CHAPTER I.

"Mr. Thorneley presents his compliments to Mr. John Kavanagh, and would feel obliged if he would call in Wimpole street this evening at seven o'clock. Mr. Thorneley wishes to have Mr. Kavanagh's professional assistance in a matter of business.

"100 Wimpole street, Cavendish Square, "Oct. 23, 185--"

The above note lay amidst a heap of letters awaiting my return from a pleasant mountaineering tour among alps and glaciers, perpetual snows, and ice-bound passes. Yes, it had been in every sense of the word a delightful excursion, a real holiday to me,--me, a dusty, musty, hard-working lawyer, living in chambers, poring over parchments, and deeds, and matters dull and dry to all, save them whom those things concerned,--me, a middle-aged bachelor, a solitary man, with little of kith or kin left to surround my dying bed or follow my old bones to their grave. It was a renewal of youth and early days to climb those mountains, to face those majestic peaks, to scale those rugged passes, and feel the fresh clear air fanning my brow as I raised it to God's heaven above, whilst all that was of the world worldly seemed to lie beneath my feet. My two months' holiday and repose from labor, when I packed my modest portmanteau, locked up my papers, left my rooms to the care of clerk and laundress, and took my ticket at London Bridge for Dover or Boulogne, bound for Chamouni, Unterwalden, or the Simplon,--these eight weeks of pure enjoyment were the oasis in the desert of my life. But now, for this year at least, it was over. I was back to busy life again; to work and daily duty; to my calf-bound volumes, my inky table, my yellow sheets inscribed with the promises of one said party to another said party--how soon to be broken, God only knew--or the blue folio pages stating how this said man is to bully that said fellow man, and how there is to be war between two Christian beings, not to the knife, but to the bar, the judge, jury, prison, and future ruin of one or the other fellow heir to the great inheritance of a hereafter. I had returned to it all--this turmoil of strife and struggle, out of which quagmire I got my daily bread, like hundreds of others cruising in the same barque on the sea of life; and my table was heaped with the business correspondence that once more was to induct me into my ordinary avocations. There were communications from old clients about affairs of long standing, and familiar to me as my morning shave; and letters from new clients promising fresh labor and new grist to the mill, but I scanned them all with the same feeling of weariness and disgust--casting many a regretful thought to the scenes I had left behind me,--inclined to throw business, law, and clients wholesale and pell-mell into the Red Sea. It was in this frame of mind that I opened the above note, but as I read it, my ennui and lassitude gave place to the keenest interest and curiosity. That old Thorneley should send for me professionally, when I knew for certain that all his affairs were completely in the hands, and he entirely under the thumbs, of my highly-respected brother lawyers Smith and Walker, was enough to rouse one from a mesmeric sleep. Old Thorneley; who {405} lived like a hermit, never meddling with anything nor anybody; whose last intentions were supposed amongst us in Lincoln's Inn to be hermetically sealed up in a certain tin box, lodging at Messrs. Smith and Walker's; whose frugal house-keeping and simple taste could involve him in no pecuniary trouble,--what could he want with the professional advice of one who was almost a stranger to him, whose standing in the law was of much later date and whose clientage much less distinguished than that of the firm above mentioned, and who had been his legal advisers during his whole lifetime?

Again I referred to the note--"Oct. 23;"--the interview was asked for that very evening I looked at my watch--it was half-past six, the hour named, seven. Tired with travel and hungry as a hunter, I was little inclined to leave my cosy fire, my tender steak, my fragrant cup of bohea, my delicious plate of buttered toast, and face the raw air and mizzling rain of an autumnal evening at the beck of a man whose hand I had never shaken, at whose table I had never sat, and whose foot had never crossed my threshold. But curiosity and interest prevailed at last, and these were induced by two motives. 1. Thorneley was a millionaire--a man whose name Rothschild had not scorned on 'Change, and whose breath had once fluttered the money-markets of Europe. 2. And a far more powerful one,--he was the uncle of Hugh Atherton. O Hugh, best of friends, thou man of true and noble heart, if these pages ever meet your eyes, and you look back through the dim vista of intervening years, bear witness how mournfully I stand by the grave of our buried affection, opened on this night, how tenderly I touch the fragments of our wrecked friendship! and from your heart, O lost comrade and brother, believe that, whatever of pain lay between us two, severing our lives, no thought disloyal to you ever crossed my soul or shook the fealty of my honor and reverence. Hastily I despatched the meal, made a few changes in my dress, threw myself into the first hansom, and knocked at 100 Wimpole street, at five minutes past seven.

I was ushered at once into Mr. Thorneley's study--a comfortably-furnished room, lined with well-stocked bookcases, and hung with neatly-framed engravings of first-rate excellence. He was sitting reading beside a cheery fire when I entered, and on a table near him stood fruit, biscuits, and wine. I had not seen him for many months; and as he rose to receive me, the light of the shaded gas lamp falling upon his head and face revealed to me how aged and broken his appearance had become in that period of time. Then I remembered him as a hale, hearty old man, strong of limb, straight and square about the shoulders, carrying himself with the air of an old soldier, gaunt, upright, stern, unbending and unbent. Now, before me stood a bowed infirm figure, with trembling hands and tottering feet, with thin pinched features and sunken eyes. Little as I knew the man, and little as I liked what I knew or had heard of him, I was touched to see what a wreck he looked of his former outward self. Involuntarily I stretched out my hand to him, and expressed my regret at seeing him look so ill. He bowed, and touched my hand with the tips of his fingers, which were clammy and cold. Then he motioned me in silence to a chair on the opposite side of the fire to where he sat, and resumed his own seat.

"You are somewhat late, sir," he said querulously, glancing at me from beneath his shaggy brows; the same keen searching glance I remembered of old--the glance of a man who has made money.

"But five minutes, Mr. Thorneley," I replied; "and that I think you will excuse when I tell you I have crossed the Channel to-day, and only arrived home about an hour ago."

"Have you dined? Allow the to order you something."

{406}

"Nothing, thanks. I took my usual meal after a journey--a meat tea; and, though despatched in haste, it sufficed for mine requirements."

"At least," he said more courteously, "you will take a glass of wine!"

"With pleasure, sir, after we have finished the business in which I understand you require my assistance."

He saw that I wished to come to the point at once; and drawing his chair near to mine, he fixed his piercing gray eyes upon my countenance. I returned his gaze steadily enough; and he then shifted uneasily, so that his countenance was turned sideways to me.

"You are aware, Mr. Kavanagh, that my family solicitors have been, and still are, Messrs. Smith and Walker, and no doubt you are surprised why I should now require other professional aid than theirs. Your curiosity and speculative faculties, if you possess such, must have been on the _qui vive_ since you got my note. Eh, sir?"

There was a covert sarcasm in the old man's voice which vexed me. "Every movement of Mr Thorneley's must be a matter of general interest," I said, with equal satire.

"Ha, ha, ha! Very good--given me back in my own kind,--tit for tat. Like you all the better for it, Mr. Kavanagh,--a sharp lawyer is a good thing in its way. Well, you've not repudiated the curiosity, so I'll satisfy it. I sent for you to make _my Will_;" and again he turned on me those shrewd glittering eyes, as if enjoying the amazement I could not entirely suppress.

"But I thought--" I stammered; "surely, sir, your own lawyers are the fittest persons; it is against etiquette. Indeed, sir, I'd rather not have any thing to do with it."

"You will be _paid_ sir," he said rudely.

"It is not a question of _payment_, Mr. Thorneley; simply, you place me, I foresee, in an awkward position with regard to a firm with whom I am on the most friendly terms. But of course they are acquainted with your desire of having my services?"

"Of course they are nothing of the sort. If you are squeamish in the matter, I can get another man to do my business, and they'll not be a bit more enlightened on the subject. Whomsoever I employ must be bound to inviolable secrecy during my lifetime. Let us understand each other, Mr. Kavanagh: I sent for you because I knew you to be a discreet man, on whose prudence after my death I could rely. But I do not choose that Smith and Walker should know any thing of this transaction. You can do as you please in the matter, but you must make your decision now."

I gave a rapid glance at my position with all the care time would allow; and one consideration outweighed every thing else,--I take heaven to witness it!--the thought that Hugh Atherton's interests, which I felt to be now involved, would be safer in my hands than in those of any other man; and I replied, "So be it, Mr. Thorneley; you may command my services." If I had known what was coming; if in mercy one shadowy vision of that miserable future had been vouchsafed to me; if but a ray of light had illumined my darkened sight, I had shaken the dust off my feet, and left that doomed house never again to cross its threshold.

Thorneley rose and pushed a small writing-table towards me, on which was placed the printed form of a will to be filled in.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

"I am."

He bent forward, with his hand shading his rugged brow, his eyes fixed intently on the fire and spoke in low distinct tones. I listened almost breathlessly; and as I listened, I felt the cold sweat breaking out upon my forehead. And then I made the will. Yes, God help me! I made the will, for I saw it was inevitable.

{407}

"We must have witnesses," I said when it was finished.

Mr. Thorneley rang the bell. "Tell Thomas I want him here, and come back yourself." The two men returned in a few moments,--coachman and footman; and before those two, with unshaken hand, with a face of rigid firmness, Gilbert Thorneley wrote his name; the servants affixed their signatures, and the deed was done.

When we were alone I rose to depart, and bade him good-night. As I left the room I looked back at the old man. He had sunk in his chair, and his face was buried in his hands, bowed and bent beside the fire, with his thin gray locks straying over his forehead, as if some bitter blast had swept over him and left him desolate;--thus I saw him for the last time on earth.

I left that house with a heavy secret locked in my breast, with a weight on heart and brain, and heeded not the blinding, drizzling rain as I bent my footsteps rapidly homeward, longing only to reach my quiet chamber, where I might commune with myself and be still. I am not an inveterate smoker; but when I want to think out a knotty point, when I wish to obtain a clear view of any difficult question, I can quite appreciate the aid which a good cigar affords one. This night I was dazed, bewildered, and mechanically I sought my old friend in my breast-pocket. I stopped beside the window of a large chemist's shop at the comer of Vere street and Oxford street to strike a light, when some one hastily passed out of the shop and ran full against me.

"Kavanagh!" "Atherton!" The man of all men in the world to meet _that_ night! What fatality was it that was hedging me in and fencing me round, without any agency of my own?

"Who would have thought of seeing you here?" he exclaimed as he grasped my hand. "I had no idea you had returned even."

"I came back this very evening."

"Only this evening! and whither away so soon, old fellow?"

I muttered something about business.

"Business! Come, I like that. You have changed your nature, John, if you go after business the first evening of your return from Switzerland. Why, I didn't suppose you would have stirred if my old uncle yonder had sent for you to make his will, leaving me his sole heir." And he laughed his old hearty joyous laugh, which had been music to me from the time when I fought his first battle for him at Rugby. Now it filled me with an unaccountable dread; now it fell on my ear as the knell of times which were never more to come back. So near the truth too as he had been, talking in his own thoughtless, light-hearted way. What spell was over us all that fatal evening? Perhaps--I think it must have been so--all the dark shadows which were gathering over my soul revealed themselves in my countenance, for I saw him look at me with the kind solicitous look that never became a manly face better than his.

"I'll tell you what it is, dear old John," he said, putting his arm within mine; "you are looking terribly hipped about something or another, and any thing but the man you ought to look, after such a jolly outing as you've just had. Come, I'll go home with you, and we'll have a prime Manilla, a steaming tumbler, and a cosy chat together; and if that doesn't send the blues back to the venerable old party from which they are generally supposed by all good Christians to come, why, as Mr. Peggotty hath it, 'I'm gormed!' "And again that fatal influence stepped in, making me its agent to bring upon us the inevitable _To be_; and putting his friendly hand from off my arm, I said, '"No, Hugh, not to-night; I have need to be alone. Indeed I am too tired to be good company even to you."

"Well, good-night then, my friend; I'll betake me to mine uncle, and see {408} how the old man is getting along this damp weather. Lister said he should look in, so we can tramp home together. But I won't be shirked by you to-morrow, Master Jack,--don't think it; and I shall bring somebody to fetch the Swiss toy I know you have got packed away for her somewhere in your knapsack. Good-night, good-night."

We shook hands, and he turned down Vere street. An impulse,--blind, unreasoning,--seized me a minute afterwards to call him back and ask him to come home with me; and I followed quickly upon his footsteps. The evening was very dark, and the rain beat blindingly in one's face, so that it was difficult, with my near sight, to distinguish his figure ahead amidst the numerous other foot-passengers. After a few moments I gave up the chase, half angry with myself for haying been the sport of a sudden fancy. As once more I turned round to retrace my steps, a woman passed me at a hurried pace, and as she passed she almost stopped and gazed intently at me. A thick veil prevented my seeing her face, and in no way was her figure familiar to me; but the gesture with which she stared at me was remarkable, and for a moment a matter of wonder; then I forgot the circumstance, and rapidly made my way home, thinking of the strange revelations I had just heard; thinking of Hugh Atherton and our chance meeting; thinking of the days past and the days to come,--of much and many things which belong to the story I am telling,--of the time when I was a boy again at school, senior in my form and umpire in all pitched battles and the petty warfare boys wage with one another, when that little curly-headed, blue-eyed fellow, with his cheeks all aglow and his nostrils big with indignant wrath, had come to me, a great burly clumsy lad of sixteen, and laid his plaint before me:

"Please, Kavanagh, the fellows say I'm a coward because I won't lick Tom Overbury. Will you tell them to leave me in peace?--because I _won't_ lick him."

"Why not, spooney?"

"Because I don't wish to."

"That won't go down here, you know, Atherton; you must give your reasons."

"He's got something the matter with his right arm, and he can't hit out. He'd have no chance against me. I know all about it, but the other fellows don't, and they think he can't fight; he bade me not tell any one. That's why they are always at him to make him pick quarrels. They set him on at me; but I won't fight him, not for the whole school, masters and all."

Such was Hugh Atherton as a boy; such was he as a man,--ever generous and noble-hearted. I thought of him as then, I thought of him as now, remembering all our long friendship, our close intimacy, with the weight of that dread secret upon me, and with the indescribable sense of coming evil clinging to me. I wished I had yielded to his request, and allowed him to accompany me home; I wished I had persevered in going after him; in short, I wished anything but what then was. Were those desires troubling me a taste of the vain, futile, heart-bitter wishes which the morrow was to bring forth? So, with the cold wind whistling round me, and scattering the dead leaves across the desolate square, where stood the house wherein I dwelt, the rain beating against my face, and the sky above black and lowering, I reached my home, wet and weary.

Methodical habits to a man brought up to the law, who has any pretence of doing well in his profession, become like second nature; and when I had divested myself of my wet garments, I took out my journal and made an entry as usual of the date, object, etc., of my visit to Mr. Thorneley; and then I wrote out a brief memorandum of the same, which I addressed to Hugh Atherton in case of my death, and carefully locked it up with some {409} very private papers of my own, about which he already had my instructions. This done, I smoked a cigar, drank a tumbler of hot brandy-and-water, and went to bed, thoroughly tired out. But I could not sleep. For hours I tossed restlessly from side to side; now and then catching a few moments' repose, which was disturbed by the most horrible and distressing dreams. Toward morning, I suppose, I must at last have fallen into a deep slumber--so profound that I never heard the old laundress's hammering at the door, nor the arrival of my clerk, nor the postman's knock.

