CHAPTER VI.

Three years afterward, by the merest accident in the world, I happened to return to my favorite little village. There was evidently some excitement going on, and as I chanced to recognize my old friend Father Hermann, I went up and renewed our acquaintance.

"What is the matter?" said he; "why you do not mean to say you don't know?"

"Not in the least."

"Why your old friend Alphonsine has been dead six months."

"I really don't see why the worthy inhabitants of the village should rejoice at that," said I.

"A great obstacle has been removed," said the father; "don't you remember?"

"Of course; and what has followed?"

"The marriage of Pierre Prévost and Marie!"

I was not long in accompanying Father Hermann to the cottage in which my old friends were receiving the warm congratulations of their friends and neighbors.

They recognized me at once, and insisted that I should be present at the entertainment which was to follow in the course of the day. Of course I accepted the invitation. I never remember having enjoyed myself so much, and am quite certain that I spoke from my heart when I proposed, in my very best French, the healths of la belle Marie and Pierre Prévost.

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From The Popular Science Review.

INSIDE THE EYE: THE OPHTHALMOSCOPE AND ITS' USES.

BY ERNEST HART, OPHTHALMIC SURGEON.

There are few spectacles more affecting--and there were few more hopelessly distressing--than that which many have seen, of the blind man, with eyes unaltered in their human aspect of beauty, searching vainly to penetrate the unchangeable darkness of a noonday, bright to others, and replete with the splendor of light and color. There have always been many of these sufferers from a disease which claims the most profound sympathy, and which seemed bitterly to reproach our science that it could not timely penetrate the mystery of that obscure chamber which lies behind the iris, and had found no means for enabling us to see through the clear but darkened space of the pupil. That reproach, at least, exists in part no longer. Since some few years now we have learnt how to explain the obscurity of the interior of the eye, and by what optical contrivances we can overcome this darkness and look into the depths of the ocular globe; thus inspecting with ease, and quite painlessly to the individual, the lenses and humors of the eye, the nerve of sight and its transparent retinal expansion, and even the vascular tissue which lies behind and surrounds this. This is a great triumph of physical science, and it is no barren triumph. The insight which we gain into the host of affections of the refracting media and deep membranes of the eye has given to our diagnosis and therapeutical treatment of the most obscure forms of disease leading to blindness, a certainty and precision to which we were formerly strangers.

The optical instrument by which we are able to effect this inspection is known by the fitting title of the _Ophthalmoscope_ ([Greek text] the eye; [Greek text], I survey). With this instrument, the manner of using it, and its valuable applications, I am necessarily professionally much occupied in daily work; and as the editor of the "Popular Science Review" has requested me to give some plain account of the matter, I will endeavor to afford an untechnical statement of what the ophthalmoscope is, and what are some of the most useful results which have been obtained by its use.

Let me first remind the general reader that in the human eye, behind the pupillary aperture of the colored iris, which presents to the unaided eye of the observer the mere aspect of black darkness, lies, first, a clear bi-convex _lens_; and behind this, filling the eye, and giving to it the character of a solid ball, a transparent globular mass, known as the _vitreous body_, or _humor_. It is into a depression in the front of this that the aforesaid lens is fitted, so that the whole space of the eye behind the _iris_ is filled by the _lens_ and _vitreous body_. The optic nerve, or nerve of sight, which pierces the tunics of the eye at the back and near the centre, spreads out and forms an expanded tunic of nerve-structure which enwraps the vitreous body as far as its most forward edge, where the colored iris descends in front of it. Enwrapping again this nerve-tunic or _retina_ is a vestment, chiefly made of blood-vessels, connected by fine tissue and thickly coated with black pigment, having its own optical uses. This second outer pigmented vascular tunic is _the choroid_. This again is enclosed within the external strong fibrous membrane, which includes and protects all the sclerotic membrane {120} ([Greek text], hard). These are the two humors and three tunics of the eye which can to a greater or less extent be examined during life by the aid of the ophthalmoscope.

They can all be more or less investigated in the living eye by the aid of the ophthalmoscope, because by the aid of this instrument we are able to see through the pupillary space. If one considers what is the reason of the apparent darkness of the pupillary aperture and the chambers of the eye behind it, it is not difficult to gain an idea of the means by which this optical condition may be altered so as to enable us to see where all seem to the unaided vision obscure.

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This darkness of the pupillary aperture is attributable partly to obvious causes, such as the natural contraction of the pupil or _iris_ which occurs under light--this contraction limiting the number of rays which can enter the eye. Then that black pigment which lines the iris absorbs a great deal of light; and thus, as in the case of albinos, whose eyes are deficient in pigment, or where the pupil is dilated, either through disease or by artificial agents, these obstacles for seeing into the living eye are removed. But still the main difficulties are not cleared away; and if you take for example an albino animal, such as one of those beautiful little white-furred rabbits, whose rosy eyes look like fiery opals edged with swan's down, and dilate the pupils with atropine, it is still not possible to see clearly the details of the structure within and at the back of the eye. This is by reason of the structure of the eye as an optical instrument, and because the rays of light in entering and in emerging from it undergo refraction, according to definite laws. The light which penetrates the eye traverses the transparent retina, producing the impression necessary for sight, and is partly absorbed by the black pigment of the choroid; but a great number of the rays are reflected; for here there is no exception to the general rule that some of the rays of light falling upon any substance are always reflected. These rays, in returning, are refracted through the vitreous body and lens, just as they were in entering the eye, with the object then of causing them so to converge as to produce upon the retina a clear and definite image of whatever external object they started from. Similarly, then, on their emergence they are refracted chiefly by the lens and cornea, so as to form an image in the outer air, the emergent rays coinciding in their path with that which they took when entering, and the image formed in the air being conjugated with the retinal image; being formed, therefore, on the same side, varying with the position of the lens and object, and the accommodation of the eye. Thus, then, to perceive this aerial image, derived from the retinal reflection, the eye of the observer needs to be placed in the axis of the converging rays; but since this is also the axis of the entering rays, he will of necessity in that position cut off those rays altogether of the light proceeding, say, from a lamp, or the source of light opposite to the eye to be illuminated.

The problem to be solved consists, then, in the simple illumination of the eye to be observed by a source of light so arranged that the observer can be placed in the axis of the rays entering and emerging without intercepting those rays. This may be most conveniently effected by placing the source of light aside of the eye to be observed, and observing through a pierced concave mirror, which reflects that light into the eye. We can then, by looking through the central aperture of this mirror, place ourself in the path of the entering and emerging rays. The mirror becomes the source of light to the observed eye; the rays which it flashed into the eye emerge {122} in part, and return along the same path, forming the aerial image at a distance and under circumstances regulated by the optical conditions of the eye observed, and within view of the observer who is looking through the mirror. A very simple diagram will suffice to explain this: _r a_ is the circle of diffusion of the retina, and the lines indicate how the reflected rays will pass through the media of the eye, and form at _r' a'_ real enlarged but inverted image of the fundus of the eye. This will be placed at the distance of distinct vision of the subject, and has relation to the accommodation of the eye.

As these are variable quantities, the practice of ophthalmoscopy demands a little address, which habit quickly gives. It is for want of understanding this, and from impatience of these preliminary difficulties, that many have been discouraged at the outset, and have abandoned unwisely the attempt to learn the use of the ophthalmoscope.

The image obtained in the way mentioned is not so distinct as to give that full perception of details which is necessary for scientific and medical purposes. A more defined image is obtained by interposing, for example, a bi-convex lens on the path of the luminous rays emerging from the eye observed. The effect of holding such a lens of short focus before the observed eye whilst examining it with a concave ophthalmoscopic mirror is to cause the rays emerging from the eye to undergo a further refraction, and to modify the actual image which they form, producing one which is smaller, more defined, but still inverted. This is the most simple and one of the most satisfactory methods of exploring the eye with the ophthalmoscope. It is that of the most general and easy application, and I will, therefore, add a few words to explain how it may most conveniently be practised.

We will suppose that it is the human eye which is to be examined. The room is to be made dark; the person to be seated; a light--the white flame of an oil-lamp or an Argand gas-burner--to be placed near his head, on the side, and at the level of the eye to be observed. The observer takes then the concave mirror in the hand of the side toward the lamp, and placing it against the front of his eye, so that the upper edge rests against his eyebrow, brings his head to the level of that of the person seated, looks through the central perforation at the eye to be observed, and by a little careful change in the direction of the mirror casts, by its aid, upon the eye examined the light of the lamp.

He will now perceive that the pupillary aperture is illuminated, and, no longer black, shines with a silvery or reddened light. He takes now the bi-convex lens of short focus in the hand hitherto free, and places it in front of the examined eye, and at such a distance as to make the focus of the lens coincide with the pupil of that eye --distance varying from two to three inches. He himself will usually need to be at a distance from twelve to eighteen inches. This is for normal eyes. The slight movements backward and forward necessary to adjust these distances correctly, are effected very easily and precisely after practice; but at first it is a little difficult to avoid changing the direction of the mirror while thus slightly advancing or retiring the head; and this is a point on which it is well to give a warning, for it is a frequent source of discouragement to beginners, who find that at every movement they interfere with the illumination of the eye, and so suffer from a series of little failures at the outset. The first thing, in fact, that every one sees amounts to a little more than a red, luminous disc; those who begin by seeing nothing more, therefore, need not to be discouraged; a little patience and time will enable them to see what more practised persons describe. The eye to be examined may be more fully observed by dilating the pupil {123} with atropine--a drop of a solution, one grain to a pint of water, or one of the atropized gelatines prepared for me by Savory and Moore, each of which contains one hundred thousandth of a grain of atropine, and will maintain dilation during several hours. This acts also perfectly well with rabbits or cats.

The first thing seen is the red reflection of the choroidal vessels showing through the transparent retina; and when the eye observed is directed upward and inward, we see the usually circular disc of the optic nerve, encircled by a double ring, cream-colored, or very faintly roseate or grey, and surrounded by the red choroid. The two rings are the apertures in the choroid and sclerotic, of which the former is the smaller. From out this disc we see springing the retinal artery and retinal veins, sometimes centric, at others excentric, in their passage. The artery is easily recognized as being somewhat smaller in calibre, and of a lighter red. The artery usually divides into a superior and inferior branch, each of which subdivides forthwith into two secondary branches, and these again continue to subdivide, dichotomously, running forward to the anterior limits of the retina. The veins, which are somewhat larger and deeper colored, usually pierce the disc of the optic nerve in two trunks. Pulsation may occasionally be detected in the veins by watching carefully their color, which seems to change at each impulse just where they pass over the edge of the optic disc and bend to pierce the nerve.

Fuller details of the ophthalmoscopic appearances of healthy eyes, both human and animal, will be found in Zander's treatise, excellently edited and translated by Mr. R. B. Carter, of Stroud. In the healthy eye the aqueous humor, lens, and vitreous humor are clear, and do not in any way obstruct the passage of the light. It is otherwise in disease; and this brings us to the discussion of some of the practical applications of the ophthalmoscope. Here, perhaps, I may be permitted to quote some of the {124} paragraphs of a paper which I read lately on the subject before the Hanveian Society:

"Taking up the diagnosis of the various forms of disease any of which would have been held to constitute the condition known as amaurosis, it may be noted, first of all, that even in the hands of the novice ophthalmoscopic examination supersedes those chapters in ophthalmology which were formerly devoted to the means of distinguishing between incipient cataract and amaurosis. In the past, and even at present, with those surgeons who are content to treat deep-seated diseases of the eye by guessing at their nature, and have not adopted the systematic use of the ophthalmoscope into their practice, the functional annoyances which commonly occur at the outset of the formation of lenticular cataract, have been, and are, fertile sources of deception. The patient complains of frontal pain, of confused vision, stars of light, and some other vague symptoms which characterize the outset alike of many forms of deep-seated disease of the eye, and of the fatty degeneration of the lens which commonly gives rise to lenticular cataract, probably from coincident swelling of the lens. An error arising from this source has many times condemned the unfortunate subject of a commencing cataract to the severe treatment thought appropriate to the unhappy class of amaurotics. The kind of alteration in the lens, imperceptible by any other means than the ophthalmoscope, is the slightly opaque striation of the substance of the lens sometimes seen in an early stage. These opaque striae may occupy either the anterior or the posterior segment of the lens, and spring from the centre of the crystalline or converge toward the centre from the circumference. In order to see the latter, the pupil must be fully dilated with atropine; as, indeed, for the purposes of complete ophthalmoscopic examination it always needs to be; and then, just as the greatest expert cannot discover them except by ophthalmoscopic illumination, so, neither with its aid, can they be passed over with ordinary care. In order to be quite sure in any delicate case, it is well to lower the light a little, and use only a feebly illuminating power, as a very strong light may overpower a {125} commencing opacity, and render us unable to detect the striae. This practical caution applies equally to all other conditions of opacity in the transparent media. In two cases, lately, I have been able to set at rest doubts of this kind, which happened to be in the persons of medical men, who were much disquieted by the symptoms--one a member of this society. In a third case I have recently detected incipient cataract (peripheric striae) in a gentleman supposed to be suffering from commencing glaucoma.

"It is of frequent occurrence to find the capsule of the lens stained with black spots; these are stains left by the uveal pigment, and occur usually after an attack of iritis, when the iris has been in contact with the lens. When the iris has been adherent, a complete ring of pigment may often be seen on the surface of the lens. A day's experience at any ophthalmic clinique can mostly show examples of this condition; but it is only when these deposits are numerous, and in the central line of vision, that they become troublesome. They are then met with as the sequences of severe choroido-iritis, and usually coincide with further mischief in the vitreous and choroid.

"The vitreous, under the influence most commonly of choroiditis, and usually syphilitic choroiditis, presents alterations of the most striking character for ophthalmoscopic observation. The patients who offer these changes complain usually of considerable dimness of sight, which on examination is found to include both diminution in the acuteness of visual perception, and restriction in _the field of vision_, or extent of any object seen at once. The great source of trouble to them is, that when they lift the eye or move the head, black corpuscles, or streaks, or webs float before their eyes, and obscure the object at which they are looking; and when the eyes are kept still, these fall again and disappear. Examine now the eyes of such an one, and you will see that the phenomena described are due to the existence of actual shreds, corpuscles, or webs of fibrous and albuminous exudation, which float in the vitreous, and at each motion of the eye rise in clouds and obscure the fundus, so that you can barely see it, or perhaps not at all. These conditions, I say, are mostly specific, but not invariably. They are sometimes the result of scrofula, and probably of other forms of choroiditis."

