Part I. Logic. London: Burns & Oates. 1876.

Quite a number of persons have recently undertaken the laudable but difficult task of preparing elementary works on philosophy. Cornoldi’s Lectures or Lessons in Philosophy are to be speedily published entire, in an English translation, making two small volumes of from 300 to 350 pages each. A large part of the work is devoted to Rational Physics. The Logic, just now issued, contains the simplest and most necessary part of pure and applied logic in a _brochure_ of less than one hundred pages. It seems to be made as simple and intelligible to beginners as the nature of the subject permits. It is a defect, however, in the translation, that Latin terms are sometimes used without the least necessity, and Latin quotations are left untranslated. We hope this defect will be supplied in a second edition.

AN ESSAY CONTRIBUTING TO A PHILOSOPHY OF LITERATURE. By B. A. M. Second revised edition. Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger. 1876.

The first edition of this solid and genial essay was noticed in THE CATHOLIC WORLD. We are happy to see that its merit has received a general recognition which must be gratifying to the author. It is a book which grows upon one the more carefully it is perused, and we have now an even higher esteem of its originality, sound learning, discriminating judgment and taste than we had when we first commended it as a work of genuine and rare excellence.

THE VOICE OF JESUS SUFFERING, TO THE MIND AND HEART OF CHRISTIANS, ETC. By a Passionist Missionary Priest. New York: P. O’Shea, 37 Barclay Street.

Another excellent book on our Lord’s Passion; but it differs from the generality of such works in making our Lord himself relate the history of his sufferings first, and then helping the auditor to “Practical Reflections.” This is an admirable plan, in that it enables the reader to bring the divine Object of his thoughts so much more really before his imagination. This, together with the character of the “Practical Reflections,” will be found, we are sure, to make meditation easy to those who have hitherto given it up as requiring too great an effort. And if the pious author shall have done no more than succeed in thus facilitating devotion to the Passion, he will not have labored in vain.

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. (To the end of the Lord’s Prayer.) By Henry James Coleridge, of the Society of Jesus. London: Burns & Oates. 1876.

This is the third division of Father Coleridge’s treatise on the Public Life of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are glad to learn that the reception of the preceding volume on the Beatitudes has “encouraged him to attempt a somewhat fuller treatment of the rest of the Sermon on the Mount than he had originally thought of.” Those who have read the volume on the Beatitudes need no insurance from us that they will find in this new work an abundance of beautiful lessons, and particularly some we much need at the present time. The nine chapters on the Lord’s Prayer (chapters xv.-xxiii.) will furnish the devout with many helps to meditation on the clauses of this summary of prayer.

THE LIFE OF THE VERY REVEREND MOTHER MADELEINE LOUISE SOPHIE BARAT, FOUNDRESS OF THE SOCIETY OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS. By M. l’Abbé Baunard. Translated by Lady Georgiana Fullerton. Roehampton: 1876. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society.)

The original French edition of this admirable work has already been noticed at length in THE CATHOLIC WORLD. The English edition is brought out in two handsome volumes, and the distinguished name of the translator furnishes every guarantee for a faithful and excellent rendering of the original. So great has been the demand for the work that a large order was exhausted almost immediately on its arrival in this country.

THE DEVOTION OF THE HOLY ROSARY. By Michael Müller, C.S.S.R. New York: Benziger Brothers.

Father Müller is a tireless writer. His works are for the most part addressed to those who are too often forgotten by Catholic writers――the ordinary classes. He who provides the people with books of devotion which they will _read_, and not put on the shelf, does a great and good work. Under a modest appearance Father Müller’s books conceal much learning and knowledge, the fruit evidently of very extensive reading, while the whole is pervaded with a spirit of piety and zeal. The present volume is devoted to an explanation of that most popular of devotions――the rosary. Those who care to satisfy themselves as to what the rosary is, what it is intended for, what it has done in the service of the church and for the salvation of souls, will find in this volume much to interest and instruct them, as well as to increase their fervor. The concluding chapter treats of the “Devotion of the Scapular.”

SHORT SERMONS PREACHED IN THE CHAPEL OF ST. MARY’S COLLEGE, OSCOTT. Collected and edited by the President. London: Burns & Oates. 1876. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society.)

These sermons will be found very serviceable to our clergy, who are often sorely pressed for time to prepare their discourses. One instruction such as these is better than ten ordinary sermons of twice or thrice its length. Lay persons also will benefit greatly by making their spiritual reading from this volume. The subjects are wisely selected. There are twenty-seven in all, with two funeral sermons in an appendix.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXIV., No. 142.――JANUARY, 1877.

Copyright: Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1877.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.[134]

A national literature is the most perfect expression of the best thoughts and highest sentiments of the people of which it is born, and of whose life it is the truest record. No other Englishman may have ever written or thought like Shakspere, but he wrote and thought from the fulness of a mind and heart that drew their inspiration from the life of the English people. He may be great nature’s best interpreter, but she was revealed to him through English eyes, and spoke in English accents. The power to take up into one’s own mind the thoughts of a whole people; to give a voice to the impressions made upon them by nature, religion, and society; to interpret to them their doubts, longings, and aspirations; to awaken the chords of deep and hidden sympathy which but await the touch of inspiration――is genius. Every great author is the type of a generation, the interpreter of an age, the delineator of a phase of national life. Between the character of a people, therefore, and its literature there is an intimate relation; and one great cause of the feebleness of American literature is doubtless the lack of conscious nationality in the American people. We have not yet outgrown the provincialism of our origin, nor assimilated the heterogeneous elements which from many sources have come to swell the current of our life. The growth of a national literature has been hindered also, by our necessary intellectual dependence on England. For, though it was a great privilege to possess from the start a rich and highly-developed language, with this boon we received bonds which no revolution could break. When the British colonies of North America were founded, Shakspere and Bacon had written, Milton was born, and the English language had received a form which nor power nor time could change; and before our ancestors had leisure or opportunity to turn from the rude labors of life in the wilderness to more intellectual pursuits, it had taken on the polish and precision of the age of Queen Anne. Henceforward, to know English, it was necessary to study its classics; and in them Americans found the imprint of a mental type which had ceased to be their own. And being themselves as yet without strongly-marked or well-defined national features of character, they became fatally mere imitators of works which could not be read without admiration, or studied without exciting in those who had thoughts to express the strong desire of imitation. Their excellence served to intimidate those who, while admiring, could not hope to rival their ease and elegance; and thus, in losing something of native vigor and freshness, our best writers have generally acquired only an artificial polish and a foreign grace.

It must be remembered, too, that more than any other people we have been and are practical and utilitarian; and this is more specially true of the New Englanders, whose mental activity has been greater than that of any other Americans. We have loved knowledge as the means of power and wealth, and not as an element of refinement and culture. If evidence of this were needed, it would suffice to point to our school system, which is based upon the notion that the sole aim of education should be to fit man for the practical business of life. As the result, knowledge has been widely diffused, but the love of excellence has been diminished. Education, when considered as merely a help to common and immediate ends, neither strengthens nor refines the higher qualities of mind. If we may rely upon our own experience in college, we should say that the prevailing sentiment with young Americans is that it is waste of time to study anything which cannot be put to practical use either in commercial or professional life; and this in spite of the efforts very generally made by the professors to inspire more exalted ideas. We have known the wretched sophism that it is useless to read logic, because in the world men do not reason in syllogisms, to pass current in a class of graduates. This low and utilitarian view of education does not affect alone our notions of the value of literature, in the stricter sense of the word, but exerts also a hurtful influence upon the study of science. For science, like literature, to be successfully cultivated, in its higher developments at least, must be sought for its own sake, without thought of those ulterior objects to which certainly it may be made to conduce. The love of knowledge for itself, the conviction that knowledge is its own end, is rarely found among us, and we therefore have but little enthusiasm for literary excellence or philosophic truth. The noblest thoughts spring from the heart, and he who seeks to know from a calculating spirit will for ever remain a stranger to the higher and serener realms of mind.

Another cause by which the growth of American literature has been unfavorably affected may be found in the unlimited resources of the country, offering to all opportunities of wealth or fame. The demand for ability of every kind is so great that talent is not permitted to mature. The young man who possesses readiness of wit and a sprightly fancy, if he does not enter one of the learned professions or engage in commerce, almost fatally drifts into a newspaper office, than which a place more unfavorable to intellectual pursuits or to true culture of mind cannot easily be imagined. If a book is the better the farther the author keeps away all thought of the reader, under what disadvantages does not he write whose duty it is made to think only of the reader! To be forced day by day to write upon subjects of which he knows little; to give opinions without having time to weigh arguments or to consider facts; to interpret passing events in the interests of party or in accordance with popular prejudice; to exaggerate the virtues of friends and the vices of opponents; to court applause by adapting style to the capacity and taste of the crowd; and to do all this hurriedly and in a rush, is to be an editor. When we reflect that it is to work of this kind that a very considerable part of the literary ability of the country is devoted, it is manifest that the result must be not only to withdraw useful laborers from nobler intellectual pursuits, but to lower and pervert the standard of taste. They who accustom their minds to dwell upon the picture of human life as presented in a daily newspaper, in which what is atrocious, vulgar, or startling receives greatest prominence, will hardly cultivate or retain an appreciation of elevated thoughts or the graces of composition.

As the public is content with crude and hasty writing, the crowd, who are capable of such performance, rush in, eager to carry off the prize of voluminousness, if not of excellence; and, in consequence, we surpass all other nations in the number of worthless books which we print. In fact, the great national defect is haste, and therefore a want of thoroughness in our work.

But we have no thought of entering into an extended examination of the causes to which the feebleness of American literature is to be attributed. The very general recognition of the fact that it is feeble, even when not marred by grosser faults, is probably the most assuring evidence that in the future we may hope for something better.

Our weakness, however it may be accounted for, is most perceptible in the highest realms of thought――philosophy and poetry. To the former our contributions are valueless. No original thinker has appeared among us; no one who has even aspired to anything higher than the office of a commentator. This, indeed, can hardly be matter for surprise, since we may be naturally supposed to inherit from the English their deficiency in power of abstract thought and metaphysical intuition. But in poetry they excel all other nations, whether ancient or modern; and as they have transmitted to us their mental defects, we might not unreasonably hope to be endowed with their peculiar gifts of mind. Deprived of the philosophic brow, we might hope for some compensation, at least, in the poet’s eye in a fine frenzy rolling. But even in this we seem not to have been highly favored. Nothing could well be more wretched than American verse-making during the colonial era. We doubt whether a single line of all that was written from the landing of the Pilgrims down to the war of Independence is worth preserving. Pope, when he wrote his _Dunciad_, found but one American worthy even of being damned to so unenviable an immortality.

Freneau, who was the most popular and the most gifted poet of the Revolution, is as completely unknown to this generation as though he had never written; and, indeed, he wrote nothing which, without great loss to the world, may not be forgotten. And to this class, whom nor gods nor columns permit to live, belong nearly all who in America have courted the Muse. In our entire poetical literature there are not more than half a dozen names which deserve even passing notice, and the greatest of these cannot be placed higher than among the third-rate poets of England.

Without adopting the crude theory of Macaulay that as civilization advances poetry necessarily declines, we shall be at no loss for reasons to account for this absence of the highest poetic gifts. Neither the character of the early settlers in this country, nor their religious faith, nor their social and political conditions of life, were of the kind from which inspiration to high thinking and flights of fancy might naturally be expected to spring. The Puritans were hard, unsympathetic, with no appreciation of beauty. In their eyes art of every kind was at best useless, even when not tending to give a dangerous softness and false polish to manners. Their religious faith intensified this feeling, and caused them to turn with aversion from what had been so long and so intimately associated, as almost to be identified, with Catholic worship. Their sour looks, their nasal twang, their affected simplicity, their contempt of literature, and their dislike of the most innocent amusements, would hardly lead the Muse, even if invited, to smile on them. Habits of thought and feeling not unlike theirs had, it is true, in Milton, been found to be not incompatible with the highest gifts of imagination and expression. But Milton had not the Puritan contempt of letters. He was, on the contrary, a man of extensive reading and great culture; and his proud and lofty spirit was not too high to stoop to flattery as servile and as elegant as ever a tyrant received. His lines on ecclesiastical architecture and music in _Il Penseroso_ prove that he had a keen perception of the beauty and grandeur of Catholic worship. He was, in fact, in many respects more a Cavalier than a Roundhead. He had, besides, in the burning passions of his age, the bitter strife of party and sect, in the scorn and contempt of the nobles for the low-born――which in the civil wars had been trodden beneath the iron heel of war, only to rise with the monarchy in more offensive form――that which fired him to the adventurous song “that with no middle flight intends to soar,” and made him deify rebellion in Satan, who, rather than be subject, would not be at all.

