beyond the limits of
moderation, or used means not dictated by prudence or charity, it is
nothing more than might have been expected in so large a number of
persons, of such varied character and education. Instead of being
shocked at the little occurrences of this nature, we should rather
be struck with admiration at the self-restraint and affability
which were shown, despite the intensity of feeling and strength of
conviction. In a word, that the Council of the Vatican did not break
up months ago in disorder and irreconcilable enmity, is because
it was God's work, and not man's; it was because charity ruled
in it, in spite of defects, and not the passions that govern the
political debates of men. The earnest desire all had of a mutual good
understanding was evinced on occasion of the speech of a well-known
cardinal, which, though not approved of by all, gave evidence of
a sincere desire for conciliation and agreement. The effect was
remarkable; a thrill of pleasure went through the assembly, for the
moment each one seemed to breathe freely, and to hail his words as
harbingers of peace in the midst of excitement and anxiety.

It was shortly after this incident that the closure of the general
discussion on the four chapters of the present constitution took
place. The regulations provide for this contingency, making it lawful
for ten prelates to petition for the closing of a discussion, the
proposal being then put to the vote of all the fathers, and the
majority deciding. In this case, a desire not to interfere with
remarks which bishops, for conscientious reasons, proposed to make,
kept this regulation in abeyance, and it was only after fifty-five
speeches had been listened to, that one hundred and fifty bishops
sent in a petition for closing, believing there would be ample time
and opportunity for every one to speak and present amendments when
the _schema_ would be examined in detail. An overwhelming majority
voted the closure. It seems difficult to understand how this could be
found fault with. Had there been no further chance to speak, there
would have been reason undoubtedly to claim hearing, or complain
of not being heard. But, as has been seen since, there have been
discussions on each part of the _schema_; and on the last chapter,
regarding the doctrine of infallibility, one hundred and nine names
were inscribed for speaking, of which number sixty-five spoke, the
remainder by mutual consent abstaining from speaking; thus of their
own accord putting a stop to a discussion in which it was morally
impossible to say any thing new. It seems surely to be a strange
assertion to say there has been any real infringement of the liberty
of speech in the council, when there appears to have been so much of
it that the members themselves grew weary of it.

While we are on this subject, we wish to speak a little more fully,
as the freedom of the council has been publicly impugned in two
works, published in Paris, against which the presidents and the
fathers have thought proper formally to protest.

The grounds of the accusation are chiefly three:

1st. The appointment of the congregation, the members of which
were named by the sovereign pontiff, and who received or rejected
the postulata, or propositions, to be presented to the council for
discussion.

2d. The dogmatic deputation having been composed of those in favor of
the definition, and the members having been put on it by management;
moreover, this deputation exercised a controlling influence in the
council.

3d. The interruption of those who were giving expression to their
opinions, in the exercise of their right to speak.

We preface our brief reply to these objections by two quotations.
One is from the letter of an apostate priest, A. Pichler, at present
director of the imperial library at St. Petersburg, which was written
by him in Rome last winter, and was published in the _Presse_ of
Vienna. In it he says, "It seems to us no council has ever been freer
or more independent." The second quotation is from one of the two
works referred to above--_Ce qui se passe au Concile_. At page 131 we
read:

    "In truth, if the pope alone is infallible, it is not only his
    right, but a duty, and a strict duty, to guide the bishops,
    united in council, or dispersed throughout the world, to
    encourage them if they be in the right way, to reprove them
    if they go out of it, to take an active part in the work of
    the assembly, to inspire its deliberations, and dictate its
    decrees."

Apart from the spirit that animates the writer of the above, there is
much in what he says, and we take him at his word. The OEcumenical
Council of the Vatican has pronounced its irrevocable and infallible
decree, declaring infallibility to be and to have been a prerogative
of the sovereign pontiff, and that his decisions _ex cathedra_ are
irreformable of themselves, and not by virtue of the consent of
the episcopacy. We therefore draw our deduction, and justify the
sovereign pontiff, by these very words, in nominating the members
of the congregation, and in conferring on it the ample powers it
has. Secondly, we give him the praise of moderation, because he did
not make a full use of the rights accorded him by the author of the
citation we have given. Were we to follow this writer, we should
have to accuse the pope of having in part neglected a grave duty
toward the council, for he did not _dictate_ its decrees. In the
very beginning, he told the bishops he gave them the _schemata_,
unapproved by him, to be studied, altered, or amended as they
saw fit; and, in fact, when the decrees prepared previously by
theologians were proposed by the congregation, they were recast and
amended time and again, and were finally decided by a vote of the
fathers, and approved by the pontiff without alteration. This is
surely not dictation; dictation does not admit of reply or refusal,
it takes away all liberty whatsoever. The sovereign pontiff then did
not _dictate_ the decrees.

Let us return to our triple objection. First, with regard to the
congregation. In the early numbers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD for the
current year, an account of the composition of this body is given,
as well as the reasons for its appointment. We refer our readers to
the March number, in which it may be seen that, although possessed
of sovereign powers over the church, defined as belonging to him, by
the Council of Florence among others, there was no disposition to
exercise coercion on the part of the pope, who, in controlling the
action of the council in this way, was only making use of a right the
whole church acknowledged. Moreover, the composition of this body was
itself a guarantee of justice and zeal for the general welfare. That
there were not named for it those who were known to be hostile to
what has just been declared of faith, was nothing more than natural.
Moreover, when these high ecclesiastics had admitted postulata,
their work was over; the propositions passed into the control of the
fathers, and were decided by vote.

The answer to the second objection is easier even. This deputation
was elected by the fathers themselves; and as the large majority
favored the teachings of Rome, they elected none who was opposed to
them. As for the accusation of management, we must say that persons
who understood well the tendencies of the prominent men of all
parties, naturally, as happens in all such large bodies, directed the
choice of candidates, and the final vote of the fathers settled the
matter. It is hard to see how the rights of any were violated. This
deputation, from the merit of those that composed it, could not be
without great weight in the council; and when we consider that it was
the choice of the large majority, and was in harmony with the views
of the majority, it is not wonderful that it controlled to a great
extent the votes of those composing the council.

The third objection is one that must be treated with great delicacy,
for two reasons--because of the impossibility of knowing all the
circumstances, and because those who are accused are in a position
that prevents them from justifying themselves. The presidents were
named to act for the sovereign pontiff, to preserve due order, to see
that the discussion was limited to the matter in hand, and to prevent
any thing that might tend to disturb good order, or diminish respect
for the authority and person of him they represented. If, in the
discharge of their duty, they displeased those they addressed, this
was to have been expected; if also they in any way did not observe
the due mean, so hard to reach in every thing human, one should
excuse, if needful, the defect, when especially the great merits, the
distinguished services, the known virtue, and high position of these
cardinals are taken into consideration.

And while we are on this subject of objections made against the
council we may notice two others that especially regard the decree
of the infallibility; they are, 1st. This decision destroys the
constitution of the church, doing away with the apostolic college
of bishops, and changing the order established by Christ; 2d. this
decree is a theological conclusion; but theological conclusions are
not of faith, and cannot be so declared.