At last I awoke, or rather was awakened. The day had advanced some hours; all traces of last night's rain seemed to have vanished, and the sun shown full and bright in at the windows. Beside my bed stood Hardy, my old clerk.

"God bless you, sir, I thought you'd never wake!"

"I wish I never had, for I am awfully tired. How are you. Hardy? and how is all going on?"

"Quite well, sir, thank you; and I hope you're the same. We've wanted you badly enough. There's that Williams, he's been here almost every day, teasing and tormenting about having his mortgage called in; and Lady Ormskirk, she called twice, and seemed in some trouble. Then there was a queer young chap from the country with a long case about some inheritance; in short, sir, if you had been at home we might have been no end busy--what with the old ones and what with the new;" and Hardy cast a sigh after the possible tips and fees of which my absence had deprived him.

"Well, I'll see to it all as soon as I have dressed and had some breakfast. I suppose they've brought it up, and also the hot water?"

"Some time ago, sir; you slept so late that I ventured to come in."

"All right. I shall be ready directly."

Hardy still lingered, and I knew by his face there was some news coming.

"There's a fine to-do at Smith and Walker's, sir, this morning. I just met their head-clerk as I was coming here."

I sprang up in bed as if I had been shot, the old fancies and dread of the previous night returning with full force.

"Smith and Walker's!" I cried; "what is the matter there?"

"Well, sir, I couldn't quite make out the particulars, he was in such a hurry; but old Mr. Thorneley's been found dead in his room this morning, and they suspect there has been foul play. Mr. Griffiths--that's the clerk--was going off to Scotland Yard. It's a terrible thing, an't it, sir, to be hurried off so quick? and none of the best of lives too, if one may believe what folks say. It's shocked you, sir, I see; and so it did me, for I thought of Mr. Atherton and what a blow like it would be to him."

Whiter and whiter I felt my face was getting, and a feeling of dead sickness seized me. The man whom I had seen and spoken with but such few short hours since lay dead! the secret of whose life I possessed, knowing what I now knew of him, and what had been left untold hanging like a black shadow of doubt around me; he was gone from whence there was no returning,--he was standing face to face with his Creator and his Judge!

By this time Hardy had left the room, and I proceeded hastily to dress myself, feeling that more was coming than I wotted of then, and that the fearful storm which was gathering would quickly burst.

Scarcely was I dressed when I heard a loud double-knock at the office-door, and directly after Hardy's voice demanding admittance. I opened my door.

"Sir, there is a police-officer who wishes to see you immediately."

I went out into the sitting-room. A detective in plain clothes was there; I had known the man in another business formerly.

"What do you want with me, Jones?"

{410}

"You have heard of Mr. Thorneley being found dead, sir?"

"Yes--my clerk has just told me. What did he die of?"

"He was poisoned, Mr. Kavanagh."

I felt the man's eyes were fixed on me as if he could read in my soul and see the fearful dread therein. I could have hurled him from the window.

"Who is suspected?" I asked as calmly as my parched tongue would let me speak.

The man did not answer my question.

"You were with him last evening, sir, were you not?"

"Good heavens!" I exclaimed, completely thrown off my guard; "they surely don't suspect _me!_"

"Not that I'm aware of, sir; but your evidence is necessary, since you were _one_ of the last persons who saw him alive."

"But not the last," I said, still blind to the fact pointed at. "Mr. Atherton, his nephew, was with him after I left. I met him going there at the comer of Vere street."

There was a peculiar look on the man's countenance--of compassion for me, I had almost said.

"Mr. Kavanagh, sir, I had rather have cut off my right hand than that you should have told me that, for you've both been kind gentlemen to me and mine. _Mr. Atherton is arrested on suspicion of having administered the poison to his uncle._ When you remember _where_ you met him, you can guess what your evidence will be against him. Here--Mr. Hardy! Help!"

I remember nothing more, for I had fallen back insensible.

TO BE CONTINUED.

[Original.]

Peace.

"Not as the world giveth give I unto you."--St. John 14th.

Break not its sleep, the faithful grief, still tender; God gives at length his own beloved rest; How worn and the suffering brow! Yet these meek fingers Still press the cross of patience to her breast.

Stir not the air with one sweet, lingering cadence From life's fair prime of love and hope and song; Serener airs, from martyr hosts celestial, To that high trance of Conquered peace belong.

Hush mortal joy or wail, hush mortal paeans; Ye cannot reach that Thabor height sublime Where God's eternal joy, in tranquil vision, Seems nearer than the sights and sounds of time.

{411}

[Original.]

TWO PICTURES OF LIFE IN FRANCE BEFORE 1848.

Those who are familiar with the Journal of Eugénie de Guérin, know that in Languedoc, near the towns or villages of Andillac and Gaillac, and not far from Toulouse, there is an ancient estate called Le Cayla; but they know little more than this of the place where Maurice and Eugénie de Guérin passed their youth in the quaint an beautiful simplicity that stamped their genius with so marked and individuality.

The peasantry of that region are wedded to old habits and traditions, and the ancient families are imbedded like rocks in the land, says Lamartine, (from whose "Entretiens" many of these local details are taken), and are nobles by common consent, because the château is merely the largest ruin in the village, and every one goes there as to a home to get whatever he needs in the way of advice, agricultural tools, medicine or food.

Let us in the imagination visit the Château of like a lot, as it was in the year 1837, four we must make our first acquaintance with it when it is graced by the exquisite presence of those two, whose names are fast becoming household words on both sides of the Atlantic --Maurice and Eugénie de Guérin.

It is not like one's dream of an ancient _castel_, this spreading, rectangular house, built of brick and stone after a fashion of Henry the Fourth's time, and perched on the summit of a sharp declivity. There is little to distinguish it from the great farms of the country round, but a half ruined portico, projecting over the flight of stone steps, a pointed current and the grooves of a drawbridge, over which the ruthless hand of 1793 as effaced the ancient arms of the Guérins. The great flagstones of the courtyard were loosened and uprooted long ago by the drainage from the stables, and in the angles of the wall grow holly and elder bushes, not too aristocratic to take root in such a soil. These gates stand open always, admitting wayfarers who may wish for a cup of water from the bucket hanging behind the door, or for a plate of soup to eat, sitting in the sunshine on the broad steps that lead down into the courtyard from the kitchen, an important department in this venerable homestead.

Within doors blazes a goodly fire on the hearth, a whole tree, standing on end, sending its smoke up a great chimney through which daylight is visible, and ready to give a comfortable greeting to Jean, or Gilles, or Romignières, when they come to talk about corn or sheep with the master, they sitting on the stone settles, built into the wall, he on one of those walnut armchairs standing between the kitchen table and the fireplace. See the great copper boilers standing around the wall, and those immense soup-tureens, ornamented with coarse painting, and the big dishes for the fish that they catch in the mill-pond once in three years.

There--we have looked long enough; pass through this long smoke-dried corridor to the dining-room, where masters and servants take their meals together, excepting on state occasions, the menials standing or sitting at the lower and of the unbleached cloth.

Now down this little flight of steps to the _salon_, which is all white, with a large sofa, some straw chairs, and a table with books on it. Yes--here {412} we pause--here are the objects of our search. In a faded tapestry arm-chair sits Maurice reading and Eugénie is near here. He looks but shadowy still, having just recovered from a fever, but the outline of his face is beautiful as he bends slightly over the book, the refined mouth, the expressive, drooping eyelids, the noble brow declaring him the worthy descendent of a long line of knights and gentlemen. One of these ancestors, Guérin de Montaigu, Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, looks down upon us from the wall as we stand behind Maurice's chair, glancing, by the way, over his shoulder at the page he is reading, one of Barbey d'Aurevilly's brilliant articles. And now he reads aloud a striking passage, and Eugénie lifts her eyes and lets the work drop on her lap. What earnest, dovelike eyes they are! See how softly the hair parts on her forehead, passing over the pretty ear and falling in little curls at the back of her neck. The dress looks old-fashioned to us now, with its half-high, baby waste, and belt, and tucker, and her hair is dressed too high to be becoming; but there is the air of a refined lady in everything about her, and her face is like the face of a sweet, good little child.

The reading has stopped and their talk turns upon private matters, something about Caroline, and hopes and fears for the future. We will leave them to their conversation, and pass out through yonder door, pausing for an instant to admire that picture of the Madonna and child, presented to the family by the Queen, and to look through the glass doors and arched window at the terrace, all green and blossoming with roses and acacias.

Here we are in an M. de Guérin's room, with its table and chairs loaded with books and with dust! That priè-Dieu was embroidered by Mme. de Guérin and whose pensive look face looks out from the pictures, hanging between the fireplace and the bed. There is the cross presented by Christine Rognier, and the holy water vase, and the picture of Calvary before which Eugénie used to kneel and pour out her childish woes. One day she prayed that some spots might disappear from her frock, and a disappeared--and again she begged that her doll might have a soul, but that never came to pass. No doubt it was in this great state bed that Madame de Guérin died at midnight on the second of April, 1819. Eugénie had fallen asleep at her mother's feet, and as the spirit passed away from the long suffering body, M. de Guérin waked the little girl. "My God! I hear the priest, I see the lighted candles and a pale face the in tears," she wrote sixteen years afterwards. Poor little soul! She awoke to the double responsibility of child and parent, for the little eight-year-old Maurice was her mother's legacy to her.

Now a dark spiral staircase in the turret leads to a large hall on the first story, and then winds on with several landing-places to the upper part of the house where the servants sleep.

This hall is the grand reception-room for guests of distinction, and has more and air of grandeur then the rest of the château. This ornamented ceiling and deep wainscoting of carved wood, these paintings set in the panels, and that huge chimney-piece supported on stone caryatides, call up to our fancy the days when stately dames and gentle couriers visited Le Cayla for the hunting season. But there is a golden renown in store for this shattered, time-worn house, more precious than that shed upon it by any Guérin of the seventeenth century.

Suites of small rooms lead from the hall--here is the room that Eugénie shares with her younger sister Marie, and near by is the _chambrette_ where Maurice sleeps when he is at home. In his absence it is her nest where she reads, writes, prays, or leans on the window-sill to listen to the brook rippling below the terrace, two doves, and nightingales and all the lovely {413} out-door sounds; or to look over the corn-fields, groves, chestnut trees, and vineyards in the valley, far away to the mountains where the friend, Louis de Bayne, lives in a white château with a linden tree walk, in a country of ravines and waterfalls;--but we have indulged long enough in this summer dream of Le Cayla, and must turn to a picture full of sober tints and shadows.

LA CHENAIE

In Brittany, within a few hours drive from Rennes, was the old family place of the Lamennais, where about the year 1830 Hughes Filicité de Lamennais drew about him several of the most promising intellects of France, [Footnote 64] with the view of establishing a new religious order, that should meet all the demands of that most grasping of centuries, the nineteenth. Montalembert, Gerbert, Sainte-Beuve, Lacordaire, Rohrbacher, Combalot, and many others of more or less distinction, were inmates or frequent visitors in the old white house with its peaked French roof, surrounded on every side by thick woods that were full of beauty and song in summer, but in winter pressed about it in dusky--brown monotony, while overhead on the grey, heavy Breton sky.

[Footnote 64: The precise period at which La Chênaie became the resort of the celebrated men we have been unable to ascertain.

The Lamennais were a commercial family in Bordeaux, ennobled during the reign of Louis XVI. L'Abbé de Lamennais, the second son, refusing to become a merchant, retired to La Chênaie, and prepared himself for the priesthood.]

Here Lamennais passed through many of the struggles of his giant nature, slow in its action, but never pausing until it had reached the extreme result of any course of thought or feeling. Here, at fifteen years of age, he took refuge with his brother, Jean de Lamennais, to think out the perplexities that clouded his faith so persistently as to prevent him from receiving his first communion until he was twenty-two years old; and hither he came to labor over the task he had proposed to himself, of procuring the banishment of tyranny and suffering from the earth.

At the time Maurice de Guérin [Footnote 65] joined the little circle at La Chênaie, Lamennais had reached the turning point in his career. After preaching in his journal, with the assurance of a prophet, the public union of Catholicity and democracy, he had suffered the mortification of finding himself obliged to suspend the publication of _L'Avenir_. A visit to Rome, where he was treated with the greatest personal consideration, convinced him that there was no prospect of support from the Holy See, and he returned home oppressed with disappointment, and though apparently submissive to the decisions of his superiors, already resolving in his mind, perhaps unconsciously, plans to crush the power that had crushed him. Those around him feared that he would die of grief. One day he said to his favorite pupil, Elie de Kertauguy, when they were sitting together under one of the Scotch pines behind the chapel, in the great spreading garden: "There is the place where I wish to rest," marking out on the grass the form of a grave with his stick: "But no tombstone over me--only a mound of earth. Oh! I shall be well off there."

[Footnote 65: Vide M. Sainte-Beuve's "Notice sur Maurice de Guérin."]

"If," says M. Sainte-Beuve, "he had died then, or in the following months, if his heart had snapped in it's hidden struggle, what a fair, unblemished memory he would have left, what fame as a faithful believer (fidèle) a hero--almost a martyr! What a mysterious subject of meditation and revery to those who love to contemplate great destinies thwarted!" And yet even then Lamennais' sufferings must have proceeded more from wounded pride than from disappointed philanthropy, for one can hardly imagine a sterner course of tyranny then that of forcing dogmatically upon Catholic nations a theory of political freedom that would have thrown half the civilized world into a state of revolution.

{414}

A striking point in M. Sainte-Beuve's masterly analysis of the character of his former friend is the strange contrast offered by the double nature of Lamennais, who always leaned completely to one side or the other, without any gradation, sometimes being possessed by what Buffon calls, in speaking of beasts of prey, "a soul wrath;" and again filled with a sweetness and tenderness that drew little children to him, a truly fascinating mood; and from one humor to the other he would pass in an instant.

To La Chênaie and to the influence of this wonderful being, this compound a pathetic gentleness and combative obstinacy, of magnetism and repulsion, Guérin came one afternoon early in the December of 1832. M. Féli, as Lamennais was called in his household, where ceremony was laid aside, and the most charming relations existed between old and young, received him very cordially in his little private parlor, which was furnished with one chair and a chest of drawers. The master had a way of letting the person he was conversing with say everything that he had to say upon a subject without interruption (and uncomfortable method, by the way, of convincing one of the paucity of one's ideas), and then he would take up the matter himself, and speak "gravely, profoundly, luminously." But on this occasion he gave himself up freely to a chat upon all sorts of subjects calculated to draw out the general intelligence of his new pupil--the weather in Languedoc, Maurice's traveling companions, his age, the high tides that Saint Malo, Calderon, oyster fishing, Catholic poetry, Victor Hugo, the most remarkable fishes on the coast of Brittany--all the while hurrying to and fro in the little room, presenting a singular appearance with his small, slender figure clad in grey from head to foot, his oblong head, pale complexion, grey eyes, long nose, and brow furrowed with wrinkles.

The life at La Chênaie suited Guérin's taste admirably, excepting perhaps the practice of rising at five o'clock, against which every well-regulated mind must rebel. One of his great enjoyments was the daily mass in the quiet little chapel below the terrace in the garden. "At breakfast," he wrote to Eugénie, "we have butter, and bread which we toast to make it more appetizing (toast was rather a luxury in those days on the continent), butter plays an important part in the meals. Dinner _très confortable_, with coffee and _liqueurs_ when we have company, is seasoned with a rolling fire of wit, generally coming from M. Féli--whose _mots_ are charming--vivid, piercing, sparkling, and innumerable. His genius escapes in this way when he is not at work, and from sublime he becomes fascinating."