Here, then, are a large number of cases in which the ophthalmoscope transports us at once from the regions of the known to the unknown. There are other classes of cases equally striking. Let me take illustrative examples. Two persons apply for advice, complaining that the sight has been gradually growing more and more dim, perhaps in one eye,--it may be in both. The progress of the disease has been insidious and nearly painless. The eyes are to all external appearance healthy, except probably that in both patients the pupils are partially dilated and sluggish. The ophthalmoscope helps us to solve the problem.

The one is a case, it may be, of slow atrophy of the optic nerve, proceeding from central disease of the brain--from pressure on the optic tracts of nerve within the skull, or from defective nutrition following losses of blood. We find the nerve glistening white and slightly cupped, the arteries small, the fundus otherwise healthy. In the other we recognize at once, in the fulness of the veins, their pulsation, and the marked excavation of the optic disc, the indications of excessive tension of the eyeball and undue pressure of the nerve. The first requires careful constitutional treatment and a long course of studied hygiene and medication; the second calls for direct and immediate interference, with the view of relieving the intra-ocular pressure. In the diagnosis of this great class of glaucomatous disease of the eye--disease {126} characterized of loss of vision, sometimes slow and sometimes rapid, but always characterized by definite ophthalmoscopic signs: cupping of the disc, pulsation, fullness of the veins, and it may be more or less haziness of the transparent media--ophthalmoscopy has rendered a most brilliant and inestimable service. Prior to the introduction of the use of this instrument the disease was of an unknown pathology; its results were fatal to vision, but there were no means of diagnosing the conditions attending the earlier stages, and blindness followed almost certainly and inevitably. The investigation of the disease has brought us a remedy in the excision of a portion of the iris--a practice introduced by Von Gräfe, of Berlin, and of which the success is in suitable cases most gratifying.

Another series of examples may be chosen to illustrate the application of ophthalmoscopy. I avoid giving details here, but it is perhaps right to say that these are not fanciful sketches, but notices of cases in my experience and taken from my note-books of practice. Two persons are asking for advice as to the management of their eyes for short-sightedness. Are both to receive the same advice? The ophthalmoscope alone can furnish positive data. With this we may discover a staphylomatous condition of the back of the eye, a bright excentric margin around the optic disc and edge with black pigment. Examining it closely, we may find that this pigmented edge gives evidence of progressive inflammation at the back of the eye, and extending to continuous and increasing atrophy and retrocession of the coats of the eye. This person is in danger of becoming rapidly made short-sighted or of losing sight altogether. We must prohibit the use of concave glasses for a certain length of time, and must adopt active and effectual measures for subduing the atrophic inflammation. In the other patient the ophthalmoscope may show us but little stretching or waste, and that not progressive, and will enable us then to calm his fears, to prescribe appropriate glasses, and to dismiss him to his occupation with ease of mind and safety. So with sudden lose of sight from intra-ocular haemorrhage, the ophthalmoscope gives us information which could never have been guessed at without it, and guides us, not only to the local knowledge, but to the constitutional information essential for cure.

There are certain conditions of the eye which may warn any one that it is desirable that the condition of the vision ought to be investigated by the ophthalmoscope. Rapidly increasing short-sightedness is one of the most marked, and when this becomes associated with weakness of sight and loss of acuteness in the perception of small objects, the warning is very urgent. A diminution in the field of vision is another important indication of internal changes in the eye, of which only the ophthalmoscope can detect the true nature. It would be difficult, perhaps, to say whether more mischief is done and more suffering is caused by the total neglect of such symptoms or by their ignorant palliation by the aid of common spectacles, chosen empirically, because they facilitate vision for the time. The great use of the ophthalmoscope, then, is this: that it arms us with an instrument of precision, by which we can determine the precise local condition of the parts of the eye in which the function of sight is resident and through which it is regulated. If it cannot do all that we might ask, it is because the sense of sight is in truth a cerebral function, of which the eye is only an instrument; and in dealing with cerebral affections of the sight, it can indeed give us information which without it we should lack, but it leaves still to be desired more intimate acquaintance with first causes, which at present we can only discuss inferentially. To the amateur in science, and to the lover of nature, it discloses an exquisite spectacle, unknown till now, that carries {127} observation into the inner chambers of the living eye, and displays its wonders and its beauties. The observation is perfectly painless, and may easily be effected: rabbits, for example, submit to it with great calmness and composure, and at the College of Physicians' _soirée_ last year, a little pet white rabbit of mine sat up calmly in a box which I had made for the purpose, and was examined, by the aid of a modification which I devised of Liebreich's demonstrating ophthalmoscope, by many score of observers. Mine has the advantage of being adapted for use even amid a blaze of light, and it cannot easily be disarranged; two qualities valuable in an instrument for demonstration.

From The Lamp.

THE PILGRIMAGE TO KEVLAAR.

FROM THE GERMAN.

The mother stood at the window. The son he lay in bed; "Here's a procession, Wilhelm; Wilt not look out?" she said.

"I am so ill, my mother, In the world I have no part; I think upon dead Gretchen, And a death-pang rends my heart."

"Rise up; we will to Kevlaar; Will staff and rosary take; God's Mother there will cure thee,-- Thy sick heart whole will make."

The Church's banner fluttered, The Church's hymns arose; And unto fair Cöln city The long procession goes.

The mother joined the pilgrims, Her sick son leadeth she; And both sing in the chorus, "_Gelobt seyst du, Marie!_" [Footnote 22]

[Footnote 22: "Praised be thou, Mary!"]

II.

The holy Mother in Kevlaar To-day is well arrayed,-- To-day hath much to busy her. For many sick ask her aid.

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And many sick people bring her Such offerings as are meet; Many waxen limbs they bring her, Many waxen hands and feet.

And who a wax hand bringeth, His hand is healed that day; And who a wax foot bringeth, With sound feet goes away.

Many went there on crutches Who now on the rope can spring; Many play now on the viol Whose hands could not touch a string.

The mother she took a waxen light. And shaped therefrom a heart; "Take that to the Mother of Christ," she said, "And she will heal thy smart."

He sighed, and took the waxen heart, And went to the church in woe; The tears from his eyes fell streaming, The words from his heart came low.

"Thou that art highly blessed, Thou Mother of Christ!" said he; "Thou that art queen of heaven, I bring my griefs to thee.

I dwell in Cöln with my mother; In Cöln upon the Rhine, Where so many hundred chapels And so many churches shine.

And near unto us dwelt Gretchen; But dead is Gretchen now. Marie, I bring a waxen heart,-- My heart's despair heal thou.

Heal thou my sore heart-sickness; So I will sing to thee Early and late with fervent love, "_Gelobt seyst du, Marie!_"

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III.

The sick son and the mother In one chamber slept that night; And the holy Mother of Jesus Gild in with footsteps light

She bowed her over the sick man's bed, And one there hand did lay Upon his throbbing bosom, Then smiled and passed away.

It seemed a dream to the mother, And she had yet seen more But that her sleep was broken, For the dogs howled at the door.

Upon his bed extended Her son lay, and was dead; And o'er his thin pale visage streamed The morning's lovely red.

Her hands the mother folded. Yet not a tear wept she; But sang in low devotion, "_Gelobt seyst du, Marie!_"

MARY HOWITT.

From The Reader.

THE ANCIENT LAWS OF IRELAND.

_Ancient Laws of Ireland_. Vol. I. Printed for Her Majesty's Stationery Office. (London: Longman. Dublin: Thorn.)

This is a curious book, throwing some glimmerings of light upon a very remote and obscure period of Irish history. In 1852 a government commission, called the "Brehon Law Commission," was issued to the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, Lord Rosse, Dean Graves, Dr. Petrie, and others, appointing them to carry into effect the selection, transcription, and translation of certain documents in the Gaelic tongue containing portions of the ancient laws of Ireland, and the preparation of the same for publication. In pursuance of this, the commissioners employed Dr. O'Donovan and Professor O'Curry, two Gaelic scholars of high distinction, to transcribe and translate various law tracts in the Irish language in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, of the Royal Irish Academy, of the British Museum, and in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The transcriptions occupy more than 5,000 manuscript pages, including all the law tracts which it was thought necessary to publish, and have nearly all been translated; but the two chosen scholars did not live to complete and revise their translations. The portion now published was prepared for the press by W. Neilson, Hancock, LL.D., first in conjunction with Dr. O'Donovan, and, after his death, with the Rev. Mr. O'Mahony, professor of Irish in the university of Dublin. It is a volume of some 300 pages, the Irish on one page and the translation opposite, containing the first part of the _Senchus Mor_ (we are not told how much is to follow), treating of the law of distress or distraint, with an Irish introduction, and various Irish glosses and commentaries on the text.

The title _Senchus Mor_ (pronounced "Shanchus Môr") for which seven or {130} eight different derivations are suggested, appears to mean "the great old laws," or "the great old decisions." The chief manuscripts of it which are known to exist are three in Trinity College, Dublin, and one in the Harleian collection in the British Museum, and the earliest of these is assigned to _circa_ A.D. 1300. But quotations from the _Senchus Mor_ are found in "Cormac's Glossary," the greater part of which was probably composed in the ninth or tenth century, and the date of the original compilation is put by good judges, on various evidence, at A.D. 438 to 441. It is, in short, a codification and revision, under the direction of St. Patrick, of the judgments of the pagan Brehons. Three kings, three poets, and three Christian missionaries (of whom Patrick was one) were combined in this work, and the code then established remained the national law of Ireland for nearly twelve centuries. The pagan laws embodied in this revised code were in force during a period of unknown antiquity, prior to the introduction of Christianity to the island.

"The _Senchus Mor_ has been selected by the commissioners for early publication as being one of the oldest and one of the most important portions of the ancient laws of Ireland which have been preserved. It exhibits the remarkable modification which these laws of pagan origin underwent, in the fifth century, on the conversion of the Irish to Christianity.

"This modification was ascribed so entirely to the influence of St. Patrick that the _Senchus Mor_ is described as having been called in after times 'Cain Patraic,' or Patrick's law.

"The _Senchus Mor_ was so much revered, that the Irish judges, called Brehons, were not authorized to abrogate anything contained in it.

"The original text, of high antiquity, has been made the subject of glosses and commentaries of more recent date; and the _Senchus Mor_ would appear to have maintained its authority among the native Irish until the beginning of the seventeenth century, or for a period of 1,200 years.

"The English law, introduced by King Henry the Second in the twelfth century, for many years scarcely prevailed beyond the narrow limits of the English pale (comprising the present counties of Louth, Meath, Westmeath, Kildare, Dublin, and Wicklow). Throughout the rest of Ireland the Brehons still administered their ancient laws amongst the native Irish, who were practically excluded from the privileges of the English law. The Anglo-Irish, too, adopted the Irish laws to such an extent that efforts were made to prevent their doing so by enactments first passed at the parliament of Kilkenny in the fortieth year of King Edward III. (1367), and subsequently renewed by Stat. Henry VII., c. 8, in 1495. So late as the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth years of the reign of King Henry VIII. (1534) George Cromer, archbishop of Armagh and primate of Ireland, obtained a formal pardon for having used the Brehon laws. In the reign of Queen Mary, 1554, the Earl of Kildare obtained an eric of 340 cows for the death of his foster-brother, Robert Nugent, under the Brehon law.

"The authority of the Brehon laws continued until the power of the Irish chieftains was finally broken in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and all the Irish were received into the king's immediate protection by the proclamation of James I. This proclamation, followed as it was by the complete division of Ireland into counties, and the administration of the English laws throughout the entire country, terminated at once the necessity for, and the authority of, the ancient Irish laws.

"The wars of Cromwell, the policy pursued by King Charles II. at the restoration, and the results of the revolution of 1688, prevented any revival of the Irish laws; and before the end of the seventeenth century the whole race of judges (Brehons) and professors (Ollamhs) of the Irish laws appears to have become extinct."

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Portions of the text of the _Senchus Mor_, as we now have it, are held by Gaelic scholars to be in the language of the fifth century, in what was called the _Bérla Feini_ dialect; other portions translated from that ancient form into Gaelic of the thirteenth century. Various ancient Irish glosses and commentaries accompany the text, and also an introduction of high antiquity, giving an account of the origin of the _Senchus Mor_.

"Patrick came to Erin to baptize and to disseminate religion among the Gaeidhil--_i.e._, in the ninth year of, the reign of Theodosius, and in the fourth year of the reign of Laeghairè [pronounced Layorie or Layrie], son of Niall; king of Erin." The combination of the Roman pagan laws with Christian doctrine in the Theodosian code received imperial sanction in A.D. 438, and was at once adopted both in the eastern and western empires. St. Patrick, Dr. Hancock remarks, a Roman citizen, a native of a Roman province, and an eminent Christian missionary, would be certain to obtain early intelligence of the great reform of the laws of the empire and of the great triumph of the Christian church. Having now been six years in Erin, and established his influence there, he attempted successfully a similar reform in that remote island, and the composition of the _Senchus Mor_ was accordingly commenced in that same year, 438, and completed in about four years.

"In ancient Irish books the name of the place where they were composed is usually mentioned. The introduction to the _Senchus Mor_ contains this information, but is very peculiar in representing the book as having been composed at different places in different seasons of the year: 'It was Teamhair in the summer and in the autumn, on account of its cleanness and pleasantness during these seasons; and Rath-guthaird was the place during the winter and the spring, on account of the nearness of its fire-wood and water, and on account of its warmth in the time of winter's cold.'

"Teamhair, now Tara, was, at the time the _Senchus Mor_ was composed, the residence of King Laeghairè, the monarch of Erin, and of his chief poet Dubhthach Mac ua Lugair, who took such a leading part in the work.

"Teamhair ceased to be the residence of the kings of Ireland after the death of King Dermot, in A.D. 565, about a century and a quarter after the _Senchus Mor_ was composed. Remains are, after the lapse of nearly 1,400 years, to be still found, the most remarkable of their kind in Ireland, which attest the ancient importance of the place."