These objections are formidable only in appearance. No one contends
that each bishop when consecrated succeeds to all the privileges and
powers of one of the apostles. The bishops, then, not having them in
the beginning when consecrated by the apostles, were distinct from
the apostles, the apostolic college remaining. When one apostle died,
his death did not affect the powers of the church, which remained
the same, the other apostles sufficing; so when two, three, or more
died, still one remained. He had the same full powers given to
each, with subordination to Peter as head of the church. Thus with
one apostle and the episcopate the essence of ecclesiastical rule is
preserved. When St. Peter died, he left a successor, being the only
one of the twelve who did; for he was the only one who had a see. His
successor received all his rights, the power of binding and loosing,
of teaching and legislating. He was thus the one apostle living still
in the world, and each successive pontiff has the same character--the
_sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum_ is his--as it was Paul's, John's,
and Peter's. The essence of the hierarchy is in this way preserved;
the apostolic and episcopal elements are there, and the phraseology
of Christianity keeps ever before us this idea; for the see of Peter
is always known as the _Sedes Apostolica_. St. Peter Chrysologus
speaks of St. Peter living and ruling in his successor--Beatus Petrus
qui in successore suo et vivet et praesidet et praestat inquirentibus
eam fidem. So far, then, from this definition destroying the
character of the hierarchy, it asserts and vindicates it by declaring
that the one apostle in the church has never lost his apostolic
privilege of inerrancy, and that he is truly possessed of the full
powers without diminution that belonged to the prince of the apostles.

To the second objection, regarding the nature of the definition, as
being a theological conclusion, we reply, firstly, that what the
Scripture, according to the received and now authentic interpretation
of the church, taught, and what the practical acknowledgment of
the faithful in all ages implied, cannot be called a theological
conclusion; but must be regarded as being what it is--a directly
revealed truth; secondly, a theological conclusion, though not
of faith in itself, as being the deduction of reason, by the
_superadded authoritative decision of the church_ can become of
faith, as often as the denial of such conclusion affects the truth of
that dogma from which it has been deduced. Such questions are fairly
within the range of the church's arbitration; and when there is a
doubt concerning the character of a conclusion, it is her province
to decide whether it be or be not hurtful or beneficial to the truth
of which she alone is the divinely constituted guardian. Examples in
the past history of the councils of the church are not wanting; for
our purpose, take the Sixth Council. The question of the two wills
was a theological conclusion; no one ever spoke of the two wills
before that epoch; the phrase does not occur in all previous theology
or ecclesiastical history. We first hear of it in the east, where
metaphysical studies flourished, and where intellectual pride had
already brought about the Arian, Nestorian, and Eutychian heresies.

We have mentioned the fact of the closure of the discussion on the
fourth chapter, by mutual consent of those whose names were inscribed
to speak. This was immediately followed by voting. The first three
chapters were soon gotten over; the fourth is the one that contains
the doctrine on the infallibility, and it met with more opposition.

On Saturday, July 11th, was held the general congregation in which
the details of this portion of the _schema_ were up for approval or
rejection. On this occasion the voting was by rising simply, and
against the definition there were forty-seven votes.

On the 13th, another general congregation was called to vote,
according to the regulations, on the whole _schema_, by name, with
_placet_, or _placet juxta modum_, or _non placet_. The register, it
appears, stands as follows: 451 _placets_, 62 _placets juxta modum_,
and 88 _non placets_.

Some of these _placets juxta modum_ recommended the insertion of
words that would make the decree clearer and stronger. The _schema_
was accordingly altered, and the amendments were retained in the
general congregation held Saturday, July 16th.

On Sunday morning was distributed a _monitum_, by which the fathers
were notified that the fourth public session would be held on Monday,
July 18th, at nine o'clock.

The 18th of July will henceforth be a memorable day in the history
of the church. It did not dawn, however, with the brilliancy usual
at this season, or almost habitual with the grand _fetes_ of Pius
IX. It rained much during the preceding night, and up to the time
of the meeting of the session wayfarers were liable any time to be
caught by fitful showers. The thought that, although a great and most
beneficial act was to be done, still there were not a few of the
fathers who thought otherwise than the majority in a matter about
to be made binding on the conscience of all, was not calculated
to heighten the external manifestation of cheerfulness, whatever
feelings of thankfulness to Providence for the event was in the
heart. As the interest was intense, there were not many, who deemed
they could come, who were not present. At nine o'clock precisely,
his eminence Cardinal Barili began a low mass, without chant. At the
end of it, the small throne for the gospels was placed on the altar,
and upon it the copy of the sacred Scriptures. In a few moments the
sovereign pontiff entered, preceded by the senate and by the officers
of his court, and, after kneeling a few moments at the prie-dieu,
went to his throne in the apsis of the aula. The customary prayers
were recited by him; the litany of the saints was chanted, and the
"Veni Creator Spiritus" intoned, the people present taking part;
after which the Bishop of Fabriano ascended the pulpit and read the
_schema_ to be voted on, and finished with asking the fathers whether
it pleased them. Monsignor Jacobini next, from the pulpit, called
the name of each prelate assisting at the council. Five hundred and
thirty-four answered _placet_, two replied _non placet_, and one
hundred and six were absent, some because sick, the far greater
number not wishing to vote favorably. As soon as the result was made
known officially to Pius IX., who awaited it in silence, but with
calmness, he arose and in a clear, distinct, and firm voice announced
the fact of all, with the exception of two, having given a favorable
vote, wherefore, he continued, by virtue of our apostolic authority,
with the approval of the sacred council, we define, confirm, and
approve the decrees and canons just read. Immediately there arose
murmurs of approbation inside and outside the hall, the doors of
which were surrounded by a large crowd, and, increasing from the
impossibility those present experienced of repressing their feeling,
it swelled into a burst of congratulation, and a _Viva Pio Nono Papa
infallibile_. We shall not say any thing regarding the propriety of
such proceedings in a church; but there are times when feeling is so
powerful as to break through all ideas of conventionality. As soon as
all were quiet, with unfaltering voice and excellent intonation the
pope began the Te Deum. It was taken up alternately by the Sistine
choir and those present. By an accident, at the Sanctus, Sanctus,
Sanctus, the people got out, and took up the part of the Sistine
choir, and kept it to the end, alternately with the bishops, and with
a volume of sound that completely drowned the delicate notes of the
papal singers, and which, if not as musical as their chant, was far
more impressive. The session ended with the apostolic benediction
from the holy father, accompanied by an indulgence for all assisting,
in accordance with the custom of the church. Thus passed one of the
most momentous and remarkable occasions the world has ever witnessed,
a day henceforth memorable in the annals of the church and of
mankind, the results of which the human mind is scarce capable of
grasping.



    FIRST DOGMATIC DECREE ON THE CHURCH OF CHRIST,
    PUBLISHED IN THE FOURTH SESSION OF THE HOLY OECUMENICAL
    COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN.

    PASSED JULY 18, 1870.


    PIVS EPISCOPVS SERVVS SERVORVM     PIUS, BISHOP, SERVANT OF THE
    DEI SACRO APPROBANTE CONCILIO AD   SERVANTS OF GOD, WITH THE
    PERPETVAM REI MEMORIAM.            APPROBATION OF THE HOLY COUNCIL,
                                       FOR A PERPETUAL REMEMBRANCE
                                       HEREOF.