In studies, Maurice was thrown into modern languages, Catholic philosophy, and the history of philosophy. Each pupil had a room to himself, but they all studied in a common room sitting round a good fire. Their recreations consisted in skating on a pond close by the house, or taking walks in the woods, staff in hand, M. Féli marching on ahead wearing a battered old straw hat such as great men love to shelter their illustrious heads with. They had supper at eight o'clock and then adjourned to the pleasant, quaint old parlor, where chess and backgammon greeted the master's longing eyes, smoothing his brow and putting him in genial mood. Then he would throw himself on the immense sofa that stood under his grandmother's portrait, and become absorbed into the threadbare crimson velvet, except the little head ever rolling restlessly from side to side with eyes gleaming like fire-flies.

"And then he would talk, Ye gods! how he would talk!"--

What treasures of wit, humor, anecdote, analysis, and broad generalization poured from that horn of plenty, {415} his mind stored with the prints of nearly half a century of philosophic research and observation of men and things! His voice varied with his words from grave to gay, and now and then came long peals of shrill laughter, more derisive perhaps than mirthful. "That is _our man!_" said Maurice proudly, after describing such an evening; that evening perhaps when his own attractions eclipsed the master's brilliancy in the estimation of one who saw him for the first time--M. de Marzan, a former pupil of Lamennais, who revisited La Chênaie on the 18th of December, 1832.

M. Féli was in one of his most delightful moods, recounting the experiences of his late Italian journey, and drawing out in his genial way the keen observations of the young men about him--of all excepting poor Maurice, who stood silent among the hopeful, eager talkers, painfully conscious of himself and distrustful of others, we must confess, with all affectionate sympathy for our hero. But in his reserved mien, in his expressive southern eyes and intellectual face, there was a magnetism that won completely M. de Marzan's attention from the delights of conversation, and as soon as the evening ended, he obtained an introduction through Elie de Kertauguy, a handsome, gifted youth from Lower Brittany, passionately devoted to Lamennais, and compassionately attentive to Guérin, regarding him, as did most of the inmates of La Chênaie, as a refined but very inefficient member of their circle.

Not so Marzan, who in twenty-four hours had thawed Maurice's reserve, won his confidence, seen his journal, heard the circumstances of his unrequited love for Mlle. de Bayne, and laid the foundation of a friendship that lasted unbroken to the day of Guérin's death. What days, and nights too, of rapture these two young poets used to spend together, guided by their older and more experienced friend, Hippolyte de La Morvonnais (a frequent visitor at La Chênaie), who had been to Grasmere to visit Wordsworth, and come home imbued with veneration for "Les Lakistes". (The Lake Poets). There came to be a mania among the three friends for describing in homely language the simplest domestic details, which they considered it a triumph in art to be able to give in a rhythm so dubious that none but the initiated could tell whether it was meant for prose or verse.

Even at this early period, Guérin gave evidence of the peculiar strength and weakness of his style, the vagueness and looseness of his verse, the faultless harmony of his prose, which is as pure as air, free from the least touch of provincialism or mannerism; and yet, in the simple fervor of its revelations of the secrets that nature poured into his attentive ear, we are reminded of the sweet pipings of the Ettrick Shepherd, as dear old Christopher North interprets them to us. Through him we see and hear trees wave and waters flow, birds sing and winds sigh in the woods, and without being disturbed by moral inferences and philosophical conclusions. And surely, when beauty comes to us so pure and fresh and untarnished, she may be left to teach her own lessons, which come to us so softly too from her lips.

The months that Maurice spent at La Chênaie were not especially fruitful to him, except in the sad experiences that tended to develop his moral strength. But for Morvonnais and Marzan, he would have remained quite unappreciated, for Lamennais, who gave the tone to the household, was too much "absorbed in his apocalyptic social visions" [Footnote 66] to be conscious of the jewel that glittered before his eyes. Lamennais was a logician, a philosopher, a passionate and fanatical worker. Guérin was a man of {416} exquisite artistic perceptions, but dreamy, undecided, deficient in vigor. Odin and Apollo,--sledge-hammer and chisel,--thunderbolt and sunbeam, are not more unlike in use and significance. M. Féli offered nothing but pitying tenderness, which Maurice accepted in dumb veneration. No wonder that, with the life at La Chênaie, all intimate intercourse between them ceased.

[Footnote 66: Sainte-Beuve.]

But it is a matter for surprise that, with all his powers of fascination, Lamennais inflicted (so far as we can learn the circumstances of the case) no permanent injury upon the faith of any one of his companions at La Chênaie. Lacordaire, Gerbet, Montalembert, and Bohrbacher became renowned champions of the church. Combalot, who had adored Lamennais, burst forth into a storm of invectives against him (as is the wont of disappointed idolaters), and then exclaimed, "Alas! I have wounded that heart into which I could have poured torrents of love!" Morvonnais and Marzan were ardent believers; Elie de Kertauguy and Guérin died Catholics. In short, Lamennais had devoted the prime of life to the church, and in those years had uttered words of wisdom never to be unsaid or forgotten. In spite of himself he must always be an eloquent advocate of the faith he deserted, a powerful enemy of the cause he espoused.

The time was already drawing near when the asylum should be closed to Maurice where he had found, in spite of disappointment and frequent depression, a happy, congenial home. On Easter Sunday, Lamennais celebrated his last mass and gave communion to all the little circle. "Who would have said" (we quote from Sainte-Beuve) "to those who clustered round the master, that he who had just given them communion, would never administer it again to anyone; that he would refuse it forevermore; and that he would soon adopt for his too true device an _oak shattered_ by the storm, with the proud motto: _I break but bend not!_ A Titan's device, _à la Capanée!_"

Early in the autumn of 1833, the Bishop of Rennes ordered the dissolution of Lamennais' religious community, and the pupils were removed to Ploërmel, where they continued their studies under the supervision of M. Jean de Lamennais. M. Féli disbanded his little army with the dignity of a defeated general, and then threw himself single-handed again into the fight. He changed his patrician name to F. Lamennais, and demanded of democracy (says one of his biographers), as he had demanded of the church, a wand-stroke that should free the world at once from suffering and oppression. His success may be judged by the political history of France in the last sixteen years. In religion he adopted "_Christianisme législate,_" [Footnote 67] whatever that may be. "If," said he, "men feel so irresistibly impelled to unite themselves to God that they return to Christianity, let no one suppose that it can be to that Christianity which presents itself under the name of Catholicism."

[Footnote 67: Lamartine.]

In the revolution of '48 he thought he saw the birth of liberty; in the "Coup d'Etat" he received its death-blow in his own person. Baffled on every side, he betook himself to literature, and translated the "Divina Commedia;" then "feeling within him no life-sustaining thought," he died in his seventy-third year, after an illness of a few weeks, leaving these words in his will: "I will be buried among the poor, and like the poor. I will have nothing over my grave, not even a stone; nor will I have my body carried into any church." They laid him in Père la Chaise, and no word of blessing was uttered over his grave. Poor Lamennais! What magnificent possibilities were shattered in his fall!

And Maurice, what were his emotions when the door of La Chênaie dosed behind him?--the "little paradise" he called it, but then, poor soul, {417} anything that had escaped him for ever seemed to have been paradise. He suffered all that must be endured by those who have mistaken personal influence for a divine attraction. The novitate on which he had entered at La Chênaie with a certain reluctance, galled him beyond endurance at Ploërmel. "I would rather run the chance of a life of adventure than be garrotted by a rule," he said, and so he went out into the world again, feeling like a thing let loose in the universe, and by the blessing of Providence was received into the home of his unfailing friend, Hippolyte de la Morvonnais, who lived most delightfully on the coast of Brittany, at a place called Le Val de l'Arquenon.

Two months of simple country life, and of intercourse with Morvonnais, and with his wife, who exercised over Maurice the noblest and sweetest influence, gave him renewed strength to battle with life again. In the following extract from his journal, describing the last walk at Le Val, we see with what tenacity he clung to the past, and with what sadness he encountered the future: "Ten o'clock in the evening. Last walk, last visit to the sea, to the cliffs, to the whole grand scenery that has enchanted me for two months. Winter is smiling upon us with all the grace of spring, and giving us days that make birds sing and leaves burst forth on the rose-bushes in the garden, on the eglantine in the woods, on the honeysuckle climbing over rock and wall. About two o'clock we took the path that winds so gracefully through flowering broom and coarse cliff grass, skirting along wheat-fields, bending toward ravines, twisting in and out between hedge-rows, and at last boldly ascending the loftiest rocks. The object of our walk was a promontory that commands the Bay of Quatre-Vaux. A hundred feet below us shone the sea, breaking against the rocks with sounds that passed through our souls as they mounted to heaven. Toward the horizon the fishing-boats unfurled against the azure sky their dazzling sails, and as our eyes turned from this little fleet to the more numerous one that sailed singing nearer to us, an innumerable crowd of sea-birds fishing gaily, and gladdening our eyes with the sight of their bright plumage and graceful movements over the water--the birds, the sails, the lovely day and universal peace gave to the sea a festal beauty that filled my soul with glad enthusiasm in spite of the sad thoughts I had brought with me to our promontory; and then I looked with all my soul at headlands, rocks, and islands, trying to imprint them on my memory and carry them away with me. Coming home I trod religiously, and with regret at every step, the path that had so often led me to such beautiful thoughts, in such sweet company. The path is so charming when it reaches the coppice, and passes on among high hazel trees, and a thick, bushy hedge of boxwood! Then the joy that nature had bestowed upon me died away, and the melancholy of parting took possession of me. Tomorrow will make of sea, and woods, and coast, and all the charms I have enjoyed, a dream, a floating thought to me; and so, that I might carry away from these dear places as much as possible, and as if they could give themselves to me, I besought them to engrave their images upon my soul, to give me something of themselves that could never pass away; and I broke off branches of boxwood, bushes, and luxurious thickets, plunging my head into their depths to breathe in the wild perfumes they exhale, to penetrate into their very essence, and speak as it were heart to heart.

"The evening passed as usual in talking and reading. We recalled the happiness of past days; I traced a faint picture of them in this book, and we looked at it sadly, as at some dear, beautiful, dead face."

One more passage from his journal and we will leave Maurice de Guérin in Paris. Two years from the following date he was a fashionable man of the world, capable of vieing in {418} conversation with those marvels of wit and brilliancy, the talkers of Paris; but we have to do with him only as the banished recluse, the exile from La Chênaie.

"Paris, Feb., 1834. "O God! close my eyes, keep me from seeing all this multitude, whose presence rouses in me thoughts so bitter and discouraging. As I pass through it, let me be deaf to the sounds, inaccessible to the impressions that overwhelm me when I am in the crowd; set before my eyes some image, some vision of the things I love, a field, a valley, a moor, Le Cayla, Le Val, something in nature; I will walk with eyes fastened upon these dear forms, and pass on without a sense of suffering."

From the Month.

OF DREAMERS AND WORKERS.

Nearly all men are born either dreamers or workers; not perhaps only the one or only the other, but one of these two points is the centre of their oscillation. Like a pendulum, they can move only so far toward their opposite, some more, some less; but, like the pendulum, they invariably return to their centre. Do we not all know some man with abstracted eye, high, retreating forehead, rather refined and often slightly attenuated frame and features, and placidly resolute in demeanor, who has held the same position in the opinion of his fellow-men, or, it may be, has occupied the same bench on the Sunday quietly for twenty years or more? He is a specimen of the extreme type of dreamers--venerative, mystical, and benevolent; but to all appearance practically useless, helpless, and inert. Viewed physiologically, these men are chiefly fair-haired and of the nervous lymphatic temperament; sometimes this is combined with the bilious temperament, and in such cases (to some of which we shall have more particularly to allude) they become remarkable characters. It has been said that the religion natural to dreamers is a mild form of Buddhism; but this is probably because most Buddhists are dreamers and mystics in the highest degree. One thing is certain, dreamers are in politics either conservative or utopian, and in religion are little disposed either to reject what they have been taught or to influence others to do so. If they have been educated as Catholics, mild and devout Catholics they live and die; if as Protestants, they are unusually gentle and tolerant, and oppose alike reforms that would be innovations, and innovations that would be reforms. A man who lives by faith, thus resting on the invisible, has at times an apparent resemblance to a dreamer. It is not our object in this paper to point out the distinction, wide as it indeed is. Dreamers are the subject of wonderful anecdotes about their absence of mind: it is related of them that they forget their meals, start on a journey without their hats, walk with their eyes wide open over precipices, ride on their walking-sticks, and are surprised when toll is not demanded of them for their charger. There is no occasion to believe all these preposterous tales, but no doubt there are many very curious and perfectly well-authenticated cases of abstraction of mind so entire as to cause catastrophes both painful and ludicrous. To these men their real life is their dream, their working-day is only their interruption and annoyance. They are in heart mystics, and only need a certain activity of brain and speech to proclaim themselves as such. They possess great store of happiness within themselves, owing to their peculiarity of caring less than others for those {419} substantial and golden rewards which cause the unrest of the world. They love the unseen and mysterious better than the visible and sensuous, and would in general barter any amount of distinct and limited reality for indefinite prospects; so that the single streak of wan and dying light, which sleeps on the edge of the dark horizon, is more precious to them, as suggesting Infinity, than any view which could be offered of noble cities or fertile plains. Almost all things are to them symbolical. No action is in their thought simply what it seems to be; but there is about every deed performed, circumstance encountered, or season passed, a secret sense of omen or prescience, of brightness or of shadow. Light becomes a sentiment calling up images of corresponding radiance and beauty, but especially perhaps that early morning light which seems, while yet sleeping, to float in on the world, as opposed to the fading colors of departing day. Darkness, again, sometimes lends a sense of peril; but more often is peopled by spirits--a realm of shadows and shadowy delights, all called into being, moved, governed, and colored by the dreamer in his dream. The many gradations between brightness and gloom have each their especial fascination for dreamers, who are in this respect as discriminative and fanciful as the Jews, who, in olden times, distinguished two kinds of twilight: the doves' twilight, or crepusculum of the day, and ravens' twilight, or the crepusculum of the night. In truth, their tendency is to behold all actual things as illusions, and to consider the spiritual and unseen world as the only true one: thus, in the cloudy mantle of constant reverie they hide all the ills and infirmities of humanity, and slumber in the "golden sleep of halcyon quiet apart from the everlasting storms of life." For when a man can sit calmly on an uncomfortable pole, like the Indian mystic, and say "I am the Universe, and the Universe is me," he has attained to the greatest conceivable height and perfection of dream-life. From the age of Plato to our own times dreamers have been born perpetually among the sons of men. St. John is claimed by them as being the most profound and loving mystic ever given to the world. There have been countless others; we need not add a list of names; those of Swedenborg, Boehmen, and Irving, will occur to the memory as representing one class of dreamers. These leaders are, as one might predict, regarded with the extreme veneration characteristic of the order. Indeed, of some it may be chronicled, as it was of the ancient deities, Buddha, etc., "Once a man, now a God!" In general, dreamers have tenanted our madhouses rather than filled our prisons; if, however, they do commit crimes, they are serious ones. Religious and political assassinations have been commonly the fruits of mad dreamers. In the ranks have been numbered many holy men, and as a rule they have influenced mankind rather by the example of their life and the teaching of their pen than by busy practical action. Only certain professions and occupations are suitable for dreamers. In the olden times they were poets, shepherds, prophets, soothsayers, diviners, alchemists, rhabdomantists. [Footnote 68] In these days they are by rights clergymen, authors, poets, philanthropists, and, philosophers. If they enter trade they commonly end in the _Gazette_; and placed in positions of authority, where severity of discipline has to be exercised, they are uniformly unsuccessful; in situations of trust, they are invariably single-hearted and faithful, but in every place and at all times they are the most frequent victims of fraudulent representations and impudent imposture. A certain number of the priesthood among all nations, gentle, speculative, and saintly men, {420} have been of this order; weaving their work and their dreams together into a fair fabric of many colors, which if it seems to ordinary eyes shadowy and unsubstantial as the mist, is yet, like the air, elastic, solid, and capable of resisting a very heavy pressure. Idealists are, however, rarely formidable in action unless the bilious is largely transfused in their temperament. They then become missionaries and martyrs; patriots, revolutionists, fanatics; they head revolutions, plan massacres, overthrow monarchies, and shatter creeds. Peter the Hermit, John of Leyden, are examples of this order.