In the introduction a curious account is given of St. Patrick's manner of dealing with the existing "professors of the sciences," and his admission of the claim of inspiration on behalf of his pagan predecessors.

"Patrick requested of the men of Erin to come to one place to hold a conference with him. When they came to the conference the gospel of Christ was preached to them all; and when the men of Erin heard of the killing of the living and the resuscitation of the dead, and all the power of Patrick since his arrival in Erin, and when they saw Laeghairè with his Druids overcome by the great signs and miracles _wrought_ in the presence of the men in Erin, they bowed down, in obedience to the will of God and Patrick.

"Then Laeghairè said: 'It is necessary for you, O men of Erin, that every other law should be settled and arranged by us, as well as this.' 'It is better to do so,' said Patrick. It was then that all the professors of the sciences in Erin were assembled and each of them exhibited his art before Patrick, in the presence of every chief in Erin.

"It was then that Dubhthach was ordered to exhibit the judgments and all the poetry of Erin, and every law which prevailed among the men of Erin, through the law of nature, and {132} the law of the seers, and in the judgments of the island of Erin, and in the poets.

"They had foretold that the bright word of blessing would come--_i.e._, the law of the letter; for it was the Holy Spirit that spoke and prophesied through the mouths of the just men who were formerly in the island of Erin, as he had prophesied through the mouths of the chief prophets and noble fathers in the patriarchal law; for the law of nature had prevailed where the written law did not reach.

"Now the judgments of true nature which the Holy Ghost had spoken through the mouths of the Brehons and just poets of the men of Erin, from the first occupation of this island down to _the reception_ of the faith, were all exhibited by Dubhthach to Patrick. What did not clash with the Word of God in the written law and in the New Testament, and with the consciences of the believers, was confirmed in the laws of the Brehons by Patrick and by the ecclesiastics and the chieftains of Erin; for the law of nature had been quite right, except the faith and its obligations, and the harmony of the church and the people. And this is the _Senchus Mor_.

"Nine persons were appointed to arrange this book--viz., Patrick, and Benen, and Cairnech, three bishops; Laeghairè, and Corc, and Dairè, three kings; Rosa--_i.e._, Mac-Trechim, and Dubhthach--_i.e._, a doctor of the _Bérla Feini_, and Fergus--_i.e._, a poet.

"Nofis, therefore, is the name of this book which they arranged--_i.e._, the knowledge of nine persons--and we have the proof of this above."

And in one of the ancient commentaries on the introduction we are told:

"Before the coming of Patrick there had been remarkable revelations. When the Brehons deviated from the truth of nature, there appeared blotches upon their cheeks; as first of all on the right cheek of Sen Mac Aige, whenever he pronounced a false judgment, but they disappeared again when he had passed a true judgment, etc.

"Connla never passed a false judgment, through the grace of the Holy Ghost, which was upon him.

"Sencha Mac Col Cluin was not wont to pass judgment until he had pondered upon it in his breast the night before. When Fachtna, his son, had passed a false judgment, if, in the time of fruit, all the fruit of the territory in which it happened fell off in one night, etc.; if in time of milk, the cows refused their calves; but if he passed a true judgment the fruit was perfect on the trees; hence he received the name of Fachtna Tulbrethach.

"Sencha Mac Aililla never pronounced a false judgment without getting three permanent blotches on his face for each judgment. Fitliel had the truth of nature, so that he pronounced no false judgment. Morann never pronounced a judgment without having a chain around his neck. 'When he pronounced a false judgment the chain tightened around his neck. If he passed a true one it expanded down upon him."

Corc and Dairè were territorial chieftains, or minor kings. Laeghairè, son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, was monarch of Erin; his reign commenced A.D. 428, four years before the arrival of Patrick, and ended with his life in 458, one year after the foundation of Armagh by that great Christian missionary. Laeghairè is usually called the first Christian king of Ireland, but it seems more likely from the evidence we have that he himself did not become a Christian, although he acknowledged the merit of St. Patrick, and gave him permission to preach and baptize, on condition that the peace of the kingdom should not be disturbed. Travellers in our time, by mail-steamers from Holyhead and the Island of Druids, may some of them not know that Kingstown is a name given, but a few years ago, to "Dunleary"--that is, the fortress of King Laeghairè, when George IV., by graciously landing there, supplanted the {133} memory of the ancient king. Dubhthach, Fergus, and Rossa, or Rosa, were eminent poets and learned men; they exhibited "from memory what their predecessors had _sung_"--for much of the ancient law was preserved in the form of verse, and Dubhthach, "royal poet of Erin," at the compilation of the _Senchus Mor_, put a thread of poetry round it for Patrick. Many parts of the work as we have it are in verse.

The subject of that part of the _Senchus Mor_ which is contained in the volume before us is the "Law of Distress"--that is, the legal rules under which distraint was to be made of persons, cattle, or goods, in a great variety of cases. To a general reader, the legal verbosity and trivial repetitions make the book hard to read; but imbedded in it, so to speak, are many curious little fragments of a very remote and obscure social system, and some of these we shall proceed to set before our readers.

Fines in cases of death, bodily hurt, insult, or injury of whatever kind were arranged according to the dignity of the parties concerned. The "honor-price" is the same for a king, a bishop, a chief law-professor, and a chief poet who can compose a quatrain extemporaneously.

At a feast, "his own proper kind of food" is assigned to persons of different rank--as, for example, the haunch for the king, bishop, and literary doctor; a leg for the young chief; a steak for the queen; the heads for the charioteers; and a _croichet_ [unknown part] for "a king opposed in his government."

Should a person have property, it shall not increase his honor-price, unless he do good with it.

A king with a personal blemish was allowed with difficulty, if at all.

In case of distress by or on a person of distinction, _fasting_ was a necessary legal form--the creditor had to "fast upon" his debtor until a pledge was given for the claim. Something very similar to this curious process is found in the ancient Hindoo laws, and appears to be practised in India to the present day, under the name of "_dherna_," According to Sir William Jones, the creditor sat at the debtor's door, abstaining from food, till, for fear of becoming accountable for the man's death, the debtor paid him. As to the Irish mode of "fasting upon" a debtor of the chieftain grade, exact particulars are not given; but it would seem that on presentation of the claim of distraint at the residence of the debtor the "fasting" began, and if the debtor did not pay or give a pledge, but allowed his creditor to go on fasting (it is not said for how long), he became liable to double the debt, and other penalties.

If one of inferior grade comes to sue one of the chieftain grade, he must be accompanied, on his part, by one of the chieftain grade.

Among articles enumerated as coming under various rather puzzling rules and exemptions in cases of distraint, we find, weapons for battle; a racehorse; a harp-comb, and other requisites for music; toys for the children--viz., "hurlets, balls, and hoops," and also "little dogs and cats;" the "eight parts which constitute a mill;" the fork and cauldron; the kneading-trough and sieve; the bed-furniture-- _i.e._, plaids and bolsters; the reflector or mirror; the chess-board; the seven valuable articles of the house of the chieftain--viz., "cauldron, vat, goblet, mug, reins, horse-bridle, and pin;" the cattle-bells, the griddle, the "branch-light of each person's house;" the lap-dog of a queen, the watch-dog, the hunting hound; implements of weaving and of spinning.

Fines and penalties were provided, among other cases, for withholding the food-tribute from a king or chief; for the deficiency of a feast; for neglecting the due clearing of roads in war, or in winter, or at time of a fair; for neglecting the due preparation of a fair-green; for neglecting any persons or things cast ashore by the sea (in this case the "territory" was liable); {134} for neglecting "the common net of the tribe;" for breaking the laws of rivers and fishing; for neglecting the due maintenance and medical treatment of the sick; for not helping in the erection of the common fort of the tribe; for not blessing a completed work. This last is a curious offence. "It was customary," we read in a note to p. 132, "for workmen, on completing any work, and delivering it to their employer, to give it their blessing. This was the 'abarta,' and if this blessing was omitted, the workman was subject to a fine, or loss of a portion of his fee, equal to a seventh part of his allowance of food while employed--the food to which a workman was entitled being settled by the law in proportion to the rank of the art or trade which he professed. And it would appear that the first person who saw it finished and neglected the blessing was also fined." To the present day, among Irish peasants, it is thought a marked omission if, in transferring or praising, or even taking notice of, any possession, especially if it be a living creature, one neglects to say "God bless it!" or "I wish you luck with it!" or some such good word; and where you see any work going on, it is right to say, "God bless the work!"

Distress was levied on defaulters for share in building "the common bridge of the tribe;" for beef to nourish the chief "during the time that he is making laws;" for the "cow from every tribe," sent on demand, "when the king is on the frontier of a territory with a host." "Now, the custom is that this cow is taken from some one man of them for the whole number. They make good that cow to him only." Also for the victualling of a fort; for guarding and feeding captives; for the maintenance of a fool, or of a madwoman, or of an aged person, or of a child. "Five cows is the fine for neglecting to provide for the maintenance of the fool who has land, and _power of amusing;_ and his having these is the cause of the smallness of the fine. Ten cows is the fine for neglecting to provide for the maintenance of every madwoman; and the reason that the fine is greater than that of the fool is, for the madwoman is not a minstrel, and has not land. If the fool has not land, or has not power of amusing, the fine for neglecting to provide for his maintenance is equal to that of the madwoman who can do no work." "A 'cumhal' of eight cows is the fine for neglecting to maintain any family senior who has land after his eighty-eighth year. As to each man of unknown age after his ninetieth year, his land shall pass from the family who have not maintained him to an extern family who have maintained him. As to every senior of a family and man of unknown age without land, a 'cumhal' of five 'seds' is the fine for not maintaining him."

There are fines for evil words, false reports, slander, nicknames, and satire. The poets were supposed to have the power of turning a man's hair gray by force of satire, or even of killing him. There are also fines for "failure of _hosting_," "the head of every family of the lay grades is to go into the battle;" "every one who has a shield to shelter him, and who is fit for battle, is to go upon the plundering excursion." "Three services of attack" are enumerated--on pirates, aggressors, and wolves; and "three services of defence"--to secure "promontories [hills?], lonely passes, and boundaries."

"Distress of three days for using thy horse, thy boat, thy basket, thy cart, thy chariot, for wear of thy vessel, thy vat, thy great cauldron, thy cauldron; for 'dire'-fine in respect of thy house, for stripping thy herb-garden, for stealing thy pigs, thy sheep; for wearing down thy hatchet, thy wood-axe; for consuming the things cast upon thy beach by the sea, for injuring thy meeting-hill, for digging thy silver mine, for robbing thy bee-hive, for the fury of thy fire, for the crop of thy sea marsh, for the 'dire'-fine in respect to thy corn-rick, thy turf, thy ripe {135} corn, thy ferns, thy furze, thy rushes, if without permission; for slighting thy law, for slighting thy inter-territorial law, for enforcing thy 'Urradhus' law; _in the case_ of good fosterage, _in the case_ of bad fosterage, the fosterage fee in the case over fosterage _for_ cradle clothes; for recovering the dues of the common tillage land, for recovering the dues of joint fosterage, for recovering the dues of lawful relationship, for unlawful tying, over-fettering of horses, breaking a _fence_ to let cows into the grass; breaking it before calves _to let them_ to the cows. The restitution of the milk is in one day."

There are also fines for quarrelling in a fort; for disturbing the meetinghill; for stripping the slain; for refusing a woman "the longed-for morsel;" for scaring the timid, with a mask or otherwise; for causing a person to blush; for carrying a boy on your back into a house so as to strike his head; for love-charms and "bed-witchcraft;" for neglect in marriage; for "setting the charmed morsel for a dog--_i.e._, to prove it;" for failure as to "the safety of a hostage;" for "withholding his fees from the Brehon."

For mutilation and for murder, the "eric-fine and honor-price" varied according to circumstances.

Distress of five days' stay is "for not erecting the tomb of thy chief;" "for false boasting of a dead woman;" for satirizing her after her death; for causing to wither any kind of tree; for the eric-fine for an oath of secret murder.

In certain cases, persons were exempted from distress for a longer or shorter period. For example: "A man upon whom _the test of the cauldron_ is enjoined--_i.e._, to go to a testing cauldron--and he shall have exemption until he returns;" "a man whose wife is in labor;" "a man who collects the food-tribute of a chief."

The bodies and bones of the dead are protected by penalties. There is a fixed fine and "honor-price" for carrying away the remains of a bishop out of his tomb (as relics?); also _breaking bones_ in a churchyard, "to take the marrow out of them for sorcerers." "The bone of a king drowned in the stream, or of a hermit condemned to the sea and the wind," belongs to the people of the land where it happens to be cast, until the tribe of the deceased pay for its redemption.

There are penalties for "lookers-on" at an ill deed; and these are divided into three classes: "a looker-on of full fine" is one who "instigates, and accompanies, and escorts, and exults;" of half fine, one who does not instigate, but does the other acts; of quarter-fine, one who "accompanies only, and does not prohibit, and does not save." Clerics, women, and boys are exempt.

One is accountable (in different degrees) for one's own crime, the crime of a near kinsman, the crime of a middle kinsman, and the crime of a kinsman in general.

"There are four who have an interest in every one who sues or is sued"--the tribe of the father, the tribe of the mother, the chief, the church; also the tribe of the foster-father.

"Every tribe is liable after the absconding of a member of it, after warning, after notice, and after lawful waiting."

The notes to this volume are few and unimportant, and further elucidations on many points are much to be desired. The printing of the original Gaelic along with the translation must add greatly to the cost of the work, but the value of the text to philologers may perhaps make this worth while. Only we hope that this laudable and interesting undertaking, of the publication of the ancient laws and institutes of Ireland, will not, like other Irish schemes that could be named, make a costly and elaborate beginning, and then, exhausting its means in the outset, break down altogether. This first volume gives us a strong desire to see the proposed plan carried into {136} completion without undue delay. It would appear that all the heavy part of the literary work of it is already done.

MISCELLANY.