    Pastor aeternus et episcopus       The eternal Shepherd and Bishop
    animarum nostrarum, ut             of our souls, in order to render
    salutiferum redemptionis opus      perpetual the saving work of his
    perenne redderet, sanctam          redemption, resolved to build
    aedificare Ecclesiam decrevit,     the holy church, in which, as in
    in qua veluti in domo Dei          the house of the living God, all
    viventis fideles omnes unius       the faithful should be united
    fidei et charitatis vinculo        by the bond of the same faith
    continerentur. Quapropter,         and charity. For which reason,
    priusquam clarificaretur,          before he was glorified, he
    rogavit Patrem non pro Apostolis   prayed the Father, not for the
    tantum, sed et pro eis, qui        apostles alone, but also for
    credituri erant per verbum         those who, through their word,
    eorum in ipsum, ut omnes unum      would believe in him, that they
    essent, sicut ipse Filius et       all might be one, as the Son
    Pater unum sunt. Quemadmodum       himself and the Father are one.
    igitur Apostolos, quos sibi        (John xvii. 1-20.) Wherefore,
    de mundo elegerat, misit,          even as he sent the apostles,
    sicut ipse missus erat a           whom he had chosen to himself
    Patre; ita in Ecclesia sua         from the world as he had been
    Pastores et Doctores usque ad      sent by the father, so he willed
    consummationem saeculi esse        that there should be pastors and
    voluit. Ut vero episcopatus        teachers in his church even to
    ipse unus et indivisus esset,      the consummation of the world.
    et per cohaerentes sibi            Moreover, to the end that the
    invicem sacerdotes credentium      episcopal body itself might be
    multitudo universa in fidei        one and undivided, and that the
    et communionis unitate             entire multitude of believers
    conservaretur, beatum Petrum       might be preserved in oneness
    caeteris Apostolis praeponens      of faith and of communion,
    in ipso instituit perpetuum        through priests cleaving
    utriusque unitatis principium      mutually together, he placed the
    ac visibile fundamentum, super     blessed Peter before the other
    cuius fortitudinem aeternum        apostles and established in him
    exstrueretur templum, et           a perpetual principle of this
    Ecclesiae coelo inferenda          two-fold unity, and a visible
    sublimitas in huius fidei          foundation on whose strength
    firmitate consurgeret.[306]        "the eternal temple might be
    Et quoniam portae inferi           built, and in whose firm faith
    ad evertendam, si fieri            the church might rise upward
    posset, Ecclesiam contra eius      until her summit reach the
    fundamentum divinitus positum      heavens," (St. Leo the Great,
    maiori in dies odio                Sermon iv. (or iii.) chapter
    undique insurgunt; Nos ad          2, on Christmas.) Now, seeing
    catholici gregis custodiam,        that in order to overthrow, if
    incolumitatem, augmentum,          possible, the church, the powers
    necessarium esse iudicamus,        of hell on every side, and
    sacro approbante Concilio,         with a hatred which increases
    doctrinam de institutione,         day by day, are assailing her
    perpetuitate, ac natura sacri      foundation which was placed
    Apostolici primatus, in quo        by God, we therefore, for the
    totius Ecclesiae vis ac            preservation, the safety, and
    soliditas consistit, cunctis       the increase of the Catholic
    fidelibus credendam et tenendam,   flock, and with the approbation
    secundum antiquam atque            of the sacred council, have
    constantem universalis Ecclesiae   judged it necessary to set forth
    fidem, proponere, atque            the doctrine which, according to
    contrarios, dominico gregi adeo    the ancient and constant faith
    perniciosos errores proscribere    of the universal church, all the
    et condemnare.                     faithful must believe and hold,
                                       touching the institution, the
                                       perpetuity, and the nature of
                                       the sacred apostolic primacy,
                                       in which stands the power and
                                       strength of the entire church;
                                       and to proscribe and condemn the
                                       contrary errors so hurtful to
                                       the flock of the Lord.


    CAPUT I.                           CHAPTER I.

    DE APOSTOLICI PRIMATUS IN BEATO    OF THE INSTITUTION OF THE
    PETRO INSTITUTIONE.                APOSTOLIC PRIMACY IN THE BLESSED
                                       PETER.

    Docemus itaque et declaramus,      We teach, therefore, and
    iuxta Evangelii testimonia         declare that, according to the
    primatum iurisdictionis in         testimonies of the Gospel, the
    universam Dei Ecclesiam            primacy of jurisdiction over
    immediate et directe beato         the whole church of God was
    Petro Apostolo promissum atque     promised and given immediately
    collatum a Christo Domino          and directly to blessed Peter,
    fuisse. Unum enim Simonem, cui     the apostle, by Christ our Lord.
    iam pridem dixerat: Tu vocaberis   For it was to Simon alone, to
    Cephas,[307] postquam ille suam    whom he had already said, "Thou
    edidit confessionem inquiens:      shalt be called Cephas,"[309]
    Tu es Christus, Filius Dei         that, after he had professed
    vivi, solemnibus hic verbis        his faith, "Thou art Christ,
    locutus est Dominus: Beatus es     the Son of the living God," our
    Simon Bar-Iona, quia caro et       Lord said, "Blessed art thou,
    sanguis non revelavit tibi,        Simon Bar-Jona; because flesh
    sed Pater meus, qui in coelis      and blood hath not revealed it
    est: et ego dico tibi, quia        to thee, but my Father who is in
    tu es Petrus, et super hanc        heaven; and I say to thee, that
    petram aedificabo Ecclesiam        thou art Peter, and upon this
    meam, et portae inferi non         rock I will build my church,
    praevalebunt adversus eam: et      and the gates of hell shall
    tibi dabo claves regni coelorum:   not prevail against it; and
    et quodcumque ligaveris super      I will give to thee the keys
    terram, erit ligatum et in         of the kingdom of heaven; and
    coelis: et quodcumque solveris     whatsoever thou shalt bind upon
    super terram, erit solutum et in   earth, it shall be bound also
    coelis.[308] Atque uni Simoni      in heaven; and whatsoever
    Petro contulit Iesus post suam     thou shalt loose upon earth,
    resurrectionem summi pastoris      it shall be loosed also in
    et rectoris iurisdictionem         heaven."[311] And it was to
    in totum suum ovile, dicens:       Simon Peter alone that Jesus,
    Pasce agnos meos: Pasce oves       after his resurrection, gave the
    meas.[310] Huic tam manifestae     jurisdiction of supreme shepherd
    sacrarum Scripturarum doctrinae,   and ruler over the whole of his
    ut ab Ecclesia catholica           fold, saying, "Feed my lambs;"
    semper intellecta est, aperte      "Feed my sheep."[312] To this
    opponuntur pravae eorum            doctrine so clearly set forth
    sententiae, qui constitutam a      in the sacred Scriptures, as
    Christo Domino in sua Ecclesia     the Catholic Church has always
    regiminis formam pervertentes      understood it, are plainly
    negant, solum Petrum prae          opposed the perverse opinions of
    caeteris Apostolis, sive seorsum   those who, distorting the form
    singulis sive omnibus simul,       of government established in
    vero proprioque iurisdictionis     his church by Christ our Lord,
    primatu fuisse a Christo           deny that Peter alone above the
    instructum: aut qui affirmant      other apostles, whether taken
    eumdem primatum non immediate,     separately one by one or all
    directeque ipsi beato Petro, sed   together, was endowed by Christ
    Ecclesiae, et per hanc illi,       with a true and real primacy
    ut ipsius Ecclesiae ministro,      of jurisdiction; or who assert
    delatum fuisse.                    that this primacy was not
                                       given immediately and directly
    Si quis igitur dixerit, beatum     to blessed Peter, but to the
    Petrum Apostolum non esse a        church, and through her to him,
    Christo Domino constitutum         as to the agent of the church.
    Apostolorum omnium principem
    et totius Ecclesiae militantis     If, therefore, any one shall
    visibile caput; vel eumdem         say, that blessed Peter the
    honoris tantum, non autem verae    Apostle was not appointed by
    propriaeque iurisdictionis         Christ our Lord, the prince
    primatum ab eodem Domino           of all the apostles, and the
    nostro Iesu Christo directe et     visible head of the whole church
    immediate accepisse; anathema      militant; or, that he received
    sit.                               directly and immediately from
                                       our Lord Jesus Christ only the
                                       primacy of honor, and not that
                                       of true and real jurisdiction;
                                       let him be anathema.