[Footnote 68: [Greek text], _a rod_; men who undertook, and in certain unenlightened regions do still undertake, to discover wells of water, veins of minerals, or hidden treasures of money and jewels, by means of divining-rods. ]

The workers born into the world are widely different in temperament and disposition, and antagonistic in principles, sentiment, and action. They consist both of those who work with their hands alone, and of those who work up into a practical form the reveries and speculative schemes of the dreamers. Physiologically viewed, the extreme type of the worker exhibits most frequently the bullet-shaped head, square jaw, muscular, thick neck, large chest development, and elemental hand, commonly also the sanguine, sanguine-nervous, or sanguine-bilious temperament, They have an irresistible propensity to do, to acquire, to conquer or invade; they are fertile in resource, opulent in stratagem, full of quarrel, and essentially aggressive. A contest is to them an occasion of inexplicable delight; and naturally dedicated to action, they are as unable to conceive of disappointment as the other class are to resist that which is or seems to be their destiny. They become engineers, manufacturers, merchants, inventors, mighty hunters, soldiers, sailors, pioneers, emigrants, rough-riders, pugilists, smugglers, aeronauts, acrobats, and celebrated performers in travelling circuses and menageries, lion-tamers, snake-charmers, rat-catchers, burglars, thieves, and highwaymen. They are gamekeepers, and devote their lives to circumvent and strive in mortal strife with poachers; or they are poachers, and spend their days and nights in plotting against and harassing and threatening the gamekeepers. As clergymen they are most hard-working, zealous and excellent, but also the most quarrelsome and intolerant. When they come on to the earth as younger members of the aristocracy, who may neither dig, trade, nor fight in the ring, and have not the wherewithal to keep racehorses and hunters, they enter the army or navy, and there in times of peace, when no legitimate outlet presents itself for the expenditure of these energies, they form a very insubordinate and turbulent item of the population. The lower classes of the workers who cannot get work, then crusade against the upper classes, who are in the same predicament; and we see the result in the perpetual placarding in some journals and newspapers of "deplorable blackguardism in high life." Three parts out of five, or even a larger proportion, of the Anglo-Saxon population are composed of workers as opposed to dreamers; and the seething unquiet mass of humanity known and described by some writers as our "dangerous classes" is almost entirely recruited from their ranks. Many centuries ago they were Vikings, pirates, and border robbers; they scoured the seas, made raids, reived the cattle, and levied black-mail; anon they were crusaders, for though Peter the Hermit was a dreamer, his followers were workers; subsequently they destroyed monasteries; and in these days they have made railroads and abolished the corn-laws. But, nevertheless, the men who first built churches, and dwelt in monasteries, and discovered the mysterious agency by which the engine was to do its work, were not workers, but dreamers, and were reviled in their day as visionaries and enthusiasts. Where a dreamer would have been an alchemist, a modern worker finds his mission to be a gold-digger; where one is a shepherd, the other will be a hunter or trapper:--the first works that he may retire to dream. {421} the second dreams how he shall arise and work.

The dreamers among men select as mates the workers among women, or are (perhaps more often) selected by them, and _vice versa_. It is the old eternal law of nature--the duality pervading all things, types, and classes, man and woman, positive and negative, matter and spirit, reason and faith; and, in spite of the gentle scorn which dreamers cherish for workers, and the undisguised contempt with which workers regard dreamers, so they will continue to exist side by side until the day comes when the worker can work no more, and the dreamer shall have dreamed for the last time.

MISCELLANY.

_The Old Church at Chelsea, England_,--Mr. H. H. Burnell read a paper before the British Archaeological Society lately, on the Old Church of Chelsea. The chancel, with the chauntries north and south of it, are the only portions of ancient work left. The north chauntry, called the Manor Chauntry, once contained the monuments of the Brays, now in very imperfect condition, having been destroyed or removed to make space for those of the Gervoise family. There remains, however, an ancient brass in the floor. Of the south, or More Chauntry, he stated that the monument of Sir Thomas More was removed from it to the chancel; and the chauntry had been occupied by the monuments of the Georges family, now also removed, displaced, and destroyed. Mr. Blunt showed that, notwithstanding the current contrary opinion, founded on Aubrey's assertion, the More monument is the original one for which Sir Thomas More himself dictated the epitaph. Mr. Burnell, the architect of the improvements effected subsequently to 1857, spoke positively as to the non-existence of a crypt which conjecture had placed under the More Chauntry. The foundation of the west end of the church before it was enlarged in 1666, he found west of Lord Dacre's tomb. On the north side of the chancel an aumbrey, and on the south a piscina was found, coeval with the chancel (early fourteenth century). The arch between the More Chauntry and the chancel is a specimen of Italian workmanship--dated 1528--a date confirmed by the objects represented in the carved ornaments, those objects being connected with the Roman Catholic ritual. It is a remarkably early instance of the use of Italian architecture in this country. In a window of this chapel, then partly bricked up, was found in the brickwork in 1858 remains of the stained glass which once filled it. The body of Sir Thomas More was, according to Aubrey, interred in this chapel, and his head, after an exposure of fourteen days, testifying to the passers-by on London Bridge the remorseless cruelty of Henry VIII. and his barbarous insensibility, was consigned to a vault in St. Dunstan's Church, Canterbury. It was seen and drawn in that vault in 1715.--_Reader_.

_New Artesian Well in Paris_,--A third artesian well is now being added to the two which Paris' has already. Already the perforation has reached the depth of eighty-two metres, being twenty metres below the sea-level. Before reaching this point, considerable difficulties had to be overcome in the shape of intermediate sheets of water, which form a series of subterranean lakes. The first of these was kept in its bed by means of a strong iron tube driven perpendicularly through it; that which followed received wooden palings, and the subsequent stratum being clay, the masonry was continued without difficulty to about five metres above sea-level. But at this point a layer of agglomerations was reached, which let a great deal of water escape. It thus became necessary to have again recourse to pumps: those employed were in the aggregate of 20 horse-power. Owing to the bad nature of this stratum, it was resolved to protect the perforation by a revetment of extraordinary thickness; and in order that the well might preserve its diameter of two metres notwithstanding, the upper part has had to be widened in proportion, so as to {422} give it the enormous width of four metres at the top. After this labor the work of perforation was continued through a stratum of pyrolithic limestone. At the depth corresponding to the level of the sea, they reached a layer of tubular chalk, all pierced with large holes, forming so many spouts, as thick as a man's thigh, through which water poured into the well with incredible velocity. While the pumps were at work to get rid of this water, a cylindrical revetment of bricks was built on a sort of wheel made of oak, and laid down flat at the bottom of the perforation by way of a foundation, and the intermediate space between this cylinder and the chalk stratum was filled with concrete, 47,000 kilos, of which were expended in this operation. As soon as the concrete might be considered to have set, or attained sufficient consistency, the brick cylinder was taken to pieces again, and the perforation continued to the pressure point, where a new sheet of water has been reached, requiring ingenious contrivances._--Artisan_.

_New Irish Coal Fossils_.--Through the labors of Professor Huxley, Dr. E. P. Wright, and Mr. Brownrig, some very interesting fossils from the Castlecomer coal-measures of Co. Kilkenny, Ireland, have been brought under the notice of geologists. The specimens consist of fish, insects, and amphibian reptiles. Three out of the five forms of these amphibians are _undoubtedly new_ to science, and, in all probability, the remaining two also. The first, and most remarkable genus, Professor Huxley has named "_Ophiderpeton_," having reference to its elongated, snake-like form, rudimentary limbs, peculiar head, and compressed tail. In outward form _Ophiderpeton_ somewhat resembles _Siren lacertina_ and _Amphiuma_, but the ventral surface appears covered with an armature of minute, spindle-shaped plates, obliquely adjusted together, as in _Archaegosaurus_ and _Pholidogaster_. The second new form, which he names _Lepterpeton_, possesses an eel-like body, with slender and pointed head, and singularly constructed hourglass-shaped centra, as in _Thecodontosaurus_. The third genus, which Professor Huxley names _Ichthyerpeton_, has also ventral armor, composed of delicate rod-like ossicles; the hind limbs have three short toes, and the tail was covered with small quadrate scutes, or apparently horny scales. The fourth new amphibian Labyrinthodont he appropriately names _Keraterpeton_, a singular salamandroid-looking form, but minute as compared with the other associated genera. Its highly ossified vertebral column, prolonged epiotic bones, and armor of overlapping scutes, determine its character in a remarkable manner. A paper has been read before the Royal Irish Academy upon the subject, and, in the course of the discussion which followed, Professor Haughton said he had Professor Huxley's authority for stating that the coal-pit at Castlecomer had within a few months afforded more important discoveries than all the other coal-pits of Europe.--_Geological Magazine_.

_The Accommodation-Power of the Eye._--The manner in which the human eye alters its focus for the perception of objects at various distances has always been a difficult problem for physiologists and physicists. The literature of medical science is full of dissertations on this subject, yet very little, if anything, is positively known of the exact means by which the alteration is achieved. There appears to be now a tendency among ophthalmologists to believe that the effect required is produced by an alteration of the form of the crystalline lens of the eye, which becomes less or more convex as occasion demands. This view has just received a rather strong condemnation by the Rev. Professor Haughton, of Trinity College, Dublin, in some remarks published in the "Dublin Quarterly Journal of Science." Speaking of the alteration of form in the lens, he says:--"Even this must take place on a far greater and more important scale than anatomists have as yet suspected. The change amounts to the addition of a double convex lens of crown glass having a radius of a third of an inch. Anatomists have not as yet discovered a mechanism for changing the shape of the lens sufficient to produce these results. The lens should almost be turned into a sphere, and I know of no ciliary muscles capable of effecting so great a change."--_Popular Science Review_.

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_Petroleum as a Substitute for Coal_.--Some recent experiments with petroleum oil used for heating water, gave results from which it was estimated that petroleum had more than three times the heating effect of an equal weight of coal. Mr. Richardson's experiments at Woolwich, however, gave an evaporation of 13.96 to 18.66 lb. of water, by one pound of American petroleum; 9.7 lb. of petroleum being burnt per square foot of grate per hour. With shale oil the evaporation was 10 to 10.5 lb. of water per pound of fuel. The evaporative power of good coal may be taken, for comparison, at 8 to 8.5 lb. per pound of fuel. Taking into account the saving of freight due to the better quality of the fuel, and the saving of labor in stoking, it is possible that at some future time mineral oil may supersede coal in some of our ocean steamers.--

_Frith of Forth Bridge_.--Parliamentary sanction has been obtained for a bridge over the Frith of Forth, of a magnitude which gives it great scientific interest. It is to form part of a connecting-link between the North British and Edinburgh and Glasgow Railways. Its total length will be 11,755 feet, and it will be made up of the following spans, commencing from the south shore:--First, fourteen openings of 100 feet span, increasing in height from 63 to 77 ft. above high-water mark; then six openings of 150 ft. span, varying from 71 ft. to 79 ft. above high water level; and then six openings of 175 ft. span, of which the height above high-water level varies from 76 to 83 ft. These are succeeded by fifteen openings of 200 ft. span, and height increasing from 80 ft. to 105 ft. Then come the four great openings of 500 ft. span, which are placed at a clear height of 135 ft. above high-water spring tides. The height of the bridge then decreases, the large spans being followed by two openings of 200 ft., varying in height from 105 to 100 ft. above high-water; then four spans of 175 ft., decreasing from 102 to 96 ft. in height; then four openings of 150 ft. span, varying in height from 95 to 91 feet; and lastly seven openings of 100 ft. span, 97 to 93 feet in height. The piers occupy 1,005 feet in aggregate width. The main girders are to be on the lattice principle, built on shore, floated to their position, and raised by hydraulic power. The total cost is estimated at £476,543.--_Engineering_, Jan. 5.

_Origin of the Diamond_.--Contrary to the usual opinion that the diamond has been produced by the action of intense heat on carbon, Herr Goeppert asserts that it owes its origin to aqueous agency. His argument is based upon the fact that the diamond becomes black when exposed to a very high temperature. He considers that its Neptunian origin is proved by the fact that it has often on the surface impressions of grains of sand, and sometimes of crystals, showing that it has once been soft.

_The Purification of Coal-Gas_.--An important essay on this subject has been written by Professor A. Anderson, of Queen's College, Birmingham. It relates chiefly to the methods discovered by the author for the successful removal of bisulphide of carbon and the sulphuretted hydro-carbons by means of the sulphides of ammonium. By washing the gas with this compound, a very large proportion (nearly 35 per cent.) of the sulphur impurities are removed, and the illuminating power of the gas, so far from being diminished, becomes actually increased. Professor Anderson records several carefully conducted experiments, all of which prove the truth of the conclusions at which he has arrived. His method is now in operation at the Taunton and other local gas-works, and is highly spoken of by those who have given it careful consideration.

_Paraffine in the Preservation of Frescoes_.--In _Dingler's Journal et Bulletin de la Société Chimique_ it is stated that paraffine may be used with advantage for the above purpose. Vohl coats the picture with a saturated solution of paraffine in benzole, and, when the solvent has evaporated, washes the surface with a very soft brush. Paraffine has this advantage over other greasy matters--it does not become colored by time.

_Welsh Gold_.--During the year 1864, we learn from statistics only recently published, there were five gold-mines working in Merionethshire. In these 2,836 tons were crushed, from which 2,887 ozs. of gold, valued at £9,991, were obtained. This is in excess of the quantity obtained in 1868, which was only 552 ozs.; but it is considerably less than the production of 1862, when 5,299 ozs., having a value of £20,390, were extracted.