In the primitive and simple social organization of the American colonies there was nothing to fire the soul or kindle the indignation that makes poets. And even nature presented herself to our ancestors rather as a shrew to be conquered than as a mistress to be wooed with harmonious numbers and sweet sounds of melody. If to this we add, what few will deny, that the equality of conditions in our society, however desirable from a political or philanthropic point of view, is to the poetic eye but a flat and weary plain, without any of the inspiration of high mountains and long-withdrawing vales, of thundering cataracts that lose themselves in streams that peacefully glide all unconscious of the roar and turmoil of waters of which they are born, we will find nothing strange in the practical and unimaginative character of the American people. We know of no better example of the tameness of the American Muse than Whittier. He is one of our most voluminous writers of verse, and various causes, most of which are doubtless extrinsic to the literary merit of his compositions, have obtained for him very general recognition. He lacks, indeed, the culture of Longfellow, his wide acquaintance with books and the world, and his careful study of the literatures of the European nations. He lacks also his large sympathies and catholic thought, his elevation of sentiment and power of finished and polished expression.

But if Whittier’s garb is plain, his features hard, and his voice harsh, his poetry, both in subject and in style, seems native here and to spring from the soil. He has himself not inaptly described his verse in the lines which he has prefixed to the Centennial edition of his complete poetical works:

“The rigor of a frozen clime, The harshness of an untaught ear, The jarring words of one whose rhyme Beat often Labor’s hurried time Or Duty’s rugged march through storm and strife, are here.

“Of mystic beauty, dreamy grace, No rounded art the lack supplies; Unskilled the subtle lines to trace Or softer shades of Nature’s face, I view her common forms with unanointed eyes.”

Whittier is, however, far from being a representative American or American poet. He is a Quaker. The broad-brimmed hat, the neat and simple dress, the sober gait, the slow and careful phrase with thee and thou, could not more truly denote him than his verse. Now, whatever idea we may form to ourselves of the typical American, or whether we think such a being exists at all, no one would ever imagine him to be a Quaker.

The American is eager; the Quaker is subdued. The American is loud, with a tendency to boastfulness and exaggeration; the Quaker is quiet and his language sober. He shuns the conflict and the battle, does not over-estimate his strength; while the American would fight the world, catch the Leviathan, swim the ocean, or do anything most impossible. The Quaker is cautious, the American reckless. The American is aggressive, the Quaker is timid. But it is needless to continue the contrast. A great poet is held by no bonds. His eye glances from earth to heaven――the infinite is his home; and that Whittier should be only a Quaker poet is of itself sufficient evidence that he is not a great poet. But in saying this we affirm only what is universally recognized. He is, indeed, wholly devoid of the creative faculty to which all true poetry owes its life; and yet this alone could have lifted most of the subjects which he has treated out of the dulness and weariness of the commonplace. To transform the real, to invest that which is low or mean or trivial with honor and beauty, is the triumph of the poet’s art, the test of his inspiration. His words, like the light of heaven, clothe the world in a splendor not its own, or, like the morning rays falling on the statue of Memnon, strike from dead and sluggish matter sounds of celestial harmony.

“To him the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”

Whittier certainly has no fear of trivial and commonplace subjects, but in his treatment of them he rarely, if ever, rises above the level of the verse-maker.

It was the opinion of Keats that a long poem is the test of invention; and if we accept this as a canon of criticism, we shall want no other evidence of Whittier’s poverty of imagination. All his pieces are short, though few readers, we suppose, have ever wished them longer. He cannot give sprightliness or variety to his verse, which like a sluggish stream creeps languidly along. There is no freshness about him, none of the breeziness of nature, none of its joyousness, exuberance, and exultant strength. In his youth, even, he had all the stiffness and slowness of age with its want of graceful motion. His narrations are interrupted and halting, interspersed with commonplace reflections and wearisome details; and when we have jogged along with him to the end, we are less pleased than fatigued. He never with strong arm bears us on over flood and fell, through hair-breadth escapes, gently at times letting us down amidst smiling homes and pleasant scenes, and again, with more rapid flight, hurrying us on breathless to the goal.

Some of his descriptive pieces have been admired, but to us they seem artificial and mechanical. They are the pictures of a view-hunter. They lack life, warmth, and coloring――the individuality that comes of an informing soul. He remains external to nature, and with careful survey and deliberate purpose sketches this and that trait, till he has his landscape with sloping hills and meadows green, with flower and shrub and tree and everything that one could wish, except that indefinable something which would make the scene stand out from all the earth, familiar as the countenance of a friend or as a spot known from childhood. He has too much the air of a man who says: Come, let us make a description. In fact, he has taken the trouble to tell us that he has considered the story of Mogg Megone only as a framework for sketches of the scenery of New England and of its early inhabitants. His own confession proves his art mechanical. He gets a frame, stretches the canvas, and deliberately proceeds to copy. The true poet fuses man and nature into a union so intimate that both seem part of each. He dreams not of framework and sketches, but of the unity and harmony of life. Where the common eye sees but parts, his sees the living whole. He does not copy, but transforms and re-creates. Before his enraptured gaze the immeasurable heavens break open to their highest, and every height comes out and jutting peak. From him not the humblest flower or blade of grass is hidden; and whatever he beholds becomes the minister of his thought, the slave of his will; passing through his mind receives its coloring, and rises from his page as though some eternal law of harmony had fitted it to this and no other purpose.

Whittier is even feebler in his attempts to portray character than in his description of scenery. To Ruth Bonython he gives “the sunny eye and sunset hair.” “Sunny eye” is poor enough; but who will tell us what “sunset hair” is like? Is it purple or gold or yellow or red? She is “tall and erect,” has a “dark-brown cheek,” “a pure white brow,” “a neck and bosom as white as ever the foam-wreaths that rise on the leaping river”;

“And her eye has a glance more sternly wild Than even that of a forest child.”

And she talks in the following style:

“A humbled thing of shame and guilt, Outcast and spurned and lone, Wrapt in the shadows of my crime, With withering heart and burning brain, And tears that fell like fiery rain, _I passed a fearful time_.”

The artifice by which Ruth quiets the suspicion of Mogg Megone, roused by the sight of her tearful eye and heaving bosom, is as remarkable for shrewdness as for poetic beauty:

“Is the sachem angry――angry with Ruth Because she cries with an ache in her tooth Which would make a Sagamore jump and cry And look about with a woman’s eye?”

The same weak and unskilful hand is visible in the characters of Mogg Megone, John Bonython, and Father Rasle, the Jesuit missionary. The descriptive portions of Mogg Megone are disfigured by mere rhetoric and what critics call “nonsense-verses.” As Mogg Megone and John Bonython are stealing through the wood, they hear a sound:

“Hark! is that the angry howl Of the wolf the hills among, Or the hooting of the owl On his leafy cradle swung?”

The only reason for hesitating between the wolfs howl and the hooting of the owl was the poet’s want of a rhyme. But it is needless to load our page with these nonsense-verses, since Hudibras claims them to be a poet’s privilege:

“But those that write in rhyme still make The one verse for the other’s sake; For one for sense, and one for rhyme, I think that’s sufficient at one time.”

Whittier’s Quaker faith inspired him early in life with an abhorrence of slavery, and drew him to the abolitionists, by whom, in 1836, he was appointed secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society. It was about this time that he began to publish his anti-slavery rhymes, which he afterwards collected in a volume entitled, _Voices of Freedom_. These verses are not remarkable for thought or expression. They have the dull, monotonous ring of all Whittier’s rhymes, and are hardly more poetic than a political harangue. They are partisan in tone and manner; breathe rather hatred of the “haughty Southron” than love of the negro; and are without polish or elegance. Read to political meetings during the excitement of the anti-slavery agitation, they were probably as effective as ordinary stump-speeches. Worthless as they are as poetry, they brought Whittier to public notice. He became the laureate of the abolitionist party, and with its growth grew his fame. The circumstances which made _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_ the most popular novel of the day made him a popular poet. His verses found readers who cared but little for inspired thought or expression, but who were delighted with political rhymes that painted the Southern slave-owner as the most heartless and brutal of men, who “in the vile South Sodom” feasted day by day upon the sight of human suffering inflicted by his own hand. Pieces like that which begins with the words,

“A Christian! Going, gone! Who bids for God’s own image?”

were at least good campaign documents in the times of anti-slavery agitation.

“A Christian up for sale; Wet with her blood your whips, o’ertask her frame, Make her life loathsome with your wrong and shame: Her patience shall not fail.”

This is very commonplace and vulgar, we grant, but it has the merit of not being above the intellectual level of an ordinary political meeting.

And then, in the metre of Scott’s “Bride of Netherby,” we have the “Hunters of Men”:

“Have ye heard of our hunting o’er mountain and glen, Through canebrake and forest, the hunting of men? Hark! the cheer and the halloo, the crack of the whip, And the yell of the hound as he fastens his grip. All blithe are our hunters, and noble their match―― Though hundreds are caught, there are millions to catch.”

All we maintain is that this is not poetry, fair sample though it be of Whittier’s _Voices of Freedom_.

Slavery undoubtedly is hateful, and to denounce it cannot but be right. A preacher, however, need not be a poet, even though he should declaim in rhymes; nor is hate of the slave-owner love of the slave, much less love of liberty. We fail to catch in these _Voices_ the swelling sound of freedom. They are rather the echoes of the fierce words of bitter partisan strife. The lips of him who uttered them had not been touched by the burning coal snatched from the altar of liberty, however his heart may have rankled at the thought of Southern cruelty.

Whittier’s rhymes of the war are the natural sequel of his anti-slavery verses. The laureate of abolitionism could but sing, Quaker though he was, the bloody, fratricidal strife which he had helped to kindle. At first, indeed, he seemed to hesitate and to doubt whether it was well to light

“The fires of hell to weld anew the chain On that red anvil where each blow is pain.”

Safe on freedom’s vantage-ground, he inclined rather to be the sad and helpless spectator of a suicide.

“Why take we up the accursed thing again? Pity, forgive, but urge them back no more Who, drunk with passion, flaunt disunion’s rag With its vile reptile-blazon.”

But soon he came to recognize that God may speak “in battle’s stormy voice, and his praise be in the wrath of man.”

Whittier’s war rhymes are not so numerous as his _Voices of Freedom_, nor are they in any way remarkable as poetical compositions. The lines on Barbara Frietchie derive their interest from the incident narrated, and not from any beauty of thought or language with which it has been clothed. They are popular because old Barbara Frietchie waving the flag of the Union above Stonewall Jackson’s army as it passed, with measured tread, through the streets of Frederick, is a striking and dramatic figure. There could be no more convincing proof of the barrenness of Whittier’s imagination than the poor use which he has made of so poetical an episode.

“In her attic window the staff she set To show that one heart was loyal yet.”

And yet of all his poems this is probably the best known and the most popular.

The _Voices of Freedom_ and the _Songs in War Time_ both belong to the class of occasional poetry which more than any other kind is apt to confer a short-lived fame upon authors whose chief merit consists in being fortunate. He who sings the conqueror’s praise will never lack admirers.

We are sorry to perceive, in so amiable a man as Whittier is generally supposed to be, the many evidences which this edition of his complete poetical works affords of intense and bitter anti-Catholic prejudice. If he were content with manifesting, even with damnable iteration, his Quaker horror of creeds, we could excuse the simple mind that is capable of holding that men may believe without giving to their faith form and sensible expression; though the mental habit from which alone such a theory could proceed is the very opposite of the poetical. The Catholic Church, which is the groundwork and firm support of all Christian dogmas, cannot be understood by those who fail to perceive that without doctrinal religion the whole moral order would be meaningless. But Whittier’s prejudice carries him far beyond mere protest against Catholic teaching. He cannot approach any subject or person connected with the church without being thrown into mental convulsions. Let us take, for example, the character of Father Rasle, the martyr, in “Mogg Megone,” one of his earliest and longest poems. This noble and heroic missionary is represented as a heartless and senseless zealot, who “by cross and vow” had pledged Mogg Megone

“To lift the hatchet of his sire, And round his own, the church’s, foe To light the avenging fire.”