    CAPUT II.                          CHAPTER II.

    DE PERPETUITATE PRIMATUS BEATI     OF THE PERPETUITY OF THE PRIMACY
    PETRI IN ROMANIS PONTIFICIBUS.     OF PETER IN THE ROMAN PONTIFFS.

    Quod autem in beato Apostolo       What the prince of pastors
    Petro princeps pastorum et         and the great shepherd of the
    pastor magnus ovium Dominus        sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ,
    Christus Iesus in perpetuam        established in the person of the
    salutem ac perenne bonum           blessed apostle Peter for the
    Ecclesiae instituit, id eodem      perpetual welfare and lasting
    auctore in Ecclesia, quae          good of the church, the same
    fundata super petram ad finem      through his power must needs
    saeculorum usque firma stabit,     last for ever in that church,
    iugiter durare necesse est.        which is founded upon the rock,
    Nulli sane dubium, imo saeculis    and will stand firm till the
    omnibus notum est, quod            end of time. And indeed it is
    sanctus beatissimusque Petrus,     well known, as it has been in
    Apostolorum princeps et caput,     all ages, that the holy and
    fideique columna et Ecclesiae      most blessed Peter, prince and
    catholicae fundamentum, a Domino   head of the apostles, pillar of
    nostro Iesu Christo, Salvatore     the faith and foundation of the
    humani generis ac Redemptore,      Catholic Church, who received
    claves regni accepit: qui ad       from our Lord Jesus Christ, the
    hoc usque tempus et semper in      Saviour and Redeemer of mankind,
    suis successoribus, episcopis      the keys of the kingdom of
    sanctae Romanae Sedis, ab ipso     heaven, to this present time and
    fundatae, eiusque consecratae      at all times lives and presides
    sanguine, vivit et praesidet       and pronounces judgment in the
    et iudicium exercet.[313] Unde     person of his successors, the
    quicumque in hac Cathedra Petro    bishops of the holy Roman see,
    succedit, is secundum Christi      which was founded by him, and
    ipsius institutionem primatum      consecrated by his blood.[316]
    Petri in universam Ecclesiam       So that whoever succeeds Peter
    obtinet. Manet ergo dispositio     in this chair, holds, according
    veritatis, et beatus Petrus        to Christ's own institution, the
    in accepta fortitudine petrae      primacy of Peter over the whole
    perseverans suscepta Ecclesiae     church. What, therefore, was
    gubernacula non reliquit.[314]     once established by him who is
    Hac de causa ad Romanam            the truth, still remains, and
    Ecclesiam propter potentiorem      blessed Peter, retaining the
    principalitatem necesse semper     strength of the rock, which has
    fuit omnem convenire Ecclesiam,    been given to him, has never
    hoc est, eos, qui sunt undique     left the helm of the church
    fideles, ut in ea Sede, e qua      originally intrusted to him.[317]
    venerandae communionis iura
    in omnes dimanant, tamquam         For this reason it was always
    membra in capite consociata,       necessary for every other
    in unam corporis compagem          church, that is, the faithful of
    coalescerent.[315]                 all countries, to have recourse
                                       to the Roman Church on account
    Si quis ergo dixerit, non          of its superior headship, in
    esse ex ipsius Christi Domini      order that being joined, as
    institutione seu iure divino,      members to their head, with this
    ut beatus Petrus in primatu        see, from which the rights of
    super universam Ecclesiam          religious communion flow unto
    habeat perpetuos successores;      all, they might be knitted into
    aut Romanum Pontificem non esse    the unity of one body.[318]
    beati Petri in eodem primatu
    successorem; anathema sit.         If, therefore, any one shall
                                       say, that it is not by the
                                       institution of Christ our Lord
                                       himself, or by divine right,
                                       that blessed Peter has perpetual
                                       successors in the primacy over
                                       the whole church; or, that
                                       the Roman pontiff is not the
                                       successor of blessed Peter
                                       in this primacy; let him be
                                       anathema.


    CAPUT III.                         CHAPTER III.

    DE VI ET RATIONE PRIMATUS ROMANI   OF THE POWER AND NATURE OF THE
    PONTIFICIS.                        PRIMACY OF THE ROMAN PONTIFF.

    Quapropter apertis innixi          Wherefore, resting upon the
    sacrarum litterarum                clear testimonies of holy
    testimoniis et inhaerentes         writ, and following the full
    tum Praedecessorum Nostrorum       and explicit decrees of our
    Romanorum Pontificum, tum          predecessors the Roman pontiffs,
    Conciliorum generalium disertis,   and of general councils, we
    perspicuisque decretis,            renew the definition of the
    innovamus oecumenici Concilii      oecumenical council of
    Florentini definitionem, qua       Florence, according to which
    credendum ab omnibus Christi       all the faithful of Christ
    fidelibus est, sanctam             must believe that the holy
    Apostolicam Sedem, et Romanum      apostolic see and the Roman
    Pontificem in universum orbem      pontiff hold the primacy over
    tenere primatum, et ipsum          the whole world, and that the
    Pontificem Romanum successorem     Roman pontiff is the successor
    esse beati Petri principis         of blessed Peter the prince of
    Apostolorum, et verum Christi      the apostles, and the true vicar
    Vicarium, totiusque Ecclesiae      of Christ, and is the head of
    caput, et omnium Christianorum     the whole church, and the father
    patrem ac doctorem existere;       and teacher of all Christians;
    et ipsi in beato Petro             and that to him, in the blessed
    pascendi, regendi et gubernandi    Peter, was given by our Lord
    universalem Ecclesiam a Domino     Jesus Christ full power of
    nostro Iesu Christo plenam         feeding, ruling, and governing
    potestatem traditam esse;          the universal church; as is also
    quemadmodum etiam in gestis        set forth in the acts of the
    oecumenicorum Conciliorum et       oecumenical councils, and in
    sacris canonibus continetur.       the sacred canons.

    Docemus proinde et declaramus,     Wherefore, we teach and declare
    Ecclesiam Romanam disponente       that the Roman Church, under
    Domino super omnes alias           divine providence, possesses
    ordinariae potestatis obtinere     a headship of ordinary power
    principatum, et hanc Romani        over all other churches, and
    Pontificis iurisdictionis          that this power of jurisdiction
    potestatem, quae vere              of the Roman pontiff, which is
    episcopalis est, immediatam        truly episcopal, is immediate,
    esse: erga quam cuiuscumque        toward which the pastors and
    ritus et dignitatis,               faithful of whatever rite and
    pastores atque fideles, tam        dignity, whether singly or all
    seorsum singuli quam simul         together, are bound by the duty
    omnes, officio hierarchicae        of hierarchical subordination
    subordinationis, veraeque          and of true obedience, not only
    obedientiae obstringuntur, non     in things which appertain to
    solum in rebus, quae ad fidem      faith and morals, but likewise
    et mores, sed etiam in iis,        in those things which concern
    quae ad disciplinam et regimen     the discipline and government
    Ecclesiae, per totum orbem         of the church spread throughout
    diffusae pertinent; ita, ut        the world, so that being united
    custodita cum Romano Pontifice     with the Roman pontiff, both in
    tam communionis, quam eiusdem      communion and in profession of
    fidei professionis unitate,        the same faith, the church of
    Ecclesia Christi sit unus grex     Christ may be one fold under
    sub uno summo pastore. Haec est    one chief shepherd. This is the
    catholicae veritatis doctrina,     doctrine of Catholic truth, from
    a qua deviare salva fide atque     which no one can depart without
    salute nemo potest.                loss of faith and salvation.