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_A New Train-Signaling Apparatus._--Sundry mechanical contrivances and improvements in philosophical apparatus have been exhibited at the scientific gatherings of the present season in London, attracting more or less of attention, according to their merits and utility. Mr. Preece's train-signalling apparatus for promoting the safety of railway-travelling, can hardly fail of being interesting to everybody. It is in use on the South-western Railway, and if properly used, accidents from collision ought never to happen; it has the advantage of being applicable to any number of stations, which is of importance, considering how stations are multiplying in and around the metropolis. Mr. Preece has a very simple and complete method of communication between the signalman and switchman. The latter, on being informed that trains are waiting to come in, operates on the lever-handles before him, there being as many handles as lines of converging railway; and these handles are so contrived, that on moving any one to admit a train, it locks the others; so that if the switchman should pull at any one of them by mistake, he cannot move it. He is thus prevented from admitting two trains at the same time upon one line of rails, and thus one of the most frequent occasions of railway accident is avoided. And besides this, safety is further promoted by a series of small signal-discs, which start up before the switchman's eyes at the right moment, and give him demonstration that he has given the right pull at the right handle.

_Action of Liquid Manure on certain Soils_.--Some recent researches on this point, conducted by Professor Voelcker, were alluded to by Dr. G. Calvert in his Canton lecture before the Society of Arts. In some respects Dr. Voelcker's conclusions differ from those of Mr. Way. They are briefly as follows: (1.) That calcareous, dry soils absorb about six times as much ammonia from the liquid manure as the sterile, sandy soil. (2.) That the liquid manure in contact with the calcareous soil becomes much richer in lime, whilst during its passage through the sandy soil it becomes much poorer in this substance. (3.) That the calcareous soil absorbs much more potash than the sandy soil. (4) That chloride of sodium is not absorbed to any considerable extent by either soil, (5.) That both soils remove most of the phosphoric acid from the liquid. (6.) That the liquid manure, in passing through the calcareous soil, becomes poorer, and in passing through the sandy soil becomes richer in silica.

_The Value of Sewage_.--This important question, which has been so ably discussed by Baron Liebig in his various works upon Agricultural Chemistry, had a paper devoted to it by Dr. Gilbert at a late meeting (February 1st) of the Chemical Society. After entering into the details of his subject, the author draws the following general conclusions: 1st. It is only by the liberal use of water that the refuse matters of large populations can be removed from their dwellings without nuisance and injury to health. 2d. That the discharge of town sewage into rivers renders them unfit as water supplies to other towns, is destructive to fish, causes deposits which injure the channel, and emanations which are injurious to health, is a great waste of manurial matter, and should not be permitted. 3d. That the proper mode of both purifying and utilizing sewage-water is to apply it to land. 4th. That, considering the great dilution of town sewage, its constant daily supply at all seasons, its greater amount in wet weather, when the land can least bear, or least requires more water, and the cost of distribution, it is best fitted for application to grass, which alone can receive it the year round, though it may be occasionally applied with advantage to other crops within easy reach of the line or area laid down for the continuous application to grass. 6th. That the direct result of the general application of town sewage to grass land would be an enormous increase in the production of milk (butter and cheese) and meat, whilst by the consumption of the grass a large amount of solid manure, applicable to arable land and crops generally, would be produced. 6th. That the cost or profit to a town of arrangements for the removal and utilization of its sewage must vary greatly, according to its position and to the character of the land to be irrigated; where the sewage can be conveyed by gravitation and a sufficient tract of suitable land is available, the town may realize a profit; but, under contrary conditions, it may have to submit to a pecuniary loss to secure the necessary sanitary advantages.

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NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE PRINCIPLES OF BIOLOGY. By Herbert Spencer. New York: Appleton & Co. 1866, Vol. I. 12mo. Pp. 475.

We have omitted the long list of works of which Herbert Spencer is the author, works of rare ability in their way, but essentially false in the philosophical principles on which they are based. Mr. Herbert Spencer is naturally one of the ablest men in Great Britain, far superior to the much praised Buckle, and equalled, if not surpassed by John Stuart Mill, now member of Parliament. We have heretofore considered him as belonging to the positivist school of philosophy, founded by Auguste Comte, and the ablest man of that school; able, and less absurd than even M. Littré. But in a note in the work before us he disclaims all affiliation with Positivism, declares that he does not accept M. Comte's system, and says that the general principles in which he agrees with that singular man, he has drawn not from him, but from sources common to them both. This we can easily believe, for in the little we have had the patience to read of M. Comte's unreadable works we have found nothing original with him but his dryness, dulness, and wearisomeness, in which if he is not original, he is at least superior to most men. Yet we have not been able to detect any essential difference of doctrine or principle between the Frenchman and the Englishman, and to us who are not positivists, M. Comte, M. Littré, George H. Lewes, Herbert Spencer, John Stuart Mill, Miss Evans, and Harriet Martineau belong to one and the same school.

It is but simple justice to Herbert Spencer to say that he writes in strong, manly, and for the most part classical English, and has made himself master of the best philosophical style that we have met with in any English or American writer. He understands, as far as a man can with his principles, the philosophy of the English tongue, and writes it with the freedom and ease of a master, though not always with perfect purity. He must have been a hard student, and evidently is a most laborious thinker and industrious writer. But here ends, we are sorry to say, our commendation. It is the misfortune, perversity, or folly of Herbert Spencer to spend his life in attempting to obtain or at least to explain effects without causes, properties without substance, and phenomena without noumena or being. In his _Principles of Philosophy_, he divides the real and unreal into the knowable and the unknowable, without explaining, however, how the human mind knows there is an unknowable; and to the unknowable he relegates the principles, origin, and causes of things; that is, in plain English, the principles, origin, and causes of things, are unreal at least to us, and are not only unknown, but absolutely unknowable, and should be banished as subjects of investigation, inquiry, or thought. Hence the knowable, that to which all science is restricted, includes only phenomena, that is to say, the sensible or material world.

Biology, which is the subject of the volume before us, is the science of life, but on the author's principles, is necessarily confined to the statement, description, and classification of facts, or phenomena of organic as distinguished from inorganic matter. He can admit on his philosophy no vital principle, but must explain the vital phenomena without it, by a combination, brought about nobody knows how, of chemical, mechanical and electric changes, forces, action, and reaction--as if there can be changes, forces, action, or reaction where there is no relation of cause and effect! But after all his labor, and it is immense, to show what chemical, mechanical, and electric changes and combinations, binary, tertiary, etc., are observed in a living subject, he explains nothing; for life, while it lasts, is neither mechanical, chemical, nor electrical, but to a certain extent resists and counteracts all these forces, and the human body falls completely under their dominion only when it has ceased to be a living body, when by chemical action it is decomposed, and returns to the several elements from which it was formed. Mr. Spencer describes very scientifically the entire {426} process of assimilation; but what is that living power within that assimilates the food we eat and converts it into chyle, blood, and flesh and bone? You see here a principle operating of which no element is found in mechanics, chemistry or electricity, or any possible combination of them. The muscles of my arms and shoulder may operate on mechanical principles in raising my arm when I will to raise it; but on what mechanical, chemical, or electric principles do I will to raise it? That I will to raise it, and in willing to do so perform an immaterial act, I know better than you know that "percussion produces detonation in sulphide of nitrogen," or that "explosion is a property of nitro-mannite," or "of nitroglycerine."

The simple fact is that the physical sciences are all good and useful in their place, and for purposes to which they are fitted; but they are all secondary sciences, and without principles higher than themselves to give dialectic validity to their inductions, they are no sciences at all. There is no approach to the science of life in Herbert Spencer's Biology; there is only a painfully elaborate statement of the principal external facts which usually accompany it and depend on it. Indeed, we had the impression that our most advanced physiologists, while admitting in their place chemical and electric forces as necessary to the phenomena of organic life, had abandoned the attempt to expound the science of physiology on chemical, electric or mechanical principles, or any possible combination of them. Even Dr. Draper, if he makes no great use of it in his physiology, recognizes a vital principle, even an immaterial soul, in man. We had also the impression that the medical profession were abandoning the chemical theory of medicine, so fashionable a few years ago. We may be wrong, but as far as we have been able to keep pace with modern science, Mr. Spencer is a quarter of a century behind his age.

The chapter on genesis, generation, multiplication, or reproduction, is as unscientific as it is unchristian. We merely note that the author insists on metagenesis as well as parthenogenesis, that is, that the offspring may differ in kind from the parents, and that there are virgin, or rather, sexless mothers. Some years ago, in conversing with a scientific friend, I ventured to deny this alleged fact, on the strength of the theological and scriptural doctrine that every kind produces its like. He laughed in my face, and brought forward certain well-known facts in the reproduction of the aphid or cabbage-louse. I assured him that if he would take the pains to observe more closely he would find that his metagenesis and parthenogenesis are only different stages in the entire process of the reproduction of the aphid. Of course he did not believe a word of it; but a few days afterwards he came and informed me that he had seen his friend. Dr. Burnham of Boston, a naturalist of rare sagacity, who told him that naturalists were wrong in asserting metagenesis in the case of aphides. "I have," said he, "been making my observations for some years on these little organisms, and I find that what we have taken for metagenesis is only the different stages in the process of reproduction, for I have discovered the young aphid properly formed and enveloped in the so-called virgin or sexless mother." The naturalist is dead, but his friend, my informant, is living.

We have no space to enter into any detailed review of this very elaborate volume. It contains many curious materials of science, but the author rejects creation, generation, formation, and emanation, and adopts that of evolution. Life is evolved from various elements which are reducible to gases, and, upon the whole, he gives us a gaseous sort of life. His theory seems to be that of Topsy, who declared she didn't come, but _growed_. We cannot perceive that Mr. Herbert Spencer has made any serious advance on Topsy. The universe is evolution, and evolution is growth, and he must say of himself with Topsy, "I didn't come, I growed." At any rate, he must be classed with those old philosophers who evolved all things from matter, some from fire, some from air, and some from water, and made all things born from change or corruption; or rather, with Epicurus, who evolved all from the fortuitous motion, changes, and combination of atoms. Those old philosophers were unjustly ridiculed by Hermias, or our recent philosophers have less science than they imagine. Verily, there is nothing new under the sun, and false science only traverses a narrow {427} circle, constantly coming round to the absurdities of its starting point. Yet Herbert Spencer's book has profited us. It has made us feel more deeply than ever the utter impotence of the greatest man to explain anything in nature, without recognizing God and creation.

THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER. May, 1866.

The first volume of the new series of this periodical is completed in the present number, and, we suppose, is a fair specimen of the way in which we may expect to see its programme carried out. On the whole, our expectations are quite well satisfied, particularly with the present number. The first article, "The Unitarian Movement," is an _exposé_ of the view taken by the conductors of the influence which the Unitarian movement is expected to exert upon the future destiny of Christendom and the civilized world. The Unitarian movement is supposed to represent the generally diffused and accepted theology of the mass of thinking persons in the Protestant world, especially of those who give tone to literature, and are most active in promoting science, art, culture, civilization, and process in general. The Catholic Church is a sect, because separated from the scientific and progressive movement. The Unitarian denomination is a useful little institution in a small way, but is not expected to absorb other bodies into itself. Rather it and they are expected to coalesce into a more universal form of organization, which will be the New Christendom or Church of the Future.

The principal difficulty we find in the ingenious theories of our Unitarian friends is, that they assume a great deal, and prove but little. They assume to be in advance of all the world in intelligence, science, liberality, etc., and quietly ignore the whole massive, colossal fabric of Catholic theology. The truth is, the Unitarian idea, so far as it is an idea, and in the way in which any considerable class of Unitarians represent it, is not, and cannot become, the dominant idea of that portion of the scientific or civilized world which has disowned allegiance to the supreme authority of divine revelation. Nor can it be shown that the Catholic idea will not win again the control partially lost over the intellectual realm. Either the human race has a purely natural destiny, or a supernatural one. If the former, a Trinitarian or Unitarian Church, a Past, Present, or Future Church, is not necessary. The State and Society are the highest and all-sufficient organization of the race. If the latter, there must be a divinely instituted organization, possessing continuity of life and fixedness of laws, from the origin of the race. Our friends must admit more or give up more. They are on a road now which will infallibly bring them face to face with the Catholic Church. We look with hope to see some of the boldest and most consistent thinkers of the Unitarians come through into the Catholic Church by this road, and interpret the genuine rationalism of Christian doctrine to their own people much better than we can do it. Dr. Brownson has really demonstrated the whole problem from their own axioms and definitions, if they would but attend to him. But the good Doctor, unfortunately for them, has travelled over the road in seven-league boots, so fast and so far, that it will take at least twenty-five years for his ancient compeers to come up with him.

In the review of "Tischendorff's Plea for the Genuineness of the Gospels," Dr. Hedge has given us an essay marked with his sound and solid scholarship. It is a valuable contribution to sacred literature, and we would gladly see volumes of the same sort from his pen.

The sketch of that singular and gifted person, Francis Newman, the brother of Dr. Newman, has great interest. It tells us something we are very glad to know, and could not easily have found out without the help of the writer. These are always the most interesting and valuable articles in reviews. The author cannot help giving a few passing cuts at Dr. Newman. Dr. Newman seems to annoy a great number of people very much. They seem vexed that he should be a Catholic, and yet extort from even the unwilling so much homage to his genius. The "Independent" calls him renegade and apostate, and Bishop Coxe's very inharmonious organ, misnamed the "Gospel Messenger," calls him "detected thief," with similar epithets. The "Church Journal" tries to make believe that his letter to Dr. Pusey is a "wail of despair." Our Unitarian friend is too much of a gentleman to indulge in such boorish {428} demeanor, but still he cannot suppress a well-bred sneer. "What has Dr. Newman ever done for God's humanity? Has the oppression of the English masses ever weighed upon his heart? Has he ever lifted up his voice in behalf of our down-trodden little ones? Has he ever thought of saving men from the great hell of ignorance and superstition, or are these the safeguards of his precious faith? We have a right to judge of that faith by its fairest fruit. _Ex pede Herculem_."

Dr. Newman's conversion seems, in the eyes of Protestants, to have such a tremendous moral weight, and to carry such a force of argument in it for the truth of the Catholic Church, that they are obliged to deny in some plausible way either his intellectual or moral greatness, in order to escape from it. Does not the author of these sentences know well, that if the Catholic Church and her clergy were taken away from the masses and the poor, they would perish in ignorance and vice while he and his companions were discussing their plans and estimates for the church of the paulo-post future? Does he not know that Dr. Newman and a multitude of other gifted men like him are preaching and working every day among the poorest of the people, while Unitarian clergymen are ministering to select and intelligent congregations? Does he know what St. Peter Claver did for the negroes, and can he point to any Protestant who has done the like? A little more of Dr. Newman's own conscientiousness in speech would do no harm to some of his critics.

The article on "Bushnell on Vicarious Sacrifice" is ably and fairly written, and all the writer's positive views are compatible with Catholic doctrine. He commits the great _faux pas_, however, of ignoring all the post-reformation theology of the Catholic Church, and speaking as if theological science were confined to Protestants. He appears also to be unaware that Catholic theologians commonly teach, after St. Augustine, that God was not bound by his justice to exact condign satisfaction as the condition of pardoning sin, but was free to pardon absolutely. It was more glorious both for God and man that this pardon should be accorded as the fruit of the noblest and most perfect act of merit possible, rather than given gratuitously.

"An American in the Cathedrals of Europe" is an article full of the genuine and pure sentiment with which Mr. Alger's writings abound, and without a word to mar the pleasure a Catholic would take in reading it.

The notices of Dr. Hall and of the University of Michigan have each their interest and value, and the literary criticisms are, as usual, in good taste.

THE APOSTLESHIP OF PRAYER. By the Rev. H. Ramière, of the Society of Jesus. Translated from the latest French edition and revised by a Father of the Society. 12mo, pp. 393. John Murphy & Co., Baltimore. 1866.