When Ruth Bonython, half mad with fear and grief, comes to confess to Father Rasle that, seeing the scalp of her lover hanging to Mogg Megone’s belt, she had killed him in his drunken sleep, the Jesuit starts back――

“His long, thin frame as ague shakes, And loathing hate is in his eye”――

not from horror of the crime, but because in the death of Megone he recognizes the extinction of his long-cherished hopes of revenge.

“Ah! weary priest!… Thoughts are thine which have no part With the meek and pure of heart.… Thoughts of strife and hate and wrong Sweep thy heated brain along―― Fading hopes for whose success It were sin to breathe a prayer; Schemes which Heaven may never bless; Tears which darken to despair.”

His heart is as stone to the pitiful appeal of the contrite and broken-hearted girl. “Off!” he exclaims――

“‘Off, woman of sin! Nay, touch not me With those fingers of blood; begone!’ With a gesture of horror he spurns the form That writhes at his feet like a trodden worm.”

And in the death-scene of the martyr, as painted by Whittier, the coward and the villain, with forces equally matched, strive for the mastery.

The ode “To Pius IX.” will furnish us with another example of religious hate driving its victim to the very verge of raving madness. “Hider at Gaeta,” he exclaims――

“Hider at Gaeta, seize thy chance! Coward and cruel, come!

“Creep now from Naple’s bloody skirt; Thy mummer’s part was acted well, While Rome, with steel and fire begirt, Before thy crusade fell.

* * * * *

“But hateful as that tyrant old, The mocking witness of his crime, In thee shall loathing eyes behold The Nero of our time!

“Stand where Rome’s blood was freest shed, Mock Heaven with impious thanks, and call Its curses on the patriot dead, Its blessings on the Gaul;

“Or sit upon thy throne of lies, A poor, mean idol, blood-besmeared, Whom even its worshippers despise―― Unhonored, unrevered!”

It is some consolation to know that Whittier himself, in reading over these ravings, has been forced to acknowledge their unworthiness by a lame attempt at apology. “He is no enemy of Catholics,” he informs us in a note to this effusion; “but the severity of his language finds its ample apology in the reluctant confession of one of the most eminent Romish priests, the eloquent and devoted Father Ventura.” What is this but making calumny an ally of outrage?

In the “Dream of Pio Nono” he introduces St. Peter, who upbraids the venerable Pontiff in the following style:

“Hearest thou the angels sing Above this open hell? _Thou_ God’s high-priest! Thou the vicegerent of the Prince of Peace! Thou the successor of his chosen ones! I, Peter, fisherman of Galilee, In the dear Master’s name, and for the love Of his true church, proclaim thee Antichrist.”

In a poem on “Italy” Whittier hears the groans of nations across the sea.

“Their blood and bones Cried out in torture, crushed by thrones And sucked by priestly cannibals.”

“Rejoice, O Garibaldi!” he exclaims,

“Though thy sword Failed at Rome’s gates, and blood seemed vainly poured Where in Christ’s name the crownèd infidel Of France wrought murder with the arms of hell.

* * * * *

God’s providence is not blind, but, full of eyes, It searches all the refuges of lies; And in his time and way the accursed things Before whose evil feet thy battle-gage Has clashed defiance from hot youth to age Shall perish.”

We crave the reader’s indulgence for this disfigurement of our page, and wish with all our heart it had been possible to fill it with more worthy matter.

Longfellow, breathing the same air as Whittier, the disciple of a faith commonly supposed to be less mild and sweetly loving than a Quaker’s, has found the tenderest thoughts, the noblest images, and the highest forms of character in the church which our poet cannot even think of without raving.

But possibly we should be wrong to complain that the mystic beauty which has in all ages appealed with irresistible power of fascination to the highest and most richly-gifted natures should fail to impress one all of whose thoughts are cast in a straitened and unyielding mould. Whittier has not the far-glancing eye of the poet to which all beauty appeals like the light itself. The partisan habit of an inveterate abolitionist has stiffened and hardened a disposition which was never plastic. It was so long his official duty to write anti-slavery campaign verses that, in treating subjects which should inspire higher thoughts, he is still held captive to the lash of the slave-driver, hears the clanking of chains and the groans of the fettered; and these sights and sounds drive him into mere rant and rhetoric.

We willingly bear testimony to the moral tone and purity which pervade Whittier’s verse. There is nothing to offend the most delicate ear; nothing to bring a blush to a virgin’s cheek. He lacks the power to portray passion, and was not tempted into doubtful paths. He delights in pictures of home, with its innocent joys and quiet happiness; sings of friendship and the endearing ties that bind the parent to the child; or, if he attunes his harp to love, he does it in numbers so sadly sweet that we only remember that the fickle god has wreathed his bowers with cypress boughs and made his best interpreter a sigh.

What could be more harmless than the little scene between Maud Muller and the judge――though Heaven only knows what the judge, and above all the American judge, can have done that he should be condemned to play the _rôle_ of a lover. Possibly it may have been the judicious nature of the love that induced the poet to think such a _deus ex machinâ_ not out of place. At all events, nothing could be more inoffensive.

“She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up And filled for him her small tin cup. ‘Thanks!’ said the judge; ‘a sweeter draught From a fairer hand was never quaffed.’”

And how refreshing it is to find a judge making love by talking

“Of the grass and flowers and trees, Of the singing birds and humming bees”!

We are less edified, however, when, in after-years, we find him a married man, sipping the golden wine but longing for the wayside well and the barefoot maiden:

“And the proud man sighed, with secret pain: ‘Ah! that I were free again!’”

In reading Whittier we seldom come upon a thought so perfectly expressed that it can never after occur to us except in the words in which he has clothed it. It is a poet’s privilege thus to marry thoughts to words in a union so divine that no man may put them asunder; and where this high power is wanting the _mens divinior_ is not found. For our own part, we hardly recall a line of Whittier that we should care to remember. Nothing that he has written has been more frequently quoted than the couplet:

“For of all sad words of tongue or pen. The saddest are these: ‘It might have been.’”

To our thinking, this is meaningless. “It might have been” is neither sad nor joyful, except as it is made so by that with which it is associated. He who is drowned may thus have escaped hanging――“It might have been.” The judge might have been Maud’s husband; but she might have thought of sadder things than that she was not his wife.

“Snow-Bound,” a winter idyl, is, in the opinion of several critics, Whittier’s best performance. A more hackneyed theme he would probably have found it difficult to choose; nor has he the magic charm that makes the old seem as new. It is the unmistakable snow-storm with which our school-readers made us familiar in childhood. The sun rises “cheerless” over “hills of gray”; sinks from sight before it sets; “the ocean roars on his wintry shore”; night comes on, made hoary “with the whirl-dance of the blinding storm,” and ere bedtime

“The white drift piled the window-frame”;

and then, of course, we have the horse and cow and cock, each in turn contemplating the beautiful snow. Even the silly ram

“Shook his sage head with gesture mute, And emphasized with stamp of foot.”

The boys, with mittened hands, and caps drawn down over ears, sally forth to cut a pathway at their sire’s command. And when the second night is ushered in, we are quite prepared for the blazing fire of oaken logs, whose roaring draught makes the great throat of the chimney laugh; while on the clean hearth the apples sputter, the mug of cider simmers, the house-dog sleeps, and the cat meditates. The group of faces gathered round are plain and honest, just such as good, simple country folk are wont to wear, but feebly drawn. In the fitful firelight their features are dim. The father talks of rides on Memphremagog’s wooded side; of trapper’s hut and Indian camp. The mother turns her wheel or knits her stocking, and tells how the Indian came down at midnight on Cocheco town. The uncle, “innocent of books,” unravels the mysteries of moons and tides. The maiden aunt, very sweet and very unselfish, recalls her memories of

“The huskings and the apple-bees, The sleigh-rides and the summer sails.”

It would be unkind to leave the village schoolmaster out in the biting air, and he is therefore brought in to make us wonder how one small head could contain all he knew.

In the very thought of home there is an exhaustless well-spring of poetic feeling. The word itself is all alive with the spirit of sweet poesy which gives charm to the humblest verse; and it would be strange indeed if, in an idyl like “Snow-Bound,” there should not be found passages of real beauty, touches of nature that make the whole world kin. The subject is one that readily lends itself to the lowly mood and unpretending style. Fine thoughts and ambitious words would but distract us. Each one is thinking of his own dear home, and he but asks the poet not to break the spell that has made him a child again; not to darken the dewy dawn of memory, that throws the light of heaven around a world that seemed as dead, but now lives.

“O Time and Change!――with hair as gray As was my sire’s that winter day, How strange it seems, with so much gone Of life and love, to still live on! Ah! brother, only I and thou Are left of all that circle now―― The dear home faces whereupon That fitful firelight paled and shone. Henceforward, listen as we will, The voices of that hearth are still; Look where we may, the wide earth o’er, Those lighted faces smile no more. We tread the paths their feet have worn; We sit beneath their orchard trees; We hear, like them, the hum of bees And rustle of the bladed corn; We turn the pages that they read, Their written words we linger o’er. But in the sun they cast no shade, No voice is heard, no sign is made, No step is on the conscious floor! Yet love will dream, and faith will trust (Since He who knows our need is just), That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. Alas! for him who never sees The stars shine through his cypress-trees; Who hopeless lays his dead away, Nor looks to see the breaking day Across the mournful marbles play; Who hath not learned in hours of faith The truth to flesh and sense unknown―― That Life is ever Lord of Death, And Love can never lose its own!”

This is true poetry, sad and sweet as a mother’s voice when she lulls her sick babe to rest, knowing that, if he sleep, he shall live.

In Whittier’s verse we often catch the unmistakable accent of genuine feeling, and his best lyrics are so artless and simple that they almost disarm criticism. In many ways his influence has doubtless been good; and the critic, whose eye is naturally drawn to what is less worthy, finds it easy to carp at faults which he has not the ability to commit.

[134] _The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier._ Boston: Osgood & Co. 1876.

MONSIEUR GOMBARD’S MISTAKE.

M. Gombard was a short, stout, pompous man, with a flat nose, and sharp gray eyes that did their very best to look fierce through a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles. They succeeded in this attempt with very young culprits and with the female prisoners who appeared before M. Gombard in his official capacity of mayor of the town of Loisel; they succeeded in a lesser degree with functionaries, such as clerks and policemen, who were to a certain extent under the official eye of the mayor; but with the general, independent public the attempt at ferocity was a failure. M. Gombard passed for being a good man, a man with high principles, an unflinching sense of duty, and a genuine respect for law, but also a man whose heart was as dry as a last year’s nut. He was fifty years of age, and it had never been said, even as a joke, that M. Gombard had had a “sentiment”; it had never entered into the imagination of anybody who knew him to suggest that he might have a sentiment, or even that he might marry some day. He was looked upon by his fellow-townsmen as a trusty, intelligent machine――a machine that never got out of order, that was always ready when wanted, that would be seriously missed if it were removed. He settled their differences and saved them many a costly lawsuit; for M. Gombard had studied the law, and understood its practical application better than any lawyer in Loisel; he made marriages, and drew out wills, and dispensed advice to young and old with the wisdom of Solomon and the stoical impartiality of Brutus. Everybody trusted him; they knew that if their case was a good case, he would decide it in their favor; if it was a bad case, he would give it against them: no man could buy him, no man could frighten him. Antoine Grimoire, the biggest bully in all the country round――even Antoine Grimoire shook in his shoes when one day a suit in which he was defendant was sent up before M. Gombard. M. Gombard gave judgment against him; and this was more than the united magistrates in Loisel would have dared do, for Antoine would have “licked them” within an inch of their lives, if they had tried it; but he never said _boo_ when M. Gombard pronounced the plaintiff an injured man, and ordered the defendant to pay him one hundred and fifty-three francs, ten sous, and three centimes damages. Everybody in the place held their breath when this sentence went forth. They fully expected Antoine to fly at the audacious judge, and break every bone in his body on the spot; but Antoine coolly nodded, and said civilly, “_C’est bon, Monsieur le Maire_,” and walked off. People made sure he was bent on some terrible vengeance, and that he would never pay a sou of the damages; but he deceived them by paying. This incident added fresh lustre to the prestige of M. Gombard, whose word henceforth was counted as good as, and better than, law, since even Antoine Grimoire gave in to it, which was more than he had ever been known to do to the law.