    Tantum autem abest, ut haec        So far, nevertheless, is this
    Summi Pontificis potestas          power of the supreme pontiff
    officiat ordinariae ac             from trenching on that ordinary
    immediatae illi episcopali         power of episcopal jurisdiction
    iurisdictionis potestati, qua      by which the bishops, who have
    Episcopi, qui positi a Spiritu     been instituted by the Holy
    Sancto in Apostolorum locum        Ghost and have succeeded in the
    successerunt, tamquam veri         place of the apostles, like
    Pastores assignatos sibi greges,   true shepherds, feed and rule
    singuli singulos, pascunt et       the flocks assigned to them,
    regunt, ut eadem a supremo et      each one his own; that, on the
    universali Pastore asseratur,      contrary, this their power is
    roboretur ac vindicetur,           asserted, strengthened, and
    secundum illud sancti Gregorii     vindicated by the supreme and
    Magni: Meus honor est honor        universal pastor; as St. Gregory
    universalis Ecclesiae. Meus        the Great saith: My honor is the
    honor est fratrum meorum solidus   honor of the universal church;
    vigor. Tum ego vere honoratus      my honor is the solid strength
    sum, cum singulis quibusque        of my brethren; then am I truly
    honor debitus non negatur.[319]    honored when to each one of them
                                       the honor due is not denied.
                                       (St. Gregory Great ad Eulogius,
                                       Epist. 30.)

    Porro ex suprema ilia Romani       Moreover, from that supreme
    Pontificis potestate gubernandi    authority of the Roman pontiff
    universam Ecclesiam ius eidem      to govern the universal church,
    esse consequitur, in huius         there follows to him the right,
    sui muneris exercitio libere       in the exercise of this his
    communicandi cum pastoribus et     office, of freely communicating
    gregibus totius Ecclesiae, ut      with the pastors and flocks of
    iidem ab ipso in via salutis       the whole church, that they may
    doceri ac regi possint. Quare      be taught and guided by him in
    damnamus ac reprobamus illorum     the way of salvation.
    sententias, qui hanc supremi
    capitis cum pastoribus et          Wherefore, we condemn and
    gregibus communicationem           reprobate the opinions of those,
    licite impediri posse dicunt,      who say that this communication
    aut eamdem reddunt saeculari       of the supreme head with the
    potestati obnoxiam, ita ut         pastors and flocks can be
    contendant, quae ab Apostolica     lawfully hindered, or who make
    Sede vel eius auctoritate ad       it subject to the secular
    regimen Ecclesiae constituuntur,   power, maintaining that the
    vim ac valorem non habere, nisi    things which are decreed by
    potestatis saecularis placito      the apostolic see or under its
    confirmentur.                      authority for the government of
                                       the church, have no force or
    Et quoniam divino Apostolici       value unless they are confirmed
    primatus iure Romanus Pontifex     by the approval of the secular
    universae Ecclesiae praeest,       power. And since, by the divine
    docemus etiam et declaramus,       right of apostolic primacy,
    eum esse iudicem supremum          the Roman pontiff presides
    fidelium,[320] et in omnibus       over the universal churches,
    causis ad examen ecclesiasticum    we also teach and declare
    spectantibus ad ipsius posse       that he is the supreme judge
    iudicium recurri;[321]             of the faithful, (Pius VI.
    Sedis vero Apostolicae,            Brief Super Soliditate,) and
    cuius auctoritate maior non        that in all causes calling for
    est, iudicium a nemine fore        ecclesiastical trial, recourse
    retractandum, neque cuiquam        may be had to his judgment,
    de eius licere iudicare            (Second Council of Lyons;) but
    iudicio.[322] Quare a recto        the decision of the apostolic
    veritatis tramite aberrant,        see, above which there is no
    qui affirmant, licere ab           higher authority, cannot be
    iudiciis Romanorum Pontificum ad   reconsidered by any one, nor
    oecumenicum Concilium tamquam ad   is it lawful to any one to sit
    auctoritatem Romano Pontifice      in judgment on his judgment.
    superiorem appellare.              (Nicholas I. epist. ad Michaelem
                                       Imperatorem.)

                                       Wherefore, they wander away
                                       from the right path of truth
                                       who assert that it is lawful
                                       to appeal from the judgments
                                       of the Roman pontiffs to an
                                       oecumenical council, as if to
                                       an authority superior to the
                                       Roman pontiff.

    Si quis itaque dixerit, Romanum    Therefore, if any one shall say
    Pontificem habere tantummodo       that the Roman pontiff holds
    officium inspectionis vel          only the charge of inspection
    directionis, non autem plenam      or direction, and not full and
    et supremam potestatem             supreme power of jurisdiction
    iurisdictionis in universam        over the entire church, not only
    Ecclesiam, non solum in rebus,     in things which pertain to faith
    quae ad fidem et mores,            and morals, but also in those
    sed etiam in iis, quae ad          which pertain to the discipline
    disciplinam et regimen Ecclesiae   and government of the church
    per totum orbem diffusae           spread throughout the whole
    pertinent; aut eum habere tantum   world; or, that he possesses
    potiores partes, non vero totam    only the chief part and not the
    plenitudinem huius supremae        entire plenitude of this supreme
    potestatis; aut hanc eius          power; or, that this his power
    potestatem non esse ordinariam     is not ordinary and immediate,
    et immediatam sive in omnes ac     both as regards all and each of
    singulas ecclesias sive in omnes   the churches, and all and each
    et singulos pastores et fideles;   of the pastors and faithful; let
    anathema sit.                      him be anathema.


    CAPUT IV.                          CHAPTER IV.

    DE ROMANI PONTIFICIS INFALLIBILI   OF THE INFALLIBLE AUTHORITY OF
    MAGISTERIO.                        THE ROMAN PONTIFF IN TEACHING.