A most excellent and thorough treatise on prayer. The spirit and intention of the rev. author are best gained from a perusal of the introduction, which warms one's heart and gives a new and stronger impulse to every hope and desire which the Christian reader may have for the greater glory of God. We cannot, however, entirely agree with the gloomy and discouraging view which is taken of the success of Christianity in the world. Christianity is not, nor has it ever been, a failure; and it is something to which we cannot subscribe when the author attributes "apparent barrenness" to the incarnation, and "comparative uselessness" to the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Neither do we think it suffices to answer the infidel, "Who hath aided the Spirit of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor and taught him?" when he points us to the great portion of the world yet unchristianized. And if prayer be good, both individual and associated; if it be absolutely necessary, as it is in the Christian economy; if it be, as it were, the soul which gives life to every work of the Christian; still we do not imagine that of all the means of grace this alone deserves our earnest thought or demands our undivided attention.

We are not called upon, in any sense, to apologize for Christianity. It is not worthy of us as men of strong faith to treat of religion as though it were a subject that needed to be excused in the face of the unbeliever, or which humbly supplicates the notice of the philosopher and the statesman. The truly great minds which have not professed Christianity have sought rather {429} to excuse the world for not submitting to the force of its arguments and to the charms of its beauty. Christianity is no failure, if there be anything which deserves the name of success. What other institutions can compare with it for actual and permanent success? The propagation of the faith, its preservation, and its enormous diffusion, may well put all past, present, and future works of man to the blush. What else is it now, but _the_ great FACT of the world's history and of the world's present advanced and civilized state? We are not a petty, insignificant sect of thinkers, nor a despicable school of philosophers, seeking a momentary acknowledgment from the great unchristian world. On the contrary, Christianity rules the world; and all that is great and noble in humanity, all that has sanctified the past, sustains the present, and inspires hope for the future; all that is free, civilized, and enlightened in society, depends now for its life, as it has received its seed, from the divine power and light of the Christian faith. Truly, we must pray, and that "without ceasing," for those who are not of the fold of Christ, and for the coming of the kingdom of God upon earth; and any one who peruses the work before us will feel the depth of this obligation; and if he has any real, practical desire for the salvation and sanctification of man, will not fail to be stimulated to constant and earnest prayer. But have we reflected, as well as we might, that before men will pray to God they must first believe in him? The man of enlightened faith prays naturally; the ignorant and the superstitious are noted for their want of confidence in prayer. Prayer is the union of the soul with God, and the better God is known, the better is the heart of man prepared for the influences of the Holy Spirit. "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?" We may urge our faithful Christians to pray for the conversion of the world, and we may mourn that they do not pray for this end more than they do; but whatsoever arms God has placed at our disposal for conquering the world unto himself, we, like good soldiers of Jesus Christ, must use them with alacrity, with zeal, and, above all, with that spirit of sacrifice which our holy faith alone has the power to inspire. Whilst we need not neglect the apostolic manner of preaching the word of God, we should also lay to heart the oft-repeated and wise admonition of the Holy Father to make diligent use of the providential means of the press, to diffuse the knowledge of the Christian faith, and promulgate the saving principles of strict Christian morality, and thus prevent defection from the congregation of the just, and enlighten them that sit in the darkness and in the shadow of death. The people need more light, more instruction. The masses among non-Catholics are very ignorant of religion. They are living upon only the poor remnants of Catholic faith and tradition which have been left to them by the ruthless hand of the despoiler. None have felt this more than the clergy and enlightened laity of our own country, where religion is thrown upon its own merits for support and progress, and where the hold upon the ancient Christian tradition is so slight; and it is a happy augury for the conversion of the American people that these sentiments are beginning to have a practical and encouraging result. We must make the truth known, for it is that which enlightens man. And Christianity is truth. There is no form of truth so broad, so exalting, so truly progressive, so noble and so tree. Men will accept it when you make it known to them--accept it with joy, and a reverent enthusiasm. The tone of our remarks must not be misunderstood as attributing to the spirit of the work before us any want of appreciation of the great needs of which we have spoken, or that we think the rev. author displays a want of confidence in the power of Christian truth. On the contrary, we have seldom met with a book so urgent in earnestness and so fall of faith. We can only say, in conclusion, God send the church many more such zealous souls as the Père Ramière, now that the harvest is so full and the laborers are so few.

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REPORT OF THE TRIAL OF DR. W. H. STOKES, PHYSICIAN, AND MARY BLENKINSOP, SISTER SUPERIOR, OF MOUNT HOPE INSTITUTION, BEFORE THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR BALTIMORE COUNTY. Reported by Eugene L. Didier. 8vo pamphlet, pp. 202. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet. 1866.

The famous Mount Hope case, which was brought to trial in February last, ended in a verdict for the defendants, and we have here a full report of it. We trust the projectors of this magnificent _fiasco_ are abundantly pleased with the fruits of their endeavors, although they seem to have forgotten that, failing to sustain their indictment, the odium they sought to fix upon others would be sure to recoil upon themselves. Hence we think that popular judgment will incline to the belief that the only conspiracy in the case (if there be any) was upon the part of the prosecution. The fact that an attempt was made to deprive the defendants of a plea secured to them by positive law would rather favor this opinion. We should be happy to believe that sectarian prejudice had nothing to do in founding this accusation; but the animus which prompted it will soon be apparent to any one who will take the trouble to read the charge. The estimable and pious ladies, whose life of sacrifice in the interests of religion and humanity has compelled the admiration of the world, are deemed unfit to undertake their office of charity because they are women! because they are religious and governed by a foreign priest! This tells the whole story, and simply means that ladies of the Catholic religion, who choose to unite in a religious order for the purpose of relieving human suffering, are unworthy of public sympathy or confidence. We strongly doubt if all the testimony sought to be introduced on the trial, could it have been admitted, would have materially changed the result. To say nothing of the equivocal character of that evidence, as coming from persons but recently inmates of the institution, and whose perfect competency to testify is far from certain, we know the proneness of those living under the government and direction of others to deem themselves the objects of harsh treatment and neglect. There is not an establishment of such persons in the country, not even a common boarding-school, against which similar charges are not constantly made. The well-known character of these admirable sisters and their unwearied efforts to do good--for the most part far removed from human recognition or applause--afford a strong presumption that the management of their asylum will stand the test of rigorous scrutiny.

A case not wholly unlike the present, got up in a similar spirit, in Boston, some years since, under the Know-Nothing regime, is doubtless still fresh in public recollection. Affairs directed to the same end as this of Mount Hope are got up from time to time, but they serve only to arouse feelings which had much better lie dormant where they cannot be eradicated, and invoke a spirit entirely opposed to the plainest dictates of Christian charity.

The report of the trial appears to be very complete, and we commend it to those who are at all acquainted with the circumstances of the case, or have felt any interest in its result.

CHRISTIAN MISSIONS: Their Agents and Their Results. By T. W. M. Marshall. 2 volumes. New York: Sadliers, No. 31 Barclay street. Reprint from an English edition.

It is somewhat late to notice this valuable work; but, as the publishers have recently sent us a copy, we take the occasion to recommend it to all who are desirous of knowing what has been accomplished both by Catholic and Protestant missionaries.

Mr. Marshall's work has attained a high reputation abroad, and has been translated into several European languages. It is very thorough, and its statements are backed up by a vast array of citations, chiefly from Protestant writers. Catholic missions form a beautiful and attractive page of ecclesiastical history. Their great success and abundant fruits are demonstrated beyond a cavil by the author, as they have been many times before. The majority of Catholics are too indifferent to the great work of missions, and ought to take a deeper interest in them than they do.

The very signal failure of Protestant missions as a whole is also proved, by Mr. Marshall, in such a way that their advocates cannot rebut his evidence. Nevertheless, we think there is an unnecessary amount of satire levelled at the missionaries themselves, and too dark a shade given to the picture of their labors. Many of them are {431} certainly men who, if they were Catholic missionaries, would honor their calling, and who undertook their hopeless task from high and worthy motives. They have accomplished but little, yet their labors have not been altogether without results. The same may be said of the Russian missions. The particular facts stated by Mr. Marshall concerning the low state of a large part of the Russian clergy, the violent means used for enforcing conformity to the Russian Church, and the imperfect instruction given to the ostensible converts, are indubitable. Yet we believe there are other facts also to be taken into the account, which tell on the other side, and are necessary to a perfectly correct view of the true state of the case. A perfectly just balancing of all the accounts would prove most conclusively that the Catholic Church alone is adequate to the task of successfully propagating Christianity. Mr. Marshall has gone very far toward success in his effort to make this balance, and has written with the most perfect honesty of purpose. Some of his deductions may be open to criticism, and his array of facts and testimonies may admit of further completion; but the general result which he has reached cannot be substantially set aside or altered. One particular portion of his work is just now especially valuable, to wit, the estimate he has furnished from Protestant writers of the vast superiority of Oriental _Catholics_ over Oriental _Schismatics_ in the Levant.

We recommend this learned and excellent work to all intelligent readers as the best and most complete of its kind which has yet appeared.

THE STORY OF KENNETT. By Bayard Taylor. 12mo., pp. 418. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1866.

This is an American story as truly as the Waverley novels are Scotch. It has done for Pennsylvania and the Quaker traditions what Hawthorne has for Massachusetts and Puritan life and tradition, and Cooper for Western New York and the fading reminiscences of Indian and frontier life. The book is redolent with the sweet aroma of pastoral life, and that healthy temper and character which are the certain fruit of honest, independent, and successful frugality and toil.

We are grateful to the masters of poetry and romance who will seize and perpetuate the fleeting memories of our beautiful and noble past, and save for our children those traditions of danger, daring, labor, love, and self-sacrifice which colored with mystery and beauty the dreams and aspirations of our childhood. Mr. Taylor is a man of whom we are proud. His experience as a traveller renders his writings more distinctively American, while they are entirely free from any narrowness or provincialism. He deserves the success which follows his literary labors. The book is handsomely got up, as such a book ought to be.

AGNES. A Novel. By Mrs. Oliphant. New York: Harper & Brothers.

This is an artistic, highly-finished story, intensely truthful to nature, yet sufficiently idealized to give the mind the enjoyment of appreciating a work of art. The authoress makes some very fine points. The contemplation of the "Visitation" in the Pitti gallery by the lonely young wife is a beautiful touch of nature, such as only a woman could have made.

INSTRUCTION AND CATECHISM FOR CONFESSION. To be used by children preparing to receive the Sacrament of Penance. 32mo., pp. 24. New York. D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1866.

We are sure that this little book will prove as useful in every respect as the rev. author could desire. There has been an undoubted want of some such aid to the ordinary catechism, and every pastor under whose notice it may come will not fail to welcome it and avail himself of it. We like it because it is short, to the point, and written in good plain English.

GOOD THOUGHTS FOR PRIEST AND PEOPLE. Translated from the German. By Rev. Theodore Noethen. 12mo. Albany. Nos. 1 and 2.

These are the kind of books which we earnestly desire to see among the good Catholic books which every family ought to have and read. The clergy will also find these "Good Thoughts" admirably adapted to their wants, as furnishing suggestive matter for {432} sermons and parochial instructions. Its price, however, will, we fear, defeat its usefulness in part by confining it to a comparatively limited circulation.

MAY CAROLS AND HYMNS AND POEMS. By Aubrey de Vere. 1 vol., 32mo., pp. 232. New York: Lawrence Kehoe. 1866.

Of the two parts comprised in this welcome little volume, the longest, and, to our taste, by all odds the best, is that originally published in London under the title of "May Carols." It is a serial poem, devoted partly to the praises of the Blessed Virgin, and in a subordinate degree to the thoughts of natural beauty suggested by the most joyous and poetical month of the young year. If it reminds us frequently of "In Memoriam," the resemblance cannot be charged as a plagiarism, and at most is only superficial. There is a Tennysonian curtness of phrase, a pregnant significance and neatness of expression in many of the lines, which are equally rare and refreshing in devotional poetry. Charmingly delicate in execution, and profoundly religious in sentiment, Mr. De Vere's "Carols" are a valuable addition to Catholic literature, and will add no little renown to the author's reputation as a poet. The "Hymns and Sacred Poems" have a value of their own for the thoughts which they contain, though we cannot accord them the same praise which we cheerfully render to the first and larger portion of Mr. Kehoe's tastefully printed little volume.

IN MEMORIAM OF RT. REV. JOHN B. FITZPATRICK. Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1866.

A neatly executed pamphlet, containing an account of the funeral obsequies of the late distinguished and beloved bishop of Boston, and three funeral discourses: one by Archbishop McCloskey at the interment, another by Bishop De Goesbriand at the Month's Mind, and a third by the well-known and eloquent Father Haskins of Boston, delivered in one of the parish churches. The friends of the deceased prelate will find in it a valuable and pleasing memento of the departed.

THE HISTORY OF IRELAND, FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE ENGLISH INVASION. By the Rev. Geoffrey Keating, D.D. Translated from the original Gaelic, and copiously annotated by John O'Mahony, with a map showing the location of the ancient clans, and a Topographical Appendix. 8vo., pp. 746. New York: James B. Kirker. 1866.

This is a new edition of a translation of Dr. Keating's History of Ireland, published in this city a few years ago. The original work as it came from the pen of Dr. Keating has met with both praise and censure from Irish scholars. Some critics have thought the learned author placed too much faith in the legends of the ancient Irish. The work, even if a portion of it must be classified as "doubtful," is a valuable record of the deeds of Ireland's chiefs when she was a nation. The notes of the translator are voluminous and critical, and help to throw much light upon passages which, to the ordinary reader, are obscure.

We regret that the publisher has seen fit to leave out the "map showing the location of the ancient clans" of Ireland, which appeared in the first edition published by Mr. Haverty. From the wording of the title-page, one would expect to find it in its proper place. But it is not there.

MAXWELL DREWITT. A Novel. By F. G. Trafford. Harper & Brothers.

This is an Irish tale, exceedingly well written, and just and manly in its tone and sentiment.

L. Kehoe announces the early publication of "CHRISTINE, AND OTHER POEMS," by George H. Miles, Esq. The volume will be brought out in a superior style of binding and typography, worthy of the high merit of the poetry.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

From JAMES O'KANE, New York. Betsey Jane Ward, (better half to Artemus) her Book of Goaks with a hull Akkownt of the Coartship and Maridge to A 4 Said Artemus, and Mister Ward's Cutting-up with the Mormon fare Secks with Pikturs drawed by Mrs. B. Jane Ward. 12mo, pp. 312. [Verbatim;--Transcriber.]

FROM THE AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY. Doctor Kemp. The Story of a life with a Blemish. 8vo, pamphlet.

From D. & J. SADLIER & CO., New York. Nos. 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 of D'Artaud's Lives of the Popes.

From the office of the AVE MARIA, Notre Dame, Ind. Specimen sheet of the Golden Wreath for the month of May, composed of daily considerations on the Triple Crown of our Blessed Lady's joys, sorrows, and glories. With Hymns set to Music for May devotions.

{433}

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. III, NO. 16-JULY, 1866.

[ORIGINAL.]

THE NEAREST PLACE TO HEAVEN.