M. Gombard had some pressing business on hand just now; for he had left Loisel before daybreak in a post-chaise, and never once pulled up, except when the wheels came off and went spinning right and left into the ditch on either side, and sent him bumping on over the snow in the disabled vehicle, till at last the horses stopped and M. Gombard got out, jumped on to the back of the leader, and rode on into Cabicol. There he is now, his wig awry and pulled very low over his forehead, but otherwise looking none the worse for his adventurous ride, as he walks up and down the best room in the _Jacques Bonhomme_, the principal inn of Cabicol.

“You said I could have a post-chaise?” said M. Gombard to the waiter, who fussed about, on hospitable cares intent.

“I did, monsieur.”

“And it is in good condition, you say?”

“Excellent, monsieur. It would take you from Cabicol to Paris without starting a nail.”

“Good,” observed M. Gombard, sitting down and casting a glance that was unmistakably ferocious on the savory omelet. “I can count on a stout pair of horses?” he continued, helping himself with the haste of a ravenous man.

“Horses?” repeated the waiter blandly. “Monsieur said nothing about horses.”

M. Gombard dropped his knife and fork with a clatter, and looked round at the man.

“What use can the chaise be to me without horses?” he said. “Does it go by steam, or do you expect me to carry it on my head?”

“Assuredly not, monsieur; that would be of the last impossibility,” replied the waiter demurely.

“The aborigines of Cabicol are idiots, apparently,” observed M. Gombard, still looking straight at the man, but with a broad, speculative stare, as if he had been a curious stone or an unknown variety of dog.

“Yes, monsieur,” said the waiter, with ready assent. If a traveller had declared the aborigines of Cabicol to be buffaloes, he would have assented just as readily; he did not care a dry pea for the aborigines, whoever they might be; he did not know them even by sight, so why should he stand up for them? Besides, every traveller represented a tip, and he was not a man to quarrel with his bread and butter.

“What’s to be done?” said M. Gombard. “I must have horses; where am I to get them?”

“I doubt that there is a horse in the town to-day which can be placed at monsieur’s disposal. This is the grand market day at Luxort, and everybody is gone there, and to-morrow the beasts will be too tired to start for a fresh journey; but on Friday I dare say monsieur could find a pair, if he does not mind waiting till then.”

“There is nothing at the present moment I should mind much more, nothing that could be more disagreeable to me,” said M. Gombard.

“We would do our best to make monsieur’s delay agreeable,” said the waiter; “the beds of the _Jacques Bonhomme_ are celebrated; the food is excellent and the cooking of the best; the landlord cuts himself into little pieces for his guests.”

“Good heavens!” ejaculated M. Gombard.

“It is a figure of speech, monsieur, a figure of rhetoric,” explained the waiter, who began to heap up blocks of wood on the hearth, as if he were preparing a funeral pyre for his unwilling guest.

“Tell the landlord I want to speak to him,” said M. Gombard.

Before he had finished his meal the landlord knocked at the door. M. Gombard said “Come in,” and the landlord entered. He was a solemn, melancholy-looking man, who spoke in a sepulchral voice, and seemed continually struggling to withhold his tears. He loved his inn, but the weight of responsibility it laid upon him was more than he could bear with a smiling countenance. Every traveller who slept beneath his roof was, for the time being, an object of the tenderest interest to him; it was no exaggeration to say, with the rhetorical waiter, that he cut himself into little pieces for each one of them. He made out imaginary histories of them, which he related afterwards for the entertainment of their successors. He was guided as to the facts of each subject by the peculiar make and fashion of their physiognomies; but he drew his inspiration chiefly from their noses: if the traveller wore his beard long and his nose turned up, he was set down as a philosopher travelling in the pursuit of knowledge; if he wore his beard cropped and his nose hooked, he was a banker whose financial genius and fabulous wealth were a source of terror to the money-markets of Europe; if he carried his nose flat against his face and wore a wig and spectacles, he was a desperate criminal with a huge price on his head, and the police scouring the country in pursuit of him; but he was safe beneath the roof of the _Jacques Bonhomme_, for his host would have sworn with the patriot bard: “I know not, I care not, if guilt’s in that heart; I but know that I’ll hide thee, whatever thou art!” All the pearls of Golconda, all the gold of California, would not have bribed him into delivering up a man who enjoyed his hospitality. Many and thrilling were the tales he had to tell of these sinister guests, their hair-breadth escapes, and the silent but, to him, distinctly manifest rage of their baffled pursuers. This life of secret care and harrowing emotions had done its work on the landlord; you saw at a glance that his was a heavily-laden spirit, and that pale “melancholy had marked him for her own.” He bowed low, and in a voice of deep feeling inquired how he could serve M. Gombard.

“By getting me a pair of good post-horses,” replied his guest. “It is of the utmost importance that I reach X―――― before five o’clock to-morrow afternoon, and your people say I have no chance of finding horses until Friday.”

The landlord stifled a sigh and replied: “That is only too true, monsieur.”

M. Gombard pushed away his plate, rose, walked up and down the room, and then stood at the window and looked out. It was a bleak look out; everything was covered with snow. Snow lay deep on the ground, on the trees, on the lamp-post, on the chimneys and the house-tops; and the sky looked as if it were still full of snow.

Just opposite there was a strange, grand old house that arrested M. Gombard’s attention; it was a gabled edifice with turrets at either end, and high pointed, mullioned windows filled with diamond-paned lattices. The roof slanted rapidly from the chimneys to the windows, and looked as if the north wind that had howled over it for centuries had blown it a little to one side and battered it a good deal; for you could see by the undulations of the snow that it was full of dints and ruts. Close under the projecting eaves in the centre of the house there was a stone shield, on which a family coat of arms was engraved; but the ivy, which grew thick over the wall, draped the escutcheon, and, with the snow, made it impossible to read the story it set forth. There was a balcony right under it, from the floor of which an old man was now engaged sweeping the snow; on either side were set huge stone vases, in which some hardy plants grew, defying all weathers, apparently. When the old man had cleared away the snow, he brought out some pots of wintry-looking flowers, and placed them on the ledge of the balcony. M. Gombard had been watching the performance, and taking in the scene with his eyes while his thoughts were busy about these post-horses that were not to be had in the town of Cabicol. He turned round suddenly, and said in his abrupt, magisterial way: “Curious old house. Whose is it?”

“It belongs now to Mlle. Aimée Bobert,” replied the landlord; and the question seemed to affect him painfully.

“Whom did it belong to formerly?” inquired M. Gombard.

“To the brave and illustrious family of De Valbranchart. The Revolution ruined them, and the mansion was bought by a retired manufacturer, the grandfather of Mlle. Aimée, who is now the sole heiress of all his wealth.”

“Strange vicissitudes in the game of life!” muttered M. Gombard; he turned again to survey the old house, that looked as if it had been transplanted from some forest or lovely fell-side to this commonplace little town. As he looked, the window on the balcony opened, and the slight figure of a woman appeared, holding a flower-pot in her hand. He could not see her face, which was concealed by a shawl thrown lightly over her head; but her movements had the grace and suppleness of youth. M. Gombard mechanically adjusted his spectacles, the better to inspect this new object in the picture; the same moment a gentleman, hurrying down the street, came up, and lifted his hat in a stately salutation as he passed before the balcony. M. Gombard could not see whether the greeting was returned, or how; for when he glanced again towards the latticed window, it had closed on the retreating figure of the lady. The old church clock was chiming the hour of noon. “The ancient house has its modern romance, I perceive,” observed M. Gombard superciliously; and as if this discovery must strip it at once of all interest in the eyes of a sensible man, he turned his back upon the old house, and proceeded to catechise the landlord concerning post-horses. There was clearly no chance of his procuring any that day, and a very doubtful chance of his procuring any the next. There was no help for it: he must spend at least one night at the _Jacques Bonhomme_. He was not a man to waste his energies in useless lamentation or invective. One exclamation of impatience escaped him, but he stifled it half way, snapped his fingers, and muttered in almost a cheerful tone, “_Tantpis!_” The landlord stood regarding him with a gaze of compassion mingled with a sort of cowed admiration. There was a strange fascination about these criminals, murderers or forgers, flying for dear life; the concentrated energy, the reckless daring, the heroic self-control, the calm self-possession they evinced in the face of danger and impending death, were wonderful. If these grand faculties had been ruled by principle, and devoted to lawful pursuits and worthy aims, what might they not have accomplished! The landlord saw the stigma of crime distinctly branded upon the countenance of this man, though the low, bad brow was almost entirely concealed at one side by the wig; and yet he could not but admire, nay, to a certain extent, sympathize, with him. M. Gombard noticed his singular air of dejection, his immovable attitude――standing there as if he were rooted to the spot when there was no longer any ostensible reason for his remaining in the room. He bent a glance of inquiry upon him, which said as plainly as words: “You have evidently something to say; so say it.”

“Monsieur,” said the landlord in a thick undertone, “I have been trusted with many secrets, and I have never been known to betray one. I ask you for no confidence; but, if you can trust me so far, answer me one question: Is it a matter of life and death that you go――that you reach your destination by a given time?”

M. Gombard hesitated for a moment, perplexed by the tone and manner of his host; then he replied, deliberately, as if weighing the value of each word: “I will not say ‘life and death,’ but as urgent as if it were life and death.”

“Ha! That is enough. I understand,” said the landlord. His voice was husky; he shook from head to foot. “Now tell me this: will you――will the situation be saved, if you can leave this to-morrow?”

“To-morrow?… Let me see,” said M. Gombard; and thrusting both hands into his pockets, he bent his head upon his breast with the air of a man making a calculation. After a prolonged silence he looked up, and continued reflectively: “If I can leave this to-morrow at four o’clock, with a good pair of horses, I shall be at X―――― by ten; and starting afresh at, say, five next morning, I shall be――”

“Saved!” broke in the landlord.

“I shall be saved, as you say,” repeated M. Gombard.

“Monsieur, if the thing is possible it shall be done!” protested the landlord. This coolness, this superhuman calm, at such a crisis, were magnificent; this felon, whoever he was, was a glorious man.

“Very peculiar person our host seems,” was the hero’s reflection, when the door closed behind that excited and highly sensitive individual. M. Gombard then drew a chair towards the fire, pulled a newspaper from his pocket, and poked his feet as far out on the hearth as he could without putting them right into the blaze.