    Ipso autem Apostolico primatu,     This holy see has ever
    quem Romanus Pontifex tamquam      held--the unbroken custom of
    Petri principis Apostolorum        the church doth prove--and the
    successor in universam             oecumenical councils, those
    Ecclesiam obtinet, supremam        especially in which the east
    quoque magisterii potestatem       joined with the west, in union
    comprehendi, haec Sancta Sedes     of faith and of charity, have
    semper tenuit, perpetuus           declared that in this apostolic
    Ecclesiae usus comprobat,          primacy, which the Roman pontiff
    ipsaque oecumenica Concilia, ea    holds over the universal church,
    imprimis, in quibus Oriens cum     as successor of Peter the prince
    Occidente in fidei charitatisque   of the apostles, there is also
    unionem conveniebat,               contained the supreme power of
    declaraverunt. Patres enim         authoritative teaching. Thus the
    Concilii Constantinopolitani       fathers of the fourth council of
    quarti, maiorum vestigiis          Constantinople, following in the
    inhaerentes, hanc solemnem         footsteps of their predecessors,
    ediderunt professionem: Prima      put forth this solemn profession:
    salus est, rectae fidei regulam
    custodire. Et quia non potest      "The first law of salvation is
    Domini nostri Iesu Christi         to keep the rule of true faith.
    praetermitti sententia dicentis:   And whereas the words of our
    Tu es Petrus, et super hanc        Lord Jesus Christ cannot be
    petram aedificabo Ecclesiam        passed by, who said: Thou art
    meam, haec, quae dicta sunt,       Peter, and upon this rock I
    rerum probantur effectibus, quia   will build my church, (Matt.
    in Sede Apostolica immaculata      xvi. 18,) these words, which
    est semper catholica reservata     he spake, are proved true by
    religio, et sancta celebrata       facts; for in the apostolic
    doctrina. Ab huius ergo fide       see, the Catholic religion has
    et doctrina separari minime        ever been preserved unspotted,
    cupientes, speramus, ut in         and the holy doctrine has been
    una communione, quam Sedes         announced. Therefore wishing
    Apostolica praedicat, esse         never to be separated from the
    mereamur, in qua est integra       faith and teaching of this see,
    et vera Christianae religionis     we hope to be worthy to abide
    soliditas.[323] Approbante vero    in that one communion which the
    Lugdunenis Concilio secundo,       apostolic see preaches, in which
    Graeci professi sunt: Sanctam      is the full and true firmness
    Romanam Ecclesiam summum et        of the Christian religion."
    plenum primatum et principatum     [Formula of St. Hormisdas Pope,
    super universam Ecclesiam          as proposed by Hadrian II.
    catholicam obtinere, quem se       to the fathers of the eighth
    ab ipso Domino in beato Petro      general Council, (Constantinop.
    Apostolorum principe sive          IV.,) and subscribed by them.]
    vertice, cuius Romanus Pontifex
    est successor, cum potestatis      So too, the Greeks, with the
    plenitudine recepisse veraciter    approval of the second council
    et humiliter recognoscit; et       of Lyons, professed, that the
    sicut prae caeteris tenetur        holy Roman Church holds over
    fidei veritatem defendere, sic     the universal Catholic Church,
    et, si quae de fide subortae       a supreme and full primacy and
    fuerint quaestiones, suo debent    headship, which she truthfully
    iudicio definiri. Florentinum      and humbly acknowledges that
    denique Concilium definivit:       she received, with fulness of
    Pontificem Romanum, verum          power, from the Lord himself
    Christi Vicarium, totiusque        in blessed Peter, the prince
    Ecclesiae caput et omnium          or head of the apostles, of
    Christianorum patrem ac doctorem   whom the Roman pontiff is the
    existere; et ipsi in beato Petro   successor; and as she, beyond
    pascendi, regendi ac gubernandi    the others, is bound to defend
    universalem Ecclesiam a Domino     the truth of the faith, so, if
    nostro Iesu Christo plenam         any questions arise concerning
    potestatem traditam esse.          faith, they should be decided
                                       by her judgment. And finally,
                                       the council of Florence defined
                                       that the Roman pontiff is true
                                       vicar of Christ, and the head of
                                       the whole church, and the father
                                       and teacher of all Christians,
                                       and that to him, in the blessed
                                       Peter, was given by our Lord
                                       Jesus Christ full power of
                                       feeding and ruling and governing
                                       the universal church. (John xxi.
                                       15-17.)

    Huic pastorali muneri ut           In order to fulfil this pastoral
    satisfacerent, Praedecessores      charge, our predecessors have
    Nostri indefessam semper operam    ever labored unweariedly to
    dederunt, ut salutaris Christi     spread the saving doctrine of
    doctrina apud omnes terrae         Christ among all the nations
    populos propagaretur, parique      of the earth, and with equal
    cura vigilarunt, ut, ubi           care have watched to preserve
    recepta esset, sincera et pura     it pure and unchanged where it
    conservaretur. Quocirca totius     had been received. Wherefore
    orbis Antistites, nunc singuli,    the bishops of the whole world,
    nunc in Synodis congregati,        sometimes singly, sometimes
    longam ecclesiarum consuetudinem   assembled in synods, following
    et antiquae regulae formam         the long established custom
    sequentes, ea praesertim           of the churches, (S. Cyril,
    pericula, quae in negotiis         Alex. ad S. Coelest. Pap.,)
    fidei emergebant, ad hanc Sedem    and the form of ancient rule,
    Apostolicam retulerunt, ut ibi     (St. Innocent I. to councils of
    potissimum resarcirentur damna     Carthage and Milevi,) referred
    fidei, ubi fides non potest        to this apostolic see those
    sentire defectum.[324] Romani      dangers especially which arose
    autem Pontifices, prout temporum   in matters of faith, in order
    et rerum conditio suadebat, nunc   that injuries to faith might
    convocatis oecumenicis Conciliis   best be healed there where the
    aut explorata Ecclesiae per        faith could never fail. (St.
    orbem dispersae sententia, nunc    Bernard ep. 190.) And the Roman
    per Synodos particulares, nunc     pontiffs, weighing the condition
    aliis, quae divina suppeditabat    of times and circumstances,
    providentia, adhibitis auxiliis,   sometimes calling together
    ea tenenda definiverunt, quae      general councils, or asking
    sacris Scripturis et apostolicis   the judgment of the church
    Traditionibus consentanea,         scattered through the world,
    Deo adiutore, cognoverant.         sometimes consulting particular
    Neque enim Petri successoribus     synods, sometimes using such
    Spiritus Sanctus promissus         other aids as divine providence
    est, ut eo revelante novam         supplied, defined that those
    doctrinam patefacerent, sed        doctrines should be held, which,
    ut eo assistente traditam per      by the aid of God, they knew
    Apostolos revelationem seu fidei   to be conformable to the holy
    depositum sancte custodirent et    Scriptures, and the apostolic
    fideliter exponerent. Quorum       traditions. For the Holy
    quidem apostolicam doctrinam       Ghost is not promised to the
    omnes venerabiles Patres amplexi   successors of Peter, that they
    et sancti Doctores orthodoxi       may make known a new doctrine
    venerati atque secuti sunt;        revealed by him, but that,
    plenissime scientes, hanc sancti   through his assistance, they may
    Petri Sedem ab omni semper         sacredly guard, and faithfully
    errore illibatam permanere,        set forth the revelation
    secundum Domini Salvatoris         delivered by the apostles, that
    nostri divinam pollicitationem     is, the deposit of faith. And
    discipulorum suorum principi       this their apostolic teaching,
    factam: Ego rogavi pro te, ut      all the venerable fathers have
    non deficiat fides tua, et tu      embraced, and the holy orthodox
    aliquando conversus confirma       doctors have revered and
    fratres tuos.                      followed, knowing most certainly
                                       that this see of St. Peter ever
                                       remains free from all error,
                                       according to the divine promise
                                       of our Lord and Saviour made
                                       to the prince of the apostles:
                                       I have prayed for thee, that
                                       thy faith fail not, and thou,
                                       being once converted, confirm
                                       thy brethren. (Conf. St. Agatho,
                                       Ep. ad Imp. a Conc. OEcum. VI.
                                       approbat.)

    Hoc igitur veritatis et fidei      Therefore, this gift of truth,
    numquam deficientis charisma       and of faith which fails not,
    Petro eiusque in hac Cathedra      was divinely bestowed on Peter
    successoribus divinitus collatum   and his successors in this
    est, ut excelso suo munere in      chair, that they should exercise
    omnium salutem fungerentur,        their high office for the
    ut universus Christi grex per      salvation of all, that through
    eos ab erroris venenosa esca       them the universal flock of
    aversus, coelestis doctrinae       Christ should be turned away
    pabulo nutriretur, ut sublata      from the poisonous food of
    schismatis occasione Ecclesia      error, and should be nourished
    tota una conservaretur atque suo   with the food of heavenly
    fundamento innixa firma adversus   doctrine, and that, the occasion
    inferi portas consisteret.         of schism being removed,
                                       the entire church should be
                                       preserved one, and, planted on
                                       her foundation, should stand
                                       firm against the gates of hell.