There are some places in this world nearer to heaven than others. I know of a place which I think is the nearest. Whether you may think so I do not know, but I would like you to see it and judge for yourself. Please to go to France, then to Paris; then take a walk a little distance outside of the Barrière de Vaugirard, and you will come to a small village called Issy. When you have walked about five minutes along its narrow and straggling street, which is the continuation of the Rue de Vaurigard, you win see on your left a high, ugly stone wall, and if I did not ask you to pull the jangling bell at the porter's lodge and enter, you might pass by and think there was nothing worthy of your notice about the place. You say you have not time to stop now, that you have an appointment to dine at the Hôtel des Princes, in Paris, but that some other time you will be most happy, etc. Wait a moment, perhaps I may be able show you something quite as good as a dinner, even at the Hôtel des Princes. Ring the bell. The sturdy oaken door seems to open itself with a click. That is the way with French doors; but it is the porter's doing. When he hears the bell, he pulls at a rope hanging in his lodge, which communicates with the lock of the door. You are free to enter. Go in. But you cannot pass beyond the porter's lodge without giving an account of your self. You cannot get into this heavenly place without passing through the porter's review, anymore than you can get into the real heaven without passing the scrutiny of St. Peter. I hope you are able to satisfy the "Eh; b'en, M'sieu'?" of good old père Hanicq, who is porter here. He is a _père_, you understand, by the title of affection and respect, and not by virtue of ordination. You may not think it worth your while to be over humble and deferential in your deportment towards porters as a general rule; but I think you may be so now; for, if I do not mistake, you are speaking to a venerable old man who will die in the odor of sanctity. Père Hanicq is not paid for his services, {434} troublesome and arduous as you would very soon find his to be if you were porter even here. He is porter for the love of God. You see he does not stop making the rosary, which is yet unfinished in his hand, while he talks to you. He does not recompense himself by that business either, as shoemaker porters, tailor porters, and the like eke out their scanty salaries; but it enables him to find some well-earned sous to give away to others poorer than himself. You say this lodge is not a very comfortable place, with its cold brick floor. It is not. Neither is that narrow roost up the step-ladder a very luxurious bed. Right again, it is not. But the Père Hanicq is not over particular about these things. Besides, he is not worse off in this respect than the hundred other people who live in this place nearest to heaven. Indeed, most of them have a much narrower and drearier apartment than his. Now that you have said a pleasant word to the good old soul, (for he dearly loves a kindly salutation, and it is the only imperfection I think he has,) you may pass the inner door, and you observe that you are in a square courtyard, a three-story irregularly shaped building occupying two sides of it; stables and outhouses a third, and the street wall the fourth. Before you go further, I would advise you to look into one of those tumble-down looking outhouses. It looks something like a rag and bottle shop. It is a shop, and the Almoner of the poor keeps it. Here the residents of these buildings may find bargains in old odds and ends of second-hand, and it may be seventy times seventh-hand furniture, either left or cast off by former occupants. Here the Almoner,--that voluble and sweet tempered young man in a long black cassock,--disposes of these articles of trade, enhancing their value by all the superlatives he can remember, for the benefit of certain old crones and hobbling cripples, whom perhaps you saw on the right of the courtyard receiving soup and other food from another young man in a long black cassock, who is the Almoner's assistant. You don't know it, perhaps, but I can tell you that the Almoner's assistant, as he ladles out the soup and divides the bread and meat, is mentally going down on his knees and kissing the ragged and worn-out clothes of these old bodies whom he helps, for the sake of Him whom they represent, and who will one day say to him: "Because you did it unto the least of these my brethren, you did it unto me."

Now you may go into the house, after you have been struck with the fact how completely that high stone wall shuts out the noise of the street. You say, however, that you hear a band playing. Yes; that comes from an "Angel Guardian" house over the way, like Father Haskins's house in Roxbury, Massachusetts (there ought to be angels, you know, not far off from the nearest place to heaven), where the "gamins," as the Parisians call them,--the "mudlarks" or "dock rats," as we call them,--are taken care of, fed, clothed, instructed, and taught an honest trade, also for the love of Him who will one day say to the Père Bervanger and to Father Haskins what I have before said about the Almoner's assistant.

Well, here is the house. This is the first story, half underground on one side, and consequently a little damp and dingy. Here to the right is the Prayer Hall. This has a wooden floor, (a rare exception,) wooden seats fixed to the wainscoting, and here and there a few benches made of plain oak slabs, which look as if they had lately come out of one of our backwoods saw-mills. A large crucifix hangs on the wall, and a table is near the door, at which the one who reads prayers kneels. The ninety-nine others kneel down anywhere on the bare floor, without choosing the softest spot, if there be any such. Those portraits hanging around the walls represent the superiors of a community of men who are entrusted {435} with the guardianship of this place nearest to heaven. The most of those faces, as you see, are not very handsome, as the world reckons handsome, but I assure you they make up for that by the beauty of their souls. The morning prayers are said here at half-past five the year round, followed by a half hour's meditation, and the evening prayers at half-past eight. The hundred residents come here too just before dinner, to read a chapter of the New Testament on their knees, devoutly kissing the Word of God before and after reading it; and then each one silently reviews the last twenty-four hours, and enters into account with himself to see how much he has advanced in that particular Christian virtue of which his soul stands the most in need. It is a good preparation for dinner, and I would advise you to try it, even if you cannot do it on your knees. It is a perfect toilette for the soul. Here also you will find the afore-mentioned hundred people at half-past six o'clock, just before supper, listening to a short reading on some spiritual subject, followed by a sort of conference given by the Superior, or head of the house, so full of unction and sweet counsel that it fairly lifts the heart above all earthly things, and seems to hallow the very place where it is spoken.

Turn now to the left. That door in the corner opens into a chapel dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi. Here the Père Hanicq and the few servants of the house hear mass every morning, and begin the day with the best thought I know of, the thought of God. Keeping still to the left you pass into the Recreation Hall; and if this be recreation day, you will see congregated here the liveliest and happiest set of faces that it has ever been your good fortune to meet in this world. Billiards, backgammon, chess, chequers, and other games more simple and amusing in their character, are here; and I can tell you that they are like a group of merry children playing and amusing themselves before their heavenly Father. You might pass the recreation days here for many a year before you would hear an angry word, or a cutting retort, or witness a jealous frown or a sad countenance. Notice that smiling old gentleman with a bald head capped by the black calotte. That is the Père T----. He is very fond of a game of billiards, and I know he loves to be on the winning side; the principal reason of which, however, you may not divine, but I know: it gives him a chance to pass his cue to some one who has been beaten, and obliged to retire. And many learn by that good old father's example to do the same kind and charitable act; and, take it all in all, I am inclined to think this room is not much further off from heaven than many other places about this dear old house.

Of course everybody is talking here, except the chess-players, and at such a rate, that it is quite a din; but hark! a bell rings: all is instantly silent, the games are stopped, the very half-finished sentence is clipped in two, and each one departs to some assigned duty. They are taught that the bell which regulates their daily exercises is the voice of God, and that when he calls there is nothing else worthy of attention. I have no doubt they are right: have you?

There is one other place to visit on this ground floor, the Refectory. A long stone-floored hall with two rows of tables on either side, and one at the upper end where sits the head of the house, a high old-fashioned pulpit on one side, the large crucifix on the wall, and that is the Refectory. It looks dark and cold, and so it is; dark, because the windows are small and high; and cold, because there is no stove or other heating apparatus--a want which may also be felt in the other rooms you have visited; and as the windows are left open for air some time before these rooms are occupied, it must be confessed there is a rarity and keenness about the {436} atmosphere, and a degree of temperature about the cold stones in mid-winter, which are not pleasant to delicately nourished constitutions. No conversation ever takes place in the refectory except on recreation days, or on the occasion of a visit from the Archbishop of Paris. At all other times there is reading going on from the pulpit, either from the Holy Scripture or some religions book, which enables the listeners to free their minds from too engrossing an attention to the more sensual business of eating and drinking: not that their plain and frugal table ever presents very strong temptations to gourmandize!

As you are American, and accustomed to your hot coffee or strong English black tea, with toast, eggs, and beefsteak for breakfast, I fear the meal which these hundred young men are making off a little cold _vin ordinaire_, well tempered with colder water, and dry bread, during the short space of twelve minutes, (except during Lent and on other fast days, when they do not go to the refectory at all before twelve o'clock,) will appear exceedingly frugal, not to say hasty. You observe, doubtless, that short as is the time allotted to breakfast, nearly every one is reading in a book while he is eating. Do you wish to know the reason? I will tell you. It is not to pass away time, but to make use of every moment of time that passes. None in the world are more alive to the shortness and the value of time than the hundred young men before you. Every moment of the day has its own allotted duty; and when there is an extra moment, like this one at breakfast, when two things can be done at once, they do not fail to make use of it. They take turns with each other in the duty of waiting on the tables, except on Good Friday, when the venerable Superior, and no less venerable fathers, who are the teachers of these young men, don the apron, and serve out the food proper in quantity and quality for that day.

Now that you have seen the first story, you may "mount," as the French say, to the second. If you have not been here before, I warn you to obtain a guide, or amidst the odd stairways and rambling corridors you may lose your way. This is the chapel for the daily Mass. It is both plain and clean, and you will possibly notice nothing particular in it save the painted beams of the ceiling, the only specimen of such ornament, I think, in the whole house. It is there a long time, for this is a very ancient building, having once been the country-seat of Queen Margaret of Anjou; and this little chapel may have been one of her royal reception-rooms for all you or I know.

Hither, as I have said, come the young Levites to assist at the daily sacrifice. I believe I have not told you before that this is a house of retreat from the world of prayer and of study for youthful aspirants to the priesthood of the Holy Church. I do not know what impression it makes upon you, but the sight of that kneeling crowd of young men in their cassocks and winged surplices, absorbed in prayer before the altar at the early dawn of day, when the ray of the rising sun is just tinging the tops of the trees with a golden light, and the open windows of the little chapel admit the sound of warbled music of birds, and the sweet perfumes from the garden just below, enamelled with flowers, is to me a scene higher than earth often reveals to us of heaven's peace and rapt devotion in God. Mass is over now, and you may go, leaving only those to pray another half hour who have this morning received the Holy Communion.

All these rooms which you see here and there, to the right and to the left, are the cells of the Seminarians, about eight by fifteen feet in size, and large enough for their purposes, though certainly not equal to your cosy study at home in America, or to the grand _salon_ you have engaged at the Hôtel des Princes. As you are a visitor, perhaps you may go in and look at one. There is {437} no visiting each other's rooms among the young men themselves at any time, save for charity's sake when one is ill. An iron bedstead, with a straw bed, a table, a chair, a crucifix, a vexing old clothes-press, whose drawers won't open except by herculean efforts, and when open have an equally stubborn fashion of refusing to be closed; a broom, a few books, paper, pen and ink, a pious picture or statue, and you have the full inventory of any of these rooms. As they need no more, they have no more: a rule of life that might make many a one of us far happier than we are, tortured by the care of a thousand and one things which consume our time, worry the mind, and are not of the slightest possible utility to ourselves, and the cause, it may be, of others' envy and discomfort. I am aware that, as you pass along the corridors, you think it is vacation time, or that every one is absent just now from their rooms, all is so silent. But wait a moment. Ah! the bell again. Presto! Every door flies open, and the corridor is alive with numbers of the young men going off to a class or to prayers. Now that they are gone, suppose you peep into one of the rooms again; that is, if some newcomer, not yet having learned the rule to the contrary, has left the key in his door. Ah! he was just writing as the bell rang; the pen is yet wet with ink. Pardon! I do not intend that you shall read what he has written, but you may see that he has actually left his paper not only with an unfinished sentence, but even at a half formed letter. That is obedience, my friend, to the voice of God, which I have already told you is recognized in the first stroke of that bell. I suppose you may read the inscription he has placed at the foot of his crucifix, since it is in plain sight. "I sat down under the shadow of my Well-Beloved, whom I desired, and his fruit was sweet to my palate." (Cant, ii. 3.) Yes, you are right. It is a good motto for one who has sacrificed every worldly enjoyment for the sake of that higher and purer joy, the love of Jesus crucified. You are noticing, I perceive, that everything looks very neat and clean, that the bed is nicely made, and what there is, is in order. They have tidy housekeepers, you say, here. So they have, and a large number of them, too,--one to each room--the Seminarian himself.

I think you may "mount" another stairway now--when you find it--to the third story. I just wish you to step into that door on the right. It is the Chapel of St. Joseph; and if you happen to enter here after night prayers you will see a few of the young men kneeling before the altar, over which is a charming little painting representing the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph holding the Child Jesus by the hand. They come to pay a short visit in spirit to the Holy Family before retiring to rest. "Beautiful thought!" I believe you. I see your eyes are a little dimmed by tears. What is the matter? "Oh! nothing; only I was thinking that by coming up a few more steps in this house, one has mounted a good many steps nearer heaven." Not ready to go Oh! I understand, you wish to pay a little visit yourself to the Holy Family. Good. Now, along this corridor, around this corner, down that stairway which seems to lead nowhere,--take care of your head!--through those doors, and you are in a much larger chapel. All finished in polished oak, as you see, with a bright waxed floor. The seminarians sit in those stalls which run along the whole length of either side of the chapel. Here, on Sundays and festivals, they come to celebrate the divine offices of the Church. I wish you could hear them responding to each other in the solemn Gregorian chant. Listen; they are singing, and only to and for the praise of God, for no strangers are admitted, so there is no chance for the applause of men. Possibly you may be sharp-eyed enough to note those mantling cheeks and detect the thrill of emotion in their voices as the swelling chorus fills the whole building with melody. Truly, {438} I wonder not that you are moved, for the song of praise rises amid the clouds of grateful incense from chaste lips, and from pure hearts given in the flower and spring-time of life to God alone. I can tell you, that whether their voices are singing the mournful cadence of the Kyrie, the exultant sentences of the Gloria, the imposing chant of the Credo, the awe-struck exclamations of the Sanctus, or the plaintive refrain of the Agnus Dei; or whether they respond in cheerful notes to the salutations of the sacrificing priest at the Altar, one other song their hearts are always singing here: "Laetatus sum in his quae dicta sunt mihi, in domum Domini ibimus"--I was glad when they said unto me, we will go into the house of the Lord. A heavenly joy is filling their ardent souls, moved by the grace of the Holy Ghost, and is reflected from their countenances as the sunlight sparkles on the ripples of a quiet, shaded lake, when its waters are gently stirred by a passing zephyr wafted from the wings of God's unseen angel of the winds.

Now you may go out into the garden. A charming esplanade directly behind the house you have visited. Well-kept gravelled walks stretch here and there through a glittering parterre of flowers of every hue and perfume. A pretty fountain sends its sparkling drops into the air in the centre of a basin stocked with gold-fish, which are very fond of being fed with bread-crumbs from the hand of saintly old Father C----. You do not know the Père C---- you say. Then you may envy me. I know him. Shall I tell you what he said to me one day?