_The Transparency of the Sea. _--At a late meeting of the French Academy of Science, M. Cialdi and Father Secchi sent the result of some observations they have made "On the Transparency of the Sea." The experiments were made at the end of April, on board a vessel, near Civita Vecchia, from six to twelve miles from land, and at depths varying from 90 to 300 metres, the sea being perfectly clear and tranquil. Discs of different diameters and colors attached to wires being plunged horizontally under water, showed that the maximum depth at which the largest (a white disc 3-1/4 metres in diameter) could be seen was 42-1/2 metres, the sun being elevated 60-1/4° above the horizon. With a vertical sun the depth of visibility shall be 45 metres. The color of the disc appeared at first a light green, then a clear blue, which became darker as it was lowered, until it could no longer be distinguished from the surrounding medium. Discs of a yellow or sandy color disappeared at less than half the depth of the white discs--that is to say, between 17 and 24 metres. The height of the sun and the clearness of the sky greatly influence the depth at which objects may be seen. Viewing the light reflected from a submerged white disc through a spectroscope, the red and yellow colors were found to be rapidly absorbed. As it was sunk deeper in the sea a portion of the green became absorbed, the other colors remaining unaltered. The authors remark that this luminous absorption of the more refrangible rays is what would be expected from the calorific opacity and the actinic transparency of water. From the foregoing results, they doubt whether the bottom of the sea has ever been seen at a depth of 100 metres, as it is more probable that the mud and sand brought up by waves has been mistaken for such: the fact that the bottom of the sea is a worse reflector than the white disc, strengthens this supposition.

_Irish Limestone Caverns._--At a late meeting of the Cork Cuvierian Society, Professor Harkness, so well known for his investigations of Scottish rocks, announced the discovery of the bones of mammals in a limestone quarry at Middleton, County Cork. The rock consists of the ordinary limestone of the district, in one part much fissured, and under this fissured portion there is a mass of brown clay, the thickness of which cannot be determined, as its base is not seen. This reddish-brown clay under the limestone is the deposit which furnishes the fossil bones, and which, doubtless, fills the space which was once a natural grotto. Beside the bones, which are in a fragmentary condition, there are also present teeth and antlers. The latter are much broken, and do not afford sufficient character to enable the species to be accurately determined. They seem, however, to belong to two forms, one of which had the beam and branches smooth and sub-compressed, features which indicate the antlers of the reindeer; and the other with the horns rounded and rough, a form of surface which marks the antlers of the common stag. Of these antlers two portions which appear to belong to the reindeer have been cut while in the fresh state; and the faces of the cuts being almost smooth, this cutting appears to have been effected by a fine regular-edged instrument rather than, by a serrated tool. The leg bones which appear in this clay have all been broken, for the most part longitudinally, except the carpal and tarsal, and other small bones of the extremities. This longitudinal fracturing of the long bones of the leg is not known to occur in any mammalian remains which belong to a period previous to that where we have evidence of the existence of {137} the human race; and these broken bones afford evidence of the occurrence of man, who, for the purpose of obtaining the marrow, divided them in the direction most available for this object. Beside the evidence afforded by the cut antlers and longitudinally divided bones, there are other circumstances indicating the occurrence of man in connection with these remains; one of these is the presence of charred wood, which is equally disseminated through the clay with the bones and teeth. This charred wood is the remains of the ancient fires by means of which former human beings cooked their food.

_Is there an Open Arctic Sea?_--Sir Roderick Murchison, who answers this question in the affirmative, gives the following arguments in support of his opinion:--(1.) The fact has been well ascertained by Scoresby and others, that every portion of the floating pack-ice north of Spitzbergen is made up of frozen sea-water only, without a trace of terrestrial icebergs like those which float down Baffin's Bay, or those which, carrying blocks of stone and _débris_, float northward from the land around the South Pole. (2.) The northern shores of Siberia tell the same tale; for in their vast expanse the absence of icebergs, or erratic blocks, or anything which could have been derived from great or lofty masses of land, has been wen ascertained. (3.) As a geologist, Sir R. Murchison could point out that this absence of erratic blocks in northern Siberia has existed from that remote glacial period when much larger tracts of northern Europe were occupied by glaciers than at the present day. (4.) The traveller Middendorf found the extreme northern promontory of Siberia, Taimyr, clad with fir trees, while the immense tract of country to the south of it was destitute of trees, showing a milder climate at that point of Siberia nearest the pole.

_Food as a Means of Preventing Disease_,--It seems not at all improbable that, as has been shown by Liebig in the case of plants, most of those diseases which we at present attribute to the presence of some morbid substance in the blood, are produced in the first instance by the absence of some of the proper constituents of the blood. The blood when abnormally composed will allow vegetable and other growths to take place in it, thus producing painful symptoms; but if it contained its suitable components, it is most probable that it would be then enabled to resist the development of the materials we refer to. In the case of the potato disease, there can hardly be a doubt that the sap becomes deteriorated, owing to the absence of the proper proportion of potash, prior to the development of the oïdium which commits such ravages. The idea which we have given has not had many advocates in this country, and we are glad to find that Mr. Erasmus Wilson has in some measure lent his support to the theory. Although Mr. Wilson does not go as deeply into the question as we should wish, still he shows that food may well be employed not only in preventing but in curing disease. If, he says, it be admitted that food is the source of the elements of which the body is composed, what kind of body can be expected in the case of a deficient supply of food, whether that deficiency proceed from actual want, or from some perverse theory of refinement, founded on a false conception of the nature and objects of food, and ignorance of its direct convertibility into the flesh and blood of man? We think Mr. Wilson is too determined a supporter of flesh-eating tastes. If he had his way, he would convert man into a decidedly carnivorous animal, and we do not think that either experience or an appeal to the anatomy of the human masticatory and digestive organs would bear out his views.--_Vide "On Food as a Means of Prevention of Disease._"

_Are the Flint Implements from the Drift Authentic?_--A pamphlet has appeared from the pen of Mr. Nicholas Whitley, of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, in which it is attempted to be proved that the so-called flint implements are not the result of workmanship. The _Popular Science Review_ gives the following abstract of Mr. Whitley's argument: (1.) _The "implements" are all of flint._ The tools employed by men of the recognized archaeological stone age are made of stones of various kinds, of which there are examples of serpentine, granular greenstone, indurated claystone, trap greenstone, claystone, quartz, syenite, chest, etc. Why, therefore, {138} should the only weapon in the drift deposit be manufactured from flint solely? (2.) The _"implements" are all of one class--axes_. Were they then a race of carpenters? Man is a cooking animal; and if ten thousand axes have been found, surely one seething-pot or drinking-cup ought to have turned up. He needs shelter, but no remnant of his clothing or hut has been found. Almost everywhere where there are chalk flints we find axes, and nothing but axes. (3.) _There is a gradation in form_ from the very rough fracture of the flint to the perfect almond-shaped implement. Let the most enthusiastic believer in their authenticity examine carefully the one thousand implements in the Abbeville museum, and he would probably reject two-thirds as bearing no evidence of the work of man. But it would be impossible for him to say where nature ended and art began. (4.) Some of the implements are admirable illustrations of the form produced by the natural fracture of the egg-shaped flint nodule. (5.) It is supposed that these weapons were used for cutting down timber and scooping out canoes. But it should be remembered that the gravels in which they are found were formed during a severe Arctic climate, in which no tree but a stunted birch could have grown, certainly none large enough to form a canoe. (6.) _Their number._ The implements are found by thousands in small areas, and in numbers quite out of proportion to the thinly scattered population that must have (if at all) then existed.

_The Sponge Fishery._--The main industry of the island of Crete is the sponge fishery which is pursued on its coasts. It is chiefly carried on by companionships of from twenty to thirty boats, for mutual support and protection. The mode of operation preparatory to a dive is very peculiar and interesting. The diver whose turn it is takes his seat on the deck of the vessel, at either the bow or stern, and placing by his side a large flat slab of marble, weighing about 25 lbs., to which is attached a rope of the proper length and thickness (1-1/2 inch), he then strips, and is left by his companions to prepare himself. This seems to consist in devoting a certain time to clearing the passages of his lungs by expectoration, and highly inflating them afterward; thus oxidizing his blood very highly by a repetition of deep inspirations. The operation lasts from five to ten minutes, or more, according to the depth; and during it the operator is never interfered with by his companions, and seldom speaks or is spoken to; he is simply watched by two of them, but at a little distance, and they never venture to urge him or distract him in any way during the process. When from some sensation, known only to himself, after these repeated long-drawn and heavy inspirations, he deems the fitting moment to have arrived, he seizes the slab of marble, and, after crossing himself and uttering a prayer, plunges with it like a returning dolphin into the sea, and rapidly descends. The stone is always held during the descent directly in front of the head, at arm's-length, and so as to offer as little resistance as possible; and, by varying its inclination, it acts likewise as a rudder, causing the descent to be more or less vertical, as desired by the diver. As soon as he reaches the bottom he places the stone under his arm to keep himself down, and then walks about upon the rock, or crawls under its ledges, stuffing the sponges into a netted bag with a hooped mouth, which is strung round his neck to receive them; but he holds firmly to the stone or rope all the while, as his safeguard for returning and for making the known signal at the time he desires it. The hauling up is thus effected: The assistant who has hold of the rope awaiting the signal, first reaches down with both hands as low as he can, and there grasping the rope, with a great bodily effort raises it up to nearly arm's-length over his head; the second assistant is then prepared to make his grasp as low down as he can reach, and does the same; and so the two alternately, and by a fathom or more at a time, and with great rapidity, bring the anxious diver to the surface. A heavy blow from his nostrils to expel the water and exhausted air indicates to his comrades that he is conscious and breathes, a word or two is then spoken by one of his companions to encourage him if he seems much distressed, as is often the case; and the hearing of the voice is said by them to be a great support at the moment of their greatest state of exhaustion. A few seconds' rest at the surface, and then the diver returns into the boat to recover, generally putting {139} on an under-garment or jacket, to assist the restoration of the animal heat he has lost, and to prevent the loss of more by the too rapid evaporation of the water from his body.--_Travels in Crete._

_The Sun's Spots._--Father Secchi writes from Rome, under date of Aug. 8, to the _Reader_ as follows: I thank you for the interest you take in the observations of the sun. The last large spot has been very interesting for science, and I hope to be able to publish all the drawings we have made of it by projection. Meanwhile I send you two of them, photographed on a large scale. You will see in the printed article which I send you, that I have been able to see the _prominences_ and _depressions_ produced by the spot at the edge of the sun; not only myself but also M. Tacchini. I regret that the shortness of time does not allow me to copy the drawings made on that occasion, but I send a copy of them to Mr. De la Rue, and you will see them. As to the _willow-leaves_ and _rice-grains_ question, I think, as you say, we are all right and all wrong. I will state clearly what I see. On first placing the eye to the telescope, and in very good moments of definition, the surface of the sun appears certainly to me made up of many oblong bodies, which I think are the willow-leaves of Mr. Nasmyth; their orientation is in every direction, but they take a converging direction in the neighborhood of the spots, where they form the tongues, currents, and such like. But this view is, as I said, rather difficult to obtain, and many times I have looked for it quite without success. Is this a defect of vision, or caused by the sun's _changements?_ If by willow-leaves other things than these are understood, I have not seen them. M. Airy seems to understand other things, and then I am quite at a loss. This, therefore, is a matter very problematic, and to be better studied. By projection on a large scale in some beautiful moments of definition, these oblong bodies on the general surface of the sun have been seen by my assistant also; but generally they are not visible, but the sun appears like clouds. As to the mobility of the solar surface, you can judge from the two photographs that I send you; they have been made only at an interval of twenty-four hours. I think we assisted at the outbreaking of the spot, and at its arrangement from a great confusion of movements into a regular transformation of an ordinary group of spots. The appearance which I have seen is quite like that which takes place when a great movement is excited in a stream of running water, which finally resolves itself into some vortices which take their course independently. The movement of these spots even alone is capable of demonstrating materially what Mr. Carrington has found with great labor--that there is in the sun a real drift of matter, since without this it would be impossible to explain how the spot has been increased in two days to a length twice as great as its breadth, this remaining almost constant. But more of this in a particular memoir.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. By John Henry Newman, D.D., of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green. 1865. 8vo., pp. 379.

Under this title, Dr. Newman has republished the charming autobiography which originally appeared as an answer to the calumnies of Charles Kingsley, and was entitled "_Apologia pro Vita Sua_," republished in a neat and attractive manner by the Appletons. We earnestly recommend all our readers, whether they be Catholics or not, who have not procured and read the "_Apologia_," to do so without delay, if they wish to give themselves a rich intellectual treat. The American edition is decidedly to be preferred, on account {140} of the complete history it furnishes of the controversy with Mr. Kingsley which led to the composition of the book. In England, this controversy is already well-known to the entire religious and literary world, and may be supposed by this time to have lost its interest. Dr. Newman's autobiography will never lose its interest and value while the English language remains; and for this reason, it was no doubt a wise thought in the author to prepare it for posterity in a form wherein the local and personal controversy which occasioned its being written should no longer be connected with its proper subject-matter. No doubt, too, the author felt some reluctance to perpetuate, in close connection with his own personal history, the memory of the severe castigation which he administered to his opponent. This is honorable to his delicate and charitable sentiments. At the same time, the castigation was necessary, it was just, it was not one whit too severe, and we owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Newman for having applied the terrible lash which he possesses, but which he employs so seldom and usually so lightly, in this case with all his strength to the shoulders of a delinquent. There is a certain small class of writers in the English Church, some of whom are Puseyites, others more or less broad in their views, who violate all the laws of honorable and courteous warfare in their attacks on the Catholic Church. They take the line of charging fraud, forgery, lying, and utterly unprincipled and wicked motives and maxims upon the hierarchy, priesthood, and other advocates of the Catholic cause. One of the first and foremost of these was Mr. Meyrick, of Oxford, the author of a disingenuous work against Catholic morals, and one of Mr. Kingsley's defenders. This work of Mr. Meyrick's was republished in this country with a more offensive preface, by the Rev. A. C. Coxe, now the bishop of Western New York, a person who has abjured all regard to the rules of common civility, both in his public writings and speeches concerning the Catholic clergy, and also in his private demeanor when he has happened to be thrown into contact with them personally. This class of writers adopt what Dr. Newman happily styles a mode of warfare which consists in "poisoning the wells." That is, they seek to forestall all debate on the merits of the Catholic question, by accusing the advocates of the Catholic side of being liars by principle and on system; infamous persons, who have no claim to decent treatment or even to a hearing. There is but one course to be taken with opponents of this sort. Argument, explanation, courtesy, are alike thrown away upon them. They must be treated like guerrillas, and summary justice must be done up on them, as the only means of self-defence, and as a salutary example to others. They must be taught that they cannot have free license to calumniate and vituperate the Catholic Church or its members with impunity. How effectually this lesson was read to them by Dr. Newman, is shown by the hearty applause which his book received from all England, the evidence of which may be seen in the review of it which appeared in the principal English periodicals.