When he had squeezed the newspaper dry, he threw it aside, and bethought to himself that he might as well go for a walk, and reconnoitre this extremely unprogressive town, where a traveller might wait two days and two nights for a pair of post-horses. He pulled on his big furred coat and sallied forth. The snow was deep, but the night’s sharp frost had hardened it, so that it was dry and crisp to walk on. There was little in the aspect of Cabicol that promised entertainment; it was called a town, but it was more like a village with a disproportionately fine church, and some large houses that looked out of place in the midst of the shabby ones all round though the largest was insignificant beside the imposing old pile opposite the inn. They looked quaint and picturesque enough, however, in their snow dress, glistening in the beams of the pale winter sun that shone out feebly from the milky-looking sky. The church was the first place to which M. Gombard bent his steps, not with any pious intentions, but because it was the only place that seemed to be open to a visitor, and was, moreover, a stately, Gothic edifice that would have done honor to a thriving, well-populated town. The front door was closed. M. Gombard was turning away with some disappointment, when an old woman who was frying chestnuts in the angle of the projecting buttress, with an umbrella tied to the back of her chair as a protest rather than a protection against the north wind that was blowing over the deserted market-place, called out to him that the side door was open, and pointed to the other side of the church. When the visitor entered it, he was struck by the solemnity and vastness of the place. It was quite empty. At least he thought so; for his eye, piercing the sombre perspective, saw no living person there. In the south aisle the rich stained glass threw delicate shadows of purple and gold and crimson on the pavement, on the stern mediæval statues, on the slim, groined pillars; but the other aisle was so dark that it was like night until your eyes grew accustomed to the gloom. M. Gombard walked slowly through the darkened aisle, peering up at the massive carving of the capitals, and into the quaint devices of the basements, and wondering what could have brought this majestic, cathedral-like church into so incongruous a frame as Cabicol. Suddenly he descried coming towards him from the farthest end of the aisle, like a dimly visible form emerging from total darkness, the figure of a man. He supposed at first it was a priest, and he thought he would ask him for some information about the church; but, as the figure drew near, he saw he had been mistaken, and presently he recognized the tall, erect bearing and hurried step of the lover of Mlle. Bobert. There was no reason why M. Gombard should not have accosted him just as readily as if he had been the priest he had taken him for, but something checked him at the first moment; and when the young man had passed, he was loath to call him back. He had not the kind of face M. Gombard expected; there was none of the levity or mawkishness that almost invariably characterized the countenances of men who were in love; neither was there any trace of coxcombry or conceit in his dress and general appearance; he had a fine head, well shaped, and with a breadth of forehead that announced brains; his face was thoughtful and intelligent. M. Gombard was sorry for the poor fellow, who was evidently not otherwise a fool. The sound of the lover’s footfall died away, and the great door closed behind him with a boom like low thunder. M. Gombard continued his walk round the church undisturbed. He came to the Lady Chapel behind the high altar, and stood at the entrance, filled with a new admiration and surprise. The chapel was as dimly lighted as the rest of the building; but from a deep, mullioned window there came a flood of amber light that fell full upon a kneeling figure, illuminating it with an effulgence to which the word heavenly might fitly be applied. M. Gombard’s first thought was that this new wonder was part of the whole; that it was not a real, living female form he beheld, but some beautiful creation of painter and sculptor, placed here to symbolize faith and worship in their loveliest aspect. But this was merely the first unreasoning impression of delight and wonder. He had not gazed more than a second on the kneeling figure when he saw that it was neither a statue nor an apparition, but a living, breathing woman. The worshipper was absorbed in her devotions, and seemed unconscious of the proximity of any spectator; so M. Gombard was free to contemplate her at his ease. It was the first time in his life that he ever stood deliberately to contemplate a woman, simply as a beautiful object; but there was something in this one totally different from all the women, beautiful or otherwise, that he had ever seen. It may have been the circumstances, the place and hour, the obscurity of all around, except for that yellow shaft of light that shot straight down upon the lovely devotee, investing her with a sort of celestial glory; but whatever it was, the spectacle stirred the fibres of his heart as they had never been stirred before. Who was this lovely creature, and why was she here in the deserted church, alone and at an hour when there was neither chant nor ceremony to call her thither? M. Gombard’s habit of mind and his semi-legal and magisterial functions led him to suspect and discover plots and sinister motives in most human actions that were at all out of the usual course; but it never for an instant occurred to seek any such here. This fair girl――she looked in the full bloom of youth――could only be engaged on some errand of duty, of mercy, or of love. Love! Strange to say, the word, as it rose to his lips, did not call up the scornful, or even the pitying, smile which at best never failed to accompany the thought of this greatest of human follies in the mayor’s mind. He repeated mentally, “Love,” as he looked at her, and something very like a sigh rose and was not peremptorily stifled in his breast. While he stood there gazing, a deeper gloom fell upon the place, the yellow shaft was suddenly withdrawn, the golden light went out, and the vision melted into brown shadow. M. Gombard started; high up, on all sides, there was a noise like pebbles rattling against the windows. The lady started too, and, crossing herself, as at a signal that cut short her devotions, rose and hurried from the chapel. She took no notice of the man standing under the archway, but passed on, with a quick, light step, down the north aisle. M. Gombard turned and walked after her. He had no idea of pursuing her; he merely yielded to an impulse that anticipated thought and will.

On emerging into the daylight of the porch he saw that the rain was falling heavily, mixed with hail-stones as big as peas. The lady surveyed the scene without in blank dismay, while M. Gombard stealthily surveyed her. She struck him as more wonderful, more vision-like, now even than when she had burst upon him with her golden halo amidst the darkness; her soft brown eyes full of light, her silken brown curls, her scarlet lips parted in inarticulate despair, the small head thrown slightly back, and raised in scared interrogation to the dull gray tank above――M. Gombard saw all these charms distinctly now, and his dry, legal soul was strangely moved. Should he speak to her? What could he say? Offer her his umbrella, perhaps? That was a safe offer to make, and a legitimate opportunity; he blessed his stars that he had brought his umbrella.

“Madame――mademoiselle――pardon me――I shall be very happy――that is, I should esteem myself fortunate if I could――be of any service to you in this emergency――”

“Thank you; I am much obliged to you, monsieur,” replied the young lady; she saw he meant to be polite, but she did not see what help he intended.

“If you would allow me to call a cab for you?” continued M. Gombard timidly.

“Oh! thank you.” She broke into a little, childlike laugh that was perfectly delicious. “We have no cabs at Cabicol!”

The young merriment was so contagious that M. Gombard laughed too.

“Of course not! How stupid of me to have thought there could be! But how are you to get home in this rain, mademoiselle? Will you accept my umbrella? It is large; it will protect you in some degree.”

“Oh! you are too good, monsieur,” replied his companion, turning the brown eyes, darting with light, full upon him; “but I think we had better have a little patience and wait until the rain stops. It can’t last long like this; and if I ventured out in such a deluge, I think I should be drowned.”

There was nothing very original, or poetical, or preternaturally wise in this remark, but coming from those poppy lips, in that young, silvery voice, it sounded like the inspiration of genius to M. Gombard. He replied that she was right, that he was an idiot; in fact, had not his age and his business-like, dry, matter-of-fact appearance offered a guarantee for his sobriety and an excuse for his attempt at facetiousness, M. Gombard’s jubilant manner and ecstatic air would have led the young lady to fear he was slightly deranged or slightly inebriated. But ugly, elderly gentlemen who wear wigs are a kind of privileged persons to young ladies; they may say anything, almost, under cover of these potent credentials.

“This is a fine old church,” observed M. Gombard presently.

“Yes; we are proud of it at Cabicol. Strangers always admire it,” replied his companion.

“They are right; it is one of the best specimens of the Gothic of the Renaissance I remember to have seen,” said M. Gombard; “this portico reminds one of the cathedral of B――――. Have you ever seen it, mademoiselle?”

“No; I have never travelled farther from Cabicol than Luxort.”

“Indeed! How I envy you!” exclaimed the mayor heartily. He was a new man; he was fired with enthusiasm for beauty of every description, in art, in nature, everywhere.

“It is you, rather, who are to be envied for having seen far places and beautiful things!” returned the young girl naïvely. “I wish I could see them too.”

“And why should you not?” demanded M. Gombard; he would have given half his fortune to have been able to say there and then: “Come, and I will show you these strange places, and beautiful things!”

“I am alone,” replied his companion in a low tone; the merry brightness faded from her face, the sweet eyes filled with tears.

M. Gombard could have fallen at her feet, and cried, “Forgive me! I did not mean to give you pain.” But he did not do so; he did better: he bowed gravely and murmured, almost under his breath: “_Pauvre enfant!_” He had never pitied any human being as he pitied this beautiful orphan; but then he was a man, as we know, who passed for having no heart. His young companion looked up at him through her tears, and her eyes said, “_Merci!_” It was like the glance of a dumb animal, so large, so pathetic, so trustful. The rain still fell in torrents, lashing the ground like whip-cords; but the hailstones had ceased. The two persons under the portico stood in solemn silence, watching the steady downpour. Presently, as when, by a sudden jerk of the string, the force of a shower-bath is slackened, it grew lighter; the sun made a slit in the tank, and gleamed down in a silver line through the lessening drops. The young girl went to the edge of the steps, and looked up, reconnoitring the sky.

“It is raining heavily still,” said M. Gombard; “but if you are in a hurry, and must go, pray take my umbrella!”

“But then you will get wet,” she replied, laughing with the childlike freedom that had marked her manner at first.

“That is of small consequence! It will do me good,” protested M. Gombard. “I entreat you, mademoiselle, accept my umbrella!”

It was hard to say “no,” and it was selfish to say “yes.” She hesitated. M. Gombard opened the umbrella, capacious as a young tent, and held it towards her. The young lady advanced and took it; but the thick handle and the weight of the outspread canopy were too much for her tiny hand and little round wrist. It swayed to and fro as she grasped it. M. Gombard caught hold of it again.

“Let me hold it for you,” he said. “Which way are you going?”

“Across the market-place to that house with the veranda,” she replied; “but perhaps that is not your way, monsieur?”

It was not his way; but if it had been ten times more out of it, M. Gombard would have gone with delight.

“Do me the honor to take my arm, mademoiselle,” he said, without answering her inquiry. It was done in the kindest way――just as if she had been the daughter of an old friend. The young girl gathered her pretty cashmere dress well in one hand, and slipped the other into the arm of her protector. They crossed the market-place quickly, and were soon at the door of the house she had pointed out.

“Thank you! I am so much obliged to you, monsieur!”

“Mademoiselle, I am too happy――”

She smiled at him with her laughing brown eyes, and he turned away, a changed man, elated, bewildered, walking upon air. He walked on in the rain, his feet sinking ankle-deep in parts where the snow was thick and had been melted into slush by the heavy shower. He did not think now whether there was anything to visit to pass the rest of the day; his one idea was to find out the name of this beautiful creature, then to see her again, offer her his hand and fortune, if her position were not too far above his own, and be the happiest of men for the rest of his life. He was fifty years of age; but what of that? His heart was twenty; he had not worn it out in butterfly passions, “fancies, light as air,” and ephemeral as summer gnats. This was his first love, and few men half his age had that virgin gift to place in the bridal _corbeille_. Then how respected he was by his fellow-citizens! M. Gombard saw them already paying homage to his young wife; saw all the magnates congratulating him, and the fine ladies calling on Madame Gombard. When he reached the _Jacques Bonhomme_ he was in the seventh heaven. The landlord saw him from the window of the bar, and hurried out to meet him with a countenance blanched with terror.

“Good heavens, monsieur! you have ventured out into the town. You have been abroad all this time! What mad imprudence!” he whispered.

“Eh! Imprudence? Not the least, my good sir,” replied the mayor, descending with a painful jump from his celestial altitude; “my boots are snow-proof, and behold my umbrella!” He swung it round, shut it up with a click, and held it proudly at arm’s length, while the wet streamed down its seams as from a spout.

“Marvellous man!” muttered the landlord, staring at him aghast. “But hasten in now, I entreat you. You ordered dinner at three; it will be served to you in your room.”

“Just as it pleases you,” returned M. Gombard complacently. “I don’t mind where I get it, provided it be good.”

“Monsieur, for heaven’s sake be prudent!” said the landlord; he took the umbrella from him, and hung it outside the door to drip.

“I wish to have a word with you presently, mine host,” M. Gombard called out from the top of the stairs.

“I am at your orders, monsieur,” said the host. This reckless behavior in a man flying for his life was beyond belief. “It is madness, but it is sublime!” thought the landlord. The table was ready laid when M. Gombard entered his room; the dinner was ready too, as was evident from the smell of fry and cabbage that filled the place; he went to the window and threw it open. As he did so the mysterious lover appeared at the corner of the street――that is, of the gabled house――and, as before, lifted his hat and bowed reverently as he passed under the balcony. Was his lady-love there to see it? M. Gombard glanced quickly to the latticed window; it did not open, but he distinctly saw a female figure standing behind it, and retreating suddenly, as if unwilling to be observed. The little pantomime, which he had looked on so contemptuously a few hours ago, was now full of a new interest to him. He wondered what the lady was like; whether she looked with full kindness on this pensive, intellectual-looking adorer, and admitted him occasionally to her presence, or whether she starved him on these distant glimpses. What was he doing in the church just now, with that long scroll in his hand? He had not been praying out of it, certainly. “I must interrogate mine host,” thought M. Gombard, stirred to unwonted curiosity about these lovers. Great was his surprise at that very moment to behold the said host cross the street, pass the open gateway of the gabled house, ring at the narrow, arched door and presently disappear within it. What could the landlord of the _Jacques Bonhomme_ have to do with the wealthy mistress of that house?