    At vero cum hac ipsa aetate, qua   Nevertheless, since in this
    salutifera Apostolici muneris      present age, when the saving
    efficacia vel maxime requiritur,   efficacy of the apostolic
    non pauci inveniantur, qui         office is exceedingly needed,
    illius auctoritati obtrectant;     there are not a few who carp
    necessarium omnino esse            at its authority; we judge it
    censemus, praerogativam, quam      altogether necessary to solemnly
    unigenitus Dei Filius cum summo    declare the prerogative, which
    pastorali officio coniungere       the only begotten Son of God has
    dignatus est, solemniter           deigned to unite to the supreme
    asserere.                          pastoral office.

    Itaque Nos traditioni a fidei      Wherefore, faithfully adhering
    Christianae exordio perceptae      to the tradition handed down
    fideliter inhaerendo, ad Dei       from the commencement of the
    Salvatoris nostri gloriam          Christian faith, for the
    religionis Catholicae              glory of God our Saviour, the
    exaltationem et Christianorum      exaltation of the Catholic
    populorum salutem, sacro           religion, and the salvation
    approbante Concilio, docemus et    of Christian peoples, with
    divinitus revelatum dogma esse     the approbation of the sacred
    definimus: Romanum Pontificem,     council, we teach and define
    cum ex Cathedra loquitur, id       it to be a doctrine divinely
    est, cum omnium Christianorum      revealed: that when the Roman
    Pastoris et Doctoris munere        pontiff speaks _ex cathedra_,
    fungens, pro suprema sua           that is, when in the exercise of
    Apostolica auctoritate doctrinam   his office of pastor and teacher
    de fide vel moribus ab universa    of all Christians, and in virtue
    Ecclesia tenendam definit, per     of his supreme apostolical
    assistentiam divinam, ipsi         authority, he defines that a
    in beato Petro promissam, ea       doctrine of faith or morals is
    infallibilitate pollere, qua       to be held by the universal
    divinus Redemptor Ecclesiam suam   church, he possesses, through
    in definienda doctrina de fide     the divine assistance promised
    vel moribus instructam esse        to him in the blessed Peter,
    voluit; ideoque eiusmodi Romani    that infallibility with which
    Pontificis definitiones ex sese,   the divine Redeemer willed
    non autem ex consensu Ecclesiae,   his church to be endowed, in
    irreformabiles esse.               defining a doctrine of faith or
                                       morals; and therefore that such
                                       definitions of the Roman pontiff
                                       are irreformable of themselves,
                                       and not by force of the consent
                                       of the church thereto.

    Si quis autem huic Nostrae         And if any one shall presume,
    definitioni contradicere, quod     which God forbid, to contradict
    Deus avertat, praesumpserit;       this our definition; let him be
    anathema sit.                      anathema.

    Datum Romae, in publica Sessione   Given in Rome, in the Public
    in Vaticana Basilica solemniter    Session, solemnly celebrated in
    celebrata, anno Incarnationis      the Vatican Basilica, in the
    Dominicae millesimo                year of the Incarnation of our
    octingentesimo septuagesimo, die   Lord one thousand eight hundred
    decima octava Iulii.               and seventy, on the eighteenth
                                       day of July; in the twenty-fifth
    Pontificatus Nostri anno           year of our Pontificate.
    vigesimo quinto

    Ita est                            Ita est.

    IOSEPHUS                           JOSEPH, BISHOP OF ST. POLTEN,
      _Episcopus S. Hippolyti_           _Secretary of the Council of
      _Secretarius Concilii Vaticani_.   the Vatican_.

FOOTNOTES:

[306] S. Leo M. serm. iv. (al. iii.) cap. 2. in diem Natalis sui.

[307] Joan. i. 42.

[308] Matth. xvi. 16-19.

[309] John i. 42.

[310] Joan. xxi. 15-17.

[311] Matthew xvi. 16-19.

[312] John xxi. 15-17.

[313] Cf. Ephesini Concilii Act. iii.

[314] S. Leo M. Serm. iii. (al. ii.) cap. 3.

[315] S. Iren. Adv. Haer. I. iii. c. 3. Ep. Conc. Aquilei 2. 381,
inter epp. S. Ambros. ep. xi.

[316] Council of Eph. sess. iii. St. Peter Chrys. Ep. ad Eutych.

[317] S. Leo, Serm. iii. chap. iii.

[318] St. Irenaeus against Heresies, book iii. chap. 3. Epist. of
Council of Aquileia, 381, to Gratian, chap. 4. of Pius VI. Brief
Super Soliditate.

[319] Ep. ad Eulog. Alexandrin. I. viii. ep. xxx.

[320] Pii P. VI. Breve Super Soliditate, d. 28. Nov. 1786.

[321] Concil. OEcum. Lugdun. II.

[322] Ep. Nicolai I. ad Michaelem Imperatorem.

[323] Ex formula S. Hormisdae Papae, prout ab Hadriano II. Patribus
Concilii Oecumenici VIII., Constantinopolitani IV., proposita et ab
iisdem subscripta est.

[324] Cf. S. Bern. Epist. 190.




NEW PUBLICATIONS.


    LIFE OF T. THEOPHANE VENARD, MARTYR IN TONQUIN. Translated from
    the French by Lady Herbert. London: Burns, Oates & Co. 1870.
    Pp. 215. For sale by the Catholic Publication Society, 9 Warren
    Street, New York.