We wish to be understood that the language we have used above has no application to any but a few offending individuals, whose spirit and manner are even more severely condemned by a large class of the non-Catholic public than by Catholics themselves. It is very gratifying to observe the respectful, moderate, and courteous tone which many of the most illustrious of the recent advocates of the Protestant side maintain toward the Church of Rome and her distinguished and worthy members. Copying after Leibniz, the greatest genius which the Protestant confession can boast of, we have, among others, Guizot, Ranke, Dr. Pusey, Palmer; and in this country, William R. Alger, who, albeit he has inadvertently repeated some of the current misstatements of Catholic doctrine, has always shown a fairness and generosity of spirit and a readiness to correct mistakes which make him conspicuous among our honorable opponents. In this species of candor and courtesy the most eminent writers of the continent are still far before the most of those in England and America. Dr. Newman himself and his compeers in the early Oxford movement, even in their strongest and most pronounced expressions of opinion against Rome and against various form of dissent, furnished the most perfect specimens of the truly Christian and gentlemanly style of polemics which English literature had yet {141} seen. Never was there a man who kept his intellect and his varied gifts as a writer more completely under the discipline of a strict conscience, one who was more scrupulously just and fair, truthful and frank, yet guarded and cautious, than John Henry Newman. He has the soul of knightly chivalry in him; religious, fearless, modest, and compassionate; loyal to the death to every sacred obligation, and scorning a mean or deceitful act more than common men do treason and perjury. Such a man ought to have been secure of honorable treatment; and yet he has not been spared in the strife of tongues; and if he has at last triumphed over calumny, it has only been by overpowering his enemies with the superior weight of his armor and strength of his arm, and not because his holy retirement and spotless name have been respected. However, after long years, during whose lapse the English people have disdained and slighted the man of genius and the pure Christian who is one of the greatest ornaments of their literature, on account of their intense hostility to his religion, their love of fair play, and admiration for intellectual greatness and prowess, has gained a signal victory, and we give them due credit for it. The demand for the "_Apologia_" on its first publication in successive numbers was so great that the Longmans were unable to keep up with it. That it has not been unappreciated also in this country is proved by the fact that four editions of the American reprint have been exhausted. Of the book itself, it is almost superfluous to speak at this late day. It will bear to be read and re-read, and the repeated perusal, instead of wearying, only brings out new charms and occasions an increasing delight. We have read and admired Dr. Newman's writings for more than twenty years, but have never so fully appreciated the wonderful subtlety and vigor of his intellect as we have done since reading his last book. It is like the keen, bright, dexterously wielded, and irresistible scimeter of Saladin. At his conversion Anglicanism lost a champion far more capable than any other of coping with its stoutest antagonists, and the Catholic Church gained over the most formidable of her foes who wields an English pen. Even as now reproduced by himself, as a mere history of the past, his method of defending the Church of England against Rome appears to us so much more subtle and plausible, and adroitly managed, not through any designed artifice on his part, but from the acuteness with which his mind detects all the most defensible points of his own position and the most assailable ones of the opposite, than that of any other writer, that we instinctively say, no man but John Henry Newman could fully refute himself. Each successive post at which he pauses in his gradual approach to the Catholic Church seems as defensible as the others which he has abandoned as untenable. At his very last halting place, he has the air of a man who is about to defend himself there to the last, and is not to be driven further. Indeed, he was not _driven_ by any mind more powerful than his own; for although the arguments of Cardinal Wiseman had considerable weight with him, neither he nor any other Catholic writer really answered the difficulties which were in his own mind, or fully refuted, in a manner consonant to his intellectual convictions, the plausible arguments by which he justified to himself and recommended to others a continuance in the Anglican communion. He was driven only by his innate love of truth, his conscientiousness, his logical fidelity to his own first principles, and the grace of God. Humanly speaking, his conversion was one of the most unlikely events which has ever taken place. Ten years before it occurred he was at an immense distance from the Catholic Church, and advancing toward it by a most circuitous route, with the greatest apparent, reluctance. We rise from the perusal of his own record of his journey with a sentiment of astonishment that he ever reached his destination. When we remember the light in which Dr. Newman was regarded by his own school in the days of his leadership at Oxford, it appears to us that the estimate formed of him was both singularly just and singularly incorrect. It was just in one way, inasmuch as, whatever his modesty may suggest to the contrary, he was more than any other man the leader of the movement. It was incorrect, inasmuch as a far greater originative force in causing this movement and a far greater comprehension of its principles were attributed to him than he or any other man possessed. The {142} movement itself created its own agents, and bore them on with a power infinitely greater than they possessed of themselves. Dr. Newman was a master to inferior and more backward scholars; but was himself only a scholar, who began with the first and simplest rudiments of Catholicity. His merit consisted in this, that while many paused at various stages of elementary and partial knowledge, he pushed on to the mastery of final results and completed his curriculum. Considering what he had to learn, and that he had in great measure to be his own teacher, the space of ten years was really a short rather than a long period for the process.

The history of this process constitutes the direct object and the principal value and charm of the "_Apologia_," and the "History of My Religious Opinions." The mind of the author is, however, one of those full streams that overflows its bounds, and whose _obiter dicta_ are frequently the richest and most precious of its effusions. There are several passages in this work falling within the scope of this remark. We can only call attention to two, without quoting them. One is found on pp. 266-273 of the American edition of the "_Apologia_," and relates to the doctrine of original sin. Another, on pp. 275-291, concerns the question of the relations between faith and science and reason and authority. In the very act of giving a reason for avoiding the discussion of these questions, the author has given in a short compass, one of the most admirable disquisitions we have ever read. There is no passage in all his writings which exhibits better the fine discrimination of his thought, and the perspicuity and beauty of his style, and in both these respects it is a specimen of the most perfect logical and rhetorical art.

We feel bound, however, to enter one _caveat_ against a part of Dr. Newman's philosophy, which we regard not so much as being a positive error as a defect, and which has been quite distinctly brought out by the _Westminster Review_, as a part of his defence of Catholicity which presents a weak side to the infidel. This defect is one originating in the philosophy which has prevailed in England, and in which Dr. Newman was educated; one which has always been conspicuous in the writers of the Oxford school, and which appears to us to leave a great _hiatus_ in their theology. This defect may be described, though it is not defined, as the doctrine _probability_, We have no hesitation in agreeing with Dr. Newman in the maxim, that in most matters "probability is the guide of life." We have heretofore thought, however, that he extended this principle into the domain of natural and revealed religion so far as to agree with those writers who consider their fundamental verities as being merely more probable than their logical contradictories. After carefully weighing his words, we have come to the conclusion that he does not use the word in this sense, when he speaks of the great truths of religion. That is, he does not admit that there is any real probability, though a lesser one, in the infidel negations, but only a metaphysical possibility. He allows of a moral certainty which admits of no prudent doubt to the contrary, but does not reach to a metaphysical certainty. Here again we agree with him partially, and if we understand rightly the ecclesiastical decisions on the point, we think his doctrine is one that has official sanction. That is, we regard, with him, the evidence of revealed religion and of the authority of the Catholic Church, as apprehended by the light of our natural intelligence in that act which theologians call "the preamble to faith," as being in the order of probability and incapable of generating more than a moral certainty. That certitude of belief which excludes possibility of error, we regard as an effect of the gift of faith imparting a supernatural firmness to the intellectual assent. We dissent from Dr. Newman, when he extends this doctrine to our ultimate belief in God, and we think it necessary, in order to give a firm basis even to a true probability, that we should affirm the absolute intuition of that idea of God, from which we are able to deduce his attributes; and, moreover, affirm also the perfect metaphysical demonstrability of all these attributes as expressed in the Christian conception of God. We dislike very much any form of expression which implies that we believe in God on a probability, which is tantamount to saying that "it is probable there is a God." Even if we say that the being of God is morally certain, we still leave it possible that there is no God. If we deduce {143} the being of God from the ultimate principle of the certainty of our own existence, we make our self-consciousness, our reason, the laws of our own being, the standard of right and truth which we establish within ourselves, more certain, and to us more ultimate than God. We become our own centre and stand-point, our own ultimate judge, a light and a law to ourselves, really subsisting in an intellectual independence of God. This is ceding, in our view, to the pure infidel rationalist all the ground he wants, which is simply liberty for every one to speculate about the cause of all things, and their procession to the ultimate end, as he lists. It is true he will do it without our leave, whatever our way of stating Christian truth; but if we admit, or do not clearly repudiate, his first principles, he will point out a logical defect in our argument, and show that we are inconsistent; and then the philosophical proof of Christianity, which consists in demonstrating the conception of God from first principles intuitively certain, and showing that none of the Christian doctrines which we received from testimony are incompatible with these first principles, will, in our hands, be defectively managed.

It is proper to state, however, that Dr. Newman does not propose anything dogmatically on this important question, but rather indicates that he has not yet obtained a solution which satisfies him.

A GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH; FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA UNTIL THE PRESENT TIME. By M. l'Abbé J. E. Darras; First American from the last French edition. With an Introduction and Notes by the most Rev. M. J. Spalding, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore. Vol. I. 8vo., pp. 675. New York: P. O'Shea.

The appearance of this volume realizes very fully all we were led to expect from its prospectus. The first impression made upon us by its exterior dress is that this is an attractive and readable book; two qualities of a work on history which, whatever be the learning, accuracy, and completeness displayed in its more intimate perusal, are not to be despised. We are glad to meet with a life of the Church which does not look like a catalogue of dried and dead specimens for a scientific museum. The majority of the volumes which issue from the press now-a-days like a literary flood, owe their success a vast deal more to their beautiful typography, chaste binding, and other general attractive features, than to the solid merit of their contents. As there are certain orators whose appearance alone captivates their auditory, and excites in us a curiosity to hear what fine things such a fine-looking man has to say, so there are books which feel well to the touch, look good to the eyes, and prejudice one's judgment in their favor. We will listen to a stupid-looking speaker, or read a commonplace featured book, on the testimony of their friends, provided they give us strong recommendations; but a speaker "of a commanding presence and a winning air," or a book that is well gotten up, we think worthy of notice at the first introduction.

It is difficult to write an interesting history. Simple facts of the past stated in dry statistical style, like the reports of an insane asylum or a poor-house, are about as interesting as they, and appear to the general reader to be of about equal importance. We may be thought weak in judgment to say it, but we should like to read history for the same reason we like to read the last novel by Dickens, in which the author wields his magic pen to paint life-pictures of the events of the world before our mind, and compels us to be living witnesses of the past in the realm of imagination. To insure a deep interest and a lasting impression all the faculties of the mind should be engaged. Our imagination must not be told to step out of doors or go to sleep whilst our memory takes an inventory of facts consigned to its storehouse by a historian. The senses of sight and of taste are given to man that he may be guided in supplying his stomach with the proper quantum and quality of the food it craves. What these senses are to the stomach, the imagination is to the mind, and if it have no hand in the choice of mental food there cannot help but be an indigestion; the brain, indeed, holding the crude mass, but unable to make any use of it.

We may sum up in a few sentences the application these remarks may have to the history before us. The volume {144} comes to us with uncut edges. Let the reader open it at random. He finds before him a fair page, printed in large cool type, with broad generous margins, looking as a page ought to look, like a goodly field of wheat or corn, and not like a stiff, prim, pinched, and gravelled parterre. Let him read down one page, and he will surely bring his paper-cutter into requisition and follow the author to the beginning of the next paragraph. He will find the style, if we mistake not, like one of those charming, shady, winding, country roads, which always entice you to go just as far as the next turning; an agreeable contrast to the ordinary page of history, which to us is so like a grievous paved military road in France, straight enough, wide enough, and direct enough, but lamentably monotonous, dry, dusty, and tiresome. There is a little stiffness and dull regularity about the division of the subject-matter; but this is inevitable to any history of a long period, and may be regarded as the signboards and finger-posts on the road, making up in convenience what they detract from the romance.

As to the character of the work of M. Darras as a history--as one in which we can learn the actual life of our mother, the Church; one which we can quote with confidence in public, and not be obliged to contradict to its back as it stands on our shelves; one which we can give to our friends, of all classes and opinions, as a good, reliable, and respectable Church history--we are content to take it as such upon the warm approbation it has received at the hands of the Holy Father, the use that is made of it in colleges and seminaries in Europe, the approval it has obtained from the Rt. Rev. bishops there and in the United States, and the good opinion universally expressed concerning it by scholars whose critical judgment is worthy of reliance. Certainly we have no Church history equal to it in the English language, and we bid this translated French one welcome, and hope it may receive an hospitable reception amongst us.

The dissertation on the perpetuity of the Church, and the immortality of the Papacy, from the pen of the Most Rev. Archbishop Spalding, which embellishes this edition under the form of an introduction, is both appropriate and well deserving of perusal. The learned prelate puts us at once on reading acquaintance with the work of M. Darras, and enkindles in us the desire to know more of the eventful course of the existence of Holy Church.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

CAPE COD. By Henry D. Thoreau. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. 1865. 12mo., pp. 252.

COMPLETE WORKS OF THE MOST REV. JOHN HUGHES, D.D., late Archbishop of New York. Comprising his Sermons, Letters, Lectures, Speeches, etc. Carefully compiled from the best sources, and edited by Lawrence Kehoe. Two vols. 8vo., pp. 670 and 810. New York: Lawrence Kehoe.