“Monsieur is served!” said the waiter, in a tone which announced that he had said it before.

M. Gombard started, shut the window, and sat down to his dinner. When he had finished it, he went and opened the window again, and, lo and behold! there was the landlord coming back from the mystifying visit. This time M. Gombard saw most distinctly the figure of a woman looking out from the latticed window, and drawing back instantly when he appeared.

There was a knock at the door. “Come in!” said M. Gombard.

The landlord looked very much excited.

“I have done my best for you, monsieur,” he began in an agitated manner; “I have left nothing undone, and all I have been able to obtain is that you shall have a good pair of post-horses to-morrow at one o’clock.”

“Capital! Excellent! Then I am――” He stopped short.

“_Saved!_” muttered the landlord exultingly.

“Yes, yes, my friend, saved,” repeated M. Gombard with an air of cool indifference which was nothing short of heroic; “but I am just thinking whether, as I have not been able to start this afternoon, I am not losing my time in starting at all. It might be wiser to―― But, no; I had better go. You say the horses are good?”

“The best in Cabicol.”

“And I can count upon them?”

“I have the word of a noble woman for that.”

“Ha! a woman! Who may she be?”

“The mistress of that house――Mlle. Bobert.”

The landlord pronounced these words with an emphasis that might have been dispensed with, as far as regarded the effect of the announcement on M. Gombard.

“Mlle. Bobert!” he repeated in amazement.

“Yes, monsieur. She is young, but she has the mind of a man and the heart of a mother. When every other resource had been tried in vain, I went to her; I told her――enough to excite her sympathy, her desire to help you; she promised me you should have the horses to-morrow at one o’clock.”

“You confound me!” said M. Gombard.

“Have no fear, monsieur; Mlle. Bobert is a woman, but――she is to be trusted. The horses will be here at one o’clock.”

“Well, well,” said M. Gombard, “I must not be ungrateful either to you or Mlle. Bobert; it is most kind of you to take so much trouble in my behalf, landlord, and most kind of her to furnish me with the horses. You say she is young; is she pretty?” (Gracious heavens! If the citizens of Loisel had heard this stony-hearted mayor putting such questions!)

“No, monsieur, she is not pretty,” replied the landlord; “she is beautiful.”

“_Diable!_” exclaimed M. Gombard facetiously.

“Beautiful as an _angel_,” remarked the landlord, with an accent that seemed to rebuke his guest’s exclamation.

“You appear to have a _spécialité_ for beautiful persons in Cabicol,” said M. Gombard, pouncing on his opportunity; “I met one in the church just now, taking shelter from the rain――the most remarkably beautiful person I ever saw in my life. Who can she be? She lives in the house to the right of the market-place.”

“Excuse me, monsieur, she does not,” said the landlord sadly.

“No? How do you know? Did you see me――did you see her in the church?”

“No, monsieur, I did not,” answered the landlord.

M. Gombard was mystified again. What a droll fellow mine host was altogether!

“You evidently know something about her,” he resumed; “can you tell me her name and where she lives?”

“Her name is Mlle. Bobert; she lives yonder.” He stretched out his arm, and held a finger pointed toward the old house. The effect on M. Gombard was electric. He started as if the landlord’s finger had pulled the trigger of a pistol; he grew pale; he could not utter a word. The landlord pitied him sincerely.

“When I told her who it was I wanted the horses for,” he continued, “she asked me to describe you. I did so, and she recognized you at once as the person to whom she had spoken in the church. She said immediately it would be a great pleasure to her to do you this service, you had been so very courteous to her.”

“Pray convey my best thanks to Mlle. Bobert,” said M. Gombard, making a strong effort to control his emotions; “I am profoundly sensible of her goodness.”

The landlord cast one deeply tragic look upon his unfortunate guest, bowed and withdrew. As he turned away, he bethought to himself how, as the wisest men had been fooled by lovely woman, it was not to be wondered at that the bravest should be made cowards by her; here was a man who could carry a bold heart and a smiling face into the very teeth of danger, but no sooner did he find that a woman had got hold of even a suspicion of his secret than his courage deserted him, and he was incapable of keeping up even a semblance of bravery. Unhappy man! But he was safe; he had nothing to fear from Mlle. Bobert.

And so it was the great heiress whom he had seen and surrendered his impregnable heart to, without even a feint at resistance! M. Gombard understood all now; the joyous expression of her lovely face, her unconstrained manner to him, her presence in the deserted church――it was all explained: her lover had been there, praying with her, and she had lingered on praying for him. Happy, happy man! Miserable Gombard! He spent the evening drearily over his lonely fire. How lonely it seemed since he had lost the dream that had beautified it, filling the future with sweet visions of fireside joys, of bright companionship by the winter blaze! He went to bed, nevertheless, and slept soundly. The wound was not so deep as he imagined, this middle-aged man, who had no memories of young love, with its kindling hopes and passionate despairs, by which to measure his present suffering. He was very miserable, sincerely unhappy, but, all the same, he slept his seven hours without awaking. When at last he did awake, and bethought him of his sorrow, he took it up where he had left it the night before, and moaned and pitied himself with all his heart. He was to start at one o’clock, but he must make an effort to see Mlle. Bobert again before leaving Cabicol for ever. He ordered his breakfast, ate heartily, and then sallied forth in the direction of the church. He knew of no other place where he was at all likely to meet her; he had not seen her leave the house, but she might have done so while he was breakfasting. As well try to time the coming in and out of the sunbeams as the ways and movements of this fairy _châtelaine_. She would sit by her latticed window immovable for an hour, then disappear, then return, flitting to and fro like a shadow. M. Gombard watched his opportunity, when the landlord was busy in the crowded bar, to slip out of the house. He felt as if he were performing some guilty action in stealing away on such a foolish errand; how men would laugh at him if they knew, if they could see the revolution that had taken place in him within the last four-and-twenty hours! He tried to laugh at himself, but it was more than his philosophy could accomplish. The great doors of the church were open to-day. They were open every morning up to noon; the good folks of Cabicol went in and out to their devotions, from daybreak until then, not in crowds, but in groups of twos and threes, trickling in and out at leisure. The grand old church looked less gloomy than yesterday; the sunlight poured in, illuminating the nave fully, and scattering the oppressive darkness of the lofty aisles; but to M. Gombard the sunshine brought no brightness. He stood at the entrance of the nave, and looked up the long vista and on every side, but no trace of the luminary he sought was visible. The few worshippers who knelt at the various shrines disappeared one by one, going forth to the day’s labor, its troubles and its interests, till the church was nearly empty. M. Gombard turned into the north aisle, and sauntered slowly on. Presently he saw a tall figure advancing, as yesterday, with the same quick step, from out the same side chapel. It was his hated rival! Here he was again, with the same scroll of paper in his hand; he rolled it up carefully, and put it in his pocket as he walked on, calm, pensive, unconcerned, as if nobody had been by, nobody scowling fiercely upon him as he passed. It was evidently a plan agreed upon between these lovers that they should come and say their prayers together at a given hour every day. M. Gombard was now certain that Mlle. Bobert was in the Lady Chapel; he quickened his step in that direction. Great was his surprise to find it almost filled with people. The first Mass was at six, the second at ten; the second was just finished. People were rising to come away; soon there were only a few, more fervent than the rest, who lingered on at their devotions. M. Gombard looked eagerly all round. There was a group of several persons going out together. Descrying Mlle. Bobert amongst them, he turned and followed quickly, taking the south aisle so as to reach the portico before her, and have a chance of saluting, perhaps speaking to, her; for might he not, ought he not, lawfully seize this opportunity of thanking her? He stationed himself in the open door-way, standing so that she could not pass without seeing him. The common herd passed out. M. Gombard turned as a light step drew close. He bowed low. “Mademoiselle, I have many thanks to offer you,” he said in a subdued voice, as became the solemn neighborhood. “You have done a great kindness to a perfect stranger. I shall never see you again; but if ever, by chance, by some unspeakable good fortune, it were――in my power, if I could do anything to serve you, I should count it a great hap … I should be only too happy!”

Poor man! How confused he was! He could hardly get the words out. It was pitiable to see his emotion. Mlle. Bobert’s gentle heart was touched.

“Don’t think of it!” she answered kindly, but with a nervous, timid manner that he was not too absorbed to notice and to wonder at, remembering her unrestrained frankness of yesterday. “It is I who am glad. I wish I had known it sooner, before the market-day. I should have done my best; but I hope it is not too late, that you will esca――that you will get where you want in good time.”

“It is of little consequence, mademoiselle. I care not whether I get there late or early now,” replied M. Gombard.

“Don’t say that! Pray don’t!” said the young girl with great feeling. “I should be so sorry! Good-by, monsieur, good-by.”

She hurried away. Did his eyes deceive him, or were there tears in hers? She was strangely agitated; her voice trembled; there was a choking sound in it when she said that “Good-by, monsieur, good-by!” Did she read his secret on his face, in his manner, his tone, and was she sorry for him? It was not improbable. He hoped it was so. It was something to have her pity, since she could give him nothing more. He watched the slight figure drifting out of sight; the step was less elastic than yesterday; she was depressed, unnerved. What a treasure that odious man had conquered in this tender, loving heart!

The post-chaise was at the door punctually at one. M. Gombard was ready waiting for it when the landlord knocked at his door. The traveller’s air of deep dejection struck a new pang at his feeling heart.

“Monsieur, I trust sincerely you may not be too late,” he said in the quick undertone of strong emotion, as he closed the door of the chaise and leaned forward confidentially.

“Late or not, I shall always remember your kindness, landlord; it signifies little whether I am late or not,” replied the parting guest.

“Don’t say that, monsieur, don’t, I entreat you!” said the landlord, lowering his voice to a hoarse whisper. “It would grieve me to the very soul! I swear to you it would! Will you do me one favor?――just to prove that you trust me and believe that I have done my best to forward your es――your wishes: will you send me word by the postilion if you arrive in time?”

“Really, landlord, your interest in my welfare is beyond my comprehension,” said M. Gombard; he had had enough of this effusive sympathy, and at the moment it irritated him.

“Don’t say so, sir! But I understand――you don’t know me; you are afraid to trust me. Well, I will not persist; but if you consent to send me back one word, I shall be the happier for it. And Mlle. Bobert――think of her!”

“Mlle. Bobert! Do you suppose she cares to hear of me again? To know what becomes of me?” asked M. Gombard breathlessly.

“Care, monsieur? She will know no peace until she hears from you; she will reproach herself, as if it had been her fault. You little know what a sensitive heart hers is.”

The postilion gave a preliminary flourish of his whip. Crack! crack! it went with a noise that roused all the population of the _Jacques Bonhomme_, the inmates of the house, of the back yard and the front; boys, dogs, pigs, ducks, turkeys, geese――all came hurrying to the fore, barking, grumbling, cackling, screaming, and pushing, terrified lest they should be late for the fun.

“I will send you word,” said M. Gombard, pressing mine host’s hand with an impulse of gratitude and joy too strong for pride. “Adieu! _Merci!_”

Crack! crack! and away went the post-chaise amidst such a noise and confusion of men and animals as is not to be described. As the horses dashed down the street, M. Gombard beheld the man with the scroll turn the corner. Curiosity was too much for dignity; he looked back: the hat was raised, and the happy rival passed on.

TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.

WHAT IS DR. NEVIN’S POSITION?

The leading article[135] in the _Mercersburg Review_ for October last is from the celebrated pen of J. Williamson Nevin, D.D. Dr. Nevin is a member of the German Reformed Church, and at one period he was president of Marshall College, the leader of a school of theologians, and editor of the _Mercersburg Review_, to which magazine he is now the ablest contributor. During his editorship he wrote several remarkable articles for its pages, especially those on St. Cyprian, which attracted considerable attention.

Dr. Nevin’s writings are characterized by an earnest religious spirit, a freedom from bigotry, and they always aim at conveying some important Christian verity; which, although he scarcely can be said to know it, finds its true home only in the bosom of the Catholic Church. Hence Catholics can but take an interest in whatever Dr. Nevin writes, and we intend to lay before our readers, with some remarks of our own, the purport of his present article, entitled “The Spiritual World.”