"Tenez, mon cher, on doit prier le, Bon Dieu toujours selon le premier mot de l'office de None, 'Mirabilia,' et non pas selon le premier mot de Tierce, 'Legem pone.'" God bless his dear old white head! it makes my heart leap in my bosom to think of him. Where were you? Oh! yes, beside the fountain. On each side of the garden is an avenue of trees and in one corner a little maze, hiding a pretty statue of the Blessed Virgin at whose feet that Almoner of the poor has placed a little charity-box, thinking doubtless, and not without reason, that here, hidden by the trees and close shrubbery, some one, you for instance, might like to do something with a holy secrecy which shall one day find its reward from the Heavenly Father of the poor, openly. So I will just turn my head while you put in a donation fitting for an American who has a suite of rooms at the Hôtel des Princes. I know you are loth to leave this pretty spot. I have had equal difficulty in dragging you away from the other places to which I directed your steps; but you have not seen all. Come along. Cross the garden. Here, behind the large chapel is a curious grotto all inlaid with shells, floor, walls and roof. This is the place where Bossuet, Fénelon and Mr. Tronson held some conferences about a theological subject which need not take up your time now. Turn up that winding walk to the left, and you see a little shrine dedicated to Our Lady, to which the young men go to celebrate the month of May; and it is a quiet little nook where one may drop in a moment and forget the world. The world is not worth remembering all the tune, you know. As you pass to the middle of the garden again you notice a long archway, built under a high wall. Before you enter it please first notice that fine terra-cotta statue of the Virgin and Child near it, and take off your hat in passing, as all do here. This archway passes under a road, which is screened from view by high walls on either side, which also prevent the grounds you are in from being seen from the road. I have often thought about that high-walled road running through the middle of this place nearest to heaven. How many of us pass along our way of life, stony, toilsome, dry and dusty, like this road, and are often nearer heaven and heavenly company than we think; and how many others there are we know and love, whose road runs close beside, {439} if not at times directly through the Paradise of the Church of God on earth, and know it not. Oh! if they did but once suspect it, how quickly would they leap over the wall!

Now you are through the archway. Directly before you is a magnificent avenue of trees, all trimmed and clipped as it pleases this methodical people, and here is a fine place for a walk in recreation. The seminarians recreate themselves, as they do all other acts, as a duty and by rule. One hour and a quarter after dinner, ten minutes at half-past four, and an hour and a half after supper appears to suffice, although I am afraid it is rather a short allowance. Silence is the rule during the other twenty-one hours out of the twenty-four, and broken only by duty or necessity. How do you like it? Be assured it is profitable to those who are desirous of living near to God. Recollect what Thomas à Kempis says in his "Imitation of Christ:" "In silentio et quiete proficit anima devota"--In silence and quiet the devout soul makes great progress. You observe also that the reverend teachers of these young men are taking recreation with them. Yes; and in this as in every other duty of this life of prayer and of study they subject themselves to the same rule that they impose on others. Example, example, my friend, is the master teacher, and succeeds where words cannot. They have learned beforehand in their own school the lessons of chastity, obedience, poverty, patience, meekness, humility and charity, of silence, and every other Christian mortification of our wayward senses which they are called upon to teach here. They have a novitiate adjoining this house, called the "Solitude," and their motto is inscribed over the little portal in the stone wall which separates the two enclosures. This is it, "O beata Solitude! O sola Beatitudo!" There is a short sentence, my friend, which will serve as a subject of meditation for you, for a longer time than you imagine. Look at the Père M----, the reverend superior. What gentleness of soul beams from that kindly countenance! It makes one think of St. Philip Neri. Ah! and there is the Père P----, with a face like St. Vincent of Paul, and a body like nobody's but his own, all deformed as it is by rheumatism. I don't ask you to kiss the hem of his cassock for reverence sake, for that might wound his humility, and he might moreover knock you down with his crooked elbow, but if you could see what place the angels are getting ready for him up in heaven, I think you would wish to do so. And all the others, old or young--bowed with age or strong of arm and firm in step--you will find but little difference in them. They are all cast in about the same mould, of a shape which only a life, and a purpose of life such as theirs could form. You would like to know what that young man is about, would you, running from one knot of talkers and walkers to another, saluting them, and saying something to each? Listen; he is repeating the password of the house. The password? Even so. And is it secret? Yes, and a secret too. It is the secret of a holy life, the holy life to be led here, and not to be forgotten, where it is the most likely to be, in the dissipation of recreation. Lay it up to heart, for it will do you good. "Messieurs, Sursum corda!"

This building on your right as you come out of the archway is a ball-court. If you will step into the "cuisine," as a sort of wire cage is called, in which you can see without being in the way, and the irregular roof of which serves admirably to cause the ball to come down crooked, and "hard to take," you may see some good ball-playing; and if you know anything about the game, I am sure all will offer at once to vacate their places and give up the pleasure of playing to please you. Somehow, these seminarians are always seeking to please some one else. Fraternal charity, which prefers the happiness of others to its own, is cultivated here to such a degree, that I tell you again you will not find a place {440} nearer heaven; where charity is made perfect and consummated in God.

Turn down now to the left for a few steps, and look to the right. Another beautiful avenue. The trees branching from the ground rise up and mingle together on all sides so as to form a complete arch. A building at the end. Yes; that is the place of all places in this lovely enclosure the most venerated by all who come to pass a part of their lives in dear old Issy. It is the chapel of Lorette. Walk up the avenue and examine it. It has a façade, as you see, of strict architectural taste. I know that you, being an American, would very soon scrape the weather-beaten stones, paint up the wood-work, and put a new and more elegant window in front, if you were in charge. Perhaps it might improve it, perhaps not. Standing as it does alone, out there in the midst of extensive grounds, it makes you think of the Holy House of Loretto in Italy, of which you know something, I suppose, and of which, indeed, the little chapel inside is an exact copy, and hence has obtained its name. Let me say a word about it before you go in, for no one is expected to break the religious silence which the young levites here are taught should reign about the tabernacle where reposes the sacred and hidden presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. It is this chapel, especially dedicated to his own dear and blessed mother, that they have chosen for his dwelling-place among them, as her home at Nazareth was also his. It is what you might expect. The Mother and the Son go together. A childlike and tender devotion to her whom he chose for the human source of his incarnate life, through which we are elevated and born anew unto God, cannot be separated from the profound act of adoration which humanity, nay, all creation, must pay to him who is her Son, the first-born of all creatures. His mysterious incarnate presence is with us always in the Holy Eucharist, and will be, as he promised, unto the consummation of the world; and the priest, by the power of his own divine word, is its human source. You remember the saying of St. Augustine: "O venerable dignity of the priest, in whose hands, as in the womb of the Virgin, the Son of God is incarnate every day!"

Enter. On the wall to your left, just inside the outer door you see this inscription:

"Ilic Verbum caro factam est, et habitavit in nobis." [Footnote 69]

[Footnote 69: "Here the Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us."]

On the wall directly opposite, this:

Sta venerabundus, Qui allunde ut stares veneris, Lauretanam Deiparae domum admiraturus. Angusta tota est, Toto tamen Christiano orbe angusto, FACTUS EST HOMO. Abbreviatum igitur aeterni patris verbum Hocce in angulo cum angelis adora; Silet hic et loquaci silentio: Beatae quippe virginis matris sinus. Cathedra docentis est. Audi verbum absconditum, et quid sibi velit attende. Venerare domum filii hominis, Scholam Christi, Cunabula Verbi. [Footnote 70]

[Footnote 70: "Stand in awe, ye who have come hither from afar to admire the Lorettan house of the Mother of God. The whole is but narrow and strait: however, the whole Christian world is but narrow in which the God made man suffered straitness. Wherefore, adore with the angels the straitened word of the Eternal Father. He is silent here, but with an eloquent silence. For the bosom of the Blessed Virgin Mother is the seat of Wisdom. Hear the Hidden Word, and listen attentively to what he wills of thee. Venerate the house of the Son of Man, the school of Christ, the cradle of the Word."]

The door on the right leads into the sacristy, where the priest puts on his vestments. On the panel of this door you read:

"Sanctificamini omnes ministri altaris. Munda sint omnia." [Footnote 71]

[Footnote 71: "Be ye holy, all ye ministers of the altar. Let all things be pure and clean."]

On the wall over the door is this inscription around a heart:

"Quid volo nisi ut ardeat?--S. Luc. xii 49." [Footnote 72]

[Footnote 72: "What will I but that it burn?"]

Opposite the sacristy door is the door of the chapel, but I wish you to read the other inscriptions on these walls before you enter there. There are two more in this entry-way:

"Ilic Maria, Patris Sponsa, de Spiritu Sancto concepit." [Footnote 73]

[Footnote 73: "Here Mary, the spouse of the Father, conceived of the Holy Ghost." ]

{441}

"Sile; Huc enim, dum omnia silerent, Omnipotens sermo de regalibus sedibus advenit; Vel aeternum aeterni Patris Verbum Siluit; Vel otioso Deum adorat silentio." [Footnote 74]

[Footnote 74: "Keep silence: for hither, while all things were in silence, the Almighty Word leapt down from heaven from his royal throne. Here the Eternal Word of the Eternal Father became silent, and adores God in tranquil silence."]

In an adjoining room are several others, among which I think the following are worthy of your notice:

"Signum magnum apparuit in terra. Amabile commercium, admirabile mysterium, JESUS VIVENS IN MARIA. VENITE, VIDETE, ADORATE. VENITE Ad templum Domini, ad incarnationis verbi cubiculum, Ad sanctuarium ad quo habitat Dominus. Et de quo, ut sponsus, procedit de thalamo suo. VIDETE Ancillam, Patris sponsam, Virginem Dei matrem, Adae fillam, Spiritus Sancti sacellum, Mariam totius Trinitatis domiciliam, Angelo nuntiante effectam. ADORATE Jesum habitantem in Matre, Ut imperatorem in regno, ut pontificem in templo, Ut sponsum in thalamo. Ilic requies, hic gloria, hic summa laus conditoris: Hic habitabo quoniam elegi eam." [Footnote 75]

[Footnote 75: "A great sign appeared on the earth, a lovely union, a wondrous mystery, Jesus living in Mary. Come, see, adore. Come to the temple of the Lord, to the cradle of the incarnate Word, to the sanctuary in which the Lord dwelleth. From which he goeth forth as a spouse from his bridal chamber. See, by the annunciation of the angel, a handmaiden made spouse of the Father, a virgin the Mother of God, a daughter of Adam the shrine of the Holy Ghost, Mary, the resting-place of the whole Trinity. Adore Jesus dwelling in his mother, as an emperor on his throne, as a priest in the temple, as a spouse in his chamber. Here is the rest, here the glory, here the supreme praise of the Creator. Here will I dwell, because I have chosen her."]

"Omnes Famelici, accedite ad escas: Domus haec abundat Punibus." [Footnote 76]

[Footnote 76: "O all ye of the family of God, draw near to the banquet. This house is full of bread."]

"Hic Sapientia Miscuit Vinum, Posuit mensam, Paravit omnia. Qui bibunt, Non sitlent amplius; Qui edunt, Nunquam esurient; Qui epulantur, Vivent in aeternum. Bibite ergo et inebriamini, Comedite et saturabimini; Effundite cum gaudio animas vestras In voce confessionis et epulationis Sonus est epulantis." [Footnote 77]

[Footnote 77: "Here the divine wisdom mingleth her wine, spreadeth her table, and maketh all things ready. They who drink shall not thirst any more. They who eat shall never hunger. They who feast shall live for ever. Drink, therefore, and be inebriated. Eat and be filled. Pour forth your souls with joy in the songs of thanksgiving and rejoicing. There is a sound as of one feasting."]

"Omnes Sitentes, venite ad aquas; Locus iste scaturit Fontibus." [Footnote 78]

[Footnote 78: "All ye who thirst, come ye to the waters. This place gushes with fountains."]

"Hic Fons fontium, Et acervus tritici, CHRISTUS, Unde sumunt angeli, Replentur sancti. Satiantur universi. Ilic Ager fertilis Et congregatio aquarum, MARIA, Unde, velut de quodam Divinitatis oceano. Omnium emanant Flumina gratiarum." [Footnote 79]

[Footnote 79: "Here is the fount of fountains, and heap of wheat, Christ; of which the angels partake, the saints are replenished, and the whole universe is satiated. Here is the fruitful field and meeting of the waters, Mary; whence, as from a kind of ocean of divinity, flow out the streams of all graces." ]

"Si Tu es Christri bonus odor, Accede; Caminus Mariae Altare thymiamatum est, Caminus charitatis, Cujus ostium Hostes non excipit, Sed hostias amoris. Huc vota, huc corda, viatores. Huc pectora." [Footnote 80]

[Footnote 80: "If thou art the good odor of Christ, draw near. This chamber of Mary is the altar of incense, the home of charity, whose door receiveth not enemies, but the victims of love. Hither, ye wayfarers, bring your vows, your hearts, and your affections."]

Before you look at the real chapel for which this building was erected, just step out of that door opposite to the one by which you entered. A little cemetery. Here repose, in simple, humble graves, the bodies of the deceased superiors and directors of the congregation of St. Sulpice, in whom and whose seminary you have shown so much interest during this visit under the guidance of your humble servant. Here, in this little cemetery, beneath the shadow of the sacred chapel they have loved so well, in the very home, as it were, where so many holy souls have lived, and learned the lessons of perfection, and where, God grant, many more such may yet live and learn the same, they have laid themselves down to rest from their {442} labors, peacefully resigning themselves to the common fate; yet privileged in this, that their dust mingles with earth hallowed by the footsteps of saints. I should like to write an inscription for the door of that cemetery. It is this, "Et mors, et vita vestra absconditae sunt cum Christo in Deo," for never in the history of Christianity, do I think, have men realized like them, in their lives and in their death, so fully those words of St. Paul.

Return now to the entry and pass within those gilded doors. This is the chapel. The walls are frescoed, as you see, and in imitation of the walls, now defaced, of the original chapel at Loretto. There is a pretty marble altar and tabernacle where reposes the Holy of Holies; and above the altar is a grating filling up the entire width of the chapel, on which are attached a large number of silver and gilt hearts, little remembrances left by the departing seminarians at their beloved shrine of Jesus and Mary. Behind the grate you can discern the statue made many hundred years ago, and sent to this chapel as a gift from the Holy House at Loretto in 1855. I know that your American taste will not be gratified by the appearance of either the statue or its decorations; but--America is not all the world. Keep that in mind, and it may save you a good deal of interior discomfort, whether you journey in other lands, or never stir from home.

Now I leave you, for I know you are tired of sight-seeing and want a moment of' repose--and, may I not also add, a little time to pray here? The seminarians are coming in to make their daily visit, for it is a quarter to five o'clock. Oh! sweetest moments of the Issian's day! Here he comes and kneels at the feet of Jesus and Mary, and drinks in those silent lessons which reveal truths to the heart that no man can teach. Here the soul is ravished away for a while from earth and all its carking cares, anxieties, temptations, and afflictions, and reposes peacefully in the loving embrace of its God. "Here," indeed, "is the home of charity, whose door receiveth not enemies, but the victims of love. Hither you may bring your vows, your hearts, and your affections." Remain you, then, and pray awhile with them; for of a truth you are with the congregation of the just, and not far off from heaven.

[ORIGINAL.]

A MAY BREEZE.

As fragrant blooms by blushing orchard shed, When spring's advancing season ripens fast, Oh! such the blossoms which the heart has fed With all the dewy sweetness of the past.

But like those winds whose stormy passage sweeps The wailing trees, yet leaves fair fruit behind, Life's changing scenes, which man still hourly weeps. Pledge fruit, than blooms more constant and more kind.

{443}

From the Lamp.

UNCONVICTED; OR, OLD THORNELEY'S HEIRS.