PASTORAL LETTER OF THE MOST RET. J. B. PURCELL, D.D., Archbishop of Cincinnati, to the Clergy and Laity of the archdiocese, on the late Encyclical Letter of his Holiness Pius IX. promulgating the Jubilee of 1865, with the Bull of Pius IX. authorizing the Jubilee of 1846. Printed at the "Cincinnati Catholic Telegraph" Office.

NATURAL HISTORY. A Manual of Zoology for Schools, Colleges, and the General Reader, by Sanborn Tenney, A.M. Illustrated. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 12mo., pp. 540.

From D. & J. Sadlier and Co., New York, we have received the following: BANIM'S COMPLETE WORKS. PARTS 1, 2, 3, AND 4; THE OLD HOUSE BY THE BOYNE, by Mrs. Sadlier; CATHOLIC ANECDOTES. Part 1. Translated from the French by Mrs. Sadlier; THE LIVES OF THE POPES, from the French of Chevalier d'Artaud, Parts 1 and 2; CAECILIA, a Roman Drama, and THE SECRET, a Drama, by Mrs. J. Sadlier.

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THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL, II., NO. 8.--NOVEMBER, 1865,

From Revue Générale, Bruxelles.

REV. DEMETRIUS AUGUSTIN GALLITZIN, AND THE CATHOLIC SETTLEMENTS IN PENNSYLVANIA.

The events of which the United States have, during late years, been the theatre of action, have revived in the recollection of the editors of the _Historisch-politische Blätter_ of Munich the name of Loretto, a small and unpretending town of Pennsylvania, the founder of which was Prince Demetrius Angustin Gallitzin, the son of the remarkable woman of whom Germany has a right to be proud. The occasion has suggested to them a biographical sketch, which, full of interest and appositeness, will unquestionably be read in Belgium and France with as much avidity as in Germany.

Twenty years have elapsed since Prince Gallitzin, who had exchanged the luxuries of princely courts for the poverty of those who herald the glad tidings, slept in the Lord, after forty years of apostleship in the wild regions of the Alleghany mountains. The work set up by the pious missionary yet remains, marked by all the elements of thrifty life, and the little oasis will long continue to be what it was at its origin--the cradle of a Christian civilization, which will go on spreading its blessings to the remotest boundaries, still retaining the unobtrusive modesty which moved its founder's thought. Indeed, had the matter rested with Gallitzin's own wishes, his very name would have passed into vague tradition in those extended regions. It might even have slept in oblivion; for the prince, so careful was he to avoid anything that could attract the attentions of the world, lived and exercised his holy ministry for many years under the borrowed name of Schmidt.

In Father Lemcke, however, and fortunately too, a canon of the abbey of the Benedictines of St. Vincent in Pennsylvania, was found a man who, better than any other, had it in his power to preserve the reminiscences of the noble missionary, and accurately to depict for us the traits of his manly character. Not only did the biographer of the prince know him personally, but he was also his friend, his confidant, his confessor, and his co-laborer in the missions. After Gallitzin's death, Father Lemcke came into possession of his papers, letters, and memoranda, which supplied him with desirable data on the period of life preceding their ministerial connection. He, and he alone, therefore, was in a condition to write a true biography of the prince, and he deemed it a duty to {146} rescue from oblivion the memory of this distinguished man. In connection with this subject, Father Lemcke indulges in a judicious remark: "The life of Gallitzin," says he, "is so intimately inwoven with the events which occurred during his own times, that it holds out to future generations an interest like to that which is offered to us in the life of a Bonifacius or of an Ansgarius, by reason of the facts which have characterized the epochs in which they lived."

Gallitzin belonged to the phalanx of missionaries who, in the United States, scattered the seeds of spiritual life. When the prince stepped on the soil of that vast territory, there was but one prelate, Rt. Rev. John Carroll of Baltimore, the first bishop of the United States, who, from the circumstances of the Church, had been obliged to seek Europe for his episcopal consecration. [Footnote 23] He had been but two years installed--from 1790--and had but uncertain and broken intercourse with his flock. His surroundings, restricted in numbers, but devoted to the holy cause, were mainly composed of, French priests. In this infant church Gallitzin was the second priest consecrated by the Bishop of Baltimore, and missioned, as a true pioneer of civilization, to carry the cross through the untouched forests of the New World, There is an unvarying likeness in all great undertakings; yet it required but a short time--a relatively short time--considerably to increase the number of those men who had devoted themselves to the task. In contrast with the bishop, who, in the course of five years, could ordain and rely on two priests only to feed the flock of the Lord, "The Catholic Almanac" of the day exhibits to us, for the United States, seven archbishops, thirty-six bishops, and four apostolic vicars, with the ministry of two thousand priests, with the addition of convents of various orders, of seminaries, of colleges, of numberless benevolent institutions, with over 4,000,000 of Catholics living under the protection of the laws, in the practice and enjoyment of their faith.

[Footnote 23: There are new details on this distinguished man in a recently published work: "_Die Katholische Kirche in den Vereinigten Staatm von Nord Amerika_," etc., etc. Regensburg. 1864.]

The Germans delight in recalling to mind that one of those who helped to lay the foundations of the Church in North America was the offspring of a princely house of the Fatherland. Gallitzin was a German on the maternal side; and the noble parent could well claim both the spiritual and natural motherhood of her son, the latter of which was, perhaps, glory enough. How magnificent a mission was that of Princess Amelia Gallitzin! While gathering around her circle the choice spirits which seemed destined to keep bright the torch of faith in Germany, and its living convictions in the midst of a superficial society without belief and without its guiding lights, the princess was rearing for the New World a son who was about to turn aside from a career which his birth and his wealth justly reserved for him, and take up the arduous and thankless labors of the apostleship. This very son it was who, through the work of faith, was destined to be the founder and civilizer of a now flourishing colony.

Strangely enough, nothing in young Gallitzin gave earnest of such a vocation. His almost feminine nature had marked him for a timid, shrinking child; but what was still worse, and a source of deep anxiety to his mother, to this was added a lack of decision, which seemed so deeply rooted in him that not even the iron will of the princess could, during the course of many years, draw out any perceptible results. We have a letter of the princess of the date of 1790, two years before the departure of Demetrius for America, in which she reiterates on this ground her former complainings, her exhortations, and her admonitions. It is proper, however, to advert that the incipient {147} method of training pursued by the princess herself was not free from defect; for, daring the nonage of her son, she herself wavered and hesitated between various systems of philosophy--a course which necessarily must have drawn her into many an error.

There was, therefore, a defectiveness in the main foundation of the training of young Gallitzin, who was reared in a sort of religious indifferentism. But a complete revulsion took place when, after leaving Münster, the princess was led to rest her convictions, not on this or the other system of philosophy, but on the rock of Christian faith--when, from her relations with such men as Furstenberg and Overberg, she herself had gained a greater degree of firmness and steadfastness. This reacted on the education of the son, in the greater decision and authority exerted by the mother; and it was not without fit intention that Demetrius, in the sacrament of confirmation, received the surname of Angustin.

Born on the 22d of December, 1770, at the Hague, where his father, a favorite of the Empress Catherine, was accredited as ambassador of Russia, young Gallitzin saw before him the opening of a career bound to lead to the highest dignities of either military or administrative service. Nothing, therefore, was spared in giving him a complete education, according to the requirements of the world. This education, developed and closed under his mother's eyes, must be perfected by travel; but whither to direct it was a question of moment. The aristocratic banks of the Rhine were ravaged by the revolutions and war had converted Europe into a vast battle-field. It opportunely happened, at that time, that a young priest, by the name of Brodius, whom the princess had known through the family of the Droste, and who had been admitted to her circle, was about crossing the Atlantic as a missionary to America. The princess had had occasions to value the rare endowments of this priest, and knew how justly her confidence in him could extend. She therefore proposed to him the companionship of her son in a journey which seemed to her to be the only practicable one warranted by the times. The princess, fortunately, met with no opposition on the part of the prince, her husband. An admirer of Washington, and still more so of the philosophic Jefferson, he readily agreed that his son should devote a couple of years to a visit to the United States, so as to judge for himself of the institutions all that country. He earnestly charged him to be introduced to these two great men; while the princess on her part armed him with a letter of recommendation to the Right Reverend Bishop Carroll.

In August, 1792, when twenty-two years of age, young Gallitzin took ship at Rotterdam on his way to America. No one could, certainly, have then stirred him with the idea that the land of America was marked out as a theatre for the evolutions of his existence. Was there a presentiment in that parting hour which, he could not know, was to mark an eternal farewell? Was it a last return of the original indecision of character which made him linger at the roadstead to which his mother had accompanied him? No one can now tell; but what we can say is that when, on the crests of the foaming billows, he caught sight of the yawl which was to carry him on board, his heart failed him, and he turned back to retrace his steps. Then did his mother turn back to him and, with a look of disappointment, "Dimitri," said she, "I blush for thee"--and, grasping his arm, she urged him on to the boat. In a moment, and how no one could tell, the young prince was engulfed in the waves. As quick as thought the practised hands of the sailors fished him up from the waters, and wafted him to the vessel that was to bear him away. Such was his farewell to Europe; but this sea baptism had regenerated him into a new man, as, at a later period, he told the story to his biographer.

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On the whole, a noted change had taken place in young Gallitzin. In him every weakness and every irresolution had disappeared, and made room for a firmness, a determination, and an inflexibility which, to his family, became a source of greatest astonishment. Two months had hardly passed by in the intimacies of life with the Bishop of Baltimore, when he already felt, within himself, what soon became a clearly defined resolve. With the close of the year 1792 he wrote to Münster that he had devoted himself, body and soul, to the service of God and to the salvation of souls in America. He wrote that this resolution had been determined by the urgent call for laborers in the vineyard of the Lord; for in the country in which he was then sojourning, his priests had to travel over a hundred and fifty miles of territory, and more, to bring to the faithful the word and the means of salvation.

These were the first news of him received in Münster, and they were disseminated with the rapidity of lightning. From all sides sprang up objections, doubts, and remonstrances against the scheme of the young prince and the boldness of his undertaking. His mother, however, who had at first been alarmed and steeped in agony at the idea of such a vocation, soon reasserted her unerring judgment, and looked into the matter with her wonted greatness of soul. From the moment that, from letters of distinguished persons, and especially from those of the Bishop of Baltimore, as well as from those of her son, she became satisfied that his was a real and substantial calling, she felt perfectly secure, and all human considerations vanished from her sight. She therefore wrote to Dimitri that if, after having tried himself, he was sure that he had really obeyed his vocation, she willingly accepted the reproaches and troubles which could not fail to shower upon him; and that, for herself, she could not desire a consummation dearer to her heart--a greater reward--than to see the child of her affections a minister at the altar of God. And, indeed, not light was the burden of reproaches and afflictions which she had to bear for the love of that son--especially on the part of her husband, it was anything but light. Her letters to Overberg more than amply inform us on that subject Gallitzin, however, seemed to have left his European friends to the indulgence of their astonishment. Heedless of his former social relations, in firmness and resoluteness he trod the path which he had marked for himself, and prosecuted his theological studies with such fervency that his superiors, in view of his failing health, deemed it their duty to interpose. After two years of study, however, he became a sub-deacon, and, on the sixteenth of March, 1795, he was ordained to the priesthood.

There was no lack of labor, however, in the vineyard of the Lord, and the young Levite, the second one who came out of the first Catholic seminary in North America, was immediately put to work. At Port Tobacco, on the Potomac, Gallitzin entered his apostolical career. His fervor, no doubt, carried him too far into those proverbially malarial regions; for, stricken down by a spell of fever, he was ordered by his bishop to return to Baltimore, where Gallitzin was subsequently directed to ascend the pulpit and preach to the German population which had settled that portion of the state of Maryland.

The democratic spirit of American manners, which, with its innumerable abuses, had permeated even religions existence itself, was diametrically opposed to the just conceptions of the priesthood and of the organization of the Church which Gallitzin had formed in his mind. For the primitive morals of which he was then in quest he turned to the unsettled portions of Pennsylvania. "I went there," he tells us at a later period, "to avoid the _trustees_ and all the irregularities which they beget. For success, I had {149} no other warrant than the building of something new, that could escape the routine of inveterate custom. Had I settled where the hand had already been put to the plough, my work would have been endangered, for it had been soon assailed by the spirit of Protestantism."

In the apostolic trips which frequently took him into the then far West, on the table lands of the Alleghany range, near Huntington, where the waters of the Ohio fork away from those of the Susquehanna, Gallitzin had alighted on a settlement made up of a few Catholic families. In the midst of this Catholic nucleus he resolved to establish a permanent colony, which he destined in his mind as the centre of his missions. Several poor Maryland families, whose affections he had won, resolved to follow him; and, with the consent of his bishop, he took up his line of march with them in the summer of 1799, and travelled from Maryland with his face turned to the ranges of the Alleghany mountains. And a rough and trying journey it was;--hewing their way through primitive forests, burdened at the same time with all their worldly goods. So soon as the small caravan had reached its new home, Gallitzin took possession of this, as it were, conquered land; and, without loss of time, all the settlers addressed themselves to the work before them, and worked so zealously that, before the end of the year, they had already erected a church. The following is Father Lemcke's account of the humble origin of this establishment:

"Out of the clearings of these untrodden forests rose up two buildings, constructed out of the trunks of roughly hewn trees; of these, one was intended for a church--the other, a presbytery for their pastor. On Christmas eve of the year 1799, there was not a winking eye in the little colony. And well there might not be! The new church, decked with pine and laurel and ivy leaves, and blazing with such lights as the scant means of the faithful could afford, was awaiting its consecration to the worship of God! There Gallitzin offered up the first mass, to the great edification of his flock, that, although made up of Catholics, had never witnessed such a solemnity, and to the great astonishment of a few Indians, who, wrapped up in the pursuit of the chase, had never, in their life, dreamed of such a pageantry. Thus it was that, on a spot in which, scarcely a year previous, silence had reigned over vast solitudes, a prince, thenceforward cut off from every other country, had opened a new one to pilgrims from all nations, and that, from the wastes, which echoed no sounds but the howlings of the wild beast, welled up the divine song which spoke: 'Glory to God in the highest, and peace, on earth, to men of good will!'"