In this article Dr. Nevin tries to show and prove that the work of salvation includes not only the resistance to inordinate passions, but above all a struggle against, and a conquest over, the world of evil spirits. This is his thesis. He says:

“Flesh and blood, self, the world, and the things of the world around us here in the body, are indeed part of the hostile force we are called to encounter in our way to heaven; they are not the whole of this force, however, nor are they the main part of it, by any means. That belongs always to a more inward and far deeper realm of being, where the powers of the spiritual world are found to go immeasurably beyond all the powers of nature, and to be, at the same time, in truth, the continual source and spring of all that is in these last, whether for good or for evil. The Christian conflict thus, even where it regards things simply of the present life, looks through what is thus mundane, constantly to things which are unseen and eternal; and in this way it becomes in very fact throughout a wrestling, not with flesh and blood, but with the universal powers of evil brought to bear upon us from the other world.”

This he proceeds to prove by the vows of baptism:

“So much we are taught in the form of our Christian baptism itself, by which we are engaged to ‘renounce the devil with all his ways and works, the world with its vain pomp and glory, and the flesh with all its sinful desires.’ In one view these may be regarded as separate enemies; but we know, at the same time, that they form together but one and the same grand power of evil, no one part of which can be effectually withstood asunder from the diabolical life that animates and actuates the whole. To wrestle with the world or with the flesh really, is to wrestle at the same time really with the full power of hell. If the struggle reach not to this, it may issue in stoic morality or respectable prudence, but it can never come to true self-mastery or victory over the world in the Christian sense. The field for any such conquest lies wholly beyond the realm of mere flesh and blood. The conquest, if gained at all, must be won from the hosts of hell, and then, of course, by the aid only of corresponding heavenly hosts and heavenly armor; which is, in truth, just what our baptism means.”

He calls in philosophy to confirm his thesis, thus:

“The conception of any such comprehension of our life here in the general spiritual order of the universe can be no better than foolishness, we know, for the reigning materialistic thinking of the present time. But it is, in truth, the only rational view of the world’s existence. Philosophy, no less than religion, postulates the idea that the entire creation of God is one thought, in the power of which all things are held together as a single system from alpha to omega, from origin to end; and all modern science is serving continually more and more to confirm this view by showing that all things everywhere look to all things, and that everything everywhere is and can be what it is only through its relations to other things universally. So it is in the world of nature; so it is in the spiritual world; and so it must be also in the union of these two worlds one with the other. It is to be considered a settled maxim now, a mere truism indeed for all true thinkers, that there is no such thing as insulated existence anywhere――such an _inconnexum_ must at once perish, sink into nonentity. It is no weakness of mind, therefore, to think of the spiritual world as a vast nexus of affection and thought (like the waves of the sea, endlessly various and yet multitudinously one), viewed either as heaven or as hell. Without doing so, indeed, no man can believe really in any such world at all. It will be for him simply an abstraction, a notion, a phantom. And so, again, it is no weakness of mind, in acknowledging the existence of the spiritual world (thus concretely apprehended), to think of our present human life, even here in the body, as holding in real contact and communication organic inward correlation, we may say, with the universal life of that world (angelic and diabolic), in such sort that our entire destiny for weal or woe shall be found to hang upon it, as it is made to do in the teaching of God’s Word here under consideration. It is no weakness of mind, we say, to think of the subject before us in this way. The weakness lies altogether on the other side, with those who refuse the thought of any such organic connection between the life of men here in the body and the life of spirits in the other world.”

These views, so strongly put forth by Dr. Nevin, we hardly need remark, are familiar to all Catholics, agree with the doctrines of all Catholic spiritual authors, especially the mystics, who have written professedly on this subject, and their truth is abundantly illustrated on almost every page of the lives of the saints. The Catholic mystical authors, many of whom were saints, have gone over the entire ground of our relations with the supernatural world, and, both by their learning and personal experience, have conveyed, in their writings on this subject, important knowledge, laid down wise regulations, and given in detail safe, wholesome, practical directions. They seem to breathe in the same atmosphere as that in which the Holy Scriptures were written, and in passing from the reading of the Holy Scriptures to the lives of the saints there is no feeling of any break. They lived in the habitual and conscious presence, and in some cases in sight, of the inhabitants of the supernatural world; and so familiar was their intercourse with the angelical side, and at times so dreadful were the combats to which they were delivered on the diabolical side, that their lives, for this very reason, become a stumbling-block to worldly Catholics and to Protestants generally. In the lives of her saints the Catholic Church proves that she is not only the teacher of Christianity, but also the inheritor and channel of its life and spirit. How far Dr. Nevin himself would agree with this intense realism of the church in connection with the supernatural world, as seen in the lives of her saints, we have no special means of knowing; but if we may judge from the spirit and drift of the article under consideration, he goes much farther in this direction than is usual for Protestants. Be his opinion what it may, their lives form a concrete evidence of the truth of his thesis. It is the sense of nearness of the spiritual world, and its bearing on the Christian life, pervading as it does the public worship, the private devotions, and the general tone of Catholics, that characterizes them from those who went out from the fold of the Catholic Church in the religious revolution of three centuries ago. This whole field has become to Protestants, in the process of time, a _terra incognita_; and if Dr. Nevin can bring them again to its knowledge, and in “constant, living union” with it, he will have done a most extraordinary work.

Efforts of this kind and of a similar nature have not been wanting in one way or another, and are not now wanting, among Protestants. There are those who show a decided interest in the works of the spiritual writers of the Catholic Church. Strange to say――and yet it is not strange; for in this they follow the law of _similia similibus_――they are particularly fond of those authors whose writings are not altogether sound or whose doctrines are tainted with exaggerations. Thus Dr. Upham will write the life of Madame Guyon; another will translate _The Maxims of the Saints_, by Fénelon; and to another class there is a peculiar charm in the history of the Jansenistic movement of Port Royal; others, again, moved by the same instinct, will not hesitate to acknowledge with Dr. Mahan that “such individuals as Thomas à Kempis, Catherine Adorno [he means St. Catherine of Genoa], and many others were not only Christians, but believers who had a knowledge of all the mysteries of the higher life, and who, through all coming time, will shine as stars of the first magnitude in the firmament of the Church. In their inward experiences, holy walk, and ‘power with God and with men,’ they had few, if any, superiors in any preceding era of church history. ‘The unction of the Spirit’ was as manifest in them as in the apostles and primitive believers”;[136] while many of this class in the Episcopal Church translate from foreign languages into English the works of Catholic ascetic writers, and books of devotion, for the use of pious members of their persuasion. The Rev. S. Baring-Gould will give you in English, in many volumes, the complete lives of the saints. They even go so far, both in England and the United States, as to found religious orders of both sexes as schools for the better attainment of Christian perfection, and venture to take the name of a Catholic saint as their patron.

It is evident that, among a class of souls upon whom the church can be said to exert no direct influence, there is a movement towards seeking nearer relations with the unseen spiritual world, accompanied with a desire for closer union with God. It finds expression among all Protestant denominations. With the Methodists and Presbyterians it is known by the name of “perfectionism,” or “the higher life,” or “the baptism of the Holy Ghost.” It is also manifested by the efforts made now and again for union among all the Protestant sects. It is the same craving of this mystical instinct for satisfaction that lies at the root of spiritism, which has spread so rapidly and extensively outside of the Catholic Church, not only among sceptics and unbelievers, but even among all classes of Protestants, and entered largely into their pulpits.

The former movement assumes a religious aspect; but lacking the scientific knowledge of spiritual life, and the practical discipline necessary to its true development and perfection, it gradually dies out or runs into every kind of vagary and exaggeration. Recently, after having made not a little commotion among different denominations in England and Germany, it came, in the person of its American apostle, Mr. Pearsall Smith, to a sudden and disgraceful collapse. “If the blind lead the blind, both fall into the ditch.” The latter movement――spiritism――leads directly to the entire emancipation of the flesh, resulting in free-lovism, and sometimes ending in possession and diabolism. Spiritism is Satan’s master-stroke, in which he obtains from his adepts the denial of his own existence. These are some of the bitter fruits of the separation from Catholic unity: those who took this step under the pretence of seeking a higher spiritual life are afflicted with spiritual languor and death; and they who were led by a boasted independence of Christ have fallen into the snares of Satan and become his dupes and abject slaves. Behold the revenge of neglected Catholic truth; for only in Catholic unity every truth is held in its true relation with all other truths, shines in its full splendor, and produces its wholesome and precious fruits!

Suppose for a moment that Dr. Nevin should succeed in the task which he has undertaken, and by his efforts raise those around him, and the whole Protestant world, to a sense of their relation to the supernatural world. What then? Why, he has only brought souls to a state which many Protestants have reached before; and when they sought for the light, aid, and sympathy which these new conditions required, in those around them, they found none.

By quickening their spiritual sensibilities you have opened the door to wilder fancies, more dangerous illusions, and thereby exposed the salvation of their souls to greater perils. For, as St. Gregory tells us: “_Ars artium est regimen animarum_”――the art of arts is the guidance of souls; and where is this art, this science, this discipline, to be found? Not in Protestantism. What then? Why, either these souls have to renounce their holiest convictions, their newly-awakened spiritual life, and sink into their former insensibility; or go where they can find true guidance, certain peace, and spiritual progress――enter into the bosom of the holy Catholic Church, where alone the cravings of that spiritual hunger can be appeased which nowhere else upon earth found food, and the soul can at last breathe freely.

But there is another point involved in Dr. Nevin’s article; and however so much, as Catholics, we may sympathize with his endeavors to awaken Protestants to their relations with the supernatural world, this point in question will come up, and we cannot help putting it: What is Dr. Nevin’s criterion of revealed truth? The rule of interpretation of the written Word? Dr. Nevin has one; for neither he nor any one else can move a single step without employing and applying, implicitly or explicitly, a rule of faith. He criticises, judges, condemns others, but on what ground? Does his own position, at bottom, differ from that of those whom he condemns? He lacks neither the ability nor the learning to make a consistent statement on this point. Truth is consistent. God is not the author of confusion.

Where does Dr. Nevin find or put the rule of faith? If it be placed in simple human reason, then we have as the result, in religion, pure rationalism. If it be placed in human reason illuminated by grace, then we have illuminism. If it be placed in both of these, with the written Word――that is, the Bible as interpreted by each individual with the assistance of divine grace――then we have the common rule of faith of all Protestants, so fruitful in breeding sects and schisms, and inevitably tending to the entire negation of Christianity.

This last appears to be Dr. Nevin’s rule of faith; for what else does he mean when in the beginning of his article, its second sentence, he makes the following surprising statement: “Christianity is a theory of salvation”? Did God descend from heaven and become man upon earth, live, suffer, and die, and for what? “A theory”! Is this the whole issue and reality of Christianity――“a theory,” a speculation? Did Christ rise from the dead and ascend to the Father, and, with him, send forth upon earth the Holy Ghost, to create “a theory,” a speculation, or an abstraction? “Christianity a theory”! We fear that one who would deliberately make that assertion has never had the true conception of what is meant by the reality of Christianity. What would be said of a man who in treating of the sun should say: The sun is a theory, or a speculation, or an exposition of the abstract principles of light? If the sun be a theory, it would be quickly asked, what becomes, in the meanwhile, of the reality of the sun? This way of dealing with Christianity, while professing to explain it, allows its reality altogether to escape. Notwithstanding Dr. Nevin’s condemnation of “the abstract spiritualistic thinking of the age,” and of those who would make Christianity “a fond sentiment simply of their own fancy,” he falls, in his definition of Christianity, into the very same error which in others he emphatically condemns.