China is the land of modern martyrdom. She continues the work of
Nero and Diocletian. Within a few days the newspapers have contained
a brief account of the latest massacre. These persecutions have
been constant since her soil first drank the blood of a Catholic
missionary. Incited by their pagan priests, secretly encouraged
by government officials, and sustained by the approbation of the
mandarins, the ignorant and barbarous mobs of China are only too
ready for the murder of those whom they term "Foreign Devils."
Throughout the world there is at least partial toleration for the
teacher of the Christian religion; in China there is only certain
death. Father Venard, then, went to China with the hope and
expectation of martyrdom. This was tempered, indeed, by the thought
that he was unworthy of this singular grace, but still it was the
constant thought of his life. In early childhood it was his delight
to read the "Annals of the Propagation of the Faith" with his dear
sister Melanie; and once, when he had scarcely reached his ninth
year, he was heard to exclaim, "And I too will go to Tonquin; and I
too will be a martyr!" Those childish lips were speaking a prophecy.
Let twenty-two years pass away, and the little French lad will be
found in a wooden cage, the prisoner of barbarians, and awaiting
sentence of death. Sweet bird of paradise that he was, it is not
strange that even a pagan mob should be touched by his misfortunes.
He hears the crowd about his prison saying, "What a pretty boy
that European is!" "He is gay and bright, as if he were going to a
feast!" "He is come to our country to do us good." "Certainly he
can't have done any thing wrong." But in China, as in more civilized
nations, popular sympathy has little influence over the authorities
who administer the government. Doubtless there was some law to be
vindicated, and so, on February 3d, 1860, at the age of thirty-one,
Father Venard was beheaded. His execution was not remarkable for
any great tortures, though it was cruel enough. But this was due to
an unskilful headsman and a dull sword; and as these accidents are
frequent in the execution of our criminals, it would be unjust to
make it a reproach to those who caused the death of the young martyr.
But his life does not require the heroic endurance of tortures to
make it interesting. He wins our love simply because he was so full
of love himself. He was a tender and affectionate son, a warm and
devoted brother, an unfailing friend. Perhaps the greatest of his
sacrifices was made when he left the sister to whom he was so warmly
attached that he might labor among the heathen. It may have been
a more glorious triumph for the martyr to renounce his idolized
relatives than to meet death bravely. We cannot, therefore, see
the appropriateness of Lady Herbert's remark, that Venard "was no
ascetic saint, trembling at every manifestation of human or natural
feeling." If he did not tremble at human affections, at least he knew
how to renounce them; indeed, he saw that perfection could only be
gained by their renunciation. But as Lady Herbert's sentence reads,
it conveys a reproach to the ascetics. We might imagine that "an
ascetic saint trembling at every manifestation of human or natural
feeling" was something greatly to be deplored. But when we remember
that St. Aloysius was so careful in this matter that he would not
raise his eyes to look upon his own mother, we may very fairly
question the wisdom of Lady Herbert's insinuation. She has evidently
used the word ascetic in a Protestant sense; deriving it from the
word similar in sound, but totally different in meaning--_acetic_.
It would be very difficult to assign exactly the part which human
affections play in Christian perfection. Perhaps there is no rule
which will apply to all. The lives of the saints show that they have
looked upon it in very different lights. Some have completely broken
all family ties; others have cherished and sanctified the love borne
to their relations. It is only fair, then, to conclude that God has
directed these souls in different ways. If F. Venard yields up his
life for Christ and the Catholic faith, we will not quarrel with him
when he calls his sister "part of his very life," or tells her that
she is his "second self." Yet such language could not come from St.
Aloysius, or St. Francis Borgia, or St. Ignatius. Their piety was
cast in a more austere mould. But coming from this dear martyr of
Tonquin, these words do not seem inappropriate. No one would wish
them changed. They are the expression of his innocent and childish
disposition. They prove our hero, though a priest and a man of
thirty, to be the worthy companion of gentle St. Agnes. Of all the
martyrs none have resembled her more closely than this heroic priest;
all that imagination has painted her will be found in the reality of
Father Venard's life.

       *       *       *       *       *

    NOTES ON THE PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.
    With reference to Clinical Medicine. By Meredith Clymer, M.D.,
    University Pennsylvania; Fellow of the College of Physicians,
    Philadelphia. D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 53.

This brochure fulfils the promise of its learned author in the
introduction, in which he "proposes to summarize the recent
investigations into the physiology and pathology of the nervous
system which have a bearing on clinical medicine."

The labor has been faithfully and skilfully performed, and the
history of the scleroses of the brain and spinal cord is carefully
collected from the English, German, and French--collated, compared,
and analyzed. The summary is one of the utmost importance to
physicians, and is interesting to men of general knowledge capable of
appreciating this class of subjects.

It is difficult to over-estimate the value to science and society
of the investigations and studies into the physiology and pathology
of the nervous centres which are being conducted all over the
world. Among the students of these interesting subjects Dr. Clymer
ranks high as an observer, and chief in this country as annalist
and critic. He holds a position in the world of medicine analogous
to that held by Brownson in the domain of philosophy and theology,
and his services are of inestimable value in correcting the hasty,
crude, and ill-advised speculations of men who have neither acquired
knowledge nor powers of original observation and reflection.

It is obviously out of place to pursue the subject in its medical
aspects in this place, but we commend the pamphlet to physicians,
scientists, and jurists, and also to theologians.

From this class of works they can learn the basis on which medicine
rests as a science, and the essential immorality of all forms of
quackery.

       *       *       *       *       *

    OUT OF THE PAST. (Critical and Literary Papers.) By Parke
    Godwin. New York: G. P. Putnam & Sons. 1870.

This is a collection of nineteen articles written for different
magazines--principally for the _Democratic Review_ and _Putnam's
Monthly_--at various periods from 1839 to 1856. The experiment
of publishing in book form an author's fugitive essays is seldom
successful. True, it was so in the cases of Carlyle and Macaulay. How
far Mr. Godwin may resemble them in this respect remains to be seen.
Should any reviewer come to the treatment of this book strong in the
Vicar of Wakefield's celebrated canon of criticism--that the picture
would have been better if the painter had taken more pains--he will
find himself disarmed by Mr. Godwin's prefatory apology, that these
essays "are more imperfect than they would have been with a larger
leisure at my command." The subjects are generally interesting, and
their treatment instructive. The style of these essays is excellent,
and their author's opinions and criticisms on literature and art
generally of a healthy tone. We cannot precisely agree with Mr.
Godwin when he credits a certain work of Dutch art (p. 375) with the
inspiration of patriotism, but are glad to see with his eyes that
Thackeray

    "Took no satyr's delight in offensive scenes and graceless
    characters; that he was even sadder than the reader could be
    at the horrible prospect before him; that his task was one
    conscientiously undertaken, with some deep, great, generous
    purpose; and that, beneath his seeming scoff and mockeries,
    was to be discovered a more searching wisdom and a sweeter,
    tenderer pathos than we found in any other living writer. We
    saw that he chastised in no ill-natured or malicious vein,
    but in love; that he cauterized only to cure; and that, if he
    wandered through the dreary circles of Inferno, it was because
    the spirit of Beatrice, the spirit of immortal beauty, beckoned
    him to the more glorious paradise."

       *       *       *       *       *

    A COMPENDIUM OF THE HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. By Rev.
    Theodore Noethen. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1870. Pp. 587.

A hasty glance through the contents of this work seems to justify
these conclusions: The chief merit of the book is its numerous
anecdotes. These illustrate the particular customs and dangers of
Christians in different nations and centuries. Compendiums usually
fatigue the mind with dates and uninteresting details. Father Noethen
has carefully avoided this fault. He leads us into the homes and by
the hearth-side of the Catholics of former times. Nothing can be
more useful than this. History cannot be learned until we imagine
ourselves living at that very time and taking our part in the scenes
which are described. So the words of a martyr, or a sentence from a
letter, or a pious custom will often throw more light upon history
than whole pages of detailed facts and speculations. In regard to
those more delicate questions which every writer of a church history
must solve in some way, Father Noethen appears to have acted with
great discretion. We were particularly pleased with the remarks
concerning Origen. In this work that illustrious hero of the early
church is given the praise which he has so long deserved, but which
has been so long denied him. By an oversight, however, there is
one unfortunate sentence in this book. It speaks of Constantine as
"convening a general council." Without doubt this expression is
incorrect; the Christian emperors aided the meeting of oecumenical
councils; they never convened them. That power was always reserved to
the sovereign pontiff alone. But apart from this clerical error the
book is very praiseworthy, and will do good both to Catholics and to
Protestants.


       *       *       *       *       *

Transcriber's Note:

Obvious typographical errors have been repaired.

In the two dogmatic decrees, the original Latin consistently
displayed ae ligatures as separate letters, this has been retained.

P. 49: Stabat Mater. Original centered each Latin stanza, followed
by English and Greek stanza translations side by side below it. For
ease of display in multiple formats, the English and Greek stanzas
have been changed to increasing indents below the Latin. "English
Translation" and "Greek Translation" headings, originally under the
poem title, were moved to the first stanza of each translation.

P. 71: multiple words beginning "sciol-", though unable to verify,
were retained since that spelling occurred consistently.

P. 299: "informs us triumphantly, three separate times"--original
reads "three several times."





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