The cost of this spiritual and material colonization was at first individually borne by Gallitzin. Captain McGuire, an Irishman, one of the early settlers of the country, had acquired 400 acres of land, which he intended for the Church. These he conveyed to Gallitzin, who divided into small tracts the lands, which he had purchased with his own means, and distributed them among the poorer members of his colony, on condition of reimbursement, by instalments, at long periods--a condition, however, which, in a majority of cases, never was complied with.

The wilderness soon put on a new aspect. The settlers followed the impulses of the indefatigable missionary, who kept steadfastly in view the improvement of his work. His first care was to set up a grist-mill; then arose numerous out-buildings; additional lands were purchased, and in a short time the colony was notably enlarged.

In carrying out his work, Gallitzin received material assistance from Europe. In its origin, sums of money were regularly remitted to him by his mother; for he kept up a correspondence, which his devotion to her made {150} dear to his heart In these relations his father took little, if any, interest, as the determination of his son--his only son--had proved to him a source of bitter disappointment. Still he anxiously desired to see him return to Europe. So engrossed, however, was the young missionary by his work, that such a trip seemed next to an impossibility. Several years had thus glided by, when the idea of visiting Europe earnestly engaged his mind.

In the month of June, 1803, he wrote to his mother, in apology for a long silence; telling her that he is seriously contemplating seeing her once more, but that he is trammelled in his desire by the want of a priest to take his place;--indeed, that his work has so grown under his hands, that he doubts whether he will ever again be privileged to clasp his mother in his arms. "I may not think of it," he adds; "my heart is fraught with affection for you, and it seems to me that I should absolutely see you once more, so as to borrow courage to follow the path which is marked out for me in this perverse world." The letters from Overberg are witnesses of the tears shed by the mother, so anxious again to look upon her son, as well as of the unmurmuring mournfulness of her resignation.

The announcement of his father's death again brought up the subject of his visit to Europe. Indeed, his presence was required in the settlement of his inheritance; but now, as before, the joy of once more treading his native soil, and the happiness of embracing his mother, had to yield to what he considered his duty to his infant colony. The just and plausible reasons which he alleges to his mother for his course, allow us at the same time fairly to appreciate the extent of his work, and the hopes built upon its success. Hence he suggests the consideration due to those families that his advice had influenced, for the greater honor of religion, to follow him in the wilderness;--the money obligations, contracted with various friends, who had trusted him with large sums to speed the development of his scheme, and whose confidence, therefore, might be seriously wronged by his departure;--the interests of so many others, who had committed all their worldly hopes into his hands and whom his absence might leave an easy prey to heartless speculators;--and, finally, the pending questions, started by the scheme of erecting into a county the territory to which the lands of the colony belonged. All these motives, to which others were added, were sufficiently weighty to press on the conscience of Demetrius the duty Of remaining at his post. This final resolution his mother learned with the firmness of Christian heroism. She wrote to the prince: "Whatever sorrow may have panged my motherly heart at the idea of renouncing a hope that a while seemed within reach, I owe it to truth to tell thee that thy letter has afforded me the greatest consolation that I can look for upon earth." It is a touching picture to behold, in the sequel, this zealous mother continuing her interest in the mission founded by the prince, and providing for its success in keeping with the inspirations of her heart. Thus it was that, through the channel of the Bishop of Baltimore, she transmitted to her son a bill of exchange for a considerable amount, a box of books--a treasure in those days--rosaries for the settlers, linen for himself and friends, garments, and even baby-clothes, for the poorer members of the settlement, sacerdotal vestments, embroidered by the princess herself, by her daughter, and by Countess de Stolberg, and, lastly, a magnificent present, which the missionary during his life valued beyond all price, and with which, in accordance with his wishes, he was laid to slumber in the tomb.

In the meantime Gallitzin's colony, settled in the midst of those wild wastes, had expanded and become a town, to which he gave the name of Loretto, the beginning of which are {151} thus described by our missionary's successor: "The colony was composed of individuals who generally purchased considerable tracts, varying from one to four hundred acres in extent, which they cleared and converted to cultivation. In proportion as the population increased, they gradually emerged from the savagery of the earlier periods, and soon experienced the wants of a growing civilization. The indication of those wants suggested to Gallitzin's mind the necessity of converting the humble settlement into a town. Mechanics, of every useful trade, rapidly gathered around the nucleus--blacksmiths, millers, carpenters, shoemakers, with even storekeepers, and Loretto soon assumed the position which its founder had designed.

"Here, then, stands the town; but, with its new dignity, came a host of vexations. It marked for Gallitzin a period of struggle against every imaginable difficulty, which brought his firmness to the sorest trials, and which indeed might have jeoparded the very existence of his work. In fact, the means of reducing, under the control of a single hand, the heterogeneous components of such a colony was no easy problem to be solved. Gallitzin efforts to bring it under a normal organization had to meet many an antagonizing element, whilst the peculiar American spirit, which had even then permeated those solitudes, reared up obstacles to his scheme. Gallitzin, however, proved unshakable, and exhibited an unbending energy of character. At one time there was an actual crisis in the prospects of the colony. A member of the community, with a fair allotment of the goods of this world, with the excitable American brain and a marked tendency to speculation, suddenly conceived the idea to set up a competition with the growing colony and to lay the foundations of a rival one in the neighborhood. He went to work accordingly, and, with the assistance of a few Irishmen, actually laid the foundations of village, which he named Munster, after one of the provinces of Ireland. This rival of Loretto immediately became the headquarters of the _propagators of light_, in other words, of those who had little relish for the zeal of Gallitzin and the inconvenient discipline of the Church. Satisfied not only with putting the prosperity of Loretto in evident peril, the seceders also assailed the character of Gallitzin, and through these means derived an unexpected help. It happened fitly for their purposes that at the time two German vagabonds--one a priest of most questionable character, and the other a nobleman, whom the crime of forgery had driven from the Old World--presented themselves to Gallitzin, and anything but pleased, no doubt, with the welcome which they received, resolved to swell the party of malcontents. With cunning malice, they soon disseminated reports injurious to their countryman, gave a pretended substance to unfounded suspicions, feeding the animosities of the common herd. The fact, also, of Gallitzin's having assumed a borrowed name was a means of shaking the settlers and sowing distrust in their minds. Things went on from bad to worse, and a catastrophe seemed to be imminent, when came the upshot, so much the more ludicrous because the less expected. The Gordian knot, after the expeditious American fashion, was cut by an Alexander who rejoiced in the name of John Wakeland. He was an Irishman, a giant in stature and strength, famed in the settlement as a wolf and bear killer; and in reality one of the kindest men in the world, and one of the hardest to stir from his natural proprieties. These miserable intrigues and base machinations aroused his indignation, and he immediately came to the conclusion to put an end to them by the interposition of the logic of the strong hand. The agitators had concocted a plan, which was devised to extort from Gallitzin some sort of an assent, and the {152} prince could hardly have escaped their intended violence had he not sought sanctuary in the chapel of Loretto. But the mob had merely adjourned their intended excesses; and they were preparing for extreme means to achieve their ends when John Wakeland, brandishing a sturdy hickory in the midst of the infatuated mob, declared that, he would "settle," on the spot, any one who durst threaten the good priest. There was a magical spell in the _hickory_. The timidly good men, who there, as everywhere else, had shrunk into a circle of impassive inaction, feeling the influence of a sturdy support, borrowed courage from the hour; and had it not been for the interference of Gallitzin, his detractors, to use an American phrase, would have had 'a rough time of it' From that moment, a complete revulsion of feeling took place in behalf of the missionary; while the bishop succeeded in ultimately restoring order and peace in the little parish. He carefully inquired into all the facts, and then addressed to the parishioners a letter which was posted at the church door, and recalled the faithful to the regular order of things.

"Difficulties, however, of another kind, and of a more serious import, waited on Gallitzin. From the death of his father, he had been suddenly cut off from the pecuniary assistance which he had periodically received from Europe. He himself, as a Catholic priest, had been, by the laws of Russia, excluded from his paternal heritage; while his mother, who had exhausted her means in litigations, was compelled to forego the assistance which, from time to time, she had extended to her son. In satisfying his boundless charities, and in the achievements of his plans, the founder of Loretto had somewhat relied on this inheritance, which thus passed away from his hands. This disappointment, therefore, brought upon him a new burden of anxiety and cares. Destitution and poverty might have been easily borne by him; but he could not make up his mind to give up the idea of founding an imposing Catholic colony--to abandon the undertaking which he had initiated--to be compelled to relinquish lands which had been reclaimed by so much toil and so much care--and, especially, to face impatient creditors, who might accuse him of thoughtlessly going into debt, and from such an accusation justify their expression of contempt."

As a crowning development to all of these tribulations, the European mail brought to Gallitzin the news of his beloved mother's death. On the 17th of April, 1806, in the city of Münster, the excellent princess had closed her eyes for ever, comforting her disappointment that she had not been permitted to see her son on earth by the hope that she would surely meet him in heaven. The narrative of the last moments of the Princess Gallitzin, received, by the stout-hearted missionary, through the letters of his sister, of Overberg, and of Count de Stolberg, supplied a fund of inexpressible comfort; but from that hour the temporal claims and requirements of his position bore terribly on his endurance. It required unheard-of efforts to save his undertaking from the burden of indebtedness, and if, at the hour of his death, he quit-claimed the property of the Church and left it free from all and every charge, the blessed consummation came with the sunset of life only, and that, too, after miracles of constant energy. And here, especially, looms up the secondary phase of Gallitzin's character, which had not escaped his father's more searching eye. In fact, and in answer to a letter of his wife, in which she bitterly complained of the inertness of their son, then sixteen years of age, he wrote to her that "deep waters run still; that, to his mind, she misconceives the disposition of Demetrius, and that he is ever running against wind and tide." And indeed, to struggle against the torrent of time and of events was the whole work of his life. And against this torrent he heaved up the bulk of {153} his writings that have come down to us. It is easy to conceive that it required no common reason to induce a man of his temper of mind to write. We have the motive of this reason in the fact that a Presbyterian preacher of Huntington had thought fit to assail and calumniate the Catholic Church as an institution dangerous to the country and to its liberties. Gallitzin immediately took up the pen in answer, and the necessities of the controversy turned him into a polemica writer.

There are in America, no less than in other countries, fanatical sectarians who follow their congenial instincts in sounding the alarm-cry whenever the Catholic Church marks out new limits of lawful conquest. In this instance, the state was declared to be in peril; but Gallitzin lost no time in confounding the slanderers of Catholicity by the publication of his "Defense of Catholic Principles," which appeared in Pittsburgh in the year 1816. This work, written in English--for the author wielded the English with as much facility as he did the German language, his mother tongue--was, on both shores of the ocean, greeted with success. Father Lemcke made a German translation of the "Defense of Catholic Principles," of which two editions were published in Ireland and four in the United States, ranking "in popularity with 'Cobbett's History of the Reformation,' to which it bears a resemblance in putting a probing finger on the plague-spot of Protestantism."

The start being once made, Gallitzin followed up his first work with other publications of an entirely practical character, directed against certain prevalent moral diseases of the day, which mark an epoch in the monography of American ideas. Gallitzin was perfectly familiar with the mode of treatment of the feverish exuberance of American notions, and he handled them with all the cautious skill of a prudent practitioner. Everything which he published on these matters, both in elucidation of his views and as a muniment against the evils which he denounced, is written in the winning and popular style which was familiar to his pen. Hence his works were crowned with success, even amongst the higher classes of society. "Gallitzin's publications," says his biographer, "exerted an immense influence in the period when he lived, but especially so among the humbler members of the community, for whom they were destined. They were found, and they may still be found, in the form of unpretending pamphlets, in the hotels and steamboats of the West, for he had them printed at his own expense and distributed as the Protestant colporteurs disseminate their Bibles and tracts. The curiosity of the readers enlarged their circulation everywhere; and I myself have found them as perfectly thumbed as any spelling-book in spots where I never dreamed of meeting with them."

In the meantime, Gallitzin, who had hitherto labored under the protecting shadow of his humility, had begun to attract the attention of the American world around him. The manner in which he had marked his entrance in social life--not so much by the power of genius as by that integrity of character which commanded the respect of public opinion--had carried his reputation far beyond the limits of the frontiers, and secured for him an esteem, the proofs of which came back to him in numerous testimonials gathering from all sides. It was at this time that he published various pamphlets signed with his real name: "Demetrius Augustin Gallitzin, Catholic curate of Loretto."

It was natural, when the question of creating a new bishopric came up, that all eyes should turn to such a man as Gallitzin. There was a desire, therefore, more than once expressed to see him called to the episcopal chair; but he persistently repelled the intended dignity, and exerted his every power to counteract the efforts of {154} those who were anxious to have it conferred upon him. He asked for one favor only--that of remaining at Loretto; and, with this view, he consented to accept the functions of vicar-general to the Bishop of Philadelphia, which had been recently raised into a diocese.

Since the earlier period when Gallitzin entered on the discharge of the holy ministry, those regions had witnessed a great development of the Catholic faith. From all sides arose new parishes, while the field of labor went on enlarging under the tireless zeal of our missionary. "It may be safely affirmed," says his biographer, "that during the protracted years through which he administered to the district of country which now constitutes the sees of Pittsburg and Erie, he filled the place and discharged the duties of a bishop." In order to form a correct judgment as to the importance of his labors, we must go back, in imagination, to the exordium of the Catholic Church in those countries, where the pastors were cut off from all sustaining advice--from all diocesan organization--and where elements the most discrepant, and prejudices the most stubborn, were found in daily conflict. How many difficulties, therefore, to be encountered and overcome in the discrimination, in certain cases, between falsehood and truth! What prudence of action was required! How many and delicate problems presented to the decisions of a tender conscience! Gallitzin, however, was the man for the situation. "The writings," says his friend, "which his charge as vicar-general had compelled him from time to time to publish, bear witness not only to his vigilance and zeal, but also to the great charity which characterized the performance of his duties." His was a peculiar solicitude for the persecuted and the oppressed, because he knew from experience how readily, in America, they may be made the sport of falsehood, of malevolence, and of that thirst of revenge which exists everywhere. Hence the not inconsiderable number of persons, both ecclesiastics and laymen, who looked up to him for protection, and who might, but for its interpositions, have been for ever lost. His benevolent bearing won for him the confidence of the other priests who, like himself, had consecrated their lives to the salvation of souls. The pastor who from among them became at a later period the archbishop of Baltimore, having been in 1830 appointed coadjutor and administrator to the diocese of Philadelphia, immediately wrote to Gallitzin--whom he styled the propagandist of the faith--to ask the assistance of his experience and of his prayers, and to advise him that he not only confirmed his existing powers, but that he also authorized him to use, without the necessity of any previous application, those with which, as coadjutor, he was himself invested. These two men were bound till death by the closest ties of friendship.