That this is so is evident; for while he says, “Christianity is a theory,” he adds in the same sentence, “and is made known to us by divine revelation.” Now, the separation, even in idea, between the church and Christianity, is the fountain, source, and origin of all the illusions and errors uttered or written, since the beginning, concerning the Christian religion. The attempt to get at and set up a Christianity independently of the Christian Church is the very essence and nature of all heresies. The church and Christianity are distinguishable, but not separable; and in assuming their separability, as a primary position, lies all the confusion of ideas and misapprehensions of Christianity in the author of the article under present consideration. This point needs further explanation, as it is all-important, and forms, indeed, the very root of the matter. “Christianity is a theory,” says Dr. Nevin, “and is made known to us by divine revelation.” But what does Dr. Nevin mean by “divine revelation”? Here are his own words in explanation:

“When the question arises, How are we to be made in this way partakers of the living Christ, so that our religion shall be in very deed――not a name only, not a doctrinal or ritualistic fetich merely, nor a fond sentiment simply of our own fancy?” “All turns in this case on our standing in the divine order as it reaches us from the Father through the Son. That meets us in the written Word of God, which, in the way we have before seen, is nothing less in its interior life than the presence of the Lord of life and glory himself in the world.”

Again:

“We cannot now follow out the subject with any sort of adequate discussion. We will simply say, therefore, that what our Lord says here of his words or commandments is just what the Scriptures everywhere attribute to themselves in the same respect and view. They claim to be spirit and life, to have in them supernatural and heavenly power, to be able to make men wise unto everlasting life, to be the Word of God which liveth and abideth for ever――not the memory or report simply of such word spoken in time past, but the always present energy of it reaching through the ages. The Scriptures――God’s law, testimonies, commandments, statutes, judgments, his word in form of history, ritual, psalmody, and prophecy――are all this through what they are as the ‘testimony of Jesus’; and therefore it is that they are, in truth, what the ark of God’s covenant represented of old, the conjunction of heaven and earth, and in this way a real place of meeting or convention between men and God. To know this, to own it, to acknowledge inwardly the presence of Christ in his Word, as the same Jehovah from whom the law came on Mount Sinai; and then to fear the Lord as thus revealed in his Word, to bow before his authority, and to walk in his ways; or, in shorter phrase, to ‘fear God and keep his commandments,’ because they _are his_ commandments, and not for any lower reason――this is the whole duty of man, and of itself the bringing of man into union with God; the full verification of which is reached at last only in and by the Word made glorious through the glorification of the Lord himself; as when, in the passage before us he makes the keeping of his commandments the one simple condition of all that is comprehended in the idea of the mystical union between himself and his people.”

According, then, to Dr. Nevin, “the divine order of our being” made “partakers of the living Christ is in the Word of God.”

To make what is plain unmistakable, he adds:

“What we have to do, then, especially in the war we are called to wage with the powers of hell, is to see that this conjunction with Christ be in us really and truly, through a proper continual use of the Word of God for this purpose.”

There is here and there throughout this article a haziness of language which smacks of Swedenborgianism, and makes it difficult to seize its precise meaning; but we submit that Dr. Nevin――and he will probably accept the statement, as our only aim is to get at his real meaning――proceeds on the supposition that Christianity is a theory, and becomes real as each individual, illumined by divine light, discovers and appropriates it in reading the written Word――the Bible. This is the common ground of Protestantism; and Dr. Nevin holds no other than the rule of faith of all Protestants. The following passage places this beyond doubt or cavil:

“It was the life of the risen Lord himself, shining into the written Word, and through this into the mind of the disciples, which, by inward correspondence, served to open their understanding to the proper knowledge of both. And as it was then, so it is still. We learn what the written Word is only by light from the incarnate Word; but then, again, we learn what the light of the incarnate Word is only as this shines into us through the written Word――a circle, it is true, which alone, however, brings us to the true ground of the Christian faith.”

We need scarcely tell our readers that this pretended rule of faith is no rule of faith at all. It breaks down on any reasonable test which you may apply to it. It will not stand the trial of the written Word itself, nor of history, nor of common sense, nor of good and sound logic. This has been too often demonstrated to require here long argumentation. Therefore, when a man ventures to speak for Christianity, and professes to define and explain what is Christianity, the question rises up at once, and naturally: What does this man know, in fact, about Christianity? Did he live in the time of Christ? Did he ever speak to Christ, or see him? Was he a witness to his miracles? Why, no! He can bear testimony to none of these events. If he was not a contemporary of Christ, what, then, does he know about him? Where has he obtained his knowledge to set up for a teacher of Christianity? On what grounds does he presume to speak for Christianity? Does he come commissioned by those whom Christ authorized to teach in his name? Why, no; they repudiate him in the character of a teacher of Christ. Does he prove by direct miraculous power from God to speak in his name? Why, no! Then he has no commission, indirect or direct; then he is unauthorized, a self-sent and a self-appointed teacher!

But he fancies he has a light to speak for Christianity on the authority of certain historical documents which contain an account of Christ and his doctrines. But how about these documents? What authority verified and stamped them with its approval as genuine, and rejected others, which professed to be genuine, as spurious? Why, the very authority which verified these documents, and on which he has to rely for their genuineness and divine inspiration, is the very authority which altogether denies his presumed right of teaching Christianity! The authority which authenticated them rejects as spurious his claim to be the interpreter of their true meaning. How does he get over this difficulty? He does not get over it. He simply ignores it.

But do these documents profess to give a full and complete account of Christianity? By no means. He assumes this too. What! assumes the vital point of his own rule, which is in dispute? He does. Strange that those who were inspired to write these so important documents should not have written their great object plainly on their face; and stranger still, if they did, that this should have remained a secret many centuries before its discovery!

Then this was not the way the primitive Christians learned Christianity? Not at all. There were millions of Christians who spilt their blood for Christianity, and millions more who had died in the faith, before these documents were verified and put in the shape which we now have them and call the Bible. This pretended rule, then, unchristianizes the early Christians? It does; and does more――it unchristianizes the great bulk of Christians since; for the mass of Christians could not obtain Bibles before the invention of printing, and could not read them if they had them. Even to-day, if this be the rule, how about the children, the blind, and those who cannot read――not a small number? How are they to become Christians?

But as the Bible is an inspired book, to get at its true meaning requires the same divine Spirit which inspired it? Of course it does. But do they that follow this rule assume that each one for himself has this divine Spirit? Nothing else. But are they sure of this? Sure of it?――they say so. But are they sure that each one has the divine Spirit to interpret rightly the divinely-inspired, written Word? Each one thinks so. Thinks so! But do they not know it? Do they not know it? Why, let me explain: “You see we learn what the written Word is only by light from the incarnate Word.” But how do you get the light from the incarnate Word? Why, “we learn what the light of the incarnate Word is only as this shines into us through the written Word.” That is, you suppose that the Bible, read with proper dispositions, conveys to your soul divine grace? Just so. That is, you put the Bible in the place of the sacraments; but that is not the question now. The question, the point, now at issue is: How do you know that that light which shines into you through the written Word is not “a fond sentiment simply of your own fancy,” is not a delusion, instead of “the light of the incarnate Word”? “Oh! I see what you are aiming at. A book divinely inspired requires for its interpreter the divine Spirit to get at its divine meaning. Now, if those who assume to possess this Spirit contradict each other point-blank in their interpretation of its meaning, then this is equivalent to charging the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, with error; and such a charge is blasphemy! But this is pushing things too far.”

Perhaps so; nevertheless, those who follow this rule of faith do differ in their interpretation of Holy Scripture, and differ as far as heaven is from earth. There is no end to their differences. Almost every day breeds a new sect. They not only differ from each other, but each one differs from himself; and why? Because none are certain that they have the inspired Word of God, except on a basis which undermines their position; and none are certain that the light by which they interpret the written Word of God is the unerring Spirit of truth. Hence all who hold this rule gradually decline into uncertitude, doubt, scepticism, and total unbelief.

But how do the followers of this rule of faith interpret those passages of Holy Scriptures which speak so plainly of the church?――for instance, where Christ promises to “build his church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”; “He that heareth not the church, let him be to thee as a heathen and a publican”; “The church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth”; “Christ died for the church”; “The church is ever subject to Christ”; and others of like import. They either pass them by as of no account, or deal with them as an artist does with a piece of clay or wax――they mould them to suit their fancy. Truly, this rule of faith reduces the divine reality of Christianity to the efforts of one’s own thought――“a theory.”

Dr. Nevin may struggle against the inevitable results of this rule, as he does in several places in the present article, but he stands on the same inclined plane as those whom he condemns, and, in spite of his earnest counter-efforts, he is descending visibly with them into the same abyss. For the effort to get at the reality of Christianity, and to escape the recognition of the divine authority of the church, through the personal interpretation of the written Word, is a vain, absurd, and fatal expedient. “He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up another way, the same is a thief and a robber” (John x. 1).

As the attempt to separate the church and Christianity from each other empties Christianity of all its contents and destroys its reality, so, reversely, the conception of the transcendent union and inseparability of the church and Christianity leads to the recognition of the living, constant, divine reality of Christianity. For the Christian Church was called into being by God, the Holy Ghost, the Creator Spirit; and as this primary creative act still subsists in her in all its original vigor, she is, at every moment of her life, equally real, living, divine. Just as the created universe exists by the continuation of the creative act which called it into existence at the beginning, so the Catholic Church exists by the continuation of the supernatural creative act which called her into existence on the day of Pentecost. Once the church, always the church.

The church and the Bible are, in their divine origin, one; they co-operate together for the same end, and are in their nature inseparable. But the written Word is relative or subsidiary to the church, having for its aim to enlighten, to strengthen, and to perfect the faithful in that supernatural life of the Spirit in which they were begotten in the layer of regeneration, in the bosom of the holy church. The purpose of the written Word is, therefore, to effect a more perfect realization of the church, and to accelerate her true progress in the redemption and sanctification of the world. Hence the written Word presupposes the existence of the church, is within and in the keeping of the church, and depends on her divine authority for its authentication and true interpretation. The church is primary, and not enclosed in the written Word; but the end of the written Word is enclosed in that of the church.

Were not a word of divine revelation written, the church would have none the less existed in all her divine reality, and she would have none the less accomplished her divine mission upon earth. For God, the indwelling Holy Spirit, is her life, power, guide, and protector. God the Son was incarnate in the man Christ Jesus; so God the Holy Spirit was incorporate in the holy Catholic Church.

Undoubtedly the apostles were inspired by the Holy Spirit to write all that they wrote; but their Gospels and their Epistles always presuppose the church as existing. To appeal, therefore, from the church to the written Word of the New Testament, if nothing else, is to be guilty of an anachronism.

Even as to the Old Testament, before the Incarnation as well as after the Incarnation, the reality of the church consisted in that supernatural communion between God and man which existed at the moment of his creation. The church, therefore, existed, at least in potentiality, in the garden of Paradise, and was historically primary in the order of supernatural communications.

Wherein does Dr. Nevin differ from the Ebionites, the Nicolaites, the Gnostics, the common Protestants, down to Joe Smith, Père Hyacinthe, and Bishop Reinkens? Perceptibly, at bottom, there is no difference. Dr. Nevin appears to have never asked himself seriously the most searching of all questions, to wit: What, in the last analysis, is the basis, standard, or rule by which I judge what is and what is not Christianity? He ventures to treat of the gravest questions and most momentous mysteries touching the kingdom of God, on which the saints would not have ventured a personal opinion; and on what grounds? But it may be said in his excuse, and with truth, that this self-sufficient attitude is due to the very position of defiance to the divine authority of the church in which all those who have gone out, or are born out, of her fold are necessarily involved.

To sum up: Either we must suppose that God has left the task to every individual to direct the human race to the great end for which he created it――and thus the individual occupies the place of Almighty God, and turns the crank of the universe to suit his own fancy, or the schemes and theories of the cogitations of his little brain――or believe in “a divine order,” in being made constant partakers of the living Christ “in a concrete form.” In this case, our first duty is to find this real concrete body, become a member and partaker of its divine life, and, in conquering the obstacles in the way of our salvation, co-operate in its divine work for the whole world.

But the history of these last three centuries shows conclusively that there is no standing-place between the Catholic Church and Protestantism; and it has made it equally clear that Protestantism has no standing ground of its own, and therefore no man can be a Christian, and defend with perfect consistency his position, out of the Catholic Church.

[135] “The Spiritual World,” by J. W. Nevin, D.D., the _Mercersburg Review_, October, 1876.

[136] _The Baptism of the Holy Ghost_, by Rev. Asa Mahan, D.D., p. 81.

SIX SUNNY MONTHS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.