All of Gallitzin's actions were stamped with the characteristics of candor and uprightness. Should the honor of the Church, or the dignity of her priesthood, be called into question, he knew no such word as compromise. He shrank from familiarity with that species of half education of which presumption is a leading feature; and ever, and everywhere, stood unshaken in his love and assertion of truth--a persistency which, on more than one occasion, called down upon him the imputation of an aristocratic and domineering spirit. Those, however, who, admitted to the closer intimacies of his life, were best qualified to judge, soon became convinced of the futility of the charge. If there were any note of distinction about him, it was to be traced in the loftiness of his conceptions; for he had long cast off all princely frippery; and the privileged society in which he especially delighted was that of the poor and the lowly, with whom he would kindly converse after possessing himself of their wishes and needs. {155} In the circuit of his missions, it was his pleasure to pass by the dwellings of opulence and seek the hospitalities of the humble cottage. There would the prince sit down to rest, surrounded by joyous children, distributing pictures among them and sharing in their humble fare.

Such was Gallitzin, shepherd of souls, polemic and vicar-general, at Loretto, whence the peaceful work of Christian civilization went on quietly progressing and gradually enlarging the circle of its benefits. Years had thus passed on, and the pioneer could already mark the slanting shadows of declining life, when a young missionary came over from Europe to share in his toils. This was Father Lemcke, a Benedictine, who, after having been his assistant, became his successor. Gallitzin was then sixty-four years of age. Father Lemcke has left us a picturesque account of his first meeting with the venerable missionary. He had set out from Philadelphia, and after several days of rough traveling reached Münster, where an Irish family gave him hospitality. From that village he procured a guide, and at this point of his narrative we find him with an Irish lad piloting him to Loretto. "As we had gone," says he, "a couple of miles through the woods, I caught sight of a sled, drawn by a pair of vigorous horses; and in the sled a half recumbent traveler, on every lineament of whose face could be read a character of distinction. He was outwardly dressed in a sort of threadbare overcoat; and, on his head, a peasant's hat, so worn and dilapidated that no one would have rescued it from the garbage of the streets. It occurred to me that some accident had happened to the old gentleman, and that he was compelled to resort to this singular mode of conveyance Whilst I was taxing my brains for a satisfactory solution of the problem, Tom, my guide, who was trotting ahead, turned round and, pointing to the old man, said: "Here comes the priest" I immediately coaxed up my nag to the sled. "Are you, really, the pastor of Loretto?" said I. "I am, sir." "Prince Gallitzin?" "At your service, sir," he said with a laugh. "You are probably astonished"--he continued, after I had handed him a letter from the Bishop of Philadelphia--"at the strangeness of my equipage? But there's no help for it. You have no doubt already found out that in these countries you need not dream of a carriage-road. You could not drive ten yards without danger of an overturn. I am prevented, since a fall which I have had, from riding on horseback, and it would be impossible for me now to travel on foot Beside, I carry along everything required for the celebration of holy mass. I am now going to a spot where I have a mission, and where the holy sacrifice has been announced for to-day. Go to Loretto and make yourself at home, until my return to night; unless, indeed, you should prefer to accompany me. You may be interested in the visit."

Father Lemcke accordingly followed Gallitzin, and after a ride of several miles they reached a sort of a hamlet, where there stood a good Pennsylvania farm, in which all the Catholics of the vicarage had gathered as on a festive day. The cabin had been transformed into a chapel, and the good people were there, crowding; some standing, others kneeling under the projecting shed; and others again, in small huts or under the foliage of the grand old trees, were awaiting the appointed hour. All had their prayer-books in their hands. At a sign from Gallitzin, Father Lemcke proceeded within to receive the confessions of the faithful; after which the prince celebrated mass, preached, and administered the sacrament of baptism. For his pious and good people it was a very festive day. The dinner which followed, and in which all shared, was a repast marked by the cheerfulness and the charity of the agapae of the primitive Christians.

{156}

By nightfall both priests had reached Loretto. On The Sunday following, Gallitzin introduced his assistant to his German parishioners, and then, with a quizzical smile, invited him, without any further ceremony, to ascend the pulpit. Father Lemcke had to undergo the ordeal, and it proved not to his disfavor. He had naturally supposed that the same roof which sheltered Gallitzin would also protect him. The old priest, however, could not see things in that light; and a few days after, he took him to Ebensburg, the principal county town, and there installed him as the pastor of the parish.

Each of the two missionaries who had thus halved the goodly work still had a respectable circuit to perform. There were stations fifty and even seventy miles apart, and over this immense extent of territory, which now constitutes the Pittsburg and Erie bishoprics, there were, with them, but three or four priests to attend to the work of the Lord. To Gallitzin was reserved the deep gratification of witnessing the branching off, from Loretto, of various Catholic parishes, which were formed in the very manner in which Loretto had been. Twelve miles north of the primitive colony, up to the head-waters of the Susquehanna, where lay cheap and rich lands, some of the more prosperous members of his parish purchased tracts for themselves and their families, and there laid the grounds of a settlement, to which they gave the name of St. Joseph, borrowed from the invocation of the church which Gallitzin had consecrated on that spot. It is now known on the maps as Carrollton. Among the early settlers and the heads of families were sturdy John Wakeland, whom the reader may not have forgotten, and his six sons, as tall and as stalwart as himself, and all, like him, devoted to the Catholic faith. On the very road to Loretto, and before the death of the prince, sprang up a rural parish under the name of St. Augustin. Another was formed with the appellation of Gallitzin--after the death of the missionary, be it understood; for his humility during his lifetime never could have consented to this endowment.

In 1836, Father Lemcke fixed his residence at St Joseph--urged somewhat to this course by Gallitzin, whose favorite idea had, for some time, been to witness on that spot the rise and growth of another Loretto. The old priest, growing into closer intimacy with the younger missionary, periodically came in his sled to St. Joseph, rejoicing to behold "a second edition of what he himself had created thirty years before." So thoroughly had he become linked to this new friend from far-off Europe, that he never but reluctantly parted from him, and even shed bitter tears on once hearing that the bishop contemplated changing Father Lemcke's residence.

Thus was it given to Gallitzin, in the decline of life, to behold trackless forests converted into fruitful fields. The transient cares and annoyances of life had disappeared, and a numerous Catholic population grew around him in the joys of contented toil. The early settlers who with him had shared the sweat and borne the burden of the day, had long bidden farewell to their humbler log-cabins. Well appointed farms, substantial barns, commodious dwellings, surrounded by beautiful gardens and smiling meadows, wooed the eye as the rewarding product of their privations and their toils.

In 1839 the old missionary's health began to fail. The load of years much less than the thousand hardships inseparably connected with the devotions of apostolic life, weighed heavily on a frame attenuated indeed, but still erect and resisting. Yet the burden went on pressing still--the body gradually bent--the step unsteady--the divine fire which always kindled still animated him; but the voice would refuse the assistance of its sounds, and the close of his sermons turn into a peroration of silent {157} tears a thousand times more eloquent then his spoken words. And yet, with all these warnings, he rejected every suggestion of precaution and care of himself. To this he would answer, in his own energetic language, that "as the days had gone by when, by martyrdom, it was possible for us to testify to God's glory upon earth, it was our duty, like the toil-worn ox, to remain hitched to the plough in the field of the Lord." And the event harmonized with his wish. On Easter Sunday, 1840, Gallitzin, being then seventy years of age, had early in the morning taken his seat in the confessional. After the discharge of its duties, he had braced up the remnants of his strength to ascend the altar for holy sacrifice. He was, however, compelled to forego the sermon of the day to betake himself to his bed, from which he was destined never again to rise. The attentive care of Dr. Rodriguez, his intimate friend, prolonged his existence for a few weeks; but it was soon ascertained that the noble missionary was fast sinking under exhausted energies. With the rapidity of lightning, the sad news was carried abroad. From far and near, old and young gathered around his dwelling, once more to receive the blessing of the man whom they revered. So great was the affluence of the people, that in order to secure a few quiet moments for the glorious veteran of faith, absorbed in the last meditations and prayers of earth, it became necessary to warn away the increasing throng of visitors--and this without his knowledge; for it was his wish to receive every one of them, and to each to speak the last farewell which welled up from his loving heart. Yet some did come for whom no such words passed his lips, which on the contrary moved in utterances of reproof and blame. Among others came in one of the parishioners, to whom the dying pastor had been particularly kind. He, however, had proved ungrateful, and had, indeed, been a cause of much annoyance to the missionary by habits of drunkenness and other excesses of an unregulated life. As he entered the room, the venerable pastor turned to him with a reproachful look and shook his head. This silent sermonizing produced a deeper impression than had any previous admonition of Gallitzin. The self-accusing culprit fell upon his knees, melted to tears, confessed his errors, and promised thenceforward to amend. The evidence of his sincerity is found in the statement of Gallitzin's successor, who informs us that he stoutly held to his promise.

The last scene of this eventful life closed on the sixth of May, when the missionary prince left this world, accompanied by the prayers of his parishioners gathered around him; for every apartment of the house, and every portion of the chapel attached to it, was literally thronged by a wailing, weeping, and praying community. This supreme hour revealed the depth and the sincerity of the love which dwelt in every heart for this man of God. On the day of his burial, whole populations swarmed from every point--from distances ranging fifty and sixty miles--to pay to the good father a last tribute of that affectionate respect which had attended him through life.

The most respectable men of the parish contended for the honor of bearing his body to the cemetery. In the body of the church, it was a perfect contest among the congregation to look for the last time on the feature of him who was thenceforward for ever lost to earth. Those who were lucky enough, through the pressure of the crowd, to reach the coffin, kissed in tearful love the icy hands of the missionary; while the attendants were compelled to resort to force in order to close the coffin for the final rites of the Church.

It were no easy task, without reference to the work of his biographer--an ocular witness of Gallitzin's labors--to convey a just conception of their bearing and extent "When," he says, "we come to consider the {158} theatre on which Gallitzin inaugurated his immense labors in so obscure and modest a manner, we realize the amount of substantial good that can be achieved by an apostolic missionary in America when, like Gallitzin, he conceives the practical sense of things and leads them on to their crowning development with the zeal and perseverance which marked his course. The small county of Cambria, in Pennsylvania, created in 1807, which is indebted to Gallitzin for a majority of its settlers, is everywhere, and with every reason, characterized as the Catholic county. Indeed, when the traveller on business, or the tourist for pleasure, strikes this point from other districts of Pennsylvania more controlled by Protestant influences, it seems to him that he has passed from a comparative desert into a smiling oasis. This may be easily understood. For all their journeyings for whole days, over counties twice and thrice more opulent than this little Catholic county, there is no indication to tell them what religion is there professed. Not till they have pressed the soil of Cambria county do they feel that they are in a _truly_ Christian land, as they catch sight of ten Catholic churches and three monasteries--all of which cropped out of Loretto under Gallitzin's creative and fostering hands."

From all these results we can frame an accurate judgment of the prince's career, which was but one continuous struggle--a glorious struggle, teeming with usefulness. When Gallitzin opened his mission, the vicar of Christ was persecuted and proscribed. A prisoner, torn away from his spiritual family, Pius VI. heard the voices of a _philosophic_ world applauding his abduction, as, ten years later, it applauded the violence inflicted on the person of Pius VII. It was just at that dark period which overshadowed the Holy See that the Church inaugurated her peaceful labors in the United States, and, at the end of ten years, had marked her beneficent influences by a progress so rapid that its result could not escape the eye of even the least observant. While Europe was organizing a settled persecution of the papal power, the Church in America was growing up and expanding in influence. Her very adversaries were compelled to bear even reluctant witness to her triumphs. In one of the meetings of a Bible society some years ago. Lord Barclay exhibited a summary, in which he lamented the spread of Catholicity in a country in which he said that in the year 1790 there was not even a bishop. "Strange," he said, "that while, in Europe, the power of the see of Rome is overthrown, the Pope is a prisoner, and Rome is declared to be the second city of the French empire--strange, I say, that, at this very moment, the power of the Pope should be rooted in America in this still stranger manner." Ay! strange indeed, my Lord Barclay; but in no way strange for those who know that martyrdom is the life of the Church, and that she woos triumph in persecution. Gallitzin's life is a living, convincing proof of her triumphs and her hopes.

{159}

From The Sixpenny Magazine.

"DUM SPIRO SPERO."

(AN APOLOGUE.)

My soul was restless, and I sought The elf's wild haunt, and breath'd sweet airs: I track'd the river's devious route:-- In vain!--my heart was vext with cares.

I wandered from the noble park, The trimly gay parterre to view; Thence pluck'd a rose, without one mark To rob it of its faultless hue;

And, home returning, quaintly placed My trophy in a tiny tray Of antique silver curious traced; Then, charg'd with odor, turn'd away.

* * * * *

I enter'd yestermorn the room Where, all forgotten, dwelt my flower Unhappy fate! that tender bloom Fell, fainting for the genial shower.

Vanish'd all vigor had; and now-- The perfume fled--the tints grown dull-- It had been sin, I did allow, For this so choice a bud to pull.

Then, with sore heart, I brought a stream Of clearest water to its cup. What wonder if new life 'gan gleam, And care restored what hope gave up?

Lo! leaf by leaf was slowly raised, Till olden flashes came at length: Each plaintive petal oped, and gazed. And thank'd me with its growing strength.

* * * * *

Our hearts are like thee, little Rose; They quicken what time love-beams shine; But under dismal clouds of woes How can they choose but droop and pine?

If sympathy with lute attend To lull with some resistless psalm, Misfortune's darts can never rend: Friends soothe, hope cheers, and heaven anoints with balm!

{160}

From The Month.

CONSTANCE SHERWOOD.

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

BY LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON.